I Should Be Asleep

First off, a big thank you to everyone that I saw or spoke to while I was in Birmingham this weekend! It was a pleasure to see an early Thanks-birth-mas with everyone. For folks that couldn't make it by the house on Friday, I understand and you owe me a beer when I get back. ;)

I just posted the pictures on PicasaWeb, so everyone check those out if you get a chance.

So I'm down here at CRC, and have been since Saturday morning. I left my parents' house at around 3:15 am to drive down to Columbus in order to be there for registration at 8:00. It turns out that nothing important happened until around 0900 (it was at this point that I converted to 24 hour time), so I felt like I threw away several more hours of sleep, but is one to do?

Saturday was spent waiting in lines for different things. At first we waited in line to get copies made of our passports so that we could wait in line to be issued badges. With our stinking badges in hand we all formed up with our fellow deployees and headed up the hill to be educated a (very) little bit on what is to happen to us this week. Apparently, it's a lot of paperwork and waiting for things to happen. At least that's my impression after two full days.

Today we got in around 0630 (it gets earlier every day, so far) and were fitted for our kevlar body armor. This took all of a half hour at which point we broke until 1230. I must say that this is where the big difference between us and the Army lies--if we were enlisted we'd have to spend the intervening four hours on our hands and knees organizing gravel or something. As it was, we headed back to the hotel to relax and catch up on lost sleep.

Speaking of which, I have to be back there in just a few hours, so I think I'll cut this one short. Thanks again to everyone for coming to the party on Friday!