Dave

If you did not know about this, our very own staff member Southernap is on his carrier "vacation" cruise. He posts regular postcards to me on carrier life. They are a good read and I have learned stuff about carrier life I never know. Check them out. I have posted a couple of new ones. http://forum.combatace.com/topic/45364-carrier-life/

Found a few reports as of a few hours ago that is seems to be natural causes.

Dave, So it is now only five days until Christmas as I write this, we are getting a ton of mail delivered out to us via underway replenishment and via COD. I just got a couple of late birthday gifts from some relatives. I know they were shipped in October, but one of the joys of military mail is how long it takes things to arrive on station to us. It was still fresh and appreciated because right now they are offering some bitter freeze dried bricks of coffee from the mid-east. So to understand how it works I thought this little postcard could explain it away. There are some mistakes for those of you in the postal fields, but this is how it was explained to me by a postal clerk and I try to break it down even more Barney Dinosaur style to the readers. Nearly all military mail for units uses an system called APO/FPO and unit numbers. The way the system is designed to work so that you don't know where the military person is located if the mail gets intercepted by the enemy. All they know is that LT Smuckatell and AT1 Southern Air are assigned to VAW-13 det 5 at unit 99999 FPO, ap. Remember that point in the last sentence about no one knowing where the person is, that is slightly important. Most of the mail now a days is shipped via commercial air to the closes us military base and from there it is then sorted into bags to delivered to units around them. APO and FPO's are holdovers from world war 2 and they are short for Army Post Office and Fleet Post Office. These used to be primarily located in three distinct places in the nation. San Francisco, New York, and Norfolk. They were the big processing centers. Depending on where the unit was home based mail would leave your hands and head to one of these locations for routing to the military member. San Fran for most of the Pacific based units and those home ported on the West Coast. Norfolk for the East coast based units and up to the Mississippi river. New York was the clearing house for most of the European based units. So as that letter leaves your hands to me, it travels to the San Francisco post office. They then say to send it up to me in Seattle. That letter arrives in Seattle and is shipped over to my base. At which point the base post office handles it and goes VAQXYZ is unit number ABC. Consulting a list they have about who is home and who is deployed, realizing that I am deployed the mail is dropped into a bag waiting to be shipped out to me and my unit. Once that bag is full, they then consult another list and mark it for shipment via airmail to the closes military base to where we are operating at the time that list came out. This list seems to be typically about two to three weeks behind. So even though I have been gone from Singapore for about a month. All the mail is routed there initially because the supply system hasn't caught on that I have moved to another operating area. So they hold on to it until the new mailing list arrives and then ship it to the new operating area. Once it arrives on station, such as the 5th fleet operating area, they store it in a giant warehouse waiting for further sorting and shipment. The COD's have to adjust for fuel loads, passengers, and pony. Strange as it may seem, VIP's trump mail; ditto for parts to fix things on the ships and planes. So the letter that left your hand at the beginning of November is still sitting in some bag at the bottom of a pile awaiting sorting to be thrown on a cod that can be sent out to us. When it finally gets on the COD, it comes out to us it is then sorted by the onboard clerks to delivered out to our commands. The commands then sort it even further to work shops for deliver. What is even funnier is sometimes the supply system will try for a massed burp of mail via an unrep, so they will try and hold one of our supply ships. Throw a whole bunch of large boxes called tri-walls and fill them to the top with mail. It all finally arrives to us sometimes about a month late or even months later. Remember how I mentioned you needed to remember why no one knows where people are? Well for some units people are moving so fast to arrive on station, that no one knows where the mail is supposed to go. Or the unit numbers on the mailing lists are mangled so unit 99999 is actually in Naples, but the mailing list says they are in Al Asad. So it goes there sitting forever until someone wonders why it hasn't been picked up. They then ship it back to the states, via the same sort of route it comes out to us. No kidding I had gotten Christmas gifts that were mailed out in first week of November, show up to me in June when I was back home. The Christmas cookies were stale and the gifts were written off as lost. Military mail system is one of the reasons that a large number of internet companies won't ship high prices electronics out to us and it isn't recommend to ship anything perishable out to us. Don't send even chocolate bars cause there is a chance they will melt before it gets there and just turn into a mess. So it is usually recommended that you do hard candies and imperishable foods It gets even worst around the holiday times, that the US Postal Service will actually state that if you want a package to arrive to your military member before Christmas it should be postmarked no later then sometime in November. The best part two is letter mail can be days and months late, so you get a weekly new magazine that is about three or more months old and you already know how the story has turned out. It is just one of those things to shrug your shoulders at. Hope all of you all enjoy your times with the families this week and remember that there will only be 364 days until Christmas on the 26th of December. Sincerely, Charles

I also have a bridge in Brooklyn I will sell you too.

Bigger body counts.

She isn't no Katherine Hepburn granted but it was kind of sudden and weird because I just watched "Just Married" the other day. I thought she was funny.

She was great in Just Married and 8 Mile. 32 is too young to go.

I would send a message to Fates and or Erik to see if they can look into the problem. It goes deeper than I can fix.

Looks like a good one to me, but I have yet to see a movie that Matt Damon was in that sucked. I like his work very much.

That is for C5 to say, not me.

Mike I am not leaving, I have obligations to the site. Approve files, keep the peace, help people out with site issues. So I am here to stay, just my modding is taking a break right now. C5 left because he was sick of the BS when it came to our sim. He might be back one day but after conversations with him on the phone it won't be anytime soon if at all. I can't pack up and leave and I don't want to. The day to day ops require my attention. As I said once that new LOMAC patch is out I am going to focus my attention there. And we have a LOMAC section here at CA, so I am not going anywhere else. Do not get discouraged people. Everyone needs a break.

