back to NC.

7/15/2008 2:02:07 AM

cherry point then?

7/15/2008 2:07:00 AM

yep

7/15/2008 2:09:02 AM

Sweet.

7/15/2008 2:12:28 AM

probably hit the road on friday or saturday.

planning on stopping by Mount Rushmore and the St. Louis Arch, and possibly a Cardinals game (playing at home against the Brewers).

should be in raleigh by the end of next week...won't have to report in to Cherry Point until the end of the month.

7/15/2008 2:39:10 AM

did you go straight into TBS after OCS?
I mean- there has to be a short break between commissioning & going to TBS, right?

Are you glad you're heading back to NC?

7/15/2008 7:40:47 AM

I'm packing up to move this weekend too, but not back to NC

7/15/2008 7:42:15 AM

That's cool. I just got back from PLC JR's two weeks ago. What's your MOS? And I have to ask how was SERE school? I will be going there barring I keep my Air contract and make fighter pilot, right?

7/15/2008 7:44:54 AM

^^^ i went to OCS during college. I graduated in May '04, but NCSU screwed up some administrative stuff, and I couldn't get commissioned until August. I worked for a couple of months in the recruiting office, then went to TBS in November '04. There is usually a short break between commissioning and TBS, but it can be up to a few months sometimes. Just depends.

I'm glad to be heading back to NC. I wanted Beaufort, SC (partially because I wanted F-18s, and partially because it's a nice area), but I'm glad to be coming back home, too.


^ congratulations. i bet that was fun...pause NOT. Just remember that the "real" Marine Corps isn't like OCS.

I'm a Prowler ECMO (7588). SERE school sucked. It's good training, but, uhh, you aren't going to enjoy it! I lost 17 lbs in one week. I mean, it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I'm sure as hell glad I don't have to do it again.

As far as I know, all aviators (and certain other MOSs...mostly intel and recon) are supposed to go to SERE. I think some people are still slipping through the cracks (not intentionally--maybe they just don't have slots available in SERE when they leave flight school, and then maybe the fleet wants them really quickly as they finish the RAG, so they just never get orders to SERE). You'll probably go, though.

My advice is to make sure you want to be a Marine officer, not just want to be a fighter pilot. There are a lot of things that can happen between now and then. I was in the EXACT same place as you--had a pilot contract, wanted to fly Harriers or Hornets. They found that one of my eyes was fractionally out of limits on some measurement--I could see fine, it was just some astigmatism measurement. I had PRK (on my dime, as I wasn't commissioned yet) to correct it, and in the meantime took an NFO contract to keep me in the aviation pipeline, on the advice that it would be easier to switch back to pilot from NFO than it would be from ground (even though I actually wanted to go ground if I couldn't be a pilot). Well, I came out seeing 20:15, but it happened to be at a time when they were in a crunch for NFOs, and they wouldn't switch me back. They also assured me at TBS that I'd end up as an adjutant or ground supply officer if I dropped my NFO contract. Therefore, I stayed NFO, went to flight school, had better grades than the other Marine I graduated with, and still walked away with Prowlers (he got Hornets, although he'd wanted Prowlers until about a week before selection when his wife decided she wanted to go to San Diego).

On top of all that, on the pilot side, you have to have good grades to even go jets in flight school. Jets are attainable, for sure, but that's not where most Marine pilots end up. Not trying to rain on your parade...I'm just saying that there are a hundred different things that can prevent you from ending up as a Hornet pilot (some of them being pure luck of the draw), so make sure you understand that.

7/15/2008 1:36:59 PM

sweet tits mcgee

7/15/2008 1:37:40 PM

there are way too many acronyms in this thread

7/15/2008 1:39:47 PM

^TAWTMAITT

7/15/2008 1:49:55 PM

^^ ha, i was about to say "what are you talking about"...then i looked at my post.

that's still not really that bad, relatively.


^^^ ???

you still in raleigh, saps?

7/15/2008 2:08:03 PM

Military men sure are on the move here recently.

Yay for you coming back to NC though!!!

7/15/2008 2:13:49 PM

well, looks like i won't hit the road for another week now (next wednesday).

7/17/2008 2:52:50 AM

leaving here tomorrow!

got most of my stuff packed...have a few more things left to box up.

7/23/2008 2:04:08 AM

Good luck!

7/23/2008 2:05:19 AM

thanks

stayed in Missoula, MT last night

Newcastle, WY tonight

going to Mount Rushmore in SD tomorrow morning

7/26/2008 1:40:16 AM

good luck
and try not to get any speeding tickets

7/26/2008 1:41:08 AM

ha

i'm driving my 3/4 ton truck, pulling a trailer...and the speed limit has been 75 mph where i've been today. low 80s is about the fastest i want to go, anyway.

7/26/2008 1:53:13 AM

drive safe!

holla when you get to new bern and raleigh!

