7 years later, finally getting my Air Force medals out of a box & into some frames

7 years later, finally getting my Air Force medals out of a box & into some frames

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Gifts From A Far Away Land. Thanks Rodo!

Gifts From A Far Away Land. Thanks Rodo!

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Core Values As Today's Leadership Training Talking Points

Core Values As Today's Leadership Training Talking Points

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Congrats To The Newest Air Force Lieutenant!

Congrats To The Newest Air Force Lieutenant!

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Coin Case

Coin Case

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Wall of Honor

Wall of Honor
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

The Veterans Day display setup in the lobby of my office.

A Jazzy Evening Out In Dover

About 3 weeks ago, my favorite jazz artist, John Axson Ellis, was in Philadelphia for a performance. Unfortunately, this coincided with our Air Show weekend, so Ashley & I weren't able to get up to Philly for the show. Last night, however, we were able to get our jazz fix locally, as the Air Force Reserve Full Spectrum jazz band did a free performance here in Dover at the Schwartz Center downtown.

We decided to make a date night out the occasion, going first to Smither's for cocktails and appetizers. I had also received an invitation to a cocktail hour on the third floor of the Schwartz Center prior to the show, so we checked that out, too, before taking our seats.

The show lasted about an hour and a half. While the vast majority of the songs were jazz numbers, the band did throw in a smattering of patriotic tunes and oldies tracks to keep the interest of those in the audience who weren't jazz aficionados. I especially enjoyed the contributions of one particular saxophonist, who really had a New Orleans' flair about him.

After the show was complete, we walked down Loockerman to The Dirty Beggar. I'd heard good things about the establishment, with it having a reputation as one of the more upscale bars in Dover. Ashley got a great Mojito, while I opted for a Maker's Mark on the rocks. When we were done, we stopped in to Angelo's Pizza Restaurant just before closing time and grabbed a couple of pepperoni rolls to go.

Overall, a really fun Friday night outing reminiscent of our excursions in the French Quarter back in college. Nothing like some good music and good beverages to keep the heart young.

- JW

Dover AFB's Air Show 2006

As fate would have it, I lucked out this weekend and only had to work Saturday morning for the Air Show. This let me catch some college football on Saturday afternoon (stupid Arkansas), and then be a spectator for the Sunday portion of the Air Show.

With this my first time attending an Air Show, I really went in with few expectations. I'd seen the movie Tarnished Angels (based on William Faulkner's novel Pylon), but that was about the extent of my exposure to aerial acrobatics. The event was actually pretty entertaining and definitely a departure from our typical weekend fare.

I'd say the highlights were:

- Seeing an F-18 cause a Prandtl-Glauert condensation cloud by nearing the sound barrier
- Going inside the cargo bay of a C-17
- Watching the Aeroshell Team leave the crowd of nearly 50,000 in a cloud of smoke
- Witnessing the Thunderbirds' performance...made me think of the Team America theme song

As promised, I've put the photos and video clips from the event online. You can check out the 85 photos on Flickr or watch the 11 videos on YouTube.

- JW

Trying To Warm Up My Writing Motivation

I need to crank out a couple of essays for my grad school application today, so I'm starting with a blog post to get my writing juices flowing.

Earlier this week, Dover AFB held their annual MILCON (Military Construction) briefing at the Sheraton downtown. Like last year, I was tasked with making sure the A/V needs were met. Unlike last year, the morning setup didn't exactly go swimmingly.

This briefing was supposed to serve as the debut for a new touch-screen equipped podium, whose construction stemmed from feedback received after last year's MILCON brief. The idea was if the briefer had the slides in front of him, then he wouldn't have to turn around to make sure he was speaking to the right data. Easy enough.

After arriving at the Sheraton at 6:00AM to make sure the Airmen weren't hitting any configuration roadblocks, I realized it was going to be one of those days. The laptop was communicating fine with the podium, but the projectors just didn't seem to see a signal. We tried 3 different laptops, but none seemed to be recognized by the Sheraton's A/V rack. The morning supervisor wasn't exactly a technical expert, either, claiming that only Dell laptops would interface with their system. Heh.

Long story short, the patch panel on the floor had to be power-cycled and then everything worked fine. When the Sheraton's A/V Guru finally showed up at 7:00AM, though, he spent 30 minutes redoing everything the Airmen had already tried before finally agreeing to attempt a reboot of his A/V rack. The breakfast was supposed to start at 7:15AM, but didn't have everything fully functional until about 7:30AM. The event organizers were accommodating, though, and the 15-minute delay didn't represent a show-stopper.

The bad news was that because of the technical hiccups, we didn't have time to reconnect the new podium, so alas the touch-screen goodness would have to wait until the next big event.

I debuted the October 2006 version of Dover's Wing Mission Video after the Colonel's briefing. This was a project I'd been working on for the past month or so. It went over quite well, and I ended up personally receiving kudos from both Senator Joseph Biden and Senator Tom Carper after the event was finished. Yeah, the same Joe Biden whom I took pleasure in making listen to my electronica music during last year's MILCON briefing. :-) Speaking of which, you can view last year's video at the following location:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5228757400096725005&q=Dover+Air+Force+Base

I'll get around to uploading the 2006 version within the next couple of weeks.

