Annual Air Force Duty

It's summertime which means my annual Air Force duty is likely to take me away for a couple of weeks. This year I spent two weeks at Vandenberg AFB, CA. It's about an hour north of Santa Barbara which is a couple of hours north of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it's not close enough to drive so I had to do it without my sweet wife and kids. Fortunately, I won't be going back there for duty any more but will be much closer and able to bring my family with me.

The flights always have these magazines in each seat. They're fun to look at. Some of the things are actually kind of neat. Others are just weird.

The Math clock reminded me of something my friend Zak Price might like. He's a nerdy engineer at Virginia Tech and can appreciate this sort of thing.

Instantly thought of my dad—lover of bikes and video cameras

Jana, in light of her recent literature review. Commas save lives.

I appreciate how well they try to sell this old-fashioned type writer as if it's something great.

"Want to get that special someone's attention? Or perhaps you want to spice up your marriage? Then discover the simple solution to slouching and stress."

So this one gets the premier inventors corner spot. Am I missing something? Aren't these just paper towels? "No. Their Sani Squares!"

"This guy used to be just another unhappy, old bald guy. But now, thanks to Flair Hair, he's his team's most stylish fan!"

"Don't let the sounds of nature ruin yours or anyone else's hike. Take control with the Solar Miracle Portable Charging Speaker."

This one actually looks kind of fun.

Back to Air Force stuff, a lot happened over the two weeks. I feel like I'm expected to get done in two weeks what takes full-time airman several months to complete. I got to shoot and qualify the M-4 rifle. There is a new procedure which makes shooting much more realistic and fun. I completed some Self-Aid Buddy Care training which I can see using on my kids before anyone else. Lots of job specific training. It was tough being away from family but very productive from a work (and school, which I'm getting closer to completing) standpoint.

Our commander, Lt. Col. Joganich was on his way out. For his second to last day he wanted to do a Ruck March on base. I'm so glad I got to make this one. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Per Jana’s request, we are moving on to what we’ve been up to in Austin, Texas. The following is an attempt by be to document our time while in Austin. I am breaking it up right now into days just so that I can go through it all in my head.

1^st Week in Austin Texas

Sunday April 3^rd, 2011 – Arizona to Texas

This was the day that we have awaited and prepared for since finding out that Austin, TX would become our new home. I had to miss General Conference due to Air Force duties. At 7:10pm that evening we boarded an airplane with a way one ticket to Texas for the whole family.

The airline was very accommodating to us having our whole family fly. They shipped our car seats (3!) for free, gave us priority check-in, priority boarding, the first row in the airplane (2 seats on the left, 2 on the right and a lot of leg space), and more.

I broke the No-electronics-On-During-Takeoff/Landing rule to get this video of Heber bidding farewell to the Phoenix city lights.

Heber Bidding Farewell to Phoenix

Just in case you couldn’t guess, it is pretty tough trying to move around an airport with an infant and 2 curious toddlers. At one point Heber escaped and the more we called to him the faster he ran. He made it all the way to the top off this luggage ramp (in the upper right where it enter the wall) just enough to peep his head inside before I ran up there and swiped him up.

Monday April 4^th, 2011

We got in after midnight on our flight, so by the time we got out of the airport and into our rental it was early Monday morning.

This would be our ride for the next four days, a 2011 Mazda6. I had fun using the tip-tronics option which allows you to put it an easy manual mode.

We got to our Hotel, The Red Roof Inn, and it was pretty ghetto. We didn’t feel very safe and were happy to only be there one night.

We went straight to our new apartment after getting a late breakfast. Once again, it was pretty ghetto, too. I guess I should’ve taken my coworkers advice when they said to stay away from anywhere near the office. Oh well how bad could it be...

Tuesday April 5^th, 2011

The next several days would be full of trying to survive in an empty house with a broken AC. You don’t realize how much little things you need to function normally until you try to get by with everything that you brought in one bag.

Here are some pictures of the apartment, as well as kids air-drying in the front room (WARNING EXPLICIT CONTENT), and easy meals using plastic-ware.

I like to tell people that we live in the ghetto, that over 90% of the people speak Spanish (according to our repair guy), and our neighbors play mariachi music that you can hear out our windows and feel through our floors. However, we really like the place, for several reasons:

1. I love being close to work and being able to ride their in my work clothes. It’s actually just as fast by bike if not faster because of the all traffic I can bypass and shortcuts I can take.
2. I think Rachel would agree that it is nice to live in a smaller place. It’s plenty big enough for our family (2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) and is so much less to deal with. Now our house works for us instead of us for our house. Or something like that…
3. There is a nice little play area (photo), pool, workout room, and mariachi music.

