ViperStud

I've had success with magicjack (magicjack.com). It costs 40 to buy and for the first year and then 20 a year after that. It's a container that plugs into your USB port and has a phone jack on it, and includes free long distance to US and Canada. Once it's registered you can bring it anywhere in the world and call the US or people can call you. Cheaper than VOIP.

Unfortunately, in the best interestes of all parties involved, I've got to ship my pets to their former owner (and ex-girlfriend). Since there is no PCS involved, they will be shipped as cargo. The vet gave me a warm fuzzy that this is pretty common but I'm still trying to find out everything I need to know. They're about 50 lbs each so they couldn't ride in the cabin in an airliner anyway and I am looking into freight. Anyone here had to do this before? Which company did you use? It seems airline and cargo companies alike do this kind of thing. Good/bad experiences or lessons learned? Right now it's just cross country, eventually they will go overseas but I think they have their arms around that part.

That's kind of my whole point, no matter where you move on AD (99% of the time at least) you won't pay taxes if you are registering a car in a state that is not your state of residency. Buy it in SC, register it there and then move the registration to NJ if you want. If you ever move back to TX you have your license and insurance for the 2 out of 3 purposes so why ever register the car in TX? The only reason you should ever register said vehicle in TX is if you feel some awkward obligation to fork over a grand or two to the state, which is stupid.

I bought a brand new truck in SC and paid not a penny more than $300 in taxes and it's been registered in SC and AZ. Both states charge a property tax on vehicles each year when you renew your registration, but since I am military and an out of state resident it's waived by showing them a copy of my LES saying I'm a TX resident. Seriously dude quit calling people and look it up, in writing, online. It's easier and more accurate that way. State DMV sites are pretty in-depth.

First off all keep your TX residency (no state income tax) and drivers license, hands down. I did (moved to AZ, then SC, then AZ again since TX). Keep any cars you have now registered in TX. I renew the registration through the mail every year and haven't had even a hint of a problem. Also, as long as you keep it registered in TX you don't have to get it inspected again until you physically have it in TX. I will keep it registered in TX until it falls apart and I send it off a cliff. I waited to buy my truck until I got to SC ($300 tax cap rocks), registered that there and have since moved to AZ and registered the truck here. I paid no additional tax. There is an exemption for military, as there is for you in NJ http://www.state.nj.us/mvc/Vehicle/VehiclesExempt.htm . Seriously dude it took me a minute to find that. Don't call the DMV. Like TSA they are bottom feeders making minimum wage, so you get better info by doing the research yourself and looking online. DMVs are fortunately an agency that has every minute detail you could need for any state posted online. The only kinda tricky part in all of this is that most states require that 2 of the 3 (license, registration, insurance) be in the same state. For me that means car with TX registration & license, truck with AZ registration & insurance. Insurance is always based on where you physically are, so the more cars you have the trickier it gets. If your wiff is not military, KEEP ALL CARS IN YOUR NAME. That way you will always be exempt of sales tax differences when you move and need to register a car somewhere. Look online man all the info you need is at your fingertips.

I hate to be a dick (ok not really) but this issue is really not too complex. Pay differential between us and airline pilots is really only a small part of the equation. The bottom line is that we are in more demand that the shoes are when our commitment is up. I know a few of my bros who got out and are flying (mostly for Southwest) and some who are not flying at all. I doubt they would have had the same career opportunities if they were MPF/Manpower/Services officers. Financially they are all convinced that they're better off than if they had stayed in. Even with ACP they chose to leave, so how many more would blast without the bonus? I've been to more than one Raytheon class. Who do you think these defense companies hire, pilots or shoeclerks? I had a conversation with an ex who happened to be a shoe (manpower) after she got back from some women in the military symposium. She asked me if I had a plan and what was my skill (ironic for a shoe to ask one of us this, no?). I told her that I basically guaranteed my future employment when I decided to do something substantial with my life. Any idiot can make it through a two month tech school at Sheppard, but when you choose a way of life where there are hurdles every step along the way, it says something. The operational experience we get is icing on the cake. There are a lot of vets out there in companies all across America. Who would they hire first? I told her that by doing something challenging and putting my life on the line I was earning my way into a select group that she was simply not a part of. When I asked her what her job prospects would be like compared to mine if we were to both get out guess what she said? Let's just say it't a good thing it was football season because I had no one to talk to the rest of the night.