Ok didnt another Arab country have a 747 do the same thing a few years ago? What is with those guys?

I am very interested in the new LOMAC patch. I used to make some serious missions using that kick ass editor. Maybe that will re spark my interest in modding.

I will have to admit, its turned into a job a long time ago. I havent fired it up in close to 2 months.With the death of bpao, it effectively killed my enjoyment of modding and flying this sim. C5 has already left, FC is burned out, I am burned out. I just do not have the motivation to fix crap we fixed once already. But what can you do?

The Gen 2 section isn't big enough to warrent the time it would take to make it like the Gen 1 section. When and if it gets really big them I am going to do it in one swift stroke......well not so swift.

Things are slow because for me, I have lost interest. I know a few other regular modders who have lost interest as well. I think we have taken the series as far as we can and to be honest, TK's support is great but always redoing mods to make it work with this patch or patch has gotten old. Do not get me wrong I love all the stuff TK adds though, it just gets hard to keep up. But that's the reality of it. I am not saying I won't mod again but I am not going to break my neck either or bug team members of projects. Sorry if I sound crass, not my intention. Seven years is a long time to mod a sim.

Happy B-day Craiggers!

Welcome home DA!

Does anyone have any good info on it that I can read? I searched the net and I can find little snippets but that is about it.

Yep that mission that suprised NATO. I was looking for info about how the operation was carried out etc etc

That pic of the guy you have is Sgt Pitensbarger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Pitsenbarger It was cool of TK to include him. Was a hell of a warrior.

Thanks Eject for the kind words. I enjoy CA alot, I love the interaction, I love the conversations and we all get along great. We have our disagreements, but what family doesn't? I hope everyone has a great holiday season and a wonderful New Year. If any of you are ever in Ohio, look me up, I'll feed you well and we can toss back a few cold ones.

Dave, It has been a while since I have written. For those that need a quick run down here is what has happened. First off was turkey day with CentCom himself, General Pretreaus serving us turkey and the trimmings. Just a few days after that we pulled into Dubai. Then the biggest thing for me was that I have transferred out of a support work center then transferred back to my primary work center of avionics. Okay that is the quick summary, now time for the details. First off on Turkey day we had CentCom arrive on station. He was onboard for two days to see how we, the US Navy do our power projection thing. Plus as he explained later he wanted to come back out to a carrier since he did the same thing last year. He was impressed every time he came onboard a carrier. Now to set the scene for some of your readers. We sort of knew about this only a couple of days before hand that he was going to show up. Now when some one in leadership learns that a fleet commander, theater commander, or even National Command Authority decides to show up to a ship; the good idea fairy shows up as well deciding that the ship isn't clean enough. So what to do? Field day the ship. This isn't a problem either. Break out brooms, swabs, steaming hot water, cleaning compounds, etc. Scrub away, till it gets clean. Lets insert the good idea fairy again, they say to some one that if the wall is supposed to be white but isn't getting there with cleaning, well then repaint the sucker. Whole passageway can't be cleaned, paint it! Close it off and prevent transit until the painting is done or until it dries. This is all cool until you have to hump a heavy part from a letter frame on the ship way back to frame 200+ and then up to the ship. Well, now it becomes a pain in the arse and raises that little stress level. That being said CentCom showed up, took a flight in the backseat of a F-18F of VFA-41, served turkey and lobster to us, and then gave us the pep talk about what we are doing is important. Turkey Day menu onboard the USS Nimitz this year was Turkey, lobster tails, seasoned ham, sweet potatoes, baked potatoes, bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, turkey gravy, mixed veggies, green beans and various pies. Only a couple of days after turkey day we pulled into Dubai. We weren't there very long so I didn't get a chance to head into town and see the changes. So I just hung around the USO Oasis, or sandbox as it is termed by most of us. I had to work late the first day and then duty the second day and our final day in port I just wasn't in the mood to do anything. So I went down made a phone call home to the wife and did my laundry at the on site laundro-mat. Beyond that was pick up a couple of souvenirs for the up coming Christmas holiday. I also decided to talk to a tailor shop they had on spot and got my self a couple of custom tailored fitted suits. I don’t know completely why I sent with the full suit, when all I really wanted was a nice blazer to head out in town with. After talking to the salesman, I decided to go for the full deal custom made shirt, pants, jacket, and vest. The only thing was they promised delivery same day by 2100. It wasn't until 2345 that the suit showed up from their factory in town, so I talked them into throwing in a pair of cuff links and a tie. Other then that it was the sandbox again, almost the same place as it was only a year ago. Just this past week I transferred from being the Tool rep and support equipment rep over to back over to working in the avionics shop. The aircraft in this squadron have a few new systems that my previous squadron was just upgrading to before I left. So I need to relearn how to troubleshoot a few of my systems and how to call out a bad part. It is back to trying to do work and learning how to juggle the maintenance controllers. It will be interesting, primarily because all though things are the same they are different as well. How you sign off a maf, how to think ahead in troubleshooting a gripe, how to debrief an aircrew to get to the meat and potatoes of a gripe. Well that is quick and fast but I also have to now start juggling two computers amongst sixteen people. The next few postcards will be shorter. Sincerely, Charles

Have a good one you slacker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_B._Keller