Into the wild blue yonder

I got there early, as soon as the gates opened at 10:00.  Traffic was not bad then and we were directed to follow the signs to a parking area that I'm really familiar with, the one in front of the C-5 building.  Got parked pretty easily and I was on the third bus to the flight line.  No wait whatsoever.  The bus was nice and air conditioned with comfy padded seats on both sides.  Happy girl.

Once inside the air show, I walked around and took a few pictures and then made my way down to the runway to get a good place to sit.  There were already thousands of people there!  I had my water, my sunscreen, my ear plugs, my umbrella to keep the sun off me and my camera.  Here are a few pictures from my day!

As soon as I got good and settled, the shoes came off!

The crowd sitting around me!

 They played the National Anthem right here and it was quite moving, to say the least.  My emotions surprised me.

I really liked how this picture turned out!  These two pilots were amazing.  One big plane, one little plane and they were in perfect sync with each other.  

I pretty much sat there the whole time with my mouth hanging open.

 The F-22 Raptor and P-51 Mustang

I had to take a few pics of the patches for my Larry!  I thought this one was pretty dang hilarious.  I still haven't figured out if it's the vet or his wife (or both!) who's dysfunctional.  :)

This is the biggest oxymoron I've seen yet.  :(

I left around 1:30.  Didn't even stay for the Blue Angels.  It was just SO hot and despite the sunscreen, I could feel my skin burning.  I know my limitations with my creamy white skin that does NOT tan.  And there were so many people but I never did run into any of my friends so I decided that 3 1/2 hours was enough.

I came home, took a shower and watched the Angels from my backyard.  :)  It was a great day!

 

Hi nonny nonny and a ha cha cha!

I still sing Spanky's little song on Saturdays sometimes...  :)



Since my sweet hubby is nursing a bad case of food poisoning, I'm flying solo this weekend.  I think he's got salmonella from some bad (or undercooked) chicken.  He was pretty sick when I talked to him last night.  Poor baby.  There's not much you can do about food poisoning but if he was here, I could at least take care of him.  But if he was HERE, he wouldn't have eaten no bad chicken!!  Argh.  It won't be long now, though.

So I slept in this morning, which, by the way, means something different to me than it did two months ago.  I've gotten used to getting up at 4:30 so now sleeping in to me means 10:00.  Two months ago, it meant 1:00!  :)

I had planned to jump on my housework right away and then go buy groceries.  When I finally pulled myself away from Facebook at 1:00, half the day was gone!  Oh, Facebook, I wish I knew how to quit you.  Anyway, I got the laundry done and the floors mopped, the entire place dusted and scrubbed down and vacuumed.  Feels a lot better now.  And smells a little like blackberries.  Hmmmm.

I went to the store and got some food for the next couple of weeks.  I've been taking Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers frozen meals for lunch (and, yes, eatin' them biscuits at morning break, shut up) so I got ten of them and two cases of Lipton diet green tea that I absolutely LOVE OHMYGOD and some other things.

I made this simple salad for supper.  Sliced tomatoes and avocados, salt and pepper and some homemade lime dressing (balsamic vinegar, olive oil and the juice of one lime).  It was amazing!!  If you like 'maters and avocados and I DO.

I'm planning to go to the air show tomorrow at the base.  Everybody on Facebook today was fussin' about the long lines to get on the bus to get out to the flight line.  There are only four parking lots they're letting us park in and you have to have your ID to even get on base.  They're trying to get everybody to park off base and ride the bus.  Parking is limited for us during the day at work!  I know it's a nightmare with 25,000 people trying to get there this weekend.  It's gonna be an adventure.  :)  I'm taking my sunscreen and my ear plugs, my camera and my patience.  Stay tuned...

Stand up for your right to be a tree!

I opened the patio door blind this morning and saw this.  A huge limb that has fallen and STOOD UP in the process.  That is SO funny!  You don't see that every day.  A limb standing up for his right to be a tree.  Even our trees have hippie hearts.  :)

Friday night confessions

I had a pretty amazing week, long, exhausting but amazing all the same.  Yesterday afternoon, I got to watch the Blue Angels practice for this weekend's air show and that was pretty dang awesome.  They looked like they didn't need no practice to me!

Some confessions for the week:

The biscuits on the morning break truck at work are of the debil.  I have to stop eating them.  Bacon, sausage, egg, cheese, butter and jelly.  The DEBIL.

I may or may not have spent $61 at Target today on absolutely nothing.  It feels good to be in the milk and honey again.  :)

Against my better judgement, I might have to watch "Celebrity Apprentice" Sunday night just to hear Clay Aiken say, "I'm a grown ass man."  Bwah!

