Soulless & Feral

Week one is down and week two is well underway. After the initial couple of days which seemed to drag on forever, I’ve more or less established a routine that has the days flowing by relatively quickly. The 12 hour shifts aren’t so bad, either… when you figure the time we take to eat and the time spent running around, the shift ends up being closer to 9 hours. Besides, working an 8 hour shift would leave a whole lot of down time, which would mean that rather than filling the days with activity (and delicious, delicious money) I’d be watching the clock tick, waiting to be tired enough to go to sleep. I much prefer the long, extremely profitable, time-passing shifts.

What’s my day like? You want to know, really? Sure!

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Things are going well so far, but again I get to learn the importance of patience.

Here’s what happened. Despite my relative diligence about maintaining some semblance of in-shapeness these last couple of years, I am at heart a bookworm. I’m used to using my brain to enhance myself, and the brain only need sleep, caffeine, and books to grow. A body, on the other hand, requires fuel, rest, and recovery time. Pushing it too far can make it hurt for days.

I am hurting for days right now.

I just took it too ambitiously. Assuming I am recovered by Monday, I’ll restart, and go slower this next time around. I forget that I have at least 6 months in which I can get skinny and get fit before anyone back home will see. Six months is a long time… I was just trying to do in six weeks what should honestly take six months to accomplish.

Reset, retry. Weight loss, at least, appears to be happening.

7/18

Okay, seriously. Someone is going to have to mail me some proper coffee. Heck, a bean grinder would be sexy too, if you’re so inclined. If you don’t mail a grinder though, I need ground, delicious coffee, Splenda, and… really, that’s about it. I suppose I could use a mug too, but I can pick one of those up just about anywhere.

Really, though, I want to reiterate why I’m here.

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7/17

It has been a long few days.

I left South Carolina Wednesday evening around 7pm, and arrived in Qatar on Thursday evening around 7pm. After a decent night’s sleep. I was up, re-packed, and waiting for a flight from Qatar on Friday. After a very long 12 hours in the transit terminal, I arrived in Kuwait around 11pm to await my flight from Kuwait to Iraq. It is now 1am local, and I’m waiting for a flight that should leave Saturday morning. As I said… it has been a long few days.

Having said that, it hasn’t been a bad few days. Aside from a screw-up on United’s part that made it difficult to catch my international flight, my commercial travel experience was excellent. Should I need to fly to the Middle East in the future, Qatar Airways is likely to be my first choice. The airline is, bar none, the best airline I’ve ever flown. I just hope I can upgrade to business class next time I fly for 12 hours, so my sleep goes from okay for an airline to okay for a regular bed.

Military travel, though excruciatingly slow, has been okay as well. I have few complaints aside from the speed, but I do understand that moving people is, as a rule, less important than moving stuff.

Okay, experiences and weirdness.

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I call it day two because I have officially started. I’m still stateside right now.

So, I am finally on my way to Iraq. Phase 5 of Plan X has been initiated. For those who have not been reading regularly, Plan X is the code name for my long term plan of never, ever having to work, ever again. As a villain minded weirdo, I like to divide my plans into phases…. mostly for fun, but partially to stay organized. In any case, Phase 5 is the actual -going- to Iraq to make the money, which is now in effect.

I’m not sure I actually believe it myself, yet… and I probably won’t until I am on the ground in a foreign country, breathing in desert dust and sweating in 110 degree heat.

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