Another Idol Gone

I just got an email today from my Dad. It was forwarded from his EAA Chapter to everyone. One of my Airshow Performer Idols, Jim Leroy, was killed this past weekend performing in Dayton, Ohio. I've seen the Bulldog in action on numerous occasions and even had the privilege to hold the pole for his inverted ribbon cut a few years ago. He was an amazing aerobatic pilot as well as an all around good guy. Not to mention he was a veteran that served as a Marine Sniper.

From his website (Bulldog Airshows):

Jim, our friend is now with God. He was performing "Mary's Lamb" at the Dayton air show, doing what he loved.
He passed away at the age of 46, Saturday, July 28, 2007 in Dayton, Ohio. Please keep Jim and his family, who were at the show, in your thoughts and prayers.

Damn.

Sister update and the Tale of the Toyota

First update: My sister is home from her reconstruction surgery. She had the surgery on Monday and was home the following Thursday. She is mighty sore but is getting better with each passing day. I dropped by to see her yesterday and she seems to be doing very well. She came home with 6 drainage tubes coming out of her body and is hoping to have them removed during her post-op appointment today. Other than being sore and getting wiped out pretty easily due to being able to do nothing for a couple weeks, she is great. She isn't taking very much pain medicine either. If she gets her tubes out today, she will well on her way to recovering and moving more normally. I asked her if she was ready to have a sit-up contest, but she passed on it for right now. :) Thanks for all the well wishes and thoughts.. I'll keep you informed to her progress.
The next update: As you read a couple weeks ago, we got a new Tundra for the family. Well, after Tundra #1 was sold, we decided to get Heather a new car also. She liked her older car (2005 Chevy Equinox) but she was never in love with it. Just not the car she thought it was gonna be. So, we decided to get her a new one also. She was choosing between the Toyota 4Runner, the Toyota Highlander and the Honda Pilot. She did quite a few hours on the web researching, as she always does, and did a few drive-bys and see the vehicles. She got to look pretty good at a couple 4Runners when I bought my truck and she went at the new '08 Highlander when one got on the lot. Although impressive inside (Heather said the inside changed around so much with all the compartments it was almost like a Transformer) but she wasn't all that impressed with the outer looks. She like the Pilot, but the Toyota name has always been good to us, so she started looking very hard at the 4Runner.
This past Saturday, we decided to go look at the local Toyota Dealer in Macon and see what they had on the lot since the Warner Robins Dealer didn't have what she was looking for the day we went up there. We got there and she found a couple and even drove one. When we went in to discuss the price, we found out the one she was she was looking at was a Demo in black with 4000 miles and we figured we could get it for a great price. When they came back with their offer, it was about $1000 over invoice. You have got to be kidding me!!! Heather looked at the offer and decided to go home and see what we could find on the web. She like the Salesman and wanted to deal with him, so we said we'd come back even though they made a stupid offer on that black demo. So, we home and started looking. We found one that met her needs/wants and called the salesman to see when it would be available. It was still at the port and was headed to Alabama, but he could intercept and have it delivered to Macon. We told him not to worry about it.
Later that night, we found a dark blue (the same color as my Tundra) on their website and it had all the options she was looking it without all the extra options she didn't want. We went back up there on Monday to discuss that car. She didn't really didn't want the same color as my truck, but decided to look at it anyway. I thought it would be cool to have the same color, she thought it would be weird. We looked at the blue car and while they got the info it, we found out it was also a demo with 4500 miles on it. The salesman had been called back from his lunch to help us out. We didn't know that had happened, but he hadn't gotten to the restaurant yet, so it wasn't like he left his food. As he went to get the offer, Heather told him he had one chance because we were on our lunch break and she didn't have time to play games. She also told him she didn't expect much of an offer to come back because of the stupid offer they made on the black demo last weekend. He came back with a stupid offer. They still wanted well above invoice for, what we considered, a "used" car. Heather looked at him and said, "You're kidding me, right?" He said he didn't make the offer, he was just the messenger. She said, well you can give the message that we are leaving. And she got up to leave. He asked if she would just wait for the manager to talk to her. She looked at him and then he said, "What would you give for this car?" She looked him dead in the eye and said, "It's not my job to come in here and tell my highest price I'd pay, it's your job to make me an offer I'll take. You're the salesman, I'm the customer." He left and when he came back, she had had time to stew about everything was just mad at them treating her like a "dumb girl." Not to mention it was easy to see they refused to do what she asked. Heather hates paying interest on anything, so she doesn't want the cash back rebate, she wants the lowest APR she can get. And, she wants to know the "Out the door price." Every time they came in with something, it had the 1500 dollar rebate taken out and it was without taxes, tag fees, etc. In other words, no the out-the-door price.
