Half-Way Done and Feeling Nervous

HALF WAY DONE!!! (and still no idea what I'll be doing with the 4th of the 10th)

Song of the week: "Summertime Sadness" by Lana Del Ray: My new favorite song on the radio. It's a perfect song as summer fades into fall and have one last fling before it ends.

Run of the Week: Petersburg National Battlefield. Yes, I know I had this one a while back, but I finally found the time to circumnavigate the trails marked yellow on the map. Its about a 6.6 mile loop from the parking lot and if you go far enough out, you end up on a little used, sometimes overgrown, single track trail for about a mile and a half. It cuts across the battlefield along a ridge with a very nice view and works its way around to some places of interest. Overall, it was totally worth it and I will be running it again as the leaves start to change colors.

Currently Reading: Moving Mountains by Lt. General (Ret.) William G. Pagonis. Its a really fascinating read on his life and career as one of the Army's best logisticians ever. I find it very easy to read and follow. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the logistics side of the Army.

Weeks 7 and 8 of QM BOLC have just flown by. I learned a lot to do with logistical operations and other functions that a Quartermaster can have. Despite the fact that we had three tests in four days and a memo due, I am finally starting to like what I am learning and I feel like I understand the concepts.

Week 7 was all about property management and how important it is to the Military. I went from being completely confused about this topic in ROTC (I was assigned to teach it to the others in my class) to I now have a solid basic foundation on which I can build off of for the rest of my career. It did help that the instructor was very engaging and always brought back his points to a real world experience of his own or someone he knew.

Week 8 covered two, albeit brief but important, subjects. Mortuary Affairs and Areal Delivery & Field Services. I learned that while there is a lot that goes into each of these subjects, a basic knowledge of each and some common scene can go a long ways in these two areas. We also started in on Petroleum and Water Operations, which we will be covering for the next two weeks.

More Later.

QM BOLC week 6 and Arlington National Cemetery

What a week! Not only did I visit arguably the most sacred place in the U.S. but I also got to celebrate with my 24th birthday with a group of new friends. I have to say this week was probably the best one yet here. And to top it all off, I got out and went mountain biking. There are some other things I am going  to talk about as well, but we'll go through the routine stuff first.

Song of the Week: "Don't You Worry Child" by Swedish House Mafia feat. John Martin. For some reason, every time I hear this song, I hear something new, a whole new reason to love this song again. My only regret is that I never got the chance to see it performed live.

Virginia So Far: Well I guess this is what you would call the wet season, it seems to rain every day now. (Is this fall?) I got out in one of the state parks this weekend and went mountain biking. It is a whole different experience here, not too fast and really technical. I had some problems riding over the roots and with the muddy corners, but the biggest problem I had was that because it was so technical, even on the downhills, you couldn't maintain enough speed to get up the next hill. I guess It presents a new challenge to conquer.

Week 6 of QM BOLC is all for Tactical Logistics. It's a very interesting subject once you get the hang of it, but its hard to learn in groups because everyone visualizes a different way and this became apparent during the practical exercise. Overall, its not a bad week and its a topic that I want to learn more about.

Some other stuff that happened this week: The general consensus is that I will be deploying in November (see here). I am just waiting on the official word. Nervous? Excited? I really don't know, its about half way in between. I also decided I'm not physically or mentally ready to go back to full time running and training. I tried it for about 2 weeks and its just not time yet.

The highlight of the week was the class trip to Arlington National Cemetery on Friday. We were only there for a short time and I only got to see a tiny bit of the place, but it was very humbling to visit. I did get to see a changing of the guard, but not a wreath laying ceremony. I will be making plans to back on a later date for the whole day.

QM BOLC Weeks 4 & 5

I can't believe its been five weeks since I showed up to Fort Lee, its gone by really fast. Or I should say its gone by really fast for the most part. While the days go by quick, its the time in class that is killing me. It is really death by Power Point. It gets even worse when you see the total number of slides in each presentation. Anyway more details below, but first...

