SPiF
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Posts posted by SPiF
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Another plug for Jon and Trident. This was my third time financing with them, and my father even closed a loan with them the week prior. All over the paperwork and the ability to quickly turn stuff around helped me win the house I wanted and relatively painlessly go through all the mortgage hoops.
Rate was at 2.99% on a conventional (ended up being a better option than VA in the market competition) which was lower than my VA refi last year.
Was selling a house at the same time and the buyer's lender seemed insistent on screwing up as many things as they could. Of all the issues in play for a cross-country move, the loan for the house I was buying wasn't ever in question.
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Went ANG to AFRES. Biggest hurdle was getting the wing to get off their rear and finish processing the 1288. There was some other medical shenanigans needed by the AFRES that the ANG hadn't documented, but the AFRES recruiter handled it for me.
Still needed to go through a recruiter, even though I had a gaining unit with a position number.
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10 hours ago, 17D_guy said:
One idea floated to me by a Col was to not give CGO's certifications (GIAC, CISSP, etc.) since they're worth so much on the outside and allows us to realize our dollar value. I like the dude who suggested this, so I'm going to assume legit panic/worry and not a character flaw. He got a dig more at the numbers this past week, so we'll see what happens.
I ended up only getting the unit to pay for some of my certs before I punched, the rest I paid for myself.
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6 hours ago, Jaded said:
What is RMVS and how do you get access?
It's part of the AFPC Secure suite of apps. You just log into the AF Portal and you can search for it as one of the available sites. It'll let you search by all reserve vacancies, TR, IMA, or AGR.
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9 hours ago, El-Fist said:
I wanted to give this thread a bump to see if anybody has recent experience with going from ANG to a CAT E program. I've got 16 years of flying in, but I'm feeling pretty done at this point. Balancing the airline job with the guard's flying currency requirements is rapidly losing it's appeal. I would hate to completely walk away at 16 years with 13 years of AD, but it's just not fun anymore.
If anyone has recently jumped from ANG to any of the CAT E PIRR, (ALO, CAP, RRS, etc.) and can shed some light on the process, I would greatly appreciate it.
You may want to look at the IMA program as well. All the billets I've seen are non-flying, and it's a lot easier to schedule your days in 1-2 blocks/year and be done with it. Looking at RMVS they've got a decent slate of 11X positions all over.
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3 hours ago, jcollins said:
17D_Guy come join the Guard. It's the best of both worlds. Six figure income, no PCS and you get to do cool stuff on the weekends. Google "Cyber Shield exercise" for examples.
Or the reserves (Go IMA!). Made the jump from AD a few years ago, don't regret it for the quoted reasons and I still get to contribute to the mission.
Every time I miss being AD my unit is more than happy to offer me days so I can remind myself why I punched...
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Just closed with Trident last week. Called around to several different banks, and no one could beat their rate + lender credit. Especially as we decided to do 0% down with the low interest rates right now.
Biggest takeaway for me is that, within about 20 minutes of emailing with some questions, Marty was giving me a call back to talk rough numbers (which were really close to on the money by the time we closed). We're up in Seattle where the housing market is really hot and they were able to quick turn on anything we needed, which ended up being the difference in getting our house.
Bonus points for hiring military spouses. Highly recommend, and would use again/recommend to family.
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On 5/6/2016 at 9:32 PM, Dupe said:
Personal view: an online MBA is a waste of time. If you need a square-filler for AF stuff, go do ACSC or ERAU or something.
If you are mentoring the pups, advise them that the real advantages of a MBA are classmates and on-campus resources. They'll get neither through an online program.
I started doing an online MBA from the University of Texas - Dallas, which also allows you to switch between in-residence or all online classes.
Ended up moving next to the University of Washington when I left AD for the reserves, switched to the in-res program. Fully agree that the classmates/on campus resources make the loss of the online convenience worth it.
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Here's a good link: http://www.arpc.afrc.af.mil/Home/HQRIO.aspx
They're all posted online under the reserve vacancies section of AFPC Secure.
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Depends on your question. Left AD for a TR ANG job, transitioned to an AFRES IMA gig a few months ago. Honestly, I prefer it a lot more to the ANG. It's working within an AD unit but at least I get paid on time now.
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Now that's wardriving!
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Anybody know if the reg that governs the 1288 application? My gaining unit is wondering if my position number has to be a vacant position or if they can use an overage.
AFI 36-2115 para 1.7 talks about what you're looking for wrt the reserves. My guard unit does this all the time (overages), but the ANG is currently allowed to be at 110% manned with overages. The catch I've found in manning my shop is that it's hard to get both overage and over grade. But, all officer spots in the ANG are Major slots.
