Hurry Up And Wait.
I knew that was the military motto going in, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. After e-mailing my recruiter last Friday, and then again on Tuesday, and calling on Wednesday night, and then again Friday morning leaving messages both times, I decided to call one more time last night around 5 on the off chance he would actually pick up. Turns out for some reason he did, so I finally got the results I'd been waiting for. Well actually turns out there were no actual results. When he said "I have some bad news" I thought I knew what he was going to say, but it turned out that I hadn't been rejected by the October OTS Board, my package had never gone before the Board at all. Apparently on the way there somehow my interview was lost in the shuffle. I remember being surprised that I was able to get everything together for the October Board deadline, and the interview was the last thing I did, so I assume the rest of the package got accidentally sent without it, or something. Apparently my recruiter tried contacting the Captain who interviewed me to try to get another copy, but it got sent to him in a format he couldn't open, or something. He then tried to get in touch with him again and found out he'd moved to another base. Luckily from my interview I remembered him saying he was heading for Seattle, so my recruiter seemed like he was going to be able to track him down and get another copy of the interview. If that doesn't actually happen, I'll have to redo the interview with someone else, which would be qutie bothersome. I've always been talkative, it's not the stress or anything that's the problem, but I really felt that the previous interview was one of the best I'd ever had, and he genuinely seemed to believe in me.
So, since all this screwing around has managed to take us past the deadline for the November Board which meets next week, and there is no Board in December, it turns out I'll actually be meeting the Board that meets in mid January. The results for that Board will theoretically arrive February 7th barring the usual delays.
There is sort of some good news about this whole thing. I did manage to get both my physicals scheduled, with the MEPS portion in L.A. being on November 21st, and the Flight 1A portion at Vandenberg AFB being on December 3rd. So next Wednesday night I'll be heading down to the hotel they're putting me up in, then arising bright and early the next morning in order to be over at MEPS to start the process at 5am. I hear it's quite long. A whole lot of standing around, and waiting in line. It's probably a good idea I'm doing all this though given I haven't had a physical since high school and there might actually be something wrong with me (other than all the mental deformities, I mean really). So after I finish up with that I drive on back up here with all the paperwork from it, and then end up going back down to L.A. for Thanksgiving the following Wednesday or Thursday. I actually can take someone for free to Magic Mountain on Wednesday due to a special deal, so might do that who knows. Then after coming back up here on Sunday or Monday I end up heading out to Vandenberg AFB again for the Flight 1A portion of the physical, which is a bit more complicated. To give you an idea, he sent me a sort of basic schedule for the day, with the first Technical testing being done at 7:30am, the Doctor related testing at 10:20am, a full Dental exam at 11:00am, and a full Optometry exam at 2:30pm. So that looks like it'll be another nice long day. The real bummer with that one is they dilate your pupils during the optometry exam, so you're suposed to have someone else there to drive you home. Haven't yet decided how that's going to work.
So the one positive aspect of the whole ordeal is it takes about a month for the Surgeon General to approve each Flight physical, so I'll hear about that sometime in early January. That means if I pass both physicals, I'll have nothing else to wait for other than getting into OTS. Even if I had gotten into OTS this week, I would still have had to wait until January to find out if there were any snags medically. So by doing it this way, if I do finally get that phone call telling me the good news, it will be a sure thing, and I can be a lot more excited.
Guess that's all there is to update on that whole situation. I'm going to sleep for three months, someone wake me up in February.
Friday, November 15, 2002
To Quote My Away Message...
The good news is, the news isn't bad. The bad news is, there is no news. Long story short, my package didn't meet this board, and won't meet the next, so I'll actually get my first shot at getting in during the January board, and won't find out until February 7th. Three months later. Will fill in the details later, quite agitated due to thinking about it too much at the moment. Anyway, could be better, could be worse, I guess.
The good news is, the news isn't bad. The bad news is, there is no news. Long story short, my package didn't meet this board, and won't meet the next, so I'll actually get my first shot at getting in during the January board, and won't find out until February 7th. Three months later. Will fill in the details later, quite agitated due to thinking about it too much at the moment. Anyway, could be better, could be worse, I guess.
