When people ask me why I take safety as seriously as I do, it’s because simple mistakes kill plenty of good people. Aviation is full of those lessons.

Nineteen years later. If that tragic day never occurred this year Aircrewman Owens, dead at nineteen before he could legally drink in his own country, would have lived twice as long as he did.

Rick Tafoya, Brian Cerino. In the next two years you two would have been twice as old as when you died.

I know Rick and I would be hanging out today – two California boys getting gray hair and talking about the stuff we used to do, maybe watching Eric Sass’ boys playing Little League. We knew each other from Pensacola, maybe also from barracks time in San Diego during the core training for SERE.

Duncan, Cerino’s roommate in Tennessee and my good friend here during training twenty years ago never seemed to be the same afterwards.

Maybe none of us were ever the same. Simple mistakes kill good people and they give out awards for those of us who get OCD about preventing the mistakes that kill and call it a safety program.

Miss you guys. You’re gone but never forgotten.

The Final Patrol by David (Devo) Devarney

Schedule checked
Another all-nighter, dawn patrol
Last beer drunk, hit the rack
Waken, first day of spring
Crew rest, waken again
Grab bag, boots tied
Last pat on the head
Last embrace
Lips touch
Love you, see ‘ya in the morning
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Main gate, ID card flashed
Attend brief, get tapes
Check books, read MAFs
APU started, preflight begins
Buoys loaded, plane fueled
Last geedunk run
Last smoke
Planeside brief, props turning
Chocks pulled
Thumbs up
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Taxi
SET 5, set
Approach end
SET POWER
Brakes released
ON THE ROLL
7000……….…6000….5000…4000
REFUSAL, ROTATE, airborne
GEAR UP
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Left turn, intersect
Woodside VOR
SET 4, set
SET 3, kilo alfa
SET 2, break out the cards
Dinners cooking
DESCENT CHECKLIST
Check in, WE GOT IT
THANKS GUYS, SAFE FLIGHT
On stay
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Spit buoys, BUOYS SWEET
Patience, gain contact
Track, BELOW 1000
LPAs ON, SET 1
SIM ATTACK
DOORS OPEN
STANDBY MAD
MAD…MAD…MAD
WEAPON AWAY, SUS AWAY
Continue tracking
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Relief checks in
TACAN lock, got visual
Swapping altitude
Closing…closing
C O L L I S I O N, F I R E B A L L
E X P L O S I O N
W A T E R I M P A C T
Cold…..dark
Silent
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Wreckage floats, slicks shimmer
No survivors
TAFOYA – CAVUOTO – SMITH
DYER – HEIKKINEN – MCNERNEY
HOGUE – DABBS – CERINO
OWENS – SPOSATO – TISDALE
NEMECEK – CARMODY – HAMILTON
METCALF – REDMOND – WILLIAMSON
CHAIKIN – COX – SHIELDS
BECKNER-¨ GERMEAU – FARQUAHAR
DAVIS – HALL – RICE
Husbands and daddies…..lost
Sons and loved ones….….lost
Friends and shipmates…..lost
Gone…………..…….Forever
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Chaplains visit
Friends console…hug…support
Services, present colors
Reddened eyes
Tears spilt
Sobs choked
Hands held
Backs rubbed
Eulogies and epitaphs
Folded flags
Bowed heads
Supreme sacrifice
Grateful nation
TAPS, guns and bells echo
Flags wave, tears stream
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Searching for answers
Wondering, wondering
Empty beds
Days turn to weeks
Weeks turn to months
Months turn to years
Years pass on
The first decade has arrived
Tears still wet
Memories not faded
Friendships not forgotten
Love never lost
Still on the flight schedule
Still flying, still on-station
Still wearing their Wings of Gold

—–

My Personal Heroes Pt 1

My Personal Heroes Pt 2

So Others May Live | Memorial Day 2008

Andy Brewer passed away three years ago. I just wanted to put this up here in case anyone wanted to share sea stories about Andy so I can put them up on the main site. Leave a reply with your memories.

