A Long Day - (Germany) Day 218

This morning's PT was on PHV, but everyone from our office just showed up in ACUs for accountability. After formation I road in to work with my boss where I ate breakfast at the food court. I then surfed the web waiting for the shoppette to open up at 0800 so I could get coffee. Everyone headed in early because of an upcoming CIP inspection next week. They just had me come in early with them because they didn't want me to do PT by myself.

I then spent the time checking emails and then all our customer's account folders. SPC JayZ is on leave, we have two guys out-processing, and another clerk just left on TDY to Italy. I would have gone to Italy, but chose not to because my kids are here…a great opportunity though! Anyways that leaves basically just me to handle all the accounts. I was supposed to go through all the folders and see if there was anything that needs fixing  (i.e. missing signatures, missing memos, correct dates, etc.)

The entire morning SGT Mex kept heading to the bathroom about every 5 to 10 minutes. The first time out he exclaimed that he just "crapped out 1.5 liters of liquid shit". SGT Mex is currently on the overweight program and is about to get weighed tomorrow. He's gone down a few pounds each month, but really wanted to pass this time. So first thing in the morning he took some sort of colon cleanser or something and was not eating anything all day. He went so often that everyone just started avoiding the bathroom all together. It was pretty funny because some of the times he had to get up and start running towards the toilet!

I headed to the food court for lunch and spent my time reading my book and eating lunch. I waited until the last second to go back into the office. I have mentioned how much I disliked going into the office, but today I realized how much I just really hate going in. When I had to head back a wave of depression washed over me. I'm not sure why even. The job is not difficult and most of the people I work with are good people, but I just hate it. Maybe it's just all the stupid stuff I have to deal with. I hate that I'm doing a job I didn't sign up for. I hate the lack of common sense in almost every aspect of the army. Despite all that…I slowly made my way back to the office.

I sent out a couple more emails and surfed the web. I've ended up using Twitter quite a bit more. Not because I tweet at all, but because I can subscribe to a number of news outlets back home and nationwide. It gives me a lot of stories to read all in one place, and helps pass the time.

I then helped SGT Mex with some paperwork. It was basically just typing up some memos, but at least it was doing something. We got off at 1700 and headed home to eat and quickly get ready for a movie. My girls have been waiting and waiting for Chernobyl Diaries to come out and when it finally had a date here on PHV it turns out they were sent the wrong two reels, so the show was cancelled! So to make it up to the kiddos we bought them ice cream and headed home to watch a movie…."From Dusk 'til Dawn" an interesting classic from Quentin Tarantino. The movie is so out there, it's funny. Everyone was thinking…what the heck is going on here???

Side Note: With the late nights and the kids I've found myself a couple days behind...I'll be catching back up soon!

Going Commando - (Korea) Day 100

I was not allowed to take any photos while in CP Tango, but thanks
to USFK Flickr I am able to share these photos with you. Both photos are
of our 4-star general in command of USFK. All of this command post are under a mountain
and you can see the actual rock on the photo at the top, which some of the hallways are like.
The photo on the bottom shows a typical hallway as the group walks through a huge doorway.
You can't really tell in the photo, but the doors are huge and really thick. I think they could stop
some serious firepower.

Today is our last day of the exercise…my last day at CP Tango for a while. I’m a little bummed I couldn’t take any pictures while I was there, but with the place being top security and all, I wouldn’t want to do anything that would get me in trouble. I'll be happy to get back to getting a little more sleep. It seems that no matter how early I go to bed, waking up at 0400 is too early. Work call this morning was at 0500. The morning was pretty unusual though. Right as I put on all my gear in the office, SPC Roy asked me to open our conference room for him (He doesn't have a key). I opened it for him and didn't think much of it until later on in the day. I went back and hopped in the first van with our colonel. I have to arrive there first so I can get all the laptops setup. Once that was done SPC Roy and I setup for the morning meeting. It was then he told me why he needed up in the conference room back at the office this morning. Yesterday he had some monster poop as I noted. I guess he had another great one this morning and somehow when he thought he was done…he wasn't. He had crap all over his underwear and it was sticking to him again. When he went in our conference room in back at the office, he actually cut off his underwear and threw them away. The rest of the day consisted of him asking me to look at his butt and tell him if I could see any poop stains or anything…that and him saying "free willy" a lot since he was free balling it.

