9/17/04

This was a really bloody awful week. Therefore, after I finish moving into the new house I am going to a bar.

Recap - JANUS (Pac Man Artillery Sim) went, well, pretty rough. It turns out that if you don't sleep at all for about 24 hours and then try to brief a Captain, you end up talking in a crazy mix of Swedish and Yiddish. Niners and Phonetic alphabet and inability to say 50 as fifty (you have to say five-zero.. if it was five-oh I'd understand). Long story short, I babbled for about 20 minutes and more or less failed to say a bunch of things that I was supposed to say. Long story short, I passed it... but not by much. Then I had to actually play out my scenario on the computer which was vaguely amusing. My plan was pretty good, I guess, because we won in a completely awesome kicked their ass sort of way. Not my doing, that, but it was good to be on the winning team. In the afternoon I had to run the battalion Fire Support net, which was not easy... at all. Imagine 5 people all calling for fire at the same time, and you're trying to tell them to stop it because they haven't ended their previous missions so the gun tubes are all tied up. Basically, working the floor at NYSE looks like cheese compared to running a FS net.

Other things happened too. In gunnery, nothing happened. I got my time wasted. I did not care. Oh, wait... Not entirely true. Gunnery fucked my Columbus day weekend and somehow snatched up our Friday. What I wanna know is how they can take days off away from me, but I can't take days -ON- away from them? Someone explain to me how this works, by the way, because this is something I've never understood. For some ungodly reason, I get punished for showing up somewhere late, but if I get held over somewhere past when I'm supposed to get let out, that's no big deal... Train to standard, not to time. FUCK THAT. If you're gonna be jerkoffs about when I show up, I should have the right to at least know your asses are gonna be punctual about letting my ass out. 

On a battery level, this was a weird week as well. Allow me to explain. We went to the three mile track and ended up running about 5 or 6 miles. People who know me know I hate running. I really hate running 5 or 6 miles. Therefore, that is what we do. Whatever I hate. This is not the point.

The point is that some officer ran through the middle of one of our groups on the track. He was yelling "get out of the way! get out of the damn way!" Gary Wade responds. Gary will be represented by a G. Random officer will be represented by a C for Choch.

G - "Watch your mouth, there"

C - "What did you say to me?"

G - " I said you should watch your mouth and not curse on this track; there's civilians running around on here  and it's pretty unprofessional to be cursing us out on this track."

C - "I didn't swear at you.."

G - "Well, then, I'm just saying that "whoever" swore, it was pretty unprofessional and that they shouldn't have done it."

C - "Who are you?"

G - "I'm Wade."

C - "What unit are you with?"

G - "OBC"

C - "I'm Major Choch, Batallion XO of 1-666."

G - "Ok..."

C - "I didn't swear, but somebody swore and that means they must have been swearing at me. This needs to be resolved ASAP. - Where is your commander?"

Anybody can see at this point that this is going to turn straight into a vignette out of Catch-22. 

Battery Commander talks to this XO, and suddenly at noon we've got a formation. This is bad. I have an hour to find something to eat and take a nap. A formation at noon basically cuts this hour down to 30 minutes.

Battery Commander comes out and tells us that someone swore at a high ranking officer on the track and that whoever did it needs to come forward. Nobody comes forward because nobody SWORE at a goddamn higher ranking officer. 4th platoon (which contains Wade, Gary, 1 ea.) isn't even there, because they're in the JANUS exercise. We stand outside for 20 minutes waiting for someone to come forward. Battery Commander comes back out and says, ok, now we're gonna have a formation at 1700 to give whoever did this a second chance to come forward. 1700 formation, Gary is there and he and everyone who saw what happened go to the BC to tell him the whole story. Figureth I, this will resolve the situation. 5 officers who say the same thing about what happened tends to be pretty unimpeachable evidence. Negatron.