Before he said anything, he looked at me and said, "Did she negotiate your truck like this?" I told him, "No. The Toyota Dealership in Warner Robins made us an offer that was below what we were going to offer, so there was no arguing. You people don't seem to want to work that way." Then he sat down and instead of giving Heather another lower price on the car, he preceded to explain why they were offering what they were offering. And again, it was with the 1500 dollar cash back and no tax, title and fees added in. Heather was about LIVID at this point. She grabbed her keys and said, very professional like, "Keith, I'm sorry I interrupted your lunch. Go get yourself something to eat, because that's what I'm going to do." He said could his manger talk to her and she told him, "No he can't. I see the way (insert name of Toyota Dealer here) does business and I don't appreciate it. We will not be coming back here." And with that, we walked out of the office. As we walked out, I shook his hand and told him sorry it didn't work out, but if he really wanted to make money in the car business, he needed to go work for the dealer in Warner Robins. All he was doing in the Macon dealership was losing opportunities because of their business practices. As I was pulling around in my truck, I saw the Manager talking to Heather in her car window. I saw her shake her head and he walked away.
Heather and I left and went and ate lunch. She was so mad at this time, she said we will never step foot on the property again. At her window, the manger actually made an offer that, if he would have done it in the beginning, she would have taken it, but he waited until we walked out, so she told him to keep his offer. Remember, she had told them they had one chance (and then gave them a second chance anyway) and they decided to play the game anyway, even though they had been warned.
Heather went to the Warner Robins Dealer that day after work. 4 hours later she came home with a beautiful Nautical Blue Metallic 2007 4Runner with 17 miles on it. For a better deal than the Macon wanted to offer for their "used" car. She didn't really want a car that was the exact same color as mine, as I mentioned earlier, but it is a very nice looking car and she's OK with the same color. We never drive both vehicle together anyway, so what's the difference? She was very happy with her purchase and the experience she had while buying the car. I have a problem with "free advertising." I don't do it. If the dealer doesn't throw anything in for free or make it worth my while, I don't run their name on my vehicles. The first thing I do when I get home is take off the dealer graphics and get rid of the tag frame. Heather said she was so happy with her time up there, that if they had painted a big (inset name of dealership here) Toyota sign on her vehicle, she would have kept it. I'm just glad they didn't piss her off like the other dealership did. But, I knew from the day we bought the truck, she wasn't going to have a bad experience. Although I like my dealership, I'm still not going to advertise them for free. Her graphic is on her car, but not on mine.
But, I will give you the name of the dealership to stay away from: And since we only have two Toyota dealerships in the Macon/Warner Robins area, it will be easy to figure out who the good guys are. The one to stay away from is Bill Butler Toyota.
Heather was awesome to watch these last few days. She thought she was going to embarrass me. I was totally in her corner and loving every minute of it. You really can't get the true feeling of how cool she was from words on a blog, but take my word for it, she was awesome to watch. And the whole time, being as mad as she was, never once losing her composure or being non-professional. That's what I have a failure to do, so it was cool watching someone that can work that way. Although they may treat the next female in there like a "dumb girl" they will never think of Heather that way again. She rocks!!! :)
I will post pictures of the new 4Runner as soon as I can take a couple.

Much Better Mood

I'm in a much better mood tonight. I slept pretty good last night (unlike Sunday night). I did get up at 4:00 this morning with Tiny Baby, but she fell back to sleep within 45 minutes, so I got a tiny bit more sleep before I had to get up at 5:15.

