Ski Hakkoda

     Today my wife and kid went to the Hakkoda ski area with Shep and his family.  Getting there and back was more time-consuming than normal, one of the roads up the mountain was closed, and all of them were snowy (fortunately not icy).  The Sheps are snowboarders, so it was my first time both at Hakkoda and skiing with a ‘boarder.

     Once there, Shep and I hit the slopes while the ladies took care of the babies together; we switched after about an hour and they skiied/boarded for an hour and a half, then we picked up the last forty minutes. 

     Hakkoda has a chair lift and a gondola.  We didn’t ride the gondola, just the chair lift.  We figured we weren’t going to be skiing enough to justify the more expensive and limited gondola ticket.  As we rode the chair lift, we noticed it flattened out considerably for three legs and then dropped us off.  This meant the first 200 meters or so were relatively flat.  I almost don’t know why they bothered adding the length to the chair lift (maybe the chair lifts only come in certain lengths, and that slope just wasn’t high enough but plateaued instead?  

     There were two basic ways to go off the chair lift, left or right.  No surprises there.  The left was pretty easy, although there was one section of it for about 100 meters that might be loosely considered a black.  It was decently groomed but heavily travelled.  The slope to the right was substantially more fun and had more powder.  For our last run, just before we started down the black section of the right slope, we noticed a trail off to the right.  We took that trail and after me sinking thigh-deep in the snow twice, we made it over to what must’ve been one of the gondola slopes.  That one was a blast! There was some fairly fresh powder and it was a great (but fast and over too quickly) run all the way to the bottom!

     Of course, what would any day skiing in Japan be without curry for lunch!? I tried the chicken special.  The meat wasn’t quite as tasty as I’d hoped, it seemed about 40% gristle.  The curry was fabulously hot, though! I had to drink an entire bottle of water with the plate in bite-pant-drink-repeat fashion. 

     My wife, who is a much better skier than I am, said the powder was world class.  She also pointed out that she went through some fresh powder on one run, and by the time she finished down, then back up the chair lift, then back to the slope, her trail was covered with new snow.  It may have been snowy, but that has its’ advantages.

     While we were eating dinner, we ran into this guy.  If you happen to be in Japan and want to take a hiking tour of the Hakkodas, you may want to get in touch with him. 

Posted in Asia/Pacific, Family & Friends, Fitness & Health | Comments Off on Ski Hakkoda

Bake Sales and Tasty Baked Goods

     When I was about 20 years old, a car drove by that had a bumper sticker that said "Wouldn’t it be nice if the schools had all the money they needed and the Air Force had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?" I remember wishing I were in a bomber at that moment so I could drop one on the car attached to that bumper (which by the way was a much better car than anything I’d ever driven up to that point in my short life).

     Never mind the constitutional ignorance of the owner of the bumper sticker.  In very general terms, the federal government is responsible for national defense and for raising an army and a navy (and in modern parlance, an air and space force).  The states are responsible for public education.  It might be nice if everyone had all the money they needed, but economics being what they are, we have political constraints on who gets to choose to allocate scarce resources.  In order for the car owner’s fantasy to be fulfilled, he or she would need to ensure people elected to federal government would reduce defense spending and reduce taxes so that states and municipalities could then raise local taxes to give the schools more money.  I would then argue that while money is important, it’s not everything; when I was a substitute teacher back in the days I saw that bumper sticker, the schools I helped in needed discipline more than dollars.  Discipline is relatively free of cost, it just requires one or two teachers to stay late or on Saturday to monitor students in detention.  In retrospect I would have liked to have pointed all this out to the owner of the bumper sticker, but alas, the car didn’t stop and the owner didn’t jump out in order to strike up a political conversation with a dissheveled 20-year old wearing a cotton zip-up jogging sweatshirt colored to match his alma mater high school who aspired to fly anything for the Air Force, even a bomber. 

