Friday Night In The Big Town

Greetings all and welcome to another instalment of my wonderful travels. First a couple notes from past posts. I mentioned that I have been having some technical problems with my computer. Basically the screen in my laptop has taken a header and it looks like it will be down for the count. What I hadn't mentioned is that on the drive down from DC the fan in my car decided it didn't want to play, so I had no AC for the trip and shortly after getting here my iPod froze up severely. Fortunately, I am able to plug my laptop into the TV here to act as a screen and the car and iPod have fixed themselves, but now my e-mail account is currently off line. Hopefully, with the help of my folks this will be fixed soon; but right now I can't send or receive anything. I think a gremlin is after me.

I would also like to mention that as far as I know the bird that tried to occupy the same space as my windshield at the same time is still alive (though he probably had one heck of a headache and he is wanted by the Stephen Hawkings for trying to break one of the laws of physics).

So I promised myself I would not write anything really bad about Alabama for the first week and give it a chance to grow on me. Well it has been two weeks so here we go. I know Gary L. is probably going to call me dirty names since he is currently in Afghanistan (hi Gary, I hope things are well) and no matter how bad Alabama is it is not as bad as Afghanistan. But it's my blog and I'll do as I please. Also, as the saying goes, "A bitching sailor is a happy sailor".

Let's start with a small geography lesson. Dothan is about 2 hours south-southeast of Montgomery, Al, 1 1/2 hours north of Panama City, Fl, 3 1/2 hours southwest of Macon, Ga and 2 3/4 hours northeast of Pensacola, Fl. So this means that Dothan is, as far as America goes, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Now Ft Rucker is not actually in Dothan. It is located in Dalevile which is a small town 18 miles northwest of Dothan. So when I got here and checked into my room on Ft Rucker I was actually in a suburb of the middle of nowhere. Fortunately I have been able to move to to the Residents Inn in Dothan. It may not be much but it is the Big Town in the area.

This is not to say there isn't anything in this area. There just isn't much. Ft Rucker is the home of Army Aviation (like Pensacola if the cradle of Naval Aviation) and houses the Army Museum of Aviation. I have yet to make it there, but plan on doing it this weekend so you can look forward to that report soon.

Also, Dothan is the home of the National Peanut Festival (bet you didn't know we, as a nation, had a Peanut Festival). Not only do they have a festival, but they also have a pageant (I would like to congratulate Ms. Shannon Alicia Hatcher of Jackson County, this year's winner). Honestly the only issue I have with this is they preempted the last 10 minutes of the OU/Kansas game to broadcast the pageant; not a good way to endear yourself to me. Anyway you can expect reports on the parade and demolition derby in the future as well.

As for the reason I am here, the C-12 training continues along well. The program is designed for someone who is already qualified in a multi-engine fixed wing aircraft and since it has been 11 years since I last flew a fixed wing aircraft and it only had one engine, it has been interesting. Kind of like taking a drink from a fire hose. But I had my fifth simulator today, with a couple more next week and I should be flying in the actual plane on Wednesday. I will have the obligatory picture of me with the plane later.

Well that is all for the moment. I hope everything is good for all of you. As always I look forward to your comments and if you can't be good, or be good at it.