Still Fighting It

  

Yesterday took my last final and rounded out the semester. Geeeeeeeeez -- how can a whole semester go so fast? I guess a lot happened:

• Proposed
• Found out my job
• Helped run a Capstone project with $50 K worth of funding
• Survived as squad comm of CS-38
• Lots of visits home :)

Life kind of sneaks up on you, and I'm sure the nervousness/anxiety I feel about my career, or marriage, or life in general is the exact same nervousness/anxiety I felt about going to high school for the first time, or graduating. or bootcamp, or being a full-time missionary, or taking that Astro final... its that anxiety of thinking that the scariest thing you'll ever do is whatever is next on your horizon.  That's why I like this Ben Folds song -- because that battle of the unknown is something we have to fight our whole life, and everyone does, but its going to be ok.  Whenever I start worrying or thinking too much, I just calm down enough to remember that I've been down this same road of anxiety before, just about a different thing -- then I say a mini-prayer of comfort and thanks, and everything is ok.  

So hang in there.  

AFSC -- aka my new career

63AX - Acquisition Manager

That's right folks, the Air Force gave me a job :)  This is actually kinda old news, but I was looking at my past posts and noticed I promised this announcement, so here it is!  This was my top choice of career, so I'm pretty grateful Uncle Sam cooperated.  What does an acquisition manager do, you ask?  Heres a link to what the Air Force describes this job as: LINK!!  But let me explain what I've been able to gather so far... 

According to this picture (found at above link) I will be flying a desk, and can look forward to: framed astronaut pictures, receding hairlines, a bigger belly, and (drumroll) ...hairier arms!

What I've really learned though is that I'll be working as a program manager of some aspect of an  acquisitions project.  Examples of current acquisitions projects are the F-35, or the KC-X.  And yep, if you've payed any attention to the news, those projects are all not doing so hot, and that's why I picked acquisitions.  Because where else does the Air Force need so much change and work done?  Nowhere.  So I hope to change the world, and that's way cooler than flying planes to me ANYDAY.

But seriously, I don't look forward to that visibly thinning hair

Boom! Engaged!

Heyo!!  I'm pretty dang behind on posts -- but guess who got engaged?  Yep, this dashing young couple.  On August 26th 2011, I proposed to Kylie :)

After she got off work I surprised her in service dress and, getting on one knee, asked her to marry me.  I'll never forget her reaction and how precious that moment was!  

The ring had gotten done the day before, and after a headache of events, made it to me in a necklace box hand delivered to my house.  I had enough time between landing and asking to make it out to her house to ask permission (cause that's what gentlemen DO), but hadn't anticipated the hiccup of Needham's making the ring a whole size too small!!  AGH!!  But Kylie is a baller and tough as nails, so after a lengthy battle, grandpa was able to get the ring off and her finger survived!!  (yay!)

Grandpa in action: fishing line and tough love for the win!

Success!  Thanks Grandpa!

So then it was official, and the next day was spent at the Bear Lake with our families celebrating Kylie's big day -- 21 years old!  

I always thought she had to be at least a little crazy to settle for me ;)  but I wouldn't want her any other way!

Forevah.

"I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you,

and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, 

and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, 

and never will love anyone else."

Jonathan Safran Foer

RING DANCE!!

An event three years (plus two taiwanese years) in the making: receiving of my class ring. The rising senior class at the Air Force Academy has long practiced the tradition of receiving their class rings at a formal military ball called "Ring Dance." I asked my sweetheart to be my guest of honor -- and get this: she said yes! So we got all fancied up and made our way to the ball.

I ended up being a lot more excited about the ring than I had originally thought, but Kylie was there to poke fun and keep me from freaking out too hard haha.
And we were happy :)
And I felt like a new, emboldened person.
And after the dance we headed up to the mountains with a group of my friends and their dates and spent the weekend at a cabin in Silverthorne, and even though it snowed we had a great time!!
Next huge Academy milestone? Receiving my AFSC (job) -- stay tuned for the early November announcement!

Lean Pockets

Brrr

Adventures in Wonderland

Transformers

How many hours did you spend obsessing over transformers this week? Obviously not enough.

I'm surviving school, and even despite the cold managed to get this Electrical Engineering project done on time. Kudos, I know.

