Pam here.

Thank Heaven for DVR. With all the hype about the Lost premier that has been building over the last nine months, I was looking forward to curling up and watching it uninterrupted at my parent’s house. (Trav is TDY in Mississippi for three weeks and I really needed a break from hotel-life for a bit). Needless to say, I was not anticipating spending half the night in the ER with Brenden.

Long story short: Brenden must’ve thought grandpa’s blood pressure medication looked like yummy candy. When the pill went missing all eyes turned to Brenden who was chewing on something.

A side note.  Mine and Trav’s daily dialogue usually goes something like this:

      Q: “What’s in Brenden’s mouth?!”
      A: “What IS that?!” or “Where the hell did that come from?!”

Anyway, I rushed over to him, stuck my finger in his mouth (to have it promptly get chomped on) and pull out white residue. I tried it and it tasted very bitter and mediciney. Missing pill + bitter residue in mouth + 1½-year-old mischievous toddler = recipe for disaster.

A frantic call to Poison Control later instructed us to get him to the ER. I packed him up quickly and rushed him over there. Poison Control alerted the hospital to expect us and by the time we got there they had all their toddler-size equipment ready and waiting.

The course of action called for a yummy shot of charcoal and monitoring of his vitals for six hours. He downed the sticky charcoal mixture with no problem. The nurses all seemed surprised he liked it so much. I tried it and it was sickingly sweet… surprise, surprise.

Here’s Brenden’s best impression of The Crow:  

And the aftermath approximately 3 hours later:

The ER staff were all really accommodating and seemed truly entertained by Brenden. I really began to believe he was their “best patient ever!” A guilty-feeling Grandpa brought up the pack-n-play and Brenden’s favorite woobies with all hopes I could get him to sleep for a bit. Alas, he didn’t sleep a wink and was beyond slap-happy by the time we got discharged at midnight.

(PS: pictures are not the best quality since they were taken with my camera phone)

Brenden’s blood pressure and vitals were good the entire time we were there and they released him with no concern. We acted quickly enough so that the medicine didn’t have enough time to do any serious damage. I’m just grateful nothing more serious happened. I think it goes without saying that we’re both a little on the tired side today… seems like a good day to veg out and get a little Lost!

The Snakeye Brewery in it’s full glory. I had started getting into homebrewing back in 2001 when I graduated college. Back then, it was just the simple stove-top solution: add a bunch of malt syrup (made from barley) into a pot and boil it with a tea-bag of crushed barley grain, cool it in a sink with ice, add yeast and let it sit for a few weeks. It wasn’t until 2005 that a friend influenced me to give all-grain brewing a shot.

All-grain brewing and extract brewing are essentially the same process, except that in all-grain you make the syrup extract as well; it adds maybe 3 hours to the extract process. The beauty of it is that you now have complete control of the ingredients and flavor of the beer. I’ve found much more joy and challenge in brewing from all-grain.

The Snakeye Brewery came about because after I started getting into all-grain using a turkey fryer, I was spilling hot water on myself, busting out my back from lifting 5 gallons of liquid to transfer it to one pot or another, and all the extra moving parts added time to the brewing process. I day-dreamed of owning one of those rigs that you can buy (such as this one), but the price tag was way out of my range. So I came up with my own design and piecemealed it together from there; the actual stand cost about $250 to build at a local tractor repair shop. Since it already took 8 hours to make one 5-gallon batch, I made sure all my containers could hold 10+ gallons. Why not make 10 gallons with 8 hours instead of 5 gallons?

So onto the art of brewing. Once you decide the recipe, the first step is to take all the grain and mill it:

This makes it easier for the water to convert all the starches in the cracked grain to sugars, the main course for the yeast to flourish. Of course, there’s even variables in milling grain: depending on the size of the grain (wheat is slightly larger than barley), you want an optimum grain-cracking by adjusting the width of space between the milling rollers. I’ve always left my mill at the factory setting, optimized for barley.

