After-action report

[aadler]

 
The last week has been eventful enough to hold me for awhile.

First Cut — Fanfic stuff

I continued to refine and revise the story I submitted to remixredux08, and watched for the Remix to open for viewing. When it did, I of course promptly looked up the one done for me (about which more in a separate entry); then I read through until I located the one I was fairly sure my daughter had done. (I also read the remixes done for my favorite authors, but so far only one of them has been really noteworthy.) Plus, I got some favorable commentary on the remix I’d done, and I’m waiting till the Big Reveal so I can respond.

Close First Cut

Second Cut — Family stuff

While all that was happening, I spent a week with my son, trying to help him set up a routine that would help him recover from some of the difficulty he’s having in his junior year of college. (Mixed results. We kept being sidelined by unforeseen events — including his being sick for three days — but he did such a good job on a paper for Roman history that the teacher, on seeing it, waived what would have been a 10% deduction for late submission.)

Meanwhile, my younger brother (younger than me, at any rate) had to relocate suddenly, and I helped him move to transitional quarters while he looks for a job and more permanent lodgings. His initial call for help came at a time when I was juggling a number of other things, and at first he was vexed with me over my seeming unwillingness to help, but we managed to iron out the schedule and things worked out fairly well. He’s had problems and we may be looking at the beginning of more, but for now he seems to be handling the situation in a reasonably balanced manner.

Close Second Cut

Third Cut — Military stuff

Along with everything else, I’d also been working on my basic fitness. Ever since our return from Afghanistan, my unit has had a hard time getting a pass rate on the official physical fitness test for more than half our personnel. The APFT is always serious business, but for the most decorated small unit in the Army it was becoming an intolerable embarrassment. It had reached the point, in fact, that we were warned three months ago that anyone who failed the test in May would automatically be demoted one rank. I turned in the best APFT of my life while at Guantanamo, but lost ground swiftly once I got back. So, with the awareness of an approaching deadline, I was working on the treadmill (while at home) or on the indoor track at a nearby rec center (while staying with my son), pushing a bit harder every time. I still had to cut some time from my two-mile run, but I was nudging the treadmill speed up by one-tenth MPH every day, and needed to pick up six tenths in twelve days. I was confident I’d make it in time …

But then I got a call today. A slot had opened up unexpectedly at a scheduled school, and they needed to find someone fast to send to it. As in, draw orders and pack and be ready to leave Friday. It’ll be two weeks in Pennsylvania, and I’ll be there during the big test. I’ll have to take the APFT at the June drill, obviously, but that gives me just that much more time to build up my conditioning. (And lose weight, but I pretty much always need to lose weight.)

Close Third Cut

More items, mostly personal things between me and my wife. (For two days my daughter was close enough that we could have visited her if we’d known her location just a bit in advance, but we didn’t so we couldn’t.) And it honestly felt like more stuff happening than I could remember when I set out to write it down.

While it was going on, though, there was enough to keep my attention. And then some.