Shaving Profile? - (MedBoard: Joint Base Lewis-McChord) Day 145

This morning as most mornings that I head to Ft. Lewis, I woke up in a haze (my alarm goes off at 0420). I made my way around my house like a zombie getting ready for the day and then took off for the commute to Ft. Lewis. I chose to make the sacrifice of living an hour away from Ft. Lewis because I'm now back in my hometown and we have both our families within a five minute drive. I don't mind the drive, but sometimes like today I realize I don't really function well when I get up so early in the morning. When I arrived at Ft. Lewis I realized that I didn't shave this morning. Oh Crap! That was all I could think…the commissary and PX don't open until 0900 and our morning formation is at 0630.

I just headed to formation and thankfully it was still dark enough that nobody said anything or even cared that I had a face full of stubble. I couldn't slip away after morning formation as I usually try because we were released to our platoon sergeants. For some reason everyone and their mom had an appointment today and our platoon only had 4 people left. We all had to go inside and do some warmup and stretching. It's not bad, but I just didn't want to be there…and we were inside where the lighting was much better. Luckily nobody said anything, so when we released the platoon sergeant said we could go ride a stationary bike or go for a walk to get some cardio in. I got my cardio in by walking to my car. I have my breakfast in my car as usual and then have to head to a physical therapy appointment. I stay in my PT uniform along with my stubble and head to the appointment. The folks in there (even though some are army) just assumed I had a shaving profile. I had my traction done at physical therapy, now my neck feels nice and stretched.

I head to the SFAC and check my army email. I then print out my LES so I can take it to Verizon. In order to get a military discount they need a printed LES, for some reason a military ID isn't enough. No problems, I got it and took off. Once home I change and then head off to my wife's office for a side job. She works in the marketing department and their two computers in there are Macintosh computers. The company IT department doesn't know what to do with them. They also have a MacBook Pro, which was giving them some problems. So now when the marketing department needs any work they contract me to fix them since I have my Apple certifications along with several years of IT work and Apple experience. It's nice to actually do a little IT work and get paid for it!

Mac Doctor - (MedBoard: Joint Base Lewis-McChord) Day 116

I sent a text to my squad leader this morning letting him know I'll be an intern for the navy today. Well, I would be an intern for the navy if the government wasn't shut down. The N6 shop where I work with the navy said they will call us or send a message as soon as they hear something about us coming in. To me that means I'll just be on call waiting to hear from them…ready to come in at a moments notice, but most importantly I will not be playing army man and making the drive to Ft. Lewis today.

I actually do have some work to do. I'm a certified Macintosh Technician and my wife's work actually needed me to come in and take a look at a couple of their machines. I headed in with my laptop and my tool bag, it was nice to hang out with my wife for a bit this morning. I worked on the computer that was down and had it up and running fairly quickly. I would have only charged them the friends and family rate, but my wife and her boss said to make sure I charged the full "consultant" rate. So I actually made some pretty good money today doing what I actually like to do…work on computers. Something the army has really dropped the ball on.

I made my way back home and did schoolwork. My squad leader called me later on asking what I had going on tomorrow. I let him know I had an appointment at 0900, he says "OK" and hangs up. I think I may have just lucked out because I think he was looking for someone to do something.

When my wife came home, we headed to the YMCA and had a good workout. I've been focusing on cardio for the most part. I guess when I turned 40, my metabolism decided to slow way down. I don't think I can just eat whatever I want these days. I need to burn off some calories and the quickest way to do it is probably some cardio. Later on I'll probably start getting some strength training in, but for now I'll be sticking to the elliptical machine. It doesn't give me the impact and hurt my neck that running does and it seems to be the best for my knee as well.

It’s All About the Privileges - (Korea) Day 77

After lunch we stopped by a coffee shop with this sign in it.
Men stand and women squat when using their toilets please.

Work call this morning was at 0730 to setup for a good sized meeting in the morning, followed by another meeting right afterwards. After the second meeting though we were clear for the day. The rest of the day consisted of SkillPorts and other office paperwork. I received a reply back about the training I'm trying to go to. They said I can't go because I have to finish a certain set of SkillPorts as well as have elevated privileges for the computers and network. I knew about the SkillPorts and actually started that section, but the privileges I had to check on. I know they put in the paperwork to make me the assistant IMO, so I can help out with computer work when I have time. I found out that will give me the elevated privileges that are needed. So I think I have all the prerequisites down to take the course. I replied back to them, so I guess I'll find out soon.

For lunch we went to a great Vietnamese/Thai place to eat which was very good. Special K paid for everyone and then SPC Roy met up with his realtor and gave her a huge wad of cash to pay for his first month rent & security deposit..etc for his new place. I was really surprised that it was all done in cash. I don't think you would ever see anything like that in the states unless you were doing some shady business deals.

I started a new class today online and it looks like a lot of reading and a lot more paper writing. I have to finish this new set of SkillPorts, and I was just sent an email that it's time to renew my Macintosh Certified Technician certificate. I'm going to be a busy guy this month!