So Super Bowl Sunday has come and gone and while I was not really into it this year, (I did not care for either team) I watched most of the game.  I went out and got Pizza during the second quarter and all.  I missed the halftime debacle with the rapper flipping off the camera.  The NFL should stick with strictly country music folks and they would not have the halftime show problems they have been having.  Anyway that was the last ever Super Bowl as the world will be ending on the 21^st of December.

This weekend was pretty busy.  In addition to the laundry and household cleanup I had to get my car fixed.  I ought two rims and two new tires.  I then had it aligned and got the oil changed.  I even went to the gas station and filled it up.  I figured since the Super Bowl was going to be on it would be a good day to get my traveling around town done.  It seems like everyone else in San Diego had the same idea though as everywhere I went it was crowded.

So I got everything done and settled in right after getting home with the Pizza.  I was quite disappointed last night as there was no original programming on the networks other than the Voice, which I do not watch.  Instead I turned to a movie I had DVRed anticipating a garbage night on TV.  At least tonight there will be some new episodes of House and Alcatraz.

Other than that Zynga has done it again.  Now the only way to send people their requests is through the Apps function which means 1 at a time and also when they have reached their limit it goes to the game.  I could not keep up with the requests last night even after just doing that for two and a half hours.  If they do not fix it soon I will join my many other friends that have said screw Zynga and quit playing their games.

Well I guess that is about it for now.  It is time to get started with the work day in a few minutes. 

So Super Bowl Sunday has come and gone and while I was not really into it this year, (I did not care for either team) I watched most of the game.  I went out and got Pizza during the second quarter and all.  I missed the halftime debacle with the rapper flipping off the camera.  The NFL should stick with strictly country music folks and they would not have the halftime show problems they have been having.  Anyway that was the last ever Super Bowl as the world will be ending on the 21^st of December.

This weekend was pretty busy.  In addition to the laundry and household cleanup I had to get my car fixed.  I ought two rims and two new tires.  I then had it aligned and got the oil changed.  I even went to the gas station and filled it up.  I figured since the Super Bowl was going to be on it would be a good day to get my traveling around town done.  It seems like everyone else in San Diego had the same idea though as everywhere I went it was crowded.

So I got everything done and settled in right after getting home with the Pizza.  I was quite disappointed last night as there was no original programming on the networks other than the Voice, which I do not watch.  Instead I turned to a movie I had DVRed anticipating a garbage night on TV.  At least tonight there will be some new episodes of House and Alcatraz.

Other than that Zynga has done it again.  Now the only way to send people their requests is through the Apps function which means 1 at a time and also when they have reached their limit it goes to the game.  I could not keep up with the requests last night even after just doing that for two and a half hours.  If they do not fix it soon I will join my many other friends that have said screw Zynga and quit playing their games.

Well I guess that is about it for now.  It is time to get started with the work day in a few minutes. 

I was so busy yesterday I did not write anything.   It is not that I was late or anything, in fact I was early yesterday.  We just started the transmit labs yesterday and had quite a bit of equipment issues, from stuff being out of alignment to PT problems still being installed from the last class.  Anyway today is a new day so I am hoping things go better.

I already got my State Income Tax Return.   That was a pleasant surprise.  I hope since I got that today that I will also get my federal so I can get my plane ticket to the Philippines.  Turbo Tax says 7 days, and today is the 7^th day, but the IRS website says 14 Feb.  They just might be covering their butt though so I hope to see it when I get home tonight.

I was watching Hannity last night and saw where Michelle Malkin is endorsing Rick Santorum.  Also I was watching Judge Napolitano on his show last night and he is supporting Ron Paul.  Both have been making good arguments.  While I still like Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain I do know one thing.  I will not vote for either Gingrich or Romney even if they are selected by the party. 

After the media selected McCain last election, just like they are selecting Romney this year, I was very disillusioned.  Also so far only 4 states have had their primaries and caucuses.  That leaves 46 states and a couple of territories to go.  I do not need the folks in Florida, Iowa, South Carolina, or New Hampshire sealing the deal on which I have a choice to vote for. 

Before I see a Mitt Romney or a Newt Gingrich being elected I would rather see Obama get four more years, because if the Republican Party pushes these two guys down my throat I will quit the party.  The only reason I have not quit the party yet is because it is out of my way on my way home from work.  

Well that is my rant for today.  It is time to get to work now.

I did not write anything yesterday mainly because every time I had some free time something came up.  I got up on time yesterday and got out of the house.  I had a quiet drive to work and then got the classroom all set up as soon as I got here.  We then found that our portable air conditioning unit for the classroom was not powering up so we tried to fix it.  The problem was in the plug but it has specially keyed screws that we could not get out so that pretty much ended our fix it attempts.