For this brew session, we settled on milling the following for a Chocolate Porter:

• 22 lbs of 2-row base malt
• 2 lbs of Crystal 40L malt
• 2 lbs of Munich malt
• 1½ lbs of Chocolate malt
• 1 lb of Black Patent malt
• 1 lb of Cara-Pils malt

Once the grain is milled, you add it to heated water to achieve a soupy-oatmeal consistency. For the above grain bill, about 10 gallons of water was used. On the Snakeye Brewery, the hot water comes from the raised kettle on the left (hot liquor tank), and gets transferred to the lower middle kettle with the grain (the mash tun). To convert the grain to wort (the sugar water that will ultimately make the beer), you ultimately need to hold the concoction between 140°F and 158°F. Favoring the cold end will get you a drier, thinner beer that tends to be more alcoholic, while favoring the warmer end will get you a sweeter, full-bodied beer at the small sacrifice of ABV. I tend to prefer the sweeter, full-bodied beers, so we kept the Chocolate Porter around 153°F for mashing (the process of converting the grain’s starch to sugars):

The Snakeye Brewery loses about 10°F while transferring water from the hot liquor tank to the mash tun, so the water in the hot liquor tank was heated to 165°F to account for this. Also, to ensure there’s minimal heat-loss in the mash tun, we preheat the kettle with boiling water and drain it prior to adding any grain. Let the “oatmeal” mash sit for about an hour, while stirring every 15 minutes to ensure even heat distribution and prevent clumping.

One quick aside: the customization of the mash is what puts all-grain brewing heads and shoulders above extract brewing. You want a Pumpkin Ale? Add in a few pounds of oven-baked pumpkin pulp into the mash. Or mash with oatmeal to obtain an Oatmeal Stout. Throw in some Pecans to make a true Nut Brown Ale. Any starch-based ingredient can be added at this phase.

After an hour, conversion should be more or less complete. Now you need to sparge the wort from the mash tun to the boil kettle, while leaving all the spent grains behind. Since the grain bed acts as a great filter, you want to be careful not to disturb it while adding water. The key to sparging is to ensure the water level in the mash tun remains the same as you cycle water through the mash tun and out to the boil kettle. I started out using tin foil with holes poked through it to accomplish the sparge without disturbing the grain bed. Since then, a valve was added that distributes the water into the mash tun (pictured at right). Regardless, the flow rates for both the incoming and outgoing water are set to a little more than a trickle to ensure the incoming water picks up as much of the sugar from the converted grains as possible before heading over to the boil kettle (in the foreground of the picture at right). A good, thorough sparge usually will take 60 to 90 minutes for a 10-gallon batch of beer. On top of the 10 gallons of water already in the grain, we added an additional 7 gallons set to 170°F to clear out the remaining sugars. Also, the 170°F temperature will halt the conversion process in its tracks and make for a clearer, cleaner beer.

We were able to collect about 13 gallons of wort for the boil. This is really where you start recognizing the beer, and is also where extract brewing starts off. The wort is brought to a full boil and you start adding hops (the bitter flavor in beer that also acts as a natural preservative). Typically, you design a hop schedule to attain the flavor you’re going after.

For the Chocolate Porter, we used:

• 2 oz East Kent Goldings hops boiled for 60 minutes
• 2 oz Williamette hops boiled for 30 minutes
• 4 oz Williamette hops boiled for 1 minute (close to flameout)

As a rule, hops added earlier in the boil (ie, that boil longer) add to the flavor, while hops added late in the boil (ie, that are added near flameout) add to the aroma and smell of the beer. Your typical beer will call for both at various intervals, though there are some breweries (like Dogfish Head) that add them continuously to achieve an interesting result. Extract brewers typically use pelletized hops that look like rabbit turds, but in using all-grain ingredients I like complimenting them with the full leaf hops (below).

One of the highlights of brewing is just smelling the hops prior to adding them to the boil kettle. The smell is almost entrancing; I can best identify it to the smell of fresh cut dandelions, but way better.