A few updates..

My sister, Leslie, has had her reconstruction surgery. She was under the knife for over 7 hours on Monday. Everything went well and the doc was pleased with the results. They said she was sitting in a chair today. She wasn't a very good mood, but they have her on some good pain medication. The meds actually make her sleep a lot, but she feels no pain when she's sleeping so that's a good thing. She's going to be in the hospital for a few more days and should come home later in the week. All in all, a very good report from the surgery.

I sold the '03 Tundra. For those of you that have no experience with Military folks: Each base has a parking lot they allow members to put their used vehicles in and try to sell them. We pay a dollar a day to put our vehicles there and 90% of the time, they will sell before your first contract runs out, if you have a decent vehicle and don't want a million bucks for it. We call that Parking Lot, "The Lemon Lot." The vehicles there aren't "lemons" but it's a name that was given to the Base Used Car Lot years ago and it just stuck. I put the Truck on the "Lemon Lot" last Tuesday. I got two calls on it on the following Friday. One was a girl that seemed very interested in it and another was a dude that could read. The sign in the window said: "2003 Toyota Tundra SR5 2WD Extended Cab" He called me up and asked one question: "Is your truck 4 wheel drive?" "Ummm.. Oh yeah, normally it is, but the front wheel drive portion really need a break so it's on vacation in the Caribbean. It should be back next week. If you want to buy the truck now, I'll tell them where you live when they get back." Here's your sign. But, Luckily, Buyer Allyson wasn't a dumb ass. She liked the truck and wanted to buy it for her husband, who is deployed, for his birthday. How cool is that? We met and she drove the truck on Saturday and then she had the Toyota place look at it on Monday. She called me Monday afternoon, we settled on a price and I met her this morning to sign the papers at the Credit Union. We signed over the title and she's now the proud owner of my '03 Tundra. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.

I was also able to complete my American Heart Association CPR/AED Instructor course today. I took the course last Thursday, but we had to actually instruct a class and get evaluated to become "official." So, I instructed my first class today. I didn't have to do the whole thing. Our evaluator started the class and did block one. I did block two and another instructor candidate did block three. We did good and are now CPR instructors. The reason I wanted to be an instructor stemmed from last year. I need to be CPR qualified to take my PADI Rescue Diver course. That's when I noticed we had no instructors at work and there was no way for me to get qualified. I took me three months to find a way. I finally had to sit in with Healthcare Givers and take the "Mac Daddy" of CPR courses. I was well trained, but I was trained well above my level. But, hey, when you're desperate, you'll take what you can get. Since I got so pissed off about not being able to get qualified, I decided I can't sit there and complain if I wasn't willing to do something about it. So, I have become an instructor so no one else has to go through what I did to get qualified.

Everything is still a "go" for our Oriskany dive, so we're getting excited about that. I hope we get some good pics and video from it.

That's about all I have for now. If you get time, drop me line and post me a comment. I don't seem to be getting very many comments lately.

Useless People

I knew I had done a write up awhile back about useless Managers and Supervisors, but I didn't remember what I wrote. I found the original (Feb 16, 2007) but it mentioned more about the useless people in the Corporate world. Which, believe me, there are more than you can count out there. I have no use for those people. The military, on the other hand, doesn't have quite as many, but in this day and age of political correctness and being sensitive to every one's needs, we are starting to get more and more each year. It's a sad state of affairs when the US Military starts worrying about people's feelings. I can honestly say that, when I got out of the Air Force in 1996, I had 2 supervisors that I thought were great guys and role models to being a supervisor. These guys a couple of great guys. We even partied together outside work. But if you screwed them over they would bust your ass just you like deserved to be busted. On the other hand, if you did everything you were supposed to do and you did it to the best of your ability, they would stand behind you 100% no matter who was coming down on them. That's what good supervisor is. And, I will never forget Pat Thorsen nor Matthew Teasdale as long as I live because of their mentoring, their motivational skills, their support and their friendship. Both of these guys had plenty of reason to bust my ass, but both of them also saw what potential I had and they never gave up on me, no matter how much outside forces were trying to make them. And, for that, I am eternally grateful. I have patterned my supervisory skills after both of guys. And, I believe, after quite of few years of supervising young airmen that have made a few mistakes themselves, I think I did a pretty good job of emulating my supervisory "heros."

