Chris' Updates

Our furry friend has become an internet meme! moar funny pictures

Well folks, I know it's been a while. I haven't had a chance to post because the Internet in our office doesn't allow access to blog sites, or a great number of other things. Half the time, I can't even download printer drivers for my job! Life is going well out here. After a short transition period, our preceding unit left for home, and we settled into our daily routine. For me, it starts out a 5 in the morning for PT. After a shower and some breakfast, I report in to the office. We're currently in for about 10 hours a day to make sure that when problems happen, we're around. After dinner, I usually have a couple of hours to relax and unwind. We're working 7 days a week, which is official policy according to our commander. I hope it changes at some point, because it really wears me down. Not to mention, it's difficult to do things like get haircuts with so precious little down time. On the other hand, I'm thankful that I have an office job that keep...

This is a test post to my LiveJournal using e-mail.

Fun in the sun, Kuwait style! PFC Puck (formerly McLovin) Sgt. Rhino (with the mustach) and PFC Gadget behind him

Well, once again I find myself in Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, waiting for my flight to Denver. We're headed home for our 4-day pass, our last opportunity to enjoy the comforts of home before we fly overseas. I'm so ready to be home right now. I have no idea what I'll do over the pass, but I know I need to enjoy every moment. Maybe I'll take a hike in Boulder. That sounds nice.

Alright, well the last few days have been... irritating. Somehow, I was detailed to hang around all day with the people running the evalutation. We simulate the unit's higher and lower links in the chain of command. Only, I'm not really sure why they needed a detail. All I'm doing is answering the switchboard phones and handing off to the correct person. Not only that, but it's a very slow job most of the time. I would much rather be taking service calls with my own unit than doing next-to-nothing with a bunch of strangers. Whatever. The evaluation is only 5 days long, and we're already 3 days through. I'll just have to keep re-reading Dune .

Today was quite a bit more productive than usual. We squared away some preparations that will ease the transition in Iraq. It's a lot of paperwork, but it's worth doing now. Besides, the only other task we have is to sit around until something breaks, just staring at each other. Why everyone in the section needs to do that, I'm not sure, but anyway... Besides that, I managed to get to the PX today. I picked up a couple of small things: hangers, 100 mile-an-hour tape and 550 cord (not for anything specific, but useful stuff to have around), and a cheap travel pillow in ACU colors. Awesome. I might be able to get into a class for another computer system. I've never seen it before, but apparently it's a good system that we will use frequently for our unit's job. It has to be better than paperwork and staring, right?

I have obviously fallen way behind on updating. I do plan to go in and post-date entries for as much as I remember, but my internet connection right now leaves much to be desired and it's preventing me from updating efficiently. Instead, I'm going to give you the quick-and-dirty rundown of the last couple of months, then start updating from today. Later, when I have better conditions, I'll post-date and the journal will read seamlessly. Here's the scoop: April 19th - Got married. Beautiful wedding. Short honeymoon at Broker Inn, longer honeymoon planned for after deployment. May 5th - Finished semester. Decent grades on the classes I actually finished. May 12-15 - Army radio class with Pvt McLovin and PFC Jade, good refresher, got to know people a bit better. May 19-23 - Vacation with Ashley and Dad in Pagosa Springs timeshare. Nice to relax. May 24 - Jeannie's Graduation. Great day. June 1 - Start full time Army. Working in Denver, sleeping home at night. PFC Ja...

My wisdom teeth surgery went well. I'm recovering well I think. I slept almost nonstop for the first two days. Ashley has been a saint taking care of me. The pain has not been tremendous, but I'm still making careful choices about the food I eat. Mostly mashed potatoes and yogurt. For the past couple of days, I've been up and walking around, and even drove myself to the store. I almost feel good enough to head back to the office tomorrow, maybe I'll give it a try.

Tomorrow I'm going in for wisdom tooth removal surgery. All four. Two of them will be next to nothing, and one of them should be fine, but they'll be digging for the last one. I've decided to go through a civilian surgeon rather than waiting for the Army to do the surgery. Granted, it would be free with the Army, but the Army dentist will almost certainly not use a sedative, only local anesthetic. I don't want to remember a thing, so I guess a little out-of-pocket expense is a worthy investment. The timing of the surgery was supposed to be carefully placed to miss as little class time as possible and recover over spring break, but I'll still be missing two days. I should be able to make it up. Wish me luck!

Hey everyone! If I haven't told you yet, this Saturday I'm participating in a shaving event for St. Baldrick's Foundation . It's a fundraising group that funds research on children's cancer. It's a great cause that my dispatcher encouraged me to join. Here's the deal. I'm going to get my head shaved. Bald. I know its not a huge stretch for myself, but its for a great cause. If you would like to sponsor my hair loss program, even just a few dollars, you can donate at my sponsorship page. Chris's St. Baldrick's Sponsorship Page! Every little bit helps, and I appreciate any help you can give. There are a lot of causes that deserve this support, but to me, children's cancer is particularly unfair. No one should have their childhood marred by such an experience. Thanks!

Nothing really remarkable this week, except last night. My aunt's computer has been having problems, so I brought it home. I need to play with it a bit more, but from what I can tell now, it's toast. Tonight was the first general interest meeting for the newly forming CU Open Source Group. The group will be, oddly enough, developing code in the open source community. Many programmers at CU have already been involved with open source projects, but the group's founders think that CU should assert itself as a reputible open source leader. There's a small website already up, but it looks like it's still under construction right now, not much to look at. http://cuopensource.org/ I'm thinking about getting involved, because I'm really interested in learning the methods and etiquitte of being involved with the open source community, and because it's a chance to do some production-level code and not just trivial class assignments. On the other hand, I don't...

