Posts Tagged ‘Air National Guard’

Today was the last day of instruction at the college. Yippee! Next week is finals week, but I have all four of my finals on Monday. Yah, it's a bummer of a stressful day, but at least I'll get it all over with at the beginning! I have high hopes for As in three of my classes, just not math. I don't expect to fail, I just don't expect an A. Thank goodness I'm all finished with calculus; this last semester was a bear! School's been good the past month, just busy. I finished up tutoring earlier this week. I'm praying my Algebra 2 tutee passes. He's worked so hard and it's the sixth time he's taken it. It's time to move onward try something else. Things haven't been too exciting over here, really. Matt graduated from ALS on the 4th of this month. Last week we went over to our new friends, Dave and Clarissa's for a lasagna dinner and some board games. Yesterday we bought a new digital camera (here are random photos of my playing around with it last night.) Matt is back on WoW and I made a character, too. He also picked out a new game to play, Rise of Legends, which seems really cool. We're getting ready for a trip to Colorado next month. We're spending a week in Colorado Springs with my mom and Denver just hanging out. We'll go to the Renaissance Festival, do a bit of hiking, check out Denver's Museum of Nature & Science's BodyWorlds 2 exhibit, see some of my pals in Fort Collins, my mom and I will have a little spa getaway — it'll be a blast! So I've been pondering what to do with my near future. I need one more math and one more physics class and a health class and then I'll have three associates degrees from AHC and nothing more to take in the way of transfer credits. Matt could be transferred any time or, at least, he'll be getting out in less than two years. I don't have enough time to transfer to a university (the closest of which is at least an hour's drive from home) and finish a physics program. I figured I'd take my math class at night at AHC and my health class online next semester and work full-time during the day. Then the following semester I'd take physics at night. So I need a job. I was looking into PG&E's nuclear power plant; they need an operator and I'm qualified. That sounded interesting, but it's quite a ways from home and it would be shift work that rotates all the time, which would make transportation difficult. I had heard that the squadron where I work for the guard once a month, needed to fill a full-time Mon-Fri technician slot doing the same thing I do on drill weekends. I guess the slot was opened, but the window closed and I can just keep checking back on the website to see if it ever returns. That would be the perfect job for me right now, but it may never reopen. I enjoy being a student, so I thought maybe I'd just continue studying at the junior college in a different field. UCSB has a BA program located at AHC for a few majors (not physics). I was thinking, if I were to study one of the arts, I'd be most interested in an English program. UCSB provides that where I'm currently going to school, so maybe next semester I'll pick up a few literature classes. All in all, I guess I don't know what I'm doing until Matt finishes his commitment and we can move somewhere where I can complete my degree of choice. We'll see what happens. I'm looking forward to the summer. On the 30th I start a 3-week, 3-credit physical anthropology course online. Then I'll start an 8-week art appreciation course, followed by a 6-week psychology course. They're all online classes, which I enjoy doing. Plus, I get tired of driving out to Santa Maria or relying on a carpool. I can't realistically attend on-site classes anyway, since I'm going TDY at the end of July for 6-weeks to Georgia for more military training. It'll be a bummer being away from Matt, but it'll be nice to earn some extra cash, have more time to do online classes, and explore the local area. I'll drive up one weekend to see Andrea and Michael at Langley, maybe check out a concert or two (there's a ton of interesting musicians playing nearby during my stay), and see the sights. That's all that's really been happening lately. I have today and the weekend to finish studying for Monday's finals, so that's what I'm off to do. That and play with the new camera …