We played some more hangman, this time with the ROK soldiers in the office playing with us. They choose some interesting words at times. After the last meeting we had to have a coin ceremony. The 4-star general in charge had each office select one or two people to receive his coin for doing well on the exercise. I was originally told I would be getting one, then found out that they gave it to the air force master sergeant in our office. They gave it to him because this will be his last exercise and they told me I still have one more. Great…but the person that told me and I think most of the rest of the folks in our office will be gone by then as well. Oh well…I still got my SMG coin. Instead of getting a coin I ended up being the coin holder for the ceremony. We heard the general say they won the war (the exercise is a simulated attack from North Korea and they play war games for two weeks in all the meetings). He thanked everyone for their hard work and then started handing out the coins to all the people in line. I stood with a box full of coins while our sergeant major would grab them and hand them to the general. The ceremony didn't take too long.

After the ceremony we started cleaning up the office. We also packed everything we brought to CP Tango and loaded it into a van. SPC Lee and I took off and unloaded everything back at the office. We then took the weapons back to the armory. We finished and also setup for a meeting that will be going on tomorrow, but for some reason we had to stay until 1700, while the night shift who didn't even come out to Tango came in at 1000 and then got off at the same time as us. I think I got screwed a little being on the day shift, but my hangman skills are much improved. Before we left we were all up in our conference room. SPC Roy told Special K and our KATUSA about his morning incident and Special K mentioned "I wondered why there were underwear in the garbage". That was when SPC Roy pulled his underwear out and proceeded to show us all the damage he did…it was pretty bad, I don't blame him for cutting them off. He was laughing so hard I thought he was going to hurt himself.

I ended up getting home too late to video chat with my wife, so I did my schoolwork and some re-certification studying. Ended my night relaxing with some TV shows and went to bed. Looking forward to the weekend!

the wife

OH! MY! GAWD! just saying.

Friday, March 11, 2011 - 01:19 AM

FS SPC Miller

That guy reminds me of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Along Came Polly. Little disgusting.

Friday, March 11, 2011 - 02:39 AM

Deja Vu - (Korea) Day 99

A photo I found on the web showing the command center

in CP Tango. The windows at the top are the room where we usually

setup everything for the command. 

(Original photo can be found here)

Today seemed like a repeat of yesterday. We had the same work call (0500) and pretty much did the same thing all day. Setup for a meeting in the morning and cleaned up in the afternoon. We played a lot of hangman…so much that we got bored drawing the little man hanging and instead drew animals, then did away with drawing the hangman all together and switched to all sorts of creative ways to execute people. Other than hangman part II, the highlight of my day at work was reading the newspaper.

When I got back to the office we had to setup a small meeting. It only took a few minutes and then I was outta there. I came back to my room, changed and then worked out for a bit. My PT test should be sometime this month, I just hope I get a little advanced warning. I would just like a little time to mentally prepare for it and to also give my body a day or two of rest. I don't think I'll have any trouble passing it, especially since I've moved into the older age bracket.

Video chatted with my wife, then a little schoolwork with a little studying for the Apple re-certification exam I have coming up.

