The Navy sure is a well-oiled machine ...

... as several friends told me before coming here. It's not bad, mind you, now that I'm used to the ... well ... treatment.

A day or so ago, more people for the teams showed up (like our commanding officers ... nobody special). About 40 total. The intent (contrary to the published schedule, no problem there) was to bring them to the language training seminar with the rest of us. Unfortunately, the side of the training office that said "we'll get another bus to drive you there" and the side that actually does it ... are apparently separated by more than a short fence. Only about 1/3 of them were able to make it, and they made it very late morning. Awesome.

Oh well.

Regardless, we're in an eternal Groundhog Day (the link should say it all). Looking at the schedule, it's not exactly refreshing to see that we have no time off for the next couple of weeks. I don't expect any time off in the next few months, either. Joy.

So far I haven't gotten reimbursed yet (for June and the trip here). It's only been a week so far so I'm not nervous or pitching a fit yet. Just curious and concerned.

The fun part is my purchase of the "discount bargain internet access" provided by the ever-so generous Army MWR bubbas (under the name of Army Recreation Machine Program or ARMP) charges $39/month and has for many nights now averaged 5 minutes between getting kicked off the net and requiring around 5-10 attempts to re-join the net. Unfortunately I get very little phone signal, otherwise I'd just tether and deal with the slightly slow throughput (and ever-warming iPhone). Samada.

Can't wait for "Army Training" to start. (The first 10 days is just language/culture training at Indiana University.) Oh, that brings up one side point: after 7.5 hours of speaking Pashto, we are given some form of culture lecture. Apparently the Army decided to tell the instructors (none of whom live locally; they all fly in from elsewhere. Well, the Army tells them as they got here that they need lectures. I would think that getting that request out there earlier would produce better prepared instructors. Not that it shows ... much. (It's not encouraging to the see instructors shaking their heads and hearing the speaker bite their head off.

Awesome.