Thursday, November 30, 2006

Getting Close

Yesterday I woke up early and drove through the frozen, slushy, snowy weather to the drill hall to participate in another funeral detail. The drive in took almost two hours, as opposed to the 35 minutes I can manage in good weather and traffic. We all got dressed, loaded up in the minivans, and drove down to Ft. Logan, the sergeants joking and arguing and looking to each other for advice. It started to snow harder as we got down there. As we arrived, we learned a couple of interesting facts. First, the veteran was a private in Vietnam. Having been only a private, he didn't qualify for a 21-gun salute, so the rifles and blank ammunition we had unlocked and transported were unnecessary. Also, the VA had provided an honor guard for the veteran, so our presence was welcome, but likewise unnecessary. I think it was still a good thing we came. Mr. Blair had no known family and no personal friends, and so the only other guests in attendance were the VA hospital caregivers that had known him. I thought it was a sad way to go, but the chaplain emphasized that at least he would have a better life to look forward to in heaven. The chaplain also made a beautiful analogy concerning the geese. If you've been to Ft. Logan (or probably most any other military cemetery), you know there are always geese everywhere because of the rolling lawns and inviting lakes. The chaplain said that the geese must be the Lord's trumpets, calling home the souls of the departed. He said it much better, and it was a vivid and moving statement. Even if it was cold as all get out, I'm glad we went to see off a fellow serviceman and a war hero.

School is back in full force, and I can't wait for it to be over. I haven't done as well as I should have, and I'm looking forward to a fresh semester and a fresh start. Still two weeks and then finals to go, so I can't give up yet!

And apparently my phone is on backorder and won't arrive for at least another week. So much for the 7 business days they promised. Don't you love the holidays?

Monday, November 27, 2006

Thanksgiving in New Mexico

Last Wednesday I set off for a visit to my parent's house in New Mexico. It was a long drive, but this time I actually followed close to the posted speed limits (now that I know there are actually policemen on duty between Ft. Garland and Española!). I got down without a hitch, and greeted everyone. It was great to see everyone, it's always such a long time between visits. Thursday Mom and Dad were busy cooking the turkey and the fixings, and Aunt Rhonda and Aunt Teresa arrived late in the morning. At about one, we sat down, and Jeannie read a very touching story about a little Russian girl and the power of prayer. Everything was so good! After the meal, everyone sort of took turns watching football, eating dessert, and loafing around the house.

Friday we got out to see the town. This was Rhonda and Teresa's first visit, so we took them around the town, and into a few neighborhoods that I hadn't seen before either. That afternoon we took family pictures, and I took some individuals in my Class A's. We ended up taking alternate family pictures with me wearing my Class A's that turned out very nice as well. It was after we left the studio that my mother was reminded of the photographer's prices. Everything is very expensive, and we feel bad about buying one set and mass reproducing copies for the entire extended family. My parents will probably end up buying a few because the pictures were great, but they may use their own photos if they decide to send a picture to everyone in the family.

Saturday was another big event, a playoff home game for Zach's high school football team, the Los Alamos Hilltoppers. They were undefeated up to that game, but they were up against the Artesia Bulldogs, the #1 seeded team. The Artesia team was a lot bigger than Los Alamos, but Zach was hopeful. All throughout the game, the Los Alamos stands were going wild for every play. It was really a spectacle to see this much support from the crowd at a high school football game. In the end, the Toppers lost 34 to 15, giving the Bulldogs a brilliant fight and some clear talent. I think if the Los Alamos team was bigger and not having to use guys for both sides of the ball, they might have had a better chance. I know Zach was in about 4/5 of the plays. It was Zach's last football game for his high school career, and I think he was proud of the game and the season. And that's what counts.

Saturday night I decided to order a new phone, as my Motorola V330 has once again decided to freeze when trying to use predictive text entry on text messages. This happened to my last phone of the same model, but last time I was still under warranty. This time, I'm not and I need to buy a new phone. My contract was up with T-Mobile, so I got a deal on a new RAZR V3t, the beefed-up RAZR with the upgraded camera and MP3 player. Sweet! I should be seeing that in the next week or so. Sunday I got an early start on the road. I drove strait through to the Colorado City rest stop, then had 3 different pit stops, which put me a little behind. I still made it home before the sunset, with plenty of time to finish the huge Arabic assignment I had put off. When I got home, Ashley confessed to me that she bought a new phone as well, a magenta RAZR V3 with cherry blossom tattoo, as well as a Bluetooth headset. She was really looking into a green PEBL but heard bad reviews about the clamshell hinge spring breaking.

I would like to have had a couple more days of free time, but such is life. Back to the final weeks of school, and the final drive to Christmas.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Sick Day and the Museum

Break started on Thursday night for me. I got home after a long day at transportation, and started getting sick to my stomach. Not like heartburn or Taco Bell Syndrome, but more like infection sick. Lots of time spent in the bathroom, and a short bout of vomiting. Friday I stayed home from classes and called in to work. I started feeling substantially better that afternoon. Some people may think it was rather convenient timing, but I can tell you there was nothing convenient about the pain in my bowels. Ashley was also not feeling well, but still went in to work. In her own words, she felt like she had been kicked in the stomach by a horse. Saturday I tried to take it easy again, but I was mostly feeling better.

