Coffee Therapy

So I'm sitting here at the local coffee shop, drinking a double latté (not bad, by the way) and recovering from my night of debauchery. Some highlights:

- Bro date at the strip club
- Jabba the Hut's female human-hybrid descendant in a pink shirt, sitting in a dark corner watching the girls by herself.
- Both of us attempt to photograph this visual atrocity. Photography intercepted by security, verbally warned.
- Follow random skank to house party in the boonies. I am glad I'm armed, in case they decide they need my kidneys. Or my car.
- No one attempts to steal my organs or primary mode of transportation.
- Watch buddy vomit violently out my window. Most of it ends up on my paint and/or door panel.
- Clean vomit (my favorite!) at 4am in barracks parking lot, much to the amusement of passers by. Assholes.

Average night, really.

I'm going to go buy a new PS3 game and hide in my room all day. Carry on.

Edit: bought Skyrim... finally. Goodbye social life, see you in a month or two.

Forgive My Slacker Tendencies

I guess I can't really be bothered to post lately. Between work, drinking aggressively, and sleeping like it's going out of style, it's just not happening. I need to step my game up, clearly.

More to follow tomorrow, probably... I'm sure twenty four hours of battalion Staff Duty will twist my mind in some entertaining way.

Carry on

Feeling Like Alice

I definitely feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole. I barely recognize this place with all the changes in leadership and doctrine lately. All that acid I took earlier probably isn't helping, either.

My only saving grace right now is my injured status, which precludes me from doing 95% of platoon activities - including 'corrective' training, i.e. getting my balls smoked off for someone else's fuck ups. I never thought I'd say this, but... thank God I'm crippled right now. Otherwise I might lose it. Hell, I might lose it anyway. This place has seriously gone to shit recently. I've reached the point where, if this was a regular civilian job, I'd start looking for another job, put in my two weeks notice, and never look back.

Since that's not an option, I'm going to start boosting the stock prices of my favorite microbreweries, grab a straw, and suck it the fuck up. And complain. A lot.

Looks like I'm going to hitch a ride with Nasty Nate this weekend and head west to his house in the Smokies. Mercifully, my right arm is uninjured so I ought to still be able to fly fish - may be a bit awkward at first, but I'll make it work. My sling-arm might even make a good beer holder. Hmmmmm, yes, this shows promise.

Driving the 'vette these days is a bit scandalous, it being a 6 speed and all. My two options are to unsling and use my left hand on the wheel (which hurts like crazy) or to stay slung and drive and shift with my right hand. I usually take the latter option and skip gears as much as possible - generally 1-3-5 or 2-4-5 depending on the circumstances. Honestly, it's torquey enough that I could just leave it in third the whole time, but I don't like roasting my clutch or getting shitty gas mileage.

What else... my sleep patterns are all fuckered up these days, what with my pulling crazy amounts of CQ and Staff Duty shifts (24 hours on, with the next day off to recover). Today was my recovery day and I slept from 0900 clear through to 1800. I needed it, but I'm still ready to sleep more. Guess that's the curse of having a giant open wound - my immune system's going crazy trying to keep me up and running, and it's wearing me the fuck out. Most of the time I'm a near zombie. It definitely doesn't help boost my already record-low levels of Give a Fuck. Then again, neither does being shit-housed on Vicodin all the time, but so be it.

All for now. Airborne, All the way, H-minus, re-enlist 82nd, etc.

Nothing to Report

I think my painkillers are sapping the creativity out of me, 500mg at a time. Anyway, I have work in like two hours so I'm just saying Fuck It and pulling an all nighter. Gonna be a rough day tomorrow!

Happy St. Fatty's Day

...may you manage to avoid arrest, scars, and fat chicks.

I'm in recovery mode and taking it pretty easy. Wish I could see all you great friends around the world tonight.

Stay safe y'all.

-Jack

Coffee, Drugs, and Books

So apparently spring is here. How do I know? Because when I walked out to my car this afternoon, I was greeted with a nice, thick layer of neon-green POLLEN. Fucking pollen. Everywhere! Goddamnit! As if it wasn't hard enough to keep that dang car clean.

Then, of course, I also have seasonal allergy problems. They don't get that bad in Dixie, judging from last year, but it's still going to be a sneezefest for the next couple months. Fuckin' hate that.

Anyway, right now I'm simultaneously high as shit on Vicodin and sweating from this giant triple latte. It's an interesting combination (I wonder if this is how meth feels?). Been awhile since I've had any good prescriptions... I think the last time was in '09 when I shattered the bejeezus out of my lower radius, again via an impromptu meeting with a concrete slab. (Seems we need to rubberize the world if I'm expected to remain uninjured for any length of time.) That time they gave me so much Percocet that I became nearly immune to its effects - wonder I didn't get properly addicted to it. God knows I needed the stuff after having my lower arm replaced with a giant titanium rod, held together with an entire hardware store full of screws. Curse my accident-proneness.

In other news, evidently "proneness" is an actual word. Sounds wrong, you know?

I was going to try and finish Outlaws, Inc. today but I can't seem to figure out what I did with it. Looks like I'll test my virtual DUI skills in Gran Turismo 5 instead. I also picked up one each of Chris Kyle's American Sniper and Tucker Max's Hilarity Ensues, which are autobiographies of the most lethal U.S. military sniper in history and the biggest douchebag in U.S. history, respectively. Interesting role models I have.

