Gobble Gobble.
Made my way down to the Irvine area night for turkey day, representing the young-uns of the family since my brother had to work and my sister was up spending time with her in-laws to be in Santa Rosa. Much food was had by all, which probably ruins the fact that I was down to 189 this morning. :) Went to check out Die Another Day last night with the father, the 20th in the infamous series about James Bond. Wasn't too high on the "realistic" scale, but still had some pretty cool stunts. I can't say I liked it as much as some of the others though, a few too many one liners, sexual references, and entirely impossible sequences for my taste. Still 4 M's out of 7, I guess because it's part of the legacy.
I heard from my recruiter and found out my interview was rediscovered, and I won't have to redo it. That leaves the Flight Physical on Tuesday as the last big hurdle I have to get over before my package goes to the Board again in January. I should find out while I'm taking it if anything major goes wrong, and if not a month later when the official word comes back from the Surgeon General.
I've discovered that one of my buddies is a Jeopardy afficionado; always fun finding trivia buffs with which to compete on a regular basis, occasionally saluting them for their greatness, usually stomping, crying, whining and claiming cheating took place whenever a loss occurs. :/ We spent some time playing online when equally bored over the last couple days, we seem to know about a lot of the same stuff. She's a CS major, which automatically gets her big bonus points in my book. She's one of the ppl who's been in a relationship for 23489734 years though, so there won't be any worrying about how many points she's at overall. For some reason it has always been easy for me to categorize people who are unavailable, and never give it a second thought. Most people call me a liar when I say I've never even considered the idea, and I'm not going to act like I'm totally immune, but it's just not something I think about. It's funny, there were like five females in my room the other day and an R/A walked by on rounds and made a comment about how I "had it goin on" and I didn't really know what he was talking about until I realized the guy/girl ratio. For me it was irrelevant, since everyone in the room had either long term boyfriends or current flames. That's just sort of the way things tend to be these days, everyone's either paired off, or too busy sleeping with everyone to settle down. Alas.
One of these days/weeks/months/years/lifetimes I'll find someone compatible who likes a lot of the same stuff, who isn't currently occupied. What's the rush, anyway.
Monday, November 25, 2002
MEPS, Part 1.
Okay okay enough already, I'm blogging. Ever since I found out the news got delayed three months I've been pretty apathetic about everything, but I guess that has to come to an end at some point.
The ride home was quite uneventful, just a lot of thinking about the whole concept of joining the Air Force in general. I really need to start hooking up with other people to make the drive, having someone else in the car just makes the time fly by. After a quick stop at home to pick up my Social Security card, I made the 15 minute or so trip back up to LAX, to check in at the Westin hotel. This was a lot more than I expected when it came to accomodations, I had no complaints whatsoever. I got directed up to the 3rd floor where they'd set up a sort of makeshift lobby for all the applicants to check in at. Turned out that you ended up rooming with whoever signed the check in sheet immediately before or after you. I happened to share the elevator with a man named Johnny, who was being shipped out the next day to South Carolina. He was a pretty cool cat, headed into the Army as a combat historian, which basically means he's a photographer that records history as it happens. Definitely a job I could see myself doing, if my whole plan doesn't work out. You should see me when I'm setting up a shot with a frikkin disposable camera, everything has to be perfect.
Anyway, so they have us sign this sheet with like 293487234 provisos on it about basically what we will and won't do while staying at the hotel, which basically covered everything we could possibly think of doing that was bad. Everyone seemed pretty laid back though, I don't think anyone was in a real hurry to get in trouble with the military before they even got anywhere. They had a few phones in there, and a few comps set up with internet, so you could busy yourself while they worked through your paperwork, and later once you're wandering around bored. There was also a TV, and a pool table outside in the patio area, which drew the interest of a dozen people at any given time. Quite the interesting makeup of characters, everything between your typical 17 year old enlistee right out of high school to 20 something priors heading back in to a different branch or different career. A whole lot of "what branch are you?" and "what are you gonna do?" It's always an interesting atmosphere when you're hanging out with people you've just met and quite possibly will never see again after the next few hours. There were a whole lot of rules about fraternization probably for that very reason. Can't say I've ever had a one night stand.
