Dearest April,

Only one more night. Today after I woke up I went home and started moving stuff from the basement over to the new place. I moved a seat, the fish tank, two boxes of wee-wee pads, and the Wii and all the accessories. I was going to do another run, but it was such a gorgeous day that I decided to take Bella out to the park instead. We went over to the dog run that was close to Fort Hamilton. Today, she appeared to have done much better with other dogs. You know how in dog runs sometime you see a few of them chase down one unlucky dog. Today Bella got to be the chaser and chasee! Don't worry, I made sure there was no tackling or biting involved. She's absolutely exhausted right now and has been lying down ever since we got back.

Oh and guess what else happened today. For the first time, the cat sat on me! I know it's nothing special to you but she has NEVER done that before.

I'm going to run now. Tonight I am going to play poker in Brooklyn and probably end up staying there. Tomorrow morning I'll move some more pieces and then come back to Queens. If I wake up late I'll just come straight home. Chances are that means I'll probably come straight home. =)

<3

Dearest April,

I am so glad this that week is finally over. Not only do I need have to deal with Iron Mountain nonsense for the next two days but you will finally be home soon! Today was another fish feeding day and they have both been behaving very well. The smaller guy is somewhere in his tank but I don't have the energy to look for him right now. I'm surprised I'm still even up filling you in on the latest. No doubt that anyone who watches my journal must be thinking what a fool I am in writing to you like this but I don't mind and hopefully you don't mind either.

The drizzle is finally over and as I was getting out of work the floor was completely dried up and the sun was coming out. Tomorrow I should be finally able to get Bella out and about. The car will still be in the shop so tomorrow I guess I'll go home and start moving some stuff over to the new place. First priority of course goes to the fish tank. I'll be able to get the Wii and continue looking for the cat box as well. I haven't called the super for the those extra keys yet so that's yet another thing I can do.

I hope you'll have fun tomorrow since it will be your last full day. The traveling day should be a chance to relax but I know that it takes a lot of work and energy to travel. Picking you up at some crazy hour sure will suck but it's well worth the suffering. Besides, I will have a surprise ready for you when you get back.

=)

Dearest April,

I'm worried about your fish. While feeding it last night I saw that it has a few bruise on its' side much like how a goldfish gets infection. When you get back you will need to add the whatever medication you use to help it heal.

Elizabeth came over today again. She got the drawer where the little fish tank used to sit on. She said that on Sunday she will be back for the big dresser. She's also interested in the piece sitting by the door under the clock. She didn't have her wallet so the polar bear is still here but I think she was interested. I don't have any plans this weekend so I can wait all day but hopefully not too long. The weather here just started turning and it drizzled for a little bit today so I want to get her out as soon as it drys out.

Today was another awful day at work. I felt really bad since I left Havard by himself. I had wanted to stay late and I truly didn't mind but I had already promised Elizabeth earlier that I would be home by 7 to let her pick the stuff up. The only thing that I'm thankful for is that tomorrow Scott won't be here. Days when he's not here are always extra nice. Even the drivers cheer when I let them know that the boss is not around.

The cat has been sleeping and nipping at me in the morning. I also finally figured out your stupid alarm clock. I keep hitting the knob and it kept saying 'off, off, off'. I was about to send it to the dog until I remembered that there were two alarms! Stupid clock.

Anyway I'll keep this short. Remember the day I told you I saw a toucan? I really did. It was this guy

<3<3

Dearest April,

Just when I thought that I would not hear from you I find a nice email surprise. I'm still amused that Winnie held onto MY camera for 10 seconds before dropping it and leaving a large crack on MY camera. However since you seem to love it so much I think you can keep it if you like. :)

Great food is so hard to come by these days. I have not been eating well lately. I've been thinking about a lot about how I can save up $$$ and one of the ways is to cut down those lunches I take at IM. I really can't wait until we move into our new place together and feed you all the hamburger helper you can possibly eat. I am not permitted to be banned from my own kitchen damnit! Bella has not touched her food at all. I hope Brandon has better luck coaxing her to eat than me. Knowing him though, he's probably spoiling her silly. I think in her mind anyone not Karl = friend. I can't wait until tomorrow when I can get back to your place and be with them again.

