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So Wednesday morning started like any other, I wake up, get my usual can of Diet Coke and sit down in front of the computer to check my e-mail, etc. I pop onto www.wgrd.com to listen to the feed from the 'Free Beer and Hot Wings' morning show and I happen to catch the image to the left. The Michigan Community Blood Centers are holding a blood drive at the Michigan National Guard Armory as the sponsoring agency. FBHW are talking it up on the radio too. So I figured; 'Heck, I haven't donated blood since I donated it for myself for my hip replacement surgeries back in 2002-2003, lets do it!'.

So I mention going to go give blood on my Facebook page, and my friend Patrick hits me up to say he'll go too. Patrick is DEP to the U.S. Navy right now, so anything he can do to do 'his part' now is par for the course, no matter how small that might be, right Patrick? ;-).
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So if you look to the right, you can see me 'pumping out a quart' for a good cause. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic, I didn't even think about bringing my little camera. NOTE TO SELF: Keep Camera with you at all times!

The whole process took 2 hours from the time I left the house til the time I returned. I also had them sample my blood to put me on the 'Marrow Donor Registry', plus I've committed to giving three more quarts of blood for the next year. The donation is now part of "Four 4 Life," a program Michigan Community Blood Centers offers to its blood donors. After four donations, the blood donor receives a thank you gift or the opportunity to send a gift to support a hospitalized child.
 
 
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I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day Weekend!

I just wanted to share with everyone that I have added a link to the blog 'Airspeed Online'. This blog is managed by fellow Michigan Wing CAP member, Steve Tupper, or 'Stephen Force' as is his online persona. Steve is a Lawyer by day (and night?) for pay and for CAP and is an incredibly fervent pilot who loves to share his passion for flight with everyone.

Needless to say I am *VERY* jealous of the man and the opportunities he's had to fly in different and unique aircraft, up to and including a recent flight with the USAF Thunderbirds.
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Just recently Steve had the opportunity to fly back seat in the T-6A Texan II. Check out his blog post on this.

Awesome stuff Steve. Keep it up!


 
 
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Mrs. Bielinski shows the tools used to do her job in predicting weather.
Having the second largest commercial airport in the state of Michigan can have its advantages for a Civil Air Patrol Cadet Squadron. One of those reasons is the fact that we have a NOAA Weather Office right here in our 'backyard'.

A few weeks ago, I decided to stop in and see if it would be possible to do a tour of the office to see what it is they did there, and to provide an opportunity for the cadets to learn about another aerospace related career path. I met Jamie R. Casto Bielinski, who is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist for this particular office. She was very happy to accommodate my request for a tour; which was setup for today.
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Mrs. Bielinski explains the Doppler array to the cadets.
Due to the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend and may cadets were either on vacation, or off participating in finals for Track & Field, we didn't have as many cadets show up for this tour. But that was ok, because Mrs. Bielinski did a fantastic job in telling us everything she could about what NOAA and the NWS (National Weather Service)does to keep everyone informed of the current weather situation.

Oh and on an interesting note, for those of you who are in CAP and are 'Operations folks' who work with their communities and the local Emergency Managers, there is a preparedness plan called "Storm Ready" that is designed by the NWS to help communities plan for how they react to pre and post severe weather scenarios. This is something every community should work towards, and we as CAP folks in our communities can help get this going, just get the information and talk to your local Emergency Manager. Do it Today!
 
 
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So I'm going through my photos that I have from this past weekend's cadet run SAREX, Operation: Wolverine and I remembered one of the ground teams was having fun calling themselves 'The A Team', so I found one of the 'Hard Kewl' photos they took and brought it into photoshop and made it look cool. If anything it'll be a nice keepsake for the cadets in the photo.

I don't have *ANY* pictures from WIWAC (when I was a cadet), so in today's day and age of digital photography, I make sure I don't miss an opportunity to get as many photos as I can of the cadets I work with. Taking photos are the last thing on thier mind when they're out on an activity, so as a PAO, I make sure I'm taking all the photos I can.

Wow, this makes two blog posts in one day! Of course this message is nothing ground shattering other than showing off my 'mad skillz' with photoshop. If anyone wants me to work up similar photos, graphics, etc or even a website, pop over to my business site and hit me up there.

Hello too, to all my new readers, especially my friends down at National Headquarters, CAP. Hope you are all enjoying the blog! Would love to hear from you, so please, comment, drop me a line, post a message on the forum, whatever...it's all good!
 
 
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Well now, what a way to start a day then to see the 'Present Man' (as my family calls him) a.k.a. 'the UPS guy' show up at my door with a small box from Hong Kong with the newly embroidered squadron patches we designed and ordered! I didn't expect to the see them until the end of the month but they arrived much sooner, and I couldn't be happier!

