Casa de Blackstar is taking shape

I am still stuck up in ABQ so my awesome agent Andy has been taking pictures of the new house and emailing them to me so I can track the progress from afar. I don't need to say much, I think the pictures are self explainatory.

Just before putting the roof on

Roof is on

From left to right: front door into great room, den, 2nd bath, 3rd bedroom and garage

Da garage

Da back: Master on the left and patio on the right

Picture for my brother the contractor

Towards the front from the great room: the den, 2nd bath and 3rd bedroom

Long EZ

Having been a pilot for just over 10 yrs now, I have always wanted to own my own plane. Rewind to El Monte Airport circa 1996, I am training for my pilot’s license. It was a normal day at the field when over the public address system, which broadcasts the control tower’s communications with all aircraft in the airspace in and around the airport, a pilot inbound for landing announced that he was having a problem with the throttle on his airplane. He indicated that he either had to keep the plane’s throttle set either full on or completely off. There was no in between. If he set the throttle to off, the plane’s engine would quit. It is pretty hard to land a plane when the pilot cannot adjust the throttle as needed while flying an approach to landing. If the pilot were to cut the throttle and the engine died, he would have only one shot to make the landing and if he left the throttle on he would be going way too fast to land.

Well, I guess the pilot decided that he would keep the throttle on while doing “S-Turns” on final approach to landing to keep his speed down so when over the runway and the engine was cut off he would be going slowly enough to land.

While looking for the plane on final approach I saw was a small, sleek, jet fighter-looking airplane called a Long EZ and thought, “that’s the airplane I want!”

Fast forward to 2008, and at the prompting of a good friend, I reached out to an owner of one of these planes, who keeps it hanger’d at a local Tucson airport. I sent him an email asking if I could meet him to see his airplane and ask him some questions about it. He emailed me back the next day saying that would be fine with him and to tell him when I would be in town next. I told him that I would be there in a few days and he said to meet him at the airport that weekend. After calling him the night before I would meet him at the airport, he told me that he had room for a passenger for his flight to have lunch at a nearby airport the next day and needless to say I said I would love to ride in the back. You will find some pictures of the Marc’s plane and our flight that day below:

Preflight

Snug fit

Head on

Very fun (and snug)!

Turning final at Eloy

Very cool cloud formation on leeward side of mountain

Same cloud formation shot out over the wing

Marc putting the plane away

Post flight

Casa de Blackstar

So, I told you in my past posts I have been in the market for a home, well almost 2 months ago I signed a contract to have a new home built, yeah! Oh, and in Tucson, yer money goes a bit further than it does in LA.

I chose a model to build based on an already built home of the same model I had seen at another development I had been looking in. (sorry Shannon, I know I shouldn’t use a preposition at the end of a sentence, old habits die hard!) After deciding not to put an offer on a home in that other development, due to a huge flood plan issue, I looked in this much nicer part of town, location, location, location. Not only is it in a nicer part of town but also it is less than 15 miles to the office!

As you will see in the pictures, my development backs up to a mountain range in the Tucson area and the view from my back porch, or the area that will be my porch is amazing. The clincher/confirmation that I made the right choice on this specific development happened as I was leaving the sales office after signing the contract. While I was heading to the car with my agent I spied two guys on their mountain bikes, rolling off a trail-head approximately 100 yards from my driveway, then putting them on top of their car and driving away. Ummmm yeah, I think it is a fit!

Enjoy the photos below, more to come in the next few day, peace….

View from front yard

View from what will be the back patio

The park next to my house

A few of my favorite things....

This nearly year on active duty, away from my civilian job, has provided some really cool experiences like flying around in really cool military helicopters, wearing night vision goggles, shooting really BA guns and stuff, it has kept me super busy. Busy enough to have made more than I spend, way more..... I have been able to purchase a few things that needed replacing like a new laptop, Mac this time but more importantly a new mountain bike!

