Glasgow :: Cathedral & Necropolis

April 9th was our first full day in Glasgow! We headed into town and explored via the Hop On Hop Off bus, getting a cool history of the town. 

Fountain near the People's Palace

River running near Glasgow University

Glasgow University

The outside of Kelvingrove Art Meuseum

Glasgow Cathedral

Us in front of Glasgow Cathedral

 The cathedral had some beautiful stained glass:

The Necropolis behind the cathedral had thousands of tombs and graves, and overlooked the city. 

We had lunch at the Drygate Brewery. Unfortunately, Meg's cold prevented her from tasting most of it, but her cauliflower and blue cheese soup was delicious!

A bridge over the river in town

 The rest of the day was spent simply walking around the city center, which included Buchanan Street and the surrounding areas. Most areas were simply shopping, which Meg and I had little interest in. We headed back to the flat in the early evening, as jet lag was still effecting us. We had dinner at one of the local pubs which was within walking distance.

As Meg the story behind this photo...

Glasgow :: A Day in the Park

My sister and I are partying it up in Scotland! We arrived to Glasgow after a seven hour flight to London, and an additional 1.5 hours to Glasgow. Poor Meg has six hours of flying before that just to get to the East Coast so we could fly together!

After arriving in Glasgow, we checked into our Air B&B and met our awesome host Doug and his sweet dog Erin. His flat was only a short walk from Glasgow Vet School, which is somewhere Meg wanted to attend when she was interested in Vet School. 

Doug invited us along his afternoon walk for his dog, so we spent the next couple hours being shown the area by a local and playing fetch!

The vet school had a river running through it, and large grassy areas that multiple dogs were running around. 

The town also had old (somewhat abandoned?) gas containers...they used to hold natural gas stores for the city/country, but they were decommissioned in the 1920s ish. Now they're protected landmarks!

After the walk around town, Meg and I grabbed some Chinese take out for dinner...it was a fight to keep Meg awake past 6pm. Her jet lag was hitting her hard!!

Funny story: we ordered the take out, and when Meg asked for packets of hot sauce, the woman had the HARDEST time understanding what we wanted. Maybe it was because she was a woman who spoke Chinese, used to Scottish accent, speaking to an American. It took Meg three tries before giving up and running out the door!

Combat Dining In 2017

Combat Dining In is often a once-in-a-career event. With budget constraints, low manning, high mission tempo, and overall stress that we feel in the military, it takes a lot to plan an event like this.

Luckily, we had a group of stellar NCOs who knew the importance of high morale. So they put together a Dining In with obstacle courses, great food, cheap beer, and water fights every few minutes!

Because there were water balloons flying, squirt guns bursting, and buckets dumping, there was no way I'd have my phone out of it's plastic bag more than a few seconds. But we were able to capture some fun times before and after!

My Senior NCOs (senior Enlisted) loved dumping water on their Flight Commander (me).

The Wing Command Chief, doing the course before the grog

The Airfield Operations Flight

The 436 Operations Support Squadron in Dover DE after a great water fight!

Women in Defense Conference

A coworker of mine and I had the opportunity to attend a Women in Defense Conference in Washington, D.C. in September. We heard from a range of speakers, many former military and now successful civilians. Both of us were able to ask a key female leader a question...I spoke with General Lori Robinson, the first female COCOM commnader (she leads NORAD and USNORTHCOM), and my coworker was able to speak with the Honorable Heather Wilson, the Secretary of the Air Force! 

Both were terrifying, we were shaking from nerves after. So after the conference, we went to Georgetown Cupcakes and stuffed our faces :) 

Speaking with General Robinson

Secretary Wilson speaking to the crowd

My coworker talking with Secretary Wilson

We loved our lunch dessert

Georgetown Cupcakes!

Orange Spinning Thing...Fixed!

You know that orange spinning tower plate you see at airports? Those are called DASRs, or Digital Auxiliary Surveillance Radars. They send and receive signals that tell the air traffic control team where airplanes are.  They need regular maintenance, which the FAA usually does. But my team is stellar in that they're too impatient, and decided to do it themselves! They replaced the joint that makes the system spin...a feat that has taken some teams up to 6 days! But THIS team did it in 10 hours! Talk about phenomenal....

Working hard or hardly working? They're waiting to pulley-up the new joint to it's place 12 floors above.