Show and Tell

So I promised that I'd post some videos from API, so here they are. This first video is from the mile swim we had to do during the first few weeks of API. It wasn't that bad except that the flight suit was mildly uncomfortable to swim in during the first few laps and went downhill from there. Other than that, it was just a matter of avoiding the person in front of you (we had about 8 people per lane so that led to a lot of kicking and waiting to pass anyone who might be holding you up).

The survival classes were a combination of powerpoint lecture and some videos produced in the 1950's. The videos were actually highly entertaining and there was a lot of laughing in the background as the videos were played. This portion of a video isn't very funny, but it provides the ambiance of 1950's Navy survival videos.

One of the survival instructors was this prior Navy Seal. I think he lives somewhere in the forests surrounding Pensacola in a thatch hut that he made after watching old Navy survival videos. I didn't get a clip of him teaching us how to capture squirrels but he was very enthusiastic about it....I think he probably dines on squirrels fairly often. Here's a clip of him teaching us about dandelions or something...I guess the point was that you can eat dandelions but that was lost on me amid his hilarious commentary.

Here's a clip of him teaching us how to make a fire with a stick, some parachute cord, and a few ounces of awesomeness.

The much talked about pressure chamber. You'll see in this first clip that everything is going fairly well at this point. Patty-cake isn't too hard to do (although we still had a harder time than most 1st graders), and the children's toy isn't too complicated for a 24 year old military aviator.

Things are starting to get more difficult, but you might be able to see more smiles on the faces of some happy, hypoxic aviators.

It seemed like every group had one person who went a little crazy, this guy was our group's. He was the same one playing with the stick/weight in the earlier clips, except now his hands are trembling, he's completely confused, and is trying to do the stick/weight task with his oxygen mask assembly; however, he's quite the happy camper.

Also of note, today is the one week anniversary of my marriage to the best wife in the world! I already have a hard time remembering what it was like to live down here without her, except to remember that it wasn't even comparable to how great it is to share life with Lisette.