I knew it was good for something!

[Midlife]

Greetings from Johnstown, PA! I'm here on travel, testing our gear on Wednesday. There were no flights out of Harrisburg back to Panama City until 6AM Saturday, which meant I had to get up at 2AM to drive from here to Harrisburg. Ugh. So...after negotiating with the travel agent (who has to abide by gov't rules...hell, the bureaucracy!), I managed to sweet-talk her into allowing me to drive back to PC on Thursday/Friday. So...we had to rent a car.

I refuse to drive a compact as a rental, driving on long drives, on freeways, in cities, etc., so I always ask for an Intermediate. The rationale: either my height (tee hee...I'm 5'11"), or my girth. The girth usually wins out! So...the rent me an Intermediate. But wait! There are no intermediates available, so I get a full-size car at Intermediate prices. And behind door #3 is a Chebby Impala. Ugh. It's okay at best; a nice freeway cruiser but it has no pickup to it at all.

I thought ahead, and packed my portable sirius radio, as the reception in PA is miserable, as it is through MD, WVA, VA, NC, and SC. It fit into a small box into my luggage, and plugged right in to the car. Woohoo...I have tunes w/o ads!

So all of this comfort for 2.5 days of driving (0.5 days driving today) was due to my girth. Thank you chocolate, ice cream, and beer over the past few years. I knew it would come in handy sometime!

 

[Anonymous]

What kind a gear...top secret killing type stuff, tell us...tell us :naug

 

[AzPete]

He is out of town without the other half....do you really want to know what "gear" he is testing.

 

[Flysure1]

["What kind a gear...top secret killing type stuff, tell us...tell us"]---------Were you testing that sheep attractant again??

 

[Midlife]

We are responsible for a winch, cable, and all of the assembly that the cable runs through. The cable has fairings on it to reduce drag (not that kind of drag...get your minds out of the gutter!). The winch is on a Navy helicopter.

During training of operators, some of the fairings were interfering with our gear. I'm here to find out why. There's a 30 foot tower for us to operating things on, allowing us to simulate the actual use on a helicopter. This tower is unique for this application. Otherwise, there's really no reason to come to Johnstown more than once (the flood museums were interesting).