Getting Off Early - (Germany) Day 455

This morning for PT we formed up at Patton Barracks in civilian clothes. For some reason I went on auto pilot and headed straight to Campbell Gym. Once inside I realized I was in the wrong place and quickly drove to Patton. Luckily I left early enough this morning that I still arrived just in time. The normal folks did all kinds of strange exercises with SGT Steroids. Those of us on profile headed to the gym and when we came out the normal folks were finishing up doing leap frog over each other…I don't even want to know what else he had them doing.

I headed into my office and checked my email, surfed the web a bit, then did schoolwork. I did a couple edits on some paperwork for the chaplain, then headed off for lunch at home. After lunch I headed into the transportation office. The office had one person working and there were already two people in line before me. I waited almost an hour before being seen. Government efficiency at its best! Finally I headed up and gave the guy my paperwork and my orders. He gave me a couple more appointments that I had to attend and gave me the dates for pick-up. I had to head straight home and email the guy a copy of my registration for my motorcycle. I guess I was supposed to bring that as well because they'll be shipping it back.

I then was able to take the rest of the day off. The chaplain said that because we worked so late last night, I could leave at 1400 today. Even though transportation took longer than that, I still enjoyed the rest of the day off.

Scavenger Hunting - (Korea) Day 226

Work call this morning was at 0830. We setup for the normal Wednesday meeting in the secret conference room and I ran the slideshows as normal on the regular and secret computer. Everything went smoothly…no complaints. After the meeting I ran over to the tech center to pick up The Big Dog's blackberry. Unfortunately they could not get it setup for him because there was a hardware issue. Special K and I took the office car and turned in the blackberry to the cell phone service place which is right outside of one of the gates.

By the time that was over, it was time for lunch so I had Special K drop me off at my room. I ate lunch and video chatted with my wife…always a nice treat! When I headed back to the office I started the army SSDL1 training and had visions of finishing module 3, but I was interrupted quite a bit. First it was my sergeant trying to find more stuff to check off his inventory list. That can be pretty difficult at times because of the limited descriptions and such. It's kind of like a scavenger hunt around the office and conference control room.

After that our NCOIC came up and asked what I was doing. When I told her training she said "good, then you can stop that and help me do this." Needless to say I never finished my training for module 3. Instead I spent the rest of the day calling different offices asking if people were going to attend a meeting this Friday. Some were wondering why I was calling because they already RSVP'd and others were happy to be invited. I made it about a quarter of the way through the list and will have to pick up where I left off tomorrow. We cleaned up and found out we'll be doing some prep work for the big change of command ceremony tomorrow. This is for the commander of US Forces Korea…the head guy!

I headed to my room and did the usual…ate dinner, watched TV shows and did 3 SkillPorts. I didn't get a chance to do any of those while at work today.

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)

Guten Tag - (Korea) Day 21

A sign that cracked me up when I first saw it on post. 

Coming from AIT where we constantly called cadence this is a big change.

Last night I watched a cheesy movie "Vampires Suck". If you're a fan or have ever seen the Twilight series, it's parody of that along with a few True Blood and Vampire Diaries jokes thrown in. It's super cheesy and corny, but it did make me laugh a few times. Not a movie I would keep in my collection, but something I had been wanting to see for a while.

Today I woke up at 6:45 to give myself time to get ready and use my new little 4-cup coffee maker I purchased at the PX. I was able to brew a tiny pot of "Seattle's Best" coffee and have a cup before work at 8:00 AM! The only thing missing is sugar…and also a desk lamp. My roommate is working the later shift of the half days, so he sleeps in. I'm always running into things and dropping things because I can't see much of anything in the morning. I turn on my laptop screen, but it only does so much.

Work today was pretty boring, you can tell the holidays are upon us. As long as North Korea does not attack or do anything stupid I think the next couple of weeks will be very slow and boring at work. Today I cleaned the office refrigerator and microwave. After that our sergeant showed everyone Skillport, a way to earn promotion points by doing classes online. Most items in Skillport give you 1 promotion point for every 5 hours of course that you take. Each course shows how many “hours” it’s worth - depending on how well you know the subject you can finish them faster than the time stated. I was already very familiar with it because we had to use it and complete some I.T. courses while in AIT. Our sergeant wants everyone to be doing either online school or Skillport when we have downtime in order to better ourselves and advance our careers in the army. The only problem is that I still cannot get on the system here with my CAC card, I'm not setup yet. The lady that usually does it has been on emergency leave. I did turn all my paperwork for it today though because we found out there is another sergeant who can get me in the system. We'll see how long it takes, it will be nice to be able to get something done while at the office. Today all I did (besides the cleaning) was play a lot of solitaire and Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone.

We then had PT again after our half day at work. We went to the gym and played basketball. I was still pretty sore from yesterday, but we ended up playing a lot of half court games because we only had 8 people. We did play a few full court games when a few extra people showed up. It was a good workout, but not too much. I also wore my "tan tighties" which prevented yesterday's injuries. I impressed some of the guys from my office with my shot and also dunking a couple of times between games. I didn't know I had it in me still!

I got a call from University of Phoenix after work as well, I'll have another call with them in a couple of days. After that I think I'll start classes again on January 11th. I can't wait to get started again so I can finally get my degree! I decided to do a little Skillport as well while at home. I'm going to try and do an hour or so each night just so I can start racking up some hours. Our sergeant wants to see some progress. We can do pretty much anything, so I'm starting out with something I've wanted to brush up on for a while. I did the first lesson of Rosetta Stone: German. The army offers this language learning application free to all it's soldiers and it counts as promotion points as well. Our two Korean specialists were doing the Korean version while in the office…easy points since they know the language already....easy points for me too since I’ve taken quite a bit of German back in the day.