This morning work call was at 0730. We had to turn on the system and open up our conference room. After everything was ready, I took off to Starbucks to get my morning coffee. Once back I did my usual morning email check and found that finally the folks from Ft. Lewis emailed the DA Form 5888 that I needed for my wife's health screening. I then went about printing out and getting everything ready to turn in my packet so I can finally get the process started to get my orders.
I then worked on a Windows 7 SkillPort before setting up a meeting in the secret conference room. Once finished I headed up and out of the blue heard the news about Steve Jobs death. I knew he was sick, but I didn't think it was going to happen so soon. He was a great man that really changed the world with his innovative ideas and his relentless drive. What a loss. We all ended up just watching the news for a while soaking it all in.
We then cleaned up the meeting and headed to lunch. I video chatted with my wife for a while and headed back to the office. I gathered all the paperwork and forms for my packet and headed to the company to turn them in. When I arrived there was only KATUSAs there, everyone else was either at lunch or doing a check at CP Tango. Grrrr. I wasn't about to leave something this important in the hands of KATUSAs. They have a habit of losing things and don't inspire much confidence when talking to them. Of course that is just a generalization…our KATUSA is actually a very good and hard worker.
I was going to head back after an hour or two, but our NCOIC said I should just send them digitally. That will leave a record and there will always be digital copies if something goes wrong. She then said to send them to her so she could send them and let them know it's urgent, so I can get the orders earlier. I'm hoping that is the case. I scanned all the documents and then sent them all to her…we'll see how it goes.
She then wanted to switch laptops with one that had just been imaged. Then I would image her old laptop sometime before a new person comes. What should've taken a few minutes just copying her profile to the server and then to the new laptop took much longer. I should know better than to ever think a simple I.T. project is going to be so easy. When I switched the laptops I had no network connection at all. I thought something crazy like her cable went bad or something. I tried another network cable and still couldn't get it to work. Finally I asked another I.T. civilian across the hall if he had any ideas and he said he would check it out. Well after some digging he found that the network folks decided to implement some increased security and will only allow one physical computer to each network connection. In the past we've moved computers from station to station without issues, but now we'll have to call the help desk and give them the MAC address of the machine so they can update the switch before it will work in another port. I'm all for security, but I wish they would have passed out this information so I wouldn't have wasted so much time troubleshooting.
Once that issue was fixed I had my NCOIC up and running in the few minutes that I originally planned. She then said she would email my packet to the company, but first she was going to do a surprise room inspection in all of our rooms because she forgot yesterday. We were not allowed to go clean up or anything. My room was a little unorganized, but not too bad…well at least not my side. My NCOIC said if my roommate doesn't start cleaning up and at least taking out his trash bag on a daily basis she's going to talk to his sergeant major and I will also get smoked. WTF? I am not going to clean his side of the room, I'll tell him to clean from now on…but I'd rather do some push-ups and stuff than clean up his crap. Also when our NCOIC tried to check our bathroom the light didn't work. Great…now we have no light in the bathroom. I'm so ready to get out of these crappy old barracks. I tried calling maintenance, but nobody would answer the phone…wonder how long this is going to take. It's going to be difficult to shower and shave…and poop in the pitch black.
I changed and headed to The Point to workout. After the workout I made sure to take a nice thorough shower, that way I will not need to take one in the morning. I think I can manage shaving in the morning with the door open and the room lights on. When I got back to my room I ate dinner and watched The Ultimate Fighter. After that I finished the finally Windows 7 SkillPort I needed to do. I'm now ready to go for the class at the end of the month. I finished up the night with an episode of Vampire Diaries. Can't help watching that one, my wife and kids all watch it…so I have to keep up on what's going on. :)
Status of my PCS: (Decided to start using the correct terminology…PCS is what it's called when we move from one assignment to another "Permanent Change of Station"). My stress level is down quite a bit now that I received the paperwork that my wife needed to get done. I've turned in everything that I needed to do. Now it's just a waiting game on the company and asking my NCOIC to get updates for me at certain intervals. Since I was able to do all that my stress level is now only about a 4 or so, but that will start to elevate as time goes on until I get my orders.
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