Update first year of culinary school and future plans.

They finally let me in July of 2012 after five years, eleven months and seventeen days of military service.  The ending was anti-climatic.  I signed out from my unit at midnight, spent a couple days doing last minute paperwork and packing our things into a moving van, signed one more piece of paper and that was it.  It was harder to move when in the Army than to leave it.

I have seldom felt so happy as I did driving off of Ft Sill and leaving Oklahoma.  I cannot accurately describe the joy I felt leaving the Army.  My kids and wife where just as excited as I was.  This feeling of excitement did not diminish during our four day journey to Vermont.  We encountered very little problems driving and unloading our stuff.  I think we have too much stuff however.

I started school as soon as we got here instead of waiting until October for the next term.  I was way too excited to sit at home and wait.  School has been for the most part great and I feel good.  I think I am just starting to become a normal person again.  I don't have the room to describe all the subtle changes one goes through during military service and during the transition after.  Everyday I or my wife notices something else that makes us laugh or grimace.

We are currently discussing where we might go after my studies are over in 2015.  We are leaning toward going back to Michigan but the economy is still scary.

Still waiting...(but almost done)

I received my orders to separate form the Army recently.  I have about three weeks left and we will be moving to Vermont.  Because this took so long I'll have to start school in October instead of July, but at least we are finally on our way.

Still waiting.....

I received my compensation rating from the VA and now I'm just waiting for orders to separate from the service.  Shouldn't be much longer now, looks like early June.  That gives us 2-3 weeks before classes start.  Everything is set up in Vermont.  We have secured housing, my financial aid and GI Bill is ready all that is missing is me.

A Song of Ice and Fire

Just finished the last published book in the A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, you know the Game of Thrones books. If you've seen the HBO series or read any of the books you'll know they are full of characters with great depth, violence and sex of all sorts. I think my mistake was reading them all in order by the 5th book some of the plot elements used over and over where wearing on me. I think the only good person in all of Westros was Ned Stark who was killed in the first book. Everyone else is a scoundrel at best and a monster at worst. The plot goes like this: bad person does bad things, the reader hates that character and wants them to get what they deserve, something happens that makes you think like they are finally going to "get it" and then something happens that saves the bad person at the last second denying the reader satisfaction. Good examples are Tyrion at the Eyrie, The Mountain with Prince Oberyn and Cersei at the Sept. The worst example is the Mountain. Oberyn has wounded him mortally several times and instead of finishing him Clegane manages to punch Oberyn in the face which kills him. Clegane dies of poison later and then when Cersei needs a champion a new member of the Kingsguard appears who happens to be 7 feet tall and won't open his visor. Come on! One punch, albeit from a huge mailed fist and Oberyn dies, Clegane takes 3 wounds that should have killed him instantly and then they raise him form the dead as "Ser Robert the Strong", sorry Mr Martin, kinda weak.

Storage Auction

Went to our first storage auction last weekend. It was pretty fun, we won a unit that we thought had some antiques in it. Unfortunately, it had mostly old junk of no value. I think we got our money's worth and we did get a piece of furniture we needed. The auction was silent so it was not as much fun as we thought it was going to be. The baby was great and the kids helped out. We found a great recycler to come and pick up the crap and we loaded the rest the next day. The facility was really shabby, i'd like to see what the units look like at a nicer place.

Still waiting.....

We are now into our 11th week of waiting for the VA to finish my compensation claim. A March or even April discharge looks unlikely at this point.

Still waiting.....

I've been found unfit for duty which means they are going to discharge me for sure. I found out I was unfit at the end of December after Christmas. Now we are waiting for my disability rating to come back from the VA. I thought I'd have it already so my timeline of mid-March is not going to happen. Maybe today is the day! We've decided that I will pursue a culinary career instead of engineering. It came down to doing what I love as opposed to what makes more. So I've been accepted at New England Culinary and I'm supposed to start in July. We'll be moving up to Vermont whenever my discharge come through. It's a 1600 mile drive, should be fun! We've found a place to rent from a wonderful sounding landlord looking to move on after her kids have grown up and moved out. We are real excited about moving and starting a new chapter in our lives. Chanda is excited because from what she can see on the internet there are more job opportunities for her in VT than there are here in Lawton. She's considering a pastry certification for herself. Maybe we'll work together someday or open a place. I'd love to work for myself but my first goal is to excel in school and trying to stay on as an instructor for a while.

Still waiting.....

Now my paperwork has cleared the first process and we are waiting for the final decision and discharge papers. Nothing happens fast in the military. I am considering culinary school, specifically New England Culinary Institute.

Still waiting....

Hurry up and wait that's me right now. I've completed my medical appointments and now I'm just waiting for my paperwork to go up in the Army and come back with the results.

Soon to be out of the strange land.

