As goes Lance Armstrong’s fortune so go mine I reckon.  Lance was racing in the Tour de France yesterday … wrecked three times and lost over 11 minutes on the big riders of the Tour.  Effectively ending his chances for an 8th Tour de France.

My  misfortunes are only slightly less grande … my promotion is getting delayed a year thanks to my time in Arizona with the Army, if I use the GI Bill I have to tack on an extra six years to my commitment, and my ankle is still bummed out thanks to a football injury in Arizona.

As for my promotion to Assistant Professor … I’ve got a few options: (1) they let me go up for promotion this fall and continue to delay my tenure clock a year; (2) I choose to revoke my delay, thus making my promotion good for this fall but moving my tenure date up a year to 2013 (not sure I can get a PhD completed in 4 years); (4) they both get delayed … promotion to next fall and tenure to 2014.  Not knowing what I’m going to be doing or where I’m going to be three or four years down the road, I’m almost open to releasing the year delay and having promotion be this fall and tenure by 2013.  If I’m still there in 2013, I may have some issues; but if not, then I’m good to go.  We’ll see.

If you’re interested in seeing my pics from Arizona and Colorado, check out my Shutterfly site: www.wesriddle.shutterfly.com

Enjoy.

This weekend started off with Laura coming in to town and our first race together.  After I got out of class around 5:30 or so on Friday, I stopped by the Barnes Field House and picked up our race packets.  I’d originally signed us up for the 10k, but as race day got closer, we were both leaning toward the 5k instead.

After making some homemade tacos (in the microwave … I’m getting pretty good at cooking food in the microwave … might try a steak next) we went to bed early knowing that Saturday would be a long day.  We woke up and met up with Clint and Pavel and all drove down to the field house for the start.  On the way Laura and I talked ourselves back into the 10k, albeit a nice, slow 10k.

The race was actually awesome.  We had a great time, finished in just at an hour (which was amazing for Laura since we were a mile higher in elevation than she was used to), and the scenery was gorgeous.

After the race we cleaned up, had breakfast and drove down to Tombstone, AZ.  Anyone who has ever seen the movies Tombstone or Wyatt Earp, or had even a passing interest in the history of America’s wild west will be familiar with Tombstone.  Unfortunately, for me at least, the hype was better than the actual event.  Tombstone is now a fairly modern town with only one street that actually retains the old wooden boardwalk and the same stores/buildings.  We had lunch at Big Nose Kate’s (apparently the oldest functioning bar in America) where the proprietor took a liking to Laura and had her get on top of the bar, while he took a picture of her pointing a gun at me.  Then we walked around looking in some shops and did one of those ‘old time pictures’ things where they dress you up in Western wear and take a picture.  I was supposed to be like Doc Holiday and Laura was supposed to be Saloon Girl … she pulled her part off better than I did mine.

We were in line to see a reenactment of the gunfight at the OK Corral, until we realized they wanted $10/person for tickets and we decided to head to Bisbee.

Bisbee, AZ is the town that America forgot … almost.  It was full of ‘hippies’ and VW vans with peace signs on them.  Though, I’ll admit, most of the houses on the side of the mountain were in some prime real estate locations.  All in all (though we didn’t get out and shop) Bisbee was pretty cool.

After dinner at My Big Fat Greek Restaurant (where I can’t pronounce, much less spell the names of what we had for dinner) and Laura watching WVU beat UK in the Sweet 16, we came back and finished the night off with the movie Up In The Air.

Today we did some amazing hiking!  We went up to around 2100m (which is about 6300 ft) … a significant portion of that climb was straight up an old rock fall.  It was an awesome day full of hiking and we’re both pretty beat right now.

She flies out tomorrow morning but I think this parting will be a lot easier than the last.  She’s coming out again in a few weeks and then she’ll be working at the Vet Clinic here on post for a few weeks in May so we’ll get to see a lot of each other.

I really hate that I’m going to miss Easter with my family.  It seems that every year the Army takes me away from my family for a few fairly significant occasions, and this year it’s Mother’s Day and Easter.  Easter in my family is a pretty big deal.  Right up there with Christmas.  We always get together and have some amazing food, but what’s even better is that the whole family gets together.  We see each other so rarely but it’s awesome to know that each Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter we will be coming back together.

There’s a sunrise service on top of Reservoir Hill here on post at 0600 that I may go to.  It should be pretty amazing.

Well, tomorrow starts another week out here at MIBOLC and Fort Huachuca.  It’s starting to get a bit old, as every day we’ve got to give briefings that no one really pays attention to or cares about, take quizzes and homework each night as well.  Oh well, they say the first few weeks are the hardest so hopefully it’ll start getting better.