Yesterday was Chris and Holly's wedding, and it was absolutely wonderful! Ashley and Jackie left the house early, about 10 AM, so they could go have their hair done. I lounged around a bit longer. Finally, at about 2:30, I drove to the event center. I met up with the girls. Most of them were already dressed and ready. I changed into my tux and helped Chris with his. Pictures started at about 4. At first we were missing the best man, Ed, but he arrived with impeccable timing. We took many pictures with just about every configuration of family members and bridal party members possible. During much of the process, Ashley took pictures with her new camera, and she got some excellent shots. After the bridal party was released so the photographer could continue family shots, we mostly sat around, complaining about the lack of a lunch meal. As the evening waned and the photos wrapped up, guests started to arrive. After what seemed like an eternity, the ceremony began at about 7. Holly loo...

Alright, so it's Halloween night, and tomorrow I'm going in early for drill. I managed to get to Sights and Sounds of the Islamic World last Thursday, and Ashley and I had a good time. The food was quite good, the songs and poetry were great (besides the extremely rude crowd), the comedian was a ball, and the wedding was intensely interesting. On Saturday, Sean and I mostly finished the calculus lab, so that's one academic need complete. Saturday night Ashley and I went to the CU Theatre's production of "The London Merchant," which was in the Loft Theater, a very small venue with seating for maybe 100 people, on four benches surrounding a square stage. Very unique production, and a great play. Monday, Ashley and I got to our last beginning ballroom dance class. We're thinking about more advanced classes, but we'll see. Last night we both went to Golden with my Arabic class to enjoy a meal at the Ali Baba Grill. The food, company and coversation were al...

It's been another busy week for me. Work has peaked again because of another home football game and Parent's Weekend, so I've been driving a lot. Tuesday I took my exams, and did fairly well on both of them, so I'm pleased there. Academics from Wednesday forward felt rushed. I'm still keeping up with calculus homework, but only just. We have a calc exam next week, and I've had little time to study for that until now. For driving, I've taken a lot of different runs, ranging from early morning College Inn loops to late night WillVill loops, and even a few charters. In particular, Thursday afternoon I had a charter from the School of Engineering going to several tech companies in north Boulder, and that run was disastrous. I had 3 separate drops and pickups, and conflicting information on where they were and in what order to arrive. I did what I could to salvage the trip, but it was still a royal cluster-f***. We got back to the school 35 minutes late, and seve...

Tonight was the 5 years of dating anniversary for Ashley and myself, and about a month ago I bought tickets to the Loreena McKennitt concert! This was Ashley's first ever concert, and the first one I've been to on my own, and it's been years since I've been to one at all. It was held at The Paramount in downtown Denver, which I had never been to. The concert was amazing, and the woman sitting beside us was friendly and had an extended conversation with us before the concert and on the intermission. The concert was just absolutely great. Ashley and I thought the three encores were a bit much, but oh well. I was extremely intrigued by the hurdy gurdy and its player. I'd heard the sound in some of Loreena's songs, but I could never identify the instrument, so that was a treat. Ashley bought two CDs from the vendors, and we headed home. As if it wasn't a great evening to begin with, I still had a surprise for Ashley. When we got home, I gave her a little crimso...

I've been mulling it over for weeks, and I decided that a new laptop really would help my endeavors this semester. My old laptop is a bit slow at this point, but I could live with the dated technology. What really prompted me were the bulk and weight of the machine, and the fact that it has a 2 minute battery life. It's impractical to try and use that laptop very often, since I'm forced to sit near an outlet and take a few extra minutes for setup and tear-down. So today I finally took the plunge. Armed with some leftover student loan money, I headed to Best Buy. I had already shopped around and picked out the machine, so the transaction was fairly quick. I am the proud new owner of an HP Pavilion dv2415nr . It's fairly small and light, and looks great with their Wave pinstripe design. It's got Windows Vista, an AMD Turion dual-core processor, comes with 1GB of RAM (I'll probably upgrade that posthaste), and built-in NVIDIA GeForce graphics! Not to mention the in...

The past week hasn't been the mad cleaning fest I had planned. After Jackie moved out, I had planned on doing my best to get myself and Ashley better organized, and find everything that was left behind. Instead, Sunday I developed a nasty pain in my abdomen, and it just got worse. I went to the doctor on Tuesday, and based on the location of the pain he suspects some form of colitis. The pain peaked Wednesday, and I spent most of Thursday asleep or in agony. But after many antibiotic pills, the pain finally let up Friday. I didn't feel well enough to get to my Army drill, so I'll have to make that up soon. By today, I'm feeling mostly normal, and thank god for that.

Hey everyone, not much time to update at the moment, but you have to see this: I'll try to really update here soon, but I've been a busy boy, as you can imagine!

Hooray! Today was my 21st birthday, and I'm extremely pleased with the results. This morning I drove to school and attended Arabic as usual. I would have skipped, but I really can't afford to miss much class, Arabic in particular. I drove back to Broomfield to pick up a few documents and headed down to the DMV. I was able to go to the Broomfield DMV this time, and it was much more pleasant and quick. The woman handing out number tickets didn't tell me immediately that she could not answer questions due to a pending lawsuit. (The woman at the Northglenn DMV reminded every customer.) Anyway, I renewed my driver's license and CDL permit and went back home for lunch. I actually went to my calculus lab, and decided to stay for the components lab as well. From there I went to work out with the trainer, our last session before drill this weekend. He gave me a few words of encouragement on the PT test, and I drove home. I did make a quick stop at the liquor store, however, to e...