Nobody played

The answer to the quiz from the other day is the Chinese Water deer. Native to China this small deer averaging less than 50 pounds is one of the very first cervids. The distinguishing characteristic of this deer is it's lack of antlers on the males. Instead of antlers the male deer of this species have tusks, that's right, tusks. Their upper K-9 teeth grow out into large tusks which they use for fighting and determining the dominant males.

Other than that all is well in San Antonio. Karly will be arriving tomorrow. YAY!!!

Interesting

I was just looking at some of my archived pictures from past travels when I ran across one of the most interesting creatures that I have photographed. I don't know if I should ID this for you all or make it a challenge picture. I think I'll do the latter and you can tell me (though I think the name of the animal is in the file name but try not to cheat). Anyway, if you look at the lower jaw of this animal you'll see why its unusual.

Class has been a whole lot of fun!!!

Stuff's an junks
Happy Paul!!!
Life is good. Last week is over, and Karly's coming soon. YAY!!!
For the last 10 weeks we've averaged 1 homework assignment per week (huge responsibility). This last week I had 5 assignments and we had to prepare our first commanders brief. Needless to say I'm very glad the week is over. I also was assigned to run PT yesterday. That was fun.
We were all extremely sore from Cpt. K's PT on wed. which was killer so I decided to spend a little longer with warm up and stretching than usual but then we played 45min of Ultimate Frisbee. Keep in mind it's dark out while we're playing but we overcame the hazzard of having a high speed disk flying through the dark air by purchasing a cool disk with 2 LED's. It was not by any means a regulation disk but we could see it so it worked well. Some might say, oh playing frisbee, that's easy. Let me tell you, it ain't easy, especially when you've got a highly competitive group of in shape vets on the field. So far every time we've played a sport someone has gotten injured (usually a rolled ankle) but we always have a couple people who have the wind knocked out of them or get hit in the face... but it's great fun and a great workout. If you don't know about Ultimate, look the sport up, it's awesome.

New Countdown

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Holy, Holy, Holy

Lord God almighty. Praise the Lord for all he has done for my family, Karly and I.

Apparently a large hole was created in an upstairs wall at Karly and my new house in KS (thus the holy pun, wink, wink). We decided shortly after we purchased our new house that creating a master bedroom upstairs was a good idea. So we made a large hole for french doors to be placed between one of the rooms which had no closet and what was probably the former master bedroom thus making a bedroom/sitting room combo. The french doors will allow closure of the sitting room for heating and cooling purposes and to decrease noise while still allowing visual access and slight auditory access for a young family with a baby.

Now that the hole will be made and the framing put in we can proceed to carpet the upstairs so we can finally move in up there (yay). Not that it makes too much of a difference to me yet since I'm still in Texas but I'm very happy.

Last but not least we are signed up to have all of the windows in the house replaced with energy efficient tax deductible windows. The cost is pretty steep but I have very little doubt that the return in terms of lower bills, and resale will more than make up for the cost. Not to mention they will look better and it'll be nice to have windows that open upstairs.

Getting Closer

I have shown significant improvement every time I take the DAPFT. That's the point though, it's diagnostic so you can find out how you're doing. The story of my getting back in shape starts back in January after the wedding.

At Karly and my wedding I will admittedly say that I was significantly overweight. It was the first time im my life that I had surpassed the 200 mark on some scales and I wasn't happy about that. So starting three days after the wedding things were changing. Some of it was necessity, some happenstance.

It started with my ICU block. Four weeks of intensive stress and standing pretty much the entire 12 hour shifts. I was down to about 190 by the end of January.

Then I went to my active duty training. I had to workout because I needed to take my first DAPFT before leaving. At the end of the five weeks I was at 191, SU 42, PU 33, 2M run 20:43 of which none of these numbers are passing. Passing scores for my age are SU 50, PU 40, and 2M run 16:36.

Then came graduation. That was not good for my belly. By the middle of May I was back up to 195. But I was working out and doing my best to diet for the couple weeks prior to OBLC.

