3/29/2011

I woke up at around 7 am this morning. I didn't even take a shower because I took a shower after the gym last night. I just showed up for work. My platoon SGT had me log on the computer and tasked me out to go get an outlook account on the computer. I had to wait till 9 coz they were out till then. I grabbed a coffee and went back.

I didn't do anything else for the rest of the day because there was really nothing to do. I went to Tuesday formation. But I did my laundry before that. I left my phone in the laundry room. Gasp! That would really suck if I left it there for a while and someone snatched it. Luckily I didn't leave it long enough and it was right where I left it. I took a nap afterwards.

floor time

So this morning, PT was cancelled coz of the weather. I went to sleep till 6:45. I showed up for work and all I did was stay in the dayroom waxing floors. The whole thing started with 1/2 the room. The far half wasn't dried after we applied the wax stripper. We waited till lunch for it to finish. My roommate and I were working on it. We finished the half with wax applied to it. Then I started applying wax on the other half. That's when things got a bit messy. I thought that this would create a problem I almost cried. Now I hardly am able to keep up with the same page on the progress. All we really had to do was wait for the wax to dry, then buff it. I really suck at this job. I've never been required to wax floors, except in elementary school where we did it with our hands. The floor turned out looking good, even though it was 3 shades of grey.

I went to the gym in the afternoon. I worked on chest and did some cardio. I lifted weights a little bit. I do admit I was a bit bored since I didn't have a plan in my mind on what to do. I jumped on a box a few times and then went on the treadmill. Today's work out was boring. Afterwards my roommate and I decided to go to the PX for takeout. I had Anthony's pizza and some chicken wings. I saved the chicken wings for breakfast.

3/27/2011 Sundae!

This morning I woke up at 9 am. I ate a chicken gyro which I saved from last night. I watched some youtube, chatted on skype for a little bit. I didn't get to go to church today. I'm still used to going in the afternoon at 5pm on Sunday.

I took lunch at the hospital as usual. I got tired all of a sudden going back to my room. Maybe it was lunch that did it. I took a nap for about 2 hours. I woke up and started to go to the PX. My mom called me while she was at the hair salon with my sister. My sister's phone got chewed up by the dog, which I thought was very sad.

I went to the PX on my bike. I got lost and it took me half an hour to get there. I tried to use my GPS on my new phone. But knowing how I am with directions, I just cannot take a clear route. I found it eventually. I got a haircut which was my main intention.

Going back to the hospital on that hill is very tiresome. I have to go to a high point and it gets very tiring just riding up the road. 

3/26/2011

Yay it's Saturday today! I had a very interesting day. First off, I went to sleep till 10 in the morning. Then I went out to buy a bike. I got lost on the way to the bike store. Some lady at the commissary misled me to the bike shop. I ended up taking directions from a Thai lady who incidentally had a bike she hadn't used for a year. She sold it to me for 50 bucks including the pump. It was quite a sweet deal indeed. 

It started raining the same time I wanted to ride my bike back home. It happened for about 20 minutes. Then when it stopped,  I proceeded to drive back to my room. It only took about 15 minutes. It might have taken less than that had I not taken a turn on Brainard halfway across the track and field.

I took a shower and then went to the mall afterwards. I set up a line with Verizon. Funny thing about Verizon is that they have a different system for their network. They do not rely on SIM Cards like most phones do. I spent about 500 bucks in the store today. I got a Droid X phone. It's got a bigass screen. I used it a lot just within the 4 hours I've had it. 

Friday! Friday!

So today, I woke up at 4 in the morning. I've been sleeping since 7pm last night. I was so tired since that fire alarm woke me up on Thursday and I only took an hour of napping in the afternoon. I participated in the 4 am PT session which focused on abdominal workouts today. I didn't like the exercises. I've been having trouble doing pushups and situps for a while. Plus I worked out the day before and I'm still a little sore.

We got done at 5:30. For the past week, I haven't been able to get breakfast at the DFAC simply because I don't make time to do so in between 7 and 8. This morning all we did was wax and buff the day room tiles. There were 4 of us. We applied 3 coats of wax and buffed.

