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Irregardless of which way you add up the numbers, I’m going to spend a long time away from work. I have a bunch of leave available and I decided, hey, why not take a bunch of it all in one giant go? I won’t be traveling far from home during the duration of my leave but I’ll have plenty of time away from work to goof around. I only have a few goals while I’m on leave

1. enjoy my time away from work
2. avoid thinking of work
3. goof off whenever possible
4. read a book or two
5. study
6. hang out with Jessica
7. hang out with my parents (who will be here from the 6th-12th)
8. wear all of the dogs out
9. Train for snowboarding season (its right around the corner - hooray!!!!)
10. Go to the Mariners game on the 9th (my birthday coincidentally)

None of the goals are monumental and all are achievable. The only ones that will take a little bit of willpower to achieve are numbers five and nine.

I’m going to study for a few CLEP tests while I’m on leave so that when I return to work I can enroll in school. Due to the manning situation at work (we don’t have enough manning at work) I’ll still be on mid-shift for the next few months. The current schedule looks like I will be working nights until Thanksgiving. It could be drawn out longer but we’ll see what happens when we have people return from this current rotation to the desert. As a military member we sacrifice, this is my current sacrifice; I work a shift that nobody else wants because I’m the only guy that can do it. It messes with my personal life and its going to mess with it further when I enroll in classes in late September. I should have plenty of time to do my homework at night but some of my classes are going to be during the evening. There is no way that I can avoid that - oh well, gotta get my education finished sooner or later.

Training for snowboarding season means a tweak in my workout regimen. I’ll target all of the flexors and core muscles in my body while doubling my lower body workout. I lift legs once every 5 days and do cardio every other day. I’m planning on doing a two day leg lifting split that will have me doing one day of ridiculously heavy lifting followed by another day of endurance lifting. I’m not worried about the heavy lifting - I’m worried about the endurance lifting. Simply put, its going to hurt - alot.

I should have a busy, and hopefully relaxing, month ahead of me.There are times when it’s great to be a government employee - thank god for paid leave.

My roommate (one of the three) told me that he was bored as hell here and couldn’t wait to leave. I told him that I really didn’t have a problem because I’m an expert at goofing off. I hope that my expertise will take me through the next week because I have little to do save for goof off and travel from one point to the next. I do have a few books I saved back in case I decide to read as well as a laptop filled with hours of music. Internet cafes are always close and there are places to play video games and watch movies. I can still go to the gym and I can eat 4 times a day if I really wanted to (I don’t). I can play card games and billiards at the rec center if I wished to do so. I could just walk around base and sweat - or I could just sweat - its warm out here. I’ve redefined warm by the way - if its less than 100 its warm. If its over 100 its hot. If its over 110 a gateway to hell has opened and is blasting us with the overwhelming heat of hell. If its 120+ well, its probably the end of the world as I know it… but, I’ll be fine.

Wish me luck - its goof off time