Dinner consisted of a buffet style meal down in one of the smaller ballrooms, which actually wasn't too bad. Your typical meat and potatoes fare, with some pasta and salad thrown in. Was plannin on hittin the pool afterwards, but ended up just playin a few games of pool until I managed to finally sink my pairing's winning streak by burying the 8ball in the wrong pocket after a difficult bank attempt. It happens. Decided to hit the sack around 8:30pm, knowing the wakeup call was schedule for "oh three hundred" I was quite impressed by the number of pillow they offered, there were like six per bed and then another lengthy one, along with like four sets of comforters, but I ended up kicking most of them off during the warm night.
We set the alarm a bit earlier and thus were relatively awake when the cheery recorded voice informed us of the time. After the usual shower and shave we made our way down to breakfast which wasn't quite as impressive as dinner, but still offered all the usual fixins. I'd decided to drive to MEPS to avoid the wait for the shuttle back to the hotel when I finished up, so I was on my way around 4. Quick stop for gas and I arrived at the L.A. MEPS around 4:25, and strangely enough saw people from the hotel already in there in the initial briefing, even though I was sure I'd left several minutes ahead. A shuttle must have left earlier, or something. I was disappointed since I was hoping to get in front of the initial line and thus expediate the process, but I wasn't too worried. Eventually the second shuttle showed up, and they filed us in to the initial "welcoming" room. A marine led the briefing, and after an initial joke of leading us in what was supposedly going to be a thousand jumping jacks to wake us up, he basically briefed us on everything we weren't going to do, unless we were in a hurry for our "procedure to be terminated." After giving up the pocketknife I forgot to leave in the car, I headed back to the Air Force service counselor to get my paperwork. I had been a bit worried since I wasn't on the check in list at the hotel, but I didn't run into any problems once I reached MEPS. After receiving my paperwork I was directed back out to the control desk to pick up another folder, and then headed deep into the medical area to the medical briefing room.
Once there, we were briefed on various aspects of our paperwork, and filled out various forms. In the meantime they sent around someone who took everyone's bp, and gave on the spot breathalyzer tests. No one got busted that I saw, seems like a pretty simple concept to me, don't be stupid, and you don't get caught. My bp was 140 over somethin, which is higher than I'd like. Since I stopped running due to splints though I haven't been doing a whole lot other than maintaining my weight, so it's not all that surprising. I've never been higher than that, so it's not cause for worry. Tends to be a good gauge of how in shape I am. Getting into swimming and cardio again, gonna have to stay off running as long as possible, which is frustrating.
Next up was hearing, although they were sending people to various stations all at the same time, and you basically rotated through to stuff you hadn't done as you finished the previous station. This test was actually much more difficult than I expected, the booth wasn't all that soundproof, you could hear people talking outside, besides which the other five people in it seemed like they were constantly shifting position and causing me difficulty. I've never had any trouble with hearing, in fact I always thought I was above average, but I still didn't score as high as some people, although I was still well within allowable levels. Could have been the fact I was sick during the week prior, and could have still been a bit under even if I wasn't feeling it.
After hearing I headed to give blood, which was the slowest part of the process, as some people had some problems. The line was about fifteen people long when I got there, and even the fastest person took at least a few minutes. Once it was my turn it wasn't a big deal, I got over needles at some point, although as a child they really bothered me, much like anything else involving pain. I've actually found that watching the needle go in makes it easier, since you know when to expect the pain. It's not the most pleasant thing, but it's not as bad as smackin your funny bone REALLY good, or getting your toe slammed in a door or something. They only took a small vial, but it was still pretty sore during and afterwards, which should make giving whatever number of pints they take next week more interesting than I'd like. Maybe they just didn't do as good a job, or something.
Last in my rotation was vision, which basically consisted of looking into a binocular style machine at your typical "read the smallest line you can see" test. There was also a book of those color blind number tests, where you find the numbers in the circles. Up after that was the depth perception test, which was actually quite difficult. You had to decide which circle in a row of five was closest, and the slide was dirty or something, with weird spots all over the place, so some of the rows appeared to be all at the same level. I ended up passing, but I'm prety sure I missed a few here and there.
