Greetings from Florida!

Wow - I'm in Florida now and there's so much excitement going on I can hardly contain myself. But I must. However, the way for me to express my recent experiences requires a day-by-day recall of what's been going on. I also see

I still haven't progressed in my livejournal to write as if I'm not writing for anyone.

Tuesday: "Graduation" from ASBC. Besides the speeches (which were short, thank God), and awards given to flights, we also experienced something that has lately seemed to become common with the Air Force: making spoof movies of training situations (think Napoleon Dynamite SUPT). This one was a Star Wars spoof made by some really clever guys, most importantly making fun of a guy that unintentionally declared himself to be a tool (or a backhoe, more like it) since day one. Anyway, arrive in Florida at hotel which we made reservations for but did not see. First impression: crackhouse. (Since I had lived in the crackhouse at Maxwell I was somewhat ready for it, but this one was not within the safe confines of an Air Force Base). So Tuesday was pretty much a washout except for arriving in Florida.

Wednesday: Get into the Sqdn (20th SOS, Green Hornets flying the MH-53J pave lows). After a bit of waiting around, we get pulled into a conference room where the sqdn exec comes and talks to all of us new Lts. Besides our duty jobs, we'll have the opportunity to do a lot of extra stuff at the sqdn. Includes flying on the helos whenever we want (except emergency procedures training missions, as they tend to be the most likely when the helo will go down), possibly take part in SERE or be a survivor, take classes at the Special Ops University here on base, and many more things. We went to AJs for dinner with a bunch of Lts, one of who was in uniform, and a nearby table bought our whole table a round of drinks and thank us for our service. I felt very proud to be in the military.

Thursday: Go into base, get issued flight suit and other gear. Very cool stuff, the kind of things you see in the military surplus store and think, man I wish I could buy and/or use that stuff. The more interesting part of this day was brought about when we went to get a flying class III physical done so the FAA would let us fly airplanes. Despite us having passed flying class I physicals (the 3 day tour down at San Antonio), we still have to get this done. In order that we can have our physicals done as quickly as possible, since we're so anxious to get flying, we call up this doctor and try to make an appointment. He tells us to come over to his house, which we regard as sketchy at best, a bit of a "backalley abortion" setup. We arrive and there are 5 other Lts there in this well-lit, enormous house right on one of the bayous here. The doctor owns a sailboat out on the dock and after we finish the physical, invites us to come sailing with him whenever we want, and also extends to us an invitation (to the pants party!) to go flying with him on Saturday. Then we fool around with some NVGs. Result: possible creepy situation turned really cool.

Friday: Still no luck with getting a rental application passed, the drama of which has actually been going on this whole time but is not worth writing about. Long story short, I won't be able to move into a great house that roommate and I found until at least Monday. Means I'm stuck at the crackhouse hotel for the duration of the weekend. I survive on PB&J for lunch and granola bars and bananas for breakfast. But anyway - today we go to the civvie airport out in Destin and talk to another semi-insane man (pilot, of course), about taking lessons there. They've been doing military lessons for the past 19 years so they're pretty cool about it, but it's funny listening to all the crazy stories they tell. Or, will tell. I don't think they told any yet, but I can imagine they will be coming, and that I'll laugh a lot. Later on, I went back to the squadron just as a whole bunch of combat controllers and other AF special operators were walking out (our sqdn building has an auditorium that they were using). Very cool being in their presence; they were all VERY young looking, but obviously well accomplished, tremendous individuals.

And then I came back to the room and slept for 3 hours. Pretty boring here, especially when one is trying to save money. I read, watch TV, and sleep.

Anyway - the house we should *hopefully* be getting will have a third bedroom so we're expecting plenty of visitors.

And my closing remark is that Florida drivers suck.