     Fast forward to yesterday, when I was standing at a table in the foyer of the Commissary with a couple of other volunteer Boy and Cub Scouts and their parents. . . hosting a bake sale.  At an Air Force Base.  At which I fly jets that carry bombs. 

     The really scary thing is that my wife made me give that sweatshirt away to the needy a couple years ago, and if she hadn’t, I’d still have that sweatshirt!

     The bake sale was actually for the local Order of the Arrow section.  Surprisingly, the OA got some help from one of the local Cub Scout Packs.  This was a really good thing; someone pointed out that Commissary patrons were more likely to be unable to say no to a Cub Scout asking if they’d like to buy a treat than they would to a teenager or an adult.  This turned out to be largely true.  So next time the Cub Scouts need help setting up their Pinewood Derby, it looks like OA is going to have to do the heavy lifting! Rightly so, of course.

     Another couple lessons we learned (actually, I was probably the only one there who had never run a bake sale before and therefore was probably the only one who didn’t know this) was that the Japanese love to buy whole American cakes (9"x9" seems to be the preferred size).  However, the bulk of Commissary patrons are not Japanese, they’re American.  Americans would rather buy cookies or brownies at a bake sale; they’re simply looking for a snack.  The Japanese folks are looking for a big treat to take home to their entire family; the Americans aren’t really even looking for something to eat, they’re mostly just helping out what they consider a worthy cause.  The first lesson then was to know who your target market will be, and talk to the folks who will be baking the snacks to ensure they’ll bake something that will sell.  We did pretty well, but we ended the day with about six out of twelve cakes leftover. 

     A second lesson could be drawn from the type of baked goods needed for sale.  We had several people make their favorite type of cake, brownies, or pie.  These didn’t sell very well.  What sold best were plain ol’ chocolate-chip cookies, then other types of cookies, then plain chocolate fudge.  I’d like to explain this by way of a real estate analogy.  Stay with me, it really applies! Say you’re in the market to buy a house.  Two houses, actually.  One house will be the one you want to live in.  You’ve always wanted a two-story Victorian with a huge porch, an in-ground swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a four-car garage, and an atrium.  The other house will be one to rent out.  So when you go shopping for the houses, you would buy one Victorian with everything you always wanted, and one plain ol’ three bedroom, 1.5 bath ranch house with a minimally furnished basement.  You wouldn’t buy a second Victorian.  Why not? It’d never rent (at least not in a neighborhood where the prospective tenants are looking for the area with the best schools).  The simple fact is the Joe and Jane Renter family is not looking for your dream house.  By the same token, the target market for your bake sale is like the Joe and Jane Renter family; they may find cheesecake-covered brownies too rich or too esoteric for their tastes.  They just strolled by on their way to the Commissary from the Food Court and were not expecting to see a bunch of Scouts selling baked goods.  They’re just going to want something relatively small, simple, and tasty. 

     One pleasant surprise was the number of people who walked by, handed us money, but refused to take a treat.  I figured one or two people might do that (and I figured they’d be the parents of the Scouts).  I didn’t keep count, but it was actually probably close to one out of every 10 people that did that.  By the end of the day, I was practically begging some of these generous donors to please take something, we were running out of time and didn’t want to take the baked goods home with us if we could avoid it.  As I mentioned, we ended up taking home many of the cakes and some of the brownies. 

     I’d just like to say a quick "Thank you" to the Scouts and their families who participated and made it a successful sale; and also to the local community of people who enjoy tasty baked goods and don’t mind forking over more than a few pennies per item!

     I’ve only got one question for everyone:  Is it just me, or do most people write up a six-page after-action report after they’ve held a bake sale (and then publish selected revisions on their web logs)?

Posted in Food, Scouting, Volunteer Organizations, What\'s Right | Comments Off on Bake Sales and Tasty Baked Goods

I Was Afraid This Would Happen

     In case you haven’t seen the news today, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.  She knew this would be a real possibility when she returned from exile to challenge President Musharraf, and given the current state of affairs in Pakistan I figured this would be all too likely.  That doesn’t change the tragedy of it. 