A quick rundown of my week: Monday math test – Ack! Skipped all my other classes to get done what I should have done over the weekend. Studied for 6 or 7 hours. Felt like I aced it. We'll see next week! While cutting Matt's hair, he took off his glasses and I stepped on them. They were mostly fine, but he went and tried to bend them back, snapping the metal completely beyond repair (well, at least beyond either of us repairing it). Of course, it's his only pair of glasses. We tried duct tape, but it was pretty pitiful. Our prescriptions aren't too far off, so he tried wearing my glasses, which is fine for a short duration, but eventually gives him a headache. Kind of silly, but it bummed him out a lot until he finally got an optometrist appointment yesterday for contacts. Woo! Then we got to go sun glass shopping. I usually tutor two guys on Tuesdays. Tutoring takes place after all my classes are finished, so I only stay on campus for that. The first guy completely stood me up, so I still just sat around waiting until the session would be over. It's all right, I get paid for half an hour even if he doesn't show. Then my next guy shows up 15 minutes late just to declare that he doesn't have any questions and is going home. I guess that's fine, I got paid for another half an hour. It's just that I could have spent my three hours doing something else completely. I completely destroyed a pie trying to eat just the crust. The filling was gross and crust is oh, so good! But what a mess. ^_^ Wednesday I got my conceptual physics test back. Hooray, an A! The class is fun and nothing for me to stress over, I just get the test jitters and always expect the worst, so it was nice to be wrong. I started feeling icky though and went home after my first four classes, missing math. The flu bug is going around the school and I was feeling so run down and really wanted to just go to bed. Matt picked me up at 5 and we stopped for some food. Left the keys in the ignition and locked the doors. It's only the second time Matt's ever locked himself out, and somehow it's my fault because both times have been when he's with me. :p It was a bummer too, but it gave us time to eat. 15 minutes and $40 later we were on our way, so it's no huge deal. I went home, played some Sims 2, and crashed. Thursday, not much better. My physics class was canceled and I skipped my boring chem class to continue to recoup. A lot of sleeping, Sims 2, water, and studying. It worked, though. We bought Sims 2 the other day for Matt, but well … he hasn't gotten a chance to play yet. I never played the Sims before; I always thought it sounded kind of pathetic. Well, I was right, but I had no idea it's so much fun! I keep making Conklin families, Sims that look like me and Matt and a baby thrown in there. Within the first hour, Matt was so dead. In the living room in his underwear with some weird NoodleSoother helmet on his head. The real Matt was upset, but humored. Hey, I was just getting the hang of how it works. It's much more fun now that we have a teenage daughter, Matt is a SWAT team leader, and I'm a top secret scientific researcher. I think I've finally found My Game. Haha. So today is Friday and I just got out of my physics 2 exam. It was all on thermodynamics, which I don't really find all that exciting. I'm pretty sure it all went well; there's only one that I'm sort of concerned about. My teacher is awesome for partial credit though, so I'm not stressed out about it. Tutoring went really well. I met with the guy from last week that's repeating Algebra 2. I was so stressed last Friday about our session, it was really frustrating for both of us. He picked up an extra hour during the week to meet with me, though, so that's a good sign. And today went really well! We solved systems of equations with three variables. I think he kinda-sorta gets it. I got him started on how to tackle his homework so he can work on that this weekend then meet with me on Monday and review it. He was a lot more communicative this time around, I was a lot more patient, and things just went much more smoothly. The lady at the front desk sort of monitored our session because she's been working with him for years (on the same subject) and knows him really well. I was really pleased to hear that she thought I did a terrific job because he's been through a ton of tutors and really tries their nerves. He's in the learning assistance program and has retaken the class more times than is technically allowed, but I'm hoping this will be his last. My other two tutees are great and really driven, which is nice, but it's also interesting to get the challenge of working with this guy. I'm really enjoying it a lot. I got my first birthday card in the mail today, which made me all giddy. I know it's just a birthday, but it's my birthday! I love my birthday. The card is 10 days early, but it's nice to start the birthday excitement early! And it's from Matt's dad's aunt, who is just the sweetest lady ever. Anyhow, Guard weekend is upon me, so the time I have tonight will be my only time to really relax. Polish boots, iron uniform, bake some brownies, and yes, Sims. Mmm. Actually, tonight I'll probably get some crocheting done. I've been working on an afghan, but I got bored of making the same squares over and over again, and school got hectic, so I put it down. Last night I started my first-ever ripple afghan, though. It's really fun to do, so I think I'll relax on the couch like an old lady with my yarn. Hooray! Okay, so I guess that wasn't so quick afterall. :p

