We met on the back porch, looked at the ADB, walked to the aircraft, started up and got going.  It was a bit weird to be running the checklist vice actually doing it, but that’s what the skipper wants, so that’s what he gets!  The weather was GORGEOUS – a few clouds way, way, up there, good winds of 8-10 knots, sunshine and about 65 degrees.  You can’t ask for a better day to go flying.

We got out to the working area and began to go through simulated emergencies at altitude, including engine failures.  I demo’d the first engine failure, talking all the way through it and then the skipper took the controls and acted like he was a typical dumb student flying the engine failure.  (We simulate those by reducing the engine throttle control to flight idle and then using the kinetic energy stored in the rotating blades to autorotate downward.)  I rolled off the twist grip (throttle) and he started going through the procedures, acting like a student and making typical student errors.  I corrected him, took the controls and waved off the approach, and we set up to head into Pace (an outlying field or OLF).

At Pace we started easily with a normal approach to a a hover and a vertical landing with me talking my way all the way around the pattern and onto the deck, just as if I was with a student.  The skipper then did the same thing, acting as a student and gauging my responses.  I suppose I should add that this flight was my first time acting as an instructor, even though I was flying with the CO, so I don’t really have my techniques locked down just yet, but I’m told that this will come with time.  Skipper did nothing terribly crazy – just some shady ball control and confusion over the appropriate altitudes, but with some prompting from me it ended up okay.

After that we did some maneuvers for my proficiency, then steep approaches to a no-hover landing for both me and the skipper-acting-as-student.  That was a bit more squirrely, since the procedures are just different enough to confuse students – and when you don’t know what’s going on, you usually revert back to a previously learned yet similar behavior – in this case, a normal approach.  But other than that and getting caught up in a low hover vice a no-hover landing, everything was reasonably good.

From there we went to power-off maneuvers.  These are cut guns, taxi cut guns, and autos.  Cut guns happen when the instructor (me) rolls the twist grip off while in a hover.  I did one in order to gain proficiency for me and additionally to see how the aircraft is going to respond to the power off maneuver.  After completing one, I transferred control to the skipper, who did one for his proficiency.  We didn’t go “fight’s on” (skipper simulating a student) for cut guns and taxi cut guns due to their unforgiving nature, but did so for the autos. We finished up with some taxi cut guns, which are cut guns while taxiing forward, and proceeded to the auto pattern.  After completing a couple of 90- and 180-degree autos, we went “fight’s on” and the skipper started simulating a student again, forgetting to roll off the twist grip for one auto and getting sloppy with ball and Nr control on the second.  The second also saw him neglecting to bring the twist grip back to full open at the appropriate altitude, resulting in me taking the controls and rolling it on while executing a waveoff.  Not quite a low Nr recovery, but kinda close to it.

After that I did one more 180 auto for my proficiency and NAILED it – it was probably the best auto I’ve shot in a Charlie – and then we departed and headed home via course rules.  After the flight and post-flight the skipper walked me through TIMS (our flight recording and grading system) and simultaneously debriefed me on the flight.  Everything went well and he especially liked my verbal procedures and explanations of all the maneuvers and encouraged me to keep up the effort.  After turning in our radios I went to talk to another instructor about something while he said that he’d “see me around campus” and headed back to the squadron.

The evening after New Years we went to Sharon’s going away party in Yokohama.  Sharon is Kendra’s coworker and has the good fortune to be leaving Japan shortly, so her friends threw her said party.  Kendra and I were the first to arrive and discover that the place she had planned for, The Green Sheep, was closed until the 4th.  (Later we would discover that many, many more places were closed until the 4th, but I digress…)  Kendra was bummed for a bit but the whole group met up in rather short order and after wandering for a couple blocks found a different British-style pub to hold the festivities.  We all had a great time and even met some of the locals including some flamboyant ones that were extremely friendly with Sharon’s husband.

We took the 3rd easy and then on the 4th boarded the bullet train from Yokohama to Kyoto, traveling 288 miles in two hours – not bad, a lot less cramped than planes and we just walked up to the station to board the train.  In our three days in Kyoto we saw the Golden Pavilion, Nijo Castle, Fushimi Inari Shrine, Yasaka Shrine, Gion, Kiyomizu Temple, and got to know the bus and subway system rather well, as well as braving some intensely cold weather.

More to come later – especially pictures.

We got dressed and headed out in Kendra’s car to the local shabu-shabu place via the base, and I have to say that Atsugi is the nicest Navy base I’ve ever been on, with lots of trees, greenery, buildings that don’t look like homages to faceless bureaucracy and a really nice flight line. Post tour we headed through Yamato to Don-tei, the aforementioned shabu-shabu establishment.

Shabu-shabu is a communal type of cooking – we had a pot filled with boiling water that was cooked the noodles, veggies, tofu and thinly sliced beef that we ordered, along with a skimmer to get the meat foam that accumulates during cooking. This probably sounds a bit bland, but the sesame sauce that accompanied the food was phenomenal.

We headed back to Kendra’s place after the shabu-shabu, packed and walked to the train station for the hour trip to our hotel in Tokyo. The trains here are ubiquitous – you can get pretty much to anywhere from anywhere using the train system. This also tends to make car ownership a rarity here, which in turn encourages bike ownership. I’ve never seen so many bikes in one place ever, and they all have guards for both wheels and a chain guard, in addition to lights, baskets and step-through designs. Nice!

We dropped our bags off in the hotel and stepped out into the evening in search of food, only to discover that everything shuts down early on New Years Eve. We made our way back to the Zojo-ji temple, site of the New Years Eve ceremony, where Kendra had seen some vendors hawking Japanese festival food. We both had some yakisoba noodles to satiate our appetites and I had some squid balls. The squid balls were all hand made by a local guy in batches of 100 and were delicious – I’ve got to thank Kendra for daring me to eat them, plus five balls for 500 yen isn’t half bad.

