A movie review

I watched a movie yesterday before I went to bed. It was called August Rush. It was about a musical genus looking for his parents. It was a good movie. Robin Williams play a serious part and does will. The ending was good but one more scene could have made it better. I would give it a 3.5 stars. It would also be better of Keri Russell knew how to play the cello. There were parts where she was not playing the same as what the music was playing. She also did not do the cello rock. Since cellist do not much room to move. Cellist tend to rock around the chair to feel the music. It adds another dimension to the feel of the music. If you ever get a chance to watch Yo-Yo Ma play, watch the rock. So that was my 2 cents. Cheers!



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Listening to: Yo-Yo Ma - Bach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Praeludium
via FoxyTunes

... and then it stood me up like I was hitting a wall.

The wind here is England has been crazy. It is has been like 45knots or more forever. Working around aircraft does not help the situation. Here is a little science/aerospace engineering. When air moves, the particules say in the line of direction unless an object is in it wways. After the air partucle goes up or down, it returns in the same line of travel as if the object was not there. When you squeeze air, like between the ground and the fuselage of an aircraft,the pressure decreases and the speed stays the same. So try to walk under a fuselage with wind blowing at 50mph. It makes it had to walk.

AWANA Games and more fun on a Sunday

This past weekend (March 3) was AWANA Games at RAF Alconbury. It was a great time. The kids played with my camera and they got some shots like this one to the right. Awana Games and Spark-a-Rama is when clubs compete against each other in Awana games like four way tug-of-war. The Games included RAF Alconbury and RAF Fairford. I went to be a line judge but need up playing with the RAF Mildenhall/RAF Lakenheath kids on the bleachers. Since most of the kids knew who I was, it made it interesting. I am still trying to learn the behaviors of kids. I was trying to get them to listen to the presentation of the gospel. They would not listen but hey they did not interrupt it. I got to take what I get right? Besides bad picture of Chaplain Peters, Levi took a picture of his shirt (left). Now to the games, in the Truth and Training club (T&T) part of the games, we had 2 teams. We came first and last. I think we did good. Here is a picture of both teams after the games. The Sparks were next and they did very well. They did get 2nd behind a good Fairford team.

The differnce in Churches

I have always been a guy who likes the designs of buildings. Today, I went to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, the main CoE Cathedral in the City of London. It cost me £10 to get in. I always hate paying to see a church but I realize that having 1.4 million or so visitors every year can do some damage to the church. The details of St. Paul's are unexplainable and everything looks perfect. The pictures on the ceiling are one of a kind. After in awe of the details and see what churches look like back home and in Oklahoma. Where is the detail gone? More churches are going with a contemporary theme. They losses the beautiful craftsmanship. I know that God really does not care about where we worship because we should be worshiping everywhere. It might be the people. It seems that without science, people tend to believe in God and act like his was their king. They believe that God's place of worship should be like the royal palace. What happen to the pictures of what Christians believe? The pictures of Christ death or his birth? What Jesus helping the poor or eating with sinners? One reason I like to tour these cathedrals is to feel the sacredness that is needed to worship God. That awe of coming to the Creator to ask for his direction for our and others lives. I will leave you with lyrics from Matt Redman's Call to Worship and a couple of pictures.

"Come, come let us worship
Come let us recognize what a sacred thing we do
Come, let us bow down"





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Listening to: Matt Redman - Call to Worship
via FoxyTunes

from no work to peeling off a bird

This week is almost over and it was been a hard week work wise. Monday was a normal day at work with some downtime after everything was ready to fly. Tuesday was a harder day. We prepared 11 jets for flight. This is not an easy task. They started to launch out early in the morning also. After a jet came back b/c of an erratic gage, it made the day even longer. That was a 10 hrs day when set and over with. Wednesday morning prove to continue the trend with an 8 hrs tire & brake change. It started with our AGE driver not able to get our AGE equipment to us until like 0130hrs. Then the axle jack was broken. It would be nearly 2 hrs to get another axle jack from the other side of base. SO! Around 0400hrs the tire/brake change started to go. Everything went smoothly with a hiccup with documentation, another 10 hr day. Thursday night I did something that I have never done before. I cleaned off a bird that decided to fly into my airplane. And the bird lost to the INBD tailing edge flap OTBD jack screw (and no one knows where that is). There quite a bit of blood on the connection point where the jack screw attaches to flap. There was some splatter on the aileron. But in the end, I found out that 2 Chaplains I have been able to know have received a line number for Major or O-4. So when you are praying, please give God the praise for Chap. Peters and Chap. Thornton.

Update: I looked at the list and found another Chaplain that I now from Tinker that also made Major.

The Air Force has chosen to destroy America

The Air Force has chosen a new tanker to replace the KC-135, which is what I work. The new model of the 135 is from 1963. The need is great. Some might remember a couple of years ago when Boeing hired at DoD employee if she had Boeing win the contract. That forced the AF to reopen the contract. Northrop Grumman won the new contract and will be using the Airbus A330. How does this destroy America, you ask? It is the money. Airbus is a foreign company. Some of that $40 Billion contract will go to European economy that growing and does not look like it will stop. As the dollar falls to the rest of the world, The AF has decided to send more money to Europe increasing their economy. Airbus has said that they will be built in Mississippi, but the parts are to made in Europe and shipped across. Boeing was the favorite is a US company that deals with only US sub-contractors. They would provide more jobs in the US than Airbus. Northrop Grumman does not built planes but is the US company that is sponsoring Airbus for the deal.

If I could sleep, I would work better.

This week has been a challenge to say the least. Sleep was the issue of the week and lack and quality was the problems. This week I was taking like 3 hrs nap and then wake up wide wake. Thenv3 or 4 hrs later I was died tired. That is a problem when I wake 2 hrs prior to work then try to work 10-12hrs. It had it even harder to stay wake during a fuel load. A lot of extra gas, like 2000 or more pounds of fuel, requires at least 30 extra mins of work. When it comes to inspections, I tend to miss stuff because I can not focus on the area of inspection. I usually do up-stairs so the person downstairs can do a double inspection. A double inspection is when 2 or more inspections are done at the same time. The bad part of the week started Wednesday. I went to bed at 1000hrs and woke up at 1300. SInce I have to go to AWANA, I stayed up. I went to work at 2300hrs. I have been up for 10 hrs on 3 hrs of sleep, I also worked all shift. Went to my 0900 hrs appointment, at that time I have been up for 20hrs. I meet with the Chaplain and then the PMOC lunch that ended at 1300hrs. I went to bed to only wake up 3.5hrs later to attend the Annual 100th ARW Award Banquet. Which lasted till 2130. I would go to work and by God's Grace the work load was none and I was able to get a CB and go home at 0400hrs. I was in bed by 0500hrs. Since then I have sleep 12hrs in 24hrs. I finally feel refresh just in time to attend AWANA games in RAF Alconbury. I will take pictures of all enjoyment.