Cars In Clarksville

I saw this car in the parking lot of Lowe's and I had to do a double take. I've seen people who put those team pride flags in their windows or reindeer antlers at Christmas time, but this was really different:

Is this something people are doing now?

It has jeweled eyeliner, too. The picture doesn't do it justice. What the heck is wrong with people? Clearly, a woman drives that car. And you can bet her husband/significant other is morbidly embarrassed if he has to take her car for a quick trip to the home improvement warehouse.

Staff Duty Paperwork

I'm winding down a 24 hour shift at work. I have 2 hours to go; I quit chugging Monsters and stuffing my face with Flaming Hot Cheetos over an hour ago in preparation for sweet slumber once I'm relieved of this duty. Now I'm more bored than I can truly express.

I started digging through the drawers of the desk I've been perched at for the past 22 hours. Not a whole lot beside plastic cutlery and old US Weekly magazines in there. But then I found this big green binder that had this interesting sticky note on it:

"This book is useless, see notes inside."

Now I'm interested.

I started flipping through the green binder and it was full of blank military documents, and several other informational sticky notes throughout the book.

"Why is this needed? Why is this at the staff duty desk? I don't think it's needed."



"We are not on a flight line... Why do we have this at the staff duty desk?"

"This is filled out by the 1SG, there is no reason to have this at the staff duty desk."

This is clearly the work of another painfully bored NCO at the end of their shift. Instead of removing the folder and fixing the problem, mockery of the book commenced. This could have/would have been me if I had gotten my hands on this book first. Bravo, anonymous NCO. Bravo.

Iraqi Jackie still?

Well, since we went ahead and pulled out of Iraq (prematurely, in my opinion (what a sexual sentence that became suddenly)), I'm left to make a decision involving my blog. Do I continue to keep the alias of Iraqi Jackie? Not a lot else rhymes with 'Jackie'....

Khaki Jackie? I'd like to think my personality is more colorful than that.

Lackey Jackie? Oh come on, that sounds like a bad Disney villain.

Tacky Jackie? We're getting a little closer, but do I want people to think I dress like an old Asian lady?

Wacky Jackie? Theme park. Definitely a water theme park.

As of now, I'm staying with Iraqi Jackie. Not just because it's familiar and safe, but because I've made it my log in ID for Game Center on my iPhone. You can't just change something like that on a whim.

What a Life

Picasso really leads a rough life...

First Picasso post of 2012! WOOT!

2 + 2 + 2 = Insantiy

Getting promoted to Sergeant (E-5) and Staff Sergeant (E-6) in the Army is based on a points scale. The scale maxes out at 800 points. You earn points in various ways, and one of them is Military Education.

Military Education can either be done in a sit-down in-person course put on by the Army, or you can do it online via Correspondence Courses. Those damn courses used to be so easy until the Army got wise to us and changed it up so cheating is obsolete. Obsolete until Soldiers figure out how to cheat again-- which will happen sooner or later.

For now, I have to actually complete them myself. :( And, of course, this new system is still full of bugs and the Help Desk folks you can call clearly hate their jobs.

My Platoon Sergeant assigned 2 courses to the platoon. Neither course has been short. And several times I have set aside the time to complete a course on Anatomy or Physiology and the course crashed on me. Two times this has happened. Those two tests are 100 questions each, and both times the test crashed on question 99.

2 different tests. 2 hours it takes me to get to question 99. 2 times it has crashed. No credit gets awarded for an incomplete test. I am going to lose my mind. Thank you, Army, for creating such a stellar computer based education system.

New Paint, New Year!

I painted my living room over the 4 day New Year weekend. I am a party animal. The paint still needs a few touch ups and the tray ceiling needs to be painted. I'm so sick of painting right now I'm living with the flaws for a while! My right arm is exhausted!!

Before: Yucky mint green walls.

After: Yummy milk chocolate walls.

I love having a house. It's one of the better decisions I made in 2011.

Oh, and Happy New Year. It's been a hot minute since I posted anything. I try to keep this blog light hearted and funny. And there is absolutely nothing positive about my outlook on my military career right now. No sense writing depressing or angry blogs. I'll find my positive pants sooner or later and get back to blogging. Until then....

Collin's Dirty Thirty

One of my besties, Collin, turned 30!! Dirty thirty!! We got down in Nashville for the event. We also were cheap and we were ridin' dirty all packed into one vehicle.

Lots of fun, laughter and sangria! Happy Birthday, Collin!!

Veteran's Day 2011

How did I spend my Veteran's Day?

Well let me tell you:

First off, I had the day off. So praise Jesus for that. So I slept until noon. Then I hung out in my pajamas with Picasso and James until around 5pm. Then I dressed myself for the day. James and I went to the movies and saw "Immortals". We could have skipped it and it wouldn't have changed my life for the better or for the worse. Then we went to dinner.

Applebees and a few other establishments were offering free meals to veterans all day. We drove passed Applebees and took one look at the wrap around line and went to a Japanese steak house that didn't even offer a military discount.

Damn it feels good to be a Veteran. :)

FTX November

We packed up our Army stuff and went on a little field training exercise (FTX) last week. Three wonderful days and two luxurious nights, all inclusive. And by that I mean, we trained outside in the cold and rain all day, slept in a tent that reeked of mold and had intermittent heat at best, and ate hot chow out of green plastic rubber maid containers.

Ah, yes, I love the field.

The training wasn't all that bad this go-around. Usually we're running a TMC (troop medical clinic): taking fake casualties all day and most of the night so there is little time for rest. This time we were out there doing Army Training. You know, running around with fake rubber weapons and crawling through dirt. Assaulting objectives and reacting to notional enemies. As soon as the sun went down, all Army training stopped (just like in real life....?) and we got to sleep.

Hooah Hooah Hooah.

All of this training culminated in a fake convoy through several training sites in order to we put all the lessons together. One of my junior Soldiers was chosen to be the convoy commander for our run. I got to be her advisor. You know, the person who has actually done this stuff who could give her ideas and reel her in when she started to get over whelmed.

PFC Bowman did an outstanding job and I was really proud of her! Proud like a Mama Bear!! I have great troops!!

1 year :)

James and I have been together for one year. It feels goooood.

Love you, babe!