INCOMING!!!!

I know this picture is hard to see - but I'm here to tell you that one of these days these guys are going to cause me and old Shelley to either have a heart attack or a nervous breakdown - or both.
I'm ready for these guys to be done with their little experiments, or testing or whatever they are doing and quit trying to rattle my house off of it's foundations. I'm tried of sitting here on a beautiful fall day, drinking my morning brew at my computer and then having to go change my underwear.

I'm tired of having to reassure my neurotic dog and trying convince her the end of the world isn't near. She just isn't buying it - especially when that second boom hits!

For those of you aren't lucky enough to live in my immediate area, and don't have the joy of experiencing them, the subject of my rant today is booms. SONIC BOOMS. Our lovely town is in a flight corridor where they test the F-22 Raptor. The Raptor leaves the Boeing plant somewhere in Georgia and flies over Tennessee - goes supersonic - rattling houses, terrifying the elderly, traumatizing dogs, causing people to soil themselves - then takes an immediate left turn at our town and heads to Florida to an Air Force Base.

I'll admit that part of it is kind of cool. There are always two sonic booms - the first is always HUGE and is the one that causes the most terror and...well, I'll just leave it at that. The second is several seconds later, long enough that I have several series of photos like the one above.

What else is cool is that there are always two jets - the F-22 is always in the lead, (that's it already starting to turn south toward Florida), the jet in back is an F-17 that chases for each test flight. Sometimes the smaller jet will hot dog around back there after they pass over the house. Once they've reached this point the test is apparently over and they are home free and ready to let loose and play. The F-17 will sometimes veer north for a bit and then streak back to the south and catch back up with the F-22...but the Raptor never plays (guess when you're brand new and that expensive you don't take any chances).

Coolness aside, don't you think they could give me just a minute or two heads up? A little blurb on the TV screen or on the radio, or maybe use the tornado siren so me and old Shelley could just brace ourselves just a bit?