For the past week I’ve been living off of MRE’s, sleeping in a tent that more resembled holes-held-together-by-some-fabric than than a tent, and walking up/down/over/around some of southeastern Arizona’s finest desert terrain.  And I loved it!  Well, “it” being everything except for being cold at night.

This was our week in the field, in which we ran five different land nav lanes (three day, two night), STX lanes where we rotated squad leaders and achieved different objectives, small unit tactics, some classes … and lots and lots of dust, wind, sun, cold but thankfully, no bugs.

The land nav was pretty easy and straight forward, even the nighttime land nav portions.  I used to be pretty nervous doing land nav, but after a few years of running lanes, it’s pretty much a basic science now.  All in all, it was a great week.  My squad really bonded as we all slept in the same tent, shared meals, jokes, clothes, and other essentials.  We really came together and started looking out for each other.

We had some of the best TAC NCO’s I could have asked for.  Everyone one of our squad walkers had more than 36 months deployed … which makes for some great experience.  These are guys who need to be worked into our program throughout its entirety and not just in the first 8 or 9 days.  We can learn so much from these NCO’s who’ve deployed, not just about what it takes to be an MI officer, but about how the unit runs and the job itself.

SFC Warner, and SFC Andrew I’ll keep in touch with for years!  These guys have more knowledge than most people I’ve met in the military.  It’s because of guys like this, that NCO’s are ‘the backbone of the Army’.

I’ll post some pictures later on once they’re developed.

My first ‘official’ order as an LT happened yesterday and was pretty funny actually.  I was running the lead vehicle on the convoy from our FOB back to base and one of our trucks carrying about 20 LT’s broke down on the dirt road.  The NCO’s were making suggestions about what to do and suddenly I found everyone looking at me for the decision … ‘leave them here, we’ll roll with the vehicles that work, download all of the gear, and come back and transfer the men and material to the truck that worked, and call a tow truck for the broken down vehicle’ … and just like that men started moving and the convoy rolled out (I heard someone even say, ‘finally, someone made a decision’).  It was pretty cool.

There really is a lot of responsibility placed on officers, especially front line officers.  Despite being surrounded by 3 or 4 senior NCO’s with a combined 30+ years of experience in the Army, they looked at me to make the decision.

This weekend hopefully will be a lot of relaxing/recovering.  We’ve got a bit of homework due on Monday, but it should be interesting reading.

More next time …

Well, the past few days have been pretty good around here.  On Friday we were out at the M16 range getting qualified on our weapons.  After shooting a miserable 20/40 on the practice session (23 is the minimum standard for passing), I followed that up with a 34/40 (two shots shy of expert).  It really is all about calming down, slowing down, controlling your breathing, and firing well.

Friday went by really fast, and after a decent night sleep and a good bike ride Saturday morning, I basically spent the rest of the weekend getting ready to go to the field this week.  We’ll be doing all kinds of field exercises (land nav, STX lanes, convoy live fires, etc etc etc).  It should be a really good week as far as ‘soldiering skills’ go.  Here’s hoping the weather cooperates.

Saturday night we had our first class party at the house of one of the classmates.  I won’t post any pictures from it, but it was a good time (though I was still in bed by 9).

A lady at church this morning mentioned that in Garden Canyon you can see pictographs, so I think next weekend that’ll be my first destination.  I’ve got to get out of Sierra Vista next weekend.  I think we may head up to Tucson for the weekend to relax and decompress after a week in the field.

I ran across this cool website if you’re interested on tracking the progress of climbers on Everest: http://www.alanarnette.com/news/  He’s tracking the progress of climbers on Everest this season.  (P.S. They’re also considering adding climbing to the Olympics for 2020).

This’ll be my last post for a bit.  I’m taking a little disposable camera to the field so hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures.

See you on the flip side.

Well … the past few days have been an exercise in patience if nothing else.  The Army may be good at a lot of things, but one thing it’s not very good at is time management and efficiency.  Why take two or three people to do a job when you can hire seven?

In a stroke of brilliance, I decided to get my Periodic Health Assessment completed prior to coming out here … so despite wasting almost an entire day in Atlanta, I was saved a solid four hours here because I was ‘green’ on my health and could leave while those who needed updates had to stay and wait.  Karma.

Today, was CIF .. or Central Issuing Facility.  Those of you with any experience in the Army probably just cringed a bit (ok … a lot).  One place where the Army definitely didn’t go overboard on hiring folks was here.  Picture a warehouse about the size of your local Wal-Mart … with three employees.  Now this facility can only handle about 18 Soldiers at a time … with a class of 45, you do that math.  We formed up at 0800 outside of CIF, and around 8:30 or so, the first group entered.  Around 11:30, they were finished.  Seriously … this long to receive the following items: ruck, sleep system, helmet, gloves, poncho, wet weather gear, etc (pretty much all of your field necessities).  It was almost noon and half of our class had yet to enter.  Military efficiency at its best I tell you.