We went ahead and notified the chain of command and one of the guys from one of the other areas had used this particular portable unit in the past and knew how to drape the cord in just the right way to get it powered up.

So after that ET1 who is teaching the course for the first time did not feel really comfortable teaching the A-5 and A-10 modules so he asked me if I would.  Of course I agreed and had a blast doing it.  H then taught the A-6 and the A-1 Module before heading off to PT.  While he headed off to PT I taught the LOS A-6 and A-12 modules before sending the class to chow.

While they were at chow I attempted to make a copy of the student disk for a first class who is sitting in the class prior to transferring out.  He has been missing a lot of the class due to military duties so I wanted to get him copies of the Power Points so he can keep caught up with the class.

Today ET1 and I will be taking turns teaching again.  We may finish the classroom work today but I think it will be more like tomorrow morning instead.  I may have some visitors come through today.  We are teamed up with a couple other companies as far as our teaching contract goes and one of them replaces a supervisor so the new supervisor will be taking a tour today and may come through my area.  I hope they come through when it is my turn to teach a scat.

Over the weekend I got some fantastic news.  I was checking out my Face Book and noticed my oldest daughter who I see rarely announced that she is going to the Philippines.  I asked her when and she said the week of March 12.  It just so happens that my window for taking vacation is from March 12 – April 22, so I let her know and we will be there the same time provided I get my income tax return soon.  I heard they may be delayed due to some added security they put in the IRS system.  Laila and I have decided we will go ahead and find out where she is staying and take a few days off and stay there too!.

This morning before I left I got some bad news.  Some folks we have been playing Café Work with for about 2 years now have finally gotten fed up with Zynga games and have quit playing.  It was a fairly large group and we helped each other complete missions in the game and they will be missed.

Since Zynga went public their games have taken a turn toward the impossible with mission after mission and game problem after game problem.  It seems to me that Zynga is purposely trying to drive folks away, maybe so they can start the games with new players.  Perhaps if they just started a Café World 2 for the new folks and allowed us older players get caught up on the current stuff it would go better for all involved.  I know Laila and I are reaching our final straw and if all our supporting friends leave the game we will be forced to leave too.

I guess that is all I have for today.  The class has started showing up early and I think it is because they want to get out a bit early.  I hate to tell them that will not happen because of the visitors and we are still in Transmitters which is always long days.             

Way back in the early days of my career I was told something by one of the senior technicians I worked with about PMS checks.  These cards are written so that a trained monkey can do the check.  Read and pay attention to the card.  I have always done that and it is one of those systems that will correct itself and It has worked that way since the first PMS check I ever did in the navy and continues today.

Why did I lead off with that you might ask?  It is because one of our fellow instructors made us look foolish yesterday.  He was doing a receiver sensitivity check and could not get a reading on the millivoltmeter.  He asked several of us to check it out and we did, never thinking to look at his switch settings.  When I looked at it I told him he might have a test equipment problem.  I did not have a long time to look at things as my class was in lab at the time and the class was my primary attention getter.

Anyway he went ahead and ran down to the office and reported that he could not complete the check due to test equipment problems.  The office went ahead and sent that up the chain of command.  Later one of the other instructors came in and found that he had a switch in the wrong position and that everything was working fine. 

So now we had alerted the entire chain of command that we had a test equipment issue, which was not the case, and it made us look totally foolish.  Today after lunch they have a meeting with their chief to try and explain what happened.

Last night when I went home it was bugging me.  I figured the PMS card may have left out a step or something so first thing this morning I checked out the card.  The WSC-3 has a receiver offset that is only activated in SATCOM receive mode.  When I checked the setup step 3 of the equipment setup clearly states the radio must be in Line of Sight mode.  So if the individual doing the check would have bothered to do the check step by step as he had been trained to do we would have no issues and would not have been made to look foolish.

Yes this is something maybe I should have caught with all my experience, but then when I am dealing with a fellow instructor I do not look at things the same way as I would look at a student doing a check.  With an instructor I kind of take it for granted that they have everything setup right.  With a student you have to go over every detail as they are doing it for the first time and are apt to make a mistake.

So the lesson of this story is pay attention to what you are doing, even if it is something you have done many times in the past. 

Between last night and this morning I have been busy and am a little bit tuckered out.  Yesterday when I got home I checked the mailbox and found that the last piece of paper needed to file my taxes was there.  It was my W-2 from the current job. 

I had already entered all the other information from my Navy retirement, house and all the other stuff into Turbo Tax so all I needed to do was enter my taxable income, tax withheld, and a few other things and I was done in about 5 minutes.