Above are my buddies Jon and Dan adding the final addition of hops with 5 minutes remaining on the boil. The boil stage is another point where you can customize your beer with sugars and other flavoring. Since we’re doing a Chocolate Porter, we actually threw in a pound of Unsweetened Cocoa powder at 5 minutes prior to flameout. In the past, I’ve also used Maple Syrup, Lactose and Honey at this stage to add in extra flavors.

After the boil, great care has to be taken to sanitize everything the wort comes into contact with. Prior to this, you can be a little “sloppy” and just ensure cleanliness of the equipment because the boil will kill any contaminants to the beer.

The freshly boiled wort must be cooled down to room temperatures (and even colder if it’s going to use lager yeast) as quickly as possible. The more time it takes, the greater risk of contamination (though it’s still probably low with good sanitization). Ultimately, once the wort is cooled down, it becomes a giant petri dish for any bacteria. The goal is to make sure your bacteria, the yeast, grabs hold first and crowds out anything else with sheer numbers. When I started brewing, I used to throw the 5-gallon pot into an ice-bath in the sink; that took about an hour to cool. I upgraded to all-grain and bought a copper coil that you immerse in the wort with cold hose water running through it; that cut my cooling time to about 30 minutes for 5 gallons. When I built the Snakeye Brewery, I incorporated a brazed-plate chiller into it that acts much like a car’s radiator; I can now cool 10 gallons of boiling wort as fast as I can pump it – usually in about 10 or 15 minutes. The cool wort gets pumped into a 14-gallon stainless steel conical (at right), where the yeast is added to ferment for 1 to 3 weeks. Though expensive, the conical makes it extremely easy to purge the dead yeast (through the bottom valve) for a “secondary” fermentation. Once the fermentation is complete, the transformed wort (now beer) is then kegged (or bottled) and carbonated for consumption. For the Chocolate Porter, we used White Labs English Ale yeast.

Prior to pitching the yeast, you may want to take a sample of the wort and test its density (or gravity) so you can determine what the alcohol-by-volume will be once fermentation is complete… it also gives you an idea of how efficient your setup is as well. And as a reward, I always drink the cooled wort sampling to get an idea of the tastes and flavors. Cheers.

Of course, it isn’t a true brew session without a finished product on-hand to consume throughout the process! Jon and Dan’s inaugural brew on the Snakeye Brewery was my flagship beer: Celibacy Nut Cream Ale. It was kegged and ready to drink just in time to brew the Chocolate Porter… and I think it went down way too easy. It’s a good thing I didn’t type out this post as I was brewing with them, because at this point I think a lot of the words would be slurred.

This will be my last brew session for a long while. I don’t know if I’ll have the time or space in Italy to get my “brew on.” Rather than let the Snakeye Brewery sit and rust due to years of dormancy and neglect, I’d rather put it “on loan” to friends that I know enjoy brewing and do it all the time. I sure am going to miss it, but I know it will be getting good use and at some point in the distant future, I’ll be at the helm once again. Good luck with the Brewery guys…

Lights out for the Snakeye Brewery… at least for my chapter of it for a while.

It’s been a while since the last post… I know, right? With the holidays, a new kid, a new job, moving and everything else going on, I’ve kinda let this site drop out as I continue to try and tackle the more demanding aspects of life. I seem to have a 3-day weekend here to breathe a bit, so I figured a reflection post was in order to not only take a look at the past year, but to look at the past three years since the last page of that “chapter” has been finally written…

I present the Snakeye Top Ten of my time in Savannah, GA and at the job:

10 – thousand pounds (10,000#s) of aircraft ordnance, on average, per deployment raining down on insurgents and terrorists in the desert. Adding up all four of my rotations overseas, I personally cleared a total of 40,000 pounds of bombs to drop as a JTAC – that’s quite a bit. Most of the variety are on the 500-pound order of magnitude, but 12 of them were 2000-pounders! I may not have been the pilot that “pickled” them from the jet, but I guarantee you I had more SA, knew exactly who we were going after, had to ensure the pilots had the right target through a good talk-on, and ultimately took responsibility for the bombs they were releasing. In my opinion, that almost makes the pilots and planes a pawn in a much bigger game of eradicating the terrorist threat to our nation… and I was fortunate enough to play a direct role in it.

