Charlie - (Korea) Day 291

In my office SPC Mick takes a nap. He says his helmet makes a good pillow. This
is what happens when we have to come into work early...LOL!

Work call this morning was at 0630, which means we did not attend the company Friday PT that our NCOIC said we are going to do from now on starting last week….lol. We haven't done one yet, but "next Friday we will for sure!" Suits me fine, I think I get a better work out on my own. We had to open our conference room and turn the system on for a meeting that was going to go on all day long.

Once everything was good to go, I headed over to Starbucks to get a coffee. Whenever I have to go in early, I don't have time to brew my own. I then worked on some SkillPorts for a while and then had our colonel sign my new year's TA request, now my tuition assistance (TA) will recharge in October. I'm glad I got started on it right away, I was able to exhaust my entire fund for the year. I know a lot of people that always plan on taking classes while they are in the army, but just never start. By my calculations I should be done in about a year and some change. After my current class though I'm going to be studying for a new certification.

I just registered for a Windows 7 computing environment class. The class is being offered the last week of October. We have to finish up some SkillPorts relating to the class before then and after the class we will get a voucher to take the certification exam. So I'll be turning my attention to this after my current class is over on Tuesday. I can't pass up a free certification!

I spent some time trying to get through all the red tape that goes along with getting access to the network. SPC Mick's account expired for some reason and I've been in touch with the network folks trying to get his account back online. Turns out they thought his DEROS (the time he's leaving Korea) was up and expired his account. I sent them his paperwork, but since it was on an old form they wouldn't accept it..WTF? I had to get a new form filled out and then routed to a number of people in our office for approval. Each person such as a supervisor, the security admin, the Information Awareness Officer, and so on each have to receive the document electronically from me and digitally sign it. I repeat the process over and over until it has all the correct digital signatures on it and then send it to the network folks. I get a reply back saying they don't see the guy who signed as the security officer as "the security officer" in their system.

So…I'm getting a little pissed at this point. His stupid account should not have been turned off in the first place! I send the memo that states that this particular person is indeed our security officer. They reply back and state that I shouldn't send anything with social security numbers via email. I'm about to go nuts at this point. I take a black sharpie and mark out their social security numbers and then email it back to them. I'm then told the system they use to upload such memos to is down, but they will turn on SPC Mick's access through tomorrow night, then they are hoping to be able to upload the document and turn his account on for good. I can't believe all the crap, the red tape, the BS that has to go on just to get one simple thing done here.

I head to lunch and video chat with my wife in my room, then head back to the office and do some more SkillPorts. I call 1RC to check on our new guy and I'm informed that he's ready to be picked up. So me and our NCOIC take the car and head to 1RC. He has a pretty whacked name, so our NCOIC just says "I'm looking for…." and starts to just spell it out. Turns out he's a 25C, so I'll just call him PV2 Charlie. We pick him up and load his bags in the car. We take him to the company and grab the in-processing paperwork for the company. They tell us where the new housing office is located and we head off to find this building. We drive all over the place and end up going back to the company to get better directions. Finally we find it and it's actually in The Young Hawaiian's barracks. We were looking for a separate building. It turns out our barracks are full, so they set him up in newly remodeled barracks near 1RC. The specialist that set him up had us follow her in her car to the his barracks…only a small problem, she didn't know where they were. We drove around in circles for a while until she stopped and called her boss and then also asked some directions. Our NCOIC wasn't too thrilled. Finally we found the barracks. They have some pros and cons. He has a smaller room, but he has it all to himself. Everything is nice and new, but he has a community bathroom and showers. He can either stay there, or move to our barracks next week sometime when there are some openings. I think even with the community bathroom I would seriously consider staying there. A room to myself sounds very good!

We brought PV2 Charlie back to the office and introduced him to the few that were there and then I took him back to his room and dropped him off shortly before 1700 with instructions to have a safe weekend and show up at 0700 on Monday.

I headed to my room to find out that the maintenance guys came to look at the lights, but were unable to fix them. This doesn't surprise me at all because they are freakin' morons! I guess "The Light Guy" is down at CP Tango today and might be able to come and fix our lights this Tuesday. So I get to live in the dark until then.

I then headed to the PX for some supplies. I'm starting to feel sick. Whatever my NCOIC had this week, I'm starting to feel it. I was coughing last night before bed. I do not want to get sick! I picked up some Vitamin C, some NyQuil and some Excedrin. I ran into a guy that went to AIT with and we chatted in the aisle for about a half hour catching up. He's come a long way from that first day in our A+ class, he thought everything was magic…now he's actually fixing computers!

I headed to the food court, ate dinner, went to my room and did some schoolwork before watching some Breaking Bad and then taking some NyQuil before going to sleep.

A ROK soldier from our sister office in our conference control room taking a nap.