Now, I was Active Duty for 11 years. And I had TWO supervisors like that. That's not a good ratio. But, since getting out of the Active Duty Air Force and being a civilian for the last 11 years, I can tell you I have had exactly ZERO supervisors that were worth a crap. Not a single one!!! They have all been "Yes" men with no backbone. None have had the balls to stand up to anyone that even questions our motives, much less downright disagrees with what we're doing or how we're doing it. It has been super frustrating dealing with this useless people. After getting royally screwed by my supervisors at both Deltacom and Powertel, I realized that the only person that was ever going to have my back was me. But, when I cam back to the Military, I expected things to go back to the way they were when I was Active Duty. Wrong. The kindler, gentler Air Force has brought about the same type of supervisors and officers that I saw on the outside. No backbone and no backing of their people. They are too afraid of pissing off some higher up, so they just bend on command. It's sad, but I've learned to deal with it. I just go in, do my job and leave. I don't stick around, I don't go the extra mile anymore. It never helped anyway. After they proved that they aren't going to back us when the chips are down, we just do our job to the best of our ability and leave it at that. I don't ask for permission to do anything. I do what needs to be done to get the job done. If it wasn't the right call, then maybe someone will say something to me. But, with these people, it's doubtful. So, I don't put too much worry into repercussions of doing my job the way I see fit. As you can tell, I'm really not worried about it if I'm going sit here and discuss it on a World Wide BLOG. LOL.. Of course, all personal pages are blocked on Base, so none of them can read this anyway. Not that I care. I'll never write anything on this or my website that I wouldn't tell them to their face. But, they are too caught up in their little political ass kissing games to be bothered by a little person's opinion, like mine anyway, so it's moot point. But, I do like to vent and get my feelings out there. That's what helps me release the "pissed-offed-ness" that sometimes keeps me awake at night. Hopefully, this will help me get back to sleep tonight. Actually, I think it might.. My mind is starting to slow as I type now.

On a brighter note: We have booked a charter to dive the Oriskany, the aircraft carrier intentionally sunk of the shore of Pensacola, FL on 28 July. That's gonna be a blast!!! Of course, there will be a trip report and pics when I get back.

My Sis and my Truck

First and foremost, please keep my sister, Leslie Lorenz, in your thoughts for next few weeks. As most of you know she has gone through two bouts of breast cancer in the last 5 years. She's clear of cancer and is doing very well. But, this week, she goes through, what we hope, is her last surgery. With this stint with cancer, she decided she had had enough and got a double mastectomy. So, now that she is all healed up from the chemo and other surgeries, she is having her reconstruction surgery this week. She went to Atlanta today to check in and she goes under the knife for 7 hours tomorrow morning. It's going to be a long, painful healing process, so please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

As for the truck, Heather couldn't get in the truck all that easy due to the Tundra's size. So, she asked me to put some step tubes on it so she could get in it easier. Since I like the look of the tubes anyway, she really didn't have twist my arm. When it comes to step tubes, I only have one choice. Westin. So, as I was looking at the Westin site, they had put up a big banner that they finally came out with a bull bar for the Tundra. The bull bar can have a front license plate holder with it and since, on the Tundras, you have to drill the bumper cover to mount a plate on the front, I wanted that licence plate relocator. So, as I ordered my tubes and noticed the company had free shipping on everything, I ordered the bull bar and license plate relocator to go with it. I ordered the stuff on Sunday night and it showed up on Thursday afternoon. So, after work on Friday, Sid came over to give me hand, since he has already mounted the bull bar on his Tacoma. After about 2 hours and a beer or two, we had the tubes and bull bar mounted. My sister even gave me a new Dive Flag tag to put on the front, since my original is so faded out. Here is the finished product:

As the Toyota commercial says: MMM, MMM. Tasty.

Thanks to Sid for helping me out...

The New Ride

I mentioned my new 07 Tundra in an earlier post. I was finally able to take a few pics of it today. Love it!!!