7/26/2008 2:00:50 AM

you better do a flyby over my house whenever you do training flights.

either that or let my kid see some jets doing some crazy shit.

7/26/2008 2:02:55 AM

Take pics.

Was out at the WY/MT border earlier this summer. Flaming Gorge.

Not a single day has passed since then that I haven't wished to be back out in the MT-->NM/AZ area.

7/26/2008 2:22:17 AM

Quote :

"stayed in Missoula, MT last night"

Ingle's future s-i-l lives in Missoula

7/26/2008 2:24:35 AM

not enough use of initials in here

someone needs to drop some class M rated loader lingo on us

7/26/2008 2:36:33 AM

went to mount rushmore today.

also had a tire blow totally of the rim on my tandem axle trailer today. i thought it felt like i might have a flat, but i didn't realize how bad it was until i got out and looked. the other tire on that side was starting to delaminate...missing a big chunk of tread.

i got the spare on and limped to mitchell, south dakota, where i'm stuck until i can find trailer tires pre-mounted on a 6-lug rim, or find someone to mount a tire on my rim (if we can beat the dents out with a ball-peen hammer, which i think we can).

7/27/2008 1:46:55 AM

shit

i towed a jetski on just the rim for a solid 20 miles one time

sparks were a flyin'

7/27/2008 1:47:56 AM

get AAA premium

7/27/2008 1:48:38 AM

i have towing insurance with USAA

but a tow would've taken a while (nearest towing company that was open at 9pm on saturday night was a long ways off...i mean, it's south dakota!) and wouldn't have really gotten me anything. i'm still stuck until i can get the tire(s) replaced.

also, I could get by with just replacing the delaminating tire and using it as the spare, but I think I'll just go ahead and buy 2 new tires, keeping the old spare as an actual good spare that I wouldn't mind driving on for serious distance if I got another flat.

my trailer has 8-ply tires, and i'm loaded to MAYBE half of its rated capacity, and with a weight-distributing hitch, to boot. i don't know why the tires are shitting the bed.

7/27/2008 1:54:44 AM

maybe they're just old

or you ran over something?

7/27/2008 1:57:19 AM

Yeah for a trip that long it's DEF worth the price of an extra spare or two.. Now that I think about it, walmart and tractor supply don't have 6 lug mounted wheels/tires as far as I remember. I got lucky and made it to a little shop right at lake norman when mine went out and paid $20 for a used wheel/tire that went right on

So, what state are you in now, SD?

7/27/2008 1:58:09 AM

My dad used to work at Cherry Point.

7/27/2008 2:23:15 AM

Quote :

"also had a tire blow totally of the rim on my tandem axle trailer today. i thought it felt like i might have a flat, but i didn't realize how bad it was until i got out and looked. the other tire on that side was starting to delaminate...missing a big chunk of tread. i got the spare on and limped to mitchell, south dakota, where i'm stuck until i can find trailer tires pre-mounted on a 6-lug rim, or find someone to mount a tire on my rim (if we can beat the dents out with a ball-peen hammer, which i think we can)."

ahaha, i hate to say it at your expense but did i fucking call it or what??

i wish i had seen this thread earlier. i would have demanded you make a detour down to yellowstone out of missoula, simply amazing stuff. there's an area there just inside the north entrance you could have dropped your trailer if you didn't want to deal with it.

well, when you get out of sd you've got some nice driving ahead. coming down meandering along the iowa/nebraska border is beautiful, especially at sunset. very similar to that "big sky" look montana/wyoming is so famous for. a stop for the night in the council bluffs area might serve a purpose. i've been a lot of places, and i swear some of the hottest girls i've ever seen and one of the largest concentrations vs. the rest of the people out in public in the country was there. i was baffled, and my only explanation for it was the proximity of iowa community college or something like that. nice/friendly as hell too, probably just yearning for some guy to take them away from their upper midwest misery. there's a harrah's there as well if you're so inclined. the university of nebraska is just over in omaha too. supposedly there's quite an impressive population of healthy milk fed cornhuskin ladies there as well, but i can't say i've sampled any of the goods personally.

the rest of the way down is decent scenery, and kansas city is mildly entertaining for some historical value. the stretch from there over to st. louis is boring and mostly rolling, wide open farmland. there is one place you might keep and eye out for that's interesting and not too far off the highway. it's called the pioneer village. some random little museum some guy created about people going west. having similar mechanical interests as myself, you should fine the large collection of antique cars and wagons/carriages to be cool, especially being stuck in the middle of nowhere, missouri.

don't bother much with the arch in st. louis, a drive by will suffice. nothing impressive except the fact of seeing "the gateway to the west" in person. however, it is mildly entertaining to ride through downtown blaring some nelly. there's a harrah's there also. there's just something intriguing about a building having the casino stuck out in a river with a floating floor so than can legally call it a riverboat, lol.