I ordered them from Patches4Less.com. Luke and his team at Team Jedi Marketing did a great job, all the way from the initial quote and electronic 'mock up' to calling at the last minute to verify our zip code! Great communication! I look forward to working with them again.

Now I just need to get them distributed to our members, get a copy off to the National Historian per CAP regulations and send some out to Ace at www.incountry.us/cappatches so he can put one up with the rest of his online collection, which is the most impressive online collection of CAP patches, ever.
 
 

So after I jumped through hoops attempting to get 'buy in' from my wing & NHQ 'higher ups' on my going to Keesler AFB to participate in the 'First Ever' Blogger Media Flight with the 403rd Wing, Hurricane Hunters, I decided to not spend the money to fly to Gulfport-Biloxi to cover the event for 'Volunteer Magazine' as I had wanted to do. The intent was to create a story that tells what our parent service is doing in regards to Hurricane's and how we, as the Civil Air Patrol perform post storm damage assessment, search and rescue, etc.

Little did I know, but my friend Scott F. Murphy, decided to go. If I had known, I would have most certainly joined him. At this point, I'll chalk it up to not following my gut instinct when I really should have. Ah well, next time.

Well, either way, I had other things to keep me busy; such as setup the new Color Guard equipment we purchased for the cadet squadron I'm Deputy Commander of, and to get the parade banner redesigned for the parades we plan on participating in this year. We had a good meeting too, had two new prospective cadets show up!

Well, anyways, to go along with the new blog, I setup a Twitter page for those times that I don't want to, or need to log onto the site to make updates. It's outfitted in a similar design to the site; I love Photoshop. :-) Oh, and there's also a badge on the right side of the main page too!

 
 
Attendance for this years Operation: Wolverine was impressive. Many Cadets and Senior Members from thoughout Michigan Wing showed up to participate. The Weather wasn't very 'air friendly' until 1300L when the ceiling lifted and we actually had seen some blue skies. Winds were gusting out of the west 20-25 to 30-35 throughout the day, so that made taking off and landing a bit challenging.

Capt Jo Hendrix from the Traverse City Composite Squadron and I went up in the afternoon as 'Highbird'. We made it to 6k feet and flew in circles and figure 8's for aprox. 2 hours. While I'm still working on my Mission Scanner rating, this gave me a chance to try out the Mission Observer role. Some folks were rather impressed my radio abilities considering my experience level, so that's good. Capt Hendrix remarked a few different times what a good job I was doing and what a pleasure it was to fly with me. So that was nice.

The day ended around 2400L with some night mission GT's out doing the usual. I brought my tent, but was never able to set it up; which was just as well since it was so darn cold out. Everyone was made to come inside anyways. So I setup the air matress and sleeping bag and down I went around 0030L and was back up just before 0630L this morning.

Most of the aircrews are out, so I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs for right now and posting to the blog to kill time. Hopefully I'll be able to get up and at least get one MS-T excercise completed for my SQTR. Hopefully.
(Photos after the break)
 
 

So, theorhetically I'm going to be up in 5 hours so I can shower and pack up the CAP van to head to Lansing, MI with 10 more members to attend Operation: Wolverine, the first funded SAREX of the 2009 season. Operation: Wolverine is unique in the sense that it is cadet run and managed.

Not only will this be my first time to a SAREX since I was a cadet 20+ years ago, it'll be the first one since I rejoined in 2006. I'm in training status for Mission Scanner. I got everything signed off for preliminary tasks in 2007 and haven't done anything with it since then. I'm hoping that by the end of the year I can have my observer wings. Hopefully.

Either way, I'll be with my cadets, we're suppose to be presented with a LONG overdue Unit Citation by the Wing CC, so that'll be good. All in all, it should be a good weekend.

 
First Post! 05/14/2009
 

So I've had this 'usafaux.us' domain since the great Tedda, of 'Civil Air Portal' and now Swivel Chair Patrol fame was kind enough to let me take over.  If you've ever seen a 'PortalPerson', this is the Tedda in question.

Anyways, I've maintained the domain due to the fact that myself, as with a few others in the online CAP community have had e-mail addresses through the subdomain of @cap.usafaux.us. Which I still have plenty of address space available if anyone wants an address, just drop me a line and let me know. I've always wanted to get a CAP blog going, but it's kind of like playing 'Double-Dutch', you need to know when to 'jump in' with both feet.

So now is that time. Between all of my 'real world' duties and my CAP duties, I'll do my best to drop in here and post some commentary. I've also added a forum for those of you who would like to get some discussion going around some of the topics I bring up here.

I'm always up for new ideas for the site, so if you have something you think I should do, or talk about, let me know!

 
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