     Where will we find some hope for Pakistan?

Posted in International Relations | Tagged | Comments Off on I Was Afraid This Would Happen

Merry Christmas 2007

     May everyone in all the world experience the peace and joy of the season, even if only for a few moments. 

     Please keep the folks who are downrange in your thoughts and prayers!

     Let’s all keep in mind "The Reason for the Season":  This is the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  May He give us the wisdom and patience to keep hope alive in the world so we can feed the hungry, ease the burden of the afflicted, shelter those with no roof above them but the heavens, and convince mankind to be kind to his fellow man. 

Posted in Family & Friends, Weltanschauung Viewers | Tagged | Comments Off on Merry Christmas 2007

Appi Kogen Revisited

     Christina, the kid, and I took off with friends Deuce and Pitch and their families and spent Christmas Eve skiing at Appi.  We had a lot of fun, of course! Having brought the baby with us meant that one of us would have to babysit while the other hit the slopes! Lucky for us it had snowed the night before, so we had good snow.  Plus, this was the inaugural use of the skis Christina bought me for my birthday after last season, so I was stoked to finally get to use them! Since it was Monday, there weren’t a whole lot of people out and about, either; although there were times I had to avoid a gaggle of snowboarders. 

     This was our first time out this season, so I started off with the 5 km green run both to warm up and to practice keeping my shoulders squared down-slope; Christina started immediately with a red for a warm-up and went all black afterward.  After the first run, both of us (separately, as I mentioned) hit the black runs.  Christina jumped in with both feet and had a blast.  I actually did okay, I only slid three times; I never wiped out and lost my skis, which I found a little surprising for my first outing of the season.  Then again, the black runs on the main slope at Appi weren’t as difficult as the "Tower run" at Okunakayama.  I have a tendency when I get tired to put too much weight on my uphill ski, which leads me to turn my shoulders in the direction of travel instead of down-slope, which leads me to turn uphill when I’m trying to go downhill, which leads to a stop (if I’m lucky) or a fall and a slide.  I still haven’t gotten to the root causes of my wipeouts, but fortunately there were no data points today!

     The new skis worked great! They’re 156 cm Atomic Metron.  In my opinion, having your own skis is as essential as having your own bowling ball.  Take that for what it’s worth. . . I don’t own a bowling ball! The new baby did great, too; he slept most of the time, even when the cafeteria at the bottom of the mountain got noisy during lunch.  The couple times he woke up he just smiled a lot, mostly because he’s ticklish and Dad spent a lot of time tickling!

     We’re looking forward to our next outing.  We’re considering Hakkoda since we’ve never been there and it’s supposed to be pretty close to us.  We’ve heard great things about Hokkaido, but since that’s an entire other island, I don’t see us getting there. 

Posted in Asia/Pacific, Fitness & Health | Comments Off on Appi Kogen Revisited

Memories that Live On

     It’s been just over a year since I learned that I lost one of my buddies in the Iraq War.  What really makes me happy to know is that Capt Travis Patriquin’s legendary slide show and his efforts at getting the Ramadi Sheikhs to join America in the War on Terror live on now in the Anbar Awakening movement in Iraq. 

     Travis’ father Gary sent me the story below in an e-mail awhile ago, and I’ve been meaning to post it for quite some time.  With work and school slowing down for the holidays, I finally got a chance to give this piece its due.  It’s the last part of a speech by Secretary of Defense Gates to the Association of the US Army on 10 Oct of this year.  I think it says everything I could imagine needing to say.

In closing, I should tell you that when I speak to Army leaders I make it a point to ask them to communicate to their subordinates not only the thanks of a grateful and admiring nation, but also our pride in what they have accomplished.
 
The story of just one unit explain[s] why.
 