Anyway work today was crazy. One of my driver no call-no showed on me. I was more worried about him than anything else. It turns out that he didn't call me because he didn't expect me to be in since I was out all of last week; bastard! I was out on the road today which was a nice change of venue. I need to be out there every once in a while to experience the hardships that the driver face on a daily basis. I'm glad I did go out because the phones were going non stop today and poor Havard had to cover down everything.

Nothing new on the car yet which I brought into the shop on Monday. My warranty is expired so I'm going to have to fork out $$$ to get it fixed. I love the car but I really need to sell it soon. We have to get you a ride since you'll actually have a parking spot and not have to deal with the hassle of parking. Didn't you tell me once that one of the reasons you never bought a car was because you'd kill yourself trying to park in Rego Park?

Tomorrow before I swing by your place I'm going to try to move the fish tank over to the new place. Actually I can't. I left the keys to the place at your place. So, instead, I'll just eat banh mi.

Have a safe trip. Hurry home. We all miss you.

Dearest April,

I know you told me that you don't have access to the internet down in Costa Rica but I'm hoping you'll be resourceful enough to be able to work around that. What place these days don't have internet anyway? At the very least I hope this will entertain you at work once you get back. You have been complaining that I don't touch this journal anymore or how it use to make you laugh.

As you'll want an update on your babies I want to assure you that they are well taken care of. When I got back last night even though it was wet outside due to recent rain, Bella and I went out for a walk. We also went again this morning. She continues to give me that apprehensive look. I have been giving her extra attention but she still seems so restless. In order to keep an eye on her I brought her bed out to the living room. She patiently sits by the door no doubt awaiting your arrival. I'm hoping that Brandon will be able to do something nice for the next two days. The cat also well. As always she spends a lot of time loafing around not doing much of anything. Her new favorite spot seems to be one of the cubbies on your computer desk. I've changed the pad on the floor and made sure the fish are fed as well. The water is changed and when I return on Wednesday I'll make sure the plants are watered. I'll probably do it before I leave tomorrow morning.

You told me that the weather has been cold in Costa Rica. It has been pretty mild here these past two days and we've been able to go out without a jacket. Today after dropping Bella off I walked down to Forest Hill and spent an hour or two at Barnes and Nobles and picked up dinner at Johnny Rocket's; seriously overpriced! A burger and a shake came out to around $15! I don't think I'll be headed down that way anytime soon.

I found the 'letter' you left for me in the draw. I'm fairly confident that I won't need to open it so it's going right back into the draw once I finish with this. Seeing the letter for some reason makes me even miss you more and more. While overseas one of the reason I was never worried getting killed was that I was always by myself. I didn't have to worry about others or anything else for that matter. Now, with you gone for a mere 10 days, I still get that emptiness feeling every time I'm not thinking about something else or engaged in other useless activities. I hope you make it back soon. Look for more in the coming days.

Love and miss you lots.

April and I finally closed on out condo! Last week we had an email saying that they were ready to close in 3-5 days. I didn't pay much attention to it since we've heard lines like that for over eight months but when April called me up and asked about the money situation and that we were closing on Tuesday it finally felt real. Of course things never can never be that easy. Getting Tuesday off wasn't too difficulty even though I had to take a day off last week. I came in Tuesday morning to open up and get the drivers out and then left to get April in Jersey City. Anyway, the bank adjusted the amount of money that they were willing to loan us so we both had to fork out additional cash. We had the cash but it was spread over different accounts meaning and we were not able to get all the money out on time. Our only option, which we did not want to do at all, was to borrow the money from her sister. We ended up paying her back three days later but it was still something that we didn't want to do.

With the condo finally closed we began moving some stuff over; nothing big just some small pieces of furniture. We're still missing a few keys and we haven't see out storage room yet but most of it seems small now that the place is finally closed. It really does feel like a huge burden has been lifted. April began painting the place the next day while I started my four-day drill. This weekend's drill was a little different. Our unit and most of the New York City based National Guard units marched in the Veteran's Day parade. As always the 'hurry up and wait' concept was in full swing. Report time was at 5:30 in the morning and we were out in the city by 8:00am. Shortly after we arrived they kicked us out of the armory and had us wait outside for the next four hours. It wasn't too cold but it was certainly something that I wish that we could have avoided. When we finally did get moving it got a little better until we got to the end. Apparently, the return plan was for all Soldiers, all 1200+ of us, to take the train. Yup, so all 1200+ of us marched down 54th Street, closing it down in the process and then packed into the 6 train on 53rd Street during the start of rush hour. Needless to say it was a very 'interesting' experience. Considering the fact that we were all over the place and out of control, I'm still amazed that we all made it back in one piece without crushing anybody or getting lost.

