In the can

OCS Zero Phase is now done. I will be attending the real OCS (Phases 1-3) beginning at the end of this month.

BTW, a jock with cup IS on the packing list. I was told just because there would be some hand-to-hand combat training, but I know the real reason.

OCS Zero Phase Drill #1

So, two weeks ago tomorrow I attended my first drill of officer training. I know, I know. It's been two weeks, but that's how long it's taken me to recover from it.

How was it you ask?

Imagine the worst place in the world to you. For some it may be a vegan dinner with Cameron Diaz. For others it may be an opera performed by Special Olympians that got the "Also Participated" medals--not even the bronze.

You there now? OK. Now, imagine getting kicked in the groin for two+ days straight while you're there. Also, you don't really get to sleep because of the groin kicking or anticipation of having to talk to Cameron Diaz in between bites of tabbouleh.

What was good about it? It ended. What sours that goodness? I go back for more in 3 weeks, and then again 3 weeks later, and then 4 weeks after that I go to South Dakota for 8 weeks of it straight.

I better re-check the packing list. I'm sure an athletic supporter (complete with cup), should be on the packing list.

Best Music Video Evah!

A lot of people will say that "Thriller" is the best music video out there. Although it is very good, that's just plain BS. THIS is the best music video evah!

A-1 Steak Sauce Please

Random Appreciated Artist

You know who rocks? Richard Marx.

No, you're gay!

Better?

So, I had my OCS orientation on Saturday.

Looks like all the same crap I talked about before will still come to pass, but instead of Alabama, I will be in South Dakota.

That's better . . . right?

Peanut Butter Jelly with a Baseball Bat!

Jenn got a new phone a couple days ago. It had this as a pre-loaded ring tone. No one in our family can get it out of their heads. Now it is in yours.

Ring

I don't want to turn this blog into a log of my weight loss and excercise efforts on the road to Army officer school, but this impressed me. I was sitting here at my desk doing work and playing with my wedding ring.

It came off.

Cool. For the past 8+ years my fingers have been too fat for it to come off so easily without soap, lard, or whatever (of course I've never used lard!). Today it just came off. Not slipped off easily like a donut on a pencil or anything, but pretty easily.

Perhaps the 11.6 pounds (but who's counting), I've lost in the past 3 weeks have all come from my hands.

Crazy, thy name is Chesnoslova (or sometimes Tom).

Time for an update. A bit ago in a post titled "Chubba Bubba", I wrote about how I was 'mildly' overweight and was told by the Army in no uncertain terms to get in better shape. Well, despite the warning, I did not and my direct commission was denied.


This means that instead of having it handed to me I have to spend a gut wrenching 8 weeks in the summer in the Alabama heat while I am yelled at, ridiculed, belittled, and then built back up. Officer school makes basic training look like a cake walk. Since I haven't been to basic training type school in 10 years, it may be tough on me.

When I say tough, I mean that when you first arrive you're yelled at to, "Get off the f'n bus", "beat your face" [do push ups], and follow what may be the most asinine rules. For example, when running (not walking. There is no walking), from one place to another and you come within 6 paces of an officer I will have to say, "Sir, officer candidate Ashton. Good morning sir." This of course changes depending on the time of day, gender of the person and rank of the person. There is no simple, "Hello," or "How are you?"


So, ya. I pretty much screwed myself. And guess what else? After this, I have many months more training to do before I'm even deemed competant enough to perform my job. Oh, and I have/get to go to a school where I jump out of airplanes.


So, why did I include the word "crazy" in the title of this post. Because 1) I am crazy for knowing beforehand what awaits me and I still volunteer for it. And 2) my preparation for it. Northern Utah on the Idaho border in January is not the time or place for fun outdoor training. Running in the snow and ice is nearly a daily occurrance now. I got excited Sunday night because for the first time in 2 weeks all the snow had melted off of the roads and I would be running on dry roads the next day. When I woke up, another 6 inches of snow had fallen.


