Wednesday, September 20, 2006, 03:02 AM - Family, Nathan, Lisa, PC
Lately everyone has been asking me how things are going, how I'm doing, yada yada yada. The answer as of late has been "busy busy busy" followed by a big sigh, rubbing of the temples, and shaking of the head.
On my way home tonight I was gearing up for a big fight with Lisa because when I talked to her aroud 5:30pm,, I told her that I'd be late tonight and would miss dinner. This would mark the 4th dinner I've missed with the family in the last 2 weeks. So, I was all ready to come in and be like "hey, I've got a lot going on at work and I'm trying to do the best job I can being a good husband, father, and Marine so cut me some slack".
As I walked up the sidewalk, I noticed that the light in Nathan's bedroom was on which could only mean one thing at 7:15pm: the bedtime routine had started. I opened the door and wasn't greeted with the typical "DADDY'S HOME!!!!" Nope, tonight I walked upstairs and went in to Nathan's room and was greeted by a "dadduh" from Nathan and a "oh look, Daddy's home just in time to say good night to you" from Lisa. Of course I gave her the evil eye at that time...but then I just looked at Nathan and realized what a jerk I am.
My son, the one who I'm supposed to love, nurture, teach, protect, etc hasn't seen me for about 13 hours. He briefly saw me at 6:15am when I left for work, but that's it. At first I was thinking "hey, I've got a lot of things to do at work in order to prepare for this exercise". Just from looking into his eyes, staring at his face, and touching his skin, all that crap fell away and I saw myself as being a failure in the last couple of weeks. I'm going to be gone for more than 30 days for work, there's no reason why I need to extend that just because I can't get everything accomplished in one day.
If I can't get everything done during the normal 7:30 - 4:30 work day, then I need to do that work after Lisa and Nathan go bed. For most stuff, it's not worth being away from my family because THEY are the priority.
After I kissed Nathan goodnight, we went in and changed our sheets then went downstairs and cleaned the kitchen, picked up the family room, and ate dinner. Actually, I ate dinner while Lisa did all of those things. So what's the other thing I feel like a jerk about? Yup, you got it: not only is Nathan paying for my workload, but Lisa is too. She's acting like a single Mom, doing all the clean up, laundary, cooking, etc ON TOP OF taking care of Nathan. Her day never ends and yet I expect to come home after a LOOOONG day of work and relax.
See, I told you I was a jerk.
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Thursday, September 14, 2006, 03:56 AM
Thanks, guys, for your love and support. Lisa told me about the hate comments on my last blog entry...awesome. I'll just say this: when you start waking up at 1:45am in order to be at work by 2:45am and then don't get home until 6 or 7pm, then you can make those comments. For all of you out there who are having normal days and normal sleeping hours, good for you. Tonite was the first time I'd seen my son awake in the last 3 days because I left so early and came home so late. How bad is that?
Anyway, the reason for my crazy hours this week is because I've been at the rifle range from early in the morning until about noon. After that I go into work with every intention of checking my emails and then going home early. Well, my unit is moving headquarters from one building to another and nothing has been going right as far as comm goes. There were no phones turned on in the building for almost 2 days after we moved in, the computers weren't hooked up until a day later....ugggh it's been a bad week.
If you're lucky, I'll post more during my recovery period this weekend. It's been so bad that we haven't really even watched Prison Break!!
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Friday, September 1, 2006, 04:33 AM
I just wanted to wish PC a very warm welcome back to the blogging community. Oh wait...that's me!! Yes, I know, some very RUDE people have been leaving comments on my blog, mean messages on our answering machine, even going so far as to fly out to our house to acost me in person. I GET THE HINT!!! You want me to blog on a regular basis. Right, got it. Here ya go...
So what have I been up to lately? Well since my last post I had a flight suit formal, became 27 years old, spent about 30 minutes with my parents while they were here for 2 weeks, planned an exercise for 1000 people, planned the move of 80 computers and phones to our new building at work, flew to the Philippines for 4 days, and started building a rock garden. In short, I've been really busy. In fact, last night I was up until 2am working on stuff that I didn't get done during the day. Man, there's just not enough time. That whole hourly rate that I talked about in my last post really hits home during weeks like this.
I haven't had time to respond to emails, blog, or even search the Internet and read blogs that I normally enjoy reading. So, it's good and bad that I'm taking a week of leave next week. Yes, I'll be working after everyone goes to bed, but it'll be nice to get out of the daily grind and take some time off.
Anyway. The Philippines was neat. It was kind of like little America in a lot of ways. There's a mall on Clark Airfield that is exactly like what you'd see in Colorado or Virginia or...well, maybe not Iowa, but you get the idea
So there ya go, a small blog entry. Stay tuned tomorrow for an update on the rock garden. Lisa doesn't think that I'll finish it before our guests arrive. I'm gonna show her!
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Friday, August 4, 2006, 03:21 AM - USMC
Lisa brought up a topic in one of her recent blog entries that is very near and dear to our hearts: military pay. For those of you who don't know, all of our pay is public knowledge and you can see that here: http://www.dod.mil/dfas/militarypay/new ... pdated.pdf.
Let's do some analysis. I'm a 2ndLt (paygrade of O1) with over 2 years in the military. My base pay is $2,514.60 per month. The equivalent of my time in service on the enlisted side ould be a LCpl (paygrade of E3) with over 2 years in the military and his base pay is $1,595.70 per month. In both of our cases, our medical care and housing costs are covered. I get $187/month for "subsistence" (food) while the LCpl get's a meal card for free meals at the chow hall.
