Rise from the Phoenix

[Eadrom]

Hello!

Thought I would introduce myself and get a post towards my newbie status rank up knocked out.

I'm 26 and live in Phoenix, AZ, USA. I'm a big time techie and general science geek. I built and flew model rockets as a teenager. In 10th grade I discovered computer programming (BASIC) and wrote a couple amateur programs to help me with my model rockets. I served in the Air Force as a 9S100. I was basically a science/tech MacGyver. You can read more about what I did here.

After my enlistment, I moved back to my hometown. I now work for myself and do Linux systems administration and website design/administration.

I've been playing KSP for about a month now and creeping these forums for pretty much just as long. Made an account to post in the Interstellar plugin thread. As an aside, really excited to Scott Manley start his KSPI video series. I've been playing with KSPI for almost as long as I have stock and it's such a fun plugin.

Let's see...oh, mods. I play with Kethane, MechJeb, Protractor, KSPX, KSPI, Procedural Fairings, and swapped out Quantum Struts for Ferram's Kerbal Joint Reinforcement. KJR plays very smoothly with the big, heavy parts from KSPI and makes for a bit less stressful launching. I have a kinda meh PC so I try to keep my mod count low. I'm considering that part welding mod I've seen floating around to keep my computer from crying when flying ships over 200 parts.

[TheSuperintendnt]

Welcome to the forums, granted it seems you have already swam in the deep-end given that this wasn't your first post! And by the way that's quite a job you linked there!

[Kialar]

What's a 9S100? Is it kind of civilian job at the military? Just curious.

And welcome at detonation prime,erm, the forum.

[Eadrom]

Thank you for the welcomes! Indeed, I jumped into the deep end with the game since I went into it with at least a rudimentary understanding of the physics involved. Turned out it was a bit more involved that I thought if I wanted to go beyond Kerbin orbit, so I ended up going back to the tutorials after 3 or 4 days of messing around in LKO. xD

A 9S100 is an Air Force military job. It's very much more of a science-y type job than what you might think is a typical military job, say a rifleman or a mechanic. A 9S is more like a nuke tech for a Navy sub in that you have to have a high level of technical and scientific skills. I used these "nerdy/civilian" skills as a member of the military to support military missions. Nothing civilian about what I was doing. When I joined up, my recruiter basically read off the description in the link I provided. I asked her, "soooo, what does that mean?" She literally told me that she had no idea, but because of all the big science sounding words and the fact that you need a top secret clearance, it had to be a really cool job. At basic training, none of my instructors knew what I would be doing. I got to my technical training base and it's hilarious looking back because everyone was all "oooo he's a 9S!" but yet no one outside of my school knew what I was doing either. I got to school a few weeks early so it wasn't until after basic and after being at my technical training base for a few weeks that I had my first day of class and finally found out what the heck I would be doing for the next 4 years. lol It was WELL worth the wait once I found out, but that was one of the longest, suspenseful waits of my life. xD

I thought I would be clever, but the light blue of the "here" link doesn't show up very well on a white background next to black text. lol http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforceenlistedjobs/a/afjob9s100.htm This is the link in my above post that gives the info on what I did. There are a few different pages that gives more info. As an aside, I personally know the gentleman that wrote a lot of that article. He had quite a few stripes on me when I came in. xD

[Kialar]

Hehe. I consider this military acronym speech quite disturbing.

For me it sounds like ABC countermeasuring and reconnaissance.

But as you fore sure have signed a treaty with all super secret NDA stuff and so on, I won't ask further.

Thanks and happy launching.

[Bilbruck]

I was also a 9S!  Stationed at Schriever in Colorado Springs.  Did you have TSgt Tuguba for your physics training?  He was my favorite.  Loved the Tesla Coil things he did. 

[Vanamonde]

41 minutes ago, Bilbruck said:

I was also a 9S!  Stationed at Schriever in Colorado Springs.  Did you have TSgt Tuguba for your physics training?  He was my favorite.  Loved the Tesla Coil things he did. 

Welcome to our forum.  

Unfortunately, the person you are relying to has not visited here for quite some time. But you will find many other nice folks here, I hope.