AirForceKush: July 2008 Archives
A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. he should ask each morning, am I prepared to lift-off?
- Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, All is Vanity, 1991
As many of my readers know (or could deduce) - I'm assigned to Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska. This is no big OPSEC thing or security breach - living in Anchorage and being a member of the Air Force leaves few places for me to hide.
Last night we lost our Wing Commander, Brigadier General Tom Tinsley to what was apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound. You can read about it from multiple press sources and I have no more information than the public nor will I participate in any rumors that may be going on.
I will say that I've had a few opportunities to interact with General Tinsley in the last few months and I have no doubt that we've lost a great man. I can say from personal experience that he was probably the nicest general officer that I've had the opportunity to work for. In my old assignment on Elmendorf we seemed to be in constant fear about what general or high ranking person might think about our organization or what we might have to tell them. It wasn't that they weren't nice people, but they were the types where you knew exactly who was the general and who wasn't.
General Tinsley was different - from the most junior airman to the O-6s sitting and flying beside him he always had a kind word and a smile. He also cared about what you said - he listened, asked questions, and was a genuinely nice person to have come into the office. In fact - he was the only general officer that I know could do that - walk into an office without causing a huge ruckus, special preparations, and without an entourage. I, in fact, was surprised by him a couple times walking into and out of various places on base. Generally a young officer such as myself tries to keep a good track on where their leadership is, but General Tinsley had this way of being a great leader and just another one of the pilots all at the same time.
The quote above does not quite capture General Tinsley, but it comes close. He did have a bit of unfinished business - family shouldn't have to say goodbye so soon - but one thing you can say from knowing the type of person he was and the things he accomplished was that his life was full. A great family, flying the top aircraft in the world after flying the previous top aircraft, test pilot, Weapons School grad, etc, etc. He may not have been prepared to life off - he had so much left to give - but in the time he had on this earth he made the most of what he had. Truly this is a lesson we all need to be reminded of from time to time.
It's a bit counterintuitive, but I believe death has a way of making everyone a bit self-centered. I guess a better way to put that would be that it makes us all introspective. If one is directly affected by death obviously the focus in on you. If you are not the direct focus it tends to make you think of the times you've lost someone close to you - an experience I have only too much experience in - I won't recount my own sad story here...everyone has one and if you don't you will at some point in your life. It's a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. Too often I think people try to shed or hide the dark parts of their life - to forget the losses they've suffered. This happens for a lot of good reasons - people move on, have lives to life, and are trying to leave their own mark on the world - to be ready to "lift off." However, sometimes I believe it's good to be reminded of those experiences and the lessons learned from those we've left behind (or have they left us behind - I guess it depends on your perspective).
For now, my prayers are with the Tinsely family - if I know anything it's that they'll need it and will appreciate it.
Until next time - I'll be relearning old lessons...
AirForceKush - aka - The Arctic Fox
- Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, All is Vanity, 1991
As many of my readers know (or could deduce) - I'm assigned to Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska. This is no big OPSEC thing or security breach - living in Anchorage and being a member of the Air Force leaves few places for me to hide.
Last night we lost our Wing Commander, Brigadier General Tom Tinsley to what was apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound. You can read about it from multiple press sources and I have no more information than the public nor will I participate in any rumors that may be going on.
I will say that I've had a few opportunities to interact with General Tinsley in the last few months and I have no doubt that we've lost a great man. I can say from personal experience that he was probably the nicest general officer that I've had the opportunity to work for. In my old assignment on Elmendorf we seemed to be in constant fear about what general or high ranking person might think about our organization or what we might have to tell them. It wasn't that they weren't nice people, but they were the types where you knew exactly who was the general and who wasn't.
General Tinsley was different - from the most junior airman to the O-6s sitting and flying beside him he always had a kind word and a smile. He also cared about what you said - he listened, asked questions, and was a genuinely nice person to have come into the office. In fact - he was the only general officer that I know could do that - walk into an office without causing a huge ruckus, special preparations, and without an entourage. I, in fact, was surprised by him a couple times walking into and out of various places on base. Generally a young officer such as myself tries to keep a good track on where their leadership is, but General Tinsley had this way of being a great leader and just another one of the pilots all at the same time.
The quote above does not quite capture General Tinsley, but it comes close. He did have a bit of unfinished business - family shouldn't have to say goodbye so soon - but one thing you can say from knowing the type of person he was and the things he accomplished was that his life was full. A great family, flying the top aircraft in the world after flying the previous top aircraft, test pilot, Weapons School grad, etc, etc. He may not have been prepared to life off - he had so much left to give - but in the time he had on this earth he made the most of what he had. Truly this is a lesson we all need to be reminded of from time to time.