Wade comes back out muttering. BC comes out 10 minutes later. We will continue having these formations until Wednesday. If nobody confesses by Wednesday, then next weekend we will cancel all passes and everyone will have to sign in at the battery HQ every 6 hours, because he wants to make sure he punishes the person who did this, even if it means punishing all of us. This means that one would have to sign in at 6am, 12 noon, 6pm and 12 midnight all weekend. This would make me a SAD panda. The story from Wade is that the BC said that he didn't think the Major had any reason to lie, and that regardless of what happened during the run that someone had to have swore at him after the Wade incident, and that despite the fact that the BC yelled at us for someone running through another unit's accountability formation, that nobody else could possibly have done it. 

So, to summarize, we're waiting for someone to come forward to confess to something they didn't do, and if they don't confess to what they didn't do then we'll all be punished for something that we didn't know didn't happen in order to make sure whoever didn't do what they did will meet justice. I don't make it up folks, just analyze it and cry.

I also had another fire support shoot. I had to adjust fire onto a tree that was sorta on a hill behind another hill which made it a bitch. The FDC was really assed up, and messed up one of my rounds. Despite that, I blew up my target again. I wasted that damn tree. Nobody could shoot at it ever again because I pulverized it. Dead motherfucker. I still only got an 80 because my initial target location was off and I got nickeled and dimed on a couple other things. Either way, blowing that tree up was cool. We also saw what was probably a 250,000 dollar minute they put on for a family day. MLRS is the most awesome thing in the world, by the way. That sucker goes off, and before the noise gets to you the damn rocket is 3000m downrange. 

9/14/04

Janus briefing is tomorrow (the Pac-Man technology computer simulation). It is apparently worth as much as a full scale test in Fire Support. Therefore, even though I have the whole day off today and have known about this thing for about a month, it's 10:48 AM the day before it's due and my effort so far has been to cut the laminated edges off a map and tape said map to a bit of board. In short, I'm handling it like I did every other important assignment I ever did had at school.

On another note, it looks like I'm going to move out of my little apartment in the BOQs and into a house. Initially, I wasn't too keen on the idea but a series of events have happened that have changed my mind on the whole thing. Truthfully, I don't mind living on post at all, because it means I can sleep longer before PT and catch naps in the middle of the day. My apartment is big, and people try to come clean it every day. Right now, my main problems are twofold; the Foybrarian and Dialup. 

The Foybrarian is the wife of my downstairs neighbor. Her goals in life are to sit on our front porch, smoke, and talk on the cell phone. When they moved in, I didn't really have much trouble with them, but you could tell that the husband was sorta permanently agitated and just generally failed to approve of me at all. No matter, however, because there's not much you can do about that. Then things started happening. They taped up a sign in the hall that said "Do not talk loudly in the foyer or stairwell". "Ok," thought I, slightly perplexed as I'd never really heard anyone howling or dancing in the foyer or stairwell before. I came up with the term Foybrarian - Foyer+Librarian - one who yells at people for talking loudly in the Foyer. 

Travis moved in, and we had a couple of incidents. He had his music up once at 4 in the afternoon on a Saturday, and the Foybrarian came up and bawled him out. Then I burnt some bacon (not badly) and the old man came up and yelled at me for that. Little issues, not enough to make me really want to leave my house.

The real problem came this last weekend on Sunday morning. I was happily asleep, when all of a sudden my door buzzer starts going off. It goes off. It goes off again. It goes off yet again. WTF.... If I don't answer the damn door just go the fuck away, alright? No, someone is buzzing the shit out of my door. I eschew the Smith and Wesson 500/making large holes option and go for a more friendly, amicable tack. I open the door and it's the Foybrarian's husband.

"which one y'all tore down our sign?!"

"what?"

"I'm not fuckin' around, which one y'all tore down our sign?!"

"well, I didn't do it.."

-Brain is now working overtime, dealing with a slight hangover, a horrible cracker accent and the concept that this little Yosemite Sam clone is up here basically threatening me over a sign.