Overheard Quote: "I have to go dump alcohol in the tub and just sit in it" (SPC Roy describing his butt after taking a dump. He said he was going to have to throw away his underwear and then do some heavy cleaning to get it clean down there)

Above Sea Level - (Korea) Day 94

The coin I received today. Challenge coins come in a variety of shapes and sizes

Work call this morning was at 0500 once again. We loaded up as usual, but the 1st van I usually get in had some issues. One of their headlights was out, so they had to take a spare van. I usually ride with the admin master sergeant, an air force captain and our colonel. This was the first time we rode with these particular drivers. As we took off our colonel made a comment to the admin master sergeant asking if that was coffee or tea she was drinking. She said it was pumpkin tea, then the driver went over a speed bump without slowing down and the pumpkin tea shot up and a lot of it spilled on the colonel. The master sergeant was drinking out of a normal coffee cup and not a travel mug. She started trying to wipe the colonel down and I was laughing really hard (on the inside of course). It was pretty funny. The driver is lucky we have a pretty easy going colonel.

When we arrived at CP Tango I setup the secure laptops as usual. SPC Roy came in and was in an exceptionally good mood. It was a little strange. I started to think he took some drugs or something. Then he got all excited and said "I have to go take a dump" and off he went. A little while later he came back even more excited exclaiming that "it was above sea level". He kept going on and on about his poop. It was actually pretty funny. I ended up hanging out with him at the table in the office for as long as I could before I had to go do a little computer work in the IMO office. Our secret computer was quarantined because it hadn't been on the network since the last exercise, so no updates were installed on it. I have been working with the help desk trying to get this resolved and finally this morning the computer was up and running on the secret network (SIPR). I setup the admin master sergeant's email accounts on it (had to do a little thinking back a few jobs ago when I worked with Outlook and Exchange to setup two profiles…it's been a while). She was happy I was able to get it all up and working for her though.

Later on that day the 8th army sergeant major came in and started talking to me. He then shook my hand said keep up the good work and gave me a coin. Army coins are kind of like an "atta boy". It's a nice way for them to say thanks and give you a token of their appreciation. They are coveted items by most soldiers because usually you have to do something special in order to get them. I think my hard work all week splitting time between IMO and operations was noticed. I think I deserved a coin just for putting up with SPC Roy all week!

When we got back SPC Roy and I took the broken van to the repair shop to get it's headlight replaced. We then headed back and were given the safety brief. "Don't drink because you're on exercise and don't be stupid". That was it…we were released for the day at a little after 1500. I worked out and then video chatted with my wife for a bit. I then left to the PX and ate some taco bell and had some ice cream to celebrate receiving a coin…lol. Unfortunately I have to work tomorrow as well, so I'm going to bed early tonight after I do a little schoolwork.

the wife

Keep up the awesome work asagua! Ice cream was well deserved!

Saturday, March 5, 2011 - 01:41 AM

Weekend Wrap-Up (4-Day) - (Korea) Days 30-33

The young hawaiian at the theatre with a
cut-out of the CSM telling us to be good :)

Thursday: The first day of the four day weekend started off with me sleeping in of course. I then had a nice video chat with my wife for a while. I met up with PVT Pickle and the young hawaiian for dinner at the food court and then we headed off to the theatre to see a free movie. The movie of the night was "Hereafter" which none of us had herd of. I checked it out and saw that Clint Eastwood directed it and Matt Damon was the lead actor. That is as far as I read. I figured with those stars it would be a pretty good flick. Turns out the movie was OK, but it was so slow that it ended up hard to get through the whole thing. It took so long to develop and the ending was anti-climatic. So we all left a little disappointed.

We all went to my barracks and hung out. We ended up watching a number of Tosh.O shows that I had on my computer. During this point the young hawaiian said he had to "blow up" my toilet. I said go for it and didn't think much of it at the time…that would come back to haunt me later on.