9 – other roommates (on average) per TDY. When you go places to train in the Air Force, you get to stay in hotel rooms with 1 other roommate (if you’re unlucky). I shockingly and quickly found out that with the Army, you stay in field-condition barracks, hangars or tents with common use bathrooms and showers for 500 other dudes. The best I saw in this assignment was 3 other roommates crammed into a closet-sized space (while I was deployed overseas), the worst was sleeping in a bare-bones warehouse with 100 other dudes on fold-out cots; I guess all together that averages out to about 9 roommates per trip TDY or overseas. The former would be consider 4-star accommodations, while the latter is perhaps more 3-star… you still have to walk to the common-use bathrooms and showers (which made piss-bottle usage a standard countermeasure). At right, you’ll note an example of a 3-star place I actually called home for 2 weeks. Oh, the luxury!

8 – teen (18) classes of Grad School will be complete, totalling 36 credit-hours with diploma on wall, by the time I check into my next assignment in Italy. Grad School has been a decent time-sucker while I was at this assignment. From pulling all-nighters in between missions over in Iraq or Afghanistan (where I completed about half my course load) to bringing my computer with me on vacation to take online final exams (yes, I had to skip out on a shore excursion while on a Carnival cruise and stay in for a day when I took Pam, Laura and the kid to Key West), I can’t believe that I’ve made it this far when I look back at all those classes. Thank God I’m in my last semester. I truly am ready to have some personal time back and start being able to do the given-up hobbies that I used to enjoy doing.

7 – enlisted JTACs that I was responsible for. I know there are only 5 in the picture below, but that’s just a snapshot in time and with the intense training schedule we had, some were elsewhere. All in all though, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of guys; they taught me a ton and looked out for me just as much (and I’m sure kept me from doing some stupid things along the way)… so in a funny light, who was really responsible for who? On a serious note, I shielded them from a lot and I hope that I allowed them to concentrate on their tactical job instead of the mundane paperwork I handled a lot of the time. And ultimately, they taught me the best lesson of leadership: you don’t need to be an expert in everything to lead people, all you need to do is selflessly take care of them and ensure they’re recognized, and the rest takes care of itself… they will make you look good in return.

6 – ty percent (60%) gone from home in Savannah. I’m not exaggerating. I actually kept track on Excel. Assuming my time in Savannah was exactly 3 years (1,095 days), I spent about 657 of the days gone (just shy of 2 years). Never again will I complain of a high ops tempo…

5 – hours of sleep (average) per night during deployments. I’m a light sleeper to begin with, and sleeping during the day sucks. Of course, there’s been times when I stayed up for 24 or 48+ hours because stuff was going on, but for the most part I had the opportunity to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep. Account for the sun being up with daylight, people working, diesel engines and every other daytime noise right outside my sleeping area, and you’ve quickly narrowed the 7-8 hours of opportunity to about 4-5 hours of actual, interrupted sleep. You get used to it after a while though…

4 – rotations overseas to the desert, totaling to 14 months of my 3 years at this assignment. A typical F-16 pilot may see one rotation, maybe two at the most, in a 3-5 year period… I think I’ve more than earned my keep at the assignment with 4. I just experienced a 3-year snapshot. For my guys and all the guys I supported, they’ll be stuck on this tempo for the rest of their career… or until we decide to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq…