On the days when I'm not running, I am road marching. This is basically walking. Walking in full uniform with a 40 pound backpack. I will be required to do several in the school I am going to with the biggest being 10 miles, 40 pound pack, in 3 hours 3 minutes. This doesn't seem entirely tough to me right now as I have been doing 4+ miles a couple times each week in snow and ice. Plus, did I mention I do it in the morning? Last week those morning temperatures were Tuesday: -12(F), Thursday: -16.8(F), and Saturday: -something crazy(F).


So, that is where the crazy comes from. Temperatures, going from zero work outs to at least 7 per week, eating way less calories and fat grams and way more fruit, fibre, and vegetables, and best yet, losing 9.5 pounds in 2.5 weeks. Just 30 more to go!

Global Warming Update #2

In the spirit of my January 24th entry I give you this . . .

Damn you global warming!!!

Separation

Yesterday I had the opportunity to separate church and state. I did not.

I was asked to give a 30 minute talk to about 75 first graders about what Christmas is like in Ukraine (where I lived for 2 years). Did you get that? What Christmas is like in Ukraine.

I began by teaching them how to greet people in Ukrainian at Christmastime. Translated in English it goes like this:

Me: "Boys and girls, Christ is born!"

They respond: "Glorify Him!"

Nice.

I made sure they knew the holy Christmas dinner began after the first star was seen to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem. Straw is spread around and on the table to remember Christ was born in a stable. And, an extra plate is placed on the table for Christ to partake should He come.

With all of the "Up on the rooftops . . . " and " I saw mommy kissing Santa Clauses" and "Frosty the Snowmans" that there should be some "Boh Prednivechnys" (God Eternal).

Vospetye Yevo! (Glorify Him!)

O Holy Crap!

I stole that title from Steve at the Sneeze.com [language warning] for this entry.

There is a version of O Holy Night out there that gives me the willies and makes me smile at the same time. You can download an mp3 of it here, or listen to it streaming at thesneeze.com.

I can't say anything better than Steve did about this rendition, so I'll close with these words from him, "What I love about it is just when you think it couldn't possibly get any worse, it does. By a lot. And it does this more than once, building to the most glorious mess I've ever heard. I smile every time I hear it."

What he means by that is this: listen to the whole thing. When you think you absolutely must turn it off, don't. Keep listening.

Happy Birthday Mom

On the 8th was Kathleen Linnea Eriksson Ashton's 65th birthday. I kept it a low key celebration--mostly to myself with a few mentions of it to my wife and son. She passed away on February 15th, 1996 at age 53. I love you mom. Happy Birthday.

Front Sight Update

The handgun course was great . . . amazing. Anyone with a gun should go and get training like this.

As a quick update, I did not shoot myself, but someone else did while I was there. He is a sheriff's deputy from California and was cheating his way through a safety proceedure. He ended up shooting himself in the leg. Dummy.

Solace

66 years ago today maked the attack on Pearl Harbor. While I was looking at pictures of that day of infamy, I ran across this one in color of the USS Arizona's forward magazines exploding.

I wondered about the picture and where it came from. It turns out it is a still from a color motion picture taken from the USS Solace who was also there in Pearl Harbor, anchored just astern of the Nevada.

I had never heard of this ship before and was interested in how it could be filming this while everyone was scrambling.

It turns out the Solace was a hospital ship used as far back as the Spanish American War that took on the most dangerously injured sailors. As a hospital ship it didn't make any offensive action against the Japanese attackers, but immediately went after those in the water needing rescue.

Here is a personal account of Bob Addobati who was on the Solace during the attack. Here is the official report on the attack and the Solace's actions that day. Today, let's remember all the heroes of that day whether on the Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, or little-known ships such as the Solace.

Sinterklaas

Some time between last night and this morning our family was visited by Sinterklaas. That's the beauty of having family from recent decent from different lands. You get all of those family traditions that make for fun (and extended) holiday seasons.

