Here is the upgrade path from Windows 1 through Windows 7 (neglecting Windows ME), and all the joys of two decades of glorious screen shots.

Nerd history!

Some of you might recall that the Kit Kat joined the rank of the bus drivers this past Fall. And at first she really enjoyed it. In fact, the biggest challenge was getting her to bed after Cadet night because she was too excited to actually sleep.

Alas, that was not meant to last. Around Christmas time, she decided this was no longer something she wanted to do. It was much too boring, you see.

Unfortunately for her, the house rule is that if you start an activity, you have to finish out the year. And so it was that with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the Kit Kat was forced to keep her commitments.

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So, let’s hear it: What’s a good slang word for “idiot” that’s distinctly aviation related?

Because I have to deal with you, not her, Joker.  THAT’S “Why so serious!!!”

[H/T:  Viking the Kitten]

And to the surprise of many, I still have them!

Two reasons. One, I couldn’t decide what to put up on my blog. And second, I grew up on a Navy base. Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, WA to be exact.

Whidbey Island is the plug that almost fills the top of Puget Sound. It is the largest island in the lower 48 (the Supreme Court ruled long ago that Long Island isn’t really an island, since it is connected to the mainland by a causeway). During the early days of WWII, the Navy was looking for a good place to stage anti-submarine patrols over the waters of the Northwest and to train airgroups for the Pacific. Whidbey was actually two fields. The first was the seaplane base. A marina, pier and an enormous parking area were built on the shores of Crescent Harbor. Soon after, a land plane base, later named Ault Field was constructed just north of there. The base was a boomtown set in what was formerly a very sleepy little farming town.

After the war, the base was still used for patrol planes, but much of the activity had died down. Whidbey was something of a backwater to Naval Aviation. So it remained for decades. But as the Vietnam war began to heat up, a major decision was made that would bring NAS Whidbey back to some prominence. The A-6 Intruder was entering into the fleet. The Navy’s Master Jet Base concept said that instead of grouping entire airwings at a station, each station would be the consilidated home for a type of jet. Typically, there would be a base on the East and West Coast for each type. Thus, while NAS Lemoore was home to the A-4 Skyhawk (and later the A-7 Corsair II and our humble host’s beloved F/A-18 Hornet) the decision was made to base all West Coast A-6 squadrons at NAS Whidbey. As the war grew in size, so did the A-6 community. With the seaplanes gone, that part of the base was turned into housing for dependents.

Towards the end of the war, the need for a dedicated electronic warfare aircraft saw the development of the EA-6B Prowler. The powers that be figured if NAS Whidbey made a good home for Intruders, it would make sense to have its close cousin the Prowler stationed there as well. But there would be no East Coast homebase. Oceana, the East Coast home of the Intruder was getting crowded, and there was plenty of room at Whidbey to fit all the Prowlers.

And so it came to pass that in late 1973, my dad was sent to NAS Whidbey. I was a youth of 6 whole years. I liked Whidbey. I lived  Right. On. The. Beach. which is pretty dang cool for a kid. All kinds of trouble to get into. But my favorite thing was to go to Ault Field when they had fly-ins.

When a carrier was returning from a Westpac deployment, they would launch all the planes a short distance off the coast of the carrier’s home port. Each carrier had a squadron of 12 or so Intruders and a squadron of 4 Prowlers. These squadrons would fly up the coast and return home to NAS Whidbey, where wives, sweethearts, children, parents, and well wishers would gather to greet them. In the days leading up to their return, the squadron wives would put up “Burma Shave” signs with cute sayings to welcome their sailors home. But the big event was gathering at the squadron hangar and watching an entire squadron come into the break at high speed before splitting up and landing. After taxiing in, shutting down, and dismounting, the aircrews would be greeted by a crush of family rushing to  squeeze them in hugs 9 months in the making. Cake and puch were there, but I’m not sure I ever saw anybody partake (besides me, of course. I never say no to free cake!)

This is all a pretty long post, especially since the whole point was I wanted to put up this youtube of a real plane, not some plastic bug.

watch?v=9kEfuJUsuMM

Anyway, the open house was a good day, with a lot of interesting stuff to see and after four hours we still hadn’t got through it all.  But what turned out to be one of the most interesting parts came at the very end of the day when we reached the Cadet area.

Army Cadets and Air Cadets, take your pick.  Not much of a choice really, given that when we walked through the Army Cadet area no one even spoke to us as opposed to going through the Air Cadets, where I was really blown away by these kids. They were so excited about what they were doing that they literally beamed. At every table, my youngest was asked the same question ”How old are you?” immediately followed hard on her answer with the excited “Did you know you are old enough to be an Air Cadet?”. Well, let’s just say that if she didn’t, she figured it out pretty quick.

Add that enthusiasm to the fact that the first thing the girls were offered to do when they walked in the drill hall was fire a rifle and, yeah, you guessed it … I am now the proud parent of an Air Cadet.

Well, perhaps more accurately, the proud, frustrated, amused parent of an Air Cadet. Frustrated because she is so excited and hyped each week when she gets home from Cadets, that it’s quite a struggle to get her to bed. No matter how often I remind her how late it is and that she does have school tomorrow. And frustrated and amused to see her try to polish boots for the very first time. To a military shine, no less. Practice makes perfect or so they say and for her sake, I hope they’re right. And, I must admit, quite proud the first time I saw her in her uniform (the summer dress version with the shirt and tie).

But tonight, for the first time, I saw her in her winter uniform. Blue pants, blue sweater, blue belted jacket, blue parka, blue wedge. Now I am pretty well accustomed to the ribbing the Air Force takes around these parts, not the least of which involves them being *fondly* referred to as “bus drivers”. But tonight when I stepped back and took a critical look at my daughter, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

She did. She really did look for all the world like a bus driver. I could swear I’ve seen that uniform (minus the wedge, of course) on some local transit workers.

My daughter. The bus driver. Just how much prouder could a mother’s heart be?