I then went around the corner to urinalysis, which is more interesting at MEPS than normal due to the fact someone has to be present to make sure that it's actually your urine going into the cup, I guess. Pretty sure they use it for the drug test aspect, along with all the tests they do on it as well as the blood to make sure everything is as it should be. Somewhat interesting to be standing in a line holding your own urine before passing it off to the nurse who seals it and has you sign some more paperwork, but you do what you gotta do.
I next waited in line to see one of a few doctors in private rooms, where they went over your record and did the typical aspects of the physical, inspecting your eyes ears and what not, and the infamous "turn your head and cough" and "turn around and spread your cheeks" aspects of the process. Not a big deal for me, the guy was like 85 and could barely say three words in a sentence without taking a breath, and I'd rather know that something was wrong with me before it got too serious.
Then I was ushered into a large room where once a few dozen of us has assembled we were told to put all our clothes save our underwear in a basket, and form a line over by the scale. I'd hopped on before the guy came in and found I was 195 fully clothed, and given the max for 5'10'' was 194, I wasn't too worried. As it turned out, my official height ended up 5'11'', which bumps the max up to 199, and I ended up being only 191. Plenty of breathing room, even without being as fully active as I'd like. We then did a whole lot of exercises under the watchful eye of the practioner, basically to display that we didn't have any types of injuries, that our spines were all normal, we all had ten toes and fingers, and we didn't experience any pain when performing muscular activity.
After returning to the warmth of my t-shirt and shorts I headed back out to the medical control desk, where eventually I was given a copy of all the paperwork that had been completed, and was sent back to the service counselor. He checked everything over and then dismissed me, at appromiately 9:30am, five hours after I arrived. He'd told me as an officer's candidate I'd finish around noon, so I was quite surprised. It was still pretty strange to feel like you're midway through your day, check your watch, and find it's 7am. The process as a whole was much simpler than I expected, and after picking up my knife, I made my way across the way to the Rite Aid where I'd left my car, and headed on home.
Next up is the Flight Physical up at Vandenberg AFB, which I've heard very interesting stories about. Rumor has it I'm going to lose some of my chest hair during the EKG, and that the process will be a whole lot longer, with various aspects of the schedule taking place between 7:30am and 3:00pm. The other bummer is due to all the blood they take and the fact that my eyes get dilated towards the end, I'm not supposed to drive home. This basically means I can't drive there, since someone else would have to drive my car home anyway, unless they spent the day hanging out at the base or in nearby Lompoc, or maybe up the coast at Pismo or San Luis Obispo or something. Once I get confirmation on the exact schedule I'll go begging to my friends.
Can't say I minded lapping up the luxury for a couple days, even though it did mean I drove the oh so repetitive drive between here and L.A. a few more times in quick succession.
Okay okay enough already, I'm blogging. Ever since I found out the news got delayed three months I've been pretty apathetic about everything, but I guess that has to come to an end at some point.
The ride home was quite uneventful, just a lot of thinking about the whole concept of joining the Air Force in general. I really need to start hooking up with other people to make the drive, having someone else in the car just makes the time fly by. After a quick stop at home to pick up my Social Security card, I made the 15 minute or so trip back up to LAX, to check in at the Westin hotel. This was a lot more than I expected when it came to accomodations, I had no complaints whatsoever. I got directed up to the 3rd floor where they'd set up a sort of makeshift lobby for all the applicants to check in at. Turned out that you ended up rooming with whoever signed the check in sheet immediately before or after you. I happened to share the elevator with a man named Johnny, who was being shipped out the next day to South Carolina. He was a pretty cool cat, headed into the Army as a combat historian, which basically means he's a photographer that records history as it happens. Definitely a job I could see myself doing, if my whole plan doesn't work out. You should see me when I'm setting up a shot with a frikkin disposable camera, everything has to be perfect.