It's a bit counterintuitive, but I believe death has a way of making everyone a bit self-centered. I guess a better way to put that would be that it makes us all introspective. If one is directly affected by death obviously the focus in on you. If you are not the direct focus it tends to make you think of the times you've lost someone close to you - an experience I have only too much experience in - I won't recount my own sad story here...everyone has one and if you don't you will at some point in your life. It's a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. Too often I think people try to shed or hide the dark parts of their life - to forget the losses they've suffered. This happens for a lot of good reasons - people move on, have lives to life, and are trying to leave their own mark on the world - to be ready to "lift off." However, sometimes I believe it's good to be reminded of those experiences and the lessons learned from those we've left behind (or have they left us behind - I guess it depends on your perspective).
For now, my prayers are with the Tinsely family - if I know anything it's that they'll need it and will appreciate it.
Until next time - I'll be relearning old lessons...
AirForceKush - aka - The Arctic Fox
Well, there really isn't too much new to report about the women of Anchorage as I'm not on the dating scene right now, but I thought I would blog on some facets of my new (now getting older) relationship with The Blockbuster.
First, and the title of the post, I'm getting a familiar feeling in my relationship. Oh, I don't mean in a romantic sense, but (as unromantic as this might sound) I'm getting used to my new girlfriend. She's becoming a facet of my life and feels, well, familiar to me.
This has the effect of making things a bit more complicated in the future as eventually, as all relationships must, our relationship must evolve or die. Oh, maybe I'm just being a bit melodramatic here, and this any decision will not have to happen for months at the earliest, but eventually she or I will have to get to a place where we decide we'll want to take this to a higher level (ultimately out of Alaska for her and me settling down) or we'll find something about one another that will prevent this from occurring.
The choice, albeit down the road quite a ways, worries me. At the end of the day I want a positive reason to stay with someone, not a negative reason to stay with someone. By that I mean (at the risk of sounding like a woman from a romantic comedy) I want the head over heels feeling, that exciting feeling, an affirmative feeling that I'm doing the right thing. These feelings may grow over time, and I do like The Blockbuster - she's a very good girlfriend and those 'like' and 'familiar' feelings could grow into something great and lasting.
The bottom line is that these familiar feelings make this eventual choice more complicated. If there were no feelings, just a general fondness that comes with any relationship the choice would be easier to make and the relationship easier (but not easy) to end when the time came, but like the old song says, "I've become accustomed to her face."
Ok, when you read the last line try to imagine the tune and context of My Fair Lady or it just looks even weirder than a guy quoting a Broadway musical.
This also has led me to a bit of a new truth about myself - I've had a bit of a sea change in my attitude with women that I might have mentioned, but this is the first time I've seen it in a relationship. It used to be that I worried about finding a woman that would like me enough to be the person I grow old with, but now I don't worry about that - I worry that I'll end up with the wrong person. That also leads to the fear that when the times comes I won't be able to pull the trigger and end up with that right person for the fear that I'll end up with the wrong one. This is the ultimate reason I want that surety, that certainty that hopefully comes with meeting the right person.
Or it could all be bullshit and we're all deluding ourselves. However, I don't think that's the case. I'm not a philosopher or any sort of expert, but even in my experience different relationships have led to a whole host of different feelings, but more importantly, different lessons learned. At the end of the day I think this may be another one of those learning experiences. I wish most of these didn't come with hurt feelings, crazy girlfriends, or uncertainties, but I suppose that's the only real way for people to learn lasting lessons. In any case, with different people causing different feelings, I don't think it's too crazy to think that there's at least one person I'll meet on my path in life that will make this all worthwhile.
Well, sorry if that's a bit too much of a ramble, but these subjects have been weighing heavily on my mind recently. The only answer to all of this is time, and over that time I'll make sure to keep you posted on this illustrious blog.
Until next time, keep in mind that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain...
AirForceKush - aka - The Arctic Fox
First, and the title of the post, I'm getting a familiar feeling in my relationship. Oh, I don't mean in a romantic sense, but (as unromantic as this might sound) I'm getting used to my new girlfriend. She's becoming a facet of my life and feels, well, familiar to me.
This has the effect of making things a bit more complicated in the future as eventually, as all relationships must, our relationship must evolve or die. Oh, maybe I'm just being a bit melodramatic here, and this any decision will not have to happen for months at the earliest, but eventually she or I will have to get to a place where we decide we'll want to take this to a higher level (ultimately out of Alaska for her and me settling down) or we'll find something about one another that will prevent this from occurring.
