Dream of Waking » Iraq

Days are Numbered

brian — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:34:59 +0000

Yep. It’s that close. In less than 30 days I’ll be sitting at home playing video games with my awesome wife instead of sitting here playing video games while listening to my asshole roommate yell at his apparently not awesome wife. I’ve sent one box of stuff home, I’m packing the second, and the rest of it will be stuffed in duffle bags to be thrown in a shipping container. The strange part is that everything is still so vague that it feels like it’s farther away than it should be. It feels like it’s still three months away rather than one.

In other awesome news, both Ben Folds and Bayside released new albums this week and they’re both rather awesome and make up for past discretions. Life is looking pretty good for a change!

I hate the Army’s promotion system.

brian — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:08:44 +0000

Edit on 28MAR09: Somewhere in time, this article was edited. It wasn’t edited by me. I don’t know who edited it. It’s a shadow of its’ former self and missing everything bad I had to say about the promotion system and I don’t have the will to work up a furor and write all out again. So here’s the long and the short of it; if you suck your first sergeant’s dick enough to get a board appearance, you’ll get promoted to E5 or E6. Leadership abilities or job proficiency be damned.

Original: The Army’s promotion system beyond E-4 is garbage. It is not designed to promote the best people for the job but the ones who play to system’s requirements.

Lots of words ahead that no one will read. TLDR: Working hard won’t get me promoted so I have no desire to work hard.

Promotions to E-5 and E-6 are conducted in two parts, a promotion board appearance and meeting promotion points. In order to get a promotion board appearance you must have at least six months time in grade. You must also be recommended for a promotion board appearance which means your platoon sergeant tells your first sergeant you’re ready to go. In order for him to do that you must prove to him you’re ready and you can be promoted. Part of this is having the minimum number of points to be promoted by the end of the board appearance, which is 350. You get 150 from your commander and (usually) 150 from the promotion board, which means the other 100 you have to come up with on your own.

Bitter now

brian — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:40:15 +0000

This would’ve been an enormous rant about how much I hate my coworkers. Katie defused that one and I channelled it all into the upgrade.

I’m back on night shift again. It’s making me pretty miserable. I can’t tell whether it’s the rigid twelve hour shift, the lack of meaningful work to do, or because I don’t have anyone to talk to but it sucks. My R&R leave is coming up in two months and really it couldn’t come sooner. I can’t wait to get away from this place.

New Year’s Resolution

brian — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:56:58 +0000

1280 x 800. No seriously.

I’ll finish a Bioware or Bioware related RPG. My selection is (in almost chronological order) Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale 2, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Jade Empire, The Witcher, and if I had my own Xbox 360 out here, Mass Effect. I haven’t decided which one but I’ve got a full year and I own almost all of these in one form or another.

Deployment is lame

brian — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 02:59:53 +0000

I didn’t bring enough first-person shooters with me. Like I have Half-Life 2 and Doom and Duke3D and the first two Quake’s but that was nowhere near enough. Need fresh blood.

Now they’ve gone and done it

brian — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:32:45 +0000

Someone said something they shouldn’t have. Now I don’t have to assume someone in my unit is reading this, I know someone is. We all had to disclose our myspaces and facebooks and websites and whatnot. Thanks asshole who doesn’t understand the concept of OPSEC. Hi Dave!