Busy Day - (MedBoard: Joint Base Lewis-McChord) Day 124

This morning I headed to formation in ACUs as has been my way lately. I planned on going to the dentist, I didn't actually have an appointment, but they allow walk-ins from 0700-0800 for WTB folks. Once formation was over, I headed to my car and picked up my dental records that I brought with me from Germany. I also had to bring a copy of my orders. Why I need a copy of my orders I'm not too sure. I guess they want to verify that I am indeed assigned to the WTB.

I arrived at the dentist and stood in a short line for a bit. Once at the desk I handed over all my paperwork and they told me to have a seat. At least they had a TV in the waiting room, I ended up hanging out in there for about 15 minutes. A lady came out and brought me back to get X-Rays, then sent me back to the waiting room. After another 10 minutes or so, I was called back to see the actual dentist. No cavities! I just have to schedule a cleaning appointment now. I did that on my way out and then headed to my car.

Once in my car, I ate my breakfast and listened to music for a while. At 0845 I had a follow-up appointment with my physical therapist. I let him know that I think the traction has been helping. I usually feel pretty good after the traction, and I haven't been taking as much pain medication as before. I'm not out of total pain for sure, but I am feeling better.

I then went immediately to another traction appointment, then headed to the pharmacy to pickup a refill for a medication that I called in. After that headed to an area next to the pharmacy where they are giving out flu shots. I fill out all the required paperwork and then wait a few minutes. They give me an actual shot in the arm and then give me some verification paperwork. Everyone is required to get the flu shot, so I take the paperwork to my squad leader to file and mark that I've had my shot. In the normal world I don't think I would get the flu shot, I will just rely on my good ol' immune system to fight off anything that comes my way. I don't see how filling us with a bunch of crap that will protect us against old flu viruses is going to help with new ones that are coming out…but I don't get that choice. (Don't take this as a stance against normal vaccinations, I do think those are necessary)

I check my army email at the SFAC and then grab a sandwich to eat at the shopette. I almost forgot that I have an ACAP appointment later on this afternoon. I drive over to North Ft. Lewis and arrive at an ancient building that is now serving as their ACAP office. The class is on social networking and LinkedIn. The class was actually interesting and a bit longer than I thought it was going to be. It started at 1300 and ended a little before 1500. The teacher had us all do a Google search for our names and see what comes up. This is something potential employers can and will do. We also went over the privacy settings in Facebook and then dove into LinkedIn. I had a LinkedIn account, but wasn't an active user of the site. After the class I will be updating mine and connecting with a lot more people. LinkedIn has a lot to offer the professional who is looking for employment.

I started to head home and received a text requiring 100% participation for a battalion formation. It's going to be the 4-day weekend safety brief. I don't need to hear any of that crap. I have my school as an excuse to not attend evening formation, so I just keep driving home and ignore it. Just another reason I can't wait to get back into the civilian workforce…I don't need a safety briefing every weekend as a grown man.

Ironing 101 - (Korea) Day 275

SPC Mick and I standing in front of our NCOIC so she could check out the tops
of our dress uniforms. It kind of looked funny still wearing our ACU bottoms.

This morning I headed to the dentist office instead of work. My dental status turned amber a month or so ago on AKO, but I wanted to wait until the exercise was over before heading in. Check-up exams are all walk-in, no appointment necessary. We had no meetings today, so I thought it would be a good day. I checked in and only waited a minute before being checked out. It was the quickest exam in the history of dental exams. It basically went like this:

Dentist: "Do you smoke?"

Me: "No"

Dentist: "Do you chew?"

Me: "No"

The dentist then took his little metal poke stick and touched some of my gums and teeth, then said I was done. Since I haven't had a cleaning in the last year he told me to schedule one, so that was it. I ended up having to go to my office and grab my dental records, then bring them back to the dental office. I forgot to get them before coming in. They were given to me when I out-processed from Ft. Gordon and have been in my office since I arrived here.

Just the walk back and forth from the dental office to my office had me actually dripping with sweat. It's so hot and humid here that no matter what you do, you just start sweating. I'll be trying to stay inside today as much as possible. That's pretty much all I did until lunch time, I sat in my office and did SkillPorts until lunch time.

I ate lunch in my room and video chatted with my wife, then headed back to the office. Once there I covered the phones in our office, everyone had to leave to do something which left me just hanging out waiting for people to get back and answering the phones if needed. I updated the events calendar…not too many upcoming meetings so far, but that seems to change on a daily basis.

Once everyone got back, SPC Mick and I drove the weapons rack out to K-16. Thankfully they were not having a training holiday today, I didn't really feel like driving out in the Korean traffic for a third day in a row. When we got back we waited for our NCOIC to come up and give us some good army training…she taught us how to iron our dress uniform. Neither SPC Mick or I had ever ironed anything before. What I learned is that it's much better to pay the couple bucks and have your uniform taken to the cleaners and pressed. It's a pain in the butt to iron it all just right…and it's time consuming. We left around 1800. The past two days our NCOIC said we would be getting off at 1600 so we could go to the gym and do PT…LOL.

I quickly headed to my room and tried to eat dinner. I wanted to watch The Hangover 2 which was playing at the theatre tonight. 30 seconds into microwaving my burrito the power on our wall went out. WTF?? I took my burrito upstairs to the common area and used it's microwave, then called the maintenance folks to let them know I was out of power. It was somewhat important because it also powered my refrigerator. I ended up having to wait for them to come take a look. They came…looked…said they would put in a work order for it and get back with me. I'm not sure if they did something or what, but 5 minutes later the power was back on. Did it flip a breaker? I'm not sure, but I'm glad it's working now. I had visions of all my food going bad.

Needless to say, I missed my movie and wasn't too happy. I ended up watching my TV shows instead and doing a little homework.