4. It’s also very close to church. It takes about 5 minutes to drive there.

5. Mariachi Music!!

6. It’s a great opportunity to learn Spanish, even all of the cusswords!!

Okay I’m done. We are looking for the positive. We only signed a 6 month lease. So whether we go to graduate school in Virginia or keep working at Fugro it will go by like that.

Heber and Hannah looking over their 'hood.

Wednesday April 6^th, 2011

Finally, we get to the reason why we uprooted and came to this foreign land. Today I started my job. It is nothing like I’ve ever done. For instance they expect me to work 40 hours a week!! Actually, I wish it was just that. I can already tell that they are going to take advantage of my salary status to get me to work more without paying me for it. Am I complaining? No. They are very generous in other ways.

The Oasis

My kind and friendly boss, Jerry, told me of a nice place to take the family out to (and to make sure to put it on our reimbursable moving bill as “Meal during move”). He didn’t lie. The restaurant sits and the edge of a cliff that sits over a big lake.

You get to enjoy the sunset and eat fancy food with all the rich Texans. I had shrimp (of course) wrapped in bacon (incredible) and stuffed with jalapenos (amazing!!).

Thursday April 7^th – Saturday April 9^th, 2011

By Thursday our moving truck still hadn’t arrived but we did receive our van and some familiar faces. Rachel’s parents, Claudia and Gary, kindly drove our van to Texas for us. Gary went to Texas on his mission and has the Texas look and attitude down. Some would even argue that he was born a century too late. Anyway, he has wanted to take his wife on a trip to Texas ever since his mission and now almost 40 years later he did. They stayed until Monday morning and were very helpful and enjoyable the whole time. In fact, we enjoyed them so much that we didn’t have time (or at least the awareness) to take a single picture the whole time.

Sunday April 10^th, 2011

We managed to get together enough of our clothes to look decent for church on Sunday. We left Arizona feeling adventurous and special and got to our ward just to be another typical move-in. I’m pretty sure some people rolled their eyes as I explained with excitement how we moved for a new job and left our families in Arizona and blah blah. It seemed like everyone was from Utah, had graduated from BYU as an Engineer (or Lawyer) and is now working (or going to school) in Austin. I even tried to add how both Rachel and I graduated from ASU together with degrees in Engineering, just to be shut down by some couple who both had PhD’s.

Okay, I might be exaggerating. While it is true that many people seem to be in the same situation, it is not true to say that we weren’t well received. We have made some good friends already.

Since we found out that we were moving from Arizona we've been like fish out of water, birds without nest, bats without a cave, hobbits without a...well you get it.
We stayed in a hotel for two weeks while I had NCOLDC (Non-Commissioned Officer Leadership Development Course--the military loves acronyms). We did a lot of team building activities.After that we had the honor, nay, the privilege of spending two weeks at Brandi and Mckay's. They housed and fed us happily. In return we watched netflix and march madness on their humongous HD flat screen. The kids loved playing with their cousins. It was fun to see Heber and his white head among all of the dark heads.


Before I knew that I had a permanent job I was considering all of my options so that if things didn't work out I'd have a way to support my family. One of these options was inspired by my football coach from high school, Coach Schenks. He coaches at San Tan Foothills High School which is just a few miles from our house. He suggested I get my substitute teaching certification which I did. After getting certified I received no calls to substitute until our last week in Arizona. Ms Schenks gave birth to their fourth child (congratulations!) Which meant that Coach Schenks would need a substitute. He specifically requested me and I got to be PE teacher/football coach for 3 days.

Since high school I've contemplated teaching/coaching at that level. It was a blast! I really enjoy working with kids that age. The football program is doing great and the kids are all so respectful. They only had 3 wins last year and have high hopes for the coming year. It reminds me of a team I once played on.

Back to substituting, it was hard to get the non-football weights class motivated to do anything. I fought it the first 2 days and had all the students doing the Air Force PT test. However, the last day I gave in and like Coach Jonovich just let them play basketball all period.
My favorite class, though, was the special needs class. It consisted of Christa, Miles, Adriana, and Tory.


Next post I'll get to our new life in Austin.

Decisions and Hannah Montana

Since I (This Talmage writing now) graduated from ASU this past December, our life has been in somewhat of a limbo. There were always a lot of potential opportunities, but nothing that was reaching fruition. This past week all of those options dwindled down to a decision between two very desirable options.

The first option is a job offer from Fugro Consultants. I previously worked for them as field/lab technician and now they are offering me a position as a Graduate Engineer. The pay would be good, the work is very close to my undergraduate studies (Civil Engineering/GIS), and we would get to move to Austin, Texas (which I hear is a pretty cool city). "In this economy" it would be crazy not to take a job offer with a reputable company doing what I want to, right?