I got enough time recently to put an email I received up as a memorial page on the site.Two of Andy’s shipmates in that picture, Dewey Thompson and Keith Poole, were instructors of mine as I went through VS-41. [note: site url is unavailable, hence the repost here]

As a personal note, I met Andy at the 2004 decom ceremony. He may have passed on as a civilian, but he will always be an AW, and his legacy lives on.

Ironically, I first met Andy just a week prior to my son being born in 2004 and they share the same name – Andrew Charles.

Quoted from Knoxville News Sentinel:

Charles A. (Andy) Brewer

BREWER, CHARLES A. (ANDY) – age 43, of Holtsville, California, passed away Sunday, March 25, 2007. He served in the United States Navy 10 years and most recently with Homeland Security as a U.S. Customs Officer.

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1. Disturbing new statistics show that one in three women is unemployed.
2. Disturbing new statistics show that one in three black men is unemployed.
3. Disturbing new statistics show that one in three Hispanics is unemployed.

Is there any sincere doubt that any of these headlines would not result in a million man march, an amendment to the Constitution, or result in California media outlets leading their broadcasts and newspaper front pages with the story?

None of these are true.

• The disturbing new statistic shows that one in three Veterans is unemployed.

I’m shocked and sickened that across the board in America, in all industries, we are not hiring people who not only have led people, they’ve led people in the most life and death circumstances possible.

From Army Times.com this week:

Disturbing new statistics from the Labor Department show that one in three veterans under age 24 is unemployed — and that the unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has jumped to 14.7 percent, half again as high as the national employment rate of 9.7 percent.

The March unemployment rate of 30.2 percent for veterans aged 18 to 24 is a big jump from February’s figure of 21.7 percent, although it may be partly the result of a small sample used by the Labor Department in determining unemployment, said Justin Brown, a labor expert for Veterans of Foreign Wars.

No wonder the ‘Greatest Generation’ never talked about their portion of WWII. They’d never get hired.

As far as training, documentation and the ability for project management – hire a vet and you won’t be disappointed. Imagine what your skills would be like if you had spent four to six years constantly rewriting manuals and accomplishing the impossible.

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Nothing like a little earthquake lasting about 90 seconds to shake up your Easter with the kids. My boys got the chance to experience their first earthquake and didn’t stress it.

Probably helped that we were outside and didn’t have stuff falling down on them. So it sort of didn’t kill our mood.

Some news: KPBS says…

The magnitude 7.2 quake was centered near Guadalupe Victoria in Baja California. The USGS reports it’s the largest earthquake to shake the region in 18 years.

There have been three large aftershocks so far, including one that registered a 5.5 magnitude, and other smaller temblors, USGS said.

We’ll see how things turn out tomorrow. The kicker is what the unseen damage has been – elevators, infrastructure, and so on.

Cluetrain Manifesto Taken to the Streets

Check out SeeClickFix, a collaborative Google Maps-based application which takes city reporting to the next level. I see this working its way into the threads of user support just like Twitter has recently, just replace ‘user’ with ‘citizen’. Consumer complaints given transparency to all levels – KISS rule in place.

Simple, easy, point click and type your quick response. In fact, they now have a widget that takes the map embedding part of the problem and makes it easier for Web 2.0 users:

SeeClickFix.com encourages the posting of SeeClickFix maps on blogs and websites.

Great collaboration tool. I’m curious as to what corporate uses this might bring. And here’s a sneak-peak at a new feature on seeclickfix: http://www.seeclickfix.com/feeds.

What types of applications could this work well to address, or what do you see that you would have to counter?

Unbelievable. Another famous relative… From Wikipedia:

Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, USA, while his father was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma. He was named Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth by his mother, 17 year old Lucille Hendrix née Jeter.

Just thought I’d throw that one out there…

It’s midnight and I’m craving an In-N-Out burger.