For lunch, I went to one of my NCO's house. It was a lot nicer than going to the DFAC for lunch. He made chicken wings which tasted awesome! We stayed there till about 12:30 in a nice part of town on Tobacco road. Then we came back and finished buffing the floors. We got done at 3:30. I took a nap afterwards

In Processing Gordon

For the past 2 days, all I've been doing is being part of the company. I knocked out my inprocessing papers in about 3 days. Most of the stations were in the hospital building next door. On MWF, we do PT at 5 in the morning which is extremely early :P. My first session, we did group runs. For some reason group runs always hurt my back and my legs. Maybe it's the shortness of stride in between the rows that's causing it. Because when I run by myself, it doesn't happen. The air is sort of dry for the mornings, so it's good to take in a lot of water.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have afternoon formation at 4:30. Normally the command just gives us a talk through what's been going on and how things have been going yadayadayada, and then we take off. This week we have been doing post clean up. The first thing we cleaned was the Fisher House across the hospital. There were tons of leaves that had fallen to the ground and we raked them up and got rid of them. Second time, I didn't do that, but I'm sure there was a group going at it. I was stuck with a group cleaning up a parking lot which isn't really that hard. We only did it for an hour.

On Thursday morning the fire alarm went off. At first I thought I was in a trance because I was watching some kind of weird movie earlier that evening. I tripped over my shoes on the way out to the safe zone in the gazebo. We were there till about 6 am. It really sucked coz I wanted to sleep in till 6:30.  I went to the gym earlier this week, which was good considering I haven't done it in about 3 weeks. 

Gordon

So, I recently got to the new unit. I presented myself at 8 in the morning on Monday. There were just a few slight issues. Oddly I'm not supposed to be here yet. I have to complete the first phase of my training in Fort Sam. I would've been sent out that way, but I signed into the unit already. Therefore I am inprocessed as part of the unit. I just took care of the inprocessing and got a little counseling. Nothing too big. People are nice here. I've got a roommate. It sucks that I don't have a car or a license.... I brought that up btw so hopefully I have something to work on while I'm en route to the next part of life. It sucks that it seems like I'm getting a free ride. I've already seen the mall which is huge and pretty and has all the American shops inside. I almost signed up for Verizon that Sunday at the mall. I have a to go phone which is sort of inconvenient. I'm gonna go back for it on Sunday. 

Outta here (out of Italy)

Amsterdam Schiphol

So today's my last day in Italy. I've only had 2 hous of sleep so far. Karen had suckered me into playing a few games of boggle a few hours ago. I went to sign out for leave. I saw Wattson and Council for the last time. I also SSG Kirpan that morning as well. I waited for the bus outside my room. Unfortunately I missed it because i messed up my luggage. It was only a few meters away when it drove off. I called Rob at about 4:45 in the morning. I told him what had happened and I really did not wish to disturb him so early in the morning. There was no one else that had a car who was sober that morning. He came and picked me up. By the time he got there it was about a quarter past 5. He drove me to the airport and arrived in 40 minutes which Rob said was his fastestrecord tome arriving to Marco Polo.


Luckily I only needed to catch a flight to Amsterdam Schiphol airport. It took off at 7 and arrived shortly before 9. The airport in Amsterdam was pretty. There were a lot of good stores there.but I simply did not have the time. I needed to walk to my gate for my flight to Atlanta. I did talk to some tourists heading to Manila in the line for security. Before I boarded, the inspectors went through my backpack. The first thing they pull out is a pair of shears. I was thinking to myself... "Oh no i hope the do not take those. Can't be having scissors in my ride/feeling so high like a g6." I endured an 8 hour ride to Atlanta from Amsterdam it took about 9 hours. I arrived at 3 in the afternoon. The airport was amazing. I haven't been there for 2 1/2 years now. I caught my last leg of flight to Augusta. I took a cab to fort Gordon to the medical center. The people who greeted me were very nice. I got a room to stay in.

St. Patty's

Ok, so today is the day of my final out signing. All I had to do today was go to S1 and get my commander to sign off on my papers. Easy enough. There was a formation held for me and 2 other people. It was to recognize our achievements during our time with the unit. The three of us received the Army achievement medal. Afterwards we got to give out our final words.... mine kinda sucked but whatever. They'll remember me mostly for what i've accomplished and what the times we've gone through together. Afterwards I got a beer mug with the 503d insignia on it.