Victory Lane!!!

I forgot to mention in my middle of the night ramble:

HOW ABOUT MCMURRAY??!!!!!!

Whoo-hoo!! First win since Charlotte, October 11, 2002!!! And, he did it at Daytona, of all places.

Awesome!!!

Hopefully, more to come!!!

Can't sleep. Might as well update.

I can't sleep tonight. I laid down over two hours ago and just can't get settled down. I finally gave up and came up here to the computer thinking if I can do something up here, it will settle my mind and I will be able sleep later on. So, here I am doing something.

A lot has happened since my last post. So much so, that I haven't had the time to even sit down and write about it. First and foremost, Tiny Baby turned one year old on the 3rd. We had her birthday party on the Sunday before and had a great time. It was a family only occasion and I think she had a really good time. That year has gone by so quick. I can still remember sitting in the hospital that day waiting for everything to be over. Of course, I wasn't the one laying on the bed with patossin running through my body for 12 hours, so I had no reason to complain. But, everything turned out well and we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl who is already growing up too fast.

The 4th of July, we had another family day. Tiny Baby didn't let us sleep very late and so we just kind of lazed around the house and cleaned up a bit in the morning. The In-Laws came by for awhile and then it was nap time. For the baby and us. After everyone woke up from the nap, we all went to my parents' house for a family get together. Tiny Baby and I got in the pool together. She seemed to have a pretty good time, but she wasn't real sure what to make of it. She lasted about 15 minutes and then was over it. So, we got out and visited with all the family after that. She was passed around from person to person for the next 2 hours. She handled it like a trooper and was good the entire afternoon.

The next two days at work were pretty painful. Most of the Active Duty people took off and a lot of the civilians did also. So, those of us that were left, had very little (if anything) to do at all. I had some work I took care of, but after that, it was (twiddle thumbs, whistling...)

Heather and I have been talking about getting new cars. My Tundra doesn't have a big enough back seat for the baby seat to be in there and me to carry a passenger and she just isn't real happy with her current vehicle. It's not a bad vehicle by any means, it's not her dream vehicle and is wanting an upgrade. We've had my truck up for sale for a couple months. I haven't done a whole lot to get the word out there. I've put it in the Credit Union Bulletin a few times and I've parked it out by the street at home on the weekends, but other than riding around with a sign in the window, that's about it. We want to sell mine, use that money as a down payment on my new one and trade hers in to get her one. That's the plan anyway. Today, we decided to go to the Toyota dealership and just look at what they have on the lot. I KNOW I'm getting a Toyota and she wants to have another one, so we decided to go look today. We got to the lot and made it about half way across before a Salesman got to us. We told him we were just looking and he was cool with that. He was asking a few questions and then I told him what we were both looking for. Me, a black TRD Sport Tacoma and her a 4Runner or Highlander. They didn't have any black ones on the lot, but they had two dark blue (Indigo Ink Pearl) ones. Heather loved the color and it grew on me the more we looked at it. They got the keys, started one up and pulled it out in the lot for me to have a better look at it. Yeah, I like this. We decide to run the numbers and see what we're up against. Long story short: After crunching the numbers, looking at incentives, rebates and APR specials, I didn't get my '07 V6 TRD Sport Tacoma. But, I did get my new '07 V8 TRD Off Road Tundra. Yeah, baby. BEEFY. Love this truck. It's got the back seat I needed and plenty of other stuff. It's much more truck than I need, but sometimes, excess is a good thing. I don't have a pic of it yet, but I'll take one tomorrow or so. I do need to mention that getting the Tundra instead of the Tacoma was actually Heather's idea. We she crunched the numbers on the Tacoma with the APR we were being offered versus the Tundra with Toyota's 0% APR for 60 months, financially, it was a no brainer. I'm REALLY glad I have her when it comes to everything, but especially when it comes to matters of the pocketbook. :)

I'll leave you all with this picture.. We're getting Tiny Baby to feed herself. That works out great with chicken nuggets, peas and corn and things like that. Chef Boy-R-Dee Beef-o-Roni? Not so much.