then, i hate to say but you've got a pretty boring/uneventful drive back across kentucky into wv. i'm assuming you'll probably catch 77 south from there. not sure of your exact route coming across the rockies, but you'll probably hit some of your longest/steepest grades on 77 there coming down around the beckley/bluefield area. nothing that's a big deal though unless you're loaded real heavy, just hit your marks downshifting and maybe bump up the gain on the trailer brake controller a notch. all irony of the name aside, watch your damn speed in raleigh county which is that same area! they're all over and unforgiving, and love to hide on the other side of the mountain tunnels to nail people as they come out.

you'll catch a hell of a blue ridge mountains view off to the left as you come through virginia, and you'll be reminded that while there is some beautiful country out there to be seen, it's hard to top nc for a wide variety of it all. things will probably seem pretty surreal until you hit winston salem, then the comfortable feeling of home settles in and you're driving a road you've probably been on thousands of times.

[Edited on July 27, 2008 at 5:43 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on July 27, 2008 at 5:50 AM. Reason : .]

7/27/2008 5:40:40 AM

i just had to dig up that part of my pm to you a couple of weeks ago, haha.

Quote :

"carry a spare trailer tire/rim (or two even) if it doesn't have one! i can't begin to explain how miserable life can get trying to track a new one down then deal with putting it on in the middle of bumfuck, usa. not the same as a car/truck failure on many levels, and they seem to love to disintegrate a lot more often and at the worst place at the worst time."

7/27/2008 5:53:36 AM

^^Beckley's my hometown, and while I would heed the advice to stay within the speed limit, I've found that for the most part it's difficult to go *too* far over while keeping solid control of my vehicle since they raised it - it's 70-75 over most of the southern stretch of 77. The grades/winds/curves just don't lend themselves to autobahn speeds. Do watch yourself inside the city limits though.

Also, BigBlueRam, if you got pulled coming out of a tunnel, you weren't in Raleigh County - though they might have sent you there for court (there being just one courthouse in the state and all ).

Hope you have a smooth rest of your trip!

[Edited on July 27, 2008 at 10:57 AM. Reason : ]

7/27/2008 10:55:26 AM

Quote :

"shit i towed a jetski on just the rim for a solid 20 miles one time sparks were a flyin'"

how about Tuite and i burned up/trashed the bearings on one side of my pwc trailer coming back from wilmington one sunday afternoon. scored some new bearings at walmart, but in the process of trying to back the heat seized and rusted axle nut off snapped the whole end of the spindle off. so, to make a long story short we slapped the new bearings in the hub, beat a slightly undersized socket over the remaining bit of the spindle sticking out until "proper" preload was achieved (lol), heated it with a torch and filled the socket with solder through the void that the ratchet would attach to, crammed some grease in, make shift dust cover from cardboard/duct tape, and came back to raleigh at 40-50mph in the emergency lane.

^nah, the one ticket i've gotten in my travels back and forth through there was definitely in raleigh county on open interstate and i know several other people that have gotten tickets there as well. what really irked me about my ticket was that it was from a raleigh county sheriff's deputy just clocking in the median. sheriffs departments and/or local pd's have no business passing out tickets on an interstate like that unless they just happen to be traveling along and see something excessive. it's pretty obvious to me judging from that, the automated phone recording the courthouse has, and the nature of the scaled fine system that the county is out to collect revenue from travelers to a certain extent.

anyway, my main point was just saying that in addition to the general beckley/raleigh county area i've seen va/wv troopers sitting on either side of the the east river and big walker tunnels, especially on the bluefield, wv side of the east river. so, imo it's just a good idea to watch your ass from beckley and points south until you're back in nc.

[Edited on July 27, 2008 at 12:04 PM. Reason : .]

7/27/2008 12:03:54 PM

well, my trailer had 7-14.5 tires on the front axle, and 8-14.5 on the rear...these near-obsolete tires proved to be almost impossible to find in BFE, South Dakota. I finally got a pair of 8-14.5s by the girls behind the counter in Wal-Mart in a town 12 miles down the road calling a guy they knew who owns a local tire shop...he wasn't open on Sunday, but he came in to his shop for me and sold me one new tire and one good used one that his brother brought in for him while we were mounting the first one, haha.

at any rate, due to that delay and then a few hours of rain delay this morning, we didn't really have time to stop and see anything else, other than maybe a half hour at the Gateway Arch. I'm in Nashville right now...should be back in Raleigh/Durham tomorrow.

7/29/2008 12:42:31 AM

OH WE BACK

i'm at dad's house in durham right now...will prob be coming through raleigh near NCSU tomorrow on the way to fuquay, then down to the coast either tomorrow or the next day. prob back up to raleigh for the weekend, too.

7/30/2008 12:02:29 AM

welcome back man

7/30/2008 1:02:58 AM