yay

well, the wired-home project is complete tonight...yay! it's super-shweet.
not looking forward to deploying shortly, now am i looking forward to going back to work in about 6 or 7 hours either. ugh.

thinking ahead

i restarted my investment in my TSP (thrift savings plan) account today. i forgot that i'd put it on hiatus during a tight time and hadn't restarted it. it's a retirement plan that the navy offers us and is probably a good idea in general. i'd sold off my sharebuilder account too...so now i'm thinking about IRAs. pretty much, i'm thinking that unless i find myself a woman or have a kid or something life-changing like that, i'm pretty sure i'll wind up retiring from the navy; especially with how well my career is doing at this point. i mean, evaluations are right around the corner, and it's looking really good for me to be able to take the E-6 test this september instead of next, and practically guaranteed that i'll make it before the end of my first enlistment.
then, there's also the stipulation that if i want my MGIB bennys, i've got to re-enlist. something that wasn't immediately obvious when i was signing all the original papers was that since i'm taking the college loan repayment program and MGIB...i get the loans paid this enlistment, and if i want the MGIB (which i've already paid into), i would get that after my second enlistment.
now, the only thing preventing this from totally boning me is that my 6 years is technically 4 years + a 2 year extension. so, if i were to re-up, they would drop the extension and i would be left with whatever amount of time i choose to re-enlist for, which would probably be 4 years. and i might get a decent bonus by that time, but i doubt it. there's all sorts of factors that go into determining bonus size...like paygrade at time of re-enlistment, how critical your NEC (job) is, how long you've been in, how long you're re-enlisting for, and how many times you've re-enlisted before.
*sigh*
time to be a big boy. if i stick with this plan tho, i'm definitely going to re-enlist overseas so the bonus will be tax-free. gotta take everything i can get, right?

durka durka

so here i sit in the armory on yet another duty day. we're back in six sections now that everyone's back, but it happens that my normal section's got it today...which is better than having it on saturday. and i don't really have any work left for the week, so i've pretty much just been fucking off the whole day...watched the first few episodes of Weeds on my iPhone. they're pretty good. i might just go and buy the whole season and season 2 now. well, after we get paid again. i've got plenty of credit available, but little cash at the moment due to double-paying on a bill, christmas spending, driving to STL and back, and just that the first half of the month sucks for me if i go nuts during the second half, since almost all my bills are due in the first part.
but that fat tax return is right around the corner...my housing allowance is non-taxable, so that's like a third of my income from last year, and once i figure out how to get credit for the interest on my house, my return should be pretty tidy. maybe i'll take it to the free specialist services the navy provides this year instead of just doing it online like i normally do.
anyway...time to take a nap. gotta be back up about 2am and then it's into the workday for me. good thing i'm used to only a few hours sleep.

betrayal?

well, i've realized what one of my big problems with what's been going on with cortney is - she's been trying to keep me and everything we'd been doing a big secret. she and i had been spending hours every day on the phone and im'ing each other for the last few months, but tried to keep everyone from knowing about it, or at least what was actually happening. and so, if she is willing to tell me she loves me but keep me a secret from everyone, who is she hiding from me? after the events from early last year i already didn't have a lot of trust left for her, and she is obviously still trying to hide me/lie about what went on between us. and so, given the distance between us, and that she isn't willing to make the trip out to see me (which cuts the amount of times in a year we'd be able to see each other at least in half), even with her boys coming, how am i supposed to consider talking to her worthwhile?
if this was just a fuckbuddy type of relationship i wouldn't be upset over it. but one doesn't spend hours every day talking to their fuckbuddy about everything that's going on with them throughout the day. when one spends that amount of time with someone and develops feelings for them and can tell each other they love each other, that is actually what one calls a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, even with the distance. and so when i title this post betrayal i don't think it's being so melodramatic as much as honest. with nothing more to go on than our phone conversations, i allowed myself to trust her more, especially once she started telling me she loved me again, b/c why would someone lie about loving me? and then just throw away what is possibly their last chance to see them?
anyway, i've got this week left in port...then we're underway for the rest of the month, back for a couple weeks, and then it's deployment again. going around the Horn of Africa if i haven't mentioned before. so there's Emerald Shellback in my future. also there's a lot of action lately, not only off of Africa, but in the Strait of Hormuz (the only entrance/exit to the Gulf) with the iranians.
deployment might be more interesting than last year...

oh yeah

forgot to mention in the last post - i had my first Fatburger yesterday. *drool* i avoided the milkshake tho, despite being very tempted. The only fatburger in the whole state is about a half hour away from me, so i definitely didn't want to tempt fate by having a milkshake. bad things could've happened.

updatery

since i find myself stuck in the armory for another duty day, i figure i might as well continue the blog a little more...it's what it's there for, right?
so i got the nice new d-link router. it's a bit of awesome. probably half the size or less of the netgear, and installing was a breeze. the advanced settings inside it were pretty complex...a lot of the wireless stuff was way over my head, so, i'm impressed. i was going to run cat-5 through the house too, since i picked up a switch at the same time, but apparently i had half as much cable as i thought. so, i need to pick some up, or get some from a buddy that has a whole spool of it leftover (but he's out in va beach and working, so he's harder to get a hold of than when he was literally right up the street from me and unemployed). so the wired house project has hit another snag...temporarily.
i did get the digital thermostat and CO/Smoke detector installed the other day tho, as well as fixing the roommate's door so it'll shut all the way. so home improvements *are* happening.
friday i had a couple of friends over since we got off work nice and early, and we spent most of the day playing rock band. we had a drummer and two guitars going, the guy we're planning on singing for us is still home on leave. we played enough that Guerrero (drums) could barely walk at Sanders' (bass) party later that night. the party which is another story in itself, since a lot of 18-20 yr olds found their way in. supposedly one their dad's even dropped a carload of them off with alcohol. wtf?! i wonder what kind of lies they told their dad for *that* to happen??
and then there's the ex trying to get me to talk to her. i ignored her on im for a few days before asking her for one good reason that i should still talk to her. and i'm still waiting for it. i guess people don't realize just how precious time is to a person when somebody's got to spend half their next year away from everyone.
anyway, time to get back to work. i've got guns to issue and other guns to clean and stow.

blah

did some research online and testing at home - the netgear wireless router/gigabit switch is confirmed dead. apparently they just do that anywhere between 3 and 13 mos after purchase. so i'm off to purchase a new router that averages 4.1/5.0...it'll be a d-link. fortunately, i got some best buy gift cards from santa. didn't plan to use them to replace a piece of shit, but whatever.

back

just to let everyone know i made it back to VA without incident. slept a little more than usual, so it took a while. but i made it, and even got most of my stuff put away tonight, so that's a pretty big accomplishment. now i just need to do something about my router not working. gets power, but doesn't pass traffic, so i'm hooked directly to the modem. hmmm...wonder if it's under warranty still...