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Feellikecrapmobiles R Us.
Sorry, been a bit under the weather these last few days. Combine that with sitting by the phone basically around the clock waiting to hear from my officer recruiter who will let me know whether my life is heading in a new direction, and you have quite a lame way of living. Going to call for a second time tomorrow, and if that doesn't work spam some more e-mails. I'm certainly not planning to wait through the weekend.
When I hear the news, you'll hear it here, first.
Sorry, been a bit under the weather these last few days. Combine that with sitting by the phone basically around the clock waiting to hear from my officer recruiter who will let me know whether my life is heading in a new direction, and you have quite a lame way of living. Going to call for a second time tomorrow, and if that doesn't work spam some more e-mails. I'm certainly not planning to wait through the weekend.
When I hear the news, you'll hear it here, first.
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
A Lot of Rocks, But They're Cool.
I think forgetting to take my Centrum with me this weekend is going to cost me, I feel the beginnings of a sore throat coming on tonight. How irritating. Anyway back to the recap.
We took the back way into Death Valley, which involved getting lost along the way on a bunch of dinky little highways in between dinky little towns, as we made our way through Mojave, and eventually up to Trona and beyond. We weren't smart enough to bring a California map, but we did have a portable GPS receiver with us, so we at least knew when we were going in the right direction. I ended up suggesting a shortcut based on the small mapquest map we did have that ended up being a little more than we bargained for, but who would want to just drive in straight lines across valleys when you can skid around switchbacks in the mountains? We got to the hotel around noonish, and the first thing we did was drive up to the campground where we used to camp on a yearly basis. I instantly recognized a lot of the rocks and "mountains" (i.e. hills from todays perspective) surrounding the camp, and was able to climb up and take a picture on top of a few of them, reliving my youth of 15 years ago. Quite strange thinking I'm old enough I can remember things from 15 years ago now. Seems like just yesterday 10 years prior was the earliest I could remember. I'm gettin old.
We then headed up with the rest of the relatives who had made it out there to a place called Dante's View. This view is officially somewhere in my top 10 greatest views of all time. It's the peak of a 5,000 foot mountain, looking down on the lowest point in the United States, that being Badwater at 282 feet below sea level. So essentially you're looking across a 5k foot dropoff, and across the way is a mountain range that rises quite swiftly to 11,000 feet. The world's deepest valley they call it. Quite breathtaking. This is where we had the ceremony to scatter my aunt's ashes, quite a fitting place. After reminiscing about some of the 27 years straight she and my uncle came to Death Valley together, we headed back down the mountain to a place called something like Gold Canyon. This ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip, as the sun began to go down as we started on the 3 mile hike from one end of the canyon down to the other. Along the way there were beautiful rock formations, and the colors of the canyon and the hills as they changed through the years created something of a striped rainbow effect. We had a bunch of flashlights with us, although once it became pitch black the moon was still shining brightly down upon us. There were also some really neat caves where they'd drilled for gold that went back a good twenty or thirty yards, quite spooky. We eventually made it down to the bottom where my grandpa had brought around the truck to take back the drivers, but we decided we'd all ride back instead. This meant that about seven of us would be crammed into the bed of the truck, with four of us sitting on the little shelf storage thingy behind the cab. I was luckily enough to be on the edge, and given there was no type of safety restraint, this meant I was basically clinging onto the sides of the truck and the handle for the storage compartment for dear life as we swung around curves on a deserted desert highway in the dark of night. That was my first experience riding open-air in the back of a truck, and I must say it was quite neat. When you look up in the sky in the desert, you see about 100 billion times the number of stars you see when you're on the coast, or in the city. I could have sat there staring up at the sky for days.
Alas I'm bored of talking again. More later. Apparently I have plenty of time, nothing at all of interest been going on since I got back. Just a lot of things to do this week that I don't want to do. Yippee.
I think forgetting to take my Centrum with me this weekend is going to cost me, I feel the beginnings of a sore throat coming on tonight. How irritating. Anyway back to the recap.