I feel like this program is starting to gear up.  We got issued most of our gear today, body armor, weapons cleaning kit … tomorrow we get the weapons.  Then we’re in the field on Thursday and Friday at the ranges and out all next week.  Of course, none of this is the official MI school yet.  It’s the condensed version of the Basic Officer Leadership/Officer Basic Course hybrid.  What was initially taught in six weeks has now been condensed to one.

We received all of our textbooks yesterday too.  24 ARs, FMs and other texts … of which we’ll probably only realistically use 3 or 4.  This is a stack that’s solidly two feet high.  And not to mention the CD-ROM we were given that contains almost 2/3 of the texts we just received.  It’d have been much easier to just give us all of that info on the one CD, or two if it was needed.  Army efficiency.

PT is fun.  It really is amazing out here and being outdoors in the environment just makes it even better.  I’m usually up at 0430, formation around 0545 and we start at 0600.  About the time we start, the sun starts lighting up the horizon and around 0645 or so it breaks over the tops of the mountains and is absolutely amazing.  I really need to get a better camera to do this scenery justice.

This weekend I hope to get down to Coronado National Monument and talk about volunteering at the park.  It should be a good experience.

So … every time we crossed a state line, Laura and I decided to record the occasion.  Here is the result … enjoy (and don’t be too hard on my movie-making abilities):

Let’s review: L,D,R,S,H,I,P …. those are the Army values … Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage.

Now … when you take someone’s towel (and not just any towel, but one given to me by my momma that is big and cozy and that I really liked) out of the dryer, it’s called STEALING!  You just violated at least three of those Army values.

I’m not going to wish death upon you like I did the last person who stole something from me, but I hope you get severe sunburn while you’re here in Arizona and your skin cracks and falls off and it’s the most painful thing in the world and that you fail all of your tests and get recycled a billion times and never get to leave Sierra Vista.  And I sure as heck hope you’re not an officer because you couldn’t give me a million dollars to be in your unit you sorry freaking worthless waist of space and oxygen.

I went through basic training with 60 other Soldiers and never was any of my laundry stolen.  I went through 2 years of OCS with 24 other Soldiers, and never was any of my laundry stolen.  But I’m here for TWO DAYS at an OFFICER school and my laundry is stolen.  And I KNOW the towel was in there because there was red lint in the lint catcher in the dryer you sorry SOB.

I WANT MY TOWEL BACK!!!!!

Well, it’s Saturday, my first weekend at Fort Huachuca.   After getting up several days in a row at 4:30 a.m. I was looking forward to sleeping in a bit this morning, and I could have, had I not forgotten to turn off the alarm on my cell phone.  So, at 4:30, I went back to sleep until about 6:30.  I decided to take a nice road ride this morning around post.  I ended up going about 16.5 miles, and met up with a group from Sun n’ Spokes Cycles who were out for there Saturday morning group ride.  They were pretty nice, and except for the one incident where the first guy just blew right by me and scared the heck out of me, it all went without incident.

Here’s some riding etiquette people … if you’re coming up behind someone, let them know you’re there.  Especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere and the individual you’re about to pass thinks he/she is the only person around for miles.

The group leader, Shawn (sp?) was nice.  We road together for a while … yes, I ended up catching and passing the guy who caught me … take that big guy who scared me!  Shawn told me about their group rides, the usual routes and skill levels.  I think I may join them next weekend.  They’ve got a mountain bike ride going out tomorrow that I may get on as well.

After getting back from the ride I went to town and bought some stuff for my room and some food.  Then decided to go for a hike near where I hiked the other day.  Thankfully, the only wildlife I saw today was a deer that crossed the trail ahead of me.  I drove to the top of Reservoir Hill and parked at the trail head … and from there it was pretty much straight up.

(Yes … that’s the trail going almost straight up)

According to the Garmin eTrex GPS, I started around 5,329ft (slightly above the parking lot), and when I turned around, I was topping out at just under 5,700ft.  It was a beautiful hike, and despite feeling like Val Kilmer in The Ghosts in the Darkness, where every swaying patch of grass hid a mountain lion or havalina … I enjoyed the hike.  I didn’t wan to go too far by myself, so I walked to the top of the largest hill right at the base of a much larger mountain.  I’ll save the larger mountain for a later hike.

