long way down...
Let me preface this entry with the fact that this really meant for me, its going to be a lot of things that I have been thinking about, just haven't said aloud. But, maybe with it written, I can talk about it.
First though, I'd like to try and relive my past year, not sure if I have or not yet, but I'd like to record it for future reference.
K2 was very kewl, I just didn't realize it at the time. I worked at night. I went in around 7 I believe (see I have forgotten stuff already) And worked for 12 hours a day. It seems really bad, but it was not too bad. We had computers with internet, book and magazines, and a TV with a DVD player. There were movies on the server too, so you could watch movies too. The workload wasn't bad. We had mostly C-130's and maybe one C-17 on a shift. The most pallets that could go on a c130 is 6 pallets, but mostly we would only put one or two on, mostly that being baggage pallets. But, of course I hated it at the time. The sleeping conditions weren't the best, but it wasn't bad. we were in what is equivalent to a double wide trailer, 6 people total to a room, we divided it into 3 sections on each side with a hall running down the middle and ran strings and sheets to make "rooms". The food was really good. But beleive it or not, you can get sick of eating crab legs and steak every week! 4 Months later, we are in Dover. Dover wasn't bad. It is where I first started working with 747s and C-5's, those are both some big boats! 747s hold 42 pallet but have mechanized wheels, so they take hours to load and unload, but do not require hardly any pushing, which is nice. A month and a half later we end up in Turkey. Turkey sucked work wise. It was a long, hard shift, but we only worked 4 days, but you needed those 3 other days to recover! The active duty guys there were lazy and we did all the work, the upper managment was incompetent, they didn't have a clue. See, before June, they handled 3 747s a week, now they were getting that in a twelve hour shift at least. Turkey had become the major hub into the desert cargo wise. So cargo was coming into Turkey on 747s, and then we would put it into our holding area and then load it onto C-17s. In essence we just became a warehouse shipping and receiving pallets all the time. But we worked hard and partied hard too! There are many nights of drinking until 0145, as we had to be back on base by 0200 for cerfew. Then sometimes we would go to the E-Club til 0300 and then I would go hang out with the loadmasters and drink some more til the sun came up! But I got to do some traveling as well. Turkey was very pretty outside of the base. Very people compared to us, but still beautiful. The only thing I didn't like is that they don't have an EPA or anything like that over there, so the air was very much dirtier than ours. You couldn't even see the mountains that were only an hour away, unless it had rained recently, which it hadn't until the last month we were there. It was month before I realized that they were even there! The people were pretty friendly, and the food was great. Got some nice pictures which I will post one day. Overall it was a good year, glad to be home, but I learned a lot about my job that I never would have just doing drill in Maxwell. Made some good friends with the folks at my unit.
I think I have mentioned this before, But I think my house is haunted. I don't know why, this is a new house. Unless maybe there was another here long ago. But anywho, when I got back from Turkey and all, I was here by myself. For the first couple of day when I would get up and go into the kitchen, I would see that the cabinet under the sink would be open and I know it wasnt when I went to bed. And there was one time when the kitchen light was on when I woke up. Knowing I turned all the lights out before going to bed. And this morning was the weirdest incedence. I was laying in bed, I woke up and saw that it was 10, and thought that it was still early.I was laying there, not shaking the bed or anything, but the remote falls off the bed and lands on my pillow. I had it on top of the headboard, it was on there upside down so the rubber buttons would keep it from falling. So that tripped me out!
First though, I'd like to try and relive my past year, not sure if I have or not yet, but I'd like to record it for future reference.
K2 was very kewl, I just didn't realize it at the time. I worked at night. I went in around 7 I believe (see I have forgotten stuff already) And worked for 12 hours a day. It seems really bad, but it was not too bad. We had computers with internet, book and magazines, and a TV with a DVD player. There were movies on the server too, so you could watch movies too. The workload wasn't bad. We had mostly C-130's and maybe one C-17 on a shift. The most pallets that could go on a c130 is 6 pallets, but mostly we would only put one or two on, mostly that being baggage pallets. But, of course I hated it at the time. The sleeping conditions weren't the best, but it wasn't bad. we were in what is equivalent to a double wide trailer, 6 people total to a room, we divided it into 3 sections on each side with a hall running down the middle and ran strings and sheets to make "rooms". The food was really good. But beleive it or not, you can get sick of eating crab legs and steak every week! 4 Months later, we are in Dover. Dover wasn't bad. It is where I first started working with 747s and C-5's, those are both some big boats! 747s hold 42 pallet but have mechanized wheels, so they take hours to load and unload, but do not require hardly any pushing, which is nice. A month and a half later we end up in Turkey. Turkey sucked work wise. It was a long, hard shift, but we only worked 4 days, but you needed those 3 other days to recover! The active duty guys there were lazy and we did all the work, the upper managment was incompetent, they didn't have a clue. See, before June, they handled 3 747s a week, now they were getting that in a twelve hour shift at least. Turkey had become the major hub into the desert cargo wise. So cargo was coming into Turkey on 747s, and then we would put it into our holding area and then load it onto C-17s. In essence we just became a warehouse shipping and receiving pallets all the time. But we worked hard and partied hard too! There are many nights of drinking until 0145, as we had to be back on base by 0200 for cerfew. Then sometimes we would go to the E-Club til 0300 and then I would go hang out with the loadmasters and drink some more til the sun came up! But I got to do some traveling as well. Turkey was very pretty outside of the base. Very people compared to us, but still beautiful. The only thing I didn't like is that they don't have an EPA or anything like that over there, so the air was very much dirtier than ours. You couldn't even see the mountains that were only an hour away, unless it had rained recently, which it hadn't until the last month we were there. It was month before I realized that they were even there! The people were pretty friendly, and the food was great. Got some nice pictures which I will post one day. Overall it was a good year, glad to be home, but I learned a lot about my job that I never would have just doing drill in Maxwell. Made some good friends with the folks at my unit.
I think I have mentioned this before, But I think my house is haunted. I don't know why, this is a new house. Unless maybe there was another here long ago. But anywho, when I got back from Turkey and all, I was here by myself. For the first couple of day when I would get up and go into the kitchen, I would see that the cabinet under the sink would be open and I know it wasnt when I went to bed. And there was one time when the kitchen light was on when I woke up. Knowing I turned all the lights out before going to bed. And this morning was the weirdest incedence. I was laying in bed, I woke up and saw that it was 10, and thought that it was still early.I was laying there, not shaking the bed or anything, but the remote falls off the bed and lands on my pillow. I had it on top of the headboard, it was on there upside down so the rubber buttons would keep it from falling. So that tripped me out!