"One'a y'all HAD to have done it.. Either you or your roommate or, well, however many people y'all got livin' stuck up here."

-Sweet guy. Wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry him.

"Look man, I didn't do it, and I don't think my roommate did it so, well, yknow, if there are issues or something with noise, just come to me."

"Y'all walk around at night or come back drunk some nights, and I realize these buildings are old and all, so that ain't a problem or nothin.. But my wife's got a condition with migranes..."

"Well, like I said if there's a problem, please call-"

"But if y'all come down and fuck with our sign again, I'mma call the MPs"

-Record scratch- Wait, did homeslice just threaten to call the MPs because he -thinks- we may have ripped down his sign?

"Right... whatever man, have a good day"

I tell Travis. Being the large Viking descendant he is, he wants to go and have a talk with the guy. I don't care, sounds fine to me.

Travis buzzes their door like 3 times during the day. No response. I think they're cowering.

Finally, Travis catches the Foybrarian out hanging up her new sign. Conversation ensues.

"I didn't tear down your sign, ma'am"

"Well then you're roommate musta"

"Why's it gotta be one of us?"

"I know the other two people living here wouldnt've done it, and we woulda noticed. Y'all were the only people who come back late 'nuff that coulda done it."

-Way to go, Sherlock. Yknow what would be awesome? How bout proof? How bout a logical sentence?

"Well, it wasn't us."

-About this time, the Foybrarian's husband comes out to see what the deal is. Keep in mind that Travis is BIG and can be intimidating as hell. Travis explains how we didn't touch their sign and they should stay the hell out of our way. 

"yeah, well how bout this... Get the fuck out of here."

"Hey man, you came up to OUR place and raised hell, and I'm just here to tell you-"

"You say another word and I'm calling the MPs"

Travis shrugs and walks off.

"Fuckin West Pointers..."

-The parting shot. Doesn't wanna fight but is willing to snipe at a guy walking away just so he can have the last word. I wish Travis had broke his damn spine, balled him up and force fed him to his fat fucking wife.

Long story short, this little fucker is a piece of work - you can tell he sits down there stewing and grumbling till he's angry enough to come up and say something, but he's too much of a pussy to even be effective at it - what sort of a person wants to call the MPs over a paper sign getting torn down? How the hell could any detective be straight-faced in the presence of a guy who calls out over a sign, and directs to who he "thinks" the culprits might be. 

Long story short, between the great neighbors we got downstairs and the dialup I have, I really can't turn down the offer of a free house with cable modem. Save a lot of money, more room, covered place for my car in case it hails... The only downsides are security (will my car be there in the morning), having to go on and off post in the morning, and commuting time. Only catch to this place is that I have to help fix it up. Fine by me.

The Merc is still dead. Pick a parts places were closed by 4ish on Saturday, so we couldn't get that done. The pipe is still not here for the Mitsubishi, and I think it may be getting ready to launch the clutch soon. More money... Oh well.

 Porter Out. 

9/9/04

Absolutely nothing has happened, really since yesterday. I'm older and, thanks to the Army, not even a little bit wiser. Today we did a terrain walk where I learned that sometimes when you're on an observation point, you can't see everything. Thanks for the heads up, guys. I also learned that Army simulations use the same technology as Pac Man and Space Invaders. I play C&C Generals on my PC in my room, and then I play some sad dumpus completely non-intuitive crash-prone 286 version of Civil War Generals at work. WTF? The Army should stop paying Raytheon and Thiokol to make videogames for them and go to someone who knows something about it like EA.

What else...  Not a lot really. The Merc is still in drydock due to a massive hole in the radiator, and the Mits is still sounding like a rasped out Honda Accord because of the hole in the exhaust. Staples took more of my money today because apparently all the instructors have stock in the place. So far, I've spent more money at Staples getting crap like colored pencils and laminated sheets than I have at the Class 6. This is sad.

