Christmas Vacation
Ah, a few relaxing days back at work after returning from the states. Well, one day anyway. Yesterday was taking care of all the work the piled up in my absence. The sad thing was that on top of all that, they were screaming at me to fly. Normally they don’t make you fly the day after you get back, but we are still short FE’s and I was available. Unfortunately (or maybe luckily) my crew rest was broken by about a dozen F-15’s leaving at 3 in the morning, so I couldn’t help and got to finish up my office work. From now until we deploy all flights are geared towards getting us up to date on our currencies and all ground days are for training and deployment prep. Man, I hope I have enough time to move into my new home next month.
Anyway, quick recap of my time back. I got to spend a lot of time with my friends while I was back. We held a very confusing, but fun Murder Mystery party. I got to meet some new people at a game night, and the New Year’s Eve party was a blast, even though I had to leave early.
I spent the better part of a day hanging out with Mandi, grabbing some lunch before meeting Mike and Andy for some serious Laser Tag action. The evening ended an a bit of a downer note, for reasons I couldn’t explain at the time, but I realized a few days later had to do with withdrawals. No I haven’t been booting black tar heroine in my free time. Over the past 6 months I’ve been working out consistently every other day. After going 4 days without any serious activity, it was actually starting to affect my moods. That had never happened to me before so I originally thought it had something to do with Mandi. Luckily my brother let me use his 24 Hour Fitness membership and afterwards I felt great.
My dad and his wife came to visit on Christmas, which I have to say was probably my favorite gift. I also got some great Blu-ray movies and enough gift certificates to Best Buy and GameStop to get almost a dozen movies and half a dozen games. That Saturday I gave my family their present when I took us all to Winter Park to ski. It wasn’t as big as Keystone, but it was much easier to get to and the lines were way shorter. We had the slopes mostly to ourselves and the view from the top was amazing. You know, pretty much every where I went on Colorado reminded me of why I miss it so much. I can’t wait to get back there.
My mom’s roommate, Mike took me to the shooting range that Monday and I got to brush up on some of my accuracy with a 9mm and a 22, but the biggest surprise was when he let me use his 44 Magnum. Just the air pressure from this gun will stop your heart, but I bet the bullet would throw a man across a room. Definitely makes you feel like Dirty Harry.
I reluctantly left Denver on the 1st. It’s kinda tough to give up 65 degree weather in December. I come back here to 30 degree weather and snow! It wasn’t even snowing in Denver, but it was snowing here! Turns out my iPod charger and tuner in my car uses a little bit of power and I had left it in for 2 weeks. Needless to say, my battery was dead. After getting a jump and getting home, I enter my room to find my roommate broke into my room and had his laptop hooked up to my Internet. To say I was pissed was an understatement. I called my supervisor, told him what happened. Called the 1st Sergeant, who told me there wasn’t too much he could do because my roommate was already getting kicked out of the military. Last I called the Security Forces. He hadn’t stolen anything besides my Internet, so I really couldn’t charge him with anything, but if anything turns up missing or broken, I’ll be taking his paycheck until he leaves. Bastard also ate all of my food and still hasn’t replaced it. If I wasn’t already moving out at the end of the month I would ask for one of us to be moved. As it is, I only have to put up with him for another 20 days.
All in all, great vacation and in 10 months, my next vacation will be permanent.