Drowning

So, the thing about life is that you're constantly learning new things, even if you don't realize it. Life experiences turn into lessons learned and it's because of this most people realize that they've been progressing in life. Remember what you steadfastly believed as a teen? Is it the same now?

Even in the professional area, you're always learning.

I've been an Airman now (E1-4) for about 4.5 years. It's be just about five when I sew on my Staff Sergeant stripe and become a Non-Commissioned Officer. During those four years I've had good supervisors, I've had bad supervisors, and I've had supervisors that give a lot of lip service.

In all three instances I have learned what I like, don't like, and REALLY don't like and I hope to apply those to my airmen when I get them.

For instance, right now I'm in Airmen Leadership School, the kind of place that epitomizes the "take a drink from the fire hose" mentality and it's hard to keep up and I feel like the things that I'm reading, I had access to for the last 4.5 years. I was just never told to read them, never told to start practicing these skills. The rank of Senior Airman, where I am right now is supposed to be a position where your supervisor is grooming you to be a leader by having you do these things.

And they aren't TOUGH things, they're just a LOT of things, but honestly, how much easier would all of this be if I had access to just the outside sources used in class? We have study guides for in the class and I understand they wouldn't want us giving those to our airmen, but we also use publications that I have seen but never paid attention to and maybe that falls on me, but I was never told to pay attention to them.

Anyway, I've been learning and I hope when I come out of it, I can hurry up and finish something that needs to be done and then I'll deploy, and while deployed, my cross training paperwork is going to be turned in. I hope to come home to find orders to go to a new tech school and learn a new job and I'll get some new airmen.

But as for right now, I'm just going to school, reading a TON of stuff, taking ltos of notes and trying not to drown.

School Is In

We moved into our house in the summer time. I didn't pay any attention to the fact that it's right next to the entrance because honestly why would that matter?

Oh it matters.

Now my parking space disappears if I leave the house anytime between 2 and 4 in the afternoon and in its place is a parent who is usually very snappy about moving because it's THEIR spot where THEY'RE waiting to pick up THEIR kids.

My advice is simple. If you want to wait for your kids, that's fine. Walk to the gate to get them. Get some exercise. You're in the military anyway so suck it up and do at least a LITTLE PT.

It's like a freaking parking garage outside my house!

The Morning Routine

When I was a kid and growing up, my dad always woke me up in the morning. Not deliberately, he didn't come into my room and shake me awake of turn on the light or anything like that but his boom boom boom walking around getting ready for the day woke me up.

And he got up so freaking EARLY!

So early in fact that even though I wanted to get up and tell him to have a great day at work and see what he looks like at that hour in the morning, I could never convince myself to get out of bed.

Ah, to be young again.

And now I'm on the other side. I don't think I wake Annie up because I take care not to, but here I am, waking up at five in the morning to get ready to work out.

Sometimes, especially with these little realizations that I'm doing a lot of the things my dad did, I hope that I can do a better job. I think every parent wants to be better than their parent but in my case, I want it more than most.

Adventures In Dad Land

Well, today we had to take Adam to see the doc about acid reflux. That’s kind of like heartburn. It sucks. He has it, just like Annie did but he’s on meds and is doing well because of them. Today was just a check up to see if it’s working well.

So we walk in and there’s a woman with a baby and a Playboy diaper bag. Bleached hair, inch-long black roots, and gold slippers. I doubt the common sense of anyone who has a Playboy diaper bag.

Anyway, we take Adam to the examination room and lay him down and the nurse says to take his clothes and diaper off.

Taking the diaper off a boy is always a dangerous thing. There’s a weapon being housed in there after all.

I take the diaper off and he has pooped. No big deal. I grab some wipes and wipe him down because he has to be naked to be weighed. Well, as I’m wiping him down he flexes and a ton more poop flies right out of his butt.

By the way, a disclaimer: this blog deals with bodily functions. If this bugs you, you should probably stop reading.

Anyway, it’s pretty bad, like pushing the pump on a Play Doh toy and making a tube or something. So I’m waiting for him to be done so I can clean him up to get weighed. I’m holding his legs up so there’s as little mess as possible and he decides that NOW is the time to pee. So he let go and peed all over the place. Well, less all over the place and more all over his face. It was a direct hit. The best part is that he was shocked about this shaking his head like “WHAT’S GOING ON?! WHY AM I GETTING WET?!” And yet, the pee keeps coming.

So he finally finishes peeing and pooping and I clean him up and we weigh him (9.9 lbs by the way) and he’s crying as I take him back to the examination table and he locks his legs and I tell Kim it’s crazy, it’s like he wants to stand up. She looks away from the nurse and to Adam and apparently she looked like she was on fire and Adam decided he was going to put her out with the only tool he had available. He peed on her. It wasn’t like she was close either, she was a good distance away, but he still let her have it. I laughed hysterically. Oh, the table was all wet, there was still the nasty diaper around, Adam was crying, Kim was now wet, the nurse wasn’t too happy but here I was in uniform and clean as clean can be. Amazing.

