Roll for initiative!
Apologies for the lack of updates! I've been microblogging on Twitter
and that has caused me to neglect my LiveJournal. This entry is being
posted by email since LJ is blocked from work; apologies if the
formatting gets messed up.
I finally escaped from the tiny tent they had me in and moved into a
trailer! Now I don't have to worry about using as little light as
possible lest I wake up the people on the other shift. I finally have
room for all of my things instead of organizing them by piles on the
floor! It's very nice to have four solid walls around me. Sadly,
those four solid walls completely block wireless access, so I have to
take my laptop to the Square-K (a comfy little hangout spot which is
far quieter than the Rec Tent) if I want to download things.
The biggest change is that I have a roommate now: A1C Ham, a co-worker
from my office. He's very cheerful and a huge geek, so we get along
very well.
Work is going OK. I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with the
way Air Force leadership works at every level, due to a variety of
incidents which are best not discussed here. When I joined, I think I
had some idea that the Air Force would be a little like Starfleet, a
high-tech organization dedicated to stopping bad guys and doing the
right thing. That's about as far away from the truth as it could
possibly be, except (arguably) for the high-tech part (at least
compared to what I've seen of the other services). Still, I can't
deny that I have a great job--I sit in front of a computer with
Internet access for perhaps 70% of my day, and for much of the rest of
that I'm fixing computer problems, which can be fun and which I am
fairly good at. As long as the people I'm working with behave
themselves, I'm a happy guy, and every once in a while I get a
customer that truly appreciates my work for them and makes me feel
like a milllion bucks. In some ways, I like my job here better than
the one I had in Tucson.
I'm also running a Dungeons and Dragons game! While I was in
Tucson I joined a local game and got some solid experience with Fourth
Edition; I'm putting that to use over here by running a game. Being a
Dungeon Master is a huge change from being a player. I feel a very
strong sense of responsibility for the game, especially since most of
my players have never played before. However I run the game, that
will be Dungeons and Dragons to them. We had our first game on
Saturday night and narrowly avoided a Total Party Kill with our two
players; a third showed up later (having informed me in advance that
he had another responsibility for most of that night) and I think I've
recruited a fourth and maybe a fifth. I'm running the plot and the
combat and organizing the whole thing and training the new players on
top, which is a little overwhelming; fortunately, Ham has played
before and is contributing quite a bit to the game's success. It's an
exhilarating challenge, and I'm learning a lot about D&D, leadership,
and stories in general. Definitely a bright spot of my deployment.
It feels good to stretch my writing legs after all this time and not
be confined to Twitter's haiku-like writing style! Hopefully my D&D
game will provide anecdotes worth telling publically, and I will
continue to provide micro-updates on Twitter. Eleven weeks down,
fifteen to go!
and that has caused me to neglect my LiveJournal. This entry is being
posted by email since LJ is blocked from work; apologies if the
formatting gets messed up.
I finally escaped from the tiny tent they had me in and moved into a
trailer! Now I don't have to worry about using as little light as
possible lest I wake up the people on the other shift. I finally have
room for all of my things instead of organizing them by piles on the
floor! It's very nice to have four solid walls around me. Sadly,
those four solid walls completely block wireless access, so I have to
take my laptop to the Square-K (a comfy little hangout spot which is
far quieter than the Rec Tent) if I want to download things.
The biggest change is that I have a roommate now: A1C Ham, a co-worker
from my office. He's very cheerful and a huge geek, so we get along
very well.
Work is going OK. I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with the
way Air Force leadership works at every level, due to a variety of
incidents which are best not discussed here. When I joined, I think I
had some idea that the Air Force would be a little like Starfleet, a
high-tech organization dedicated to stopping bad guys and doing the
right thing. That's about as far away from the truth as it could
possibly be, except (arguably) for the high-tech part (at least
compared to what I've seen of the other services). Still, I can't
deny that I have a great job--I sit in front of a computer with
Internet access for perhaps 70% of my day, and for much of the rest of
that I'm fixing computer problems, which can be fun and which I am
fairly good at. As long as the people I'm working with behave
themselves, I'm a happy guy, and every once in a while I get a
customer that truly appreciates my work for them and makes me feel
like a milllion bucks. In some ways, I like my job here better than
the one I had in Tucson.
I'm also running a Dungeons and Dragons game! While I was in
Tucson I joined a local game and got some solid experience with Fourth
Edition; I'm putting that to use over here by running a game. Being a
Dungeon Master is a huge change from being a player. I feel a very
strong sense of responsibility for the game, especially since most of
my players have never played before. However I run the game, that
will be Dungeons and Dragons to them. We had our first game on
Saturday night and narrowly avoided a Total Party Kill with our two
players; a third showed up later (having informed me in advance that
he had another responsibility for most of that night) and I think I've
recruited a fourth and maybe a fifth. I'm running the plot and the
combat and organizing the whole thing and training the new players on
top, which is a little overwhelming; fortunately, Ham has played
before and is contributing quite a bit to the game's success. It's an
exhilarating challenge, and I'm learning a lot about D&D, leadership,
and stories in general. Definitely a bright spot of my deployment.
It feels good to stretch my writing legs after all this time and not
be confined to Twitter's haiku-like writing style! Hopefully my D&D
game will provide anecdotes worth telling publically, and I will
continue to provide micro-updates on Twitter. Eleven weeks down,
fifteen to go!