However, option two is not bad either. I applied to four graduate schools back in December (Virginia Tech, George Mason, Purdue, and North Carolina State. In order of preference). Not only did my top choice accept me, but they have offered me a Graduate Research Assistantship that will pay for my tuition (which would have been out-of-state rates), will pay me at about the same rate as Fugro would (only I would only work 20 hours/week instead of 40) and I could research anything a topic of my choice (as opposed to doing a specific project that they have for me.)

Since I highly value the opinion of my family members I discussed with a few of them my dilemma. I got responses for both. "Take the job. The economy's only gonna get worse." "You'll have the rest of your life to work." "Take the job you have a family to support." "You can never get too much education." I could see the value in each and Rachel and I were not sure which one to do. Like many things, we try to think about it logically and systematically and weigh all the pros and cons. Additionally, we decided to fast and prayer about it over the weekend.

Ladies and Gents, we have made our decision. We have decided to take Hannah Montana's advice and "get the best of both worlds." We will be moving to Texas in early April and 5 months later going to Virginia. I ran it by my boss and he said it was fine. We are very excited to close one chapter of our life and open another.

The Perfect Storm

Since school has started (3 days ago) I have been riding my bike to school. It is about 15 miles one way and takes me 45-60 minutes to ride (as opposed to 25-30 minutes driving). Despite bad weather, I have continued to ride. Yesterday morning it was the rain. By the time I arrived at school I was drenched thoroughly from my hair to my shoes, only important items in my backpack wrapped in plastic bags were somewhat dry. But it was a nice ride and good training.

Yesterday evening was different. I was already late getting off from my school work (5:00 pm), but the elements combined against me as to try and keep me from ever getting home. At first it was just the wind coming from the south. I ride in a southeasterly direction, so I was either going against a headwind that was slowing me down or in a crosswind that was pushing me toward the street. I admit that the first half of the ride home was a rather fun challenge. It provided good training for my legs, keeping the bike steady on a straight path and just riding in difficult circumstances. Granted that it was taking me twice as long to travel, I was somewhat enjoying it. The powerful gust of wind would blow rocks and dirt on me that stung badly. Thanks to my sunglasses, my eyes were not damaged. However, as the intensity of the storm increased, I started to become worried for my safety.

Because of my slow progression, it got dark much sooner than I had expected causing me to remove my eye protection just to be able to see. The road got very narrow at some points and it was everything I could to not lose control of my bike and have it veer into busy traffic. The only rest I got was in a short span of neighborhood where the height of the houses diverted the wind and left me in somewhat of a calm. But the rest of the time I was going against a head wind that at times would cause me to almost come to a stop and then would let up just enough that I could keep moving forward.

When I got to the last 3 mile stretch I really started to worry. This was an open stretch on Ironwood from Empire to Bella Vista with no protection and no lights. I decided that I would try to hitchhike, but did not want to stop my progress in fear that I would never get home. So I continued forward. That stretch usually takes me 10 minutes, but now seemed to not get any shorter as I rode. I carried no water with me as I'm used to a 45 minute ride that doesn't require it. At this point I was pushing 1 and 1/2 hours of riding and really starting to feel the fatigue (I had not eaten since breakfast either). I kept telling myself that it would be alright though and that I would eventually get home, slowly but surely.

The storm did not let up or pass like I had hoped. Instead it got worse. I started to stick my left hand out with my thumb up as I saw the lights of a car coming up. I was hoping for a generous passer-by, but didn't have enough confidence that one would actually stop so I had to keep pedaling forward. I eventually stopped doing this as it caused me to lose control of my bike. Thoughts of wanting to see Rachel and the kids again were motivating me as well as that of a warm dinner waiting for me (which Rachel delivered on). But the storm's peak was too much. It finally stopped me in my tracks and I had to twist out of my pedals and start pushing it. Only after getting off the bike did I realize how weak I had gotten. I felt like a drunkard staggering along the side of the road, and who'd stop for that? Nevertheless, I pushed the bike with one arm and outstretched my left arm with my thumb up hoping that someone would stop. It would take a special person, however. Traffic was going too fast to give people a chance to think about stopping. They would have had to already made up their minds and just react.

After 10 minutes of trudging along, that person drove by. In a compact car, they stopped about 50 yards ahead of me. When I finally made it to their window I looked in to see a lady in nun apparel. She told me to put my bike in. I first tried the trunk but could not get it in and was getting beat by the wind blowing the trunk door down on me. I told her and she said I could put it in the back seat which I knew would work. Opening the door caused some trash and piece of Tupperware to fly out and get lost in the darkness. The door did not want to stay open and I had to wedge my body between it and the car. I eventually got the bike in and then assumed my place in the front seat.

