Olivia's Team At The Chavín Site In Peru Made The Reuter's News Earlier This Month -- July 26, 2025

In early 2025, Olivia saw a request for an engineering student to join this team on a message board. She wrote to John W. Rick and was selected to be the only engineer on his team this year.

Link here.

Link here.

Background:

Antique (?) Panasonic AM-FM Radio -- From Great-Grandmother Ruth -- For Olivia's Antique Museum -- February 26, 2025

Link here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGm1zoYSnmY.

From AI:

Comparing VFIAX With VFIFX -- How To Compare Different Ticker Symbols

How to compare different stocks or different funds.

In google (or the URL line): type in ticker vfiax

You will get this:

At the upper right corner of that screen shot above, note the box compare, as below, at the #1 arrow. Click on the compare icon, and then you will get the screenshot below. At the #2 arrow, type in FVIFX.

Type in VFIFX in the box designated with the #2 arrow like this:

And hit return after you type in VFIFX.

You will get this: 

 Note that it compares VFIAX with VFIFX for the past three months.

You can click on any time period to compare. If you click on max, you will get this:

The difference is not trivial.

With the more conservative VFIFX, you get a 100% return, or you doubled your money over the past sixteen years (2008 to 2024).

On the other hand, with the more aggressive VFIAX (Admiral), you get a return of nearly 400%, which it means it doubled three times (?) in that same time period.

The red and blue lines start to separate as the lines move to the right, because the life cycle funds increase bond holdings as you get older, decreasing the volatility and the risk, but also potentially decreasing return. The theory is that when you are getting ready to retire you want to have a more conservative fund so you don't have wild swings from year-to-year. 

We can discuss what this means at later.

One option: diversify. That's what I did.

This year invest in the life cycle fund, VFIFX.

Then next year invest in the more aggressive fund, the VFIAX (Admiral).

Then starting in your third year, fund both IRAs up to the max allowed and change allocations over time as you feel more comfortable with investing.

A Roth IRA -- February 19, 2025

Olivia's 2024, W-2 statement: earnings, $XXXXX.

For Olivia, my recommendation: Vanguard Admiral shares.

Link: https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vfiax. 

Ticker symbol: VFIAX.

Balanced, large equity fund.

Minimum: $3,000 to open. Olivia earned more than enough to open a Vanguard Roth IRA.

Papa will send you a check to fully fund this Roth IRA. With some left over. Insert smile here.

Top ten holdings:

You can type in "ticker vfiax" in the Google search box and this will pop up:

How to remember the ticker symbol:

Vanguard Fund Index Admiral Mutual Fund

All mutual fund ticker symbols are five letters long.

The fifth letter is always an "X" to designate it's a "mutual fund."

The first four letters are unique to the fund. 
 

So, Vanguard Fund Index Admiral - VFIA .... and then VFIAX.

 Lower case / upper case does not matter when typing in the URL/google search.

 

So, again, type in:  ticker vfiax.

Also interestingly enough, you don't even have to type in that much. You can simply type in vfiax.

Duck Hunting -- Grapevine Lake, Texas -- January 3, 2025

Will Lukins took Olivia duck hunting.

They had no duck so they had to retrieve the ducks themselves.

At the time this photo was taken, Will was a sophomore at Texas A&M; and, Olivia was a freshman at Stanford, Palo Alto, California.

Memories -- Posted December 22, 2024

 

Grapevine Soccer -- Memories

 A memory. Posted April 1, 2025.

November 28, 2024

Olivia was home for Thanksgiving. The week went by quickly. 

She is thriving at Stanford.

She will be back to Euless for Christmas vacation for three weeks.

Leaving On A Jet Plane -- To Stanford -- September 11, 2024

September 10, 2024: last evening at home with Sophia --

September 11, 2024: Olivia on her way to Stanford.

First week: hiking the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Next week: to Stanford.

USAF Organization

There are a gazillion exceptions to these generalizations, but this will get you started.

Military installations:

• USAF: air force base, such as Edwards Air Force Base
• USA (US Army): army post; often name preceded by "Fort" such as Ft Meade
• USN (US Navy): station, such as Charleston Naval Station
• US Marines: camps, such as Camp Pendleton

US Air Force Base: a military installation generally with one or two "missions" (such as flying, missile, intelligence)

• the US AFB is generally named after the city near where it is located, e.g. Grand Forks AFB
• the air force base itself is self contained -- operations (or the mission), support, logistics (supply), transportation, maintenance, medical, etc.
• each air force base generally has one wing -- the wing runs the base and is responsible for the mission of that base
• the wing: generally about 5,000 personnel, headed by a colonel or a brigadier (one-star) general
• the wing generally has four groups: operations (includes maintenance), support, logistics (supply), and medical
• groups: generally around 1,000 personnel, headed by a colonel
• each group has three or four squadrons, each squadron with a specific mission
• squadrons: about 250 personnel, headed by a major
• each squadron has three to four flights
• flights: about 100 personnel, headed by a captain

When you are assigned to your first operational base, your primary unit will be a squadron which is part of the group which in turn is part of the wing that runs the base.

So, if you are in the intelligence business, you will likely be assigned to an intelligence squadron, part of the operations group.

The USAF is all about flying, so often the operations commander is a pilot and the wing commander is also a pilot.

The wing commander is responsible for the entire air force base but there is also a "Base Commander." 

• The "base commander" is the commander of the Support Group and is responsible for the infrastructure of the base: the roads, the buildings, the electricity, etc. The base commander is almost never a pilot or even ever on flying status.
  

So, lots of jargon, but quickly:

A US air force base:

• the major unit on base: the wing
• the wing commander is responsible for the whole enchilada; main focus -- operations, carrying out the mission
• the base commander reports to the wing commander and is responsible for the infrastructure of the base
  
• the wing (or the base, as it were) has four major groups (medical, support, logistics)
• you will likely be assigned to an engineering squadron or intel squadron, part of operations if you end at up a "normal" Air Force base, but
• more likely you will end up at a very high functioning R&D base. More on this later. 
  

Rank and Grade

Rank: a word, like "captain"
Grade: an alphanumeric abbreviation, like O-3

Rank: military "level" of responsibility or leadership
Grade: military pay purposes; identical across all military services (USA, USN, USAF, USMC, USCG, USPH)

Officer rank in USAF:

• General officer, a general: one-star, two-star, three-star, four-star generals
• Colonel
• Lieutenant Colonel
• Major
• Captain
• First lieutenant
• Second lieutenant

Grade:

• O-7 -- O-10: General officer: a general; one-star, two-star, three-star, four-star generals
• O-6: Colonel
• O-5: Lieutenant Colone
  
• O-4: Major
  
• O-3: Captain (be really careful with this one, in the US Navy, a Captain is an O-6 and really, really, really important!)
  
• O-2: First lieutenant
  
• O-1: Second lieutenant
  

After graduating from college, you will be commissioned as a second lieutenant. You will progress relatively rapidly through O-1 and O-2 on your way to captain, maybe in four to six years. 

The minimum time-in-grade (TIG) requirements for promotion of officers on the active-duty list (ADL) are as follows: O-1: 18 months. O-2: 2 years. O-3 through O-5: 3 years. 

So, at the end of your four-year commitment, you should be looking at being a captain. With his navy background, your dad may have trouble calling you a "captain." LOL.

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For An Engineering Major

Take a look at Hanscom AFB near Boston, Massachusetts and the divisions where engineers would be needed. Link here.

Some of the divisions: