2/26/2011

Today I slept from 9-1:30. I called my friend to see if he were going to Venice. Turns out he's not. Ugh. And my other friend he wasn't going either till tomorrow. I ended up eating pizza with him for dinner. I just went to sleep after that. Today was really boring. But I caught up on a lot of sleep so it's ok.

2/25/2011

This morning there was a company run. In reality it was a battalion run but all the the companies were just doing their individual routes. We ran all over post this morning. And when everyone thought that the run had ended, we thought wrong. We ran twice in the same spots near the end. It was so exhausting. I've never felt tired for a run like that before. And we've only been running 30 plus minutes. We got a briefing from our Battalion commander and Battalion Sergeant Major. They talked about having a safe weekend due to all the stuff that happened including the death of that one soldier last week.

Afterwards, I prepared for staff duty. For the first 2 hours there was no NCO available. There was a slight confusion as to who was running the show. During the day there were 2 red cross messages, 1 alcohol related incident an a whole lot of stupid stuff going on the rest of the night. It was a lot busier than I expected. I couldn't stay awake around 2 in the morning, it was so exhausting.

2/24/2011

This morning for Pt formation, there were only 5 people including myself that didn't have anything to do. We tried to go to the gym but we didn't get a room to exercise in. It was quite packed. So all we did was go to Brandt's room and chat about things in the past like the deployment and funny stuff. This morning, I honestly did not have anything accomplished. I left at 11 am for lunch because there was nothing going on till 1 pm.

In the afternoon I just did a deployment packet (oddly I'm not deploying to Africa so I'm not too worried about it). They 173d can do whatever it wants in Africa. We didn't get home again until after 5. I was on the computer surfing the net for a while. I finally put all my stuff that I laid out on the floor away.

2/23/2011

Today's work day was a bit of a headache. This morning I showed up for PT and I was called out to do a urinalysis check. I got some water to drink and then I filled the bottle a few minutes later and I was done.

I showed up to work and there were only 3 people downstairs. We started chatting up about different companies and deployment stuff. Afterwards I was tasked out to create a chart. My buddy and I were about to start using pencils and stuff, but then were told to take it to the graphics studio. This thing would be processed in 4 days.

The only thing that was bothering me today was the fact that there was one certificate I had to print out. It's so fucking stupid that the site won't give me the certificate. I've gone through all the courses. My team leader and I had the same situation. I had to wait for him to print out a made up certificate for him and myself. Ugh! I'm never relying on one person anymore to get one job done. I'm gonna vary my sources for help next time. It was just stressful thinking about one subject all day.

Once again, we left work at 5:30 pm. It was so annoying. I saw my friend Johnson who was talking about going to Carnevale this weekend. Carnevale is a festival in Venice celebrated around the end of February to mid-March. I really just wanted to take it easy this weekend. I was gonna go to Katy Perry's concert in Munich, but I decided to do the other instead. I sold the tickets to Wes and Jlyn. Hmm... i'm not really sad about it because I wanted to save some money. I also just wanted to take it easy this weekend.

I can never decide what to do for food anymore.... I really have been eating a lot of pizza lately. Tonight I'm gonna go eat a kabob from down the road.

2/22/2011

So today, was the first day of the work week. I showed up in ACU's this morning because I had to do give immunuizations to tons of people. I worked with 2 companies this morning, plus a couple stragglers that decided to show up on a day not scheduled for them. I was the one signing off on paperwork after immunizations. I gave probably about 50 shots because half the time I was just signing off paperwork and directing traffic. 5 other medics and myself were there till about 4pm.  Everytime we started to leave, at least 10 people would start showing up. We finally finished closing shop and went back for a formation. We didn't get out till about 5pm. I found out I was going to have a layout for a possible deployment which I doubt I'll be a part of.

Afterwards, I took a shower. Lately I've been going to work without showering before hand. And it's been cold the past few days so I don't really sweat that much. I shined my boots for a little bit as well (I'm really conscious of how it looks because I look up close while others just look at it from ground level). Also, I set up my stuff for the layout that I mentioned earlier. I took most of my military items out of my left closet. I did it so late at night that I made so much noise and was trying not to wake my roommate up. Blast these buildings for not having separate rooms! Anyways I did that for an hour. Now there's just a bunch of stuff on the floor looking pretty for inspection. I went to sleep afterwards, for some reason I've been waking up at 3 in the morning no matter what time I wake up. I could go to sleep at 8 or 9 and wake up at 3 or 3:30 in the morning. Then I wait for my alarm to go off. It kinda sucks but whatever.

2/21/2011

Today is the last day of the 4 day weekend. I woke up about 8 am. I tried to get breakfast at the cafeteria. However, they were still closed due to the fact that they were running on weekend schedule which consists of brunch and dinner. it was 8:30, they won't open for another hour. So, I heated a hot pocket instead. My roommate's hung over from last night, so i'm trying not to make too much noise.

I was going to do a bit of studying, but I got distracted with cleaning my jump boots for tomorrow. I did that for a good 3 hours. It's funny how people think my boots are perfect, but I keep making it even more perfect like super shiny and stuff like that.

Ok, sorry to disappoint you guys, but I don't remember what I did Monday night since this is a late post that I haven't worked on. Just stay tuned though

2/20/2011

So this morning, I was woken up to the sound of my phone at 2 in the morning. Courtesy patrol was looking for me since I was supposed to be conducting team 2 of courtesy patrol. However, I was supposed to be replaced. We were looking for the guy supposed to replace me. I stood there for like 45 minutes until the right guy came up.

I went online for a littel bit. I couldn't sleep again. I had about 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I was definitely tired from all the snowboarding activities. This morning, I planned on going to the gym, but I was still tired from yesterday. I ate lunch at Subway. I sat down with Justin and his wife (I think they're married now....). I talked to them about the weekend, about the Philippines (Jane is from Batangas).

Ok so after I took lunch, I actually went to the gym for about 45 minutes doing a back/triceps workout. It's been the first workout I've done in about a month. I used to go every Sunday, but then I started getting lazy. Afterwards, I cleaned up my room. I haven't left my room a mess for more than a few hours. But this weekend, I definitely left it a mess.

I went to Monty's with Rob and friends. I had an amazing meal. I'm in love with spinach. I ordered a lot of it. Afterwards I went to skype to talk with Mom and Dad. I saw our new dog who is exactly a chihuahua/terrier mix just like Zack. He was really cute. I wanna meet him and pet him and stuff already.

Snow time!

Today was the big day for the snowboarding event which I signed up for last week. I woke up early at about 5am. I picked up my reserved rental items. The bus left at 6 and arrived to our destination: Cortina at 9 am. It was a really nice slope. It had lots of areas to explore. It was a lot better than Paganella. There were a lot of routes to go around. I hung out with a couple 2nd platoon guys. They're really cool. We went everywhere around the place. The skiers outnumbered the snowboarders. We had a lot of ridiculous falls. But it was okay coz the snow was quite powdery and not so hard. It was also sunny outside which was really awesome because you know it's a good day to go boarding.

At lunch time we went to a restaurant on top of the slopes. It was really nice and quaint. We had trouble ordering food. What I did to ease that was type our orders on my phone so that the waitress could read what we wanted. She put in what we ordered and it was ready in 20 minutes. We ate lasagna and I ordered spinach after that. We got our bill. It was quite expensive. The restaurant wouldn't have us do separate checks which was ridiculous, so I decided to use my card. They agreed to pay me back later.

                                EURO
4x COPERTO         12.00(What this is if you don't know, is gratuity. they charged 4x out of 5 people)
4X COCA               12.00
2X SPRITE               6.00
TAGLILOLINI        11.00
4X LASAGNA        34.00
SPINACI                  4.50
TOTALE                 79.00

It was already 2pm when we left the restaurant, so we did a few more runs on the slopes.  We went back down to the buses after we got done skiing from the top slope. That last few meters of that slope had me fall
and roll around a little bit in the snow. The bus left at 5pm. We got back to Vicenza around 8pm. I returned all the rental stuff and got money back from the guys. The only sad thing that went on during the day was the fact that someone died from our brigade. A young soldier was imitating moves from "Assassin's Creed" a well known video game. He was jumping across rooftops in Verona, Italy. He fell four stories in the end. He will be missed

2/18/2011

This next blog follows the events after 9am from when the last blog ended. Alright, so every CQ shift, I sleep for about 5 hours once I get off. before I went to sleep though, I had to push aside the pieces to the busted frame of our door. I woke up to see my platoon sergeant and my squad leader and the person who broke our door outside of our room being interrogated by the MP's. My roommate tried to put a work in from DPW to fix our door. But they wouldn't do it without a police report done first. That's why all those people were out there. I had to watch a good man(the one who busted our door) be put in hand cuffs and taken away to the MP station. My roommate went there as well to have written statements done. Afterwards our door was fixed, which was a relief. The rest of the night I just took it easy. I played the guitar for a little bit. Afterwards, I left for the usual Friday Hospitality House meeting.

2/17/2011

Ok so this morning I woke up at 6:15 because I decided to turn off my alarm. I went to formation and there were about 8 people in the platoon. We didn't really conduct PT, so I went back to my room and play the guitar for a little bit. I'm still figuring it out. I showed up downstairs in our spot where we wait around. I was there for about an hour with someone else from my platoon. It was just Mata and I waiting around to get something done. At about 10:30, we were told to clean the office. No big deal. It took about 1/2 hour. Then we left for lunch(lunch break that is. There was a presentation mentioned earlier that was to occur at the soldiers' theatre where there was gonna be food.) and we went to the PX. I played around with an electric guitar for a little bit and then bought gummi bears. That was pretty much my lunch. We started watching "The Other Guys" on DVD for an hour.

We went to the Black History month presentation at the Soldiers' Theater. It was an hour long speech from a retired colonel. I was sooooooooo tired, I could barely stay awake. My head was bobbing every few seconds. It was probably coz I was hungry too. Afterwards, we found out that the food they were going to serve was just biscuits, cookies and kool-aid. I was really hungry after that.

Mata and I went back to the company and sat around at the conference room. At about 4pm, we had a safety brief and a release. After that I found out I had to pull 12 hours of a CQ shift. So I took a  nap for 2 hours after that and showed up. I did 12 hours of shift. Most of it was spent listening to music, reading a book, getting drunk people into their rooms. The building smelled awful compared to the last time I lived in it. It was always smelling like detox from alcohol. I helped my NCO finish a crossword puzzle. Afterwards, the sun started showing. I started eating gummi bears. I've never eaten so much in 1 night. I got done by 9 in the morning. I took a shower, ate and went to bed.

2/16/2011

So today I woke up at 4 in the morning. Today is the first jump day for our battalion. I started buying some food to go on the detail this morning. I rode in the van with 5 other people. We got to Aviano Air-force base in about an hour. It normally takes an extra half hour to get there if you're riding a bus. We sat and slept in the van for about an hour until the jumpers' safety briefings were done. Afterwards, we rode out to the drop zone. We set up panels for the pilots to see. It was fairly easy. The first jumpers came at around 12:30. There were a total of 89 jumpers. It was nice to see everyone drop out there. There was one jumper who dropped near our vehicle. We had to back up a few meters.  

After 90 jumpers, that was all for the day. We started wrapping things up. We turned in all the necessary items to the airbase. Then we took lunch and left for Vicenza. On the way back we took a turn to Lerino, where the rigger facility was at. We were put on detail to hang chutes to dry. It took about half an hour to get them all. Then we got back to Vicenza at about 5pm. It was dark and it was pouring out. 

All I did after that was go to the Chinese restaurant and get some take-out. I got some spicy pork and some bean sprouts. After that I just went to sleep. My room has been a mess lately. But I just slept on a messy bed anyway.

2/15/2011

Okay, so today was an alright day for me. The medics and I were in the motorpool for about 5 hours. After that the guys who were jumping went to do their thing. I'm clueless about the one thing that this unit's one specialty. I am not airborne qualified, which gives me the advantage to sham out(as in do my own thing) for a few hours while they do their training(it's theirs coz I'm surely not part of it).

They finished what they were doing and after that I got a call saying that I had to do a detail for the drop zone tomorrow. It seemed easy.

I met up with my friend Egle. It was her birthday yesterday and she had just come back from Barcelona. She has spent 2 birthdays there. We went to the Chinese restaurant down the road. We had a small dinner, we shared each other's food. LOL, we gave each other half of what we ordered. I drank a little bit of Chinese beer. I went to sleep early coz I had to wake up at 4 in the morning. 

Valentines

Happy Valentines everyone! Ok, Valentines day is actually just a regular day for me. There's nothing really interesting that happens on that day(at least for me that is). Today the medics and I spent a whole day at the motorpool! Taking out boxes, lifting heavy things. We were doing an inventory. That stuff is never fun. I've been through them multiple times. Half the time I don't even know what's going on. We got out of work at 5:30 pm. I was tired and kinda sore from all the activity.

I got home and chatted with my sister for a bit. Our conversations are usually fun. And I normally catch her when she's doing homework or when she's starting to do it. I ordered a pizza at Il Fauno's (so typical). This time I had Hawaiian because I ate a Hawaiian pizza earlier in the day. I went to sleep right after that. 

2/13/2011

Today is the day before Valentine's day. I had a bit of a busy day. I worked on a clinic packet for about 6 hours today. There was also something else I had to finish, which had a lot of stuff put into it. As if I had time to go through most of it. I just skimmed the important parts.

This morning, I called my Grandpa's house, unfortunately he and my Grandma were about to go to bed. I called later than usual. I normally call around 11:00. Today I called at 12:30. Anyways, I didn't get to talk to the usual group of aunts and uncles and my grandpa in one call, but that's ok. I just make calls on Sundays.

I chatted with my cousin earlier this afternoon, ate some pork rinds and girl scout cookies.... didn't seem like a good choice for lunch.

I went out to dinner with Rob and Karen and the crew. I had a really good dinner. I had veal, lasagna and some spinach. I added more spinach to my plate lol coz it was that good. I also had some of their white wine. I guess my weekend wasn't that interesting. but I made the best of it, after spending some time outside. 

2/12/2011

Today was an oddly busy day for a Saturday. I worked on a clinic packet for about 8 hours. Well actually 6, if you don't count lunch and miscellaneous activities. But anyways, I worked on some papers for about that amount of time. It's my own fault I guess since I've been putting off all that work(sigh).

At around 6pm I stopped everything to go out with Rob and Karen and a few others to a pizzeria (I didn't mention the fact that I had to cancel a trip to Verona with them today. Ugh.... I never get to see the real Verona).  We didn't get any pizza because all the pizzerias were full until 9 pm. We got kabobs instead. We chilled at the Hospitality House for about 2 hours. I was glad I got over there, my brain would've been fried from  staring at the computer for hours! Plus The Hospitality House crew's company is somewhat a spiritual relief. I never thought of it that way until now. 

Forgive me if I say this... but I'm not caught up with the world's current events.... Must read on Egypt and other world news. My day was not really the best, however the few hours I gave myself a break was the best idea. I wouldn't want to truly lose my mind doing one tedious all day. It was probably the best part of this Saturday. I didn't go out either, which was good. I didn't want to spend a few Euros last night. Oh and I called home last night which was also the best feeling in the world. Mom called me at like 5 am on a Saturday morning and I was a little groggy. :P

2/11/2011

So it's Friday. It's supposed to be the most chill part of the week. This morning we played football again! I don't even like foot ball. However, this game was interesting. I scored a touchdown at some point(who would've guessed right?). And then there were a few interesting moments during the game.

The work day started out with an online class that took forever. I'm only halfway into it. I had another appointment with behavioral health. Things were a lot different from all the other sessions. The more sessions I go to, the less there is to talk about. And most of the topics are stuff from previous appointments. This one was a little dull for me. I went on to finish more paperwork. I had to work on them for a few hours. All the work I've been putting off has caught up with me. I thought that only working 2 days out of the week would be actually be a piece of cake. 

2/10/2011

For PT this morning, We did a ruck march. It was only for a few miles. I hate Thursdays because of this. It hurts my feet. I'm struggling to keep up most of the time because some people just walk fast. I haven't fallen out of these rucking events since we've done them out here. I have learned a few techniques on how to keep stay the same pace. I'm always pushing myself even though sometimes I fear that I may get hurt at some point.

I hate it when people think they're better than me just because they're airborne qualified and I'm not. I'm about to leave this unit and I used to work hard and actually care about being airborne qualified, but my chances were shot down back in 09. Now I just don't care, because I know I can do my job well. And that's all that matters.

We had a 4 hour finance class to help us with our money and budget this morning. Half the time I was thinking of something else, I took a few important notes. The speaker gave a few websites to help out with our questions as well. I wrote them down. 

After being released, I went back to my room at around 4pm . I played around with the guitar. I learned a few songs. I started blasting my music, I was just enjoying myself for a while. Then I wanted to get a subway sandwich. Guess what? They changed their opening times. Now there won't be anything open at 8pm. I also wanted to play with the display at the Powerzone. 

I just went and ate a taquito from the shoppette. I saw BK and I considered that only i there were  a last ditch resort if I can''t find anything else to eat. I went back to my room and started FB chats. 

2/9/2011

I slept from 9-3 after i got off from staff duty. I took breakfast before i went to sleep. My roommate got into a singles' retreat so i'm pretty much in the room by myself.

I went to my wellness center appointment. The whole stress relief program was totally different from the way it was before. I was taught breathing tecniques and I messed around with the massage chair.

I went to the PX to buy some document protectors. Afterwards I started attaching lights to my bike which was a bit of a pain because of it's anatomy.

I put frozen pizza in the oven. I've been eating pizza for dinner for a while. Mostly from Il Fauno's the restaurant down the street.

2/8/2011

Today I woke up this morning at 6. I went to formation and took accountability of my team. This morning we had a urinalysis test. I started Brigade staff duty at 0900. It was kinda busy on my part coz I was answering a lot of phone calls. I answered some crazy ass phone calls this morning. Like this one lady who was talking about a shipping container that belonged to the 1-503d battalion. I redirected her to some other people since that was not my problem. Through the course of the afternoon I just kept answering phone calls.