The choice, albeit down the road quite a ways, worries me. At the end of the day I want a positive reason to stay with someone, not a negative reason to stay with someone. By that I mean (at the risk of sounding like a woman from a romantic comedy) I want the head over heels feeling, that exciting feeling, an affirmative feeling that I'm doing the right thing. These feelings may grow over time, and I do like The Blockbuster - she's a very good girlfriend and those 'like' and 'familiar' feelings could grow into something great and lasting.
The bottom line is that these familiar feelings make this eventual choice more complicated. If there were no feelings, just a general fondness that comes with any relationship the choice would be easier to make and the relationship easier (but not easy) to end when the time came, but like the old song says, "I've become accustomed to her face."
Ok, when you read the last line try to imagine the tune and context of My Fair Lady or it just looks even weirder than a guy quoting a Broadway musical.
This also has led me to a bit of a new truth about myself - I've had a bit of a sea change in my attitude with women that I might have mentioned, but this is the first time I've seen it in a relationship. It used to be that I worried about finding a woman that would like me enough to be the person I grow old with, but now I don't worry about that - I worry that I'll end up with the wrong person. That also leads to the fear that when the times comes I won't be able to pull the trigger and end up with that right person for the fear that I'll end up with the wrong one. This is the ultimate reason I want that surety, that certainty that hopefully comes with meeting the right person.
Or it could all be bullshit and we're all deluding ourselves. However, I don't think that's the case. I'm not a philosopher or any sort of expert, but even in my experience different relationships have led to a whole host of different feelings, but more importantly, different lessons learned. At the end of the day I think this may be another one of those learning experiences. I wish most of these didn't come with hurt feelings, crazy girlfriends, or uncertainties, but I suppose that's the only real way for people to learn lasting lessons. In any case, with different people causing different feelings, I don't think it's too crazy to think that there's at least one person I'll meet on my path in life that will make this all worthwhile.
Well, sorry if that's a bit too much of a ramble, but these subjects have been weighing heavily on my mind recently. The only answer to all of this is time, and over that time I'll make sure to keep you posted on this illustrious blog.
Until next time, keep in mind that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain...
AirForceKush - aka - The Arctic Fox
Well, since I have a pretty normal girlfriend I don't really have a whole lot to blog about right now (well...maybe a little update)...so we're going to go with more of the random thoughts right now rather than Anchorage women...
The Blockbuster and I are doing fine - we go out pretty regularly, we really don't fight (although there was one night where we got kicked out of The Shed where she was upset over the circumstances of that particular incident), and everything is pretty standard. She's a direct type of person so I get the feeling if I were screwing up she would tell me, but she seems happy with me and I seem to be "the good boyfriend" amongst her group of friends. She's the classic "cool girlfriend" - not needy, lets me hang with my friends, knows how to have fun, and very low maintenance.
For example, we were hanging out watching a movie one night when I got a text from a friend (a female friend) asking me out to a movie. I'm not sure if she was asking me "out," but it certainly seemed that way. I, stupidly - at least I thought, showed her the text and she was really happy I was honest with her and she was with a "wanted" man. Other women I've been with would have probably burned my house down after cutting off...well, let's just say important parts of my body.
That being said, she's still not "wowing" me. I think this is a byproduct of my past experiences in Anchorage. It's not as if I liked drama - far, far, far, far (did I mention how far?) from it, but through all my experiences I've trained myself not to get excited about a new relationship anymore. I can remember when I would talk about a good night kiss for days after a first date. Everyone knows that phase - the honeymoon phase - of a relationship, and then if it sticks you settle into a more normal phase. Well, with The Blockbuster I've skipped the honeymoon phase and landed squarely in the normal phase because the normal phase was dominated by my suspicion she would inevitably turn out crazy. All told, I'm filing this under "good problems to have."
Now for the random thoughts...
As you might have picked up by earlier posts I work for the Air Force. I recently got a new job where I'm partially in charge of setting some new areas on base and I've discovered a few things...
First - I've learned new things about the universe. While I've been setting up these new spaces I've been reading A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking. It's extremely nerdy, but very enlightening. One thing I'm getting from the book is that nothing is constant. First people thought that motion was constant, but it's really relative. Even time isn't constant according to experimentation. If you look at quantum theory it looks like nothing is really settled at all.
However, I have found the one constant in the universe - the bureaucratic mentality.