The 1st Brigade of the First Armored Division, the “Ready First Brigade,” had been based in Germany for more than 60 years, most of that time preparing to beat back a Soviet invasion across the Fulda Gap. It was deployed to Iraq in 2003, and extended after the Sadr uprising in 2004.
 
Last year – before there was a “surge,” or a “new way forward,” or a new counterinsurgency manual – they were sent back to Iraq, this time to Ramadi. The city was controlled by insurgents and Al Qaeda, and was written off as lost. The brigade commander was told: “fix it, don’t destroy it.” It was up to him, his staff, and his soldiers to figure out the rest.
 
And so instead of patrolling from large bases, the Ready First Brigade set up small combat outposts in Al Qaeda strongholds – where troops led by sergeants and lieutenants and captains cleared and held neighborhoods one at a time. The enemy would not go quietly – and responded with an onslaught of roadside bombs, mortars, and ambushes. Among the hundreds of stories of heroism that emerged from this period was of Sergeant David Anderson. He saved the lives of several soldiers on September 24th after they were ambushed and hit by multiple IED attacks. He would later receive the Silver Star for his efforts.
 
One of the Brigade staff officers was Captain Travis Patriquin. He spoke several languages, including Arabic, and he grew a mustache to fit in. He became the expert on the neighboring tribes – local power brokers going back hundreds of years who had been largely shunned up to that point by our military.
 
Like any self-respecting army officer, Patriquin had a Powerpoint presentation. It was called “How to Win in Al Anbar by Captain Trav.” But instead of charts and graphs, this presentation used stick figures and simple stories to teach soldiers how to deal with Iraqi tribes – a relationship where “shame and honor” meant a good deal more than “hearts and minds.” At this young captain’s direction, the brigade courted local sheiks over cigarettes and endless cups of tea – outreach that, combined with Al Qaeda’s barbarism, helped spark the “Anbar Awakening” that has garnered so much attention and praise in the past months.
 
 
Over time, Ramadi was taken back from Al Qaeda and given back to its people. These gains came at no small cost. During its tour, this brigade would suffer more than 95 killed and 600 wounded. One of them was Captain Patriquin. He did not have a chance to see his ideas and efforts bear fruit, but no doubt would have been proud to have seen what the hard work, courage, and ingenuity of the soldiers had started: A city liberated. Al Qaeda uprooted and reeling. And the tide turned, at least in this one important battle, in a conflict that will determine the future of the Middle East for decades to come.
 
It is soldiers and stories like these – repeated in so many places and so many times – that inspire us and make us proud and hopeful about the future of America’s Army. Our country’s defense could not be in better hands.

     If you’d like to make a donation to the trust fund for Travis’ children, please click here for more information, and thank you!

Posted in "Downrange", US Army | Comments Off on Memories that Live On

The Boyz of Cozmo

     I’m going to leave you all with a couple of links and not much commentary on this story from the Air Force Times (and from a magazine my wife used to read).  An excerpt from the Times:

“All your buddies are gonna rip you a little bit,” Ripley said. “It’s all in good fun, and there were some pretty funny comments that got thrown around the ol’ e-mail chain from different buddies.”

     I will offer that I was the recipient of one of the e-mails that went around the USAF (yes, the entire USAF).  I gave some consideration to simply copying it into this post, but due to language and OPSEC considerations, I decided not to.  Suffice it for me to summarize that "Ripped" would be putting it mildly; sort of like saying "Jeffrey Dahmer hurt some people."  In any case, I didn’t forward the e-mail, so it doesn’t really make sense to post it here, either.   

     But then, at the beginning of that e-mail train, he had asked a bunch of guys to vote for him in whatever contest it was in a womens‘ magazine!

     I’ll leave the commentary to you. . . .

Posted in Humor, USAF | Comments Off on The Boyz of Cozmo

OG War Day

     Today was Operations Group War Day! We basically put both squadrons together and tried to do two really large-scale practice missions.  Despite being selected to play Aggressor yet again, it was a lot of fun!

