June flippin 1st!

June!! Has a very wierd ring to it. Half a year lost it seems...My first official day of no longer working and best of all, no weapon, or I mean, walking stick! I turned it in yesterday, spent about 90 minutes cleaning it, to see the armory person stamp my outprocessing sheet and say, "you're good" a huge weight has been lifted. Basically for four months it's having the responsiblity of a parent for something that you have zero emotional attachment to. The constant worrying when you weren't working, "where is it?", at work it was fine because we had the weapon case but going anywhere else, it was with you, the straps pressing against your chest and back, the bulkiness, hitting it against things, to not have to feel this is so liberating! haha
I guess the base was attacked last night, I was in such a deep sleep the alarms and everything were a blur, I guess that's why they want you to not where earplugs, so you can be ready to jump right up. I would never sleep if I didn't have the ear plugs, but it's times like this attack thats kindof scary, I could be asleep and never wake up. Like I've said before, It's a big base, it's like throwing a grain of sand and expecting to hit dead on.
It is great to not have the worry of getting sleep in the back of my mind. It's 8 pm the latest I have been up since AlUdeid. I'm just tired of going to bed at 3:30pm, I'm done with it. But with it comes a lot of adjusting, working out, eating, calling Gina. We'll see if I can get to bed in the next 30 minutes.
We had this Hail and Farewell ceremony, it is for people leaving but since just 5 aerial porters are leaving they combined it with vehicle maintnence at their building, which is a very long walk in 117 degree heat. I walk in 10 minutes before and see a bunch of strangers with the exception of the commander, wierd. Finally, Chief and Bales pop in, but no Shawna. I thought she told me she was going, we both agreed it was a pain for us now that we had the rest of the time off. I thought the guys from the terminal were coming, I'm almost glad they did not because it is asking alot, for them to come see us at this awkward location one hour after shift, they would've just been grumpy. The commander had us come up, spewted off some passenger processing statistics and thanked us. I purposely held off eating because these things usually have pizza, but they had just wings with no ranch, a fruit basket, and cake. I was dissapointed there was no pizza, the pizza here is actually pretty good.
I was talking to chief and Bales and now we aren't leaving until Sunday, but I will double check tomorrow with the logistics guys, we could try to sneak off on a plane to AlUdeid friday, I mean, we work at the flippin terminal, it's a given we could work the system, but then the logistic guys get ticked because they book you on specific flights that the military pays for, it's going to fly whether we're on the plane or not, but really, here AlUdeid, it's the same gig, desert, hot, and waiting to get on our flight home. Might as well stay here, at least the tent I'm in is partitioned.
I was reading in Afghanistan how in the future everything will be dictated by how much it is going to cost. There are positive reviews on progress we've made but then something they mentioned jumped out that isn't surprising at all but just makes me just annoyed. Building the Afghan military is going to cost 6-8 billion per year to operate and maintain, yet the entire government makes only 1.5 billion per year, can you believe that? I remember I was taking one of my teaching classes at ASU in 2005 and one of my classmates was an EOD there (remember then our focus was Iraq) and he said the country was in dire straights, that the infrastructure was basically 19th century. I asked how long would it take to get them caught up and he simply answered, "decades," and this was coming from a 24 yr old. So the big question is, if we are pouring money into their military, which I'm not saying is bad, there are definitely factions of radical Islam that want to turn the country back into a terrorist training ground, but....if it costs 6-8 bil to operate yearly and they only make 1.5, who is going to pay for the rest??? Like my 8th grade students love to say, "the government" but who pays for the government, yes you and me are going to pay for their military to operate, and this is long after we have departed.
It's so wierd seeing a totally different set of faces about the base at night, the MWR is definitely alive with different things going on, volleyball, spin classes, jujitsu, scrabble, pokergames I guess if you were working a 10 hr day you might even say it could be fun filled, but we never had that luxury. I actually ate dinner at the chow hall, a definite first. I wanted to just once, enjoy the wednesday steak and lobster night. Lobster was great, steak, uhhhh. Interesting who I see at 730pm there, Airman CL, what the heck is he doing there? He has to be at work in 4 hrs 15 min, hmmmmmmm, no wonder why he occasionally acts moody, he isn't getting enough sleep. That's what the old McGuire guys use to do, play videogames late and just assume they will get to sleep during work cuz the first six hours are always dead. I know CL is a DJ back in his civilian life and I've overheard him talk about mixing beats, he's probably on the computer mixing s--t up, but you know what? It's not my problem anymore, I'm sure if he was questioned, would not think it was a big deal....
I've tried the insanity workouts, they suck!! I mean that in a good way, they suck because they are so flippin hard, I'm dying!! And it's frustrating because I'm in shape, or at least I think I am, actually I am because I see people on the video totally struggling and dogging it. One girl in the workouts,the infamous Tonya, she has this animated cartoon face that is always pining for camera time, she really dogs it on her form, then when Shaun T comes around she picks it up and she starts making exhausted facial expressions, way over-the-top, a real kiss-a--! hahaha When you spend time by yourself alot like we all do here, it's easy to find the most mundane things amusing and funny