While I've been reading the aforementioned book I've also been making several, several calls to several base agencies. To get systems, for example, a form needs to be signed by a guy at Hickam AFB then go to another guy down the hall, but in a different organization, at Hickam AFB and then come back to our base so the comm person can start building our systems. Now, when asked if it would help if we called the people at Hickam the sergeant gave me a very emphatic no as it would get him in trouble for bothering the people he needed to sign the sheets he needed.
In another case one agency certified an area as good to go with official forms without talking to another agency that they needed to check with. When the second agency refused to fix the problem they should have fixed weeks earlier (hence the certification) it took four hours of e-mails from multiple people and calls to get... a fully functional area? No. A fully operational certification? No. A million dollars? No. No, what we got was a sheet of paper from that agency saying we were okay and they would respond if we needed help, but the real utility for that is getting us the second sheet of paper which is only good for getting us the third sheet of paper in the above paragraph that is sitting at Hickam AFB.
The last example was when I called a meeting because one project I'm running requires four separate groups to work together to make it happen. Another squadron had the same exact project - I don't mean similar, I mean exactly the same and they are already more than a month late than the already delayed project completion date. Every single one of these groups have already had delays in the previous project, but despite their own experiences it took me 45 minutes to explain to these people why they had to take a half hour of their time to get on the same page and avoid delays from our end. For the record, if you didn't catch that, I took more time explaining the meeting to get them to go than it would have taken them to read my e-mail and just show up.
Are you still following me?
If you still are, good, you may have a future as a civil servant. If not, you still have enough brain cells to make a contribution to society so please, please, for the good of humanity stay away from any job with government - especially the armed services.
My theory on this is called "Bosses vs Customers." Everyone in the Air Force is now a customer at some point. They are a "customer" of Finance, a "customer" of the MPF (Military Personnel Flight), a "customer" of comm. I have had the joy, however, of working in organizations in the Air Force that still had some of this organic capability with the squadrons (they were almost all centralized to save manpower and many of their duties are now "additional duties" by untrained squadron personnel). For example, in my last job we had comm folks. If anything went wrong I could go and have them fix it. They also had to report to a "boss" every morning at 9 AM about current projects. In a word, they were accountable. When you have customers you're really not accountable to them. They don't write your performance reviews, they can't punish you, and they aren't there day after day to make sure you get your job done. So when I go to all these people to get things done now I'm a customer - they don't have to answer to me or my boss - they have to answer to their boss. When you run an organization the main concerns are on the health of your particular part of the world - not on what the low ranking lieutenant needs to get oh, I don't know, a flying squadron what it needs to do real missions.
I guess the bottom line is that commanders with real missions: CE building bases, special forces operators doing their thing, SERE folks rescuing people, pilots flying, intelligence gathering and analyzing data, or AOCs running operations had people in their squadrons and organizations to make their bureaucracies work for the warfighters and the direct supporters of the warfighters. Now those folks near the "pointy end of the spear" are doing the jobs directly (additional duties) or forced to deal directly with the bureaucracies that don't have a real interest in helping you specifically. Generally they have jobs to support the rest of the force and take that seriously on a macro level, but on a person to person basis (the micro level) there really is no interest - after all they do have to get their forms signed before they can be any real help.
I guess I'm just ranting here, but I was selected to do a certain job by the Air Force - I wasn't selected for comm, not for personnel, not for security forces, and not for services. However, I'm doing all of those jobs in my new job.
Until next time, I'll be on hold with someone...
AirForceKush, aka, The Arctic Fox
The Blockbuster and I are doing fine - we go out pretty regularly, we really don't fight (although there was one night where we got kicked out of The Shed where she was upset over the circumstances of that particular incident), and everything is pretty standard. She's a direct type of person so I get the feeling if I were screwing up she would tell me, but she seems happy with me and I seem to be "the good boyfriend" amongst her group of friends. She's the classic "cool girlfriend" - not needy, lets me hang with my friends, knows how to have fun, and very low maintenance.
For example, we were hanging out watching a movie one night when I got a text from a friend (a female friend) asking me out to a movie. I'm not sure if she was asking me "out," but it certainly seemed that way. I, stupidly - at least I thought, showed her the text and she was really happy I was honest with her and she was with a "wanted" man. Other women I've been with would have probably burned my house down after cutting off...well, let's just say important parts of my body.
