It's not just a job,

it's a job that is amazing at screwing up my weekends.

When a battalion-wide, nobody-leaves-till-everyone-pees piss test was annouced shortly after 1800, it was not a cheerful moment. I got home only moments ago.

Worst part was, the hour or so spent waiting on the few people who were having some sort of issue with producing the appropriate amount of urine. Made me want to rip their kidneys from their bodies and wring out the required 30ml.

And in other thrilling news...

When I fired up my email here at the airport (let's hear it for the Columbia, SC airport and its free wireless!), guess what showed up in my inbox?

We have received and verified your recent order. There is nothing that we will be able to tell you about the order until we have input all orders received ahead of yours into the system. Your order will now advance to our sales area and from there to our shipping area. Please note, that unless otherwise listed, our order to ship time is 30 days. You will receive other emails as the order progresses

.
From my buddies at the Civilian Marksmanship Program.

[insert Happy Dance here]

Now, the only thing is, until they process my order and I see some details, I don't know which carbine I got. There were only 540 Saginaw S'G' service grades available, so I asked for one of those or a Saginaw S'G rack grade or a Saginaw service grade. Any would make me happy, but I am curious.

Just so long as I was clear and only end up with one. Funding one carbine is tolerated, but funding three might mean I'd have to sleep in the back yard.

FREEEEDOM!!!!

With one final, drawn-out, tiresome ceremony, my class ended this morning. Of course, yesterday night being the last night at a military class, many cheap beers were consumed.

The only thing more irritating than sitting through a drawn-out tiresome ceremony is doing it hungover. Ugh. You think we'd all learn that, but it seems to be one of those lessons that doesn't take.

Now I'm sitting back at the airport waiting on the flight home. It's a drill weekend, so I don't get to toss the boots into the closet quite yet, but I am looking forward to not sharing a bathroom with strangers again for a while.

Three days more

til Revolution, we shall nip it in the bud...

Sorry, getting my Army crap mixed up with Les Miserables. Anyway, it's three days more, and then there won't be a revolution, but I will get to leave. Which will be nice, because this course is like one long bad joke.

Question: What is the effect of a nuclear blast on communications equipment?
Answer: Adverse

No - I don't really get it either. But for some reason, being here for two weeks is career-enhancing. Ugh.

The other thing I've learned is that some of us might think it was really simple if we had all our texts in .pdf format, and all the exams were open-book. Shockingly easy. But we'd be only partially right, because that assumption rests upon the stipulation that one can use the search function. Which assumes that one can spell.

We had one dude today who couldn't find the four "types" of something-or-other. Only after about five minutes did we realize that was because he was searching for "tipes."

Your tax dollars at work, folks.