We took the back way into Death Valley, which involved getting lost along the way on a bunch of dinky little highways in between dinky little towns, as we made our way through Mojave, and eventually up to Trona and beyond. We weren't smart enough to bring a California map, but we did have a portable GPS receiver with us, so we at least knew when we were going in the right direction. I ended up suggesting a shortcut based on the small mapquest map we did have that ended up being a little more than we bargained for, but who would want to just drive in straight lines across valleys when you can skid around switchbacks in the mountains? We got to the hotel around noonish, and the first thing we did was drive up to the campground where we used to camp on a yearly basis. I instantly recognized a lot of the rocks and "mountains" (i.e. hills from todays perspective) surrounding the camp, and was able to climb up and take a picture on top of a few of them, reliving my youth of 15 years ago. Quite strange thinking I'm old enough I can remember things from 15 years ago now. Seems like just yesterday 10 years prior was the earliest I could remember. I'm gettin old.
We then headed up with the rest of the relatives who had made it out there to a place called Dante's View. This view is officially somewhere in my top 10 greatest views of all time. It's the peak of a 5,000 foot mountain, looking down on the lowest point in the United States, that being Badwater at 282 feet below sea level. So essentially you're looking across a 5k foot dropoff, and across the way is a mountain range that rises quite swiftly to 11,000 feet. The world's deepest valley they call it. Quite breathtaking. This is where we had the ceremony to scatter my aunt's ashes, quite a fitting place. After reminiscing about some of the 27 years straight she and my uncle came to Death Valley together, we headed back down the mountain to a place called something like Gold Canyon. This ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip, as the sun began to go down as we started on the 3 mile hike from one end of the canyon down to the other. Along the way there were beautiful rock formations, and the colors of the canyon and the hills as they changed through the years created something of a striped rainbow effect. We had a bunch of flashlights with us, although once it became pitch black the moon was still shining brightly down upon us. There were also some really neat caves where they'd drilled for gold that went back a good twenty or thirty yards, quite spooky. We eventually made it down to the bottom where my grandpa had brought around the truck to take back the drivers, but we decided we'd all ride back instead. This meant that about seven of us would be crammed into the bed of the truck, with four of us sitting on the little shelf storage thingy behind the cab. I was luckily enough to be on the edge, and given there was no type of safety restraint, this meant I was basically clinging onto the sides of the truck and the handle for the storage compartment for dear life as we swung around curves on a deserted desert highway in the dark of night. That was my first experience riding open-air in the back of a truck, and I must say it was quite neat. When you look up in the sky in the desert, you see about 100 billion times the number of stars you see when you're on the coast, or in the city. I could have sat there staring up at the sky for days.
Alas I'm bored of talking again. More later. Apparently I have plenty of time, nothing at all of interest been going on since I got back. Just a lot of things to do this week that I don't want to do. Yippee.
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Back from the Valley of Death
Exciting repetitive title I know, what can I say I'm dead tired. You wouldn't believe how annoying it was to try to blog on that pay per minute web access thing they had at the hotel, I eventually figured out that I had left numlock on, and since there was no keypad that the numbers were over most of the letters on the right side of the keyboard, so trying to type www.hotmail.com turned out to be www.h6t0a85.c60 or something like that. I eventually figured it out, but it was certainly a pain.
Going to bust through most of the story as fast as I can then hit the hay.
Left around 1pm Friday, showed up in L.A. around 4:30 after various amounts of traffic, rain, and road construction. I must say I do love driving in the rain though, contrary to most people. It's a totally different feel. Highway 1 was pretty much deserted, I guess the beach isn't a very popular hangout during a storm other than for the diehard surfers. Eventually made it into L.A. and hung out with a friend, we ended up heading over to the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica to enjoy dinner and a poetry reading... Yes you read right, a poetry reading... Two weeks straight now I've gone to some sort of "broaden my horizon" type cultural event, with the previous one being that very very left wing political propaganda of a film I saw. The two poets that read weren't too bad, although I must say I would never use the word cunnilingus in one of my poems. I think she was going for the shock factor, to me it just wasn't appropriate in the context. Wandering around the bookstore beforehand I did find tons of neat stuff though, as I generally do when in those places. One was this great book called "If" which consisted of very entertaining "what would you do if" type questions. Some were stimulating, some were puzzling, and some were darn right difficult decisions. It was great conversation none the less, and seems like a very good coffee table type book. Not that I'll ever have a coffee table.