3 – young Americans killed in action during operations that I participated in… a total of 4 killed in action from the Army unit I supported, and many more wounded in action. When I first joined the unit, there hadn’t been a friendly death in 5+ years of deploying. Unfortunately, that changed with Cookie last year, and we saw three more this last rotation. Though I wasn’t good friends with the guys we lost this rotation, a loss is still a loss and it hurts when it comes from your group. It certainly makes Memorial Day mean a whole lot more when you hold a mental vigil over specific faces and personalities that you once knew. Two of the guys that I am pretty good friends with were wounded this time around, one of them pretty severely: he hung onto life for 2-3 months in a coma, after having a cracked skull with mud caked between his bone and brain, shrapnel in an eye, and almost liquefied lungs from a blast… he’s recovering slowly, fighting to regain memories and trying to learn how to talk again; his life, I’m sure, will never be the same, but at least he’s alive… he was the one who I went skydiving with and helped me fly the plane home with a broken leg…

2 – new additions to our family (in the form of kids)… and holy crap, is two a handful! That’s one small step for man, but one giant leap for Snakeye-kind. I kinda thought the workload would be additive, but in the time I’ve given Pam to get out of the house without the kids, I think “exponential” is a better way to describe the added workload… and Pam’s taken on 80% of it! I dunno how she does it. If anything, this assignment will always be a memorable one because we started (and more or less completed) our family in one shot. Whether or not a third is on the way? Well, not any time soon (if at all). I think Pam wants her body back for a while…

1 – year extended, to fill out 3 total years of being a ground-pounder with the Army. You don’t understand how frustrating it was, at the time, being constantly hooked into an assignment that was only supposed to be a temporary thing. What with UAVs taking over the world of flying, I was seriously afraid I’d never make it back to the cockpit and be stuck as a career ALO. Now that I’ve made my way back and am about to start flying again, I feel blessed that I was able to experience everything that assignment had to offer, from the Army experience to just being responsible for a group of great Air Force enlisted guys that truly risk their lives for their country’s bidding on a daily basis…

Other notables that didn’t necessarily make the Top Ten: one Christmas and Thanksgiving spent conducting missions in Iraq, three missed wedding anniversaries in a row, and two birthdays celebrated drinking camel milk overseas. It’s been sacrificing and eventful; it’s taught me a lot about myself and that, as a pilot, life seems so much more accommodating. I can’t wait to fly, but I know that I will never be able to directly affect US interests and the people that directly implement them like I did in this assignment.

My hat’s off to the unit and men that I worked with and supported. I hope to some day be the pilot that they can count on when they need the help of an F-16 pawn to accomplish some task of their important mission…

I can’t believe that Pam and I are leaving Savannah for good. Savannah left us this memorable sunset our final night there as we were packing the cars for the trip (and this was not enhanced or photoshopped in any way):

We’re now in Ohio for the next stepping stone to Italy. I had rented a U-Haul trailer to help transport some stuff up. Since my rear view is blocked due to the trailer, I tended to use the side mirrors a lot throughout the drive up. I couldn’t help but notice the U-Haul “message” on the fender every time I looked in the mirror. I think what I really saw was at right… but if you hover the mouse over the picture, you’ll see what I think U-Haul intends for you to see. Seriously: who rents one of those trailers to move cross-country and drives a max speed of 45mph on the American highway system? I think I close to doubled that as my average speed north-bound.

So, we’re in Ohio now and will always carry with us fond memories of Savannah. What a great city in which to be stationed! Though I’ll miss it, I know I’m ready for the new adventure staring us in the face.

Time to relax for the holidays… Merry Christmas to all! I’m ready to relax (or try to) finally… for a little bit at least. I hope everyone finds this holiday relaxing as well!

I can’t take it anymore. I’ve exhausted almost every common-sense option in the book thus far, and I continue to find myself chasing my tail in circles at the ineptness of government civilian and military employees.  No wonder these people don’t work for the private sector; a handful of them would send a company into bankruptcy just simply due to all the customers switching to the competition because the customers are unwilling to put up with all the bullshit!

