Friday, March 2, 2012

What happened to the good ole days?

What happened to humor like this?

Don't get me wrong, I do love the humor in shows like Modern Family, but what happened to the good ole days of I Love Lucy? She's a character.

(Ignore the Russian subtitles...)

Do you pop out at parties?
Are you unpoopular?
Well, are you?!
Everybody get a bottle of ......... this stuff. 

(: 
Good, classic humor. Love it. 

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Pilot humor

Bradley received this in an email.  Ohhhh, pilot humor...

Fighter Pilot

An aspiring young man wanted to become a pilot ... a fighter pilot. He sent an email to the USAF making the following enquiry.

The response is instructive probably applying to some airline jobs ... especially a few freight dog jobs that see misfit pilots flying all over the world.

Student Email Letter:

I am D. J. Baker and I would appreciate it if you could tell me what it takes to be an F-16 fighter pilot in the USAF.

What classes should I take in high school to help the career I want to take later in life?

What could I do to get into the Air Force Academy?

Sincerely,

DJ Baker

From: Van Wickler, Kenneth, Lt Col HQ AETC

Anybody in our outfit want to help this poor kid from Cyberspace?

LTC Wickler

Reply:

A worldly and jaded C 130 pilot, Lt Col Jim Smith, rises to the task of answering the young man's letter.

Dear DJ,

Obviously, through no fault of your own, your young, impressionable brain has been poisoned by the superfluous, hyped-up, "Top Gun" media portrayal of fighter pilots.

Unfortunately, this portrayal could not be further from the truth. In my experience, I've found most fighter pilots pompous, backstabbing, momma's boys with inferiority complexes, as well as being extremely over-rated aeronautically. However, rather than dash your budding dreams of becoming a USAF pilot, I offer the following alternative:

What you really want to aspire to is the exciting, challenging and rewarding world of TACTICAL AIRLIFT. And this, young DJ, means one thing, the venerable workhorse, the C-130! I can guarantee no fighter pilot can brag that he has led a 12-ship formation down a valley at 300 feet above the ground, with the navigator leading the way and trying to interpret an alternate route to the drop zone, avoiding pop-up threats, and coordinating with AWACS, all while eating a box lunch with the engineer in the back relieving himself and the loadmaster puking in his trash can!

I tell you DJ, TAC Airlift is where it's at! Where else is it legal to throw tanks, HUMV's, and other crap out the back of an airplane, and not even worry about it when the chute doesn't open and it torpedoes the General's staff car! Nowhere else can you land on a 3000 foot dirt strip, kick a bunch of ammo and stuff out on the ramp without stopping, then takeoff again before range control can call to tell you that you've landed on the wrong LZ! And talk about exotic travel; when C-130s go somewhere, they GO somewhere (usually for 3 months, unfortunately). This gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in the local culture long enough to give the locals a bad taste in their mouths regarding the USAF and Americans in general, not something those C-141 Stratolifter pilots can do from their airport hotel rooms!

As far as recommendations for your course of study, I offer these:

1. Take a lot of math courses. You'll need all the advanced math skills you can muster to enable you to calculate per diem rates around the world, and when trying to split up the crew's bar tab so that the co-pilot really believes he owes 85% of the whole thing and the navigator believes he owes the other 20%.

2. Health sciences are important, too. You will need a thorough knowledge of biology to make those educated guesses of how much longer you can drink beer before the tremendous case of the G.I.'s catches up to you from that meal you ate at the place that had the really good belly dancers in some God-forsaken foreign country whose name you can't even pronounce.

3. Social studies are also beneficial. It is important for a good TAC Airlifter to have the cultural knowledge to be able to ascertain the exact location of the nearest topless bar in any country in the world, then be able to convince the local authorities to release the loadmaster after he offends every sensibility of the local religion and culture.

4. A foreign language is helpful but not required. You will never be able to pronounce the names of the Navaids in France, and it's much easier to ignore them and to go where you want to anyway. As a rule of thumb: waiters and bellhops in France are always called "Pierre", in Spain it's "Hey, Pedro" and in Italy, of course, it's "Mario". These terms of address also serve in other countries interchangeably, depending on the level of suaveness of the addressee.

5. A study of geography is paramount. You will need to know the basic location of all the places you've been when you get back from your TDY and are ready to stick those little pins in that huge world map you've got taped to your living room wall, right next to the giant wooden giraffe statue and beer stein collection.

Well, DJ, I hope this little note inspires you. And by the way, forget about the Academy thing. All TAC Airlifters know that there are waaay too few women and too little alcohol there to provide a well-balanced education. A nice, big state college or the Naval Academy would be a much better choice.