It could be said I like to ride the bicycle just a little..... and after riding my old mountain bike for more than 12 years I decided to buy a new one. My old mtb frame had actually broken while on a training ride with Chrissy B. in Big Bear (Chrissy, Greg C. and I did an adventure race together) for an adventure race like 8 years ago. Luck would have it that the mechanics at the bike shop at Big Bear Mountain were able to fix the frame (rear derailleur cable braze-on) with 2 zip ties and I was able to not only finish training for and compete in the adventure race, but went on to race the same event the following year and continued to ride the bike with the fix for nearly 4-5 more years! 2 zip ties is all it took, if only those guys knew that their emergency fix would hold for nearly 5 years, hey, it worked why would I replace it. Thanks guys!

I was able to retire the old Balance MTB with the help of a good buddy of mine Guy J. who was upgrading his ride and gave me his old bike (a GT), which was an upgrade for me since it was a full-suspension bike. It was a bit of boat anchor compared to the Balance but it was free.... so it ROCKED as far as I was concerned!

So fast-forward, I am in ABQ at Performance Bike Shop looking for a pair of bike shorts when I started talking the manager (Mike H. who is good Pennsylvania boy like yours truly) about really wanting (not needing, wanting) a new MTB bike. I told him that I have been dreaming about the Specialized Enduro, which is a bike that is a kind of hybrid MTB, both good at cross-country riding and non-technical downhill and freeride riding. Lots of suspension travel but still pretty light weight. Mike say that his store has a bike that is spec'd pretty much the same way as the Specialized but about a 1/2 to 2/3 the price! Well this baby was a beaut! And after calling a couple of west coast Performance Shops we were able to find my size (large) and got it shipped to ABQ and I picked it up. It is a DREAM to ride! When you ride it, it keeps saying very quietly but firmly - "Go FASTER, Go FASTER!"

I have been able to ride it a few times since getting it, on my fav trail in Tucson, Fantasy Island. Fantasy Island is essentially 18 miles of one way, single track, some flat and fast, some twisty and very technical with lots of ups and downs. One this is consistant on the whole 18 miles, cactus all around the trails and mistakes, ie going off the trail can be a bit painful! It is located to the eastern most boundary of Davis-Monthan AFB here in Tucson where my unit is located. Check out a few pics of the bike and the entrance to Fantasy Island trail network.

Where am I and what am I doing?

Gosh, what a difference a year makes….. It’s been a year to the week that I left to move back to Arizona. If you remember, well you don’t really have to remember, just re-read the entries above. In February I went to work for First American Title Company as the Commercial Real Estate Account Manager for Tucson. First American is one of the largest title companies in the country and in Tucson we have the largest market share of title and escrow business. And in the case of the homebuilders market we have a 48% market share! So I started that job in February still not sure whether the Air Force Reserve thing was gonna happen and of course it finally did in April and then things just start happening really fast.

In April, I put the uniform back on for the first time in 15 years and within a month I was on active duty and in San Antonio Texas at Lackland AFB for Basic Flight Engineer School. And here we are nearly a year later I am still on active duty and will be until May ’08.

So come May I jump in the Bronco and drive out to San Antonio for my first military school in 23 years. It is about a 16-18 hour drive, so I did it over 2 days and spent the night in El Paso. Chris Kohn, Tommy Walker’s nephew is always talking about how good the Mexican food is in El Paso, and being the Mexican food lover that I am, I met Chris and his brother when I got to town and they took me out to one of there fav spots in town. Dude, chili con queso!!!! And they also gave me a place to stay for the night and saw me off in the morning. Thanks Chris and Heidi!!!

My first school, Basic Flight Engineer (FE) School, is basically 6-weeks of chart reading, math and taking very difficult tests every week. The main part of the flight engineer’s job is using these crazy hard-to-read charts and some math to determine how fast and far an aircraft can climb and fly at different altitudes and temperatures when it is loaded with such and such amount of cargo, fuel and people. I am not a huge fan of math, but I am a huge fan of flying in cool military aircraft, so “you do the math.” I did pretty well in the Basic FE School and totally stoked when my Mom said she wanted to come from Tucson to San Antonio for my graduation ceremony. I think the best part of the whole time there was having my Mom pin my wings on at the end of the ceremony!

