Shoup Airlines

Mess’n with the smaht kids

Somehow I survived the holiday weekend up in Boston. Most bodily functions are returning to normal, some may never return to proper working order. Many thanks to Andy and Becker for putting me up or maybe it was putting up with me for the duration. If you ever have the chance to get up there I highly recommend it, they really know how to put on a wicked hahd time.

From Fenway park to downtown roof top ‘qued steaks with a smattering of Halo duels thrown in for ol’ times sake, fun was had by all. But even that couldn’t eclipse the pure and simple joy of getting to sleep in and not shave for the first time in five months.

As always it ended too soon. Now I find myself with nose held to the grind as we jump into the Blackhawk powerplants for the next week. Only five weeks and some change left! It can’t come soon enough.

God Bless those civilians and their minivans!

Oh the fun you will have when you spend every bloody minute with a bunch of 21 year olds! I literally am living the freshman year of college I never had. And the jury is still out on whether that’s a good or bad thing. We knew it was going to be a damn the torpedos type of weekend only because we HAD to make up for last weekend’s lockdown. What pushed it into ludicrous speed was our PT test on Friday morning. I don’t think anyone expected to do anywhere near as well as they did on this vampire schedule, but it appears to have helped. I’m improved to 20 points from a perfect score and I didn’t even try all that hard on the run!

Anyway, so what would a bunch of legal age kids full of spit and vinegar do on a Friday afternoon? Well, first they’d get rid of the spit and vinegar! Why anyone would carry around spit or vinegar is beyond me. Where was I? Ah yes, these boys would then grab their two older and devilishly handsome chaperones and go to the mall. Yeah, that’s the ticket, the mall!

Amazingly, this mall serves Mexican food and drink. Large quantities of food and drink. Excellent food and drink. We remained there all day. In fact, we almost missed our recall formation at 10pm. This would not have been good.

Now, most of you are rolling your eyes and tsk-tsking us (trust me, I know you), but it wasn’t our fault. We called the cabs an hour prior, they just decided to show up at the wrong Mexican restaur…er…mall, yeah. Even after the correction, they never showed up. So out of the kindness of their hearts, several patriotic civilians returned us to the fort. I didn’t know a minivan could do 0 to 60 in under 7 seconds. I really should have wondered when she told us all to lean hard as she banked to the right.

With a minute thirty left to spare we bolted out the van and up three flights of stairs right in front of the entire company. All 300 of them! Minus the Drill Sergeants of course. We changed and made formation by the skin of our teeth.

First question out of my mouth (after catching my breath, of course), ’so what we doin’ tomorrow night?’

Yawn

I find it disconcerting that as I get dressed for the day night, I hear Taps playing outside my window over the PA system.