I just went through this fiasco when I arrived at Luke. They will not pay for you to get a storage facility. They pay you based on the weight of goods that you store and the length of time you store it for. I showed up with an enclosed trailer (of course they wouldn't pay for the weight of it even though the idiots at Shaw said they would) and planned on keeping some stuff in it on the RV lot. In the end, storing about 1000 # would have made me about a dollar a day. I ended up selling the trailer in Phoenix since they are more expensive out here so it was a non-player. Good luck.

We're all relatively smart dudes (well maybe not Loco F-16); the whole Occam's razor thing totally applies here (don't worry I had to google it for the formal name). You know, with all else being equal the simplest answer is typically the truth. Lemme see, Kelly Flynn wannabe makes up some BS story to cover up adultery/abortion or...is forced out of a shopping mall by the invisible pocket bomber, overpowers her captors and runs barefoot to some random's house to wash her hands of hair-dye. I mean I know common sense need not apply in the AF (Blues on Mondays) but COME ON! Has anyone here had any in-depth dealings with the IG? The reason I ask is because maybe I am a total moron, but I still have enough faith in the AF to assume that SOMEONE involved in this cover-up would have enough integrity to go to the IG if they saw something being swept under the carpet. I sure as sh!t would. If so, would they do something about it or just send said whistle-blower back to their chain of command? Is the IG really what they claim to be? It blows my mind that there is obvious foul play involved here, the AF is doing nothing and not a single powerful entity (GAO, media or otherwise) really seems to care.

I'm assuming at least some of you took advantage of the USP .40 deal. Has anyone found a good in-the-belt holster that's not too bulky? I'm looking for a decent holster to carry it concealed.

Shack. It blows my mind that in a time when: We can't figure out how in the hell (after 4 years) to man UAVs We can't keep our nuke (in)security off the front page of the Sunday paper We can't keep about 90% of our Captains from wanting to bail at the first opportunity We are fighting a fvcking war for the love of God ...our leadership is so out of touch that when they get into power they think that something like dress-up Mondays should be anywhere near worthy of discussion. How about this numbnuts, figure out some solutions to the real problems the AF is facing, then worry about when you want us to dress up or or what Patch-Con is in effect on Fridays. Different leadership, same old shit.

Yeah, right. SHOULD is the key term there but there are great commanders and crappy ones out there: the the rest run the full spectrum between those extremes. It's very probable that if you go to your CC with this and lay it all out there, you'll find your pucks off the board the next day. Before you talk to any leadership you need to figure out what your best and worst case scenarios are. If you go into his office without a realistic gameplan (or if he's a d-bag) you could end up VERY unhappy. Bottom line is this...we all made a commitment. I know plenty who would LOVE to get out early but until Big Blue decides to let more pilots VSP we are all stuck with our ADSC. The only way we can influence our future is to fly well, upgrade early/often and impress our commanders by being good sh!ts outside the cockpit. The guys on my VML who got what they wanted did exactly that. Any commander is going to work harder for a dude that impresses him than for one he's not too sure about. My point? Right now your need to kick ass flying and with whatever your other job is in the squadron. Particularly if you want to do something out of the norm, you need to be an even stronger swimmer. Unless you have done really well I would not expect to get your choice of assignments after essentially quitting your day job. It won't happen. If I were you I would suggest trying to go back to school. There are programs within the AF where officers can go to law school, pursue a masters/doctorate or do other non-traditional jobs. The one thing they all have in common - they are very competitive. I think you have a better chance of leaving the operational flying world if you pursue something like that. Frame the discussion with your CC about pursuing another career/dream, not about your displeasure with flying and your lack of motivation. Otherwise, expect UAVs...

I'm in the market for a good shotgun but need some advice. I've been looking at something like a Remington 870 but I'm open for suggestions. Pump action highly desired for its intimidation factor and I don't want something old-school that I need to reload every shot. It'll mainly be a home defender.