Reserves may be different, as I know they have officer slots up to the Capt level.
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I currently have a Palace Chase application in the works and my ADSC expires in 7 months. I have been hired by a unit that is located at my current duty station. I need to move out of the house I am renting and into the house that I bought before any of this will be finalized. Is there anyway I can get he AF to pay for my move instead of having to do it on my own dime? They will only give separation orders 30-45 days out and without orders TMO won't do anything. I considered trying a full DITY and claiming it after the fact but if the weight ticket dates are before the orders it won't be reimbursed. I have asked about using my "Home of Record" move but again TMO says that is only supposed to be used for getting into the AF not out of the AF. Any ideas would be appreciated.
HOR move applies when you separate. I went Palace Front last year, and they paid what it would cost to move to my HOR (I moved about 3x further away). I had 7 years' AD. I believe there's a line around 12 years where they'll pay to move you anywhere in CONUS as you've been away from your HOR long enough, but I wasn't nearly close enough to it so I didn't pay much attention to it.
And the dates can be before your orders by a certain amount. I did a full DITY and shipped my stuff (via UBox, didn't trust the Gov't to not screw me over on shipping/storage with their carrier) before my "first movement" date by about 2 weeks. Finance Guy probably knows the exact delimiter, but they paid out for me.
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LinkedIn. They offer free premium membership for military for at least 12 months.
Do a search for "military recruiter" or even "recruiter" for the location or companies you're interested in. I've gotten 2 jobs (one they reached out to me, one I reached out to them) and a few serious sets of interviews through it. Probably the only useful info I got out of TAP.
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Disagree. I want to see blue-suiters operating in the cyber domain to achieve combat effects and not just keeping the street clean. For the support function (which is markedly different than the combat fuction), I think we can provide better support through services contracts vice creating rice-bowls. Amazon Web Services is a good example: I've simply never heard of it failing. I have no idea why we continue to maintain base data centers for base-specific applications when AWS is both cheaper and more reliable. Airmen need to be shooting from the castle walls and not cleaning the crap.
As a former AD (now Reserve) 17D and working for a big cloud provider at my day job, there is plenty of interest to provide services to the DoD. Biggest hurdle is that what keeps our costs down is the ability to essentially share that computing power with multiple customers (as well as a lot of non-US citizens doing dev/build/mx) which the DoD cloud service provider regs keep choking on.
The regs are also in constant flux, which makes it hard to plan a business case for $XXXM+ in investment to folks who have very little concept of why the regs are written the way they are. DISA (as 17D_guy mentioned) is the big broker, and many of the regs are still written with traditional enterprise networks in mind. Some concerns are valid, some aren't, which defeats a lot of the cost savings. But, I think the next 18-24 months will show a lot of progress as the various branches start pushing DISA to compromise a bit more.
And yes, we do have outages just like your traditional base server farms. The difference comes in the redundancy model that cloud offers and there are various pricing options to help with that. Of course, multi-region/multi-service outages can happen with things such as zero-day attacks, human error, bad rollover configs, etc..
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On a related note, for anyone who separated during the year and then joined the Guard or Reserves, did you receive separate W-2's or one with all of your military pay? My concern is making sure they're separate because my Reserve pay will be as a California resident (if I stay). And also if I happen to drill in May, prior to receiving my final pay, who knows how DFAS will screw that up!
I did just that. Got a W-2 for my AD pay, and a W-2 for my ANG pay. It was classified as a Reserve Component W-2, so I would think it's the same process for the Reserves.
My AD W-2 showed my previous state of residence, TX, while the ANG one showed my new state, WA.
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Posting here since I can't find a dedicated health care/insurance thread: Is Tricare Reserve Select generally the way to go for ANG members? Background: O-3, unmarried/no kids, good health, PCing in a few weeks. Much appreciated.
Depends on what your new employer is willing to offer you. Most companies cover a large chunk of the cost for just the employee, but (in my experience) when you throw in the spouse/kids is when TRS can become a better deal.
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If you go from AD directly into an ANG/Reserve spot, you'll get TAMP. Nothing showed up on MilConnect or anywhere in my records until I signed in to my ANG unit and they activated it.
From what I've heard about the 5 years free medical, that's for any condition that is marked as "deployment related". And it's at a VA hospital.
