*sigh*

Stress, comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Right now, my stress is a 4' x 2' x 2' bag known as a "Duffel".

How to pack for a year in 3 bags or less. This really should be the title of a book simply because of the amount of stress involved in answering a question like that.

I've got to pack everything I need for a year in 3 bags. That's rough. Worse is, they gave us a packing list for the first bag and lets just say someone who has never actually packed a duffel bag made that list. Needless to say, I got about half of what they wanted in it before I realized it wasn't happening. So, after 2 hours of working at I'm. I'm a little pissed and decided I will go and get some food before I come back and try again.


In some other news. I had my surgery on Friday and Monday and I'm feeling really good despite that fact that I have eighteen, two inch holes in my body.

Yes, yes. I suffer from a wonderful illness where my body decides it likes to grow fatty deposits in random places all over my arms and legs. Don't worry folks, you cant even see them unless I tell you where they are, and they don't do anything but become annoying when they get large. Thankfully there is no cure and the doctors don't know what causes it. :( However, they do have a solution for the ones that start to be a problem. A little bit of a local anesthetic and some cut and squeeze action, and Viola! Insta-gone.

So I've got 36 stitches in me right now. Mmm Mmmm Hydrocodine!

Well, time to go and get some food and get ready for round 2.

This time duffel. I wont go easy.


-steve

First off, I want to say that I freaking Love my fiance. Without her, my life would be a lot less organized. Thank You darlin, for all the help.


With that said, I am now counting down the days until I am deployed to Kosovo. 3 Weeks left and I'm out for a year ladies and gents. So, my wonderful lady decided to come over and pack up all my clothes and organize it all into tubs and I didn't even ask her too.

How sweet is that? All I had to do is let her play Patapon (Which, If you own a PSP or know someone who owns one. Buy the friggin game and play it) for a few hours afterwords!

Lastly, I must express my deep remorse and sorrow for the death of Gary Gygax. Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the most influential people in my life has died at the good age of 69.

For those of you who don't know. Gary Gygax was the Co-Creator of the game Dungeons and Dragons.

If you, sitting in your chair did not just feel a moment of sadness after hearing this news. Then I hope a maximized, empowered fireball hits you in the face right now.

This man, this amazing man. Help create something that has meant so much for me in my life. You as well, though you might not even know it. The hours a sitting around a table making life-long friends and enemies. The sheer excitement you get while you wait all week for your chance to slaughter the hordes of enemies.


Gary Gygax. I never had the privilege to meet you in your lifetime, but I thank you for what you have given so many people throughout it.

-On my desk, will sit a naturally rolled D20 until I leave for Kosovo.

Thank you Gary.

Isaiah 21:3
"At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by what I see."

Wow, why is my life like 99.9% boredom fallowed by 0.01% shear terror?

Let me just recap the last two weeks in a short paragraph.


As of the 15Th February - 1st of March, I was attending a military school called "Warrior Leader Course". It's a course you have to go through in order to get promoted to Sergeant, or at least in my unit it is. Well, I was under the impression that it was a gentleman's course. Boy was I dead wrong.

Let me describe a gentleman's course. You get up at 7ish, have your first formation at 8, then class until 5 and then you go to bed. Your standard Army day. Maybe some out in the field training, where you sleep on a cot and things of that nature.

Hell to the "F" no.

Let me give you a rundown of the first 11 days. Wake up, 3:30am. PT (physical training) from 4-5:30, then shower, shave and clean the barracks for inspection by 6:15. Then we march all over and have formations and chow (eat breakfast). Then, we have class from 8 until 9:30pm! Yes, that rights, I said 9-FREAKING-30pm! Every hour we got a 6 minute break (basically the amount of time it took one to smoke a cigarette), and we had chow (lunch and dinner) at noon and 5.

Then, at 9:30 you had to go back to the barracks and clean and study for the next day. Because you had tests and inspections and all manner of inhuman treatment. Not to mention the constant yelling and getting into trouble that you had back in basic training. Always standing at attention in line, no talking in class, marching everywhere you go. *sigh*

Needless to say, the first 11 days sucked.

The next 4 days however, got slightly better and worse at the same time. The better parts were the fact that you supposedly got more sleep, and that it was a little less structured. Other then that. It was still sucky.

Those 4 days where FTX (field training exercise) days. We had to pack all of our gear into a ruck sack (roughly 80 lbs) and walk all over kingdom come with it. Then load into a big Army truck and make sure everything is, what the Army likes to call, dress right dress. Which means it needs to look EXACTLY the same as the one next to it. By exactly, I mean you get yelled at if someones strap on their pack is longer then someone Else's.

Then you get to the field base and setup tents that don't have floors. Its just 4 canvas walls big enough for 8 people. Which of course meant it had to rain, and when I say rain. I mean someone was floating by the end of the night, and everyone's everything got wet. Then, it also happened to be winter, so it needed to be pretty much freezing all morning and scorching hot in the afternoon. It also doesn't help that the ground is terribly lumpy and littered with red ants and chiggers. So you spent a pretty miserable few nights in the field. The days aren't much better as you spend them stomping through the woods doing land navigation courses that were designed by Satan, and make you pass through the gauntlet of thorny fire. The thorns that state has, I will swear were designed by God to really test your want to pass land nav.

Then, you spend the rest of the time running missions and such, in which the whole time you are being graded. When your not being graded on something, your playing the bad guys for someone else and running around pretending to be terrorists. Which is a lot of fun. Until someone gets a little to into it and puts an assault rifle to your head and starts popping off blank rounds. You get a little uneasy about that seeing as how dozens of people have died from someone accidentally having a live round in one.

Then you go back to base, have 1 day of graduation and the next day get dropped off at the airport at 5:30am regardless of what time your flight is. Mine just happened to get me back home at 11:30pm. So I put on my best sweet talking face and asked the nice lady at the counter to get me a better itinerary. To my wonderful enjoyment she got me home at 8:30pm. So, I only had a 6 hours lay over at DFW (Dallas fort worth).

Then, Home.

*sigh* Its been a long day.

On a brighter note. Heather and I went and registered at Bed, Bath and Beyond today for our wedding. (We still don't have a date yet sence I don't have any orders and therefore do not know when I come home)

So yeah, thats my update and I'm stickin too it.

-steve