For the first time in a lonnnnng time, my house did not get cleaned this week.  And the walls are still up and the roof's still on.  Imagine that.

The pantry, on the other hand, did indeed get a cleaning.  I was looking for chocolate.  And there was none.  :(

Happy Weekend!

Lovin' on the earth

Larry and I both wondered out loud today if anybody even knew it was Earth Day, if they were even aware that there was a day set aside to make commitments to take better care of the earth, to try to reverse some of what we've done to her.

There are so many things we can do!  You can start small if it feels overwhelming and just do things that affect your immediate surroundings.  You WILL make a difference!

Here are five super easy things you can do!

Turn off the lights when you leave the room.  I know your daddy told you this when you were a kid!  Mine sure did.  He'd go behind us if we forgot.  It helps more than just the light bill!

Eat PB&J for lunch!  Just replacing one meaty meal with a plant-based one will save about 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.  That's about half the carbon you would save by driving a hybrid car that day!  Y'all, that's huge.

Unplug your cell phone charger when you're not charging your phone.  It's still using electricity if it's plugged in.

Next time you buy light bulbs for your home, get the compact fluorescent ones.  They use a fraction of the electricity that regular, incandescent bulbs use.

Pick up trash when you see it!  And before you throw something away, ask yourself, "can I reuse this?" and use it again if you can!

Think of Earth Day as Mother Earth's birthday.  You wouldn't celebrate a friend's birthday and then ignore her the rest of the year.  You would love her and talk to her and take care of her if she was sick and laugh with her all year long.

So as soon as we get past this next little cold snap that's coming (crazy Georgia weather!), plant some flowers, plant some 'maters, plant a tree if you can.  And eat PB&J like you did when you were a kid.  I promise, you will feel the difference you're making!

Earth911

I just discovered this web site and I LOVE it!!  Tomorrow is Earth Day and this site has lots of great information about how far we've come since the first Earth Day, 42 years ago.  We still have a long way to go.

I try to do my part to protect the earth every day not just every April 22nd.  Now that I'm working at RAFB, I have even more opportunities to recycle paper and plastic and I take full advantage of that!  I wash my clothes in cold water and never leave my water running when I'm brushing my teeth.  I don't use paper towels or table napkins (thanks, Brandy!).  I buy local produce whenever possible and I compost most everything I can't eat.  I keep my garbage down to one bag a week and most weeks, it's half full.

I found this photo at Earth911 and I thought it was really hilarious.  It's the ONLY memory I have of the Atlanta Pop Festival!  I've always said all I could remember about being there was seeing trash on the ground.  

 Recyclable waste litters the ground at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival. Photo: Flickr/ejmc

Not bad for a 3-year-old's memory, huh??  

Safety is for girls

First of all, I just wanna say I freakin' HATE the bump cap.  I wore it all week and I bumped my head more this week than I've ever bumped my head IN MY LIFE.  Grrrrr. And hiss.

Yesterday, I was working in the hydraulic bay and I had to clamp some wires up in a really tight spot and I could not get my loggerhead up in there.  No matter what I did, no matter which way I ducked and dodged, I hit my head.  So I took it off, took care of the clamp and then put it back on.  Such the rebel I am.

Something that's supposed to make you safer but just ends up hurting you, I say, "boot to the head!".  Heavy 20-pound steel-toe boot to the head.  :)

BTW, those boots??  Still in my locker.  They're in an extended time-out.

On Friday afternoons, we have a VPP meeting in the breakroom.  Voluntary Protection Programs works with management, workers and OSHA to keep you safe and not dead at work.  I'm very interested in VPP and have been going to the meetings every Friday.  Even though it's kind of a dirty word with my coworkers.  They look at safety as a hassle and VPP participants as narcs.  It's a pain to have safe platforms to work on, it's a pain to wear the bump caps (now I agree with that one!), it's a pain to follow the load max requirements on maintenance stands.  I want all the safety I can get!  I am in a foreign country where I don't speak the language. I've never had a job where I had to be careful or I would get hurt or a job where I could DIE.  Well, the old days when I was making $500 loans in Americus, maybe.  :)  My point is I need to feel safe until I'm comfortable in my new environment.  I'm going to continue to go to those meetings and be active in VPP so I can know what's going on and be able to keep myself safe and the people around me safe.  

I'm really not surprised that I'm interested in something that everybody else thinks is stupid.  That's the story of my life.  And just because I'm working for The Man now doesn't mean I'm not still ME.  I'm still that same counterculture chick I've always been.  ;)  I even got a VPP t-shirt yesterday.  Hee hee.