After watching some rice being pounded into mochi for a bit we were both chilly from the below freezing temperatures and wind, but there was a hotel nearby, so off we went in search of warmth and a place to sit down. It turned out that lots of other people had the same idea, so there weren’t a great deal of horizontal surfaces free, but no worries – the karaoke rooms were open and a great deal of fun. (songs covered included Never Gonna Give You Up, Bust A Move, Faith, Don’t Stop Believing, Low, Sexual Healing, et al) We’d had a bit too much fun in the booth and were almost late to the ceremony at the temple, but again it wasn’t that far away.

The way the ceremony works is the monks of the temple bless the crowd followed by a short countdown to midnight, at which time everyone with a balloon lets it go, signifying their wish for the new year. What isn’t obvious is the long line for the balloons being given out by the monks. We actually talked with an Aussie couple who got to the front of the line for balloons only to find that you needed a stamp in order to get one once ou actually got to the front of the line. We made the decision early on not to worry about the balloons, making our night much warmer and more stress-free. Indeed, even though we got to the temple grounds about 10 minutes from midnight, we still had a great vantage point from which to see the countdown, Tokyo Tower and the balloon release. It was quite a sight – think of 5000+ transparent balloons released simultaneously into a crystal clear night punctuated with a brilliant full moon. When the group of balloons got far enough away, Kendra called my attention to them again and sure enough, I got a second treat, as the mass of airborne plastic was shimmering like stars in the moonlight.

The cold and wind didn’t let up and there were no places open nearby, so we retired to our hotel room for some much-needed sleep, but not before getting some corn bread (not cornbread) and Pinos at the local convenience store.

• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg, fresh if possible
• Generous pinch ground cloves
• Pinch salt
• Dark rum
• Hot/boiling water

Directions:  Thoroughly combine all ingredients except for rum and water.  Cool in fridge or freezer until firm.  For each cup of hot buttered rum, scoop out two tablespoons of the mixture into a mug.  Cover with a shot (1.5 fl. oz.) or so of the rum, then fill mug the rest of the way with the hot/boiling water.  Stir and serve immediately.  Makes 12 one mug servings.

I made this last night for Bibber’s annual Christmas Eve party and got requests for the recipe, so here it is.  You can add a bit more rum per mug, but going with 1.5 to 2 ounces of rum ensures that you taste more than just rum.  The water can be boiled or heated in the microwave – you just have to ensure that it’s hot enough to melt the mixture and stay hot enough to be a hot drink.  We used Sailor Jerry rum last night, but you can use any dark rum you like, although I’d stay away from regular Captain Morgan.

Yeah, I should probably stop buying remotes.

When I got home Ekta’s supervisor Leelee called me back.  Having had some time to think over exactly what I was going to say, I remained calm and went over the litany of errors and oversights that had occurred in the handling of my loan – pretty much what was in my last post plus the added stuff from the top of this one.  I also added that I had never experienced dissatisfaction like this with USAA before, including my first home loan that I had processed through them.  This was really the heart of the matter, as USAA portrays themselves as being there for their members in the armed forces, but here I was, in a very stressful and demanding time, and they had been no better than Bank of America or any other large firm. To her credit, Leelee also stayed calm, and informed me that she had reviewed my file and that I was right – there were several issues in the way that my stuff had been handled; as a result, she was transferring my loan over to her most experienced officer, giving Ekta some remedial training, and would be contacting the VA daily in an effort to expedite the processing of the loan.  She also apologized for my experience and hoped that the solutions she’d put forth would help.  I agreed that they would, thanked her for her attention and time, and got off the phone with her.

About this time Bob called me back to let me know that the seller had agreed to let me move in before closing, so long as I would pay pro-rated rent in the amount of his mortgage, which seemed reasonable and far easier than rescheduling all the utility hookups, movers, and appliance deliveries I had scheduled, plus it cuts my commute in half.

So all told, USAA came through and the seller was awesome enough to let me move in on my original date.  HUZZAH.

1) there was an additional form that had to be filled out and signed before the loan could be processed
2) I had not gotten flood insurance
3) THEY HAD NOT RECEIVED THE LOAN APPLICATION.

It’s five days before closing, and you’re JUST NOW telling me the loan application never made it there?  (I sent it in back in October.)  WHAT THE FUCK.

After WTFing for about 5 minutes straight on the phone to Ekta, who never proposed a solution or said she’d try and expedite matters, I proceeded to accomplish the following:

1) downloaded, printed, signed, scanned form and sent it back to Ekta
2) Confirmed that I *HAD* flood insurance, but that Ekta now wanted it pre-paid rather than waiting for closing… so I paid and
3) drove to the place I’m staying to get the copy of the loan application I had, signed and initialed everything all over again, got it scanned and sent back to Ekta.  Again.

This isn’t the first time she’s messed up, either – she told me on Monday that I didn’t have homeowners’ insurance when in fact I had gotten it back in late October, and my insurance agent had faxed proof of it to Ekta on the 28th.  I confirmed this by asking the title lady if she had gotten it that day, and indeed she had.

So now it’s a waiting game to see if we’ll close on time… or if the seller will let me move in early (we’re both Navy, so maybe he will…) – otherwise I have to reschedule the power, water, internet, movers, and washer/dryer delivery.

USAA has been pretty good to me over the years, but they have seriously dropped the ball on this one… Kendra is forward deployed IN JAPAN and the I’m STILL in the process of PCSing!  You’d think they would assign a bit more importance to this or perhaps put some additional oversight into the process.  Regardless, five days before closing is NOT the time that you want to hear that additional paperwork is due or that other paperwork is missing.