Wing Mission Video at MILCON & Getting a Coin

The briefing at the Sheraton for MILCON went well on Monday. I got to the hotel at about 5:45AM to work with Milt on setting up the laptop and making sure that Col Cox’s slides and my video were working smoothly. As planned, each worked perfectly. After the presentation of the Wing Mission Video, there was a rather boisterous round of applause, so it’s good to see my creative work flies with the public at large.

Ironically, Senator Biden had to follow the Wing Mission Video. The most peculiar part, however, is that he was actually tapping his foot to the music during the Underworld tracks. Could Mr. RAVE Act himself potentially be a closet Underworld fan? The more likely answer is that he had a few too many cups of coffee that morning and would’ve been keeping beat with a washing machine had it been in the room.

It was interesting hearing Sen. Biden, Sen. Carper, & Congressman Castle speak. One thing I will say about Delawarians: they are just as passionate about their state as Texans. Admittedly, most politicians have love for their state, but these guys eat, drink, & sleep Delaware. I was also told at the briefing that Sen. Biden is considering running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. I don’t think I’d vote for the guy, but it’ll be neat to say I ate breakfast about 10 feet away from him when he was “only a Senator”.

This morning on my way to work, I got a call from Maj West letting me know that my presence had been requested at the Wing Standup Meeting scheduled for 8:00AM. At first I thought they wanted me there to take inputs and feedback on the video from all the group & squadron commanders (which would have been less than pleasant trying to consolidate 25 opinions into a revised product). Quite the opposite was the case, however. Col Cox asked that I come so that he could recognize me in front of the base leaders and give me a Commanders Coin.

So that was a welcome, albeit unexpected, reward for working on this project so much over the past 3 weeks. Truth be told, the project was tedious, but entertaining and educational, too. I had the opportunity to learn a new software tool, and I’ll probably end up creating a few slideshow videos for my website because of this experience.

For those of you who may not have seen it, you can view the Dover AFB Wing Mission Video at this location. If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to install Google Video Player on your computer to view it.