The next three day the unit was up at Camp Smith conducting administrative stuff for deployment which they call an SRC. All the paperwork and medical stuff and other administrative stuff took all three days. Aside from the countless hour of waiting I was also stuck with the flu shot, a hep B shot, and an anthrax shot. I also got the cavity on my wisdom filled which I held off doing since I need to get all of my wisdoms out anyway. For the first time in a long while I took some medication; once for the monster headache I got after taking the three shots and then again today when the novocaine started to wear off. Not that I have anything against medication or I have some sort of pain fetish but I'd like to take them only when I'm really hurting so I don't get too used to going for that instant relief.

Rest of the stuff up tomorrow. I want to leave a day-to-day journal so I can keep April updates on her pets. It was really hard for her to go vacation without them so I owe her that much.

I don't know why I even still have this journal. It's been ages since I've been here adding anything meaningful and heaven knows when the next time I will be back. I don't know why, but it's still becoming more and more difficult to get back on here especially when you've been away for so long. Kinda reminds me of a class I took in college, a few actually. The ones where you show up for the first few days then disappear until midterm or a day or two before and then ninja out of existence again until the final paper is due and/or finals. You get so embarrassed walking back in cause everyone knows that you haven't been around at all. Yep, it's getting clearer and clearer now; the longer you're away the harder it is to get back in.

I'm surprised I made it this far. whew!

The condo is still not going anywhere. I'll leave it at that. I'm so tired of griping and complaining about it. Bottom line is, April and I got shitted on, tied up forty five thousand dollars for over eight months, on a place that still isn't ready to close yet. The next time we get a place we're putting in a time limit to close before we back out. We obviously didn't and now we're suffering the consequences.

Work has been work. I've been bumping heads with Scott way too often lately and it's come to the point where it's become counterproductive. Arguing with Linda was one of the reason why I pushed her away in my life because that was basically what we did when the times weren't good. I can't do that here; this is my freakin boss whom I have deal and work with on a daily basis. Even one of the previous supervisor said it straight to me. 'Kar', he says to me, 'The secret is to just go along with the system. You want me to write up so and so. I'll go ahead and do it. You want me to do this and that. Sure thing. When things go downhill and everything gets jacked up I just lay back and let them know exactly why it happened.' Now this guy isn't going to be the next VP but he is one thing and that is the most content worker I've seen in Iron Mountain. No amount of bullshit and other work related stuff ever phased him. At 4pm or close to it, he's outta there, completed or not. I need that right now; I want that!

I just recovered from the shortest flu I've ever had. On Monday I left work early since I felt like crap. I took Tuesday off and was completely sore and useless for most of the day and returned to work on Wednesday without too much trouble. Then I worked a 12 hour shift today and will probably have to come in on Saturday at which time I will get more boxes for April.

I'm also resolved to give my notification to end my service with the guard during drill next week. I'm tired of it and it's becoming more and more trouble. The only bright side is the AT next year is in Florida during March. It was a blast for the four days earlier this year even with the crummy C130 ride. Instead we're going to go commercial bus with a stop along the way. Don't ask me how it's cheaper to bus 300 something people, lodge them in a hotel somewhere, and waste close to a day of traveling instead of flying commercial and not waste a day. Yup, your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen.

Have a good one.

With the summer winding down and the temperature dropping down finally, I think it's safe to say that summer is finally over. I'm not looking forward to the cold given the fact that I think that high 60s right now feels chilly. Whatever I had from AT, almost a month ago, which has clogged my breathing is still with me. At first I thought it was just some allergies from the field or something field related, but it seems that I'll still have to invest in a few boxes of napkins.

This past month I feel so fatigued. Since leaving AT, there has been two drills separated by one weekend meaning I've really only had five days off since last month. Thankfully the next time I play army again isn't for another month so I should be alright by then. The 10 hour work days still wreck me but I finally returned to the morning shift making meaning I have SOME free time after work. What perfect timing too considering I am almost out of bridge passes for the Verrazano. What little I have left will have to be for the rainy days. Anyway Havard and I are pretty up to speed on the entire process so we can run the show with only each other. We can actually do it solo but it's painful and the 10 hour day suddenly stretches out to 13 or 14 hours which repeats indefinitely.

