ah the weekend...a time to be normal again

the weekend. I never realized how important the weekends are until I joined the army. every other job I have had has been unorganized as in that I never had any set hours. the varied every week so I never had a weekend to look foward to or plan for that matter. but now that I am in the army, I get to be on a very strict and set in stone schedule. I know where I have to be and what is expected of me every second mon through fri. but when that weekend comes its all me time. I have become very protective and selfish with my weekend and free time. its the only time I get to be myself and show my friends how I dress and act when im not on the governments time. the best part about the weekend and being in the army is I am still getting paid. im always on the clock. I get paid to eat, sleep, shower, learn and then unlearn everything, and kill my brain cells by alcoholic beverages. ok so its only $1.67/hr (yes I actually figured it out) but its paid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

ok getting off subject. this post is supposed to be about my awesome weekend and filling you in on what we do in our free time. well as you may know from a previous post my company had a phase up weekend...a it basically means that me, a phase 5, got all the privileges that a phase 5+ gets. they include staying out all weekend until recall formation sun instead of having to be back for 0100 bedcheck and also we could drink if and only if we were of the legal age. so guess what we did? haha we got a hotel room and played drinking games. well that is after we got out of class fri night at 0030 (gotta love third shift) we came back to the barracks, changed, signed right back out, and flagged down the first cab we could find. we managed to stuff 9 guys into the back of the minivan cab. the poor shocks. we had to be dragging and scrapping the rear bumper. we went to one of the 25 hotels near base and got a room. luckily the gas station was still selling so we loaded up and started our weekend off right. nothing like that first cold beer after a week of pt and stress with all the blue falcons we got in our company. it just felt good to hang with the guys and relive the week without having to look over our shoulders for a sergeant. not to mention all the guys I hang with either come from benning or fit in perfectly like they went to benning. so we get to relive basic and the impersonations get so much better with the aid of beer. so we just hung out and drunk fri night. got to sleep around 0400 and i'll be damned if we all woke up 4 hours later like we had an 0800 formation like we do every other morning. Not really all that bad though because we got an early start on the day and I am used to little sleep. the past 4 months I have been averaging 5 to 6 hours a night. you just get used to it after awhile but then when you want to sleep in you can never do it. anyways after we got up and showered we destroyed a dennys. good cheap food with about 3 cups of coffee and we were ready to tackle the day. first thing on the agenda: tattoo shop. Zupo, my best battle, has been wanting to get his name tattooed down his side since we got here. its all we hear when the subject comes up so all of us went with his. me, Zupo, woo (our little asian), heidelberger, mitchell (the guys so far are my base group, we basically do everything together. not like the rest of the guys are not our friends but we mainly stay together, the others scatter) miranda, salazar, and Mackey (the lone female. she acts like one of the guys so we let her tag along :)) once we got there and Zupo got in the chair it kinda snoballed. tattoos are addictive. once one person gets one everybody wants one. I had been thinking of getting another tat for awhile now. I could never settle on an idea. I had a few floating around but I could never commit. so there I was trying to decide on what I wanted if I wanted anything at all. I took off my hat to scratch my head and happened to glance at the hat. it was my old louisville leopards baseball hat with the leopard that is on the side of our football helmets and it hit me like a ton of bricks. it had been my original idea for a tattoo to get the leopard or my football number but I never went thru with it because I was still in high school and didn't want to have something I would regret if years later. but in the tattoo shop saturday I realized how much I loved football and louisville as a whole. its where I grew up. its where all my family is minus the mass. gang and Katie who will always be an ohio girl no matter where she goes. its my roots. so needless to say I got the leopard head tattooed on my left calf in full color just like the side of the helmet. it looks amazing! the guy who did it took so much care trying to get all the detail and spots in the right place. he probably took more time to draw it then to actually ink it on my leg. all in all, Zupo got his name down his left rib cage (btw a very painfully place to tattoo. he was grimincing and squirming like a girl. we never let him forget it all weekend...a we have the pictures to prove it) miranda got a dragon like creature on his right forearm, heidelberger got the word "godspeed" across his chest (apparently painful place too cause he was being a wussy too...again the pictures are the proof), Mackey got a cross above her left boob (probably painful but I would know cause I am a dude. she actually manned up better than all of us) and I got the leopard head (no they didn't get any pictures of me whining but I assure you I did. they just don't have any photographic timing). so we went in for one tattoo and came out with 5. they must of seen us coming from a mile away. anyways it was a great time that I will never forget. amazing experience that was that much better with my friends right there with me going thru the same pain. of course we each knew where each others tattoos were so the whole rest of the weekend you had to constantly be on guard against one of them trying to slap the tattoo which by the way KILLS!

