Does this make sense?

I'm confused, the weather forecast for Thursday is Strong storms, high of 72, it slowly gets sunny again and on sunday its mostly sunny with a high of 61. I'm still trying to get used to this mad mad world.

Military vs. Civilians in Military positions

OK, recent events this week have led me to ponder on the governments decision to contract military positions to civilians. Basically, what happens is certain jobs which were once done by military personell have been sold to companies who send there own people in to do the same job, simple concept, apparently cost efficient and it frees up deployable enlistees to work jobs which are needed on the frontline. This way the Air Force saves money by not having to recruit and train so many people and has a larger force to send to the sandbox. Sounds good especially in time of war but problems do arise. First off, all the civilians doing these jobs were trained for it by the military and have retired or didn't extend their contracts. Therefor the AF is still paying for the training of these people. NOt a big deal though, the goals are still met by this 'outsourcing'.
However, the factor which probably wasn't considered when implementing this new plan was this. Most of these civilians (and this is what many have told me), they got out of the military because they hated it. For what specific reason I'm not sure, but employees who hate the organization they are contracted to doesn't seem like a good thing to me. The thing is, while doing these jobs, being in the military, we are held to strict rules and procedures, and "Technical Orders" which we have to follow word for word, step by step. If we don't we could even go to jail. Say I weren't to tighten a bolt tight enough and there was an engine malfunction costing a million dollars of damage or even death, held under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (Fascist Law), I could very easily spend some time in Ft Leavenworth. Because of this, these things don't happen. Being in the military, we take the painful, seemingly pointless steps and procedures to follow orders, its what we do, be a puppet.
NOw here's the problem, civilians, although they follow the same procedures, are a bit more 'laxed' when it comes to things. They don't really do things under strict accordance to policy like we do. They may maintain the appearance they do but they suffered under this long enough, and now as civilians, are able to get away with a lot more and can be lazier than a regular military member...and yes, the military does spawn many lazy not caring about SH*% people.
Anyways, this is what happened to provoke this blog. Earlier this week we recieved a call asking for help taking two engines off a plane in AISO (where the civs work). We have our own work but were slow so a few of us went to help. It's a simple job, disconnect this and that, attach a crane and down it goes. We get there and start disconnecting things, only to find out they don't have the proper tools to pull the engine off and are scurrying around base like the rats they are trying to find a kit from a military unit. Problem is, the kits these units have are used in the desert, where we do this job and they are unable to find one. Then we find out they were just incompetent and lost the keys to the kit which was needed. Instead of just cutting the lock off, they malingered forever, holding us there doing nothing, until they decided they could pull 3 locks out their, you know what, to replace the ones cut. We finally get everything together and drop the 1st engine. This has been 6 hrs now for something which should've taken 1 at the most. My shift is over so I go home while our swingshift comes over to take our place.
I'll sum this up quick, basically I get to work the next day to find out we put the new engine back on, only to find out the civies didn't do a simple inspection, which was the reason for the engine drop, and they had to take it off again and put it back up, taking them away for their whole shift. Then our midshift comes on and finishes connecting the cannon plugs. ONly to find out that the civies didn't account for their tools and was missing a socket. Now this is huge, tool accountability is the biggest thing stressed for preventing damage to engines when they are running. Long story short, the plane is now grounded, no work able to be done on it until this tool is found. All day today and it still was missing. Their lack of responsibility, caring, good work ethics, etc wasted ALOT of man power and money.
This happens a lot, now tell me, is it smart to use civilians to do a job that we could do 10 times better? It's not like they pay us much anyways!

Alright, I finally got internet set up in my room so access to the web is a bit more convenient now. Don't know what to write about exactly so I think I will start to tell you about where I am with pics included so y'all can get a feel for my surroundings. There are a bunch of water inlets everywhere from the ocean, expensive homes and docks cover all the shores, everywhere you drive around the coast you're taking bridges to get to different sounds or whatever. The sand is white, the water is clear and warm and just a different style of ocean and beaches than we are used to back in Cali. Lots of jelly fish in the water and washed up on shore, many varieties of sharks, fish, and sting rays in the water. Inland, we have gators, water mocassins and BANANA SPIDERS. This freaks me out a lil cuz where the mtn bike trails are, the spiders are to. I can stand lots of creepy creatures, but not spiders, I hate them and they freak me out more than anything. So lets just say I'm not looking forward to riding in the shadowy woods and running into a banana spiders hanging out in its web crossing the trail. The people here, except for military, are definatley southerners, this is Southern Alabama after all so you can imagine the type of people. Fortunatley, and I hate to say this, but the military presence is strong and provides a good level of "normal" people.

On a different note, be sure to check out the TV show 'Future Weapons'. I think its on the discovery channel. They were here shooting footage on my units planes. So if you're curious what it looks like on the flight line where I work, keep watching and you'll see the same planes I work on, the same place where I do the work. It's supposed to be out in about 6 weeks, end of March maybe. Just look and listen for AC-130 Gunships, the most feared and relied upon destructive force in the US MILITARY!!!! (Mondays at 2100, not sure for different time zones though)

I've gone and done it

So finally I bought a truck. 95 Chevy 4x4, 5 speed, v8. I'm happy, it took a lil to get used to driving the manual based on the transition from dads g35 to a full size p/u. A little different to say the least, but it's no problem now. I was planning on writing more tonight, but sadly my mind is just blank to anything that might be worth writing about now...give me a few more days and I'll see what I can dish out.