April and I continue waiting on the condo. It has now been almost, probably over if I really wanted to check, six months since we signed the contact and dropped the down payment. I continue to be grateful that April is as savy as she is with stuff like this. I personally don't think I would be able to stay on top of all the bullshit that gets thrown our way. This weekend we're headed back there for another look to see if they fixed all the items on our punch list as well as the leak that was in the ceiling. Frankly I don't care what damage the house was in as long as it's in top notch condition when we close and any damage that comes up afterward falls back on the seller. I'm hoping that I won't have to use the retainer lawyer that I'm paying for each month but this is exactly what it's for.

I managed to slip back to Fort Hamilton a few times though I didn't have a chance to talk to anyone there. Despite all the losses I've taken, the biggest being leaving a 100k job five minutes from home with banker's hour, I'm still standing firm. April still calls me a fool about it. =)

We're down to our last three days here at Fort Drum. Officially, all training was completed yesterday and the only thing left to do is clean up and get ready to depart. No problem; a solid plan in place and motivated NCOs and Soldiers all around. Unfortunately we ran into our first snafu with the weather. The nice sunny days from this weekend which worsened to jungle humidity has finally turned into a monsoon like rain this morning. It actually started around 5am~ish waking me up. And as I laid there thinking about whether the new tents would keep the water out (which it did thank God…) the rain started letting up. Figuring it was probably the best time to get up I made my way over to the TOC and five minutes after I get in, the rain starts coming down again trapping me here with no wet weather stuff. No worries, I’ll just wait here until the rain lets up again or better yet, wait for my Soldiers to come down this way and head to chow.

Weather aside the past few has been going pretty well. The battery returned to the HEAT training which sounds hot but has nothing to do with heat at all. Instead it simulates a vehicle rollover which appears to be a big killer downrange. Heaven know we have enough to worry about with the enemy trying to kill us, no need to add accidents to that list as well.

What else, what else…there were plans to meet up with one of my LJ buddies stationed up here at Drum, but time conflicts didn’t allow that to happen; maybe next year or maybe when they finally get a chance to come down to NYC to see the….trains? 

Have I mentioned how incredibly bad the chow here has been for the previous few days? Army chow isn't noted for their taste, flavor, or, come to think of it, anything else. But usually after a long hard day of work, almost anything warm is welcomed. So if people starts saying that the chow is awful there must REALLY be a problem. The only thing I can say about that is that there will only be two more of these meals. I saw tomatoes being chopped up this morning so maybe they'll serve the tomato stew or stuffed tomato that was actually good which they served at Blanding.

With all the craziness happening at work, I almost forgot what it was like to be in the army. I was looking forward to getting away for the two weeks, to do something different basically, it has turned out to be mixed so far. The first few days was we were covered in rain turning the site into a mudfield. The new tents that were issued worked surpringly well though it is a little tight in the inside making dressing and undressing a challenge twice a day.

Being in command still continues to be the highlight of the national guard so far. I look at the officers, most of whom are back from deployment, stuck in staff doing a lot of administrative nonsense. Being out in with the troops leading, managing, and directing, makes me almost want to stay in. More on that in a second...

Anyway, training is coming along very nicely especially with the last few days being dry and sunny. Breaking out of the norm, we started marching everywhere instead of bussing around like how we've always been doing it. Most of my Soldiers seem to be able to hang along fine but there sure are quite a few number of them with sore feets. Life here has been an improvement from last year mainly in the form of a dedicated shower point that's open all day and night. Last year it was a heartache trying to get my guys clean which seriously hampered morale. Most of the field training is finished and for the rest of the time we're here we have a lot of classes and some rollover training and driver's training. I'm real excited about being here but in the same sense I'm ready to go back, take a shower, sleep in a bed, cuddle with April, play with the cat, etc.

The upcoming deployment has been on my mind recently. The brigade commander spoke to us and pretty much told us that the deployment is immenent. 2011 appears to be the target date with a slight chance of it being delayed a year. April and I always talk about this and right now I'm on the fence. April is correct; I do love being here (from time to time at least) and the money will be great which would help out with our mortgage. The thought of being away for another year though is unbearable to me. More frustrating is that the army seems to always happen at the most inconvient time. Right now for example, if I was not here I'd be able to help April finilize the condo, which could have closed this week, but instead now we won't be able to do any of that until I get back. It's unfair especially on her. She already does so much. She understands that this is not intentional, it's just circumstances, but that doesn't make it any better.