Airy Zone, eh?

Epic weekend!! As you probably know, I had the opportunity to travel down to Arizona to perform the national anthem at the BCS Championship game (thats the biggest college football game of the year Holly). We left on Saturday, appeared on Good Morning Arizona (morning televsions talkshow), visited a VA hospital, attended the BCS Party, and on Monday we became famous. Let me break it down for you:

Dr. G (far left) is our director and he get super stressed out around performance time. One kid's bag was lost and he was in full freak out mode. Haha, but we all survived. The middle guy is one of our BCS dudes that walked us around and let us know where we were suppposed to be. The Air Force guy on the right was our Officer in Charge of the trip - he's a chaplain and pretty funny.

Our first appearance was on Good Morning Arizona, and it was just the members of TAS that went on the trip. On the way over, our public affairs peeps (one lt. and one civilian) asked who would be the spokesman if the anchors wanted to give a mini-interview. Everyone immediately said "CURTIS!" and thats how I got to make a fool of myself on TV. haha - it wasn't horrible, but in response to one of her questions I had a good two second pause in the middle of my response. ...I don't want to talk about it haha

Sunday afternoon we went to the VA old folks home - and it was amazing. We sang for like 30 -40 minutes, and after every song those vets would lightly cheer and it was fun. But while we sang songs about the men that have died to make our country free, or about those who have given the last full measure of devotion, these veterans got somber as they remembered their buddies that they lost in combat. I saw tears, and I felt the power of the situation wash over me. Amazing experience. I'll post more about some stories I heard from one particular vet here in the next day or so.

On game day we went down to the stadium and it was pretty cool walking around the parking lot seeing all the crazy fans and walk down the ramp past security to the bottom of the bowl. After we ate, we hung out down in a locker room for a couple hours as we heard the stadium above fill to capacity. 78,000 screaming fans. Some people read books, some tried to nap, but I (naturally) went around taking goofy pictures and stupid movies. We were in the cardinal cheerleader's lockerroom and I thought it was hilarious that they would put up pictures of themselves on all the mirrors, the same way a budding star would put up a picture of their idol, like they were their own idol. haha. Whatevs.

The actual singing of the anthem was pretty cool, if you didn't catch it on TV, I'll try and find something online I can post here - but it was perhaps the most patriotic display in the history of the world. As we waited on the sideline, there was a big video presentation of troops over in Afghanistan and messages they wanted to give to their families, who had been given tickets to the game. They had the families down on the field watching, and as the video concluded, the soldiers on the video appeared from the tunnels and ran out to their unsuspecting families' arms -- a surprise reunion! It was pretty cool. A different choir sang God Bless America, then it was our turn. We walked out to the 20 yard line and started singing. As soon as we started they had a field-sized American flag being unfurled across the field by dozens of runners, and after the flag was stretched across the field a BALD EAGLE was realeased from the top of the bowl and it soared (majestically) across the whole field and was caught by a handler in the opposite endzone. Epic. Talk about cheering, the crowd ate it up! haha

We changed into our fan gear and made our way down to our seats -- face value of $350 that were selling online for $3500 plus! Brady and I had chosen to cheer for the underdogs, and we of course were seated in the Auburn half of the bowl, but there were enough Oregon fans scattered about that we were safe haha. The game was pretty fun, there was enough of a fight there at the end that we had our hopes up. The Auburn fans were fun and pretty rowdy, oregon fans were pretty dull, like they had been offended by the southern cousins at a family get together and they were silent in protest. We lost, but it was still one of the most intense weekends of my life!

Lets do lunch and "catch up"

Its been quite awhile since my last post -- I've been busy I guess haha. Quick highlight list of whats been up since our last (in order of importance)

• Christmas in Asia with my fam -- visited Nick/Camie in Korea, went to taiwan

Finished semeseter with Dean and Athletic Pin -- excellence anyone? ok.

• still haven't been skiing. dangit.

SOooo yeah, I'll try and start blogging again -- but only if you try to start reading again. deal?
Deal.
Here's a preview of future blog posts --

*the foods of asia*

*christmas break*

*bcs championship game*

*birthday adventures*

*spring break*

*ring dance*

*the summer of the hippies*

and many more...