It really is gorgeous around here:

Well, today was the day!  I took Laura to the Tucson airport this morning (which was a lot closer than I thought.  After constant driving of 8, 10 and 12 hours, driving only an hour is no problem.) and had to say goodbye.  And yes, it was as hard, if not harder than I thought it would be.  It’s not that I was upset because now I’m on my own officially, we’d just grown so close during the trip that it really was hard to say goodbye and acknowledge that it was over.  But, we’ve both got a life to live and work to do … so we deal, just like everybody else.  (Secretly though, we were trying to make plans on when we could see each other again.  My buddy Mike, who’s been in the Army longer and done more than I have, says that the key to getting through it is to always set a date of when you’ll see each other again and focus on that date.  Sounds like good advice.)

After getting back to Sierra Vista I took the time to drive through town.  I stopped at Radio Shack to pick up some electronic stuff I need, then Target to fill up the fridge (it’s funny shopping for food when all you have to cook it with is a microwave … kind of limits the options).  After Target I just started driving around, and I”m honestly surprised at how much stuff is here at Sierra Vista.  While Fort Huachuca is smaller than I thought, Sierra Vista is bigger than I imagined.  There’s actually a good bit to do here (not to mention the countless places to visit in the area).

I found a bike shop and went in to introduce myself (I consider myself a fairly avid mountain and road biker, and brought both bikes with me in hopes I’ll get to use them).  Turns out, there’s a mountain bike race on post at the end of the month and the course (which I hope to try to ride this weekend) isn’t too bad.  I’m not sure if I’ll enter or not, but I definitely want to get out and ride the course.

I also saw a BofA, which reminded me I need to square away my finances, a Toyota dealer, which reminded me I need to have my brakes and shocks looked at, and a Quizno’s, which reminded my stomach it was lunch time.

After lunch at Quizno’s I jumped on the computer for a bit and got some great news:  I’ve been accepted into the PhD program in International Relations at the University of Georgia.  I’m completely and totally excited about this opportunity, and now I really can’t wait until I get back so I can get started.  I’m going to order a few entry-level Int’l Rel textbooks so I can start brushing up on my fundamentals.

I drove around post a bit, found the barber shop, the clothing and sales store, and dropped by the field house so I could get registered as a member.  Then went for a nice little run.  I tell you, this elevation up here takes its toll.  I wasn’t pushing too hard (though there were a few hills I ran), but I was breathing hard and could definitely feel it.  It’ll take a few weeks to get adjusted, but after that (especially with the bike riding), I should be an in-shape maniac.

Tomorrow is the big day … I’m going to go out and take some pics of the mountains and post them, but then just hang out around the room and make sure I’m ready for in-processing tomorrow.  I anticipate it being a long day filled with paperwork, waiting in line, paperwork, and more waiting in line.

Gotta love the Army.

If you’re interested in seeing pics from the trip, I posted the one’s from my camera to my shutterfly account: www.wesriddle.shutterfly.com (there’s a link to the right as well).

Well, today started with that feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when you know the good times are about to end.  After a great breakfast, we left Albuquerque around 7, and five or six hours later, we found ourselves driving in Fort Huachuca, AZ … my home for the next four months.  We knew we were at the end of our road and I think that put both of us in a ‘down’ mood.

After we got checked in to Army Lodging, where I must say … the room is nice, but smaller than a hotel room.  We just dropped everything in the room and took off around the fort to get our bearings.  Post Office, Vehicle/Weapons Registration, finding my classroom building, finding food in town.  It was a packed afternoon and we never really slowed down until after dinner.

This is an old post (a post is Army-speak for a base … which is what the Air Force calls their installations).  The last military base in Arizona left over from the Indian Wars, and the original home of the Buffalo Soldiers.  As such, it’s named a Historic Site … and … as such, all of the buildings are original and date back to the 18- and 1900′s.  It’s a lot smaller than I anticipated too.  I cut my teeth in the Army at Fort Benning, GA … one of the larger military bases.  This place isn’t even close.  Yes, there’s A LOT of land, but there’s not too many people.  And those who are here, are all in training, so there are no deployable, active-duty units here.  Classes started on Thursday with in-processing, so I’ll find out more bout what it’s like then.

Laura leaves in the morning too.  Which is pretty sad honestly.  We’ve been within about 10ft of each other since Sunday, and this trip has been really good for us.  I’m not looking forward to tomorrow … but I know that tomorrow is just another day until I get to come home, so that’s a plus.

When I get back tomorrow, I plan on wrapping up a few last minute errands (stocking the fridge, getting some drinks, familiarizing myself with town, etc etc) and then maybe walking up to the mountain behind my building for a bit.  I can’t wait to finally get out there and start climbing the hills and seeing the lay of the land.