... And the week after

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 felt like a smaller kid than usual trying to find my clothing myself. The clerk pointed in vauge directions while saying, "Your hot weather BDU's are over there, the cold weather jackets are there," etc, etc. After I finally looked lost and took too much time, she started gathering the easy things like the brown undershirts and socks. I picked out camou shirt and pants, which was pretty difficult considering the different sizing scheme of "Small-Short" thru "XL-Long." Finally I went to the counter, only to be told I'd picked the temperate versions instead of the hot-weather versions. So I went to pick out my cold-weather jacket. Once again, picked the wrong one. I picked the cold-weather gloves that seemed like were most stocked and finished up just to be done.

I got home, excited despite the fiasco (it wasn't really that bad), and tore open the packages and started trying stuff on. To my great suprise, everything generally fit except the gloves. I couldn't figure out the belt and buckle, but they're one-size-fits-all, so I knew it was the right size at least. Saturday I went back to Buckley to get patches and order name tags that I hadn't gotten, and spent a good deal of the day sewing them onto the uniform with nylon thread, basically thin fishing wire. That was a pain, but the uniform looks much better now that it has those patches.

Nothing special today. Except oh yeah, Ashley wanted me to help her find a house she's going to be sitting in the near future, and she told me it was in Boulder. We drove up 36, and thru downtown Boulder, and past Jay Rd. Finally Ashley called the lady and asked which streets her cross-road was between, and as Ashley started explaining our location, she uttered one of those "Ooooooh"s. The woman lived in Westminster. Ashley's cute, but sometimes...