ok so after the tattoo shop it was already 1500 or beer o'clock, so we went and got a different, better hotel away from the hotel party scene that we spent the last night at. it was all of us and we picked up thompson, a really cool girl we hang out with all the time and eat chow with everyday. Zupo and I have both have a crush on her so that has really tested our friendship but I am happy for it because it showed me what a really good friend he is. last weekend they ended up making out and it kinda upset me. instead of saying screw you he actually cut it off with her and stopped talking to her because he didn't want to jeopardize our friendship. he came up to me later and apologized and told me what he had done. I was floored. never before had I had a friend like that that would take friends over girls. anyways I told him that it was ok and that if he had a thing for and she obviously has it for him that he should go for it and we would still be cool. so now they are kinda together and me and her are good good friends. she is the kind of girl you can talk to about anything and not have to worry about what she thinks. its almost like having krista here in ait. we are becoming that good of friends. now no one can replace my krista but I can confide in thompson the same way I can krista. of course I tell Zupo everything, and I mean everything but there are certain things that are just easier talking to a female about.

ok off subject again. my mind is wandering today. there is just so much to tell. we picked up thompson and went to the jameson suites. we got a suite and started where we left off at 0400 the previous night. again a great time was had by all involved. no one got too out of control and there was no drama like the previous weekend...a it was everything I was hoping this weekend would be. good times with good friends aided by good drinks. I almost felt like a civilian again. but there was always this nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me that I have to go back to play soldier for another 12 weeks and then I become a true soldier in the real army. its a crazy concept that I am still trying to convince myself about. I am an american soldier. see? it still sounds funny to me. oh well it must just be one of those things I will have to get used to hear. I just don't feel like one yet. I am just frank but I have to wear a uniform to work and shoot weapons.

wow sidetracked again. so it was a good night of semi intoxication and eukure. (thompson is from michigan (save your breath dad. she hot and she roots for a team that got beat by applician state something that I never let her forget) so she knows how to play and we taught 2 others that knew how to play spades...me and thompson won multiple times. she knows all the cheater signs. I know I know she's amazing). we ended up hitting the hay around 0300. 9 guys, 2 beds, 1 couch. you do the math. since im a kinda big guy and woo was passed out on the bed I kinda picked him up and put him on the floor. he's asian and weighs 130 dripping wet it was nothing Plus Zupo and I paid for the room. where I come from that means you at least get to sleep on the bed. sunday we got up and went back to dennys. they were not happy to see us. we almost had to put a deposit before they would seat us. I just wanted coffee so I just got some to go and I sat outside to drink it with Zupo. we talked about how our nights went and laughed about mitchell's pathetic attempt to hit on the hotel receptionist. he almost got tasered it was that good. I am still laughing about that. after dennys we went to the mall so Zupo could get some shoes and I got an ohio state hat to pissed off thompson and cause I needed a black hat. we basically spent the whole day being mallrats and eating chinese food. we went back for our 1800 recall formation and that was it for my weekend. I definitely needed that weekend.

ok so you think that was long to read? I just typed that all on my cell phone. my thumbs are gonna be stronger that my biceps by the end of ait. also aunt gail, for some reason when I am typing in this box for my blog site it doesn't capitalize the first word of every sentence like it does when I am texting. I am trying to fix it but for right now this will have to do. I will try to put up some pictures of the tattoo session if I can ever get on woo's computer. typical asian haha you know im only kidding woo. ok till the next time be safe and I love you all.

your soldier-in-training
The Nock of WAR

HOOAH!