As most of you know, I’ve got an upcoming assignment to Italy.  In order for my family to go with me, they have to be medically cleared to ensure that the Air Force medical system has the capacity for their “needs.”  This involves a medical professional filling out an 8-page form on each family member.  Among the concerns with respect to my family are Pam’s bout of Bell’s Palsy from having Brenden (which has been “case closed”) and Marissa’s club foot that needs to be corrected.

I initially went through the Army to get family clearances, since my servicing Air Force base is a 3-hour drive one-way (I mean, it’s all Department of Defense, right?).  I took a half-day to fill out all the appropriate paperwork, and Pam and Brenden spent an entire day at the Army base hospital to gain their medical clearance… only to have the Air Force reject everything we’ve done because “we do things differently and can’t accept it.“  Awesome.  So now I have to repeat everything that’s already been done as well as get every Specialist doctor that’s seen Pam to fill out a separate 8-page form!

Very well, I guess Pam’s primary care doctor, who schedules referrals and handles all aspects of Pam, isn’t certified enough to just simply fill out one 8-page form to cover it all… the fun has to be spread around to everybody to fill out dedicated 8-page forms.  But wait, there’s more!

In the myriad of paperwork that I had provided for the Army family clearance, I had to fill out a 5-pager screening various milestones that Brenden should meet for his age group.  Granted it was meant for a 16-month old child and Brenden is only 14-months old, I filled it out honestly and added up all the numbers in the end to get Brenden’s scoring in various developmental areas.  He did well in all areas except language development, which he scored in the “may possibly need intervention” category.  Big deal right?  A lot of cognitive learning can happen in the span of 2 months when Brenden actually turns 16-months old right?

Only because the Air Force saw the “Brenden assessment” in the Army package (which they refused to accept for clearance purposes), I now have to schedule Brenden to be evaluated with yet another 8-page form to see if he needs speech therapy!  So now we’ve come full-circle: I fill out a form that indirectly says my kid could be speech delayed, the Army doctor sees this and comments on it in the paperwork, the Air Force rejects the paperwork but insists that my kid be evaluated for speech, creating me extra hoops and paperwork all because of my initial assessment I filled out a month ago!!!

Well, I made the mistake of telling the Air Force my quick solution: Pam is a professionally certified and qualified speech therapist!! Brenden and this stupid issue (that I accidentally created, by the way) should be no factor.  But wait, there’s more…

According to the Air Force and government civilian employees that I’m dealing with, they cannot allow Pam to treat Brenden (assuming he even has a speech problem): Pam is not under the TriCare military health system as a sponsored speech therapist.  They won’t even accept it if Pam, as a certified speech therapist, fills out the 8-page assessment on him!  So according to them, I have to waste more of my time and everyone else’s by blowing tax-payer money on a speech assessment that is bogus in the first place!  When does common sense go out the window?  The minute you sign on for a job with the government?

Of course, you never stop learning in this thing we call life… my big take-aways:

1. When it comes to divulging things to government employees, ignorance is bliss.  If the government doesn’t know about it, keep it that way.  This whole Brenden issue would have been avoided if I had put on the form that Brenden speaks 10 words instead of 2 or 3.  (On a side note: I’m counting my blessings that my “servicing” Air Force base is clueless about my broken ankle - I’m getting that one settled by Air Force doctors I actually trust and have a personal connection with).
2. Have Pam fill out the appropriate paperwork to get sponsored by TriCare as a speech therapist.  If the government insists on pursuing this whole ghost-issue of a speech problem with my son, might as well have Pam handle it in the daily things we do with Brenden anyway and have the government pay her for services-rendered.

Of course, to anyone on the outside that happens to find this, this is reeking of sarcasm instigated by a blind and strict adherence to regulations.  Ultimately it’s just me venting because I’m at a loss of trying to apply any semblance of common sense to get my family cleared to go overseas.  OK, I’m all vented out now… let the jackassery continue…

This time, agreeing on the name happened without a filibuster to the final hour (like with Brenden who was named about 20 minutes prior to out-processing the hospital). The fallback that we had somewhat agreed upon prior to her birth was “Cadence” (or some spelling derivation thereof). When we saw her though, she just didn’t seem like a Cadence to either of us. As we kept looking at her, both of us agreed that she looked like a Marissa… so Marissa Hazel it is.