Anyway, so they have us sign this sheet with like 293487234 provisos on it about basically what we will and won't do while staying at the hotel, which basically covered everything we could possibly think of doing that was bad. Everyone seemed pretty laid back though, I don't think anyone was in a real hurry to get in trouble with the military before they even got anywhere. They had a few phones in there, and a few comps set up with internet, so you could busy yourself while they worked through your paperwork, and later once you're wandering around bored. There was also a TV, and a pool table outside in the patio area, which drew the interest of a dozen people at any given time. Quite the interesting makeup of characters, everything between your typical 17 year old enlistee right out of high school to 20 something priors heading back in to a different branch or different career. A whole lot of "what branch are you?" and "what are you gonna do?" It's always an interesting atmosphere when you're hanging out with people you've just met and quite possibly will never see again after the next few hours. There were a whole lot of rules about fraternization probably for that very reason. Can't say I've ever had a one night stand.
Dinner consisted of a buffet style meal down in one of the smaller ballrooms, which actually wasn't too bad. Your typical meat and potatoes fare, with some pasta and salad thrown in. Was plannin on hittin the pool afterwards, but ended up just playin a few games of pool until I managed to finally sink my pairing's winning streak by burying the 8ball in the wrong pocket after a difficult bank attempt. It happens. Decided to hit the sack around 8:30pm, knowing the wakeup call was schedule for "oh three hundred" I was quite impressed by the number of pillow they offered, there were like six per bed and then another lengthy one, along with like four sets of comforters, but I ended up kicking most of them off during the warm night.
We set the alarm a bit earlier and thus were relatively awake when the cheery recorded voice informed us of the time. After the usual shower and shave we made our way down to breakfast which wasn't quite as impressive as dinner, but still offered all the usual fixins. I'd decided to drive to MEPS to avoid the wait for the shuttle back to the hotel when I finished up, so I was on my way around 4. Quick stop for gas and I arrived at the L.A. MEPS around 4:25, and strangely enough saw people from the hotel already in there in the initial briefing, even though I was sure I'd left several minutes ahead. A shuttle must have left earlier, or something. I was disappointed since I was hoping to get in front of the initial line and thus expediate the process, but I wasn't too worried. Eventually the second shuttle showed up, and they filed us in to the initial "welcoming" room. A marine led the briefing, and after an initial joke of leading us in what was supposedly going to be a thousand jumping jacks to wake us up, he basically briefed us on everything we weren't going to do, unless we were in a hurry for our "procedure to be terminated." After giving up the pocketknife I forgot to leave in the car, I headed back to the Air Force service counselor to get my paperwork. I had been a bit worried since I wasn't on the check in list at the hotel, but I didn't run into any problems once I reached MEPS. After receiving my paperwork I was directed back out to the control desk to pick up another folder, and then headed deep into the medical area to the medical briefing room.
Once there, we were briefed on various aspects of our paperwork, and filled out various forms. In the meantime they sent around someone who took everyone's bp, and gave on the spot breathalyzer tests. No one got busted that I saw, seems like a pretty simple concept to me, don't be stupid, and you don't get caught. My bp was 140 over somethin, which is higher than I'd like. Since I stopped running due to splints though I haven't been doing a whole lot other than maintaining my weight, so it's not all that surprising. I've never been higher than that, so it's not cause for worry. Tends to be a good gauge of how in shape I am. Getting into swimming and cardio again, gonna have to stay off running as long as possible, which is frustrating.
Next up was hearing, although they were sending people to various stations all at the same time, and you basically rotated through to stuff you hadn't done as you finished the previous station. This test was actually much more difficult than I expected, the booth wasn't all that soundproof, you could hear people talking outside, besides which the other five people in it seemed like they were constantly shifting position and causing me difficulty. I've never had any trouble with hearing, in fact I always thought I was above average, but I still didn't score as high as some people, although I was still well within allowable levels. Could have been the fact I was sick during the week prior, and could have still been a bit under even if I wasn't feeling it.