Song of the Week: "Memories" by David Guetta feat. Kid Cudi. Honestly it is a dance number and a song that can get your blood pumping, but to me its about 'chilling out', relaxing, and "letting it all go for the night".

Virginia So Far: The weather is starting to cool off, instead of being in the 90's it is now in the 80's and 70's. Much better for running and outdoor activities. The humidity is also dropping. It all seems to be going well and I am differently joying my time here now.

After finishing tactics during week three, we moved back into the classroom environment. All its been since then is Power Point. We have covered topics from Army Writing, Communication Skills, and How to Build and Effective Presentation (yes that was by Power Point) to Cultural Awareness and, most recently, Subsistence, which we have a test on Monday morning at 0600. I really don't know what else to put down because I have been taking it really easy and staying on post a lot. We are going to D.C. next Friday on a class trip, I will take photos and post some.

QM BOLC Weeks 2 & 3

I know I am a little behind on posting so I going to try and knock out a few posts in the next few days and get you all back up to date.

Running: I happens when I want it to. (Not really upset or having problems with it, just really taking it easy and running how I feel. Its all good.)

Song of the week: "Ocean Avenue" by Yellow Card. An old song, but still a favorite. It always reminds me to have fun and take some risks. Most of all it reminds me to enjoy life one day at at time.

Virginia So Far: Well the weather has cooled off a bit and the humidity has dropped. I kind of like it here now. I am now settling into a somewhat normal routine, so its getting better.

Weeks 2&3 of QM BOLC are tactics weeks. Hold on now, if you are thinking its something like LDAC tactics you are completely wrong. They are not even remotely close. If I had to compare them books, the same author would have written them, but they would be from a different series. I'll go over in more detail down below, but most of my time was spent sitting around waiting to shoot or looking at power points. FUN.

The first week of tactics was convoy operations, range safety and basic small unit tactics. I did learn some stuff and I am glad I have the power point presentations to relearn from. We also spent some time on a simulator, which really didn't work on. I think we'll get more time with the simulator later on and it might work then. Friday morning (read 0200 on) was spent doing land navigation with a partner. We had 5 hours to find 10 points. It wasn't hard, there was just a lot of water everywhere making it one wet experience.

The second week was spent on the range qualifying on the M4. It took me a while to zero and get comfortable on my weapon. But once I got going, I was locked in. We also did some barricade shooting and some SRM. There was a lot of standing around as we could only have about a 5th of the class firing at one time. Overall, after being told that tactics would be the best 2 weeks of BOLC, I am now kind of worried for the rest of the course.

Much better that the first one.

I'll let you all know how the next few weeks in the class room are here soon.

QM BOLC Week 1

Before we get started on the past two weeks, we'll start with the normal stuff.

Song of the Week: "Crazy Kids" by Ke$ha feat. Will.i.am. A song about living life on the edge and having fun. It's quite a fun song.

Run of the Week: Petersburg National Battlefield. Very nice trail system close to where I'm staying. It's a mix of paved and packed dirt trials and its all in the shade.  The trials work their way through the park and provide a great way to see some history along the way.

So two weeks ago, I drove all the way from Missoula, MT to Petersburg, VA to attend QM BOLC-B at Ft. Lee, VA. It was quite the drive not including the fact that my air conditioning went out somewhere in Ohio. I got to see a lot of the country I would have never seen and drove some roads that were very worth it. One of the highlights of the trip was driving the Midland Trial, aka US Highway 60, from Charleston, WV to Lewisburg, WV. It is a very curvy road that works it way up and down a few of the Appalachian  mountains. It goes through a state park and is very beautiful the whole way. After that, I took some of the back roads (mainly the Glascow road) in Virginia. I got lost and went down a service road of a golf course  (oops) but it all worked out in the end.

I took a few stops along the way, but by far the most interesting one was Appomattox. The thing that stood out to me the most was how the battle and the surrender of General Lee was portrayed. History text book put a very Northern spin on it, so I felt there was a very Southern spin at the battlefield. But hey, history only remembers the winners.