Having said all of that, if we do an hourly wage type dealy, here's what it comes down to:
2ndLt hourly wage (working 50 hours/week): $12.32
LCpl hourly wage (working 50 hours/week): $7.82
But, 50 hours a week is what we usually only spend at our desks. In the eight months I've been working here, I've been deployed for a total of about 2 1/2, working 12-18 hour days the whole time. Technically, we are on call 24 hours a day. I have gone into work on more than half of the weekends since I've been here. So, looking at the 24 hours a day, here's the new hourly wage:
2ndLt hourly wage (working 24 hours/day): $3.67
LCpl hourly wage (working 24 hours/day): $2.33
Enlightening, huh? We don't do it for the money, especially the enlisted guys. The benefits are pretty good, but the reason most people do it is because they want to get out of a bad situation or just to give more meaning to their lives.
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Thursday, August 3, 2006, 02:54 AM
How do ya like them apples, Marc? Three posts in one day! And, the one about typhoon Bilis is no longer showing up either. Got any more funny comments? Yeah, that's what I thought 
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Thursday, August 3, 2006, 02:53 AM
Hey, Marc, this one's for you. I heard you giving me crap on Lisa's blog about not posting anything regularly.[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Thursday, August 3, 2006, 02:46 AM - USMC
Remember when staying up late was really bad ass? Well, I would like to officially tell you that it's not any more. I used to laugh because my mom had a rule about "no new ideas after 9:00pm". Basically, by that time, she was dog tired and was actually laying in bed reading something or watching TV or whatever just before bed. I've never really been a night person, but I couldn't ever believe that!
Times have certainly changed. In a few days, I'll be 27 years old. I normally wake up at 0600 and hit the rack about 2200 (10:00pm for you civilians out there). Last night, however, I went to bed at 0300 and woke up this morning at 0600 to go to work. Yup, that's right, I worked for about 5 hours straight on our plan for the next exercise we're going on. Without going into too much detail, it looks like every unit in the Wing is playing except for the Wing HQ. My unit is going to run everything. And, since I'm the Communication Officer, that means I'm running all the comm. Awesome. Me. A 2ndLt. I guess you get what you ask for! Aside from just the sheer size of it all, it's just A LOT OF WORK and not a lot of time. Plus, I've got all the other projects still going on that I'm taking care of.
Anyway, back to the subject. So, yeah, getting only 3 hours of sleep at night is no longer possible. Thank God Nathan has been sleeping through the night for the last couple of nights, because when he wasn't, it was even worse! Note to self: I guess I'm not a kid anymore...I can't stay up until the wee hours of the morning and expect to be 100% the next day!
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Monday, July 31, 2006, 03:22 AM - Japan, Technology, WWW
Everybody who's reading this blog should know for a FACT that I'm a computer super freak. Having said that, what comes next should not at all surprise you.
Google Maps is a really cool feature. You can look satellite images of locations, maps, etc. You can also use their API to pinpoint places and reference them later. Well...that's what I'm starting to do with things we like to do or places we like to go in Okinawa. There's a lot I still want to do to this website, but this is just a start. Leave me a comment to let me know what you think:
http://www.thedrews.net/maps/index.php
BTW, click on the red markers to see the text entry.
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Monday, July 31, 2006, 03:14 AM - Family, Japan, Pictures
;)
Today we drove to Ikei Island to see what all the hubub was about. In order to get there, we pass the Jusco that I just found out about and cross a really pretty bridge, drive through two other islands, and finally end up on Ikei Island. The island is tiny and is mostly inhabited by farmers. There's one resort, a motorcycle racing track (huh?), a lot of farms, and a bunch of beaches. It seems that more than one person capitalized on their beach front property by charging $4-$6 per person to use the beach. There were a couple of beaches that we found (where all the surfers go) that are free and deserted. My kind of place!
After driving all around Ikei for about 30 minutes, we drove back and stopped in the middle of a bridge to take pictures. Nope, we weren't the only crazy people!! There were 3 other cars stopped on both sides taking pictures. He he he, I love Japan!
After that, we drove through the other islands, stopped at a few more beaches, and commented on the fact that Okinawans really love taking their sun tents out to the beach along with their grills and doing an old fashioned (Japanese) BBQ. Full on with yakitori, hot dogs, vegetables, etc. Sounds like fun to me!
On the way home, of course, we HAD to stop off at the Jusco mall and get a blood orange slurpee from the Doutor Coffee place. We saw that last week when Lisa finally took me to the mall and I got the slurpee. Man was it good!!!
All in all, it was an awesome day exploring one of the great benefits of living on a (sub) tropical island. Click the related link for the rest of the pictures.
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Wednesday, July 26, 2006, 03:16 AM - Japan
Here's a weird tidbit for you: all official references to the year in Japan are done as the number of years since the current emporer has been on the throne. For example, when talking to Americans, I drive a 1989 Toyota Town Ace. If I look on my Japanese title it says the van was built in "Heisei gannen" or the first year of the Heisei era. My insurance espired in July of "Heisei 18" or the 18th year of the Heisei era. My new insurance, that I got completed today (it's like an emissions inspection in the states) will expire in "Heisei 20".
Anyway, for those of you who are interested in reading more about how the Japanese dates work, click on the related link.
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