So after filing I tried to print out the forms, but my printer was messing up.  I got that fixed and after printing them up and filing them away I was all set and feeling good.  Now as soon as I get my return I will have the money to do a couple of things since I do not use credit cards anymore, except for car repairs and maintenance.

Last night I watched American Idol and the new show Touch.  Touch was pretty interesting, but I missed the last few minutes because I was recording both CSI and Revenge, and of course Fox in the usual fashion had the premier run over time.  And then I was mad as hell when I found out that Revenge was a rerun and I could have watched the rest of Touch and CSI.  CSI was a little misleading.  Marg Helgenberger was shot last week and they were advertising this one as her final appearance.  We here she was shot in the side, lost huge amounts of blood, had to escape a few times losing more blood in the process, and in the end she catches the bad guy, quits and joins the FBI.  It was quite unbelievable if you ask me.

So after that disappointment I went to bed.  I got up on time and had a quiet ride in to work.  The senior class finally finished up WSC yesterday and I had a few things to take care of with my class so I came up with a way to combine everything.

We missed our lab time yesterday.  Also my class did not have the technical manuals for the course so I spent the morning before they got here moving all the tech manuals from the WSC classroom to the lab.  I divided the tech manuals up with Vol 1 on one bay, Vol 2 at another bay, and so on.  When they came in I gave them the safety brief and went over the job sheets.  I then took them on the lab tour and had them pick up a copy of each tech manual as we were touring the lab. 

After that we got started with the 5 job sheets we missed and we managed to get them all done by lunch time.  So now we will finish up the power point I started yesterday.  I do not think we will get it completely finished by the end of the day because we still have to do the 3A and the Power Supply, but I will see how it goes.  This seems like a great class judging from the questions I have been getting.

Other than that I was watching all the spin from both the State of the Union address and the GOP’s negative ads and fighting.  I have seen nothing that will sway me from writing in Michelle Bachmann in November. 

Well I guess that is it for now.  The class still has a while left before they get back and since my stomach has been a little touchy still (I tested it with Chili yesterday, not a bright idea) I will wait until I get home and will have some chicken soup.  Judy is still not feeling well, but Kevin was alive and kicking yesterday.

Hopefully we will all get over our diseases and get back to normal.  Oh and the same thing is happening on Laila’s side.  They are all sick too.  Anyway I hope we all feel better soon.   

Yesterday I did not write anything since I was pretty busy during all of my breaks and lunch hour.  As soon as I got in yesterday I had to get the classroom up here on the third deck ready for the new class, and I also had to get the page 13 entries and graduation stuff handed out to my graduating class. 

Congratulations to class 12010 as they head off to their various commands and welcome aboard class 12030, I am looking forward to being one of your instructors. 

So yesterday ET1 was going to take the first thee lessons which are two introductions and then we start the course with Technical Manuals, characteristics, and external equipment.  It went well except we got a late start because of a welcome aboard urinalysis.  They finally all got back around 10:30 AM and we got started.  Today I am all set up and will take them through operation and then the Block Diagrams.  We should have lab fit in there sometime, but since the WSC class that is behind is still doing final PT’s I think we will have to wait until tomorrow.  I will have to play that by ear.

I watched the State of the Union last night and found nothing new there.  More promises that will not be kept and more class warfare stuff.  I am so sick of Washington right now and it is time to replace the entire crowd there other than the Tea Party candidates elected in 2010.

Then on a sadder note yesterday I came home and went to feed David’s dog.  I found the gate open and no dog, so either he ran off, got attacked by a predator, or someone took him.  I did not realize the gate was unlocked as it has been closed and all and I did not notice the lock was unlocked.

Anyhow, Judy, Kevin and I are still fighting off the stomach thing everyone has had. I am still working even though I feel like crap and I have been eating very lightly hoping it will pass soon.

I guess that is about it for now.  Time to get this saved and get ready to start the day.     

Today has been one of those days where I feel like a handball as I have been bouncing all over the place.  I got up on time and got downstairs on time.  I left for work on time and there was a little traffic, but not too bad.  I actually got to the building five minutes earlier than normal.

I already knew it was going to be a busy day because I have my current class graduating tomorrow and we had a new class start today.  Last week knowing our big classroom is full with our other class we made arrangements to use the HF classroom upstairs.  My class 12010 would be in the DAMA classroom.  The current WSC class 12020 would be in our big UHF classroom and the new class 12030 would be up in the HF classroom. 

So I got in this morning and got the DAMA class set up for the end of course exam and critiques.  I then unlocked the HF class and sent the new folks up there and also took the course files on disk up to the HF classroom.  I then came back downstairs and waited for my class to show up. 