I repacked my bags just so I can fit my junk in 2 bags. I bought a luggage bag for $5. It had 2 spiders living in it. I hung out with Dev for a few minutes. He was having a bad day because someone lost a sensitive item from a weapon, meaning that he would be held down for a long time if people started realizing.

Richardson gave me a call. He invited me to the Chinese restaurant down the road. The weather has been a lot better so we were able to walk down the road. We sat down and ate dinner. We reminisced for a little bit. Afterwards we went bowling with Randy, Jesse and Randy's girlfriend Emily. I kind sucked at bowling. But there was this one part where I was bowling with my eyes closed and it gave me 3 strikes. I was happy but it worked only for a little bit.

Everyone else is getting drunk tonight. I'm just staying put. There's really no obligation in drinking on this holiday specifically. Just because the Irish do it doesn't mean everyone has to do it. Everyone was also wearing green, which I used to do for St. Patty's day. I'm just wearing a white shirt and blue jeans.

Cleaning house

So for the past few days I've been taking care of appointments. First with CIF where I'm supposed to turn all my gear in. They only took half of my original items. I really wanted to get rid of all of it. Second, I got my household goods appointment. Basically, I lay everything I needed to ship for my next duty station. I only had a few things packed. I should've let them pack more stuff. Now I have a bit of junk left over that I have to sort through. Third, I had Housing appointment which is to clear me from my barracks room. I had way to much junk   in my room and I was quickly getting rid of it so that I could get cleared by the inspector. Oddly I've been really

2nd weekend of March

This Saturday, I woke up pretty early considering I had only 5 hours of sleep after watching "Tribute to Queen" last night.  This morning all I needed to do was clean my gear for turn in. It took me about 2 hours to finish cleaning everything that needed cleaning.

In the afternoon I was invited to hang out downtown by this Mexican kid who lived next door to me. He never picked me up at 6 when he wanted to. So I went to the shoppette and grabbed a cup of coffee. Idk but I was craving coffee that day. I just like the taste of how I mix coffee I guess. I went down there and people were commenting on how I was not sensibly dressed for the weather. Walking down the block with shoes, no socks, shorts and a thin jacket on. It was quite funny actually.

That night I spent a night at Ruegamer's. He fed me vodka/orange juice. I haven't had anything strong to drink for a while. He was playing a game with aliens in it. He was also skyping his mom while I was in the room talking bout family stuff.

I slept until about 9 in the morning. After that I went home and got some microwave lunch from a vending machine for $5. It was really good lunch. A 3 course meal in one micowable package. I continued to assess my gear for cleaning and gathering it for turn-in. I took about 2 more hours waiting for what washed to dry up.

Queen!

Today I went to the mall. I've been dying to go all week. I bought some new t-shirts for €9.99 which was a really good deal. The only store that was fair priced in the mall. I bought a shirt that had a tie scribbled on the front to make it look lilke I'm wearing an actual tie. I really liked those designs. Unlike elsewhere where a plain shirt would cost €50 a piece.

I went to one store looking for a sweater and most of them were marked €50. I pretended to look for purple specifically just to avoid the workers from making offers and making ne buy one.

I went to the bookstore as well. I bought a David Bowie CD for only €5. I saw a few albums i was familiar with in the international section
I went back home to shower and go to Crazy Bull. There was a tribute to "Queen." the band was really good. They played some of the familiar songs such as "Bohemian rhapsody," and "Under pressure." I enjoyed the show thoroughly alongside Egle and her friend Liliana. I was going tk bring my friend Rich, but he's been buzy with his girlfriend. But it's all good I still had fun either way.

Clearing process

So for the past 2 days, I've been getting my paperwork signed off doing the whole clearing process. It's pretty easy. I've completed most of the work in 2 days. I've set up appointments and everything.

Tonight I had went to the Chinese restaurant down the street. It's been a while since I've gone down there. Egle and I were talking about my move to the states. I'm definitely gonna miss Italy and my Italian friends.  But it's gonna be a start of a new life for me in Fort Gordon which is where I'm going next.

3/8/2011

Today I woke up at 5:30 am as usual, I took a shower, put on my uniform and went to formation. It was freezing this morning. I should've worn gloves, but I've tolerated most conditions before. I went to Burger King after formation with Brandt who couldn't do anything physical because of the sledding incident last Thursday.