Friday: I slept in again (of course) and when I woke the first thing I did as usual was go to the bathroom and go pee. When I flushed the toilet it didn't flush…it just started to fill up. Oh Crap!!! (Literally). Luckily it didn't overflow, but I had an issue because of the young hawaiian the night before. I went down the hall to the supply closet and found that they did not have plungers down there. I planned on getting one after I ate and talked to my wife a bit. I brewed some coffee and video chatted with my wife. Now for those of you who don't know coffee is a natural diuretic. All of a sudden the urge to go poop hit me like a freight train. I had to quickly say goodbye to my wife and make my way to the PX to get the plunger and use their bathroom because my toilet was out of order. Once out of the barracks I figured I would start to run to get there quickly and found out real quickly that was a bad idea. I almost had an accident right then and there. I walked as quickly as possible from that point on. I felt like I was in a teenage comedy…you know the guy who has to go to the bathroom and is walking/running to the bathroom while holding his butt with one hand. I wasn't holding my butt at the time, but I thought about it. It felt like my butt was the end of a garden hose when you stick your thumb on the end of it…the pressure was building and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not to the PX. As luck would have it, I did make it just in time. I was able to use their bathroom and then purchase a plunger to take back to my room and fix my toilet. Fun times indeed.

Later on in the afternoon I played some basketball with the young hawaiian. We played two on two against a couple of Koreans that were there and beat them. We then played some three on three when a couple others came. We won all the games and got some good exercise at the same time!

We then met up with PVT Pickle and headed out to the theatre once again to watch a double feature of Gulliver's Travels and Little Fockers. Both were comedies and I would say that Little Fockers was the funnier of the two. We all had a good time and on the way back to the barracks I stopped at the store and picked up a little beer. PVT Pickle headed back to his barracks and the young hawaiian and I hung out in the room and had a few drinks. We watched some Tosh.O and then the movie "The Taking of Pelham 123". This was an action film staring John Travolta where he hijacks a subway car. It was pretty good! By the end of the movie it was almost midnight…almost the new year. We went outside and at midnight we could see some fireworks in the distance. A few people came out of the barracks and we all said "Happy New Years" and went back inside. Then I went to bed…lol (I'm getting old)

Saturday (New Year's Day): Another day of sleeping in naturally. Didn't do much at all really, just a normal Saturday…did some laundry, got my haircut. I did take the post shuttle to the commissary only to find out that it was closed. I thought it might be, but I had never taken the post shuttle before so I thought I'd give it a try. Basically the post shuttle is a bus that just makes it's way around the entire base over and over again. You can ride it for free and they arrive at each of the stops about every 20 minutes or so. It's a nice way to get around if you don't have a car or a bike.

Finished out the day video chatting with my family to celebrate the new year with them. It's so weird being a day ahead of everyone in the states. I then watched the movie "Kick Ass". What I thought was a kid's movie turned out to be nothing of the sort. It was pretty awesome though. I really enjoyed it. It's about a kid who doesn't have any special powers, but wants to be a super hero. He ends up getting his butt kicked most of the movie, but it is funny and action packed as some other super heroes end up giving him a hand.

Sunday: Woke up a little sad today realizing that this was the last day of my four day weekend. Not only that, but I have to work full days all week…no more half days. I was able to video chat again with my family, then I watched UFC 125 streaming over the internet. I learned my lesson last time trying to go around post finding a place that was showing it. This time I was able to view the entire thing from the comfort of my barracks via the internet and my laptop. The fights were awesome!!

SPC Short then texted me asking if I wanted to go bowling. I said sure and ended up bringing the young hawaiian with me since he showed up at my room shortly before leaving. We bowled four games and I got better as the night went on. I think it was the "aiming fluid" I was drinking. My scores increased every game. None of us are very good because I beat everyone with scores of 150, 152 & 154. I was pretty consistent though…lol

We were then invited to play poker in SPC Short's barracks with some of his buddies. Using no money…just chips and for fun (and bragging rights). It was fun, I came in second after we were forced to go all in for the last hand (the last two of us were taking too long, so this was a quick way to end the game). The other guy got the better hand and that was the end of the night. A fun day to cap off a nice relaxing four day weekend. Now it's time to rest and get ready for normal days and normal weeks for a while at least.