Well it's been an interesting few months after my return from deployment. In December we welcomed our 3rd child into the world, Leland Rhys Wesley Beun. I missed his arrival but my mother-in-law was there and I got to see him when he was a week old and then had to fly back to finish the deployment. I'll put in a couple pics below. I got back in May and after I got settled back in with my family I started to seek some medical treatment for my skin and my back.

Turns out I have psoriasis on my hands and feet and since I cook for the government I was told I need to request a transfer into another MOS(Army job). Now I qualify, both medically, physically and mentally for nearly every job the Army has and picked 5 that I would like to have. I chose Public Affairs, Pharmacy Tech, Respiratory Tech, Geospatial Engineer and some signal one I can't remember now. "Big Army" (Pentagon) came back with a denial of my re-class and told me to process into the physical disability system for separation.

So it looks like my military career will end in the next 5 months or so. At first I was pretty pissed but that gave way to relief that they had made up my mind for me. You see my whole time in the Army has been a battle between what they wanted me to be and who I am. It never really fit me I think. I'd never leave it voluntarily though as I would always think of the pat, insurance and retirement and would convince myself that being miserable was OK because the end would justify the means. I came into the Army to find my place in the world but this isn't it for me. I have no regrets for enlisting or anything I've done since, it's made me who I am today.

I've struggled since day one with what I thought the military to be from talking to vets and from the media and what it really is. The media portrays us as the best the nation has to offer but in my experience it's not that simple. The Army is a slice of the American pie, although a bigger slice seems to come from the South and the minorities. It seems a majority of people in it have nothing better to do and nowhere else to go. This is no surprise to me but what does surprise me is that it seems people cannot shed their old habits from before they joined. I get the impression that we are just civilians in uniform. I came out of basic "different". I felt the awesome sense of duty, honor and history that came with wearing the uniform. Every day I think of those men that came before me and what I can do today to do my best and honor their sacrifices. Instead I encounter with cynicism, racism, ignorance, laziness, selfishness and a sense of entitlement. Too idealistic you say? Perhaps. My problem has always been I build something up in my head and how I was it to be and when that thing does not meet the expectations I have set for it I have trouble dealing with the disappointment.

So know what do we do?

I was planning on continuing in the food service industry but with my skin condition that is no longer suitable for me. With the GI Bill I can go to school anywhere and study anything I'd like. I thought about going home for school or perhaps finding a job in the Detroit area. But I've already seen Michigan and my wanderlust has still not been satisfied. Besides, they are enjoy a nearly 20% unemployment rate back home so that's probably not the best place to start another career. I've decided to study Mining Engineering. Why? Well, it's a growing industry, our society always needs minerals, there are a small amount of graduates nationwide every year and there are opportunities for work worldwide. I've decided to attend South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. So more moving for us. Hopefully this will be the last career change for me. Perhaps it will be but if not we'll stay flexible and it'll turn out fine.

Almost Done.....

Here we are still deployed. Life is OK here, just day by day dealing with deployment. Can't wait to be home. The end is near however and I'll be back in Oklahoma soon. I look back on this deployment and I have to say that I was not very productive. Sure I did my job here and whatever but any other improvement was limited. I lost some weight and shaved time off my run until I hurt my back in December. Then my weight loss leveled off and I'm ending the deployment around 205, which is around 20 lbs lighter than when I started so I guess that's better than nothing. Because of the awful internet access here I only took one class so not much on the school front either. I tried to get a new Army job but found it difficult to get anything done in the austere environment I'm deployed to. Oh well at least I'm in one piece and I'll be home soon.

Back on the diet.

OK after being a lazy-pile since R&R leave for Christmas I've decided to get back on the horse and lose the last 15 pounds to get down to my goal weight of 185 lbs. Unfortunately stepping on the scale gave me the ugly result of 211 lbs. Great I gained 11 pounds since December 19th? In one month? I think I need a second opinion. Oh well if it's true I lost it once and I'll loose it again.

It's incredibly windy here today. The DFAC is a tent and it's threatening to blow away. The dust is covering every surface, including the lappy. My keyboard is not fairing too well and as of right now the 'c' key is refusing to work most of the time. This results in massive spell checking. (I was 1 for 2 on that word)Had to go outside and secure the stakes again getting my skin exfoliated by blowing dust. What a wonderful place to live. Oh and the wind blew my favorite shitter over and of course as usual it was very full.

Still Deployed

Here I sit in the dark, dank MWR tent sucking up free WiFi. Hey deployment could be much worse, right? The weather was beautiful today for a foobit like me and I had to whole day to myself. Great except I'm going to another sandy country for the remaining months of deployment and I've already shipped everything but the lappy, my nook and a uniform. So basically it's been me and my thoughts all day, which is dangerous on deployment. I have not had a day off in a long time and all I did was wander around camp looking lost. I did my errands this morning (haircut, laundry etc) and was done bu 1000. Great, now what? I'm taking a course and so far so good. It's a history course, US History to be precise so I'm hoping for a good grade, my GPA is suckin' pretty hard right now.

The MWR tent also doubles as the gym so I get to watch people work out which is very entertaining. During the day it's usually Navy guys as the Army is at work right now. The Navy guys like to do "smart" stuff while working out. Calisthenics, crossfit, watching a P90X video, stuff like that. The Army guys like lifting things, push-ups and wrestling for exercise. the Navy guys are doing refined gentlemanly exercising while the Army guys basically break rocks for fun and exercise. The Air Force? Well they don't exercise, have you seen most of them? Mostly the Navy guys are all officers, I don't think they have much of a PT standard. At night this place becomes a Navy officer hang out with textbooks and thick manuals laid out. Very impressive until you take a peek at the computer screen and it's Facebook, it's always Facebook.

Well I leave soon for the other sandy place mentioned above, hopefully I'll be able to sneak some pics.

11 September 2010

Every year I reflect on the tragic events of that day nine years ago. What I was doing that day, where I was living, my personal relationships and my thoughts during that day. I also think how much I have changed in the years since. I was newly divorced form my first wife (anniversary 11 Sep 1999) and had been thinking about what went wrong and where I was to go from there. I was happy to be dating a couple women casually and one seriously, my now wife Chanda. I was sitting at work which was at the time as a mechanical designer for Comau-Pico in Plymouth, Michigan near Detroit. My job used to be to design automated tooling that welding car bodies together. I'd be given a task (weld these two parts to the body here) and some parameters (don't go over here or here you'll run into your neighbor) and told to design a machine to do the task. It was practical, artistic at the same time. I enjoyed it but hated working in an office, indoors all day. They ran the place like a sweatshop. If I took too long in the latrine then they'd be looking for me. The job I had on that day was a little different than what I was doing and I hated it. My task was to take all the other tools that everyone else had designed and fit them all into whatever building they where supposed to build this car at. It involved basically placing furniture around a plant. You couldn't change anything really because it was already drawn and completed and in most cases already built. It was boring and full of meetings with fat-asses FoMoCo engineers. I spent most of my day moving shit around the plant on some manager's whim and making copy after copy for the endless meetings. My board was in front of a small television that we used to play tapes (remember those?) of robotics and systems we where working on as a reference. I listened to the radio all day with headphones to drown out the horrible easy listening piped in and the disgusting noises made by 30+ middle-aged men with horrible diets. The news reported the first plane's impact and almost at the same time everyone turned and looked at each other. The TV soon went on and with the help of some tinfoil and stereo wire we had a picture. Suddenly my bad personal day became a national tragedy. They closed the building and I spent the rest of my day with my girlfriend and roommate watching the reports on TV. I knew my life would never be the same. I almost enlisted the next day but decided against it after I told my parents and brother. My brother got upset and thought I was going off to my death. Several years later I did enlist, mostly for the job but there was some patriotism there as well. Now I'm deployed and wondering all these years later where have we gone and where are we going? Our President has pledged to pull us out of both conflicts in 2011. Sounds good but why now? It seems politically motivated to me. Is either place better now than before we came? we never did find WMD, we never did find Osama. So what did we do? What did we accomplish? what did my friends die for? As much as I want those answers I may have to wait until the 20th anniversary of 9/11 before they are answered.

Another strange place I find myself in.

Here we are on another deployment. I'm in an undisclosed country in SW Asia. My duties are fairly light and it's quit boring here. I'm having to interact with the locals way more than I ever have before, so that is a nice change. I work with sailors and airmen so it's great to have a new perspective on the other branches of service. I'm using my time to take some more classes and get my run times back up to post-surgery times. It's very hot and humid here with temperatures above 120. I spend as much time as possible indoors. There is not many services on the camp I'm at and there is not much to do, so it's a little boring. But, I am as safe as one can get in this part of the world. Here's a few pictures of my living conditions here, they are a little spartan.

Surgery update

I can tuck in my own shirt and raise my hand so we are on the mend.

Surgery update

Feeling pretty good now. Started therapy twice a week. Pretty much out of the damn sling, I still use it in public. If I'm sitting on the couch or whatever I don't. Thankfully I don't need to sleep with it anymore. Can't really raise my arm or do anything with it yet. The doc says around 4-5 months. We'll see how it turns out. I have been enjoying my leave however. Not really doing much just getting caught up on sleep and reading. Wish I could do some stuff around the house though.

Gore

Had surgery again about a week ago. Hopefully my shoulder will stay put now. They fixed the back this time. Now a have a scar that nearly circumvents my whole shoulder from front to back. Here's a picture to gross you out.

New Dog

We drove to a nearby town and picked up a friend for Roscoe. She's another Boston and her name is Heavenly (ugh). We hate the name but she answers to it, so I guess we are stuck with it.

Here she is going home with us.

Napping on the couch.

Here's Roscoe as a comparison, they look alot alike.

Bye, till next time.

First day of school 2009-2010

Spencer loves school.
Lily going into her first classroom.
The kids and I.
Spencer before school.
Lily before school.