Sigh

I am only 1.5 episodes into Season 1 of Grey's Anatomy and I am already have a huge crush on Dr. Derek Shepherd.

My AWESOME New Bike

Well...it's new to me. My supervisor acquired this for me and I am supposed to share it with one other person. My sister is going to send me a basket, blinking safety lights (for nighttime), and a lock. People keep telling me that that bike totally fits me, which is the same thing they said when I wanted to get one of those new VW Beetles.....I don't know what that means.

Double Rainbow

My New Thing

Recently, I made a Very Big Decision to start training for a marathon in March. I don't know if the Command is going to let us go; it is in Fallujah, which is just west of Baghdad. I went to a website made by a marathon expert where I got a week by week training guide to follow so I can prepare for this thing. I have never run more than 5 miles at a time, so we'll see how I will do with 26.2 miles! It wasn't even a month ago, I was making fun of my roommate for running a 10-mile "fun run" out here! What is wrong with me!?

This is in no way going to interfere with my mission here. That will always remain on the top of my priority list and in the front of my mind. I do all of my PT in my off-time now, and that will stay the same. I look at it like this: even if the Command decides that flying to Fallujah for a marathon is stupid and won't let us go, I will end up getting in the best shape of my life training for it. So, it's a win-win situation. I also bought a watch that tells me my heart rate while I am running, so I can make sure I am not overworking my heart. I expect something like this will change a person's whole lifestyle. I am obviously going to have to change my diet a bit...ofcourse being away from Chik-Fil-A and Wendy's helps (Chik-Fil-A is a really good fast food place in the South, they have the best waffle fries EVER....yummm).

So, here is a link to my training routine. I start training next week. Wish me luck!


UPDATE: I just found out that the marathon was cancelled. I am pretty disappointed, but I think I might just follow the training schedule and run the 26 miles on my own, just to do it.

ANOTHER ONE?!!?

I may or may not be hallucinating, but I could have sworn I just saw a little mouse scamper behind my box of airplane propellers...

The Departed

After work last night, my roommate and I (not the door slammer) went to see "The Departed" at the movie theater here. It had a pretty interesting story, but there was too much violence in it for me. Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio are in it. I don't know how long it has been out in the States, but I think movies come out here a week or two after they do over there. This was the third time I have been to the theater since we got in country; the other times, I went with Mark to see "Cars" and "Superman".


And just because I feel like it, here is a picture of some of the living accomodations from 2003, the last time I was here. I didn't think things were too bad for us at the time, because that is all we knew, but I don't think I could go back to that. Especially after living how we live now. Look how close the cots are to each other! The showers here are almost as good as they are in the States these days, so there is absolutely NO reason why people should smell bad...yet some still do. That is something I learned when I joined the Army: some people are just gross.

And you thought YOU were having a bad day...

Sunglasses

I got a package from my Dad yesterday. It had lots of great stuff in it, including some Hawaiian candies that look pretty good. And Twinkies! It is weird, though. While I was at the hospital on Tuesday, I lost my sunglasses and I was unhappy because it is so BRIGHT out here. I got my Dad's package the next day, and there was a new pair of sunglasses in it. So, that worked out pretty well. Thanks Dad!

Here is a picture taken during one of our "downpours." You can see the rain falling in the picture, but it only last for 5-10 minutes at a time, usually.

What's New

So, remember that post a while back where I talked about how my First Sergeant has a countdown on his office wall of how many days we have left? The other day, he held a formation for the company. He told us that we had 199 days left and to celebrate, he burned the "2" from the 200's. I thought that was pretty cool. In a couple of weeks, I'll be halfway done! It already feels like I have been here for a whole year!!


Yesterday was my day off. I relaxed for the most part, volunteered for a couple of hours at the hospital, and watched a movie on my laptop (CopyCat). Mark is going home for R&R in 2 days(!). I'll miss him, but I am really happy that he is getting the chance to go home.

We are getting into the beginning of the "rainy" season here in Iraq. The average yearly rainfall is like 5 inches or something, but the soil over here is weird. So when it does rain, the water just sits there. I heard we can get flooded pretty quickly. It is also cooling off a bit more, which is a good thing, but also means there will be more bugs coming out. Someone in my unit has already gotten leishmaniasis from a sandfly bite. I have been noticing a lot more mosquitos around here, as well.

Tired Today

I am so tired today! This morning, I woke up early to take my PT test (my scores were decent). Before I was told the date of the PT test, I made an appointment to donate platelets. Since I didn't want to cancel at the last minute, I ended up doing both....and now I feel like crap. They have a stack of DVDs over at the Aspheresis Center because it takes so long for one donation. Today, I watched about 3/4 of Deep Impact, that movie about the asteroid hitting the Earth.

I need to stop buying stuff on the computer. It has become my new hobby. I spent $150 at drugstore.com yesterday!?!?!? Amazon.com is the other one. For my own sake, hopefully the Army will block this website and I won't be able to go to it anymore, like they did with www.perezhilton.com (celebrity gossip).

Rain!

With me freaking out about the mouse yesterday, I didn't even mention something interesting that also happened: it rained for about 5 minutes. It hasn't rained here since the first day I was here, almost 6 months ago. The sky is always blue; there are never even any clouds. So, when I walked outside to go to work yesterday, I felt the need to take pictures of all the clouds in the sky. I think it looks cool how you can see the rays from the sun through the clouds. Anyway, that is about all that is going on over here.