I'm off of work today because I have to work both Saturday & Sunday at the Air Show that Dover AFB is hosting this weekend. I heard a couple of the Thunderbirds flying in earlier this morning, so things seem to be ramping up in preparation. Even now, I don't know exactly what role I'll be playing at the event this weekend, but I have a feeling it'll entail running random errands for the Colonel as things pop up.

Well, time to get moving on those essays. Be on the lookout next week for some pictures from the Air Show.

Lt Western on an Antenna Site Survey

Condor.jpg
Originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Hello from 75 feet above Dover AFB in a Condor bucket truck crane.

Oh The Unintended Irony

On Thursday I got a thank you note via base mail from the Wing Commander thanking me for my work on the Dover Wing Mission Video. If you'll remember, it was debuted last Monday at the annual MILCON briefing, and I was somewhat amused that the soundtrack to the video (all electronica) was going to be listened to by Senator Biden, who was co-sponsor of the RAVE Act (see my previous post for all the details). Well, upon reading that note, I couldn't help but audibly chuckle after seeing his word choice. Read the scan of the note above to see what I mean. :-)

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.

"Mildly 'Sticking It To The Man' " OR "Monday's Fun With Sen. Biden (Mr. RAVE Act)"

First to bring you up to speed...

I got tasked about two weeks ago with creating a "Wing Mission Video" for Dover AFB. Apparently our new Wing Commander was stationed at Charleston AFB before coming here, and they kept one of these videos on file to show to VIP's, newcomers to base, & state/local leaders at briefings.

Since we don't have any real "video" footage from Dover, and they weren't willing to buy me a video camera to run around with for a few weeks (boooo!), I told them that I could do a “glorified PowerPoint presentation”, using Windows Movie Maker and including photos from base spliced together (with pans & zooms) along with some stock video clips of C-5's and Night Vision Goggle stuff.

They said that was what they had in mind anyway, so I went to work gathering photos. At the first meeting I asked if there were any musical requests, but I was just told to make it tasteful (i.e. no gangsta rap or death metal). Other than that, the Wing Commander told me I could essentially use whatever songs I wanted.

Well, after foraging through my music collection (who knew I had so many electronica MP3's?!) I settled on a 6 minute medley of clips from the following songs:

Underworld - Dark & Long
Leftfield - Song of Life
Orbital - Lush
Underworld - Pearl's Girl
Sasha - Xpander
Underworld - Two Months Off
Underworld - Cowgirl

Aside from the fact I'm apparently on a huge Underworld kick this week, it's obviously not your typical background music for military-related events/slideshows/videos/whatever. But I showed our Wing Commander a draft of the video earlier this week, and the only suggestions he had were for photo tweaks & additions. He said the music was fine with him, and rather "upbeat".

At the end of the meeting, he told me that the first official showing of the video would be at a meeting next week downtown in Dover, where all the state & local big shots will be in attendance...to include, that's right, Mr. RAVE Act himself, Senator Joseph Biden. For those of you who may have forgotten, check out this link from EMDEF.

Now I'm not disillusioned: I know the RAVE Act was not legislation proposed out of Sen. Biden's disdain for electronica. But I'm going out a limb here, and I'd say maybe, just maybe, that we're not going to find any Ministry of Sound albums in his car CD changer. And by the witty name of his now-defunct bill, I'd say that in his mind, drug use & raves are inextricably linked.

So maybe it's just a passive-aggressive streak in me, but I'll take some amount of pleasure in pushing the play button in Windows Media Player on Monday morning and treating the most honorable senator from Delaware to 5 minutes and 52 seconds of "RAVE music" set to military photos. :-)

Photos From The C-5 Refueling Flight

Even though we were up late on Friday night having drinks with Byron & Jillian, we still made it up in time on Saturday to take the C-5 Refueling Flight. We had to be on base at 8:00AM to get a pre-flight brief, then we were bused over to the Passenger Terminal to go through security. We were on the plane by 9:00AM, and we finally took off at 10:15AM after they did some maintenance on the plane. It was crazy walking around in the cargo area on that thing midflight, and going into the cockpit for the refueling portion was just surreal. It was definitely worth getting up early on a Saturday morning. You can check out our photos at: http://www.justonwestern.com/Photos/C-5Flight/

Going on a C-5 Flight this Saturday

I signed Ashley & I up for a 2.5 hour C-5 refueling flight this Saturday at 8:00AM. Neither of us have ever even been in a C-5, but after seeing these things fly overhead for the past 4 months, I thought I should jump at the chance to actually go up in one of these mammoths. Public Affairs told me that I could bring my camera on board, so I should have some photos up by Sunday evening.

LT Mafia Does Dover

First night out on the town with the other LT's tonight. We're celebrating Jason's promotion to 1LT by starting out at Smither's and then working our way through the raging metropolis that is Dover from there. God bless 4 day weekends!