Without You

Do you all remember Kelly Clarkson? She has somehow managed to claw her way back from obscurity in the past week or so with a new song she has coming out. I didn’t think she would ever be back in the mainstream music scene, but I’m as happy as ever to be proven incorrect. I heard her new song on the radio this past week heading into work one morning and I must admit I liked it. It’s kind of catchy and it’s been stuck in my head for the past three days. I’ve tried to get rid of it by listening to other music to no avail.

The new Kindle is out! I really want one of these because I love to read but the process of buying books, reading them and then either finding somewhere to store them or having to sell them doesn’t appeal to me too much. If I had an ebook reader, I would be able to read a book and then store it on the computer where it doesn’t take up any space at all. I’ll have to save up my money and grab one of these. Everyone I know that has one loves it and really has started reading even more than they usually do. Also, if I could get a magazine subscription on that bad boy, I would be much more inclined to get a few magazines delivered to me every month. I just don’t like having all that paper hanging around after I’ve finished reading the magazine.

Speaking of magazines, I’m going to subscribe to a surfing magazine. I don’t surf and I don’t live anywhere near an ocean, but I have a great idea for the wall of my bedroom. Because I don’t want to have to repaint a wall in three years (I know, that really sounds lazy), I’m going to cut out pictures of waves, water and surfers (I like blue) and put them on some sort of wall covering that I can take down, fold up and take with me when I leave here. I think it’s my way of making sure I don’t get too attached to a single place because I know I’m out of here in about three years.

Texas

I’m finally back home and … it’s about the same as I left it. One of the people from work picked me up at the airport and took me back to my place. She just chuckled when we walked through the door and she saw my distinct lack of anything in the apartment. I’ve decided I’m going to go to the IKEA warehouse that’s near us one of the coming weekends and pick up some of the furniture I’ll need. That won’t bring the stuff from back at school any faster, but it will certainly make this apartment look like someone actually lives here.

Speaking of school, I got my diplomas in the mail. They came about a week ago, but they were too big to fit in my mailbox so the front office had them. Now I just have to find a frame to put them in or have one made. I was looking online and there is an enormous price difference between the single diploma frames and the double diploma frames. I suppose they assume if you got two degrees, you’ll be making a substantial amount of money and can afford it. If they only knew how wrong they were.

This week I’m planning on getting all my various appointments and finances worked out. I have a class to take in two weeks so this coming week is mostly going to be downtime. I figure I may as well take that time and make it worthwhile. Somehow I have to try to figure out where my immunization record is unless I have a particular desire to get around 20 shots all at once. If worse comes to worse, I can man up and get all the shots and then just tough out the aftermath.

I sat out on the patio tonight to help my Dad fix the Internet back at home which has been on the fritz lately. As I listened to the guy playing guitar and singing out by the pool I realized that this place is awesome. Texas is the perfect temperature for me!

Voluntold

Myself and two of my buddies I met in class up here in Ohio went up to London this past weekend to visit my Aunt and Uncle who live up there. It was about a five hour drive but it was completely worth it in the end because we had a great time with everyone up there.

When my Uncle was talking to me on the phone and we were trying to figure out what we would do while we were up in the great North, he mentioned tubing. When I said it out loud in front of everyone here in Ohio, every gave me a very bewildered look because we all thought the same thing. Why would anyone want to go tubing in a river when the weather is so darn cold and none of us brought bathing suits. We had a great conversation of confusion because it took us a good long while to figure out that we were both talking about different things. I was thinking he was talking about water tubing and he was talking about snow tubing. It must have been the language barrier.

After this weekend, the three of us are ready to go for one more week of learning before we all head back home to warm weather. The three of us are going back to Texas, New Mexico and Florida, so we all have sunny days in our future. Ohio is pretty flippin’ cold.

I got a 93% on my test on Friday which means I just have to pass the next test with a 75% or greater and I’m out of here with my Acquisitions badge! That’s just one more thing I have to get sewn on my uniform sometime in the next few days before I head off to ASBC.

I got word that I’ll be taking a SANS class when I get back to San Antonio and then ‘volunteering’ at a retirement ceremony for one of the people in my squadron. I’m going to have to get my Service Dress all fixed up and unwrinkled before I even attempt to put that on!

Mad River

This weekend was kind of hard because we had just had a weekend a few days ago. We went to a place called Mad River Run on Wednesday when the snow shut the base down and had a great time with $5 rentals and lift tickets. There was hardly anyone there because it was a snow day and there was at least 20 inches of fresh powder on the entire hill (I can’t really call it a mountain because I’ve seen backyards with more variation than this place).

The five of us that went had a great time and came back thinking we would go to school the next morning because, after all, this is Ohio and they are used to this kind of weather. Little did be know that we would have no class on Thursday either because of another 10 inches of snow. Throw in a two hour delay on Friday and we are really behind in the class schedule. The director has been saying we may have to extend to the day after President’s Day if we can’t get caught up and no one was any too keen on that idea. We’ll have to wait until after Monday’s test to see exactly what the rest of the schedule here looks like and if we’re going to be able to make up the lost time.

We don’t have any Internet here in the VOQ which seems absolutely ridiculous given this is 2009 and the Air Force is supposed to be the most technologically advanced military force. It’s pretty funny because it seems that this is the only place in Dayton that does NOT have wireless of some sort. All the restaurants have it and we found out today that a local service station even has wireless for their waiting customers. Come on VOQ, catch up!