That being said, she's still not "wowing" me. I think this is a byproduct of my past experiences in Anchorage. It's not as if I liked drama - far, far, far, far (did I mention how far?) from it, but through all my experiences I've trained myself not to get excited about a new relationship anymore. I can remember when I would talk about a good night kiss for days after a first date. Everyone knows that phase - the honeymoon phase - of a relationship, and then if it sticks you settle into a more normal phase. Well, with The Blockbuster I've skipped the honeymoon phase and landed squarely in the normal phase because the normal phase was dominated by my suspicion she would inevitably turn out crazy. All told, I'm filing this under "good problems to have."
Now for the random thoughts...
As you might have picked up by earlier posts I work for the Air Force. I recently got a new job where I'm partially in charge of setting some new areas on base and I've discovered a few things...
First - I've learned new things about the universe. While I've been setting up these new spaces I've been reading A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking. It's extremely nerdy, but very enlightening. One thing I'm getting from the book is that nothing is constant. First people thought that motion was constant, but it's really relative. Even time isn't constant according to experimentation. If you look at quantum theory it looks like nothing is really settled at all.
However, I have found the one constant in the universe - the bureaucratic mentality.
While I've been reading the aforementioned book I've also been making several, several calls to several base agencies. To get systems, for example, a form needs to be signed by a guy at Hickam AFB then go to another guy down the hall, but in a different organization, at Hickam AFB and then come back to our base so the comm person can start building our systems. Now, when asked if it would help if we called the people at Hickam the sergeant gave me a very emphatic no as it would get him in trouble for bothering the people he needed to sign the sheets he needed.
In another case one agency certified an area as good to go with official forms without talking to another agency that they needed to check with. When the second agency refused to fix the problem they should have fixed weeks earlier (hence the certification) it took four hours of e-mails from multiple people and calls to get... a fully functional area? No. A fully operational certification? No. A million dollars? No. No, what we got was a sheet of paper from that agency saying we were okay and they would respond if we needed help, but the real utility for that is getting us the second sheet of paper which is only good for getting us the third sheet of paper in the above paragraph that is sitting at Hickam AFB.
The last example was when I called a meeting because one project I'm running requires four separate groups to work together to make it happen. Another squadron had the same exact project - I don't mean similar, I mean exactly the same and they are already more than a month late than the already delayed project completion date. Every single one of these groups have already had delays in the previous project, but despite their own experiences it took me 45 minutes to explain to these people why they had to take a half hour of their time to get on the same page and avoid delays from our end. For the record, if you didn't catch that, I took more time explaining the meeting to get them to go than it would have taken them to read my e-mail and just show up.
Are you still following me?
If you still are, good, you may have a future as a civil servant. If not, you still have enough brain cells to make a contribution to society so please, please, for the good of humanity stay away from any job with government - especially the armed services.
My theory on this is called "Bosses vs Customers." Everyone in the Air Force is now a customer at some point. They are a "customer" of Finance, a "customer" of the MPF (Military Personnel Flight), a "customer" of comm. I have had the joy, however, of working in organizations in the Air Force that still had some of this organic capability with the squadrons (they were almost all centralized to save manpower and many of their duties are now "additional duties" by untrained squadron personnel). For example, in my last job we had comm folks. If anything went wrong I could go and have them fix it. They also had to report to a "boss" every morning at 9 AM about current projects. In a word, they were accountable. When you have customers you're really not accountable to them. They don't write your performance reviews, they can't punish you, and they aren't there day after day to make sure you get your job done. So when I go to all these people to get things done now I'm a customer - they don't have to answer to me or my boss - they have to answer to their boss. When you run an organization the main concerns are on the health of your particular part of the world - not on what the low ranking lieutenant needs to get oh, I don't know, a flying squadron what it needs to do real missions.
I guess the bottom line is that commanders with real missions: CE building bases, special forces operators doing their thing, SERE folks rescuing people, pilots flying, intelligence gathering and analyzing data, or AOCs running operations had people in their squadrons and organizations to make their bureaucracies work for the warfighters and the direct supporters of the warfighters. Now those folks near the "pointy end of the spear" are doing the jobs directly (additional duties) or forced to deal directly with the bureaucracies that don't have a real interest in helping you specifically. Generally they have jobs to support the rest of the force and take that seriously on a macro level, but on a person to person basis (the micro level) there really is no interest - after all they do have to get their forms signed before they can be any real help.
I guess I'm just ranting here, but I was selected to do a certain job by the Air Force - I wasn't selected for comm, not for personnel, not for security forces, and not for services. However, I'm doing all of those jobs in my new job.
Until next time, I'll be on hold with someone...
AirForceKush, aka, The Arctic Fox