The place seemed to become less busy once everybody started leaving from work. The four of us who were there took turns in taking 2 hour breaks. I've tried to rest for a little bit. But it's hard knowing that you have to wake up again at a certain time. I kept reading my book "La bruja de Portobello." It's in Spanish and I've been reading it on and off for a while. I'm kinda slow at reading books most of the time. I've just been bookmarking the spot where I left off.

I got back to the office and it was just business as usual. I'm gonna go to sleep at 9:00 today. It's really cold this morning.

2/7/2011

Today is the day of the superbowl. I woke up at around 8 in the morning while everyone else watched the superbowl at the earliest times. I don't really know much about football so I don't really care much for it.

I went to the Tax office this morning. I was there for 3 hours. I filed 3 years worth of taxes. Not much went on the rest of the afternoon, except I was just messing around at the PX and left. I went to the library, picked out some CD's (uhhh it's been a long time since i actually had the desire to burn CD's into my laptop). I took a nap around 5.

I woke up and had a long converation with Dev. I'm not gonna share the details since it's rather private. Also had a talk with Egle. She's madly in love with her ex. Uhhh! I can't believe I know him.... I hate being in the middle of things.

I have Brigade staff duty tomorrow. It's gonna go on for 24 hours. It's gonna be me, 2 other people and an E7. It's ok I guess coz I'll be working only 3 days out of the week.

2/6/2011

This morning I woke up at quarter till 11. I called the house in Carbide Village, Philippines where surely enough on Sunday people would be there having dinner at my grandparents' house. I was answered by Tita Char, oddly she is the first one to pick up the phone. She told me they were celebrating my uncle's birthday. She asked if I wanted to talk to my Grandma. She put my Grandma on the phone. That was the first time I've talked to her since the time I was actually there in the Philippines. She asked me where I was, and I told her Italy. She asked me a few more questions, but I started not to comprehend her later on. 

I ate brunch at the DFAC. I almost missed it because it ends at 1230 and I got off the computer at the same time. It's actually open just for a few minutes after the designated time line. I went to the PX for a little bit(I was actually there for quite a while). I was browsing around, playing on their new keyboards which were on display. I got bored after a while. I looked through their music collection and bargain area for DVD's. I bought a Michael Jackson CD, Harry Potter 5 for only 5 bucks(!) and also the movie District 9.

I went back home and chatted with my cousin Lenlen. I told her that I felt I had a problem. She rushed to assume I was on hard drugs :P (Buying drugs would make my problem worse anyway!) But I told her I felt I spend too much money coz I'm bored. And for anyone who's reading this, most of you would agree that this is a big problem. Man I need to control myself. Lately I've been buying media from the store. IE: DVD's, CD's etc. I'm tempted to buy electronics as well. However.... I dont' really wanna waste that much money. I just drool over them (seems better than actually buying them).

I went to Church at around 5:30 pm. I was insanely hungry when I went over there. I couldn't actually concentrate on what was going on. For some reason DFAC food just does not fill me up that much. I hate that, because I'm relying on their food to sustain me for 6hours at least. It's just never enough! After the mass, I rode with Rob and Karen along with our group of friends to Monty's. We had our usual Sunday night dinners. the food was really good. 

2/5/2011

Yesterday I spent a whole afternoon at Dev's place. We watched 3 movies: Salt, Easy A and Barry Mundae. He made me pancakes for lunch which were really good with nutella on top of them. Andy Taylor came over and we started watching midgets with him. It was quite a laugh.

I left Dev's place to get ready to go to Art Cafe where there was a Marilyn Manson tribute. I got dressed, went to Il Fauno's down the road. I was really hungry! For some reason, I'm addicted to Penne alla Speck. For those of you who didn't know, Speck is a really good type of ham. It's quite addictive!  It's some really good ass ham! And I also ordered some calamare, another one of my favorites.

Dev and I went to Art Cafe with Matt Reeves. He paid for our cab ride there and I got him drinks to be even. Never again will I lean over the counter at the bar. There's always some form of liquor that has spilt from the confines of the glass(es) and they start smelling awful.

There was a pretty good show last night. I took some pictures and videos from the performance. It's not really my scene, but I like Marilyn Manson and some of his songs like: Personal Jesus, Sweet dreams and MObscene.

Stayed an hour after the show hanging out, talking to people, took a few shots and then went home with Dev who was pretty drunk at the time. More drunk than last weekend. I only spent like 20 euros for the entire night.