Kingsquared

On a normal year of which I’ve had 2 in the past 8, Super Bowl Sunday is always the highlight of my week. This year, as I spend it in the desert, I missed out on two pieces of the puzzle: commercials and beer. Unfortunately, I fell asleep earlier today and missed out on the beer. They had a special mission to Iraq and brought enough beer so that everyone could have two of them and I fell asleep. I fell asleep.

I did catch the commercials courtesy of YouTube. Here is my favorite one (in case you missed them too).

This one holds a special place in my heart –

And, because I hate autotune –

sorry about the formatting, I don’t know enough about wordpress themes to fix it

What would you do without the requisite gym update post? Probably continue through your life without skipping a beat – but, I feel the overwhelming need to write something new and the only thing on top of my head is my progress at the gym.

First off, I should have done a better job taking care of myself when I was younger. I’m not old, but, some of the self inflicted injuries still come back and haunt me whenever I workout. Shoulders, knees, feet, and ankles seem to be the problem areas (notice the trend, all joints).

Last time my only goal was to shred weight and I did that to the tune of 25lbs. This time, at the request my significant other, I don’t plan on dropping a ton of weight as I looked “like I hadn’t eaten.” The intensity level isn’t where I would like it but I’ve been pushing myself harder this week and I’m starting to feel the strain. I mix weight days (a variation of the P90x workout) with stationary bike days – I’m not up to full speed on the bike yet (averaging about 13mph). I want to push it to over 18mph by the time that I leave. I’ve got a long way to go but I think I can do it.

I’ve uploaded some photos to Facebook. Some of you don’t have an account and others are random strangers that browse my website (and thus aren’t on my friends list). Click Here to view em.

Via a status update on Facebook, of all places, I learned that a friend of mine had committed suicide. I’m still struggling to understand how the kid I knew reached that point in his life.

When I was 13 or 14 I spent many hours over at his house watching TV or playing computer games with him. His dad seemed a little off and his mom was always at work but more than anything else he seemed to just need a friend. In some ways I feel like I went to his house to play with his toys instead of trying to be his friend. I feel like I have done that at other times in my life too – looking back on that, I’m not proud of my actions. Both of us went to the same church and attended the same youth group. When I started working part time jobs I found an excuse to stop attending church.

When I stopped attending church I didn’t see my friend outside of school after that. He was still an awkward guy that was willing to put himself on the line for friendship. He would never do anything to offend anyone and would never intentionally hurt other people. He was always kind and I don’t think he was ever in a bad mood. We spent time in different social circles – I closed him out like others had done to me. I was just as culpable as the people I despised. This is a guy you wanted for a friend – in retrospect, I wasn’t.

When I graduated I left that town in the hope of never returning. Sure, my family is still there and I visit when I can but I grew to hate that place. That place is where I always felt awkward. That places is where I always felt like an outcast. That place is where I learned to hate the people around me because they didn’t understand. When I think about now I realize that I was the one that was closed off. I put barriers between myself and other people. Why couldn’t I have the confidence in myself that I have now?

My friend stayed close to that town and went to college and got a degree. From what I understand he continued to stay active in his church and was liked by all. Even though I never saw him after graduation, I have no doubts that he was an outstanding guy. It’s been 10 years since I have last seen him but his death still has had a profound effect on me. Why did he take his life? What led him to that point?

Every year I sit through 30 minutes of suicide awareness training. Suicide rate in the military is similar to that of the civilian world. Each branch of service is a little different as the demands placed upon us are not the same. We’re taught to look for signs of depression and for people that are closing themselves off from the rest of the world.

Things to look for:

Appearing depressed or sad most of the time.
Talking or writing about death or suicide.
Withdrawing from family and friends.
Feeling hopeless.
Feeling helpless.
Feeling strong anger or rage.
Feeling trapped — like there is no way out of a situation.
Experiencing dramatic mood changes.
Abusing drugs or alcohol.
Exhibiting a change in personality.
Acting impulsively.
Losing interest in most activities.
Experiencing a change in sleeping habits.
Experiencing a change in eating habits.
Losing interest in most activities.
Performing poorly at work or in school.
Giving away prized possessions.
Writing a will.
Feeling excessive guilt or shame.
Acting recklessly.

Many people that commit suicide will do a practice run prior to taking their lives.

I wish I could have been there to be a friend for him as he was for me. I wish I could have known him and seen some of the signals. Distance and time, unfortunately, have separated me from this person. It has been beaten into my head that with every suicide, the people that were close to him saw the signs (in retrospect) but didn’t do anything – because they didn’t know. They didn’t know how to put the pieces together. They didn’t know to stay with that person no matter what. Never leave a person alone that is in that state.

Suicide sucks – its a damn shame that a good guy like that took his life. There should be more people like him in the world and its a shame the world lost him.

We all have routines that guide us through our day. My routine at home is far different from the one that I have when I deploy. My routine on the weekend is far different than what I have on weekdays. One constant always remains regardless of the situation – I attempt to adhere to my routine all of the time.

I’ve been “out of the pocket” for the past few days and my routine has been absolutely destroyed. I have been waking up two hours later, not working out (don’t have the necessary shoes – At Balad you can walk in and workout in the shoes you are wearing as long as we aren’t in mudcon. At Sather you must carry your gym shoes with you – I only have one pair of tennis shoes with me so I can hardly carry a second pair. Sure, I have my boots and I thought about wearing them in and changing but I also have a transportation issue. Here, unlike Balad, I can’t walk everywhere. In fact, its almost a three mile trip from where we are staying to the rest of the base. ), eating terribly (I don’t have any motivation without working out), and generally accomplishing nothing. We finished our required tasks yesterday and have been waiting ever since to find transportation back “home”. We’ve been all over the “camp victory base complex” and we’ve almost gotten good at the navigation.