I went to the company to pick up a clearing memo for me. The Ops guy who prepared it for me wasn't there. So  my team leader and I went through all the companies trying to procure this memo. It turns out there was one waiting for me at the Ops desk in my company.

I went to get my out processing papers and I started getting signed off on the stations I needed to clear. It was pretty easy. I took a break at 4:30 in the afternoon. I'm getting the rest done tomorrow

3/7/2011

So I woke up at 5:30 and I didn't wanna get out of bed. I showed up in regular PT's. I did a squad run that started out with about 8 people. It ended with about 5 people. The remaining squad went up to Monte Berico, We I haven't even gone up there since November. It was horrible. It was quite cold, I couldn't breathe well.

We skipped half the trail and went up the really steep steps that took us up to the bottom of the Church of Berico's base. Then we ran up the steep way to the church itself. It was a little easier. Then we ran up to the rotunda with the view of Vicenza which was really pretty. I haven't gone up there in quite a bit. We ran for about 45 minutes.

Today I just went to get my orders at 10 which weren't available yet. I came back at 1pm and then at 4pm when they came up. It was quite a headache trying to get one thing. I had an appointment at the wellness center. It was a stress relief therapy which basically consists of proper breathing techniques and using the massage chair.

3/6/2011

So today I woke up on Ruegamer's futon. I was coughing up for about an hour before I decided to go back home. That last cough was enough to get all the nasty stuff out. I hate my life because of all the mucus in my system. I shouldn't have gone to the track on Wednesday night.... and then go sledding the morning after :P

I ate a bunch of bagels this morning.... Idk the validity of those bagels because I bought them a long time ago. Unlike loaves of bread, there hasn't been any signs of molding. I thought I got sick from them because I was tired and went to lie down for about 2 hours. I just laid there... I didn't actually sleep. I was gonna go to the mall, but It was a bit late in the afternoon. I went to the commissary and got some food, then I went to the PX to get some pizza but there was no one there, so i got a quesadilla instead at taco bell;

I chatted with Lenlen for a little bit and then went to church. I went to Monty's like I normally do on Sunday nights. Tonight there was a small group of people. Rob and Karen are going to Switzerland all week and they were gonna leave at 4 in the morning the on Monday.

I ordered some fetuccini w/ mushrooms, and the italian version of a crispy pata which was actually pretty delicious and plenty for me. I also got a 1/2 liter of wine.... I start missing wine when I'm at restaurants for some reason... I just like the taste of it. I drank almost to the bottom of that liter of wine. I went home a little drunk that night.

Random stuff, my neighbor, Matt Reeves showed me and a couple other people his pictures from modeling in Italy 12 years ago. They were really good pics on the cover of the magazine: L'uomo Drink. 

3/5/2011

So today, I woke up around 8 in the morning. I slept for a good 8 hours. My roommate hasn't come back yet so I did what I needed to do that morning and not worry about making too much noise. I organized my room and then I started playing around with the guitar.

I went to ask around for anyone to go to Venice with. Unfortunately everyone was staying put. I normally ask the medics first and I caught up with Ruegamer who was supposed to go to Venice today but ended up having 8 hour hall guard duty. So I hung out with him and another guy on hall guard duty. We started watching "Freddy got fingered" on his laptop. It was a pretty weird movie. But it was funny as well.

Ruegamer and I went to the commissary to get some steaks. We cooked out on the patio along with our fellow medic Whiteneck. We made some really good steaks. We put some good flavoring on them. Ruegamer and I ended up playing videogames and watching a series. I spent a night on his futon. It was pretty nice. I guess he stayed up and played videogames until 3 in the morning because that was about the same time I woke up and went back to sleep afterwards.

I was seriously hacking up some phlegm and mucus to clear my sinuses. It was annoying. That was all I did for 2 hours after I got up. 

3/4/2011

So today is the last day of sick call for me. Oddly there were about a dozen patients. Three of them being our own medics. We had SPc Knox in charge of sick call. He was there for about 2hours until he had an appointment which left me in charge of thd clinic. I had never stayed in the clinic so long in one day. We did PDHRA screenings again for a different company this time. They just kept flowing in like flies throughout the afternoon. We had to take their blood pressures. At about 2 in the afternoon, i was sent to the clinic to get folders. I had to go twice because they wouldn't give them to me at the optometry station. I hate itzwhen people ask mE to do errands for them when i don't really know their purpose. I should definitely ask first before people start looking at me like a crazy person.