Well, happy 2006! Yah, it doesn't feel too different. More laid back, I guess, but that's because I'm still on my super-break away from school. (20 Dec – 23 Jan break, woohoo!) Last weekend my mom and Ron flew out to Santa Barbara. On Friday they came up to see the casa de Conklin. We went golfing on base (Ooooh, I am so terrible! It's only my second time out playing 9 holes, though. Matt promises he'll really teach me.) and then out to a nice dinner at Lompoc's finest, Saletti's. Mmm. They returned to Santa Barbara and we drove down Saturday morning to join them on a whale watching expedition. Well, it's been ten years since my mother or I have set foot on a boat, and Matt's never been ocean-bound (Ron practically grew up at sea). The four-hour tour took us out to the Santa Cruz islands and three of us spent most of it asleep or on the verge of losing our breakfasts. We were so miserably sea sick and no one even saw a single whale. It was pretty stormy and rainy out, so maybe the whales were afraid to come up (and get wet??). It seemed like a great idea and we were all really excited about it, but just couldn't stomach it. No worries about not seeing whales though; we got four free, non-expiring passes to go do it all over again (this time, with Dramamine)! (( Whale boat pictures are up here! )) Saturday we also celebrated Matt's and Ron's birthdays. After recovering from the boat trip, we perused the (closed) stores on State Street until our 9pm dinner reservation. Still raining. The restaurant was great, though. We had a classy band and were seated on the patio (it had stopped raining by then, thankfully) and a terrific dinner! Matt's first experience with lobster bisque or filet mignon. Neither of us care much for lobster. Anyhow, it was an experience for Matt, but not really his style. We decided to celebrate his birthday Matt-style on Monday. Sunday was mostly just sleeping in, kicking back, hanging out. My mom and I went out to see Fun With Dick and Jane because the boys just wanted to sit in the hotel room with their new books. :p That's all right, it's nice to hang with my mom! Despite unfortunate weather and motion sickness, it was great to see her and Ron! Since then Matt's gone back to work and I've been playing it lazy. Well, sort of … I took down all the Christmas decorations and reorganized most of the apartment. I couldn't just be a total bum all week! Mostly I've just been crocheting, though. Last weekend my mom got me a Crocheting for Dummies book, and I've been yarn-wild since! Yesterday I finished my first project: a scarf. I didn't go by a pattern, just flew by the seat of my pants with it. It's hideous and I think I'll mail it to my sister. All day today I've been working on an afghan. I think it will take some time. I ordered the spring semester's school books online rather than bother with the bookstore lines. The arrived today and got me all excited! I have a piano book, a physics book, and a linear algebra book and they just get me all giddy to jump right in! It's not that I don't like sitting around at home crocheting and watching movies, but I'm just psyched about school. I looked up my fall grades yesterday. Bragging time. All A's! Well, I'm just pleased because it's my first 4.0 college semester. So now I want to see if I can do it all over again! I really need to work hard to bring up my horrific CSU freshman GPA — at least now my cumulative has broken a 3.0! =\ That's about all in the wonderful world of Mel. Today ends my "weekend" (so what if it was nearly three weeks?) I have to work tomorrow and Sunday. Really, my job seems interesting, and I'm sure it will be someday, but guard drills are the most boring things ever! I can't wait to get my security clearance and go to school this summer so I can actually do work and not just sit around once a month trying to look busy. Argh! I hope you all enjoy your weekends! :p Ciao!

