Monday, January 29, 2007

Pushing to Promotion

For the most part, I've been settling in to my new routine. My school schedule is just about second nature, and so far I'm keeping up with the workload. Work at Transportation has not been as interesting as I hoped. I've had my permit for almost 2 weeks, but due to several factors we have not been able to start training. To fill the hours, I've been helping out in the shop. And Craig has been finding me some dirty, grimy tasks. I've been throwing out old tires and rims, dusting and sweeping in areas that have not seen daylight in at least 5 years. I even cut apart an old makeshift tire rack that was welded out of steel pipes. Not nearly as much fun as driving buses.

PT is still progressing. It's been hard to find time for the gym, but it's still better than nothing. More than anything else, though, I need to run more. My push-ups have vastly improved, and I'm sure my sit-ups are still fine with all the core work we've been doing. I'm running longer distances than I would have imagined, up to five miles now. (Not impressive by a marathon runner's standards, but much farther than I have ever trained.) I just hope the work equates to faster times on the two-mile. I'm sure a stronger cardio system is necessary, but don't I need to work on speed, too? I've got two weeks to go before the test, so it's time to push hard! Specialist, here I come!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Back Into The Fray

School started back up on Tuesday, although I only had one class for the day. My two lab sections would have been pointless without lectures first, and so they were canceled by both professors. So far so good. I had to miss out on my first Components lecture yesterday afternoon to take my CDL tests and get my permit. On my first round through I failed two of the three tests, but this morning I passed them both and got my permit. (Can I take a moment to rant that I hate the Colorado DMV offices? Yesterday it took me 2 1/2 hours just to be seen! All for a 20 minute test. Ridiculous.) I'm headed to a Components lab next, and hopefully I didn't miss anything critical.

PT is getting along, I just hope its going quickly enough. I haven't been able to get into the gym as much as I wanted with my crazy schedule this week. However, I did run for 4 miles on the treadmill last night. As long as I keep up progress, I will be happy. I'm still confident that I can pass the test in February as long as I just keep working.

Gotta run!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Gearing up

It's just starting to hit me how many things are whirling around at the moment. For starters, school begins in just under a week. I'm going to be taking Beginner's Arabic 2, Calc 3 and Computers as Components. I've been trying to collect the books I need, and there's good news and bad news. The good news, for calc I already have the main text, all I need is the student solutions manual. And for Arabic the only new requirements are a new dictionary and a grammar book. The bad news is CompAsComp: the textbook is $135 new, and the cheapest I've found used is $90. Oh well, such is life. Before school starts I need to finish Oustad Aissa's holiday assignment. It's not worth credit, but I need to get back up to speed before class starts again.

Physical fitness has been progressing. I've met with my new trainer, Keith, who just got out himself. We've set up a strength training program that he will oversee, but his biggest suggestion was to come to the gym and run on the treadmills as much as possible. I'll start at 3 miles, and by the end he'd like to work me up to 7 miles. Seven miles! I've never run that much at one time. The theory is that by the time I can run 7 miles, coming back down to two miles for the test will be a piece of cake. I tend to agree, but I wonder if I can really get that high? And will it improve my running speed? After all, I'm not going to be running a 6-minute mile for seven miles! That would take a lot longer than a month to train.

As for my working life, I interviewed yesterday for a student bus driver position at the Transportation office. I thought I would continue working in the office and just pick up more hours as a driver, but I was just informed today that I will be a driver exclusively. So that's a bit of a transition. For yesterday's interview I actually got a chance to drive a standard bus on the side roads for a little bit, just to see if I had the nerve to do so. I did quite well if I may say so, having zero training and all. I need to get a physical and drug test, then take 3 written tests at the DMV, just so I can get a permit and start training! Lots of fun!

And Cameron's brother Kyle just renewed my interest in building a PVR system to record TV shows. He's trying to build one himself, and was looking for advice with his system. We solved a number of small issues with his, but still couldn't resolve the main problem with his choppy video. Prompted by this, I got my own Linux system back up and running, and after a little finagling, have it running! I've never had it working properly until now! I can start tweaking and optimizing, and it's really damn cool!