Tonigh i went to Rob Karen's house for dinner and bible study. I had a great italian dinner. Afterwards we celebrated Dolores' birthday. I played the guitar for a little bit. I just leaned how to play "Umbrella" earlier so it was a lot of fun. I caught a ride back to post with Bill and Dolores Davis. Incidentally Dolores is a Filipina and she is going to see her mother as she flies to Manila the next day. She hasn't gone back since 2003. That is quite a while. I was dropped off at my barracks. Then i started playing guitar. Then i slept.

Sledding bonanza

So today I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to go show up at 5:15 for the sledding trip. There were about 50 people going on this trip. We grabbed helmets and sign some safety forms for the trip. I didn't have gloves or eye protection, so I grabbed some from the shoppette. I got those and food for about 30 bucks which isn't bad at all.

We left at 6am and arrived around 8:30. We got ski passes handed to us which was pretty sweet! Normally they'd cost 30 euros but I guess ODR already paid for them. There was a 15 minute cable car ride to the top of the mountain. Then we grabbed a bunch of sleds for our group. They were pretty small. I imagined it would be one of the big ones that 4 people could get on.

We had a safety brief and a quick instruction on how to sled. Then we got up to the sledding trail on the top of the mountain. The first part was a smooth run considering there were about 50 people going down on the slope. The second leg of the trail didn't go so well. It was way too fast for anyone to handle. I almost ran into people, I bumped someone's sled and there were all kinds of crazy stuff that happened on the way down that leg.

There were a few people that got hurt, a few that didn't want to go again, and there were people who wanted to just go back and be smarter about it. Not like we're gonna slide 50 people down that slope again.

I did 2 runs down the trail and went to lunch. Lunch was a fixed pasta meal which cost 10 Euros for all of us. None of us could order what we wanted, it was really fixed. I did about 4 more runs down the trail after lunch. I took a shortcut on the way back to the cable cars. We left at 2pm and arrived about 5pm today. I'm still a bit sore from all the action. but it's ok.

Mar 1& 2 2011

Okay clearly I haven't updated my blog for a few days. But there really hasn't been anything special going on. I've been doing my round of sick calls. We had less patients on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I did my portion of the PDHRA which is a survey done after 90 days back from deployment. It was quick and easy. I also did my Battalion commander's checkup which was pretty cool.

I got word that there was gonna be a sledding trip tomorrow morning. It was the whole platoon going. We had to be there at 5:15 in the morning.

The aid station only ran till 4 pm the past 2 days. It was a bit tiring just sitting around waiting for everyone's checkup to be finished.

2/28/2011

So this morning, I woke up at 4:30 am. I went to the battalion around 5am. No one was there. I waited for 20 minutes and then sat in Bundy's car who was doing sick call rounds with me. The car was warm. The aid station was opened up at 5:36 today.

We signed in all the people we needed to sign in. At 6:30 we started grabbing patients to screen. It was easy, but there were a lot of people, due to the fact that it was Monday. I treated a few guys. One with a knee problem and the other with nausea, vomiting diarrhea. Nothing out of the ordinary. All this stuff I've seen down range. Treatment is the same except we don't give out any medications any more because it's in the health clinic control.

The next few hours were confusing. People kept coming up to me asking about physicals and profiles, all stuff which had to be directed to the providers' attention. We  were there until about 5pm

2/27/2011

Okay so today I woke up from a really good night's sleep. I slept for about 12 hours last night. I got out of bed, got cereal and showered and went to my friend's place. He didn't answer his door so I was getting paranoid. Ugh I had to resort to using the master key. My friend Johnson got pretty upset about me going into his room. Of course I kinda expected that. I left the building and went back to my room.

I didn't do anything the whole day because it was raining. Johnson called me at around 4pm. Obviously we weren't going to go anywhere. I just chatted with cuzin Lenlen and went to mass at 5. Afterwards there was a dinner where everyone was serving chili. I enjoyed that very much.

I just went to bed afterwards and I got ready for tomorrow. The weekend was definitely too short! But anyways I have sick call tomorrow at the aid station. I'll be doing that all week.