I guess I'll stop rambling now... deuces

Cripple Staff Duty

Well, a few of us broken fucks are sitting here at battalion on a 24 hour shift, twiddling our thumbs and attempting to stay awake at all costs.

The MPs came when some weirdo from the extra duty group found a half-smoked blunt in the parking lot. Naturally, they thought it was his, as he was on this detail specifically because he'd gotten caught smoking the ganj. Anyway, it was obviously dirty Mexican schwag, but somehow still qualified as weed according to the instant THC test.

I've still got nearly twelve hours left here, followed immediately by an orthopaedic appointment for my broken self. Then I get to find a DMV so I can help my buddy get his ID back... but then I will sleep for hours upon end, and it will feel wonderful.

For now I'll stay awake courtesy of my very interesting book about the arms/drugs/humanitarian aid smuggling trade around the world (Outlaws, Inc. by Matt Potter, if you're into these things, I highly recommend it), interrupted occasionally by the crackle of my radio.

- one bleary eyed paratrooper

Stupid Hurts.

I don't want to talk about how it happened, but my left arm is in a pseudo-cast right now and slung up. Took a nice little spill on some concrete and broke my fall with my elbow. I'm a dumb ass. Pretty sure I lost at least a quart of blood. If I took my cast thing off, you could see the bone and a bunch of little tendons and things. It's bad.

Anyway, I'm in constant pain and feel like vomiting. The only redeeming thing about this injury is that I can still fish. Thank God for that.

I could really, really use a sympathy BJ right about now.

Two Beers Down, Lots to Go.

Yes, I'm downing a twelve pack of Fat Tire to my face. No, it's not quite noon yet. Judge me.

We got back from the field around 0200 this morning, haggard as fuck, slightly delirious, and eyes bloodshot, shuffling through the company and up the stairs like so many hungry zombies. Unlike the undead, however, we paratroopers craved only sleep and a shower (and maybe a whiskey bottle) rather than human flesh. Most of us had four hours at most per night and worked our asses off during the day (the line guys much more so than myself, but still, I was fucking beat) and eaten little but MREs and shitty field chow. Needless to say, we were highly disgruntled about the whole situation - and being greeted with hours of weapons maintenance, orders not to shower or change, and a mere two hours of uncomfortable sleep on the company's concrete floor did nothing to brighten our collective mood.

Other than the fact that I'm broken, tired, and pissed off, this week's training did have a few fleeting enjoyable moments. I got to pitch a few frag grenades, which are always fun because I love explosives. I was the only guy (out of about thirty) to sink a practice frag into an ammo box from around 35m. That was supposed to net me a late call on Monday, but naturally that's not happening. Congratulations Jack, you win absolutely nothing! Ah well, at least I can add another bullet point to the list of things that I'm better (or luckier) at than other people.

Anyway, besides playing with frags and some other items that go boom, I spent most of the week playing with my radio and generally doing my best POG impersonation. Shot my issue carbine a bit and played with ("tested", ha!) another new rifle for awhile. I'm still pretty good, but I could definitely use some more trigger time... much of my loss in speed can be attributed to exhaustion, but maybe next weekend I'll take my AUG to the range for a good workout anyway.

Well, these Fat Tires aren't going to drink themselves. More later, maybe, if I get around to it.

Fishing > Work

Pretty much how I feel right now. This work shit is seriously overrated.

Heading back into the field tomorrow for a few days. Maybe I'll actually get to shoot something this time, but I doubt it will be much. At this point I'll just settle for decent weather and a minimum of political bullshit from higher up (ha! not likely).

This past weekend was another excellent few days in the Carolina mountains, despite the extremely pissed-off rain gods. I went fishing for an afternoon and caught one pretty nice Brookie on an Elk Hair Caddis, wonderful dry fly that it is. Sadly, I also discovered that I hate my 3-weight Sage, so I promptly handed it to one of my fishing compatriots and rigged up my old standby 5-weight. Anyone want a 9 foot 3-weight Sage? Ha!

Got a little too aggressive in my wading attempts and nearly met my maker as a result... I must be more careful about that. The current was much stronger than I anticipated due to the heavy rains the night prior. Anyway, no broken rods, limbs, or hearts, so all's well that ends well. The only casualty was my left index finger which ended up becoming very friendly with the aforementioned Elk Hair Caddis - pretty sure I made up some new words while pulling that bitch out with hemostats. Fuck, that hurt.

It looks like I'll be spending a few days in the Carmel, CA area in July for my cousin's wedding. I was offered an all-expenses-paid vacation with my own personal room at a very beautiful resort. I'm no rocket surgeon, but I know when something is entirely too good to pass up - and the timing happens to be solidly within my projected block leave dates. The gods want it to happen, and so I shall let it.

All for now. Stay classy.

Off to Ze Mountains Once More

Well, it's time for another training holiday so I'm off to the Smokies again. Thanks, taxpayers.

Finally went to sick call today to find out why my ankle's been in excruciating pain lately. Apparently I sprained it fairly badly on my last jump (three weeks ago), and it turns out that running five miles a day isn't the best way to heal it. Who would have guessed? Anyway, got me a big ol' sketchy bag of pills and a three week medical profile. Fortunately, my profile says absolutely nothing about wading through streams or boulder hopping, so it's time to get my line wet this weekend! Giggity.

Deuces