Yeah, dying, would be in there somehwere as well...

I have some pictures which I'll upload when I get back. The rest of the time here should go by pretty quick and hopefully the internet access will remain stable. Gmail and AKOmail really goes a long way.

Usually, I'm not a big fan of annual training and this year should have been no different. For the third year in a row we find ourselves back at Fort Drum in the same crappy location we were two years ago. We're also there two months later in August, dead of summer, instead of the usual June timeframe. However I've been so bogged down here at work that I'm actually looking forward to it just so I can get away from here for a while.

And such a terrible time for me to go away as well. April got a call from the lawyer stating that they were ready to close by next week! Of course tha won't be happening anymore since I won't be here but more importantly I wouldn't want April to do everything by herself to include the move and all the other administrative nonsense that goes along with it.

Other than that, the summer has been pretty quiet. I'm looking forward to celbrating April's birthday and getting away for from the city. Last year I almost peed myself taking her on a hot air balloon so this year we're going to keep our feet on the ground. No spoilers just yet since she does occasionally scan through this journal.

The rainy June has finally lifted and July has been turning out to be very nice. A few weekends ago April and I managed to get away down to the south shores of New Jersey to Cape May for our first vacation of the summer. Granted it was only for a short weekend and I probably spent more time on the road than actually on the beach it was still worth it to go somewhere with her. She's headed for Costa Rica this November with Winnie since I guess she got tired of waiting for me to actually get some vacation days. Come November I'll actually have some days and I'm guessing that she'll be good for a few months before disappearing again from her job. That's the one thing that i wished any of my job had; four weeks vacation a year.

We released some turtles that my mom were raising in Central Park's Turtle Pond. I didn't realize how difficult it was to take care of those guys and how dirty they get. As always, getting April to part with anything that's non-human is quite difficult and at times probably feels like a funeral. I'm sure you all know of someone who's the animal-fanatic; April's mine.

Not much more on this end. Since a lot of other people are doing it here are some totally random pictures which are long overdue. Enjoy. =)

Koi in Washington



Bella; April's dog



Turtles in Central park's Turtle Pond



A red sunset from my house's balcony



A cherry blossom tree at Fort Hamilton

I'm about a month and a half into the new job and so far I've been really spending a lot more time than I like. My days average about 10-11 hours all five days meaning by the time I get home I usually only have two or three to myself before sleepy time. I've been trading a lot more personal time for sleep lately and I'm averaging about 5-6 a night which makes the day even worse. The odd thing is I can't even recall what exactly I do but I'm sure it's not very productive; computer and internet comes to mind.

On the topic of work, I've switched over from delivery and pickups to shreading. My new boss, Scott, a former army officer, has a terrific team. our numbers are awesome daily and it's quite rare for us to miss any stops as opposed to the d&p side which averages quite a number of misses. In their defense, it's not really their fault considering the crazy amount of stops, the limited number of drivers, and the unexpected time that they are expected to complete all their stops in. I've been on enough route rides to know that the computer can't factor in all the stuff that the driver has no control over.

April and I are really excited now since the condo seems to be moving again. The three months lull since signing the contract has really driven us crazy especially with the interest rates rising again. The bank has finally, I think, approved us for a loan and promises from the condo said that it should be ready later this month though how realistic that is is suspect.

So it's been a little over a month since I started the new job. Since then I've really been racking up the hours averaging anywhere from 9.5-13.5 hour days. For the most part it's only becuase I've been helping Tim on a special project that's been keeping me here. For the last three weeks straight (with the exception of one day in which I came down with something bad and took a half day) I've been out with drivers collecting data to help improve the routes. This past Thursday I finally completed the last trip so hopefully I'll get some office time in and start my formal training which was delayed.

Much like my old job, big changes are the norm in Iron Mountain. Originally I reported to Tim to work on boxes and files; this week I found out that I'm moving over to Scott and the shred department because one of the supervisor is moving over to another location to start a new position. The details are sketchy so hopefully I'll fill it in as I find out myself.

Other than that, it's been pretty quiet. Fishing in Central Park and Kissena Park these past few weeks, once each, yielded no catch. Hopefully with some decent hours coming soon maybe I'll be able to get back to the piers which I was more successful with last year. During one of my ride along I saw a nice place over at Jersey City so I might try that out.

