I came home, had some coffee with my lovely wife (who also made a fantastic sandwich for lunch), got dressed for work (which is never much of a challenge because I wear the same thing every day - not a lot of "style" choices in my line of work - "Which boots go with these ACUs? Oh, that's right, the tan ones."), and headed back to keep all of you safe and secure (or at least the 180 I prefer today) for yet another day. I hope you appreciated it. Be good, or maybe you won't make the list tomorrow!
Monday is always the day we PMCS (Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services) our military vehicles. Basically, it consists of finding your humvee and going through the checklist to make sure everything is still working good and not leaking. No one ever has enough of the actual checklists, so most people just do it from memory - and their memory sucks. I downloaded the manual to both my Kindle and my Droid so I could still do a good PMCS. I prefer to use the Kindle because its a bit bigger, but in a pinch, the Droid will get the job done. Anyhow, as I reached for my Kindle once I got to work, I realized I had left it at home. Damn. My Kindle is like my security blanket - it keeps me company and I know that I can always count on it. It's my notebook, my entertainment, and my last resort for communication - it is my safety net. And I left it at home.
I managed to get through the PMCS without it - checking the tires, the oil, the air filter, and everything else on the Humvee. I always get a bit leery when checking the parking brake because the test is to put the Humvee in drive and make sure it doesn't move. Soldiers always stand in front of the Humvee and if the brake fails, they could get injured. I suppose it would be good to warn them, but they probably wouldn't believe someone was actually going by the book anyway, so what's the point. The parking brake works fine in my humvee. My drive belt is frayed and my batteries need some distilled water - but because the mechanics don't have any of those things around, they never get fixed.
Once the humvee was done, we still had to hang out - why? I don't know, but we do. I think it's to make sure people stay and do a good job. Around 11:00, I headed back to the office. Mondays aren't usually too stressful, and this morning was no exception. I checked my emails, answered one, and then tried to figure out where exactly to start training my replacement.
After awhile, I decided to go over to main post to see if I could get my tires replaced. I have Bridgestone Dueler REVOs with a 50k warranty. I have 32k or so on them, so I went to the Firestone dealer to see what they could do. They can give me the remaining mileage as a percentage off - which brought the price down to about $750. I know I can get comparable tires for less - at Discount Tire - so I passed. Now I found out that Discount Tires also sells the REVOs, so I may try and get a better deal from them. If that doesn't work, I'll just go with the Hankook RF10s and call it good. Tires are so damned expensive! Although, I guess the fact that these REVOs lasted over three years and numerous trips across country, in all sorts of weather, and not always on the road (check the Flickr account for some of the fun times the tires have been through). They've been good tires.
When I got back to work, I warmed up my awesome sandwich and got back to work. We had to do a meeting at 1:30pm for a Counter IED brief and then a SwitchEx, MRX, CTE discussion. Basically, we're planning the upcoming team certifications and exercises for the companies - which is to say we're planning our own certifications and exercises because two of the three people doing the majority of the planning are taking Command of the companies they are planning for.
After work, I rushed over to Amber's second soccer game and watched as they lost 1-0. Their problem is obvious - all of their players play on the defensive side of the field. Their forwards don't stay forward and let the defenders and mid-fielders do their damned jobs. The girls bunch up like Kindergartners, but don't run as fast. The poor forwards are running the length of the field over and over again and so have no energy to do anything with the ball once they do manage to get somewhere near the other goal.
Finally, I made it home just in time to take Cody back to WalMart and get his glasses. As we were pulling out of the driveway, we saw the UPS truck coming down the road. I told Cody that the UPS truck had Amber's phone - and I laughed. About halfway to the store, I got a call from Sarahann. In the background I hear a moaning/wailing noise. She tells me I need to talk to Amber. Amber gets on the phone and is making some sort of strange noise kind of like a Jewish mother at the wailing wall in Jerusalem. She says something about getting her phone, which I tell her is definitely a traumatic event. She was upset because although she had her phone, she couldn't do anything with it until I activated it. I laughed and laughed and laughed. She bawled and wailed. I even sent very special tweets (via twitter) to make her think I was going to be out even longer! Mwhahahaha. When I got home, she was composed again and I activated her phone.
Today I also learned that Woot.com has great customer service. I don't buy much from them, maybe one thing every couple of months, so when I ordered some headphones, I forgot to make sure my address had been updated from Montana to Washington. When the headphones didn't arrive, I checked the tracking number and found that they had been delivered - to Montana. I emailed woot.com and explained the situation and told them that I may have given them the wrong address. What did they do? Tell me I was SOL? Nope. They said, ok, no problem, we'll send another set out right away - to your new address. What great people.
You know what I heard about today? "Safety Dogs." Apparently, regular hot dogs are just the perfect size to choke kids. Now some politician is going around saying that whoever comes up with a "safety dog" will be able to make a hefty sum of money on it. Safety dogs. Really?
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