The last 24 hours have been an absolute blast!  Friday, after picking up our “pubs” (class books and maps etc.) we were told about a “drop” happening that night at the Officers Club.  A drop is a class that is almost graduated and it is the night that they find out exactly what plane they are going to fly and where they are going to fly it.  Not a big deal for Reservists, like myself, but a huge deal for active duty folks.  The important part was that there was free beer and food for everyone.  This, by the way, brought most of my new flight mates out.

            It was cool, because I got the chance to kick back and drink a few with the guys and gals that I am going to be spending the next year with.  Myself and another Lt showed up about 6:15pm and ran into a full Bird-Colonel, who was very nice and pointed us to the beer and food.  Just FYI, the O-Club at Laughlin isn’t a place you could get too lost in anyway, but being the ‘ol-doe-in-the-headlight-new-guys, it was nice to be helped feel welcome. 

            Well, we stood around waiting for the shin-dig to get started and we proceeded to tie one on.  It was fun.  I don’t drink too often anymore and I usually enjoy the rare occasions where I can walk back to my place after knockin’ a few back.  Free beer is my favorite brand too.   The food was okay, mostly finger foods such as; chicken wings, fried mushrooms, fried jalapenos, celery, carrots, pizza, etc.   After a few beers, four I think, it all started and the graduating class got up on stage and there were a couple projectors, they brought each guy or gal up there and gave some funny background information on them, and then had 3 cartoon doors on the screens, and they would each open with planes behind them and then they would all close and the plane they got would appear.  It was exciting.  Other than one guy getting an RC-135, everyone seemed pretty pumped, even the FAIPs did.  First Assignment Instructor Pilot.

            We proceeded, after the assignments, to get shnockered.  All the drinks are really cheap.  I got 7 shots of tequila, 4 beers, and a rum and coke for $28.   Can’t be that and no, I didn’t drink all those shots by myself, they were for flight mates too. After a few hours of talking and goofing off, the class leader of our flight was like “hey, I have a boat, we were thinking of heading to the lake tomorrow, wanna go?”.  I just figured it was drunk-talk but apparently not.

            I got a call this morning right after lunch.  We, 8 of us, all headed to the lake to go do some tubing and water-skiing.  It was a BLAST!  We had so much fun watching one of the guys tube.  He weighs like 100 pounds and was just getting thrown everywhere.  Very entertaining.  Then we did some skiing, I had some problems skiing because of everyone in the boat, I wasn’t getting out of the water too well.  A little later we dropped off 3 people and then went and floated in the lake drinking beer and cokes, sitting on life jackets.  It was very relaxing.  Then we did some more skiing, and I was able to get up no problem and even drop a ski and slalom for a little while.   It was great!  Then on the way back, stop for a few burgers and head back to Billeting to write this and study for awhile.  I’m having fun so far, I hope UPT continues to be this much fun on the weekends.  

            First day is Monday morning at 0730, in Service Dress, ugh, but then hopefully we will be in flight suits on Tuesday, we will see.   Just one other note, at pubs issue, the Tech Sgt in charge was not a whole lot of fun, he just kinda blew through checking to make sure you had all of the necessary pubs and was not real clear on anything at all.  Didn’t much seem to care for new UPT pilots, no surprise I guess.  Anyway, just be aware of that when you show up to your UPT base, the support staff may be sick and tired of newbies, just be cool and cut’em some slack.  That is all for this evening, I have to learn the Boldface and the Ops Limits for the tweet tonight.  It is getting close, and I am excited!

Goodnight!