A bridge over a stream at Appomattox. Notice the design of the sides.

I just completed the first week of QM BOLC-B. To put it lightly, it was really boring. We did a lot of paper work, took a PT test and did some health screenings. I can't wait to do more this next week. I'm not quite used to having nights and weekends off during training yet, but I will get used to it. I have adapted to the weather quite well and am starting to enjoy it. That's all I have for now.

Going, Going, Gone.

I'm posting early this week because I don't know If I'll have time the in the next week, most likely not in the next two week. I'll be real busy driving and getting settled in at BOLC. I am starting my road trip in two days and really excited to get going. Before I start though, I am running the Missoula 1/2 Marathon tomorrow. I'm not racing it, I'm just running it to run. It took me a while to come to this decision and I have been waffling back and forth all summer. It started out as I was going train hard and race it for a PR and the win, but as the summer wore on I realized I was burnt out from college. Then I was debating if I even wanted to run it or not. I finally decided I was just going to go out and try to have fun while running it. We'll see how it goes and I'll update the post. Link to tomorrows results here.

Update: I ran a 1:19:26, or an average of 6:01 min/mile. Good enough for 14th place overall.

Photo from my first post college race.

Starting Monday morning, I will be driving across the country, headed to BOLC. I'll be driving all week, although some days won't be very far. A lot of the trip has been planned out and I'll be meeting up with a few friends on the way. I will also be visiting a few museums and, battlefields, and other places on my bucket list of places to go. I'm going to try and take a lot of pictures along the way and post them to my Photostream. I also may add a page later about the trip.

Song of the week: "For the First Time" by The Script. What else can I say, its about rediscovering yourself and those you love. I have been doing a lot of self discovery since graduation and I'm about to embark on a lot more.

Run of the Week(end): The Missoula Marathon and 1/2 Marathon. If you ever get the chance or have the desire, come out to beautiful Western Montana and run it. It was name the top Marathon in the US by Runners World in 2010 and is a really well done event.

If your wondering about the layout change, I had to switch it up because the other template would not save as desired. It may change again.

Leaving Paradise

I don't know what to say other than I am leaving my little corner of paradise and I don't know when I'll be back to visit. It's going to be hard to go, harder than it was during college. At least during college I knew when I had time off and I could come home. I knew I would be able to see it in the winter in its perpetual whiteness and the spikes of green from the pines poking through. On these nights, I would look up at the cold, crisp sky and count the stars and the moon. If I was really lucky, I could catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights.

While winter was nice, it was nothing compared to summer when Western Montana is in its full glory. An abundance of sunshine and blue sky to go with a million places to go and explore. From hiking a new mountain to floating down a river, this place has it all, and I sure will miss it.

My corner of paradise

You see this paradise is going to be hard to compete with, sitting a stones throw from a base of two mountains and if I was any closer, in a river, is hard to find anywhere else. I can enjoy nature at its finest with out even having to leave my back porch.

I know every place is what you make of it, but it will be hard not to compare. I hope to find another little corner of this world that I can call paradise, but this one will always call me back. Because it has captured my heart, this is the place I will always call home.

Song of the week: "Rebel Beat" by the Goo Goo Dolls. I have always liked the Goo Goo Dolls ever since I first heard the song "Better Days" and as I grew to explore their music more and more, I was slightly disappointed that they hadn't come out with new music in a while. But last summer they came out with a new album and this is the song that has stuck with me since then.

Run of the Week: Northern Pacific Railroad grade. From Lookout Pass down to Taft, MT is 9 miles of very smooth trail. It would be an easy run to complete and offer a great experience. From a tunnel to scenic views, this trail offers it all. To top it all off, if you can have someone drop you off and pick you up, its all downhill on a genital grade. Also see my page on the Route of the Olympian for more detail.

The tunnel, about 4 miles down from Lookout Pass.

Update: To the post Heat Wave, I finally got all my paperwork in order to be able to travel. It took a bit and talking to quite a few people, but its done and now I just need to pick it up on my way across the country.