When I arrived at OBLC I weighed in at 190. The first DAPFT had SU 46, PU 42, 2M run 19:36. Yay I made significant improvement and passed the push up event. I didn't make weight yet at that particular moment but a couple of weeks later I weighed in at 178 which put me under the standard weight by 1# which makes me perfectly in compliance with army height weight standards.

Yesterday we didn't do height/weight but the DAPFT had some good results. I did 55 sit ups, 46 push ups, and a 18:10 on the 2M run. Hey, that means I passed 2 of three yay. I also improved my run time by 1:26 which is huge.

So I still have to work on the run but as the pattern shows, I will completely pass my APFT at Fort Riley. Then all I have to do is work for that 300.

On to buisness

Necropsy, necropsy, necropsy
What a lovely topic and wet lab to come back to. Nothing like cutting up dead animals to get you back on track. I shall spare you the details.

Tomorrow we start the day with a DAPFT. Have I mentioned I don't like running very much. I have to complete the 2 mile run tomorrow in under 16:36 which will be the challenge, especially since my knee is starting to get very painful. I may see a doctor about the knee soon, perhaps next week. I have a prior injury which was diagnosed as crushed cartillage in the knee, I can't remember wether it was one or both meniscuses but I'm guessing that the prior injury is related to my current pain which keeps getting worse. Oh well it will either get fixed and get better or be a chronic problem leading to a profile. Either way would be ok.

Karly's back in Kansas now and will be there till she comes back down here. If you really feel like helping her unpack, I'm sure she would take all the help she could get.

5+2=7

Yes, I can do math.
Those numbers are what I had to do for my unfortunate "leave on emergency". Five days with Karly and 2 days traveling. I love American Airlines by the way. I don't know who all has heard the story of our initial issue trying to get me to Wisconsin on Thursday. So I shall tell the saga here.
Day1 Tuesday: Karly calls with the bad news on her grandmother (this was the morning she hadn't passed on yet). I go and talk to LTC Grahm about what I should do and she sets me up for leave on emergency. That afternoon I discuss with the rest of the permanent party people what the options are on getting plane tickets for berevement after looking for tickets online and seeing prices like $650-750. The wonderfull NCO's get cracking and I go back to class. Five minutes later I get pulled out of class as one of the NCO's found a "great deal" with Southwest. What they found was $400 leaving on Thursday and returning on Tuesday. I was interested but since we still had no info on when the funeral was going to be it was hard to book. So we got a "reservation" which I needed to confirm by midnight.
I got home and found out that Grandma went extremely quickly when taken off of the respirator. There was a moment of silence and then we again began struggling with getting tickets for reasonable prices as the date of the service wouldn't be set until the next day. This posed a problem since the ticket price was only good till midnight and since the service estimate of time was "could be as early as Friday or as late as Monday". Since no official date could be arranged Karly and I decided to definitely get me there on Thursday and leave at the earliest on Tuesday.
Next we started looking at ticket prices and couldn't find anything else for the $400 range which left on Thursday. If I traveled on Friday it would be 350 but that would be too late so we started contemplating the Southwest ticket into Midway.
Then Karly looked at the map (ouch). It's about a 4 hour drive to Midway from Belleville, Wisconsin. Back to the drawing board.
We then started looking at flying into the area nearby my parents on Thursday and then they could pick me up and get me to Rockford to meet Karly. Hooray we find better deals especially into Decatur, IL of all places and Springfield, IL. Peoria and Bloomington were very expensive to fly into on that short notice.
Then We decide to start making phone calls to airlines and try to get a good deal that way. This began around 8:30pm. Karly starts with Continental and United and I get to try American and Southwest. We're on a goal to have me leave on Thursday and return on Tuesday or Wednesday. I hang up with Karly and get calling.
1st try American Airlines. I call the 800 number and go through the menu. So I decide to keep looking online while holding to talk to a representative. Finally after 20 minutes I get through to a gentleman with a low comforting southern drawl. At first I mention flying into Decatur because we had seen good prices online for that and wanted to know if we could get berevement for even cheaper. So he starts going through prices for there and nearby airports. I hear numbers below $400 so I'm thinking this could be a good option. Then I ask if there can be a military discount on top of the berevement and he says back to me "are you active duty" I say yes so he say's I think you're going to get a better deal with just the active military rate I repeat rate. Apparently, American Airlines has a rate for active duty military. It's independent of time so you could book the ticket 4 hours ahead of 4 months and it would be the same price. They have certain flights and a select number of seats to sell at the military rate so when they're full you're S O L on that day and have to pick another day (first come first serve).
I get the rate to Bloomington and it is good so I said well let's just try to Madison and it's even better so we go to book it and it's full on thursday (crap now where to go) so I ask about Milwaukee. Hey, that's even cheaper yet the voice over the phone says. I ask for availability and he says we can get you in on Thursday(great) how about leaving, he gives me two options 0545 on Tuesday or 0545 on Wednesday. I was initially thinking Tuesday would be ok but then recalled that the funeral could still be on Monday and that would be pushing it to get back from Waterloo on the night of the funeral and drive early in the morning the rest of the way. So I decide that Wednesday will be the best.
So in summary:
Flight out on Thursday(great)
Flight back at 0545 on Wednesday(OOOOOH dark thirty that's gonna hurt)
COST you wonder
With taxes and airport fees the total was $236.20
Let's do the math, first look price $750-final price $236 for a savings of over $500.
Have I mentioned that I love American Airlines.
AMERICAN AIRLINES is the BEST!!!:)

