Friday The 13th! - (Korea) Day 165

Special K manning the BBQ near the protocol building. He had to use a
plastic fork to turn the steaks until protocol finally let us borrow some tongs.

Work call this morning was at 0830. We only had one meeting scheduled today and it was at 1400, so I spent the morning watching the NBA playoffs. The Bulls destroyed the Hawks. Of course they are not The Bulls of old with Michael Jordan, but I'm starting to like this Bulls team.

I then grabbed Special K and had him help me find and fill out the leave form. I asked my sergeant about it and he told me "oh yeah…fill it out it's on the computer". I'm not a 42A, I have no idea what forms to fill out or anything. So Special K pointed me in the right direction. He showed me where the forms were located and made sure I filled it out correctly. I then printed it out along with my LES statement and a copy of my PT Test and turned it all in to my sergeant. He signed it and then told me to turn it in to the company. I'm glad to have that all finished with. Once it's all approved I'll finally have a date to look forward to where I can see my family and friends. I can't wait.

I then headed off to lunch in my room where I was able to video chat with my wife. After lunch I headed back to work where we setup for the meeting in our conference room. Once that was done I went with Special K and we took our office car to get it washed. Our sergeant told us that our sister office (Protocol) was living the life today. He said they were having a BBQ and a lot of them left early. He was a little upset that they didn't invite us, but decided to make the most of it. He had me and Special K stop by the commissary on the way back from washing the car and told us to "pick up some meat". Special K and I found some thin steak and some seasoning. We didn't' know how much time we had left before all the heat was gone from the BBQ, so we headed straight there and started cooking. The steaks turned out perfect and our sergeant made his way over to join us. That was some good stuff!

As I was thinking about relaxing the rest of the day, I ended up getting technical requests from various people all of a sudden. I had to put in 4 help desk tickets after doing a little research and troubleshooting. So much for kicking my feet up for the rest of the day….lol. It turned out fine though because our sergeant had us clean up and we left the office by about 1600.

I promptly went to my room and took a nap. I woke up and watched an episode of "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" before settling down and doing some schoolwork. Once I finished with that I watched the last two episodes of Spartacus. Now I can't wait to watch the original series "Spartacus: Blood and Sand".

This concludes a Friday night (a pretty boring one spent in my room)

Overheard Quote: "I want to speak English when I grow up" (My KATUSA roommate said this and was totally serious. He was talking about how he likes English better than Korean.)

Hail & Farewell - (Korea) Day 156

The SACOs in our office barbecuing the hamburgers and hot dogs

Work call this morning was at 0700. We had an early meeting to setup for in our conference room. SPC Mick stayed behind to flip their slides while the rest of us headed down to the secret conference room to setup for the normal Wednesday meeting. Once we were done, I stayed behind there to flip slides as usual.

Once the meeting was over we cleaned up, then I headed up and worked on SkillPort. Our sergeant came up and said that he would buy everyone lunch if we brought him back something. We went to the KATUSA cafe and I had some spicy pork which was awesome. SPC Mick had a dish that turned out to be a little too spicy for him, his entire head was beading with sweat by the time he was finished...lol.

We headed back to the office with lunch in hand for our sergeant. I then watched some NBA playoff action and saw The Oklahoma City Thunder (I can't say that without throwing up a little in my mouth) beat Memphis. After the game I headed back to the computer to work on SkillPorts yet again.

My sergeant called me after a while and asked me to run some errands with him. We had to pick up some awards and other stuff, then he got a call he was not too pleased about. He said he had to go pick up his "bag of rocks"…which turned out to be his wife…lol. We gave her and her son a ride to the navy club and dropped them off. We then headed back to the supply sergeant's office where she asked me to setup email for SGT Enchilada who will be working there part time. I did it in a couple seconds, but we ended up hanging out there for a while as my sergeant and the supply sergeant chatted.

My sergeant then had me use the office car to pick up SPC Mick, our KATUSA, and the supply sergeant as well as her KATUSA for the hail and farewell picnic. I drove them to the barracks so we could all change into civilian clothes, then we headed to the park for the picnic. We had the traditional hamburgers and hotdogs as well as a bit of Korean food thrown in the mix.

There were a number of speeches and such, it was basically to welcome the new folks that had arrived in our office and our sister offices. It was also a time to say farewell to those that will be leaving soon. This included one of our SACOs and our colonel both of whom I think are great officers.

Once back in my room I did a little schoolwork, then watched a TV show before going to bed. I found out I have to get to work extremely early tomorrow morning for the range.

(I just thought of something....I wonder if I was supposed to give the supply sergeant a ride back from the picnic...I didn’t even think about it. D’oh! I guess I’ll hear about it later if I was supposed to)

Our colonel on the left welcoming CPT Hooah! to our office

The deputy on the left giving our SACO a parting gift while our colonel looks on