My gut reaction is to say be careful what you wish for. How far are you through the pipeline? What is your MWS and what is their manning situation? I'm assuming first ops assignment. If that's the case your best bet might be to tough it out until your VML comes up and then think long and hard about what options are available to you (ALO/UAV/non-fly Nellis/Eglin). The reason I say that is because considering what's going on in the flying world right now your situation has one-way door to UAV written all over it. If you get some experience and/or upgrades done you may open up a few more doors. There are always those non-flying assignments to Red Flag and test that are talked about on the career brief for your MWS but I don't know anyone who has gone to one. Another reason to suck it up until you're due to move is that you don't know what is going to happen for the next (assuming) 7-8 years before your commitment is up. Not returning to fly following an ALO-type tour would probably put you in a better place than walking into your CC's office tomorrow and telling him your heart just isn't in it. To be blunt a move like this probably rules out making the AF a 20-year career, so you need to think about what avenue leads to the best quality of life until you can get out.

IP is highly desired but not required to go be an aggressor. From my understanding they will put you through and IPUG there that is heavy on air-air and adversary tactics. The few that I've know that have gone that route were IPs already. Most guys (about 2/3 - 3/4) will do Korea either straight out of the B-course or after their first ops tour. After that most guys will go do something else because there are just far more billets to go fly white jets, be an ALO or fly preds than there are to go to Luke. At Luke, the overwhelming majority of IP's have already been to Korea. It's not rare for someone to go from their first Ops assignment straight to Luke, expceially now that Ops-Ops tours have all but disappeared, but it gets pretty competitive. From what I recall from my VML there were ~20 to Korea, 2-3 Ops-Ops, <20 to Luke, like 40 or so white jets, about 10-15 ALOs and the same number of UAVs. They typically go in about that order too so if you want to stay in the jet you need to be competitive in the rack and stack. These days, anything approaching a good deal is pretty competitive so do everything you can to upgrade early and often on your first assignment.

Doc's uniform "flair" was designed using the official "Office Space Box of Flair" guide. For only $9.95 you too can look like a Latin American dictator. That's straight from Wikipedia. LMFAO

Anyone been through Safety School recently? I seem to remember one of the wrecks they have there to train you on being a -38 from many years ago that had the same failure. I thought the word we got there was that they "fixed" the problem by preventing it from failing in the full-down position. Either way..

Another question for anyone out there in the know...I just PCS'd and I have two POVs that I drove cross country. Well, I drove one and my father drove the other. I am married, but she's AD so technically I have no dependents. She is stationed at separate (third) base altogether so in no way did she move with me, she's staying put for now. I'm essentially a single dude PCSing. Finance is telling me that I can't claim milage for both cars because a dependent was not driving the other one, even though I own both of them. In the JFTR it simply does not specify that, if you don't have deps, you can only move with one car CONUS - CONUS. Yet finance is saying they won't pay the mileage for my second car, which is a decent amount since it was over 2K miles. They say that even if my wife drove it, it wouldn't matter since she's not a dep. Anyone run into this same problem and what was the outcome? I know there are plenty of single dudes out there with more than one car...

Anyone out there have contact info for the Breitling folks that handle the special orders for custom watches? I already own a B-1 and want to get the custom viper faceplate installed at some point, seems like it should not be too hard. Problem is, the only time I've seen said faceplate being offered is as part of a custom buy of like 50 new watches.

Classic. I just wish that as a service we could quit fvcking up so maybe this would make a bigger headline. It gets lost in the news about nuke buffoonery and all the class As we've had this year. I know her hubby from school so I eagerly await the day that a TDY takes me his way so we can sit down and have a beer. He must be hating life...

Amen to that. The TAMI guys that got sent to preds from my squadron were right around the same experience level as guys coming right off a Korea tour, so if another TAMI round were to occur, who knows if Korea will be protected. Another intangible that the long tours have is that if you are sh!thot and the timing is right you could go through the IPUG on your first assignment. Being an IP is a good way to stay in the jet because the community needs IPs, plus it keeps you in the running for WIC if that's your thing. One school of thought on Korea is to go early and get it over with; the other is that the earlier you go the sooner you go back. What it all comes down to is that you can't game the system because the rules are always changing. Who knows what kind of flail AFPC will be going through on your next VML. 6 months is long term for those morons, hence the fact that we still don't have a pred pipeline 4-5 years after they've been operational. Think of where you'll be happy next assignment and ask for it. Don't let anyone convince you to "go ugly early" on an ADP to suck up an ALFA tour and get back into a gray jet ASAP. I didn't (against some of the advice I got) and I'm starting my second long tour in the Viper. Think about it, if one dude stiff-arms a bad deal and the other begrudgingly asks for it, who do you think is going to get fooked?