Totally CRAVING In-N-Out

And no, this isn’t some 420 sort of thing. I’m not that kind of guy. Kids are asleep. and there’s no chance for me to get out and get one because I’m a single dad on duty.

Blast.

Those of you not located in the roughly 500 mile radius of the In-N-Out restaurant chain centered around Southern California, just have no idea. Sonic comes close to being the same phenomenon in the Midwest, White Castle on the eastern seaboard.

Once again this is not Harold and Kumar driven. More like blogwriter driven.

If you come to Disneyland, Sea World, or a myriad of Hollywood mecca type locations, you must at least once try the burger.

Quality matters

All ingredients California grown. French fries (which I’ve mostly shunned for going on eight years) so fresh the potato was still whole less than ten minutes prior to your eating it. Coke which is NEVER on the wrong syrup mix. Never wrong, ever ever too much soda water or too much syrup. And the shakes…

It’s been around for sixty years. Hopefully so will I even after eating my favorite 4×4 combo once every six weeks.

I’ve been resisting the urge for days now

DAYS. About ten to be exact. I almost feel like an Al-Anon working towards a thirty day pin or something except that I’m not really fighting my weight. It’s just mind over matter.

It’s been about 18 years since I had my first one.

Recently on a stop through Central California I heard about Animal Style fries. You wouldn’t believe my shock, that after 18 years there was something new I didn’t know. Animal Style fries are practically all the super artery clogging toppings of the burger but on the fries.

I haven’t had or even heard of anything like that since trying Gravy Fries in a Brooklyn diner at 3am. In, like, 1993. Then again, Central Cali is our version of Texas and Missouri.

You know, where the belt sizes expand about ten inches larger than SoCal glitzy nip/tuck or NorCal organic vegan averages. Where they would of course totally order, four or five people in a row, the Animal style fries, with cheese, sauce, grilled onions all on top of the fries. Wow.

That plus a Double-double is a heap-load of bad stuff barreling through your system. I’m too old to press my luck with that; I might like it far too much.

In-N-Out Even Has Secret Codes

I’m not kidding. You can stack your patties as high as you want just by saying the number of patties and cheese. Get grilled onions by ordering “Animal Style”. Go bunless by ordering “Protein Style”.

Regarding secret codes, this site has it rolling, even in color pictures.

The friendly employees of In-N-Out Burger will take your special order without question, if you use the right terminology. The printed receipt will have your special request typed on it just as we said it.

All of us have our vices. I just have to fight my urge every two months or so to sit a half an hour in a drive-thru line in order to satisfy a compulsion that hits me just about as often as KFC hits this guy:

Curious about what the background characters mean in the Olympics? Pick up one of these kits and teach yourself Chinese in a weekend.

Lazy me, I was doing a LinkedIn search reconnecting to old acquaintances from old squadrons I’ve been in (Shamrocks) and ran across the profile for this product.

I’ve been meaning to find a quick way to pick up kanji style languages and this looks perfect. These small word magnets are really cool. This is also going to be my hot Christmas gift this year as well since the price is only $20.

Learn Chinese Faster with IdeoLingo Word Magnets. Better Than Flashcards!

IdeoLingo® – Better Than Flashcards

IdeoLingo® is a Southern California-based company that develops fun and innovative study aids for students learning languages whose words and concepts are represented by ideograms.

These languages include but are not limited to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Localizing For Dummies: Use MadCap Lingo

Of course MadCap Software has put a focus out for their localization services and their program Lingo has accolades for Chinese localization through XML.

With a strong Asian customer base, GPRO makes its technology solutions—along with the supporting documentation—available in English, simplified Chinese, and traditional Chinese versions. Since April 2008, GPRO has used the MadCap Lingo integrated content authoring and translation memory system together with MadCap Flare for content authoring and multi-channel delivery.

Where it once took up to six months to deliver a documentation project, GPRO now uses MadCap Lingo and Flare to complete the project in just one month.

