In order for this story to make even a moderate amount of sense, a back story is required:
Back when I was going through Pilot Instructor Training around February, I remember flying with one Lt. Col on a day when I truly had my shit in a sock. It was a great formation/air refueling ride and I was really firing on all cylinders (which was a miracle given the situation I was going through at the time). We got back after the flight, debriefed the formation, knocked out an emergency procedure, and started the individual debrief. I did great, and at the end, he told me, "Dowd, you're gonna make a great IP when you get back to Vance. Just remember, when you point at a student and say 'you need to do this,' you still have three fingers pointing back at you." He demonstrates this by pointing at me with his index finger, and sure enough, he has three digits pointing back at himself. I respond: "Well that's an easy fix sir. All I do is knife point." And I demonstrate this by pointing all five fingers at him at once. I thought this was funny, and was grinning like a jack-o-lantern at my clever end around, but this UTTERLY defeated my IP. His shoulders dropped, he shook his head and sighed, "Have a nice day, Dowd." AND WALKED OFF. Clearly I won this battle. Ever since that day, I've been using the knife point to illustrate to students that I am, without a shadow of a doubt, 100% correct.
I also found that the knife point is a good way to demonstrate to anyone a level of severity. A simple knife point might just mean "Here is the crux of what we are discussing," while as a knife point that is launched from the end of your arm like an ICBM whilst flying and yelling at a student, "I HAVE THE AIRCRAFT. GET YOUR ASS TOGETHER, YOU ALMOST KILLED ALL OF US!" makes for a less subtle indicator. It's like the exclamation point of violent hand gestures. One Marine friend of mine told me once, "I don't have hands, just knives where my arms stop." This is the mindset required for mastering the knife point. And, it leads me to the topic of this post: Shitty Bill.
Shitty Bill (his callsign from AWACS) is one of our sensor operators who is truly hysterical to be around for a number of reasons. One, his idea of a normal intro to conversations involves explaining his BM for the day in graphic detail. This in and of itself is not that funny, it's more humorous to see people who don't understand that's his idea of a conversation starter. Two: his graphic reliving of Trailer Park Boys (a Canadian mockumentary of a group of Canucks who live in a Trailer Park). And three: His absolute lack of an attention span. I've been around people who probably should still take Ritalin, and Shitty Bill would be their spokesperson, if they could focus long enough to nominate someone for the position. He's more pingy than an Irish Setter at a cat show. And this makes for a some hysterical interactions.
The other day, a group of us were reviewing Flight Crew Information Files as a prerequisite to get us ready to fly. FCIFs are all info about the airfield, current ops, and general information that people decide other crews should know about before flying. Some of it's quite dry, and as a result it was quite a chore to keep Shitty Bill on point. I was, for all intents and purposes, reading to the crowd, and stray air molecules kept getting SB off task, and eventually my patience wore thin and, as one of the other pilots, Dan, commented, "Instructor Wellen came out." A vicious knife point was delivered across the table with the following admonishment: "Shitty Bill, I need you to focus!" This brought him back on point... for the time being. About 45 seconds later, SB decided again that a different topic of discussion that had been bouncing around the forefront of his ADHD mind was more pressing, and he attempted to diverge from the task at hand AGAIN. This brought about a much more forceful knife point and a much more stern point of order: "BILL. BRING IT IN. Focus! We only have about 15 more minutes of this. As much as this pains all of us, we have to get through these. Please use all of your remaining brain bytes to pay attention to me. Eye contact! Over here. HEY! Over here. Look at me. FOCUS, dude." He was brought back to base camp once more... but AGAIN, about 5 minutes later, he got bored and started on another topic. This was the last straw. A knife point emerged like a lightning bolt from Mount Olympus: "Bill, if you so dare usurp the floor from me again, I will tear off your head and fill the empty space between your ears with the paper copies of the FCIFs so that no one will doubt me trying to imbue this knowledge upon you!" At this point everyone else was pretty much was in tears, but I finally found order and finished the task at hand.
Today, we were eating dinner and Dan and I were talking about Will Ferrell's surprise appearance at a Round Rock Express game posing as a closing pitcher: Number 99, Rojo Johnson. Shitty Bill asks what we are talking about and the ensuing conversation occurs:
SB: What happened?
D: Will Ferrell showed up at a minor league game as a fake pitcher named Rojo Johnson
W: Yeah, it was in Austin. I know a couple people who went to the game, they said it was hysterical.
SB: So what was this, like, the little league world series?
Dead silence as the whole table stares at him
W: Seriously?
D: Yeah, really?
SB: What?!?
W: Knife pointing emphatically Dude, Dan literally just said it was a minor league game! What is your deal?!? Why can't you focus?
SB: Sorry man, I wasn't listening!
D: But, you just asked!
The whole table fell apart and we all laughed hysterically as Shitty Bill tried to explain why he decided the 5 seconds of conversation following his inquiry were forgotten. I've given up on trying to knife point him, there's some force field around him that renders him invulnerable to the power of the knife point. But such is the magic of Shitty Bill. I just hope he's as good as tracking targets as he is at changing subjects!
Hope y'all are doing well. More stories to follow!