Eventually we headed back to her place and she was kind enough to let me crash there, after a few more hours of jabbering up a storm. It ended up being a pretty pointless effort given a mere couple of hours later my watch alarm went off and it was time to head home so I could leave for Death Valley (planning to sleep most of the way in the car, of course). It was very nice as usual seeing her again, kind of sad to consider the fact that these types of meetings with people will soon become few and far between, if things proceed according to plan. Speakin of which, word on the street is the possibility of me finding out the big news tomorrow, but it remains to be seen if it will actually happen. Anyway back to the story. I arrived home two minutes early at 5:28am, but of course the father was not yet ready to go. We eventually struggled out of the house and after a quick jaunt over to McDonalds for breakfast to go we headed for the freeway around 7.
Alas all this talk about sleep has me wanting to get some, so I'll finish up the rest of the trip either later today or tomorrow.
Exciting repetitive title I know, what can I say I'm dead tired. You wouldn't believe how annoying it was to try to blog on that pay per minute web access thing they had at the hotel, I eventually figured out that I had left numlock on, and since there was no keypad that the numbers were over most of the letters on the right side of the keyboard, so trying to type www.hotmail.com turned out to be www.h6t0a85.c60 or something like that. I eventually figured it out, but it was certainly a pain.
Going to bust through most of the story as fast as I can then hit the hay.
Left around 1pm Friday, showed up in L.A. around 4:30 after various amounts of traffic, rain, and road construction. I must say I do love driving in the rain though, contrary to most people. It's a totally different feel. Highway 1 was pretty much deserted, I guess the beach isn't a very popular hangout during a storm other than for the diehard surfers. Eventually made it into L.A. and hung out with a friend, we ended up heading over to the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica to enjoy dinner and a poetry reading... Yes you read right, a poetry reading... Two weeks straight now I've gone to some sort of "broaden my horizon" type cultural event, with the previous one being that very very left wing political propaganda of a film I saw. The two poets that read weren't too bad, although I must say I would never use the word cunnilingus in one of my poems. I think she was going for the shock factor, to me it just wasn't appropriate in the context. Wandering around the bookstore beforehand I did find tons of neat stuff though, as I generally do when in those places. One was this great book called "If" which consisted of very entertaining "what would you do if" type questions. Some were stimulating, some were puzzling, and some were darn right difficult decisions. It was great conversation none the less, and seems like a very good coffee table type book. Not that I'll ever have a coffee table.
Eventually we headed back to her place and she was kind enough to let me crash there, after a few more hours of jabbering up a storm. It ended up being a pretty pointless effort given a mere couple of hours later my watch alarm went off and it was time to head home so I could leave for Death Valley (planning to sleep most of the way in the car, of course). It was very nice as usual seeing her again, kind of sad to consider the fact that these types of meetings with people will soon become few and far between, if things proceed according to plan. Speakin of which, word on the street is the possibility of me finding out the big news tomorrow, but it remains to be seen if it will actually happen. Anyway back to the story. I arrived home two minutes early at 5:28am, but of course the father was not yet ready to go. We eventually struggled out of the house and after a quick jaunt over to McDonalds for breakfast to go we headed for the freeway around 7.
Alas all this talk about sleep has me wanting to get some, so I'll finish up the rest of the trip either later today or tomorrow.
Sunday, November 10, 2002
Hello from the Valley of Death
Checked my e-mail already and I have a few more minutes to waste so hear I am! I'm alive so far, more later tomorrow night when I return to civilization. This is quite momentous, it's the first time I've ever paid to blog! Well not exactly and it's become more trouble than it's worth, more on that later.
Checked my e-mail already and I have a few more minutes to waste so hear I am! I'm alive so far, more later tomorrow night when I return to civilization. This is quite momentous, it's the first time I've ever paid to blog! Well not exactly and it's become more trouble than it's worth, more on that later.
