18 hours on my first day

Yesterday was long. Periods of absolute boredom punctuated by a few really cool things… My day started at 0730 and didn’t end until almost 0100. Okay, so yes in the middle of the day I played pool for an hour waiting to volunteer to unload the beer truck that never came at the rec center, and then around 9pm, I went to the “Muff” – the Brit bar – and had a couple gin and tonics – something I didn’t think I’d see here.

The coolest thing about yesterday though was I went to a wedding. This Major who works downstairs casually mentioned that she was getting married to her fiancé over the phone in order to apply for a join spouse assignment. Her fiancé was at the Pentagon, so we connected the media to the story and I went to take pictures here. The hallway of the dorm was packed with her friends and passing dorm rats as she said her nuptials over the phone. I was moved when she announced “They just pronounced us man and wife.” I threw some ripped up legal paper as confetti and that was it… The pentagon had some reporters on the other side of the call, so we’ll see where this story goes, but it was fun to be a witness to it.

At 10pm, a rotator came in with another Public Affairs person… Unfortunately we were given incorrect info that she would be done with her inprocessing at 10pm… instead, that’s when her plane arrived. By the time we got her bags and got her checked into transient lodging, it was 1am. The best part of the long wait was discovering the “grab and go.” It’s kind of a mini-mart where you can take a brown-bagger with 2 pieces of fruit, 2 cokes, 2 sandwiches and 2 snacks. I was in heaven… they had fresh bananas and peanut M&Ms. I grabbed a couple diet cokes too, which I get a kick out of because they have Arabic writing on them.

By the time the ordeal was over, I was sweaty, tired and hungry, and needed to crash. Low and behold though… my roommate was at home in bed despite his working night shift. He let me mash on the light to get situated… I wonder how long that’s going to last without getting on my last nerve. When I was still tossing and turning at 3 am, I decided I was just to dirty to fall asleep, so got up and showered. I had made the executive decision to not come in remotely on time today because of working so late… so I wasn’t worried about the morning… but even after my shower, I couldn’t conk out. So I plugged in my sound baffling headphones to my iPod and was sung to sleep by Sting. That finally worked.

Another day… I went over to the wing this afternoon where their PA office is in a real building instead of a warehouse. They don’t have dust on their keyboards and everything else. I was incredibly jealous. I also found out my old Wing Commander is going to be there shortly… I’m sure I’ll see him at the Muff.

John sent me the paradise donut… a calculator that tells you how much longer you have to “serve.” According to it, I have 10,404,660 seconds left.

Cheers