This weekend will likely be devoted to three things: Going to a parts yard I found, fixing this dumb brief I have to give this coming Wednesday, and cranking on the literary aspects of RPGX which thankfully is in full swing once again. The Noble needs the mental exercise; this mathemotatical coloring artillery crap is numbing my brain.

Porter out.

9/8/04

This is going to have to be the biggest update ever, and unfortunately because I haven't updated in something like 7 months it's big enough that I'll leave things out and gloss over things that were probably more important than they sound.

For starters, I graduated West Point much to everyone's surprise and the leadership there's chagrin. Nyahh to them. I won. Sorta.

The summer was fun, albeit much less productive than I'd hoped it would be and I suspect it could have been. I chased a girl, I fixed some things (I don't remember precisely what, but I did fix them..) I got drunk a couple times and Bob came over for a couple days. Hit Taste of Chicago, watched some movies and was generally just nervous as hell, which is how I usually am when I have people around my house/parents. No explanation or reason as to why, just am. All in all, having Bob around is a great time and was, in my estimation, the highlight of the summer for me.

In the end though, the whole summer thing ended rather abruptly and without any of the resolutions I hoped that it might've brought, sadly enough.

This leads to the next stage - OBC

FAOBC is, compared to other OBCs, a slight kick in the nuts. We're taught by a bunch of Marine Captains whose idea of a good weekend is touching up their high 'n tight and going through papers looking for people who might be cheating on the 5 point homeworks they adore assigning us. In short, they're fairly heavy duty dicks and treat us like PV1s more than commissioned officers. You don't believe? Here's an example. My gunnery instructor made us come back at 5:00 in the afternoon and SAMI our classroom for about an hour and a half because someone didn't lower their chair before pushing it under their desk. They didn't fail to push it in, just didn't lower it. Long story short, I pray for his flaming, painful death on a regular basis.

I bought a project car, finally, after 4 years of being unable to really work on cars at all. Her name is Christine, and she is a 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis. For those who don't have a mental picture, Christine is about twice the size of most modern cars, weighs a little more than a new Chevy Suburban and has an engine that is more than twice as big as the V-6 in my 3000GT. When it runs, it's like driving around in my family room. You could have an orgy in the backseat with a pair of girls with tourrette's syndrome and the driver wouldn't know. Right now, it doesn't run because Christine and Mitsie (the 3000GT) are having some sort of a contest to see who can drain my bank account first. Mitsie is winning by a landslide because anything that breaks on her is made out of Gundamanium alloy (laser sword cutters and giant flying robots) and has to be shipped from Kyoto.

Case in point - collector pipe for 3000GT = $309. Plastic air dam bit under the nose ~ $150. Christine in her entirety - $500. Basically, it just doesn't compare. When an exhaust pipe and a bit of plastic for one car equals the price you paid for your other car, you can tell which one is gonna make you poor first.

More updates on the Mercury as time progresses, though.

Lawton is the town around Fort Sill. I like Lawton, because all the main roads are lined with pawn shops and there's a dirt track next to the airport. I can go to a bar, get plowed and come back in a cab for around $20. My first night on the scene I met a girl who, when I was making out with her, entreated me to "get her pregnant". Seriously, folks, I couldn't make this shit up if I wanted to.

What else... Travis moved in with me, and has taken up residence in my computer room. It's a good arrangement. He got his car back, finally after like 6 months in Fresno for restoration. Truthfully, though, it looks to me like it was worth it because any time I look at the thing I pop a stiffy. Seriously, in terms of a sound/look/performance combo it's really hard to beat the Cutlass. Mean damn car: even with the stock intake and crap on it, we were running neck and neck with a new Mustang GT, which is a fairly serious car.

For now, that's about all. Life during the week is a bitch, on the weekend it's a blast. Overall, beats the hell outta school.

Porter out.