Clearly Technical Communicators don’t have to learn Chinese in order to do documentation, however it’s just SO COOL that I recommend it. My philosophy is to pick up any bits of language that you can. When you’re done, IdeoLingo would even look cool on your fridge.

A Little Sight Recognition Goes A Long Way

While in the Navy, flash cards weren’t portable enough for me and my retention could have been better. Even so, while running around Hong Kong during Christmas 1994, my friends were (easily) impressed with how I was the first to find the subway, never got lost, and always found good food and cool stuff. After I got out of the Navy, sitting at the computer and crunching through exercises just didn’t fit into my time schedule. 

And then there’s my cautionary overseas travel tale… Now everyone can see how I got to be such a fan of eLearning software – cuts down on the travel hell.

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For some reason this year has been nostalgic for me. Martin Luther King Day I wrote about my family. Memorial Day I write about my other family. I write about my Navy family, and in particular, those who didn’t make it home.

They are my family, my fallen brothers and a sister. I will tell my children about them and they will live on in name and story and in our hearts.

This is off topic and an indulgence. I would be however, as Shakespeare put it regarding St. Crispen’s Day and the Battle of Agincourt, holding my manhood cheap would I not honor those who I know who have fallen with at least a nod today, nearly eighteen years later.

    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

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A great discussion has started over on MonkeyPi about the Sun Tech Writer who is suing regarding unfair work exemptions. I replied there but this is a far lengthier topic than the comments deserve.

Exempt Tech Writing: How To Not Get Sued

Personally, I tend to view this as a problem that needs a solution. Were I negotiating this matter I would bring up two specific issues which could have prevented this from occurring, or which could lessen the expectations of management.

First, one thing that Adobe does do right is that they allow telecommuting. This allows a 60 hour work week to be reasonably managed along with a busy life schedule because employees can manage their lives around the time they put in on their home systems.

Second, by having a workflow that allows input remotely without endless face to face meetings (the absolute largest waste of time I observed while working as a tech writer for a nameless military contractor) and proper collaboration, a lot of this time saved reflects working smarter, not harder.

Getting Granular about Exempt Status

I found the following definition of exempt status online:

EXEMPT means the job is NOT subject to payment for overtime hours worked. Employer policy may elect to compensate incumbents in these jobs for their overtime, but there are no restrictions on rates used or quantity of hours paid to incumbents in exempt jobs.

Overtime requirements apply to the JOB not the EMPLOYEE. It is the responsibility content of the job that determines if incumbent employees must be paid for the overtime they work.

There is a Highly Compensated Job exempt status but it only applies to Public-Sector Employees.

Legally, exempt employees are due overtime in California law if it can be proven that they regularly cannot complete their normal assigned tasks without working overtime. Two years ago a roommate of mine ended up winning a similar judgement simply by making a phone call to an attorney and having them contact the HR department where he was working.

What it takes to document your situation is at the very least, logging your hours worked along with the tasks you are assigned. Regardless of exempt/non-exempt status, in California the Overtime law states that you cannot be expected to be working for free, which is what regular overtime without pay is.

Summing up, legally Sun is responsible, at least to one employee. The judge’s court order has the attorneys searching for a second employee, a reasonable request given the frequency with which John Edwards-like trial lawyers tend to overuse the class action.

The lawyers will win one person’s case, that’s a given. A landmark ‘blow for Sun techcomms’ it may not be unless they find another employee to sign on the line.

Yet, as this attorney states on his blog in reference to the IT lawsuits:

In this situation, is it any wonder that, increasingly, some California companies are moving jobs across the border to work in other states where employees don’t have to be paid special overtime rates?

Just like the ridiculously high workers’ compensation rates hurt job creation in California several years ago, the overtime pay requirements are doing the same thing in the IT industry.

Below the fold are the boring legalese text from the California Labor site… You’ve been warned!

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