With the sun in the sky
And the sand in my stride
There’s nothing here to make me feel tired;
But wait there is,
The jet comes to land
And bares it’s teeth and clenches it’s hands;

It’s sick with a fever,
And angry at the sun,
For boiling it’s circuits and spoiling it’s fun;
To catch the talib,
As they set their traps,
We need to get airborne to protect our ( Read more... )

The second detachment to the desert started the same as all of the others, with an inevitably fat fail in communications at the transport section. Ignorantly content with the information that the bus to Brize Norton, the “Gateway to Operations”, would be picking up at both the transport section control and the main guard room, I opted for the ( Read more... )

Well the last few days have certainly made me work for my flight home. Yesterday was particularly special, the details of which I can’t really go into, but there was a lot of thinking on the feet and team-working, which ended in a different outcome than expected. We managed to accommodate the change though and successfully did what we had to do. ( Read more... )

Confidence to me is like a transient form of ability. If I’m good at something, I’m confident at it, if I’m not good at something I’m not. To some people, confidence is a shadow for ability, and they use it to mask what they don’t know - a front. This is something that needs work. There are times in my job where hindsight proves particularly ( Read more... )

Damnit why I can’t I win at table tennis! Me and one of the lineys have got into an evening routine of a game of table tennis in the bar, we’re fairly evenly matched but i keep making unforced errors and it’s doing my head in!! I swear his serve is illegal…so much so that I’m tempted to look up the rules on the internet. Is this becoming too ( Read more... )

I’m over halfway on this det now, and starting to feel like I’m “over the hump”. So far, I’ve learnt a good deal about my job and a few things in life have been put into perspective. None more so though than the feeling of wasting time watching TV or DVDs and not appreciating the things I enjoy ( Read more... )

Last night I was struck by the realisation that I have been fortunate all of my life not to have experienced dire poverty. Out here we have some contracted staff who cater for our domestic upkeep and for each one of them I wonder what strand of life they have taken to bring them here. Most of them seem to be of Indian origin, and the story of their ( Read more... )

Today I gained a frank realisation. As I teetered up the decision between professionally doing the right thing, and doing what I really would have preferred to be doing, I suddenly understood that what I really wanted to be doing in life was playing music. There was an open mic night going on in the bar, and I really wanted to play. The problem: ( Read more... )

Here she comes on the final approach
And taxing in like a full, laden coach,
The crew jump out with a thumbs up and shout
“She’s all good JEngO, now don’t mess her about”

But what they don’t know is the plan for tonight,
An inspection by me upon engines left and right.
The night is still young, and the air still hot,
Full of dust and sand from a ( Read more... )

The last few days have seen some of the toughest decision making that I’ve had. Every time I realise that an impending difficult situation is brewing, I get a deep twisting feeling in the depths of my chest; a cloud casting itself over my good judgement focussing every thought toward the latest curve ball being thrown my way. Last night saw this ( Read more... )