BFM this

Searched the forum and scrubbed this thread for an answer to no avail. PCS'd with a 3 month enroute TDY: when does BAH swap from old to new duty station? -wife and kids went VFR direct the day before I was final out from old PDS, so they were at the new PDS the whole time. Anyone know where this is spelled out in the reg? Its about $250 difference btw old and new, so it's a significant difference one way or the other.

Wow. You just swept past Scoobs, PYB, and Crew Report for the biggest douchebag comment of 2011 seen on this board. Congrats.

I put this question to a visiting senior leader a couple of days ago. Takeaways: 1: He did not appreciate the question (nothing was said, but I got the point) 2: AIP is not an entitlement. It will go away when it goes away, and that's that. 3: Its looking like it will hang in there for one more year. 4: On the subject of fairness, he pointed out that troops stationed at the puzzle palace have a much longer commute than we do, yet they don't recieve AIP. The last one is a good point, but a little apples-to-oranges as there is housing w/in 10 min of there, whereas the nearest housing development to here is 30 miles driving. You just can't live anywhere close to DC because of the cost of that proximal housing. But there are other mechanisms to address this, namely COLA and BAH. I was a little surprised to find that there is no COLA for DC. Not only do I think that's a no-brainer, but I think COLA would be a more appropriate tool to address the Creech issue. It's not the "services available on base" which are still quite negligible, it's the cost associated with the assignment and the CHOICE that the AF has made to put this mission where they did. Doing the math using the JFTR operating cost of $.51/mile works out to about $610 per month to the individual. Edit to add useful link.

Just the essentials.

They've exposed themselves to way to much competition (Hulu, Amazon, Blockbuster) with their buffonery. They had dominant market share (still do, but declining), but are going to finish on the other side of this struggling to recapture thier niche, which they'll never get back. Hollywood is happy with this just as any supplier would be; who wants to sit across the table from a distribution monopoly that constantly rakes you over the coals? Will they still be around in 10yrs? Probably, but a decent growth stock? Nope.

Their price restructure wasn't random. Acquisition costs were about to skyrocket: the price model that NF was working under was based on an old "lets see where this internet streaming idea goes", and was about to increase fivefold as Hollywood now has a good handle on the profit potential. Likewise, although the USPS woes are only now making the MSM front page, companies who's entire distribution (for the disk side) depended have had a finger on the pulse of that trainwreck for some time. Random they weren't. Heavy handed and without regard to the consumer, yes. Believe it or not, despite all of my bitching on this board, I still subscribe to the old-school sentiment that says the AF shouldn't give two shits about my personal desires; that, yes, Needs of the Air Force should be the trump in management and decision making. But I also see things happening, beyond the AF and even DoD, that has the potential for long term unintended consequences. The operative question here will be how the AF navigates these unpredictable events. Bang-bang, like always? (like NF, in this case?) And like MMoose in his original post, I think that might be worth thinking about.

Netflix swung, and missed. So before you cleverly type how Netflix isn't an "ideal" or that the AF isn't a business, forfuxsake, read the OP and the slides! Netflix isn't necessarily a perfect parallel with BigBlue, but might not be too far off. From 25m subscribers, some by design (and some NOT) they're down a cool 1M from that peak. In two months. And they're surprised by this. https://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html If AF leadership ever leads with "I messed up", we're already fucked.

Don't tease me.

AAaaand there's the hook. Priceless.

This is my surprised face. Task a group of shoes to work on solutions to a customer service problem, and "reducing service hours" is bound to percolate to the top of the idea list.

I bet that "cabin" smells like spring flowers.

Sadly he is probably not engaging O's, certainly not the ones in bags. Like any other self righteous busybody, he's likely picking on SrA or at most SSgts. So only the first half of beating him at his own game would likely work for the end user. Unless of course an A/C caught said E9 rolling in on one of your own crew, then it's fights on since the E9 has wandered into the threat of his own low SA accord.

For the FB crowd. A lot of good discussion, information sharing, and ideas: Here And Here

All sarcasm. No idea and barely care.

I call BS. That would require the AF to admit, even if only on a minor point, that they were wrong to pass on the T-45. AF leadership would rather put out a burning oil well with their own face than ever do this. I predict us buying used T-50s from the DAKs before the first T-45 says USAF on the side.

I think you have to say his name 2 more times.

That was part of my consideration as well, but it was specifically why I went with AAFMA. I wanted coverage during my prime earning years--years before I had my own nest egg/financial foundation built. Those are the vulnerable years in my mind. 20 years from now, I will have eclipsed what that policy would offer, so it will at that point be redundant.

It's not matching, it's defined contribution (govt will contribute x amount to tsp automatically). In fact I don't recall the DBB proposal mentioning matching specifically.

Just after a two year record high retention rate. Weirdest thing!

Fast forward a few years. Assuming these changes take place, how or would your advice change for... the 17yo that is thinking of enlisting 17yo thinking about a service academy junior at the zoo thinking about pilot training 7yr SSgt weighing thier options (ranging from defense contracting job to going back home to be a cop) I've got my ideas, just thinking through the second order effects for discussion sake.

I was really young during 40%. I remember a lot of bitterness. A LOT. In conjuntion, a lot of E-6's were getting kicked to the curb at 16-17 years. I was like a young pup that could smell something bad in the air, but didn't quite know what it was...

$289 retail according to the website, but $150 according to the catalog once they have your impressions. Might be questionable value at that price, but I love mine, and will be getting a spare set.

All great thoughts, but I wanted to point something out. When my unit transitioned to ACCES we had a very smart LSO working at the group. He rightly predicted that the user would have to get accostomed to these new earpieces. Second, since Westone already had our molds, it was very little additional cost to order everybody stereo earphones specifically to ease the acclimation process. And yes, they legitimately helped. If your unit is about to transition to ACCES, I would drop this idea off with your LSO. The earphones are pretty awesome--could be better with lower freq's, so if you're a full-up audiophile you prob won't be impressed, but I like them. If your unit has already tx'd, you're not out of luck. Westone keeps all molds for 5 years; call them up--it's prob way cheaper to get a set of headphones with a ready mold. I haven't looked into it yet, but even if mine don't wear out/break/get lost I'm planning on ordering another set in 3-4 years. They are hands-down the best fitting earphones I've ever had. Sorry for the hijack--Back to the discussion.

That dude made O6. And got a Wing. ...

Neither have you. Noted.