Dream of Waking

It’s true; I probably broke my hand. On Monday my company commander wanted us to pair off and do some combatives, particularly escaping the mount. I paired off with one of my coworkers, who happens to be a pretty big dude. In the process of escaping the mount, he rolled on top of my hand. I’m not sure what went wrong or whether it was the force of the impact or just the way he rolled onto it but I felt a very sharp pain in my hand. So we stopped for a minute and I shook it out and went back to it because I thought it had just been squeezed a little hard.

When I got home and started to get dressed, I had a hard time putting my clothes on because squeezing anything between my thumb and index finger really hurt. As soon as I got back to work I went to see my medics to see what they think. They gave me motrins and tylenols. Not a lot of help there. I spent the rest of the day avoiding using my hand.

The next day I went in early for sick call. Something was obviously wrong with my hand and I want a doctor to see it, or at least get it put on paper. I got an early appointment and the PA has me try to move my hand in certain ways and it hurts so he sent me to get x-rays. I got the x-rays then I was sent back to the waiting room. I waited there for an hour and a half. After the one hour mark I asked the receptionist to remind my PA that I was still waiting. A half hour later he called me in and said that the radiologist hadn’t come in yet and he couldn’t tell if I had broken it or not but he was going to treat it like it’s broken. He gave me a wrist brace, some stronger painkillers (because the motrin and tylenol didn’t do anything), and a followup appointment.

My hand swelled up pretty bad but that’s pretty much gone now. There’s a good size lump right over where it hurts the most. The brace is annoying as hell. I still can’t do some things with my left hand, like open a Cliff Bar or zip a ziplock bag.

I sincerely hope this doesn’t crap all over my planned trip to Knight’s. If I’m still in the brace I’ll probably just take it off and be careful about my hand but still go. If they put me in a cast, that pretty much keeps me from waterslides entirely. I can’t really ride my bike because I’d have a hard time braking and shifting and I tend to squeeze the hell out of my handlebars.

Thankfully my allergy clinic appointment is the same day as my followup and if they find me allergic to grass (which they probably will), hopefully I won’t have to go this again. I think this combatives program is the CO’s way of culling the weak and he’s going to cull me into a VA hospital. The end of the year can’t come fast enough.

You have to stop using Digsby now.

Lifehacker: Digsby Joins the Dark Side, Uses Your PC to Make Money

CNET: Why it’s time to ditch Digsby

I learned about Digsby from Lifehacker and both sites were pretty big proponents of it’s use when it was new and amazing. It’s still an awesome IM client but I’ve seen the spam IMs and recently had to reinstall it and wade through page after page of “free” program offers. None of this stuff existed a couple years ago when the client was new. I can’t recommend Digsby anymore though. What pushed me over the edge was the idle CPU use. Yes, of course, this stuff is hidden within the labyrinthine EULA. The point is that when a program is going to use your idle CPU cycles for a purpose other than what I’m using it for (like an IM client using the idle cycles to index searches) then it needs a big fucking flashing sign that says “I’M DOING THIS THING YOU POTENTIALLY WILL NOT APPROVE OF” before it does such. Slipping it in there make it malware. It’s just too much.

But I’m not going to just say “stop using this!” without giving you something else instead! Pidgin is free, without malware or crapware, and does nearly everything Digsby does with a couple of plugins. I’m also told that Trillian Astra is worth checking out.

But please, stop using Digsby.

Pidgin

Trillian Astra

There was a good article about religious discrimination in The New York Times (posted here) wherein a soldier who has declared himself atheist finds himself threatened by people in his unit who refuse to respect his (lack of) religion. It also goes on to describe a few instances where being an atheist is used against him in trying to get promoted or even enjoy a thanksgiving meal. Though these are extremes the article cannot begin to highlight how the only religion in the Army is Christianity.

In the Army I am constantly hammered with god this, jesus that. God’s everywhere. Every prayer is Christian. Every religious service is Catholic or Protestant. Even functions that have no need for religion get some god injected into them. The worst offender was early in my enlistment when a couple’s first deployment meeting was offered. It might as well have been called “The God and Sex Power Hour”. It was an hour long sermon. No one told me this was a Christian service. Katie was seriously offended by how this supposed couples meeting was just another way to push god on us.

The Family Readiness Group started putting out a monthly newsletter. This too takes no consideration into the fact that not everyone in this unit is Christian. Come on now, is it really necessary to push god in a monthly newsletter aimed at my wife and other spouses while we’re away? Don’t they think that the Christians in the group are already going to church on Sunday and the non-Christians are doing their thing without the need to remind us that Christianity is the only Department of Defense approved religion? The worst part is that I know it was brought up in an FRG meeting that not everyone is Christian and it’s not necessary to put prayers and inspirational messages in the squadron’s FRG newsletter but the end result was it was God’s way or the highway.

I can’t even watch a little Armed Forces Network (Department of Defense satellite tv) without hearing about god. Every message from the Chaplain’s Corps is a bible verse or prayer. There’s even little messages about “who’s going to be there for you? God.” Hey, you know who else is going to be there for you? Allah. Abraham. Moses. Buddha. Vishnu. The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Xenu. L. Ron Hubbard. Eris. Nobody. Nothing. Do we ever hear about anyone other than Christian God? No.

I find it absolutely ridiculous that the Army and Department of Defense operates “religion neutral” and refuses to recognize religions other than Christianity. Either come out with it and say that Christianity is the only authorized religion in the Department of Defense or quit playing lip service to neutrality. I’ve been handed plenty of Christian religious materials and it’s just as easy to say “no thank you” as it is to not hand them out to begin with and not playing to one religions fiddle would better serve the purpose of seperation of church and state.

That’s how many points I missed promotion cutoff by this month.

Size 7.5 Wide. Desert tan. Hot weather type. Army standard issue.

I give up my sizes (top, bottom, hat, gloves, boots) about once every three months. Once every three months someone (usually supply) needs my sizes for god knows what. I cough up the same sizes every time; Small-Regular, Small-Short, 7.25, 8, 9.5 Regular. This last time we went to get new uniforms before this deployment I got small boots. I got small boots because the guy there told us not to go by the size we usually wear because these were different boots. The boot he gave me that he said was 9.5R was too big. The boot that felt closest to fitting was 7.5W. Whatever. I’m not wearing them right now, my boots are fine.

So I didn’t wear them until about three months into the deployment. 7.5W is too fucking small. They don’t fit. I can’t get them swapped out because I’m in Iraq and there’s not shit that can be done out here about it. Oh well, one pair of boots down the drain. It’s a good thing the Army buys us new uniforms while we’re in country, hopefully I can get a new pair of boots that fit.

Wrong. Even though I give up my sizes once every three months, supply decided to go with what I was issued more than nine months ago. A size I’ve never worn before as I’ve always worn size 9.5R boots. Every pair of boots I own are size 9.5R and every pair fits except these two pairs of worthless boots. So since I’ve got a brand new pair of boots that I know don’t fit I thought I’d take them to my supply guy so I can get them sent back and get a proper pair out here that do fit.

Wrong again. My new supply guy must get off on fucking other soldiers because he basically told me I could go fuck myself. He said he can’t (or won’t as I believe is the case) send them back and I could try to find someone who wears a 7.5W boot (no one) and give them to them and let me get the right size when they get their stuff or else I’m stuck with boots that don’t fit. So I’m stuck with boots that don’t fit for a second time.

So if no one wants these brand new 7.5 Wide, desert tan, hot weather standard issue Army boots, then I’m either giving them away to some Iraqi kid who needs them (most likely) or throwing them in the trash (out of spite). Because 7.5W boots are worthless to my 9.5R feet.