Happier I could not have been to be safe and know that I was going to make it home. the lady introduced herself as Sister ______ (I immediately forgot). She seemed so happy to help and got me home within minutes. After she dropped me off and before she left, I asked if I could have a way to contact her to which she replied, "No, no. I'm just returning a favor for all those times others have helped me." Not willing to argue I said thanks, again, and bid her off. I was safe at home and so grateful that for a house in which the effects of the storm could not be felt while within.

A few things can be learned from this story.

1. We need to be prepared to react. I believe that because helping others was on the forefront of this lady's mind she was able to. I have found that when situations for need arise, I seldom have time to think and decide what I'll do.
2. Attitude is everything. I don't think I would have made it as far as I did if I didn't have the right attitude. In fact, I saw it as a fun challenge and a blessing to my training. I compare it to a time in8th grade after a basketball game when I had to walk home because someone forgot to pick me up. I was already mad because we lost, but I also didn't feel appreciated. It was a long miserable walk having to carry my things while dressed in a shirt and tie and feeling sorry for myself and mad at others. But in reality it wasn't that bad of a walk. If I had the right attitude it would have been fine.

Going off that last point, I don't think that having a good attitude is a matter of just being positive out of sheer will. It is about having the right perspective, which can cause us to be positive. Knowing that God loves us and what our purpose is here on earth can give us that perspective. It can help us to see trials as being for our good (training) and know that God is in control and will watch over us if we obey Him (and even sometimes if we won't). I'm sure there is much else that could be learned, but that is all I have for now.

This was written before I had heard how big this storm was. A call went out from our Stake President asking us to check on all our home teaching families and see if they were all right. Someone else said there was even a tornado.

The $1 Chicken Sandwich Experiment

Written By Talmage Hansen

This past Winter Break we went on a vacation to Utah. I don't think I'll go as far as Jared Scott and covenant to never drive to Utah again, but I will definitely avoid it--especially with a small car like our Volkswagen Beetle and 2 babies. So, in order to spice things up (no pun intended), I decided to do a taste test/experiment on the drive up.

Goal: Determine which of all the fast food dollar menu chicken sandwiches was the best.

In order to do this I tried to control the experiment as much as possible by making sure that each scenario was the same.

Controlled Variables:

1. I would be in the passenger seat and take notes on the sandwich as I ate.
2. The chicken sandwich was always a snack food, not a meal, so the level of hunger was the same going in.
3. All cost 99 cents or $1.
4. I would eat the sandwich "as is" and no add any condiments to it.
   

Uncontrolled Variables:

1. Varieties of chicken sandwiches (i.e. spicy or not)
2. Unexpected sickness which seemed to increase with each chicken sandwich

Results: Following are the results from this test on a scale of 1-10.

1. Carl's Jr. 6.0 Overall it was the best. Good bun, awesome lettuce, zesty mayo sauce, bigger, and good flavored and textured chicken. Their new commercial should say "Chicken sandwich. Fries. and a Coke. Get the _____ away from me. I'm eating!!!"
   
2. Wendy's 5.5 The chicken was very real tasting and looking (irregular shape) which is the reason this got 2nd. The bun wasn't special and the lettuce was poor (1 big floppy piece).
   
3. McDonald's 5.0 The chicken had an all-around good texture. The flavor was good too but a little unnecessarily spicy, the kind that detracts from the flavor. The mayo was okay. It gained some points on the chopped, crispy lettuce and a bun slightly toasted on the inside.
   
4. Jack-in-the-Box 4.5 Had a bun toasted on the inside as well, but also had 1 big slightly limp lettuce. Mayo-okay. Okay texture. There wasn't as much flavor in the chicken which actually wasn't a bad thing, it gave it a more natural taste.
   
5. BurgerKing 4.0 Had the best lettuce, it was a compromise between the 1 big piece and the many chopped up little pieces, like homemade lettuce. Unfortunately, I did not order lettuce, I ordered a chicken sandwich. The bun was toasted on the inside, but it was big and engulfed the chicken (not the bad actually). the reason it lost was the chicken which had the worst texture and flavor of all the sandwiches.

*I also did try a KFC sandwich but eliminated it from the results because it wasn't the same style as the others. It was smaller and different shaped. But as far as taste went it was the best.

Although, I did start to dread having to eat another chicken sandwich each time we pulled up to a restaurant, I don't think that it skewed the results. I am known to eat until I am full and then continue until I am sick. So I can differentiate between feeling nauseous because I am full and because of bad food. And don't think either that just because BK got last I won't be returning there. In fact, I probably eat KFC and Carl's Jr. the least because they are not convenient.

So there it is folks. A solid chicken sandwich evaluation to kick off 2010. I've heard (and read) a variety of opinions about differentfast food and there is no consensus. Too often people associate a bad experience or many other factors into it. But not here. "Unprejudiced. Unbiased. Fair." (Two-Face)