Like Brenden, we were luckily able to clear the hospital after 24 hours… I hate hospitals. I think in a job like mine, where any little thing can prevent you from flying, you’re bred to avoid them like the plague (because as long as it’s not documented, you can still fly!). Anyway, after 24 hours at the hospital, it was good to be home and finally sleep (if you want to call it that with 2 uprooted kids) in my own bed.

Introductions were just as entertaining. This time, the animals (cat and dogs) really didn’t care; Brenden has them pretty immune to kids. But Brenden just stared and stared with a “who or what the hell is that, and why is it in the house” look… and then tried petting her like he pets the animals.

Little does he know that he’ll be ultimately charged with her protection and safe-keeping as he grows up! Until then, I guess I’ll count my blessings now for the next few years before they start stealing each others toys or crossing the “be-no” line in the backseat of the car.

Welcome home little Marissa…

Even though you know what to expect the second time around, the peace and amazement doesn’t go away.  Both Pam and I are definitely more comfortable, having gone through this once already!  This time, I wasn’t afraid to touch the kid and knew how to handle her.  Just knowing that we have a girl to deal with now, a feeling to provide protection was definitely more prevalent (maybe it’s just me being a guy though).

As you can see below, Pam’s tears of joy again found there way as she looked on in adoration of the little one:

“Snakette” made her way out at 1429 Eastern Standard Time.  Fortunately, labor for Pam was much kinder this time: only 6 hours long and 30 minutes of pushing (Brenden was about triple that).  Other than a club foot that will be corrected, she’s in good health weighing 7lbs 14oz and 19¼in long.

She still looks like a newborn, though the hospital people think she looks more like me. Like Brenden, I think she’ll start to look more like Pam as time passes though.

Also like Brenden, she came out with black hair (neither of which Pam nor I have) and more of it. I’d be willing to bet it changes color over the next few months. It’s been an exhausting day for the three of us. Upon looking at her, we *think* we’ve arrived at a befitting name. I’ll announce it on our arrival home (because by then it’s finalized on the birth certificate). Until then, enjoy the quick video:

Looks like there’s no rest for the weary.  I got home just in time (thankfully) to drive Pam to her final visit at the hospital (for a long, long time at least). 

The bad news: I won’t get to sleep in my own bed for another two nights - straight from hotel bed to hospital pullout. 

But the good news far outweighs it: I won’t miss the birth of my daughter.  I’ll get to catch it in it’s entirety.

It’s on like Donkey Kong… I’ll post pics/video on the flip!

I really don’t have fond memories of going through the centrifuge when I had to do it 7 years ago prior to flying F-16s.  For those that don’t know what the centrifuge is, imagine that circus ride that spins around and sticks you to the wall as the floor drops… now imagine doing that while you’re sitting up (rather than laying against the wall) and spinning much faster… faster on the order of 9 Gs (that’s 9 times the weight of gravity, meaning that something like my 15lb-cranium now weighs 135lbs - try benching that with your neck…).  It’s really not all that fun.

Because I haven’t flown anything high-performance in the past 3 years and some change, I had to re-qualify in the centrifuge again to prove that my body can still handle the applied weight of flying bat-turns.  I think it goes without saying that I was pretty nervous since I remember struggling the first time, and that was even with recent flight time under my belt.  This time around, I’ve been out of the loop for 3 years!  To add more pressure, I didn’t have any wriggle-room in case I had to do it over again.  It’s kinda a “do or die” situation to clear the last hurdle before returning to the F-16.

Included is a shot of me hanging on for dear life.  Yes, it was as painful as my face looks.  The second time around, even though I passed just fine, it certainly still sucked.  I found that it seemed a little easier to pull 9 Gs than my first time through 7 years ago.  Perhaps that’s an equivalent of what it’s like to give birth?  Pam?

