After closing the doors at the ACM DSO, I was re-assigned as comm officer for the Reconnaissance Mission Area Group (RMAG). Which meant that I would be doing the same thing, only for a huge program that had money. The RMAG was in a new building, which was nice, but I was still in a tiny cubicle and the building had no windows.
I was only there a week or two before I took a few weeks off to go back to Colorado for my fiancee's graduation, our wedding, and our honeymoon. My new bride then came back to Ohio with me for a few weeks (she didn't start her tech school in Texas for a while).
When I got back, I really wasn't in the frame of mind to work, but at least I wasn't going back to a condemned shit-hole.
I started out working for a Captain, but he was on his way out to another assignment, so it was more of a transitioning period for me. Finally, I'd be told what the hell it was I was supposed to be doing. It so happened that the Captain was filling a position that was supposed to be a Major's position, and now I was taking over as a lowly Lt. I don't see how this was a Major's position; how much rank do you need to sit on your ass and occasionally sign your name?
Captain Ramey was a bit of an oddball; not your usual Air Force officer. He was a good guy with a weird sense of humor, which suited me just fine. I soon discovered that he played the bagpipes. For some reason I thought that was cool, so I asked him to teach me. What the hell, it was something to do; certainly better than just sitting in the apartment staring at the walls.
The work at the RMAG was the same crap (contracting), just on a bigger scale and I actually had a budget to work with. Still no programming, though. I could feel the knowledge and skills slipping away.
I lucked out again in that I had a great group of contractors working for me. Jerry and Steve, in particular, provided a lot of entertainment. They were "locals" through and through, and they took me under their wings socially. We'd go out for off-site lunches at least once a week, and once in a while we'd get together at a bar in the evening. The bars varied, but more often than not we ended up at Tank's.
While my wife was still with me in Ohio, we were out one day browsing the stores and we stopped in a pet store. Should have known better. Thirty minutes later, we walked out with a cockatiel and all the necessary paraphernalia. This turned out to be a good thing, since Sancho kept me company after my wife headed to Texas.
Yeah, being apart from your new spouse isn't an easy thing, and the rest of my time in Ohio was painfully boring. This assignment just couldn't end fast enough. Here I was at the infamous Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and I never once saw or heard about UFOs or aliens (except from the whack-job Lt Col at the ACM DSO). They didn't even have a Hangar 18.
I finally came to the end of my assignment, fairly near the time my wife was wrapping up her tech school in Texas. We worked with our respective contacts in the Air Force Personnel department so we could get stationed at the same location for our next assignments.
We told them we would go anywhere -- ANYWHERE -- as long as it wasn't Colorado (been there) or the Pentagon (bad, bad place for Lts). They came back and said they could get us assignments together at either the Pentagon or in Colorado.
Damn it.
I was only there a week or two before I took a few weeks off to go back to Colorado for my fiancee's graduation, our wedding, and our honeymoon. My new bride then came back to Ohio with me for a few weeks (she didn't start her tech school in Texas for a while).
When I got back, I really wasn't in the frame of mind to work, but at least I wasn't going back to a condemned shit-hole.
I started out working for a Captain, but he was on his way out to another assignment, so it was more of a transitioning period for me. Finally, I'd be told what the hell it was I was supposed to be doing. It so happened that the Captain was filling a position that was supposed to be a Major's position, and now I was taking over as a lowly Lt. I don't see how this was a Major's position; how much rank do you need to sit on your ass and occasionally sign your name?
Captain Ramey was a bit of an oddball; not your usual Air Force officer. He was a good guy with a weird sense of humor, which suited me just fine. I soon discovered that he played the bagpipes. For some reason I thought that was cool, so I asked him to teach me. What the hell, it was something to do; certainly better than just sitting in the apartment staring at the walls.
The work at the RMAG was the same crap (contracting), just on a bigger scale and I actually had a budget to work with. Still no programming, though. I could feel the knowledge and skills slipping away.
I lucked out again in that I had a great group of contractors working for me. Jerry and Steve, in particular, provided a lot of entertainment. They were "locals" through and through, and they took me under their wings socially. We'd go out for off-site lunches at least once a week, and once in a while we'd get together at a bar in the evening. The bars varied, but more often than not we ended up at Tank's.
While my wife was still with me in Ohio, we were out one day browsing the stores and we stopped in a pet store. Should have known better. Thirty minutes later, we walked out with a cockatiel and all the necessary paraphernalia. This turned out to be a good thing, since Sancho kept me company after my wife headed to Texas.
Yeah, being apart from your new spouse isn't an easy thing, and the rest of my time in Ohio was painfully boring. This assignment just couldn't end fast enough. Here I was at the infamous Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and I never once saw or heard about UFOs or aliens (except from the whack-job Lt Col at the ACM DSO). They didn't even have a Hangar 18.
I finally came to the end of my assignment, fairly near the time my wife was wrapping up her tech school in Texas. We worked with our respective contacts in the Air Force Personnel department so we could get stationed at the same location for our next assignments.
We told them we would go anywhere -- ANYWHERE -- as long as it wasn't Colorado (been there) or the Pentagon (bad, bad place for Lts). They came back and said they could get us assignments together at either the Pentagon or in Colorado.
Damn it.