I got jack s**t on info from the AD side on TAMP. Walked into my ANG MPF and they processed it (once I was officially gained). But it takes them about 1-2 weeks to gain you, although mine took about a month due to buffoonery at the state level. They back-dated the paperwork to indicate no break in service and everything was fine. If you decide to purchase Tricare reserve select you have to wait until 30 days before your TAMP is up.
Although I do recommend avoiding any medical appointments for you/dependents within the first 30 days as the Tricare claims re-processing process is a pain in the ass.
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I completed my PMP while still on AD, and there are tons of things that work as project. The basic definition is that the project shouldn't be something that is a recurring process (i.e currency flying, etc.). I was able to use ORI/CUI prep (building a prep plan, tracking milestones, execution, and after-action). Same thing with major deployment workups. I was also able to count the execution of deployments (adjustment to how we were executing the project as part of the measure/verify/adjust process, etc..).
Yes, these things occur on a semi-regular timeline, but each one involves its own planning process, scope definition, objectives, and measurable outcomes. Doing that it wasn't too hard to come up with 4500 hours. For most of the big projects like we go through the major PMI steps, we may not call it a kickoff meeting or plot points on a Gantt chart.
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kitten mittens, normal 3:1
Warrior, if your ADSC is non-waiverable why dont you just apply under the normal Palace Chase? If you want out, why are you holding out? Start the process now.
Question for those approved and have made the transition as a TR regarding health care. How long does your Prime run once you separate? is it 6 months after your DOS or that day and do you just call and make the switch to Reserve select? do you have to wait until after your DOS or can I call right now so everything switches on my DOS? Same question for dental. thanks
If you go direct without a break, you should get the TAMP for 180 days free coverage (but your MPF has to kick that process off, supposed to be smoother in the Reserves than the ANG). When you're within 60 days of that expiring you can go online and enroll for TRS to kick in the day after that expires, for no break in coverage.
Otherwise, your Prime expires at midnight on your DOS.
While they f***ed up my TR start date (but backed it up to be effective the day after I separated), had to take my son for an urgent care visit which was rejected the first time as we were showing as "lapsed". Was the typical Tricare PITA to fix, but overall they made good on it.
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Interesting one here - so I am a free agent, my debts to society paid in full. UPT and PCS ADSC expired, PIT ADSC was wiped out by MPF, reference the past two pages. So I apply for separation and the MPF professional informs me that I show AAC 50 for a 3-year controlled AETC tour, and I haven't been here 3 years. Their interpretation of that controlled tour is that, although not an ADSC, it commits me here for a full 3 years. I've researched the regs (assignments reg, stabilized tour guide) and they are in my favor (it's a max controlled tour, not a min, plus no mention of it preventing retirements or separations, just a PCS). However, said MPF professional entertained me with several stories (WOMs) of people who were held up by this.
Anyone out there have to fight this battle before? Was it as easy as showing them their own regs and watching their brains explode or was it more painful? What was the result? I've got a job on the outside lined up with a start date that I need to make; it happens to be before the expiration of my max controlled tour (interpreted by MPF as a min controlled tour). Thanks in advance for any war stories.
Was on a 4-year controlled tour, AAC 50. Applied for and was approved for a full separation that would have me out by the 2.5 year mark as I don't have any ADSCs. CC approved, WG/CC approved, and I never asked MPF for their opinion on the matter. Cleared without issue from AFPC. The AAC only means that you have to get approval to PCS (and in some cases PCA) before that time is up, saw a few folks who ran into that problem.
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For other folks looking to get out soon:
https://mycareer.deloitte.com/us/en/whatwedo/industries/core-leadership-program
I know some folks who went through it (I didn't find out until it was too late), but it's supposed to be a really good program. I've used some of the nuggets that were handed down to folks that went while searching for employment myself, and it paid dividends.
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Got approved for PC a while back...curious if anyone knows if you can't get SGLI through the guard?
Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!
I get SGLI as a drill status guardsmen, also get the spousal SGLI. Same rates as the AD folks pay, you just have to reaccomplish the paperwork once you sign in to your unit. I think I technically had a 1-month gap in coverage, no big deal.
On the struggle bus at UPT, heading for a CR
in General Discussion
Posted
This. Also got the 6-month UPT tour and ran into some med issues which found me getting reclass'd. Went into cyber, the AF let me do some really cool stuff for awhile, then punched to the reserves to take those skills to the outside where I've done really well.
Not everyone goes to the big FAANG companies, but getting the AF to pay to get the cyber ops/cyber security stink and experience opens up a world of possibilities post-AF that many of my commissioning class who got out just haven't had. And it's a broad enough field that you can find something you enjoy with the training they give you.