*Preface: No, this isn’t about my soon-to-be-born daughter… she’s still gathering courage to go down the water slide… though this is about something that will help me fend off her parasites in the future…

I’ve been meaning to up my collection of firearms for some time now.  Upon returning from my second deployment with the Army, I was dead-set on getting a handgun.  I researched it while I was deployed and talked to my bro Tony (he probably knows more about guns than anyone else I know… shit, I went to his wedding 6 months ago and he already up’d his collection to something like 30 guns!).  Tony recommended that I get a Glock or Ruger if I was looking in the handgun department.  I was leaning toward the Glocks since I know they offer a military/law enforcement discount.  Well, then I went on my third deployment, followed by my fourth, and the whole gun thing kinda fizzled out.  I mean, it’s not like I go shooting all the time or anything (but when I do, I always wish I had a larger arsenal to play with).  Besides, I can only use the “home protection” excuse so many times before Pam raises the “bullshit” flag.

I guess all it takes is a catalyst…

My parents have been in town to help out with the whole new kid thing.  The day they got in, my Old Man had been touting about the fact that he’d just gotten his concealed-carry permit.  I guess being from Texas and all, this is a big deal; you ain’t shit unless you’re packing heat!  “On Earth, as it is in Texas…”; God bless it!  Anyhoo, he’s been on a beeline to find the perfect concealed weapon to carry.  While out ‘n’ about in Savannah, we happened to pass by a local gun shop.  Like a fat chick to a candy store, we found ourselves throwing our caution to the wind and browsing the wares.

I guess in all my Dad’s research, he found the beckon of the Glock 19, a 9mm sub-compact, to be his poison of choice.  Funny; I was looking at Glocks too back in the day!  Hell, if my Dad will buy one then maybe this is my chance too… it’s not like Pam was right there to dictate otherwise (I’ve found that, in life, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission…).  Of course, to buy a handgun in Georgia you either need to be a Georgia residence or currently in the active duty military - neither of which my Old Man was.  Oh, but why should that stop me?  I’ve made it this far (by walking in the store).

And with the enthusiasm of my Dad, I crossed the threshold of window-shopping to holding and fiddling with a Glock 17.  It came down to the standard-sized 9mm or .45-caliber version.  Since the 9mm ordnance is cheaper and more proliferated than the .45 caliber ordnance, I narrowed it down to the 9mm.  Let’s face it: this is going to be a “get good at shooting fun-gun,” not a home-defense weapon (I already have a shotgun for that - keeping someone in mind (Pam… cough) that’s not too fond of shooting, you can’t miss with one of those).  A “fun gun”?  Honestly though, what good is any handgun if you can’t practice shooting?  A 9mm is perfect for practicing with.

So… I bought it.  But as I was filling out the paperwork, I started to get cold feet: did I really want the full-sized Glock 17 or was the Glock 19 a better compromise?  Hmmm.  At the last minute, I ended up switching to the Glock 19, a more “jack of all trades” gun.  And I guess the icing on the cake for my Old Man: I have to do something with my firearms for the next 3 years… I sure as hell can’t take them to Italy with me.  Having a firearm anywhere in Europe is like farting in church.

After the purchase, we went straight home so I could immediately begin damage control and start begging for forgiveness.  Luckily, Pam is pretty forgiving.  After 4 deployments overseas while pounding ground with my Army brethren, I think a handgun on discount is a permissible purchase.  Provided I’m not in the hospital with more important things to take care of, my Dad and I will ops-test it (along with my revolver) at the shooting range this weekend.

On a side note, after I got home from purchasing the Glock 19, I looked it up on the Glock website.  What a coincidence.  It appears this gun was more of a match than I originally thought.  Note the background (above) for the Glock 19 on there website (if you click the picture, it’ll take you to the actual website where you can click on “Glock 19″ and see for yourself).  It’s almost a subliminal “welcome back to the F-16″!