Well then we get word that one of the Radar classes had also reserved the HF classroom upstairs so we had to move to the HF classroom down here, once that class went to lab.  Well that sort of screwed up everything.  Anyway, I went and gave my class the test and then had an instructor from another area give them the critiques.  I then went off to the new class and they were being briefed by the PLR who is the guy that controls their pay and personnel records.  I then gave them the pretest and sent them on their way.  Usually we do the course intro but bouncing around from classroom to classroom ate up a bunch of time.

So now things are finally settling down other than I am waiting to get the graduation stuff for my old class and I have to do page 13 entries instructing them to report to holds tomorrow after they leave here.   So all in all it will be a paperwork drill this afternoon.

I suppose that is it for today.  I hope this afternoon goes smoothly because I already know since it is raining that the drive home is going to be miserable.  We can always use rain here, it is just all the car accidents that come with it, that I can live without.

The last few days I have been leaving late from working the afternoon because I have been helping the WSC class get caught up after the holidays.  We have also had to stay up on quite a few equipment issues since the AC is still down and the equipment does not like the heat. 

Yesterday when I did get out of here I was really tired and did not feel like cooking so it was a Popeye's fried chicken night.  With only Judy, Kevin and I to worry about it is a pretty inexpensive meal these days and there is no cleanup so I win all the way around.

So anyway Judy and Kevin got home and Kevin is still having stomach issues.  He is no longer coughing and is active.  It is just when he eats it comes right back up, so he has some type of bug still.  Judy took him to the ER last night but with a three hour wait and with her having to work a full day today she just brought him back home without having him seen.   I think what we will have to do it the Grandpa cure for upset stomachs.  I will give him chicken noodle soup tonight, because that is what I do when I have stomach issues and it always seems to work for me.

After I got home I got caught up on one of the games I play, then laid down on the couch and waited for Laila. I figured the Republican debate would be lively so after searching all over my Direct TV menu I finally found CNN and switched on the debate.

So anyway the first question from the Communist News Network moron was about Newt Gingrich's ex-wife accusing him of infidelity, something that he has been open about for years.  I was happy when Gingrich opened up on the fool and put him in his place and I was also glad to see the other candidates not mention anything about it.

That being said, I am still not a fan of Gingrich.  I will not vote for Gingrich, Paul, or Romney.  If Santorum survives I might, and I say might vote for him, but I am more for writing in either Bachmann or Cain and just saying screw it.  I will concentrate more on the House and Senate and not worry about it.  If Obama gets reelected but has a Republican House and Senate, they can put a stop to his agenda, and he can just golf, play basketball, and vacation for his next term.

So that is it for today.  I am looking forward to knocking out the DAMA test and finishing up with this class.  The new class starts Monday.  Have a great weekend everyone.

I am really in a bad mood this morning even though when I got up I was in a great mood.  I woke up on time and was on schedule with getting ready for work and all.  I got downstairs and went online with Laila on time and I actually had time for 2cupsof coffee instead of the usual one cup.

Laila has a cold and lost her voice so we were not able to say prayers together this morning and I went ahead and logged out a couple of minutes early with the intent of stopping off to get some breakfast on the way in.

So I left the house about five minutes early and then went out to the car only to find out that I was parked in by someone dropping their kid off at the daycare next door.   I don’t know how long it takes to drop a kid off at daycare but my leaving five minutes early turned into me leaving 5 minutes late instead. 

So then I got on the road and after getting stuck behind city and school busses on the way I got to base about three minutes behind schedule.   I got to where I have to turn right to enter the base and even though there are 2 lanes and no one was in the left lane, there was a guy in front of me who was going straight but was in the right lane so I had to wait for the light to turn green and lost several opportunities to enter the gate.  I got breakfast but instead of from Jack in the Box or the Bowling Alley it was from the vending machine at work.

So yesterday when I got home and turned on my computer and checked Drudge I see where the All Barack Channel (ABC) has an exclusive interview that will end the Newt Gingrich run for the presidency.  They have an interview with his ex-wife.  That is awesome.  Why don’t they just go find some former fired employee or someone he got in a fight with in elementary school?  Is an ex-wife a creditable source or would you think she might be biased and bitter?

Perry has decided to drop out now and they are saying Santorum won Iowa however they lost the ballots from 8 counties.  I find that awesome.  You have a small state like Iowa being the first in the union to select a candidate and they cannot even keep track of all the ballots and cannot get an accurate count.

I suppose that is all for today.  I have to get over to DAMA and get all set up for my test review and go over the homework.