Phase I Complete

You know how they say "time flies when you're having fun"? Well, that has definitely been the case over the past six weeks for me...I can't believe we hit the flightline this coming Tuesday already! I'm ready to hit the ground running with our Dollar Rides either Wednesday or Thursday. I'll explain more about dollar rides in my Phase II section.

Anyway, the past couple weeks have been in a lot of ways uneventful, and that's why I didn't post an update last weekend. We've been doing the regular routine of classes, working on our cockpit flow in the CFTs and preparing as best we can for the flightline. Academics is still going very well since I was able to keep the 100% test average alive with a 100% on our T-37 systems test earlier this week. We're now in Basic Instruments, which is taking all of us a little more time to grasp. It's not that hard to understand, but there's a lot of things that could get confused if you're not too careful. I've been able to crasp the concepts (key word) pretty quick, so it should be all good come test time. We have that test Tuesday morning at 0700 before we report to the Spaatz flight room at 0905. The reason I say "concepts" is a key word is because it cuts out of a lot time just trying to memorize facts or info you don't really understand. If you get what's going on behind the words, you're that much farther ahead and can apply the "concepts" to a bunch of different questions and scenarios. I guess that's the engineer in me though...at least I'm using something from those four hard years.
Besides the classwork and regular academic stuff, we did have a chance to get some lessons on the game CRUD. Now, for those of you in the military or those who've been around it, you know the game. It's a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. First of all, the game is played with just two pool balls...the cue ball and a target ball. No cue sticks are used either because the cue ball is aimed and thrown at the target ball with your hand. The object of the game is to keep the target ball from rolling by only using the cue ball, or hit the target ball in one of the corner pockets using the cue ball. The tough thing is the cue ball can only be thrown from the ends of the table and you have to do this with an opponent from the other team trying to block and push you. The game is played on either a CRUD table or pool table, whichever is available, and the CRUD tables are much bigger with only have corner pockets to hit the target ball in. There are two teams of 5 to 6 on average who play against each other. I know most of you are really confused right now, so I'll leave it at that...if you want to know more about it find a friend who knows how to play and have them show you.