I did get to take a tour of the “Victory over America” Palace. Saddam thought that since he was still in power after the gulf war that he should be a victor – so, he built a new palace for himself. This palace, unlike some of the others, was left unfinished when the war started. Our boys in the sky did a little renovation with a couple of 500lb JDAMs. I took a BUNCH of pictures. I’ll have to upload them at some point in the future.

I can only hope I can resume my routine tomorrow. Sure, its not exciting but it’s what gets me through my day and makes the time fly by.

I’ve traveled on a C130 and a C17 and numerous other civilian aircraft. All of them have had one thing in common: fixed wings. Recently I took a trip on a Black-hawk Helo and it was awesome. I had to travel to another base to inspect some stuff and we found it was far easier to arrange transport via chopper over a C130 or anything else. I took a bunch of pictures on the way over – there is no cooler way to see a country than from 1000 feet. Pictures will follow when I get back to Balad.

Havoc is getting bigger by the day! She will be 4 months old on Tuesday and is reaching 40lbs

Since John is gone, he asked me to take pictures of everything and since some of them are pretty cute, I thought I’d share.

I'm Sitting, Please throw ball now

The new crew has arrived and I could be in for a massive share of the workload. The new guy has been in less time than I have but has more inspection experience so he will be the senior inspector. I, on the other hand, outrank him and have much more experience in running all of the programs required to keep us out of trouble. The new management seems to be in high ping mode so I’m going to do what I can to keep them out of our hair. If I run through a few self inspection checklists before they even ask – they should be duly impressed and stay out of our way.

Did I mention new guy (singular) – there is only one person to replace the three that are leaving. I’ve been told they plan on shifting things around but things aren’t looking good.

Things could turn around in a week or two after everyone calms down – I can only hope that they calm down. If not, I’ll keep my blinders on and grit my teeth. It sounds like a trip to the desert is a vacation for most of the new guys. They’ve been working 12’s for the past 6-8 months. There is no reason to work 12’s unless there is so much work that you have to cancel all leave and have people sleep at the shop so they can get back to the task at hand as soon as they wake. In my opinion, they are horribly managed. I can only hope they left all of their “back home we do this” crap behind them.

I haven’t been able to get a decent workout in for the past few days. I’ve got to go to the clinic and get some meds to kill some inflammation in the bottom of my foot/heel. I know what it is and I’ve been doing everything I can do prevent/heal the problem. I’m going to need a little pharmaceutical help. If it doesn’t clear up my mood is going to head quickly south – I need the gym. I need the endorphins.

This place isn’t the Hilton, Sheraton, or Best Western. Think of it as a scattered Motel 6… that sublets your room to other people.

I wish were sleeping in tents. Really, I wish we had tents instead of containerized housing units. First and foremost, I could have some privacy as its fairly easy to segment off a section of a room so that it is yours. This space belongs to you day or night. There is nobody else sleeping in there when you have your day off. You don’t feel bad when you need to go into your room and grab something. The guy that works nights (and who happens to be sleeping) is by far the lightest sleeper I have ever come across. I sleep through almost everything – people banging around in the room, lights getting turned on, controlled detonations by EOD, and fighter jets screaming down the runway.

Sure, the heating/cooling system in a tent isn’t entirely optimal but the tent does have the opportunity to breath a little. The night sleeper likes to turn off the air during the day and get the room nice and cozy… and he likes to make it smell like warm human ass. That smell you notice from the unwashed masses at your local dollar store or Walmart – yep, that’s the smell I’m talking about.

Oh well, at least they feed me well and the only thing I have to complain about it a slightly smelly light sleeper.

I’m doing a slightly different job this time around and everything has been new for me – new is good – new is distracting. I’m working in the inspection section so if it comes in or goes out of the bomb dump I get my hands on it. We are the nexus of the bomb dump.

The term bomb dump sounds terrible to people that directly dissect the words. Its not like a garbage dump where things are left randomly. We have a collection of warehouses, pads, revetments, and buildings where assets are stored in a neat and orderly fashion. We don’t have a death wish so we keep things clean and we make sure that not too much of explosive A gets next to explosive B. If explosive A should catch on fire we could have an extremely bad day.

Unrelated note – ever Google your name? Found this old article from the base paper. A few spots down I found another link. I don’t live a particularly private life – not many people from my generation do either.

Most people have New Years resolutions that are unobtainable. I don’t believe in changing something at the start of the new year; I believe on starting that change on a Monday or whatever day may fall next. I do believe in desert resolutions – when you’re in the desert you have plenty of time to devote to whatever cause one might choose. My cause – the gym.

I did a terrible job of making it to the gym last fall and I knew that my trip to the desert was going to be the time to turn that all around. Aside from being horrendously out of shape (and I’m not talking about being round) things have been going relatively well. I’m not incredibly limber but that does come with time. I took the first 5 day relatively light to warm myself up to the notion of self induced physical abuse and now I’m going as hard as I can. Age and experience have forced me to listen to my body so that I prevent injuries and prevent previous injuries from coming back to haunt me (at one point in time I thought I was invincible…. stupid stupid me)

I haven’t been slinging around that much weight this time but I’ve been focusing on using my body weight for most of the exercises in the hope that it will prevent injury.