WhiteNoise (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 98

I have figured out a solution to save me from the sleepless nights that I’ve been having. We were issued a winter beanie pt cap back in basic that I pulled out. I wore this to bed with the top of it pulled down over my eyes to block out the light if it happens to get turned on. I also downloaded an app for my iPhone called WhiteNoise. It can play a variety of background noises to help you sleep better it also blocks out any of the noise that our new roommates happen to be making. You can choose a number of noises such as flowing stream water, rain, or my favorite...ocean waves. I turned this on and put in my earphones and finally was able to get to sleep without interruption. Here is a link if you are interested:

White Noise

PT this morning consisted of a run around Barton Field. It consisted of everyone here at RBK. We ran at a good pace and I had a pretty good workout by the end of it. After PT we had to move the smoke pit picnic table out, the smoke pit at RBK has been officially closed. The smokers couldn’t stop leaving their trash in that area and after multiple warnings SGT Kent finally had enough. He said it’s closed indefinitely, so we’ll see how long that is.

There are so many new people at Charlie it’s crazy! I see so many kids I’ve never seen before. It’s like an ocean of white phase IV badges all over the place. It’s made our formations for school huge. 

I don’t feel like I have enough time for this class. We are getting a normal quarter’s worth of a college class jammed into 12 days. I feel like my brain is going to explode with all this information. I’ve gone from wanting to score a 90% or better and getting the certification, to just wanting to pass the class. I feel like I’m swimming up stream. I’m reading the text book every night, taking notes all day long, and taking practice tests as often as possible.

A humorous point in class today...one of the guys in class fell asleep with his mouth open. I got a sour candy out of my bag and put it in his mouth. He didn’t wake up from that, but when it was time for our break he woke up. Everyone was kind of watching him and waiting to see how he was going to react. The look on his face cracked everyone up when the taste hit him and he took the candy out of his mouth. We all had a good laugh at that one.

Monopoly (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 91

Today PT was pretty normal except we actually finished a little early which never happens. We had plenty of time to get ready and eat breakfast without having to rush, which was nice.

In class today we had a couple of entertaining things happen. First PVT Dell (a nickname our CCNA instructor gave the guy) fell asleep hard. His head was down on the desktop and laying on his beret. When the teacher saw him, the guy sitting next to him kicked his chair to wake PVT Dell up. When he woke up he had drool all over and his face was all red and had lines in if from where the beret was. It took him a few seconds to realize the entire class was looking at him and laughing. I guess the instructor thought that was punishment enough because he didn’t have to do anything else. 

Our company PG wasn’t so lucky though. He was caught playing Monopoly on his computer while the instructor was trying to teach class. The instructor thought for a minute and then decided to have him do some “corrective training”. So our company PG got on the floor and had to do the following:

20 leg risers

15 toe touches (kind of like the v-up except you have to touch your toes)

The supine bicycle until the instructor told him to stop

25 frog kicks (another kind of modified v-up)

Our company PG couldn’t complain though, this action is much preferable than a negative counseling statement or having to talk to the Master Sergeant.

On the way back from study hall everyone from RBK usually splits off and just heads back to the barracks. Technically we are supposed to stay for a formation, but it never pertains to us and it’s just a waste of time. Today right when we all split off one of our sergeants was behind the formation and started yelling for us all to come back...bummer. We had to stand in the company formation and waste about 20 minutes. When we have to do study hall it really eats up into our free time, so every spare minute is precious.

Overheard Quote: “The only person that should yell my name when I’m in bed should be my wife” (PFC Metal after someone came in the room early in the morning to make sure he was awake)

The Dark Side (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 7

These entries have been sent via email from Brandon. (Yay!)

Today we had class again. I think the daily schedule will be the same now that I'm in school. We will wake up at 4:00 AM for morning PT, then formation for school is at 7:45AM. School is from about 8:30 to 4:30 with a break for lunch. We then clean up the classroom and the hallways before formation to march back for dinner. After dinner we are free until 21:30 which is lights out. There is also a study hall that we can go to from 18:00 to 20:00. It's not mandatory for the A+ class, but it is for the next two classes.

At the beginning of class PVT Metal gave me some "candy". I popped it in mouth and was in for a surprise...it wasn't candy at all, it was a caffeine pill. It also didn't taste too hot. I quickly grabbed my water and swallowed it all down. I didn't have any problems falling asleep in class today unlike another guy in our class who fell asleep. Not only did he fall asleep, he did it with the hose to his camelbak in his mouth. The teacher stopped the class looked at the guy and said "really!" The guy had to stand up for the rest of class. The classes are long and they go at a fast pace, so you really have to pay attention. There is a lot of homework and quizzes as well that you can do on your own time in the barracks, so it pays to have a laptop (which I decided to purchase while I'm here).

Not much else happened until the evening. PVT Metal was taking a shower which is down the hall and someone stole his towel while he was in the shower. As he was running down the hall naked, a sergeant appeared and yelled at him asking him where his towel was. PVT Metal said it was stolen, but the sergeant didn't care, he just told him he better go back and find one. So PVT Metal had to run back down to the showers and have someone come to our room to get him another towel. LOL pretty funny!

Overheard Quote "Touche my good man" (Our instructor after he explained that the main difference between Windows Vista and Windows 7 was that Windows 7 was made more stable and easier for the end user to operate. To that I said "Yeah....I heard they tried to make it more Mac-like)