     Deuce and Scrappy handled most of the planning for the morning go, and they did a great job coordinating everything from airspace to takeoff times to push times for four different missions.  Ultimately it was a safe event and we got several good lessons learned out of the series of missions. 

Posted in F-16 Operations, USAF | Comments Off on OG War Day

Snowed Out

     Tonight the plan was for six of us to launch out for an early night sortie to practice attacks in two different formations to see how they’d work out.  Scooter and I were going to try to practice dropping JDAM (which is unbelievably easy) and another flight led by Hoser was going to practice SEAD.  We’d worked everything out so that we would stay high and they would stay low, but we’d all be in the same airspace, so we would have to pay attention to everyone else in addition to our own flights.  God bless whomever invented LINK-16, because when that’s working, it increases your situational awareness at least 169%. 

     As often happens in winter at our location, we had been experiencing "Snow bands" all day.  We knew this was happening when we briefed, so we timed our launch to coincide with the middle of one of the snow bands, and we were going to tailor our mission to last just long enough to land after the next snow band had passed.  This meant we all stepped to our jets as it was pouring down snow.  This wasn’t a huge problem, the snow removal crews just kept plowing the taxiway (sorry, base housing families who had to shovel the street in addition to the driveway!), and a de-ice crew stood by to clean off whatever accumulated on the jets. 

     Everything was relatively fine as we taxied to the end of the runway for our last-chance checks.  The problem was once we were there, the snow band didn’t end.  It just kept snowing, with visibility staying fairly low.  After sitting in EOR for about fifteen minutes, weather finally told the SOF that there wouldn’t be a break in this particular snow band, so we weather-cancelled the entire go. 

     I’m glad we leaned forward to try to get to fly, but we hate to get to EOR only to get our flights cancelled.  We’d put in the maximum amount of time possible in order to get absolutely no flight training.  With so many things to do, it’s crushing; but it’s the cost of doing business. 

     All things considered, I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather not do than taxi an F-16 around in the snow.

Posted in F-16 Operations, USAF | Comments Off on Snowed Out

Two if by Night

     Tonight was the first time in my F-16 career that I got to fly back-to-back night sorties.  It was also the first time since about April 2002 that I got to fly night SEAD with NVGs.  To say I was rusty would be putting it mildly. 

     Huck, Prosac, Disco and I all flew on out to the CHARLIE airspace shortly ahead of Nash and Riddler who were playing strikers.  They would attack a pair of simulated SA-2 batteries with our help.  Kane and Shack flew out to the northern part of the airspace to play Red Air and to try to keep us from suppressing the SA-2s and to prevent them from getting attacked.  At the fight’s on, Huck took simulated shots at Kane, who acknowledged the valid shots and jumped out of the way and RTB’d.  The four of us SEAD players spun around and headed south to regroup when Riddler decided to try to attack us.  Disco and I spun back and took some simulated shots at Riddler, who followed in Kane’s fate.  We then sprang north and fired our way through the simulated SA-2 bands, decoying the SA-2s perfectly so that Nash and Riddler got in to drop their bombs unmolested from either Red Air or Red SAMs.  The only troubles I had were that I forgot how easy it can be to see other aircraft at night–I managed to get seven miles away from my wingman at one point, I had forgotten to cross-check my air-to-air TACAN after my long absence from night SEAD CAPs.  At least I was still visual!

     Afterward, everyone pointed back towards Misawa, landed, re-fueled, and launched for a repeat performance.  Unfortunately due to some air traffic control delays, Kane and Shack finished their second sortie before we ever got airborne, so we dispensed with the air-to-air engagement and re-ran the ground attack segment, which went pretty well again.  After a short twenty minutes in the area, we headed home again. 

     I don’t know when we’re going to fly at night again.  Probably not soon enough for my proficiency’s sake. 

Posted in F-16 Operations, USAF | Comments Off on Two if by Night