What a busy month! On the same day that I cleared out of the office at Fort Hamilton, April and I hopped on our flight to San Fransisco for the long overdue vacation. We had a terrific time seeing the city and the surrounding areas. Aside from the two hour delay at the airport heading there I really have no complaints and wouldn't even mind moving out of here to head west if there are any future opportunity there. As usual, April has all the pictures with her fancy cameras so until i get them from her (or when she gives them up) it's going to be a little vanilla. I know I still haven't gotten anything up from Washington from last month either.

I'm very excited about the new job. To be finally out of the military and back into a 'normal' routine. The hours are long, much longer than anything I've done with the military and the pay is 1/3, but it still feels so much better. I don't know what it is, but there was just something about the civilian side that makes it so much more relaxing. As I said, I average 10 hour days right now, but I don't feel the pressure to go, go, go as I did two weeks ago. The people are friendly and it feels good not having to deal with rank; a necessity in the military. Of course there are your weaker people whom I will need to deal with on a day-to-day basis in a fashion that is very un-militaristic but I look forward to it. ROTC selling point has always been that the leadership and fortitude that you pick up in the army makes the civilian life a breeze and it does a little bit. There are a lot of stuff here that people get away with, silly stuff for the most part, and once I settle down, I plan on fixing some of them up.

This week I am on the night shift. As part of my training program for Iron Mountain I'm working with all the different sections to get a better understanding of how everything works here. There are so many moving parts here and Tim, my boss, told me that if you can make it here in Jersey City, the busiest Iron mountain location in the entire North America, you can make it anywhere. I do see the craziness but it certainly doesn't feel overwhelming. Let's see how this rolls along as the training continues.

Amazing how quickly motivation levels can drop when you're getting out of a job. I don't think I got anything useful accomplished at all. I made it out to the airport on Tuesday to work (or wrap up) the break rooms with the terminal with no success. As Frank predicted, those people are going to give you the runaround worse than trying to get tech support with dell.

Things have come to a halt with the new house. The condo still does not have the certificate of occupancy which in turn is holding up the loan for the bank. In the chance the bank decides to call and check on the employment, they might have a raised eyebrow when they find out I am switching jobs.

Tonight will be the last time I play volleyball with the task force. Our first game at 5pm will be followed by happy hour at 6pm concluding with another volleyball game at 7pm. (unless we beat the #1 team who has been undefeated so far) It's going to be very interesting...

I got the new job!

In a little over two weeks I'll be back in the civilian sector. The last time I took home work paycheck not from the military was almost 10 years ago when I was back at Hunter College working at the registrar's office. The offer letter came last week and after some paperwork and a drug test you're now looking at the newest transportation supervisor. Is the pay going to be a monster drop? Yes. Will I have to pay $18 in toll daily? Yes. Am I probably going to work longer hours? Yes. But in the end it's all worth it to finally start the first, and the biggest, step out of the military. Over the past year I've gotten way too comfortable on SAD and even though we were good until next year, I can't pass up the opportunity to finally have a career rather than a job. I'm so excited and a little worried considering I have no idea what's in store.

But before that, I left a week between my last day at Fort Hamilton and my first day with Iron Mountain. That means April and I can finally have our first 'real' vacation. No family like Aruba and more than an overnighter like Washington, we'll be spending five nights and five days in San Fransisco. I know she loved it there and since I've never been to the west side except for Fort Lewis up in Seattle, it's the perfect trip. I know she's really excited that since we talked about the plans yesterday, she already got us a flight while I picked up a hotel. Things are going up, up, up, just like the stock market!

Camp Blanding, the drill last weekend in Florida was ok. It definitely beat working on common warrior tasks which we've been doing for the last three months. The only real complaint I had with it was the fact that we had to fly C-130 down to Florida. I can barely sit still on a commercial plane for hours at a time much less a plane that has no seats and runs so loud that you need ear plugs just so you don't go deaf. This weekend I'm up in Saratoga Spring doing more guard nonsense. April has been really down that I've been away for two weekends in a row, but at least I'll get out by tomorrow which means we can still salvage Sunday.

Current Mood: happy

I'm glad I took that trip to Washington with April. Even though the drive was very long considering the stops we made it was well worth it to go on our first 'vacation' for what seems to be ages. As magwana predicted, it was an absolute madhouse that weekend with just about every space available covered with tourists, dogs, natives, runners, buses, and anything else you can think of. The traffic there was worse than anything I've seen in NYC that weekend. I still have no idea how we found parking right outside the basin area.

