Just life

Fall in Germany is pretty awesome. If you've ever been to Europe you know how green it is - well the fall colors are just as vivid. I was going to get out and take pics last weekend, but we had a huge wind storm on Thur and it pretty much blew all the leaves off the trees.

Last week I was in a Logistics course, and we took a field trip to one of our storage sites in Luxembourg. Not super exciting, but on the way back we stopped at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial. Way awesome. I really wish I had had my camera. Sadly I did not. I got these pictures from someone else who took them with their phone. Thanks boss.

While I was gone on my cruise, it was decided by my bosses that I would be moving jobs. I'm pretty excited about this. I've been in the same unit since I got here. I'm basically just going to be running a couple of programs, and doing whatever projects the Col needs done. He is awesome, and told me that I'm pretty much my own boss now. This is kind of a new, made-up position, so I don't actually have a job title yet. They told me just to make one up. This is my new office. The 5th one I've had since I've been here. I'll be sharing it with someone eventually (there's another desk on the other side of the room) but they haven't figured out who yet.

So that's just daily life in a nutshell as it stands right now.

An Update of Many Things

It's been awhile since I've updated so this blog will cover a few different topics:

I'll start with a House Update:
I've finally gotten most of the furniture I'll be acquiring for awhile.
The blue chair, coffee table, and end table are all loaner furniture from the AF so they will be going away soon. And I found that rug today at the BX and I LOVE it. It matches perfectly with my couch, chair, and the curtains I am planning on buying. Not to mention my Mexican blanket on my couch.


The bedroom set came in pieces so I had to put it together myself.

I got the bed together on my own but I enlisted the help of Jeremy and the Elders to put the Schrunk (aka wardrobe) together.

This is the final product


So that's the House Update.
I shall now move on to the Work Update:
First, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Air Force structure, I need to give a little lesson. For those of you who are, you can completely skip this part -
The structure is as follows Wing>Group>Squadron>Flight>Unit(or element). The Wing usually covers pretty much everyone on base (that I'm aware of) but here we're different and have 3 Wings cuz we're huge. Then it breaks down from there. When I got here I was working at the Flight level. My flight had about 200 people (which is pretty large for a flight) and the flight commander is a Captain.
Well our Group commander (a full bird Colonel) decided he wanted to take it upon himself to "mentor" all the new LTs in the group. There are 7 of us. Well I happen to be the first "lucky" one to spend 6-8 weeks up at the group. I was not really happy with the idea at first but I have since come to really enjoy it. I don't know that I'm learning much that will help me for tech school, but I am basically the special projects officer and am usually REALLY busy. Just yesterday I gave my first real AF briefing on an new inspection program that I am now the resident expert on. And it went really well. My Chief said it was like I had been giving briefings my whole life :) I felt good about that.
I also have a pretty nice office now.

And the group commander's exec is super awesome. He's a TSgt and I chill in his office a lot when I have nothing to do. And the vice group commander is also way chill. He's a Lt Col and helps me out a lot with all my projects and answering my questions and stuff.
Tomorrow I'm in a golf tournament with the Col. Should be a good time.

Other Things Update
So if you remember my Paris trip, I went with Ariana, who, before Paris, I didn't actually know. Well her and I ended up becoming super tight after that trip. The following weekend we went downtown just to chill and eat and stuff. We ended up chilling at this little restaurant for 5 hours. It was awesome.

Sadly, Ari was only here for the summer and went back home to Utah just a week after our Paris trip :( I'm still trying to convince her she should move back.

I still have a couple more new things of furniture to put up so you'll get another house update eventually.

All in a day's work

As was pointed out to me by Kara, I haven't put anything up about my job yet, or much about Germany for that matter, so today I decided to take pics on my way to work. So now you can all see what my daily 20 min drive is like.

This is my street. My house is that first one on the left

This is the road I turn on to off of my street

This is my little town of Erlenbach

This is where I turn left

This is the little village of Otterberg that I drive through (not to be confused with Otterbach, which is in the other direction.

This is a traffic circle (aka roundabout). They LOVE these things over here. There are no such things as 4 way stops.

Some open space

On the A6 - or what you all know as the autobahn

Another traffic circle near base

I stopped taking pictures before I got to the gate cuz, well, people get suspicious when you start taking pictures of an AF Base gate.

This is the warehouse that I work in

This is inside the warehouse

This is the view from my office

This is a view of my desk from that chair in the pic above

As far as what I actually DO at work - Well...let me give you a rundown of my day today:
Got to work about 7:30. Tried to log on my computer but am logged out due to some security patch something-or-other. So I spent a good deal of time on the phone with 480-help, our computer tech people. They basically said I just have to wait for them to fix it.
I was supposed to have a meeting with the group commander at 10:30, but it has been rescheduled. Then I was supposed to have an intro/tour of the Airplane Parts Stores section of my flight this afternoon (we're in charge of supply and things like that), but found out something came up with another LT that was supposed to come with me, so I had to call and reschedule that. Then I went to lunch at the British cafe with the other LTs in my squadron, and a few from finance that we normally eat with. Then I went back to my office. Still not able to log on to my computer. So I went over to finance to try and get my travel voucher filled out. After waiting an hour I found out that I have to get an actual scheduled appointment for that. So I set that up, then went back to my office. There, still not able to get on the computer, I wrote a letter to my nephew, Justin. Which, having become quite bored at this point, turned into this:

I don't know how well you can read them. But these are, in fact, stick figure adventure drawings of James the desk guy, based on my almost true daily events, with slightly dramatic endings.
Yes, this is what the AF is paying me to do.

After this I went and dropped of a paper at MPF (the personell people), went and bought groceries, and came home.

So what do I do at work all day? Not a thing. Every once in awhile I tag along to a meeting, or go get a tour of a section in my flight. But that takes up 1, maybe 2 hours a day.

The thing is, having not been to tech school, they can't really put me in charge of anything yet.

So that's that.