A bunch of people just left. It’s amazing; we actually have semi-regular visitors! On Halloween we had a little party (games, movies, and grub) for my buddy Marc, two of his friends, Carol, and Erick. Matt and I were the only ones to dress up, though. Matt was an 80′s rock star and I was his groupie! It was much more fun than I had anticipated! We decided to have a regular Friday night get-together for the crew. Tonight Marc and his buddies and a sister of one and Carol hung out for an MST3K and an episode of UCB. A blast! It’s good to hang out with people … I’ve missed it.

The spring school schedule came out today, so I’ve been figuring out what classes I want to take. I want to apply for Westmont, a small Christian college in Santa Barbara, and it’s not too late to get in for the spring semester. I have my application, but I still think I want one more semester at the community college to prepare for transferring in the fall. So one more semester in Santa Maria and a little more time to save up for tuition (private school, ugh). School is getting a little bit tougher. Next week I have a quiz and two midterms, which I don’t feel 100% ready for. I still have time to study, though.

This weekend is a guard weekend. Hopefully it’s not too boring. If so, it’ll give me a little bit of time to study while getting paid. Speaking of which, this will be my last weekend as an A1C (woohoo, SrA!)

That’s all for tonight. More to come later. Ciao!

Still alive. Still schoolin’. Still WoWin’. I’m slightly surprised WoW hasn’t interfered with studying, being that it’s so much fun. I level slowly though, and really only get to play much on the weekend. It’s enjoyable, though. Matt and I just spend our weekends locked up in our cave. :p

Well, not last weekend. Guard duty. The best guard weekend yet, actually! I actually learned something … and it wasn’t about CPR, infosec, or family readiness! (I’m getting sick of all the redundant 2-hour long briefings.) I got to do a PMI (preventative maintenance inspection) on our equipment on Saturday. They didn’t make me just stand around and watch; I got to do everything. And for the first time, someone actually sat down with me and talked to me about the equipment: the terminal and its commands and menus and the “big picture”. Unfortunately it wasn’t my maintenance supervisor, but a operator that taught me. I don’t feel completely in the dark anymore. I received a school date for training. Six weeks back in Georgia … in July/August ’06. It’s a long ways off, but it was the first available date I could get. Matt and I may not even be in the state by then, but if we are, I’ll be attending school. I can’t do much at work until I’m trained … I can’t be put on crews or anything like that. But I can sit around, do PMIs, and soak up information for a year. Hopefully enough information that when I do attend school, it won’t all be new to me. And I’m not the new kid anymore at work. I think I am still the youngest and the lowest ranking, but I’m not the newest. An airman just arrived from active duty at Cheyenne Mountain. We spent all our free-time talking about Colorado Springs, which just brought on my homesickness again. It’s all right. We’ll visit sometime, hopefully soon.

My buddy Andy is returning from the Peace Corps sometime before the end of the year. He’s spent almost three years in Samoa teaching computer classes. I met him when I was going to Colorado State and we became pretty good friends. I have written him a bunch of letters since he left, but he’s been really busy and I’ve never heard back. He gets on IRC every now and then and checks in, but I haven’t really heard any of his stories. And I’m sure he has plenty to tell! Matt and I are planning to make a short weekend-trip to Colorado when Andy returns home, so we can be part of the welcome wagon and hear how life has treated him in a third-world country. So I’m looking forward to that … if we can ever find out when he’ll be returning home!

So I’m waiting to get picked up for our carpool. Some friends at school and I made a new, handy dandy carpool schedule. It’s way more convenient/comfortable than how things were being run previously. I drive on Mondays and Wednesdays, and pick up two friends around 7ish. I take three friends home. It’s nicer than sitting in Erick’s car every day with no radio, trying to force interesting conversation. Three of us have identical school schedules, so it’s really handy for travel and studying. One of the guys had a driving obligation to a friend in our chemistry class, so the carpool adopted him as well. It’s nice because he and I hit it off well. He plays WoW and used to play Ragnarok for the longest time, so we have plenty to chat about there. We trade anime back and forth … right now I’m working on his R.O.D. The TV. So good. It’s nice to chat with someone about geeky things. I’ve been shocked. All my friends which are computer science and engineering majors are completely not into video games. It just seems weird now. When they ask me about weekend plans and I start talking about WoW they just give me a blank stare … I ask them if they play anything and I get a bunch of rolled-eyes and comments about Mario when they were 9. So for a while there I kind of felt like a dork … it’s nice to have someone now to talk games with. :p

