February Fun
time to update once again. so let's do this.....
First, I'm starting to feel really settled in here in North Dakota. It's been about 5 or 6 months since i've moved here, and with all the cold and snow i've been trapped indoors when i'm not at work. The sun has been peeking its head out a bit more lately so i imagine i'll get to experience a social life here in the next few months. lately i've been coping with a little bit of cabin fever. which is odd because you'd think i'd be even worse while at work seeing as i'm 60 feet underground and usually have no one to talk to if my commander is sleeping. I attribute it to being tired after a 24 to 30 hour shift with only a little sleep. I've been thinking about what sort of activities i want to get into. Most of my friends enjoy going to the shooting range, but that seems like a rather hefty initial investment. perhaps i'll purchase a sidearm eventually, but for right now i'm looking for something that i can do often on the cheap. I was thinking ice skating/ hockey but once again thats a rather hefty initial investment. so right now i'm looking at cycling. when it gets warmer here, it'll be nice to just ride a bike off into the plains on some side road.
Speaking of exercising, i'm starting up again monday after a pretty big lull. i mean to go from running a 5k a week to barely running at all is a big deal. So my initial goals for february and march are 5 miles a week running and 2 miles a week swimming. not too bad. I also have to hit the gym again since the only real workout i've been doing was pullups in the capsule. which gives me a weird popeyeish look. so i gotta go even everything out and start working off the winter weight and putting on the right kind of weight to build muscle.
spring break is coming up and i have a new female friend who might be heading out here to visit, so thats additional motivation to get back in shape. I'm planning on visiting her in April for my birthday, it should be fun. But the biggest thing we have planned is a trip to san diego's comic con in july. i've never been, and i know its a huge deal. so i'll go be a fan boy for a couple days with a girl that'll enjoy it as much as me. plus its san diego, i'll go hit the beaches while i'm out there. we'll see what we end up planning.
On the subject of my professon: i had a couple evaluations last month that i did alright on, two highly qualified ratings, but i know that i still need a lot of work. on the flip side i'm still relatively new, but i don't like to use that as an excuse because its important that i'm just as competent as anyone else because when push comes to shove i'm out there with people i can only safely assume have the same experience as me. All of the testing that we're doing has sort of revealed itself as a source of tension within the group. i think everyone understands it is important to ensure we're capable of doing our job, however its becoming clear that most of us are noticing that we're more concerned about the next test than we are about doing the actual mission. combine that with a rather poor attitude from just about everyone and you can start to see the foundations for the stupid rebelliousness you'd expect from a teen with an overbearing parent. I've also noticed that the general attitude of the group has become more positive recently with the change of commanders. I suppose there wasn't a lot of love for the last commander, i had no particular gripes with him, the only thing i never understood was why he took away the crew member excellence award. For me, little things like that provide just enough motivation for me to try harder than the next guy. taking that away pulls a nice little morale tool away. And yeah i know the argument is that i should always be doing my best no matter what and should expect no reward for that, but thats an ideal scenario and humans are rarely that selfless. On the plus side, we saw the reintroduction of the issuing of a pin for pulling a 48. and a lot of people are smiling about that. more important to us would be the guarantee of days off. a blank spot in our schedule is symbolic of a day off, but the way it is viewed by the office is that it is a day to schedule for side tasks or other needs. which can be very unpleasant if you only have one blank spot between two weeks worth of work. instantly you end up with 14 to 16 days of work straight.
we had some manning people come visit us recently, i hope they got a real picture of what is going on. doing more with less was hard when i was working in a hospital fixing computers, and its definitely harder in the missile field. one mistake somewhere, or someone getting sick can throw off an entire squadron for several days/weeks/etc...
so there you have it, i'm surviving, a little cabin fever but i'll be good. Also some things to look forward to.
First, I'm starting to feel really settled in here in North Dakota. It's been about 5 or 6 months since i've moved here, and with all the cold and snow i've been trapped indoors when i'm not at work. The sun has been peeking its head out a bit more lately so i imagine i'll get to experience a social life here in the next few months. lately i've been coping with a little bit of cabin fever. which is odd because you'd think i'd be even worse while at work seeing as i'm 60 feet underground and usually have no one to talk to if my commander is sleeping. I attribute it to being tired after a 24 to 30 hour shift with only a little sleep. I've been thinking about what sort of activities i want to get into. Most of my friends enjoy going to the shooting range, but that seems like a rather hefty initial investment. perhaps i'll purchase a sidearm eventually, but for right now i'm looking for something that i can do often on the cheap. I was thinking ice skating/ hockey but once again thats a rather hefty initial investment. so right now i'm looking at cycling. when it gets warmer here, it'll be nice to just ride a bike off into the plains on some side road.
Speaking of exercising, i'm starting up again monday after a pretty big lull. i mean to go from running a 5k a week to barely running at all is a big deal. So my initial goals for february and march are 5 miles a week running and 2 miles a week swimming. not too bad. I also have to hit the gym again since the only real workout i've been doing was pullups in the capsule. which gives me a weird popeyeish look. so i gotta go even everything out and start working off the winter weight and putting on the right kind of weight to build muscle.
spring break is coming up and i have a new female friend who might be heading out here to visit, so thats additional motivation to get back in shape. I'm planning on visiting her in April for my birthday, it should be fun. But the biggest thing we have planned is a trip to san diego's comic con in july. i've never been, and i know its a huge deal. so i'll go be a fan boy for a couple days with a girl that'll enjoy it as much as me. plus its san diego, i'll go hit the beaches while i'm out there. we'll see what we end up planning.
On the subject of my professon: i had a couple evaluations last month that i did alright on, two highly qualified ratings, but i know that i still need a lot of work. on the flip side i'm still relatively new, but i don't like to use that as an excuse because its important that i'm just as competent as anyone else because when push comes to shove i'm out there with people i can only safely assume have the same experience as me. All of the testing that we're doing has sort of revealed itself as a source of tension within the group. i think everyone understands it is important to ensure we're capable of doing our job, however its becoming clear that most of us are noticing that we're more concerned about the next test than we are about doing the actual mission. combine that with a rather poor attitude from just about everyone and you can start to see the foundations for the stupid rebelliousness you'd expect from a teen with an overbearing parent. I've also noticed that the general attitude of the group has become more positive recently with the change of commanders. I suppose there wasn't a lot of love for the last commander, i had no particular gripes with him, the only thing i never understood was why he took away the crew member excellence award. For me, little things like that provide just enough motivation for me to try harder than the next guy. taking that away pulls a nice little morale tool away. And yeah i know the argument is that i should always be doing my best no matter what and should expect no reward for that, but thats an ideal scenario and humans are rarely that selfless. On the plus side, we saw the reintroduction of the issuing of a pin for pulling a 48. and a lot of people are smiling about that. more important to us would be the guarantee of days off. a blank spot in our schedule is symbolic of a day off, but the way it is viewed by the office is that it is a day to schedule for side tasks or other needs. which can be very unpleasant if you only have one blank spot between two weeks worth of work. instantly you end up with 14 to 16 days of work straight.
we had some manning people come visit us recently, i hope they got a real picture of what is going on. doing more with less was hard when i was working in a hospital fixing computers, and its definitely harder in the missile field. one mistake somewhere, or someone getting sick can throw off an entire squadron for several days/weeks/etc...
so there you have it, i'm surviving, a little cabin fever but i'll be good. Also some things to look forward to.
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