Jim Smith
Lt Col USAF

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

and the winner is...

Brads assignment night has been on our minds since day 1 of pilot training (and on his mind since, well, his birth). The day grew closer, but the wait grew longer.

All his hard work. All this effort. All his energy. Day in, day out. 371 days of pilot training. Countless hours in the squadron - studying, preparing, daydreaming. Numerous flights in the T-6 and T-44. Cancelled flights, cross-country flights, out-and-back flights, all leading up to this day...

Assignment Night.

Imagine his excitement when we arrived at the base, he entered the room to make his selection and his number one choice was written right there on the list. Waiting for him to snatch it up. It was all his.

I present...

The plane...

That Bradley..

Will be flying...

C130J's!


He is completely ecstatic, WE are completely ecstatic. We will be PCSing to Little Rock AFB, Arkansas for training and also as our first duty station. 

Next up - Brads Winging Ceremony on March 9. We are anticipating our families arrival and looking forward to celebrating Bradley's amazing accomplishments. 

Watch out world - you can't stop him! 


Friday, February 17, 2012

Lately


Lately around the Breedlove household, we have:

Received awesome, loving, thoughtful gifts from our husband. 

Played cards at the SDO Shack while Brad sat watch. 

Passed out goodies bags at a weekend event for work. 

Chewed on Christmas present from Aunt Jenna.

Played cards with friends.

Hid under the covers when we didn't want to get out of bed. 

Made wishes with indecisive wishbones.

Visited the hospital. 

Shared carrot cake with PaPa and NaNa. 

Flown commercially. 

Found inspiration.

Celebrated Valentine's Day. 

Made a fire inside our charcoal grill. 

Had lunch on the beach at the first sight of spring. 

Had a date night painting session. 

Built forts. 

Life is wonderful. <3


Sunday, January 22, 2012

T-44s

How stinking' cute are these?







It's a T-44, hand knit by a woman here in Corpus. Her husband is an instructor and she makes these airplanes and sells them - she calls them Stuffed Squadrons. Adorable! I picked mine up from her last week and am so impressed. She makes other model planes, too. When Brad wings, we will get his assignment plane in a Stuffed Squadron. :)

Plus, she wraps them in a cute bag with a tulle bow. I fell in love. I kept putting it back in the bag and taking it out again. Brad just laughed at me.



You should check her etsy site out here.



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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

.a quote for the day.

I stumbled upon this tonight as I was finally updating the blog. I wrote this back in November and it's incredible how much has changed - even in two months.

Also, how perfect is it that it is a Martin Luther King quote. Seriously, sometimes timing is everything.



Written November 13, 2011 at 10:21 AM:

I happened upon this quote today and couldn't find it more true -

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent." Martin Luther King, Jr. 

So many great points in a single quote.  

I apply this to our life right now. The struggle of my employment, the fact that we have a potential financial boulder coming at us head on. Changing our situation isn't just going to be handed to us. We have to struggle a little to get back up, but I refuse to hang my head low and mope around about it.

I will win this one. 

The end.  

---------------------------------


Update:
Shortly after writing this I interviewed and was hired for a position with State Farm, our financial boulder was investing in a new-to-us truck, and yet we are doing just fine. Imagine that. (: 

Friday, December 30, 2011

Christmas 2011

For Christmas, PaPa and NaNa came down to spend the weekend with us. We had a fabulous time. We watched movies, told stories, made cookies, opened presents, and more importantly, we made WONDERFUL memories.




We celebrated Christmas by waking up and opening gifts, eating a delicious homemade breakfast and then playing with our new toys santa brought.

For breakfast, PaPa and NaNa made homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. It was delicious!

Santa brought NaNa a 8x10 picture, he brought PaPa a new magnetic light for his garage, and Zulu a HUGE rawhide.




Brad got a 3-ton jack, a creeper for the garage and new jack stand.




Dani got an iPad. I think Santa spoiled all of us rotten, but especially me. I love my new toy and take it everywhere. In fact, I might even have to start blogging more. Now there is no excuse. :)

Zulu really warmed up to PaPa and NaNa this trip. Especially NaNa because she was here every morning when she woke up. She followed her around everywhere, tried to get in the shower with her and cuddled with her every time NaNa sat down.










Zulu sharing her bone with PaPa!

We had a fantastic holiday and feel very blessed to have shared it with family. How wonderful it was to have PaPa and NaNa want to spend the holiday with us. We enjoyed their company more than they will ever know.

Merry Christmas!



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