Chris' Updates

Well, my trip to New Mexico could not have been better! I left Wednesday, experienced the usual long drive, and got there about 5 minutes before my sister and then my mom arrived. Talk about good timing! I didn't do a whole lot on Thrusday or Friday, seeing as everyone was at school and work. Thursday night we had a great dinner at The Trinity Beverage Co, and Friday I had mom shave my head down to 1". I figure if I get my haircuts gradually shorter, it'll be less of a shock to Ashley and everyone else. Less of a shock to me even! According to Mike, maximim hair length at training is 1/2", so I've got at least 1 cut to go. Most of Saturday was spent in Santa Fe shopping at a mall my family hadn't discovered. We went all over the place; my mom got a motorcycling jacket from my dad as a birthday present, and Jeannie got some books on drawing anime and bought a new set of computer speakers. My mom bought me a cheap chess strategy book and a pair of sunglasses th...

Today was going great for a while. I was helping Ashley at daycare, and I was doing good entertaining chilluns. I came home to work on my computers, and it went smoothly. As soon as I started prepping for New Mexico, I must have left my brain on the bed-side table. My trip to the bank went well, except I'm further in debt than I had expected. Its still nothing major, but I'm gonna need to re-balance the ol' checkbook. After that, I went to Checker and tried to find a case of Quaker State, like I always use. They didn't have any cases of it, but rather than just lug the quarts individually, I decided to look for something different. I saw a tag for a relatively cheap case, but apparently I saw the wrong tag, since it ended up being about $5 a quart. Rather than bug the clerk, I just bought it, went to K-Mart, and bought the regular case of Quaker State. I guess I'll have to take the other case back tomorrow before I leave. I decided I was just too irritated to get my...

Yesterday, when I realized that gas prices weren't going to dip back down for a while, I decided that fixing my bike would be a great idea. I bought new inner-tubes, got the thorns out of the tires, and now my bike is ready to ride! I took it for a spin down to Ashley's house, and it was very easy to tell I hadn't done it in a while. I stretched leg muscles that I haven't used since I got my driver's license. At Ashley's, we hung out for a little bit, then she left to house-sit for the night. Ethel asked me what we wanted to do for dinner, so I rode over to Applebee's and got us some chicken tenders and a burger, and rode back. After we ate, I did some fine-tuning on the piano, then started practicing a rendition of Malagueña out of Ashley's songbooks. At about 9:30, I finally rode home. Unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to bring my head and taillights with me, so it was a dark ride home. I had forgotten how much fun it was to ride like that. Ridin...

So, back to business. After drill last weekend, I was left with a sense of what drill is going to be, plus a nice little form that allowed me to get my initial BDU uniform. I spent most of last Sunday getting it, since Vaughn and I had very little idea what we were doing. In the end, he accidently spelled Captain Randolf's first name wrong, which he easily could've been doing pushups for. However, Cpt. Randolf was very nice and just mentioned it before signing it. After that, school was business as usual. I'm losing a bit of grasp in Calculus, but my grades are staying up, which amazes me. Thursday rolled around, and I finally gathered the courage to try out another new military "first:" going to Buckley Air Force Base. Sure, it wasn't that horrifying, but I had no idea where I was going! I could've ended up on the wrong end of the base for all I knew. Luckily I got some basic instructions to the PX, and from there I found my way into the uniform shop. I f...

Okay, update time. Took me long enough, right? So last weekend Fri-Sun was my first drill weekend (my regular monthly work) for the army. I got there the first day at 0700 and had no idea what to expect. I was thrilled when I found the right building on the first try! We went out to formation, and we listened to announcements while standing at attention. I even went up and was introduced. After that I was told I was going to work with Sgt. Lindsey, the base network guy. He also had another private under him, Pvt. Vaughn, and the two of us made to be pretty quick friends. He's about my same age, was also in marching band (he went to Littleton High), and switched between snare and tenor drumming. He had a lot of stories about being in a rescue corps, and growing up with his dad in the Army. (He fondly recounts taking MRE (field ration) sack lunches to school, apparently the hot dogs are pretty good.) I also got to meet First Sergeant Rusher, basically my manager. When I have logi...