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Quality Time at Drill

This weekend's drill was fairly quiet for the commo section. SPC Vaughn is at WLC, and SGT Lant is at school for a new MOS, something in finance. SPC Dupio had a family emergency and was back home in Hawaii. And PFC Whittier was, predictably, no where to be found. That left only myself, SGT Nieto, SFC Zimmerman, and MAJ Friberg.

We continued where we left off on last drill's work, and got to work on the phone systems. This time SGT Nieto actually showed me how to program the PBX machine, and wow, that's a chore. It's not really so complex, so much as cryptic. Everything is done on a command-line text terminal, and the commands aren't very intuitive. Even so, I learned a lot, and I think our phone system is back to operational status. We still don't have all of the documentation that we should, but at least I know how to get things limping along again. SGT Nieto says he doesn't really want to train any of the other junior enlisted guys on the PBX system, just because he doesn't trust having several guys messing with the system. There's an amusing story about a young SPC Lant making a mistake some years ago that rendered the entire complex phoneless, and now I realize just how easy that would have been.

But besides the running back and forth fixing phones, there were a couple of highlights. First was Sunday's "mission" at Starbucks. One of MAJ Friberg's ongoing projects is getting the upper staff network access in the field. As such, he needed to test VPN access from some place outside the Army Reserve domain. So MAJ Friberg ordered his three enlisted personnel to assist him in testing. At Starbucks. While we were there, it made sense to pay our rent and buy some coffees. After some initial configuration issues, we almost got the VPN working. We think we know the last step, and it's just a matter of calling the help desk for remote access rights. Fun mission, overall. Good training.

Also, the supply section finally got our unit's ACU's issued out. I bought one set out-of-pocket some time ago, but one is not enough for going to Ft. Carson for three days. Now everyone in the unit has them, and enough to take them out to the field. We even got the floppy hats, which means they might be authorized when we go to the field. Sweet!

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

New Year's Resolutions

This year, I resolve to:
  • Pass my PT test. And this one's really going to happen. If I haven't passed the PT test by the end of the year, chances are I will be given a general discharge. I've taken a step toward passing today by joining a gym and hiring a personal trainer. With some hard work and new direction, I should be able to pass by February's drill, and certainly by March.
  • Pass all of my classes with acceptable grades. In Spring last year, I failed my Calculus class and had to take it again in the summer. This last Fall I passed Physics with a D. The saying goes, "D's get degrees," but I need to pass that class with at least a C in order to use it as a prerequisite. This year, I resolve to avoid that pitfall and slog through mind-numbing homework and useless recitations and get the grade.

Blizzard 2.0

Just as the first blizzard was melting away, we got reports of a second huge winter storm heading over the mountains. For a few days the weather-people predicted another huge blizzard, but conditions didn't pan out, and we only got a few more inches. Even so, the roads were in bad condition from the first storm, and another layer of powder did not help the driving conditions. Worrying about the weather caused me not to travel to New Mexico to spend New Year's with my family, so that was disappointing. However, I did get to spend it at Kristen's annual party with the usual suspects, plus some older friends that graduated with Kristen and Holly. We ate pizza and watched DVD's until 11:50, when we tuned into Dick Clark. Last night was actually more fun; we attempted to have a classic movies night. Ashley is scandalized to know that I haven't seen Gone With The Wind or Casablanca or My Fair Lady. We invited people over and even brought out the fruit and melted white chocolate, but by the time Kristen and Holly arrived, the girls were too entertained by Super Nanny, so we just ended up watching that and talking about Holly's book drafts and various other stuff.

This morning I had a few cavities filled, so my face was numb for the entire morning. Thursday I go back in for more. And I joined a gym and hired a personal trainer to help me with my run, to help me get back into Army shape. Apparently my trainer just got out, so he knows what I need to accomplish, and hopefully he can give me direction. Promotion to Specialist, here I come!