Shaw = dirty south. If you are a southern boy you'll probably like it. If not it will probably drive you crazy. Sumter sucks unless you are married so if you are single you want to at least consider living in Columbia which buys you a 30-50 minute commute depending on where in town you live. Score some points for flying the block 50, but lose even more for being in SEC country (a backwards place where people actually think USC stands for the state school, not the real USC). The airspace sucks too plus you'll be the only AD unit in the country pulling full time alert, which leads to some bad deals. Isn't homeland defense the reason for the ANG? Politics and egos suck... Hill is in an awesome area and you'll love the place if you are an outdoors person. Skiing and snowboarding are close by in the winter and the rest of the time you've got great terrain for hiking and mountain biking. You can't beat the airspace. You will drop more at Hill than anywhere else and there are always ground pounders to work with in the UTTR. Your bros will be TDY there all the time for WSEP. Downside: I don't care what anyone says, the mormon thing gets a little wierd after a while. If you've been there you'll know what I mean. Spang/Aviano = the number 1/2 choice for most people for all the reasons stated above. Living in Europe is awesome and your quality of life (if you are a traveler) is great. Add that to the drug deal of getting tax-free just about every month for flying over the Adriatic all the time and Aviano is a nice pull. On the other hand Spang has the block 50, so score some points for Germany. Misawa = Haven't been but I hear mixed reviews. You are pretty far from major civilization I understand, but then again I hear it's cool if you have a companion (read - married). I hear the locals are a mixed bag: some are really cool but you will walk into bars and restaurants where they cross their arms and say "no Americans." Plus side: block 50's. Any Misawa dudes have more info? Korea still sounds like a good deal. You don't know your follow-on right away now, but it's still a Viper tour follow-on. After a year there you won't be experienced so they really need to keep you in the jet. There is something to be said, however, for the fact that you might want to stiff-arm being on a VML for as long as possible considering the recent sh!tstorm that is the fighter assignment process. At Korea you'll move after a year whereas the other tours you're looking at about 2 years, 8 months. Bottom line it depends on what you like, hope that info helps...

Hmmm slightly different story. My old SQ/CC said something to me after I failed to catch a popped engine bit ball after a weather divert. I caught it the next day (knew it was due to flying through rain and not a big deal) and rode out the painful stay in the middle of nowhere to get it checked. A lot of guys would have taken it. He said everyone makes mistakes, but when you do something wrong on purpose you deserve what you get. Truer words have never been said. Even as a UPT stud if he just fessed up he might have gotten a pee-pee schwacking. IF (a big if) the above is true then throw the book at him, if he's got flight discipline issues that early in the game he's a lost cause.

I just moved and TMO at my new base is telling me that they won't reimburse me for the weight of the trailer I just bought because it's a tandem axle. Anyone else run into this? Is it true (ie something changed very recently) or should I go back and try to get my money. If true I want to wring the neck of the TMO moron at my last base who told me what kind of trailer to get to make sure I would get reimbursed. Pisses me off when people don't know their job and it's all too common in some career fields. Anyway it's worth about two grand to me so anyone in the know please let me know if you have any knowledge of the subject.

Yeah I hate to rain on anyone's (what if) parade but neither would ever make it to a JSF cockpit. Let me see, let's send either (A) a UAV guy or (B) a heavy dude to the JSF when we have how many current viper/eagle guys who can fill the slot? There will always be that random dude that makes a crossflow or escapes UAVs due to some kind of guard drug deal but to make a track selection choice based on it would be foolish. The guy who falls through the cracks like that will do it regardless of what he tracks, most likely because of who he knows instead of how good of a stick he is. BL: It's been said before on this thread, but this is a band-aid. Big blue will have to establish a UAV pipeline and stop cherry-picking like they are right now. It's the dudes in the interim who will be the tweeners that may (or may not) get back to their MWS or even back to a cockpit in the case of the UPT to UAV dudes. Some will and some won't. There will be some seriously disgruntled pilots for a while too, that much has already happened. I feel for the dudes in UPT right now because they entered figuring they would end up flying a real plane, but from here on out UAVs are part of the deal. If you don't like that don't show up at UPT. Sure it sucks but it's hard to get mad if you know the rules going in. Just my $.02.

Another question... I'm about to PCS and I have two dogs. Is staying on any bases along the way an option or are all AF inns/TLF no-pets? Am I on my own finding hotels along the way where I can stay with the mutts?