My Basic Flight Engineer Class 

My Diploma and Top Graduate Award

After leaving Lackland AFB I was supposed to have a 5-day break in Tucson before heading off to New Mexico for the next part of my training, but as I was about leave Texas, my boss told me that I would have to squeeze a 3-day trip to Spokane Washington for Underwater Egress Training. This class teaches pilots and other aircrew members like me what to do in the event of a ditching (crashing in the water). If you have seen the movie, think A Perfect Storm, when that helicopter runs out of gas at sea…. Ummmmm, yeah, not much fun. The class was pretty cool, but doing it real world would not be cool at all. Check out the photos and click on a link to see a video of a sample of the blindfolded escape that I had to do from what is called “The Dunker”. If your not comfortable in the water this class would be pretty difficult.

Video of "Dunker" training

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ikn3_xsbSc

So, then I headed back to Tucson to grab the Bronco and head up to Albuquerque’s Kirtland AFB for my next class, Mission Flight Engineer Qualification Training. This is the class where I got to take all the book/ground training I got in Texas and apply it to the helicopter I will be flying in my unit in Tucson, the HH-60G Pave Hawk. At this point I am in month 5 of 6 months of school and when I head back to ABQ after Christmas/New Years break I will have about a months worth of flying to do and I will be done. Cant Wait!

This has proven to be the hardest part of my training so far, actually doing the job in the helicopter. It is very mentally and physically demanding. At Mission Qual we learn all about the different systems of the Pave Hawk, how to accomplish the rescue mission and defend the helicopter in the process. And also learn how to do the all that at night on night vision googles!

Video of H-60 landing as seen thru night vision googles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny2ueQEmkEk 

Essentially my job as a FE in the Pave Hawk is as follows: Preflight: attend a permission brief, do a preflight inspection, load necessary rescue gear, read checklists as the pilot’s start engines and takeoff. During flight the FE reads different checklists, monitor the rate at which we are using fuel, operate the rescue hoist to lift downed pilots and other injured folks, infill and exfill special forces teams (Navy SEALs, Green Berets, etc), operate one of the two crew-served weapons we are normally armed with (see video below) and scan the area around the helicopter to make sure we remain clear of other aircraft and trees and other obstacles when we are landing at remote landing zones. Before landing I read more checklists and after the flight I do a post flight inspection and attend a post flight debrief. All this means that for a 2-4 hour flight I can expect to work about a 9-10 hour day, and that is on the short end.

Videos of the Pave Hawk in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS0o5YO79Z0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrjY8kvem2A&feature=related

Video of the GAU-2 Mini Gun, the gun I man in the helicopter, firing from a helicopter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnKqhNrbrvw

In my flight gear before a night flight

The Pave Hawk

(That is the Flight Engineer in the door hoisting a survivor up to the helicopter)

On other exciting fronts, I am currently in the market for a house in Tucson. Made an offer on a used home back in late November, countered back and forth and it ended not working out. I am now considering making an offer on a new home (not built yet) on the north side of Tucson.

I should be done in New Mexico by the end of January and will head back to Tucson for some final qualifications and combat survival training. I should be finished and fully qualified in May ’08 and have heard I will be heading to Afghanistan in June ’08 returning sometime in Sept ’08. More on that later……

Hope you have enjoyed the update, hope to see you over the Christmas break (I am in LA from Dec 22nd till the 1st of January).

God’s peace and love to all of you this Xmas season!

Long time no see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X70mkwfvd8A

15 years later

I had my first reserve weekend and it felt really great to be back in uniform after 15 years! The guys I will be working with are the best and all seem to really enjoy what they do. As far as jobs in the military go, flying around in helicopters saving people is hard to beat.