"The reason the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices it on a daily basis." from a post-war debriefing of a German General
Name:Kevin Country:United States State:Virginia Metro:Culpeper Birthday:2/17/1967 Gender:Male
Interests:Reading, sports, history, traveling, meeting new people, working with kids, working out, horseback riding when I get the opportunity (which I haven't had in a while). The pic at the left is of me and the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile. Expertise:Military Bueracracy (sp?), working with teens, Current Events, Military History. Occupation:Military Industry:Government
Nope, it's not anything cool like cars or guns, or even comic books (well, I do have a small collection of those.....and I do have a 200 book library, but that's another story), I seem to collect nicknames. I've gotten another one now. It seems my new nickname is......(wait for it.....I'm trying to create suspense....dun dah duh) "SKIDMARK". So how did I get that one, well, to make a long story short, I was with some friends a couple friday's ago and we were playing outburst. My word was "skidmark", the only clues that came to mind were: 1. Cars make them when they peel out, and 2. guys leave it in thier underwear....well, Chris, the other guy in the room immediately yells out skidmark....thus a new nickname is born.
So, it also seems that I've got 117 hours of leave that I have to take or end up losing it....that works out to at least 3 weeks almost. I'm taking the last two weeks of Feb off, that's a certainty. I'm thinking one week at least in Lynchburg and then One week visiting the fam in Md, maybe a trip up to Harrisonburg to visit the Aletheia folk as well. I'm looking forward to that. Have I said I love my new church also. Yup, Mountain View absolutely rocks.
Do ya hear that? That's the sound of relief.....or at least relief in 5 months. I did it. I turned in my retirement letter. I made it effective 1 June. Why 1 June you ask? Well, it allows me to bring the guys home from deployment and also time to find the next thing to go to. What made me finally do it? Well, I've been getting tired of The Guard for a long time, but things during drill weekend and after just pushed me over the edge. It's a very long story, and not that important, the result is that I finally made the decision. I don't know if they'll accept it or not, my personnel SGT wasn't in her office today, so I don't know if she's started the process or not. My job doesn't know yet, of course, if big brother reads this or someone in the Guard reads this and tells someone in my chain of command at work, well, they'll know then. I want to wait until I actually have the retirement order in hand before I tell them, and then I may just wait. They may get a bit trifling and force me out of the job before I'm ready to go. If they do, well, I guess I may have a back up with my other unit, but we'll see. So what do I want to go to? That is a very good question. I spent New Years at Liberty University for Winterfest and sat in on some of the break out Youth Leader meetings and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed actually learning. I'm seriously thinking about returning to finish a degree, maybe as a full time student again. I just know that my future just opened up in a big way.
So it's been a long while since I've last blogged. I've actually missed it. Can't really explain why I stopped, kind of coincided with me taking a spiritual sabbatical.....ok, I got spiritually lazy. I'm rebounding, and I've come to the conclusion that blogging is actually theraputical in a strange sort of way. So anyway, I'm thinking I'm going to blogging more these days. So stay tuned.
Whew, it's been a long time since I last blogged. It's been a crazy month. I thought being the rear detachment NCOIC for my company would be pretty easy, but I spend more time on the road than I do in the office. It wouldn't be that bad, spending so much time on the....but my State HQ is about a month behind in reimbursing on travel vouchers. Yeah, so I have 2 credit cards tapped out thank you very much. So I'm on the road this afternoon, and I was planning on what to write for my blog tonight, and then I spent an hour and a half on a conferance call tonight, and completely forgot everything I wanted to say. I will say this though, I think it would have been easier to deploy to Iraq than it would be to stay behind as the Rear Detachment guy. I'm pretty much the Detachment commander, however, I don't have the rank to back it up. The cool thing is, because of my wierd status, I can pretty much do whatever I want almost. Here is what I'm pretty much responsible for:
Yeah, I'm an E6......I think I need a promotion. That's pretty much what I remember, there's more....oh so much more. I sometimes feel like I leave work and my head wants to explode, or half the time I feel like I'm dropping the ball or forgot something or failed to do something. Urrghh. Yeah, so, at least, I have job security, because there ain't a whole lot of people that would be willing to do my job for the paltry sum that the National Guard is getting away with paying me.
So, I moved. I'm now living in Culpeper, Va. It's about 1 hour and 10 minutes south of Winchester (where I still work a couple days a week) and 45 minutes from Fredericksburg, VA. I gotta say, this is the coolest little town around. It's got a very comfortable feel to it. I'll have to take some pics of Old town Culpeper because they have some cool things here. I ate at a little cafe on Monday called "Its about Thyme" and IT WAS AMAZING!!! I ate a roast duck cassarole. And I must say that Donald was yummy...or as Rachel Ray would say, YUMMO!!! I'll have to take some pics and post them....that is if I ever have time. I had drill last weekend with my Ft Pickett unit, and this weekend is drill with my job. Well, sort of. I have to take a physical on Saturday. It's an over 40 physical. I have to get the finger. Just the thought makes my cheeks clench up. Then the end of the month, I have a week long conferance in Va Beach. Well, if I have to go anywhere, VA Beach is a great place for a conferance. Well, there's more, but I'll keep it for another day. I promise I'll keep up.
Oh, and the oops part....cue Britney Spears song "OOPs I did it again".......I re-enlisted......but only for a year. I figured if I wanted to keep my job, I had to re-enlist. so there you go
. Just the thought makes my cheeks clench up. Then the end of the month, I have a week long conferance in Va Beach. Well, if I have to go anywhere, VA Beach is a great place for a conferance. Well, there's more, but I'll keep it for another day. I promise I'll keep up.