Lucky Matt has gotten a bunch of time off lately because contractors are ripping up the asbestos tiles in the shop. So the shop had to be emptied and sealed off and no one can be there. So no one has any work to do. He was given Monday and Wednesday off this week (and a few last week and probably more the week after) and all the days he doesn’t have off, they’re allowed to bring in whatever they want to do. So he hauled a 13″ TV, a Nintendo64 and a laptop to work today. Man, I wish they had done the abatement while I was working there so I could be paid to play games. I guess some days they have to go in and have a barbeque and play volleyball or something, too. Oh no. :p Heh, it’s good for him, though. Nice and relaxing. The launch season is over, so there’s really nothing to do right now other than train, and he’s 100% qualified anyway.

Last night I finished Frank Peretti‘s The Oath. OMG, it was so good! I read about 300 pages between Sunday-Monday; I just couldn’t put it down. It’s Matt’s favorite Peretti book (he’s read everything except The Visitation and Monster), but I enjoyed Piercing the Darkness more. The Oath was really thrilling and intense, but I enjoyed PtD’s spiritual warfare and imagery of how different sins play a part in all our lives and how to combat it. The Oath was great though, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Well … it’s about that time, so off I go to school! Ciao!

So last weekend I had guard duty. Most of the squadron was away in Sacramento at a change of command ceremony, but I didn’t feel the need to go (being new to the unit and all … plus, two days in Sacramento, eh). So the place was really quiet all weekend, which was sort of nice. I actually got to go do a little bit of work. I was a little disheartened, as I discovered the job wasn’t quite as interesting as I thought it’d be. I’m used to working with equipment: operating it and maintaining it. In this shop it’s split, the space systems operators are the ones that actually get to work the equipment and we just get to fix it. And it rarely breaks … we just get to sit around waiting for it to break and doing preventative maintenance inspections. Fun … so I got to go up inside our radome and uhh, sweep dust off the dish and stuff. That was the highlight of the weekend. *sigh* Other than that I just read … a lot … of boring stuff. I did get signed up for a school date, though. In order to do much at all (and like I just said, it isn’t that much), I need to go to Milstar school. It’ll be 32 days at Fort Gordon in Georgia, and I snagged a late summer slot for next year. We may or may not be in California this time next year; I guess we’ll find out in a couple of months if Matt will be transferred in the spring or not.

Anyhow, school is all finished for this summer. I completed my history course today — phew! I have a B average for the semester, but that’s okay. Distance learning can be tough; I get so distracted by other fun things to do around the house, hehe. So now I have a nice two week break until the fall semester starts up. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing until then, seeing as I won’t be schoolin’ or workin’. There are a few small scholarship essays I think I’ll work on and a couple of random things. I started reading CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce today and that should be finished tomorrow. I guess it will be nice and relaxing, I’ll just hang out before I get all busy and stuff on the 22nd.