Ah, being a dad…

Two Things...

1) I was selected to pin on Staff Sergeant. That's E5, the same rank my dad was when he RETIRED after 20 years. Hopefully I'll make at least E6 before I do the same. A little less than half of the eligible Senior Airmen were selected so odds were pretty good, but still, it's cool that I made it.

I always wondered where I would be and what I would be doing when I passed the test and made the rank. I don't think I REALLY thought I would still be at my first duty station, in my first enlistment term, doing the same job but with two kids and four bedroom house. It's cool.

I haven't been promoted yet though. That should happen next time I deploy I think. It'll be great. I'll be out there and one day I'll be a SrA, the next day I'll be a SSGT. I'm going to need to order new nametags...

2) I finally figured out Nike+. The problem I was having with it was that I KNEW I was walking significantly further than I was getting credit for and frankly, it's disheartening. So I looked online for troubleshooting and whereas some people were saying it measures by impact and the strongest impact is in the sole of your shoe so get out a knife and cut out a niche in your shoe for the sensor, I also found a significantly less intrusive way of just turning the sensor over. Turns out this is a common problem. I guess Apple and Nike think you'll KNOW which way to put it in whatever case you do or that it even matters.

Well, it does matter. The difference is last time I got credit for 1.2 miles I think and this time I went 4.13 miles. That's a big difference and once again, I'm inspired to get back on this thing.

-Russ

Roto Rooter

Rooting is a thing that infants do where they're looking for something with the only thing they actually know they have: their mouth. It freaks me out. I'm sure I'm the onyl one though because that's what people tell me. There's just something about a baby that doesn't know he has arms and legs yet squirming around on my chest, mouth open and searching for either his bottle or his nuk (pacifier and pronounced "nook"). It reminds me of aliens or bad guys from Doom 3.

I don't really mind though. Yeah, it freaks me out, but I'll get over it.

But last night, he was rooting around in his pack and play where he sleeps ALL night long grunting and whining and the onyl time he was quiet was when Kim fed him, I held him, or when I finally lulled him into sleep for about an hour. Apparently I'm a very sleep-inducing guy when I want to be.

All night.

In the long run, one night isn't a lot, so I'm not really looking for "you're overreacting" or anything, I just felt this frustration that comes with little sleep and is somehow attached to wearing the most uncomfortable uniform possible the next day on a Monday and running out of soda.

So I'm not complaining too much here, it's just a bad night of non-existant sleep. I feel worse for Kim though since she sleeps next to Adam and therefore the grunting is louder.

The Kindle

It's no secret I'm a huge fan of the idea behind the Kindle, even if some of the things that come with it are flawed. Not every book is available on the Kindle (but the same applies for bookstores and even Amazon's book department), the new one does not have an SD card slot which was handy to archive your purchases, the fact that Amazon has the power whether they say they'll use it or not, to reach into your Kindle WITHOUT you permission and amend, or delete books from your library. That's ridiculous.

Even iTunes, which is what the Kindle gets compared to all the time anyway, has an OPTION to download updates to the apps you buy on your iPhone/iPod Touch.

There's also the fact that the thing is freaking EXPENSIVE. The price went DOWN to 300.00!

Then there's the price of the books. 10.00 may seem cheap, but considering that I don't really OWN the item, it's not cheap at all. I can't loan it to friends or sell it, and for this inconvenience I'd like to see the price of books drop to reflect the fact that they aren't selling me an item but an "experience" as another blogger put so eloquently. Not to mention the money everyone's saving by not actually printing a book.

Some reviews suggest a price of 3-5.00 which seems right to me as a consumer because I would probably buy more books, but what about as an author? Well, the same blogger that called the item an "experience" also said that money paid to authors needs to be re-thought and looked at like at a library where certain countries acknowledge the fact that the author is getting zero money when a customer borrows a book vs. buys one and pays them either a flat rate or an amount per time the book is checked out.

The main thing is the price though. Amazon needs to get this device into the hands of the public and the public will make it rise or fall accordingly. Nintendo had a habit of taking hits on hardware costs because they knew that they would get the money back with software sales. The same applies here.

Also, publishing companies need to realize they aren't going to get away with charging Amazon the same amount of money for an ebook which would give them who knows how many percentage points more in profit. They need to adjust the price they sell Amazon the books for to reflect the same profit margin or maybe a little less to pay the author a little more.

However with all of this, I still want one. They're damn pricey but cool as all get out.