I was walking to my apartment last night and saw the oddest thing.

Out here that workers are a dime a dozen, and I think the last guy who whispered the word OSHA can probably be found beneath one of the pillars they are hammering away at.


Here's something I did while avoiding homework the other day.

My new office is nice.... It has a window.
I share it with a chief, but he's gone a lot. It's in an out of the way place so I'm not bothered nearly as much as I used to be. The only downside is that there are two other offices up there right next to mine which include two chiefs and a warrant officer, so I end up getting tasked with stupid stuff like "go and make me some copies", and "MA2, could you hook up my printer again." Still, it's better than where I was before and I'll gladly take the bad with the good.

At any rate, that's my story and I'm sticken to it.

O, I'm still going to Getmo and will be returning stateside for a whole month of leave, somewhere around the 20th of June.

Chief: Schaefer, what a huge office you have... You in here all by yourself?
Me: No Chief, GM2 Simmons sits right over there. Out of curiosity, why do you ask?
Chief: The Warrant was over scoping out my office this morning, he's moving in and I need to find a new space for myself and two YN's. You're office is really nice...
Me: It's really not that nice Chief, there's no way to lock the door, none of the filing cabinets lock either, you'd have no way to keep all your sensitive stuff secured.
Chief: (Laughing) I think I'm gonna like this office, it's really nice... and there's so much room.

This is the fourth office I've had since January. Every time I get into a new space and set everything up the way I like it, somebodies gotta come along and snatch the productivity right out from under me.

I guess it's not so bad, maybe my next office will have a door that locks. God help them if it does! I'd lock that sucker, put on the headphones and not come out till the day was over, the network was down, or I had to track down some unfortunate overling and apply the ikkyo grip of my virtuous will.

But I digress...

So things are kind of in the gray area again with whether or not I'll be going to another duty station or staying here. Ever since I got my orders and found that they had me at my next duty station two months longer than I would be on active duty, I've been trying to get someone to tell me how the two months were going to be adjusted for. Normally the sailor would have to route a request to extend for those two months or lose the orders.

I wouldn't have a problem with extending, except that I get out in early December, which means I get to be home for Christmas. If I do extend for those two months and get out in Feb. there is no way they'll let me go home for Christmas right before I leave the Navy for good.

To make a short story long, somebody finally emailed me back and wants to start looking into the situation, so it looks like I might know for sure in the next few days where it is that I'll actually spend my last 18 months in the Navy.

I braved the local souk (market) the other day, dancing through the homicidal taxi traffick and deftly avoiding the knock-off vendors, to chill near the fountain till the shops opened up at 1600.

So this is the light at the end of the tunnel!!!
Oh, no wait, it's just more desert...