So … it's been a while. And here we go! Well, my mother has now nearly fully recovered from her appendectomy. She was in the hospital for seven days, got out and had three horrible days, and then was on a smooth road to recovery. Just a few days after leaving the hospital, my sister, Andrea, was admitted for appendicitis! The craziness! Thankfully hers hadn't ruptured, but was just causing her problems. So she had hers removed as well. I think I should make myself an appointment! :p The lucky duck, she gets two weeks of convalescent leave to recuperate. She's doing just fine now … So last weekend Matt got Friday and Monday off so we took a little trip up into the Sierra Nevadas. Friday morning we drove five hours to Sacramento to hang out with some family friends Chris & ShaRon and Kris & Jaylene. We hung out at Chris's office when we arrived in town. He works in Old Town Folsom where all the shops look like old West saloons. Chris & ShaRon, Rusty & Tiny (their boys), Matt & I had dinner at a nice little Italian place on the balcony overlooking the main street. It just so happened that the rodeo had come to town that day and there was going to be a parade through Old Town. The men wearing chaps and giant hats and the women in big, frilly dresses staged us a little gun fight in the middle of the street and we watched a bunch of horses and old men in go-karts parade around. The coolest part was the long horns they had run down the street. Moo! Then we went over to Kris & Jaylene's to hang out and chat it up through the night. It was a nice visit with people we really haven't seen that much (except for at the wedding). We had to get up early the next morning to head up to Quincy (at least three more hours north) though, so it wasn't a very long visit. A few weeks ago we got tickets to the High Sierra Music Festival. It's a four-day festival (Thurs-Sun) but we could only make it up for the last two days. We arrived in town around 11 am and set up camp in the blazing heat. I've been to a few festivals in the past with my father (mainly Rockygrass in Lyons, CO) and was expecting something similar. This was huge! Matt said it was like a music festival theme park! All the tents were practically on top of each other in a huge meadow, which wasn't quite as comfortable as I was expecting, but it was fine. There were four main stages and bands playing in other venues throughout the area. Tons of vendors and classes and workshops and crazy people! It was, well, kind of like a zoo. The music was good … a little bit of a lot of things: bluegrass, funk, jazz, blues, rock, reggae, tribal … mostly bands just jamming. The first one we saw was Tea Leaf Green, which I do enjoy very much. We also took in some Blue Turtle Seduction (one of Matt's faves, a “High-Altitude Bohemian Tribal Funk Grass” band), Railroad Earth, and The New Mastersounds (a cool funk band from the UK). We saw a little bit of Meltone on Saturday, a jam band of Japanese kids, but we saw more of them playing on top of a camper on Sunday. One of the main attractions for me on Saturday was Gov't Mule and I was waiting most of the day to see them. Well, it was very hot in Quincy that weekend and there was very, very little shade available. I had my CamelBak and lots of sunscreen and was conscious of staying well hydrated all day, but I think I got sun poisoning anyway. My Saturday night was miserable with nausea and the worst headache I've ever experienced. So I just crashed early and missed Gov't Mule. Grrr! Anywho, here are a few photos from our festival experience! It's very difficult to sleep-in in a 2-man tent in the scorching heat with thousands of people all around, so Matt and I were up pretty early on Sunday. The music didn't start on stage until about 10 and there wasn't much that we were interested in until 3 anyway, so we took off and went exploring. To my surprise, Lassen Volcanic National Park was closer than I had thought. Man, we were a lot further north than I had thought, actually! So we got a nose-full of stinky sulfur and a bunch of pretty photos! It was nice to get away from the festival grounds and up where there's a little snow. Sunday afternoon was a blast! We saw Meltone, The New Mastersounds again, and … Leo Kottke & Mike Gordon! Woohoo! That was the highlight of the festival for me and it was awesome! We decided to pack up and drive home right after their show … we really just wanted to get home rather than camp another night. So Matt drove the eight hours home until sunrise on the 4th. So it’s a week later and really there hasn’t been too much excitement since. All week long I have been doing school work, watching Bewitched, and playing Ragnarok. School is a drag. They’re all online classes, so it’s just a whole lot of reading, essays, and quizzes every single day. It’s working out, though. I just registered for the fall semester. Calculus, physics, and chemistry. It should be fun. Last weekend was my first Air National Guard weekend. I signed up for six years, so wherever we happen to move, I’m going to have a job for two days out of the month. I didn’t really learn too much last weekend, just met a bunch of people and did a little bit of training on things I all ready knew, but hopefully come October I’ll get to work more on the equipment and all that jazz. Well, that’s all for now. I’ve been working all day on my security clearance paperwork and a website for my mother’s business. So I'm gonna go watch some Carnivale and conk out now. Ciao!