Gross

I got to work this morning, nice and rested from my day off yesterday. I was sitting in my office, talking to someone, as I opened up one of the wall lockers. I leaned in, took a DEEP breath, and said, "Whoa, it smells really bad in here." The only thing I keep in there are files and paperwork, nothing that could have gone rotten, so that should have been my first clue that something was wrong. I looked down, and there was a DEAD MOUSE on the bottom shelf of the cabinet. As soon as my brain registered what it was, I RAN out of the office and stayed there, until the mouse was disposed of. My office still smells like death, even after taking everything out of that cabinet and spraying it with Lysol.

UPDATE: I've been thinking about it and I am pretty sure that dead mouse was the same one I've seen running around the office (I wrote a post about it a little while back). I think I may have closed the wall locker door, not realizing it was in there one night, and trapped it. I was wondering, just the other day, why I hadn't seen the little thing in a few days....it was probably already trapped at that point. ::shudder::

UPDATE: I was probably wrong. This place is INFESTED with mice. I have seen 2 more in my office since then!

Whats Happening Lately

Yesterday, I got really into counting parts (LOL) and ended up staying at work 6 hours past my shift. Okay, so the last hour was unpacking the three care packages that I got (thanks, Mom!!!). It usually takes me around 2 weeks to do a complete inventory, because I am constantly getting called away to do other things, but out here people basically leave me to my own devices. I ended up taking care of half of my drawers, which I was very happy about.

This morning, my crazy roommate is running in the "Army 10-miler" they are doing here. First of all, who runs 10 miles in the heat of the desert?!? I want to go to the stadium, where they finish, so I can cheer her on, but I am at work now...plus I have never ran that much at one time, and I would have no idea how long it would even take people to do such a thing. Both of us are at our wits' end with the third roommate (the door slammer). I guess Gabriella was woken up last night several times by the D.S. and wasn't too happy about not getting a good night's sleep for the run. The tables have turned now that I get off work after D.S. goes to sleep, but I am too nice to slam the door like she does. Oh yeah, I work from 0700-1900 again. It was me that changed the shift this time, and I might stick with it, for a while anyway.

P.S. I have a PT test this weekend.

Bean Counting

This week, I am starting a 100% inventory of all my UAV parts. It takes me about 2 weeks to do, since it is just me in my section, and because I have so many parts. Just to give an idea of how many, I added up the quantities in my Excel spreadsheet and it was over 22,000. BUT, I would guess that about 20,000 of them are little things like screws, nuts, washers, etc. I still have to count them all, though! Some of them are in my office, but most of them are in this trailer, called my S280. Whenever we travel, it hooks up to the back of a 5-ton truck. The S280 has 3 large cabinets inside, where I keep all the parts.

Even Funnier!

I don't know how I missed this one when I was looking at the kids' signs. This has to be about 10x funnier than the one I posted the other day!

It says:
"Dear Soliders
Thank you for sving awer tawn I Love you"

Loosely translated, I think that means:
Dear Soldiers,
Thank you for saving our town. I love you.

I am just dying to know what area of the U.S. this guy lives in that the ARMY had to come in and save his town. That cracks me up!






And here are all the rest of them. I am sure there are a few more funny ones in the bunch, but more of them are very cute. You can click on the picture to make it bigger if you want to read them all. I like the one in the bottom right hand corner, with the yellow ribbon. I wonder if all these children are the same age, because that is one is really nice.

Time is Flying

Someone asked me today how long I have been here and I surprised myself when I realized it has been 5 months already. I have been back from R&R for over a month!!! That went by very quickly. I have purposely not been keeping track of the days and as soon as someone mentions how much time we have left, I immediately try to tune them out. I will start my own little count-down when we're close to the end, maybe the last month.

Last night, I had off and got to sleep in. It was really nice. I got up in time to hang out with Mark after he got out of work, which was also nice. We went to the new MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) building and sat and chatted. There is a television in the day room of our housing area and I watched tv for the first time since I've been here. We only get a couple of channels, but they played shows like Will and Grace and King of Queens.

I'm really tired.

Picture of my new room

I moved into a new room a few weeks ago, and I haven't posted any pictures yet, so here are some. They basically look exactly the same as my pictures of the other room I was in. I have 3 roommates in this new room, instead of 4, so that's good. I get along with one of them really well, her name is Gabrielle. The other one works completely opposite of me, so I hardly ever see her. She slams the door whenever she comes and goes, though, so I am very aware of her presence. The third roommate, Alexis, hasn't moved in yet, but I already know her...she's nice.

This first picture is a view from the opening of my area. I have a shower curtain that is usually pulled shut for privacy. I bought the blanket here, it is very soft and warm. Although it is still hot outside, the air conditioner makes the room really cold sometimes, so that blanket is the best. You can click on all these pictures to make them bigger.




This picture is just a different view. That little shelf was in the room when I moved in...much better than the table I had made out of spare wood. Oh, and there is my trusty M16!



The last picture is my view from my bed, when the shower curtain is open. I already know I am going to an email about this picture. Yes, that is your Yankees sweatshirt Shannon and no, I don't have any plan to give it back.

Cute

In the main hall of the hangar, someone has posted letters from children wishing us well. They are all pretty cute, but this one is my favorite:

"Dearr Soldiers,

I hope you win . And try not to get killed. And thanks for fighting to keep our country free.

Sincerly
Mikey"


AHAHAHAHA

I'm FREE

This morning, I was talking to one of our civilian contractors about finances and decided to pay off my car loan. I have been just making the monthly payments because I am trying to build my credit, but now I'm done! I wish I was in the States so I can do a victory lap in my car, but knowing me and my past driving record, I would probably total it and have to start all over!