Yea, I know, I know. There was no blog on Sunday, and now it's already Thursday and there was nothing. Now I'm telling you that I have no pictures for this blog! Lame! Super Lame-sauce, I am aware. But, what can you do? Sometimes, life is boring, even in paradise. Sometimes, you forget to bring your camera (though, really, actually, life was just kind of boring this past week).
What did happen this past weekend? I had my first drill with the 111th Army Band of the Hawai'i National Guard (HING for short). So, typically, the 111th drills Monday nights from 6-10pm. They combine rehearsal time and military briefs into those 4 hours and do that 4 times a month which equals a weekend. However, this past September they were told they had no money. So, all drill was canceled. Until, of course, it wasn't. Hello! "Oh, we have monies now, so go ahead a drill" they say. Of course, no one told me this until Friday at 515pm, I'm just sitting on the treadmill, pedaling idly looking up nothing important on my phone, when I see it ringing. It's a call from our Readiness Non-Commissioned Officer (or RNCO, he is basically a full time member of the HING who takes care of most everything for a unit, more or less running the show), he asks if I knew about drill tomorrow (Saturday), I of course tell him "no." He asks if I can go tomorrow, I tell him "yes".. and that was about that. I then walked over to Deanna who was on the treadmill and said something along the lines of "remember how we had decided we were going to do a bunch of fun stuff this weekend, like take surfing lessons or do more snorkeling or do some great hiking or basically do anything fun?" she says "yes".. I say, "welp, we aren't, I have drill, sucks doesn't it?" muahahaha plans foiled.
Le Sigh.
That being said, the members of the 111th are all super nice and were really welcoming to me and made me feel instantly like an accepted and wanted member of the unit. So, I can't really complain.
Of course, there is that whole "we only have one car thing"....
Soooooo... Saturday I had to be at the armory in Pearl City at 0630... so we woke up around 0530 so that we could leave around 0600 and get there on time (it takes a little over a half hour).. Deanna dropped me off and then went and practiced and probably worked out, and probably some other stuff that I'm unaware of.
I had some in processing, and then we had Master Resiliency Training (MRT), which is basically, how to be a functional member of society and how to best not be a prick and be happy with your life and stuff and figure out how to deal with problems in the best and most awesome way possible by focusing on the positivitude of the situation and foster good relationships while being a good leader of soldiers and people and being the most awesome 'you' you can be.. or some kind of run-on sentence. Ultimately, it's good training, even if it usually ends up being incredibly dry and somewhat boring. There are really nice nuggets of advice within the training that are absolutely applicable to every day life (like "hunting the good stuff", where no matter how bad your day is, you list as many (no less than 3) things that were positives for your day, and write down what you need to do to make sure those good things continue to happen, etc.
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| A little blurry, and yea, I kinda lied about no pictures. The 111th Army Band room. Blurry because it's a panorama and people were moving. |
Anyway, we then rehearsed some concert band stuff and probably did some other military stuff that I don't quite remember, I was briefed on some things that I have to get done and take care of, signed some paper work and then Deanna picked me up and we did something, but I do not remember, but, that's how that goes.
I also checked out a French Horn... because someone leaked out that I had been playing a little bit of horn.. so, I'm in the woodwind quintet MPT.. that will be an adventure all unto itself. But, apparently, I am the best option, so that is something I suppose? Anyway, what it means, is that I can keep up the little bit of French Horn chops I had got from teaching lessons to a high schooler over the past year or so, and potentially even get better at it, by pushing myself to play a different instrument in a setting that I am unfamiliar with. So, hooah to that.
Oh, Sunday, I had drill again, but it was a ceremony for Japanese-American Soldiers in WWII. So, that was quite solemn but up beat as well, with the Aloha music that was played from time to time throughout the ceremony. It rained super hard, so I was definitely A) Glad the band was under the tent and B) glad that I was NOT the trumpet player chosen to play taps, because, he got SOAKED.. his Class B (pants with the short shirt) was so wet, his pants looked a different shade of blue.
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| The sun came out near the ceremonies end, and we were able to snap this photo of the 111th Army Band trumpet section. |
Right, so the part about it being a ceremony and the fact that it rained is interesting, but I do not want to overshadow the part where Deanna and I had to wake up at 0430 to make a 0545 report time. Mostly, this is important because Deanna most definitely DID NOT enjoy waking up that early. Sure, she was able to knock some practicing out of the way early in the morning, and that is great and all.. but yea.. not so great. It's possible that in the future she may just choose to stay at home when I have drill. Who knows? Maybe we can finally find a bike for her (aka - she can make an actual decision on what she wants in a bike) so that she could then stay home, but still be able to get up to MCBH to go to the gym or can at least bum around Kailua town if she wanted. Of course, walking to the beach is always an option.
This week has truly been a bore. I spent most of my days at home while Deanna worked. Mostly getting small things done (laundry, little grocery runs, bike to the gym at MCBH and do a work-out, practice, organize things a little here and there, play a video game, sweep, feed the cats, clean the toilet, read a book, check out a book at the library, return a book to the library).. so basically really boring stuff.. I also went through all of my sports cards. ALL.OF.THEM.. for you to appreciate what kind of achievement this is, I would have had to have taken a picture of it.. but I didn't (I did this last week, actually, but whatever).. but, I will just say, I have A LOT of cards.. but, I have determined which cards must be kept and which ones are basically worthless. Now the only question that remains is which cards I should look into getting graded (this is only important to you, if you like sports card collecting..)
Basically, getting a card graded can increase the value A LOT, for example, a card listed at $500 could be worth up to $3,500 depending on the grade it receives (which is contingent on the condition of the card, how centered it is from when it was cut at production, etc)... BUT.. it could also theoretically lose value if it receives a particularly low grade. Also, it costs about $20-$25 per card to be graded, so it is really only worth it if the card has a particularly high value. I have a few Nolan Ryan cards that could potentially grade out upwards of $1000+.. IF they receive a high grade. So, I need to look into that. (additionally, I have an Ozzie Newsome rookie card which has a lot of value and other cards).. so, decisions to be made.
Some members of the Navy band were going into a "cow share"... basically you buy a whole cow and share it with people. She was supposed to be 1 of 5, but one of the members of the band backed out. AND then, it turned out the cow was A LOT bigger than they were quoted at. So, it looks like we will be receiving almost 100 lbs of cow (butchered already, of course).. at a around $6/lb.. what does this mean? It means we need to look into a stand alone freezer to stick outside. Shouldn't actually be too expensive for a freezer, but I hope Deanna REALLY, REALLY likes beef, cause that's what we are going to have for a long, long, long, long, loooooONNNGNng time.
Mahalo for reading!
That's pretty much it. Oh, and "mahalo" means "thank you"
That is all, maybe we will post again this weekend. I have drill on Sunday, which could be a change of command could not be (it's up in the air apparently at the moment) and Deanna just found out that there is a gig going on Sunday for the Navy Band (she was unclear as to whether she was on it or not). I have scheduled for our car to be inspected, which puts us a step closer to have cool Hawai'i License Plates, and Saturday morning we get our car detailed for free because there was a half inch of standing water in our trunk when we picked up the car from the shippers.
Ok, now for real, that is all. Thanks for checking in on our fascinatingly dull lives =)
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