Wellen
Back when I was going through Pilot Instructor Training around February, I remember flying with one Lt. Col on a day when I truly had my shit in a sock. It was a great formation/air refueling ride and I was really firing on all cylinders (which was a miracle given the situation I was going through at the time). We got back after the flight, debriefed the formation, knocked out an emergency procedure, and started the individual debrief. I did great, and at the end, he told me, "Dowd, you're gonna make a great IP when you get back to Vance. Just remember, when you point at a student and say 'you need to do this,' you still have three fingers pointing back at you." He demonstrates this by pointing at me with his index finger, and sure enough, he has three digits pointing back at himself. I respond: "Well that's an easy fix sir. All I do is knife point." And I demonstrate this by pointing all five fingers at him at once. I thought this was funny, and was grinning like a jack-o-lantern at my clever end around, but this UTTERLY defeated my IP. His shoulders dropped, he shook his head and sighed, "Have a nice day, Dowd." AND WALKED OFF. Clearly I won this battle. Ever since that day, I've been using the knife point to illustrate to students that I am, without a shadow of a doubt, 100% correct.
I also found that the knife point is a good way to demonstrate to anyone a level of severity. A simple knife point might just mean "Here is the crux of what we are discussing," while as a knife point that is launched from the end of your arm like an ICBM whilst flying and yelling at a student, "I HAVE THE AIRCRAFT. GET YOUR ASS TOGETHER, YOU ALMOST KILLED ALL OF US!" makes for a less subtle indicator. It's like the exclamation point of violent hand gestures. One Marine friend of mine told me once, "I don't have hands, just knives where my arms stop." This is the mindset required for mastering the knife point. And, it leads me to the topic of this post: Shitty Bill.
Shitty Bill (his callsign from AWACS) is one of our sensor operators who is truly hysterical to be around for a number of reasons. One, his idea of a normal intro to conversations involves explaining his BM for the day in graphic detail. This in and of itself is not that funny, it's more humorous to see people who don't understand that's his idea of a conversation starter. Two: his graphic reliving of Trailer Park Boys (a Canadian mockumentary of a group of Canucks who live in a Trailer Park). And three: His absolute lack of an attention span. I've been around people who probably should still take Ritalin, and Shitty Bill would be their spokesperson, if they could focus long enough to nominate someone for the position. He's more pingy than an Irish Setter at a cat show. And this makes for a some hysterical interactions.
The other day, a group of us were reviewing Flight Crew Information Files as a prerequisite to get us ready to fly. FCIFs are all info about the airfield, current ops, and general information that people decide other crews should know about before flying. Some of it's quite dry, and as a result it was quite a chore to keep Shitty Bill on point. I was, for all intents and purposes, reading to the crowd, and stray air molecules kept getting SB off task, and eventually my patience wore thin and, as one of the other pilots, Dan, commented, "Instructor Wellen came out." A vicious knife point was delivered across the table with the following admonishment: "Shitty Bill, I need you to focus!" This brought him back on point... for the time being. About 45 seconds later, SB decided again that a different topic of discussion that had been bouncing around the forefront of his ADHD mind was more pressing, and he attempted to diverge from the task at hand AGAIN. This brought about a much more forceful knife point and a much more stern point of order: "BILL. BRING IT IN. Focus! We only have about 15 more minutes of this. As much as this pains all of us, we have to get through these. Please use all of your remaining brain bytes to pay attention to me. Eye contact! Over here. HEY! Over here. Look at me. FOCUS, dude." He was brought back to base camp once more... but AGAIN, about 5 minutes later, he got bored and started on another topic. This was the last straw. A knife point emerged like a lightning bolt from Mount Olympus: "Bill, if you so dare usurp the floor from me again, I will tear off your head and fill the empty space between your ears with the paper copies of the FCIFs so that no one will doubt me trying to imbue this knowledge upon you!" At this point everyone else was pretty much was in tears, but I finally found order and finished the task at hand.
Today, we were eating dinner and Dan and I were talking about Will Ferrell's surprise appearance at a Round Rock Express game posing as a closing pitcher: Number 99, Rojo Johnson. Shitty Bill asks what we are talking about and the ensuing conversation occurs:
SB: What happened?
D: Will Ferrell showed up at a minor league game as a fake pitcher named Rojo Johnson
W: Yeah, it was in Austin. I know a couple people who went to the game, they said it was hysterical.
SB: So what was this, like, the little league world series?
Dead silence as the whole table stares at him
W: Seriously?
D: Yeah, really?
SB: What?!?
W: Knife pointing emphatically Dude, Dan literally just said it was a minor league game! What is your deal?!? Why can't you focus?
SB: Sorry man, I wasn't listening!
D: But, you just asked!
The whole table fell apart and we all laughed hysterically as Shitty Bill tried to explain why he decided the 5 seconds of conversation following his inquiry were forgotten. I've given up on trying to knife point him, there's some force field around him that renders him invulnerable to the power of the knife point. But such is the magic of Shitty Bill. I just hope he's as good as tracking targets as he is at changing subjects!
Hope y'all are doing well. More stories to follow!
Wellen
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