Aside from the obvious crowdiness expected, the weather was in the high 50s topping off in the 60s, but it felt much worse since the wind was especially strong that weekend. Of course silly old me decided to go in shorts, which for the most part didn't bother me much but around 5:30 when April said she wanted to wait for the sunset (since she borrowed her sister's mega expensive camera) it meant lying around for an hour and a half in shorts, on the grass, in the wind....yeah you know how that's going to turn out; BRRRR!

Dinner was another trip itself. A 17 mile drive to Joe's Crab Shack, the one that advertises here on TV in NYC but doesn't actually have any here, turned out to take about an hour after getting lost with a GPS which also included multiple wrong turns. The food itself was not impressive at all and to top it off, I left my credit card there and had to cancel it the next day.

Sunday morning, we were at the Washington Arboretum for more picture taking and basically just getting away from the crowd of the inner city. The wind died down thank God and the day was definitely much more enjoyable.

And then it's back to work. Work has been the absolute worse lately. I don't think I've ever felt so frustrated at work even during the worse times in Iraq. Two long days out on mission and I ended up with a cold that's just about running its' course. I think I passed it on to April this past weekend because on Sunday she came down with something and now she's feeling all crummy. The start of the new week hasn't done much to improve the situation; it's actually worse. Today, Frank was extra annoying and for the first time, I considered quitting. It didn't happen of course and April said I only felt this way because I'm THIS close from sealing the deal with Iron Mountain.

I really hope they get back to me soon because I can't wait to be done with this. I'm almost looking forward to going away for federal later this week. I was also looking forward to going to the TAG's conference next week which gets me out of the office for two days, but then I remembered that Frank will be there too. =(

Pictures on the way...

Current Mood: annoyed

This week is turning out better than expected. Frank is gone for the day and won't be back until Monday. The office is practically a ghost town with nearly everyone out on federal this weekend and this weekend I'll be in Washington with April getting some long overdue R&R time. I dropped the car off two days ago to get it cleaned and change the oil and break pads just to be sure that we're ready for this weekend. The squeaking bothered me some and I didn't need anything happening with a long drive ahead. Right now the plan is to leave early Saturday and return whenever on Sunday. I know it's not a vacation but it's still better than nothing.

No luck on the job hunt. Iron Mountain continues to be a no-go and I just turned down interviewing for the NSO positions after I confirmed that the starting salary was only going to be 40k and there was practically no advancement possible because there was no turnover in the management. I think I could have made it with the 40k if I liked the job enough but the no advancement sealed the deal. Tomorrow, or probably later today, I'll have to start getting series with it again. Seems like I'm on and off when it comes to this.

On Monday, I begin the process of getting the wisdoms out. My initial consultation is at 330PM. April recommended the dentist. Fun times ahead...

This 'week' just doesn't seem to end...

Last week we started the practicing for 'Vigilant Guard', an exercise of how our troops would deploy to Puerto Rico and help them out if they were ever hit by an earthquake. Two 12 hour days last week and another two this week (today and tomorrow) is helping the staff out but really burning us up. It didn't help that this past weekend was a drill weekend either. Another 12 hour day followed the drill weekend because Frank was off. Oh check this out; because the JSTC class was on Saturday and Sunday, those who attended got two days off being the Friday before and the Monday after. God, I just love how the federal/state system works; the person taking the day off makes more $$$ than the person who actually works that 16 hour day. YES!

This weekend April and I are off to a wedding somewhere in Pennsylvania. I can't believe that this past Sunday was our one year mark. She said she understood that we didn't do anything since I came back exhausted after the drill. I was stumped on what to get her and advice from friends leaned toward typical jewelery, bags, watches, and other typical stuff. I was pretty sure she wasn't interested in any of that stuff so I took a risk and bought her a Wii and the Wii fit which she mentioned was something she would have liked but never bought. Turns out that she loved it but right now it's sitting in my room since we decided not to break it open until after we move into the new place.

The condo front is moving along nicely. The contract is signed and the money I had put aside for the downpayment is finally with the escrow company. Once the builder gets the letter of occupany and finishes up the minor details we should be able to do the walkthrough and get the closing started. I can't wait!