Just a Tuesday

Well, it was a long day at work today. I didn’t get home until 1830. I’ve missed giving Sarah her bath and reading her a bedtime stories two nights in a row now. I must break this streak tomorrow! Anyway, the day started with muster and a MOPP drill, wherein I donned all my CBR gear (the stuff that protects us against chemical and biological weapons) in five minutes and thirty seconds. For the first time this homeport, everyone in the battalion was able to don their gear in under eight minutes, which is the requirement. After the drill, I repaired to the office for a little relaxing time spent in front of my computer. I ended up spending most of the day looking at spreadsheets and graphs as I am helping out a senior chaplain at the regiment compile data from all the different Seabee units on base. I know this might frighten some (like my mom), but I really do enjoy crunching numbers—I think I have a little of dad in me…

This afternoon I missed an executive officer’s inquiry (part of the battalion’s punitive process for those that break the rules) because no one told me we were having one. Oops! Then, I ended up hanging around the office until late because I was waiting on the CO to return a brief to me with his edits so that I could make the changes and forward it to the regiment. The brief was due today, and even though I had it done a week early like always, the XO forgot to forward it to the CO until I reminded him about it today. Another oops! At any rate, despite being the one on top of things I had to wait around to get the brief from the skipper so I could turn it in on time. Sadly, I found out that he’d snuck out to go home and would not make any chops until tomorrow. Oh well, at least I spent the time working on more number crunching for my chaplain colleague and faxing off my request to get refractive eye surgery.

Sarah Rose was screaming her head off when I finally walked in the front door at home. I guess mommy had just put her down to bed and she was not happy. Melissa says she was overtired today and needed to crash hard, which always means some loud tears for the parents to suffer through. On a positive note, Sarah woke up but once last night (after sleeping through the night completely a few nights ago) so I was able to get some decent sleep. Yet, I still woke up tired. Oh well…

Now it is time for me to close. I’ve done enough steehopping (word of the day!) about my own life today and need to get to bed so that I can get up and start the routine all over again. One final nugget before I go—I received my third hit on www.wheresgeorge.com today, a fun site where one can track money. My $20 bill had traveled from Fort Collins, Colorado all the way to West Point, Kentucky. My mom really enjoys the hobby and is quite obsessive about it. I, on the other hand, simply enter whatever cash comes through my home but do not go out of my way to spend nothing but cash.