Wow

This is one of the best things I have ever read: http://www.breatharian.com/breatharianism2.htm Thanks to the gentlemen at Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas (http://unfortunateideas.blogspot.com/) for making me aware of this amazing depth of stupidity to which I had no idea any member of humanity had sunk.

San Antonio Adventures

Well, instead of finding the alleged SuperTarget, what really happened was that I got lost in and around San Antonio for about 3 hours. I should maybe have a detailed road map of the area in my car for future reference. I did finally make it back to post, but without even having found the suburb where the store is supposedly located. I'm pretty sure the Target website made it all up with the complicity of Yahoo! Maps, simply in order to frustrate me.

In other news, we've been having rather boring briefings all week on things like equal opportunity and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The AC is broken in the building we're in, so we get to take off our BDU jackets while we're inside. I find this very nice, but ironic in light of the fact that we couldn't do that while stuck outside in the sun at Camp Bullis.

If my pass for the four-day weekend is approved, and it almost assuredly will be, I'm gonna head down to Dallas to see my sister and her family and go to the "Freedom Day Concert." I'm not really sure what that is or who will be performing, but it should be fun. I shall update later, y'all.

Camp Bullis --

or Camp Blister as I like to call it -- was not too bad. I saw interesting wildlife, got to shoot fun firearms, learned how not to get lost in the woods, and got to wear hot BDU's and lots of complicated gear all day.
I think I'm probably going to forget most of what I learned this week, except maybe for land navigation and weapons disassembly, but I can see why they taught it to us. None of it seemed atrociously nonessential. Here's a list of most of it:
1. 10 seconds is longer than you think it is, thank goodness.
2. It's difficult and frustrating to find and put on your uniform, boots, LBE/pistol belt, gas mask carrier, kevlar helmet and M-16 in the dark just to walk across the compound to the porta-john.
3. MRE's really aren't too bad.
4. Weapon accountability is more important than personnel accountability, meaning that your captain cares more about your weapon than he does about you.
5. Guns are less complicated than they look from the outside.
6. 9-line medical evacuation requests and the phonetic alphabet are idiot-proof, unless that idiot is a medical student. (No, it wasn't me.)
7. Ditto radios and field telephones .
8. A map that hasn't been updated since 1976 is only so useful in the woods.
9. The only thing hotter than BDU's in 95-degree heat is a full MOPP (Mission Oriented Personnel Protection) suit and gas mask over your BDU's in 95-degree heat.
10. Moleskin is worthless, but your feet will toughen up.
11. No matter how many times they're warned, some people will still get bitten by the slide on a 9-mm pistol. These are generally the same people who, for some unknown reason, cannot take apart or put back together the 9-mm pistol.
12. I look absolutely hideous in field glasses.
I think that's about it. All together, it was a pretty good week, and I passed everything except for land nav (walked too slowly, didn't have time to get to my last two points before I had to head back to base). After we got back and showered yesterday, most of my platoon went to a bar on the riverwalk, and I had quite a bit more alcohol than was really necessary, so it was a good evening. Right now I'm about to go find a Target. I'm hearing rumors that there's a SuperTarget nearby, and I've never seen one of those. If I find it, I'll let y'all know what I think.

Gone for the week

We pack the buses and leave for Camp Bullis tomorrow at 0430 and won't be back until Friday night sometime. I've been busy this weekend buying supplies like moleskin, a red lens for my flashlight, and a Camelback. I've also been working on my homework for land navigation. I can do all the map-and-protractor math, but I'm horrible at looking at the contour lines on a map and figuring out what kind of terrain feature they represent. Hopefully, I'll be able to get better at terrain association before they send me out on my own, or I'm going to get very lost.
Anyway, I'll update y'all on the fun times when I get back. For now, I have to finish my laundry and packing.

Hurry up and wait...

is the unspoken motto of the Army. In-processing took way too long today. Our commander was so angry (not at us, thank goodness) that I think he's actually going to fire someone.
In other news, my foot's feeling better, but my throat hurts because either shards of bone or undissolved stitches from my surgery have been getting lodged in it. Either way, it's really annoying.
Overall, though, it's been pretty good so far. Of course, we haven't actually done anything, so maybe I won't like it later. We do our five-day FTX next week. I'm looking forward to it, kinda.
Anyway, I have to report at 0530 tomorrow, so I should really get to bed. Goodnight all.

Army Time

I'll be leaving in a couple of hours for Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. I'm due to report at 2pm tomorrow. (Who ever heard of reporting on a Sunday?!) I'll have my laptop with me, and I think I'll be able to access the internet from time to time. Maybe we'll even have connections in our rooms! Since it's boot camp for medical officers, they pretty much spoil us in the "barracks" department; it's more like a hotel. They even put the folks they can't fit on base into hotels in town.
The only things I'm worried about are the diagnostic PT test when I get there and the wearing of combat boots (haven't even been able to break them in) on my sore foot. Since there are no real consequences to failing the diagnostic PFT, my TAC officer told me over the phone that I might be able to get out of running it the first day for medical reasons. But there's no getting out of having to wear big, heavy, uncomfortable boots, and I will have to start doing actual PT with the other officers within a couple of days. Heal, foot, heal! I bought special blister-healing Band-Aids (tm) at Walgreen's in anticipation of further badness. If I'm prepared, maybe it won't be so sad.
Overall, though, I'm pretty excited to be going. Mark, the guy I know who went last year, said that he had a lot of fun and made neat new friends. Maybe I will have fun and make friends, too.
Anyway, got some packing and last-minute paperwork details to be working out. Ta-ta for now.

Ow

I strained my foot, then I got my wisdom teeth taken out. In the space of two days. And I have to leave for Fort Sam Houston in less than a week. I'm a moron.