Shakespear (sp?)

To blog or not to blog? What a silly question. Certainly tis nobler to blog thy stories and maketh room for more. Aye, there's the rub, for in thy blogging dost thou find that thy stories are removed or perhaps only by releasing have thou made more room for scrutiny. What of this shall I say, that opening up your life through blog becomest habitual? If thou spreadest all thy life in print then dost thou actually have a life or is it none more than a series of perpetual typing.

Take thou not leave from blogging as to do so would be nought but succuming to the vassalry of the masses. As all have hearts and minds which yield fruitful thought and feeling, let it be known to the public. But be wary of what thou speweth as thine enemy lurketh nearby always cognisent of thy misgivings and trials, and willing and wanting to envelop thou in their miscreant ways.

Back to reality. (backdate to the 8th)

I have to return to Texas tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to leaving my wife once again but I know that I need to in order to complete my initial training and start my career.

I made it

I made it in yesterday without too much trouble. There was a 1 hour delay at O'hare which is par for the course. When we arrived at O'hare the Captain came over the intercom and said "stay in your seats with your seatbelts buckled until we tell you otherwise" and repeated it multiple times fairly forcefully/ So like good obiedient people we did as he said since we had no clue what was going on. So about 45sec after we stopped some TSA agents boarded the plane walked past me toward the back. They left a couple of seconds later with two in front of and one behind a passenger who was on the plane . Shortly after that the young man of about 18 was handcuffed. I have no idea what happened or why but it is kind of scary.

After that was the delay and then the happy. We spent the night at Beth and Josh's and this morning went to the New Glarus brewery to pick up some really good beer and then on the windy roads through Wisconsin to get to Iowa and then on to Cedar Falls where we are now.

The funeral is in the morning.

Reshaped and ready to fly!

I decided that my beret needed to be reshaped this evening. I want it to look good for the funeral on Saturday so I did the whole warm water, shave and shape. The cool thing about the beret is when you put it on after getting it wet, it fits absolutely perfect and looks great. But then you have to leave it on until it dries so it holds form (2-3 hours whew). That isn't fun but it's how you do it. Anyway, Karly's never been around when I've just shaped a beret so I took some pictures. What's unfortunate is that after it dries, being wool, it requires constant tugging to keep it correct and then when it gets really humid it seems to schrivel up (boo). So to make a long story short, I am still preferential to the patrol cap but since there is a commanders order to wear the beret on Sam Houston I must comply. I also have to have it ready and looking good because it is authorized for wear with the class A, B, ACU, DCU, and BDU.

So here's one of the pictures.

I WANT YOU for the US Army!!

A very Very sad day

I recieved word about ten this morning that Karly's grandmother had reached the terminal stage of renal failure. Grandma passed her spirit on to our Lord and savior this afternoon.

I will be joining Karly later this week

Grandma had a beautiful wonderful vibrant spirit and she will be missed by this world.