We had a hump from the geothermal guys and after it was filled in the guy said the hump will probably sink so he left a pile of dirt for us to fill in the low spots.

I might get above freezing today. At least it is sunny. I get to wait to hear back on my draft today. Yeah. :(

hearing back on the draft is better than being drafted.

Yeah, I got drafted to write the draft yesterday. But, that is better than being drafted in the "draft". I bet Glen likes things that come from a draft.

Don't you draft all day?

It’s my day to wait for someone to work on the utilities. A month ago, some women drove through my front yard (the strip between the sidewalk and the curb). Mowed down a palm tree and a few shrubs. She also partially crushed the Cox cable box. I hope the Cox tech shows up and replaces the mangled box.

I simply get paid to draw pictures. So maybe a cartoon engineer?

My company pays my partner and I with a "draw" not a draft. I am not sure the difference but that is the term my bank, and CPA use. I can initiate a draw whenever I want. Just gotta leave the money in the bank to pay the bills. We take draws as needed.

Back in the olden days I had a draft card. My lottery number was 6. And I was classed 1A. 10 days before I had to enlist or get drafted they stopped the draft. At the time, I was busy working, and did not want to join the Air Force as a grunt. If old geezer Glen of today could go back and give young and dumb Glen advice, I would have told him to join up and get that life experience.

Too late now.

I had an low draft number, too. I joined the Navy before I was drafted. I actually stayed in the Navy for 6 years. The cruises were good, but not good enough to make a full blown career out of it.

Well, you did cruise on a tin can.

I was to young for the draft and was deemed not physically able to join later.

I was born during most of that so I missed out. Wanted to be a military pilot but they all told me no because of my eyes. Then, after I was married, the Army relaxed their requirements and I could have flown rotorcraft for them.

By the time I came along they were not drafting no more, but they came thru my senior year in HS and made all the guys take a ASVAB test, Armed Services Vocaitional Aptitude Battery. I aced it. Max points possible. Got called recruiters from every branch until I turned 20. Told them all the same thing, If they would give me the equivalent of the GI Bill to get a degree I would sign up. Nobody could promise that so I passed.

Bob was in the Air Force when I was borned. Tom joined the Marines after HS, George did the same and was going to Viet Nam as Tom was coming home.

I used the GI bill to help pay my way through college. Thanks Uncle Sam!

The only thing I aced at that age was the flying stuff in college. In order to get into the program they had you do an aptitude test on the simulator. Not a very good one, this was 1987. While most students are doing basic turns and learning the stack, they had me doing precision ILS approaches. They kept asking if I had ever piloted a plane before and I kept saying no. I was the first to solo and the first to get my private that year. Would have gotten my private sooner, but the regulations say you need 40 hours. Had a great flight instructor and he was always messing with me with the "recovery from unusual attitudes" bit VFR and under the hood. I miss ole 5323M and looking up at the ground recovering from cross control stalls. Was asked to be on the flight team but alas, I was not a good student in my other classes nor did I have the finances to pay for plane rental on top of out of state tuition. That said, life worked out wonderfully anyway.

When I went back to school I aced a lot of IT classes. Not a big surprise having been in IT for 18 years at the time.

In HS electronics we toured the FAA center here in OKC.
We got to fly the commercial jet simulator because of the room of electronics it took.
When it was my turn to pilot and the instructor put me in a crash scenario, I pulled up, unbuckled, then ran and jumped of the back of the simulator, about 6 ft since I pulled up. All the FAA guys cracked up. Said that was the first time they had ever seen anyone bail out of the simulator.

Boeing air museum here has or had a fully articulated sim. Took my youngest at the time probably 4-5 on it. Its big video game. Fighter jets and shoot-em up thing. I rolled inverted and pulled into a flight to shoot and he started screaming. It got boring really fast.

The first time I flew a full motion flight sim I was showing off with Em in the cockpit with me, but it was not a combat sim. She was 6 or 7 and told me up front she did not want to go upside down. I told her she better fly then because we are going to go upside down. It was an F18 and the scenery was San Diego, probably because we were in the SD Air Museum. Anyway, we did the usual vertical rolling, loops and so on. Then I decided we should get a good look at the city so I rolled inverted and pushed the throttles up. We were at mach 1.2 when I decided to do a bunt and about 2 seconds into said bunt the wing broke off. We tumbled in a ballistic arc for the next minute. I bruised the bone in my shoulder and the whole time we were tumbling she was looking at me, pony tail flying all over the place, saying "See, I didn't want to go upside down". She wasn't screaming or mad, but admonishing me for breaking the wing off. When we got out there were two retired Naval aviators that talked to her about the flight. They told her if she could hold it together after that that she would make a good Naval aviator.

We flew the combat sim at Oshkosh and at WPAFBM in Dayton. We always set the high score. The last time we flew we took an Extra 300 because they did not have the air combat for the 3D experience. That is the one where she argued with the attendant that the straps were not tight enough. While he was patiently telling me the basics of flying she braced herself and pulled them tighter on her own. At least it was an aerobatic capable aircraft. We did the Leo Loudenslager routine, including the snap roll on takeoff. Wife said people watching the cockpit screen were getting squeamish.

I suck at a lot of things, but flying I do OK at. If I ever won the lotto I would network 8 together to fly against other people. All y'all are invited if that happens.

I shoulda been a military pilot!

We also got to see them fire off a Cessna on the crash catapult.
Then we got to play with the radar screens. They just didn't let us talk to anyone.

One of the radar techs asked if anyone wanted go up in the dome and get steralized. There weren't any takers.

They also had a really nice full size theater. Guess it was for showing training movies.

At least they didn't let you ride the Cessna in.

We used to have a device here called the "Convincer". It was an automotive seat with seat belts on a sloped rail. You would get in the seat, they would pull it to the top and release it. It would impact the bumper at the bottom at 35mph. They would ask if you wanted to go with or without the seat belts. I never saw anyone go without the belts. Now they have the cabin with dummies in it and they can simulate a roll over with no belts.

They had a movie for us in the theater. They didn't tell what the name was or what it was about. It started showing a small plane flying near so foresty mountains. After too long of it just following the plane I said loudly "Alaska, The Final Frontier" After a couple of minutes the words came up on the screen "Alaska, The Final Frontier". Every one gasped.

It was about how many small planes, how little traffic control their was, and how so many people relied on the small planes in Alaska.