Sunday Ashley and I were both free, so we decided to take a little date at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It had been at least 5 years since either of us had payed a visit there, and I think we've both got enough geek in us to enjoy that sort of date. We watched a planetarium show about black holes and an IMAX movie about archaeological sites in Greece, which were both fun. We wondered around the different exhibits, through the wildlife displays and the Space Odyssey features. We wondered through the gem exhibit and saw the new acquisition, Diane's Pocket. It's one of the largest finds of aquamarine crystals in the world, recently discovered in Colorado. We creeped around the Prehistoric Journey and Egyptian Mummies exhibits. We even stopped by Engineer It!, even though it was obviously designed for much younger minds than our own. I really hope they have something similar when I eventually have children, because it was fantastic! All in all, it was a great trip.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Almost Break

One more physics midterm is done, and now I just have to survive the week to make it to the fall break and Thanksgiving. Its hard to believe that this time last year, I was still at AIT, still a month away from coming home. Graham's in Iraq now, along with who knows how many other people I remember. One thing's for sure, I'm thankful that I'm still home with friends and family. I'm really looking forward to getting down to New Mexico. And Ashley keeps mentioning that she's got her Christmas shopping pretty much done. I guess I should start my shopping soon. Or at least think about what I'm getting for people.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Linux is a go

Guess what my peeps? I'm now coming to you from my recently wiped laptop, now installed with Fedora Core 6 and Windows XP side by side. At the moment, I'm using the linux side, and I'm even using my PCCard wireless card! That was a feat, let me tell you. It wasn't too bad once I figured out what the heck I was doing, but it still took way too much work. Now that it's working, however, I have a lot more control over the whole kit'n kaboodle. It's truly exciting for me!

The week at school was a blur. Yesterday I did a bunch of driving for Transportation, down to Commerce City and back, twice! We needed to pick up busses that had been repaired down there, so I got to be the cheauffer for the drivers. Tonight I'm trying my hand at an extra little thing, being a Bus Buddy. Basically, I'm just a babysitter for the wound-up students going out to party, and taking that responsibility off of the driver. Should be, uh, interesting. Wish me luck! (Not exactly what I had planned for my Friday night, but more lucrative.)

Monday, November 6, 2006

Weapons Qual and Dick Cheney

Another drill weekend down. Friday I headed down to Fitzsimons with all of my gear for the field. I didn't read the schedule correctly and missed the first formation, but I was able to quickly catch up with everyone else in being issued the rest of my gear. SGT Lant was even later than me, and barely made the movement. We loaded the bus and drove down to Ft. Carson without a hitch. Once there, I met a bit of a surprise. The training schedule said that we would download our gear at Tent City and head directly to the zeroing ranges to calibrate our weapon sights. Instead we transferred our gear to an LMTV in a random parking lot and were told we could either attend "the function" or stay behind and train on the EST 2000 system. I had no idea what "the function" was, so I just went with the crowd and loaded on a bus for the event. About half way to Butts Army Airfield, I learned that Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States, would be speaking. Oh, goody. I'd get to listen to a politician spout his platform rhetoric to a supposedly friendly crowd, in hopes that he could bolster Republican election numbers. And it got even better! we were seated at 1030 hours (10:30 AM). Mr. Cheney wasn't slated to speak until 1315 (1:15 PM)! So we waited, and waited, and stretched, and waited some more. At least there was a halfway decent band playing a bunch of covers. When the vice president did arrive nearly 3 hours later, he read through a very formal speech thanking troops, and reaffirming the Republican stance on the war, that it was the right decision and that we're not backing out any time soon. The highlights are chronicled in this news article. Overall, the wait was not worth the speech, even if I did get to see the Vice President of the United States. In hindsight, I should have opted for the EST training.

Saturday was just crazy. While it was successful, it was extremely disorganized. As we had lost time due to the speech, we needed to get our company and all of our subordinate units zeroed and through the qualification range in only one day instead of two. In all, we had about 400 soldiers to push through. It seemed impossible that we would finish everyone in time, but we went ahead and rolled with the punches. After some initial confusion in the morning about where our company was supposed to be, we settled into a zero range. We waited for everyone else at the range to go through before our own company, as it was our primary mission to ensure our subordinate units completed qualification, and secondary that we finish. So after waiting around for half the day, I finally stepped onto the range and calibrated my sights. SGT Lant and the rest of the S6 (commo section) marched over to the qualification range down the road, and I hit the minimum 23 of 40 to qualify the first time. After that, Vaughn, SPC Pritchett and myself headed over to the EST 2000 site to get training on NBC fire and night fire. For NBC fire, we had to don a gas mask and attempt to fire at targets. I had never tried this before, and found out very quickly that trying to put your face to the rifle and get a good sight picture is much harder with a mask. Basically all you can do is "spray and pray." The night fire was a bit easier since you could actually see through the sights, but the interval between new targets was about 15 seconds, much longer than a usual qualification range. My arms began to get sore just from holding my rifle up in the prone position that long. It would have been a piece of cake from just about any other position.

Sunday was fairly usual. We packed up and cleaned out the bay, cleaned weapons, and headed home. There were a lot of questions flying around in preparation for our Class A inspection in December, and I found out I'm not allowed to wear one of the ribbons I've been wearing. When I got home, I found out about Jackie's little run-in with the law and that whole ordeal, and just unwound.

The whole weekend, I was trying to figure out how to say "It's a beautiful day to be in the Army." According to google it's ".انه يوم جميل ان تكون في الجيش" I'll have to check that later.

Dialect Meme

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The West

Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.

The Midland
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Halloween Night

Pretty normal week so far. Last night was Halloween, so when I got home I threw on my Rambo costume. Ashley arrived in a ravashing wench outfit she had worn to work. We carved up a pumpkin in a bit of a hurry, and we had a few trick-or-treaters pass by the house.

Tonight I'm having fun reloading my linux box and my laptop with the latest version of Fedora Core. Drool... Only problem so far is getting my laptop to use my wireless PCMCIA card, but that will shortly be remedied! I love my linux binges.