My son Turner made sure to leave a carrot, apple, and some celery in his shoes by the door for Americo, Sinterklaas' white horse. He knows the drill . . . leave a treat for the horse, get a treat in return.

He knows the night of Sinterklaas and Black Pete's visit even better than my wife does. She called me at work and asked for the date. When I told her, Turner said, "I told you so." To be a kid at Christmas again . . .

Front Sight

For the next four or five days I will be out of pocket and with my buddy Ponch and a couple other guys at Front Sight. We'll be taking a 4-day tactical handgun course. So, if I don't blog in the next four days, that's where I am. If I don't blog in the next week, it's likely I shot myself.

Brother Update #2

My brother is coming home from the hospital today. Turns out between Sunday and today he had a pacemaker put in also. What is the deal with his heart? He's such a drama queen.

I have PdMS

I was at drill this weekend and pulled from my normal duties by our acting First Sergeant. He told me that I needed to go and do a Post-deployment Medical Screening (PdMS). Basically, it is a chance for the doctors to hear your complaints about exposure to smoke from oil and trash fires, chemicals, or anything else that you may have run into while deployed overseas. Also, it is a chance for them to do a quick assessment for PTSD.

I have already been home for two-and-a-half years so I thought the whole thing was kind of bogus. But, a good soldier does what his First Sergeant says, so I went.

The psychologist from the VA started asking me questions for his assessment such as:

Have you had thoughts of harming yourself? NO.
Have you had thoughts of harming others? NO.
Do you have nightmares? NO.
Do you have trouble sleeping? NO.
Do you get easily frustrated? . . . yes.
Do you get angry faster than before your deployment? . . . yes [again].

Uh oh. I’m screwed up.

He explained that it is normal and not necessarily PTSD, but very common. You see, when soldiers go to Iraq or any combat zone they rely on other people. The actions of you and those around you have consequences. If someone does something stupid, someone could be hurt or killed.

When you come home you are still in this mindset. Small things like someone cutting me off and changing lanes in front of me on the road can set off my wild, cursing wrath where they are verbally torn up and down. Plainly said, what he did was stupid. Subconsciously what was said, this guy may have a car bomb and he got in close to me. Fortunately, there are two controls I have on this behavior.

1) I can stifle it when wife and kids are around. They have never heard such an outburst.
2) I have never had thoughts of escalating my frustration into road rage of any sort. Never even once considered acting on it. Berating the offender is enough.

We ended the “session” with him stating that he didn’t recommend I need to seek counseling. I think that was a correct assessment as I can control it. My work is now to control it more so that I don’t have those outbursts while alone and hopefully get to the point where I don’t even think those thoughts at all. I my not show my anger on the road to my family, but an increase in patience would likely be appreciated. Wish me luck.

You got (math) skillz?

I am shocked at the (dis)ability some people have with low-level math skills. This is what I encountered today:

I was at Home Depot and saw that they had Vine Maple trees for 75% off. Normally $20 is now $5 right? Ok.

I took one to the checker and the computer rang it up as $10--only half off, right? So, what did she do? She gave me another 25% off, but that isn't right.

There is a difference between an additional 25% off the original purchase price and 25% off a sale price that is already 50% reduced. She could not wrap her mind around this. I will lay it out below in easy-to-follow math.

$20 (original price) - 75% (or as mathemetician write x0.25) = $5 purchase price

-vs.-

$20 (original price) - 50% computer screwed up price = $10 - an additional 25% = $7.50.

So, a simple math error means I would have paid an additional $2.50 had I not contested it. Seems small no doubt, but when the final, real cost is only $5, an additional $2.50 is an increase in price of 50% because someone can't do math.

I will spare you the 15 minutes of me sitting at the register trying to explain it, the phone calls she made to her manager, and the looks I got as though I was trying to cheat the store.

It all ended with me getting the correct price and her saying, "Don't worry, I'll figure out why it is correct later." [sigh]