After hearing I headed to give blood, which was the slowest part of the process, as some people had some problems. The line was about fifteen people long when I got there, and even the fastest person took at least a few minutes. Once it was my turn it wasn't a big deal, I got over needles at some point, although as a child they really bothered me, much like anything else involving pain. I've actually found that watching the needle go in makes it easier, since you know when to expect the pain. It's not the most pleasant thing, but it's not as bad as smackin your funny bone REALLY good, or getting your toe slammed in a door or something. They only took a small vial, but it was still pretty sore during and afterwards, which should make giving whatever number of pints they take next week more interesting than I'd like. Maybe they just didn't do as good a job, or something.
Last in my rotation was vision, which basically consisted of looking into a binocular style machine at your typical "read the smallest line you can see" test. There was also a book of those color blind number tests, where you find the numbers in the circles. Up after that was the depth perception test, which was actually quite difficult. You had to decide which circle in a row of five was closest, and the slide was dirty or something, with weird spots all over the place, so some of the rows appeared to be all at the same level. I ended up passing, but I'm prety sure I missed a few here and there.
I then went around the corner to urinalysis, which is more interesting at MEPS than normal due to the fact someone has to be present to make sure that it's actually your urine going into the cup, I guess. Pretty sure they use it for the drug test aspect, along with all the tests they do on it as well as the blood to make sure everything is as it should be. Somewhat interesting to be standing in a line holding your own urine before passing it off to the nurse who seals it and has you sign some more paperwork, but you do what you gotta do.
I next waited in line to see one of a few doctors in private rooms, where they went over your record and did the typical aspects of the physical, inspecting your eyes ears and what not, and the infamous "turn your head and cough" and "turn around and spread your cheeks" aspects of the process. Not a big deal for me, the guy was like 85 and could barely say three words in a sentence without taking a breath, and I'd rather know that something was wrong with me before it got too serious.
Then I was ushered into a large room where once a few dozen of us has assembled we were told to put all our clothes save our underwear in a basket, and form a line over by the scale. I'd hopped on before the guy came in and found I was 195 fully clothed, and given the max for 5'10'' was 194, I wasn't too worried. As it turned out, my official height ended up 5'11'', which bumps the max up to 199, and I ended up being only 191. Plenty of breathing room, even without being as fully active as I'd like. We then did a whole lot of exercises under the watchful eye of the practioner, basically to display that we didn't have any types of injuries, that our spines were all normal, we all had ten toes and fingers, and we didn't experience any pain when performing muscular activity.
After returning to the warmth of my t-shirt and shorts I headed back out to the medical control desk, where eventually I was given a copy of all the paperwork that had been completed, and was sent back to the service counselor. He checked everything over and then dismissed me, at appromiately 9:30am, five hours after I arrived. He'd told me as an officer's candidate I'd finish around noon, so I was quite surprised. It was still pretty strange to feel like you're midway through your day, check your watch, and find it's 7am. The process as a whole was much simpler than I expected, and after picking up my knife, I made my way across the way to the Rite Aid where I'd left my car, and headed on home.
Next up is the Flight Physical up at Vandenberg AFB, which I've heard very interesting stories about. Rumor has it I'm going to lose some of my chest hair during the EKG, and that the process will be a whole lot longer, with various aspects of the schedule taking place between 7:30am and 3:00pm. The other bummer is due to all the blood they take and the fact that my eyes get dilated towards the end, I'm not supposed to drive home. This basically means I can't drive there, since someone else would have to drive my car home anyway, unless they spent the day hanging out at the base or in nearby Lompoc, or maybe up the coast at Pismo or San Luis Obispo or something. Once I get confirmation on the exact schedule I'll go begging to my friends.
Can't say I minded lapping up the luxury for a couple days, even though it did mean I drove the oh so repetitive drive between here and L.A. a few more times in quick succession.
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Something Worth Blogging...
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
Hee haw. Hee haw. Still getting around to a long blog. Been working on my 40+ page Business Plan with my group all weekend, and it's finally just about completed.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
Hee haw. Hee haw. Still getting around to a long blog. Been working on my 40+ page Business Plan with my group all weekend, and it's finally just about completed.
