Moment of Weakness...Again
Not a whole lot to talk about today, the last day of “Hell Week”. I’ve been pretty down in the dumps as of late and the news I received yesterday won’t be making me any happier anytime soon. Growing weary of waiting to hear back from this job I was referred for, I called the hiring agency to see what the next step was. As it turns out, I’m on a list of 39 applicants that includes military veterans. The park has until the end of May to make a decision, at which point I’ll be receiving a letter from the hiring agency stating that I wasn’t selected…most likely. I was told this is good news because most lists have hundreds of referrals. There are less and less jobs being posted, since the season is rapidly approaching, and the few spots that are actually being filled are being filled by students that either have National Park or military experience. Basically each day that passes makes this journey feel more and more like a waste of time and a lot of money. Granted I’m happy I took the chance, the bleak times in New Jersey almost made it a no brainer to take this shot. I’ve met some awesome people and we’ve shared some once in a lifetime opportunities together, so for that I’m grateful. The big downer about all of this is in less than 4 weeks (at the time of this writing) I’ll be away from all of these people and these experiences will cease to exist and I’ll be left in a deeper hole than the one I was in before I came out here. Much like I thought my opportunity with MCPS would do for me, I envisioned this whole experience being my ticket to “normalcy” and obtaining all the things I want out of life. The job market as a whole sucks, but I’ve seen numerous great people in similar fields being let go from professions that they love…professions that I would’ve been a part of had I pursued them harder…only to be let go. Completing this program and then getting a job with the Federal Government almost seemed too good to be true; well at this point it still does.
Waking up every day with these thoughts in my head make it very difficult to get out of bed and put my best foot forward…but I still do. Even though things aren’t working out the way I planned, I’m proud of myself for coming out of these 15 weeks with 3 more certifications and crossing some things off of my “bucket list”; but the fact remains that I have no idea where I’m going to be working once I get home. That probably made PT this morning very difficult. We broke away from the syllabus and did some more sprint training. We returned to the field where we ran our infamous sprint ladder to do another version of the sprint ladder. We had to sprint for 20 seconds, take 10 seconds off, sprint for another 20 seconds, take 10 seconds off…etc. Each 20 second sprint was 1 round; we did 10 rounds…twice. It’s harder than it sounds, trust me.
When we went inside to lift, I asked Mike about how I could improve. I ran better at home when I didn’t do some crazy running exercise 3 days a week than I do up here. His recommendation was 100 burpees a day for time…I’ve yet to do 1 burpee since then. I told him I hoped to lose 9-10 more pounds before leaving…he suggested I do a food log and cut grains completely out of my diet. I’d be more inclined to do that if he responded to my diet inquiry e-mail when he said he would, instead of my last planned shopping trip in Flagstaff, in which I bought plenty of grains.
Class time rolled around. We handed in our long background check for our test grade and went over our driving test becaaaauuuuussseeeee today was our orientation to emergency vehicle operations…YAY! We reviewed the test as a class, took a bunch of notes and then got a brief overview of the rules and what not of the driving track in Phoenix. The hotel we would be staying in has been foreclosed on, that immediately made everybody feel uneasy, but then we were told that the pool and the hot tub still worked so we were instantly pumped up again. We were allowed to wear whatever we wanted but needed to wear our uniform boots so we could get used to driving in them.
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| EKV, Travis, Jake, Koppling photobombing, & I at the "bonfire". |
Arkansas’ landlady, Susan, was throwing a potluck dinner party tonight, partly for her B-Day & partly for the rangers, so that seemed like an appropriate way to bring Hell Week to a close. When I got home from class I chilled for a bit then stopped at Circle K convenience store (of “you’re a life saver fame”) where I was hassled by a Mexican couple looking for a handout. Usually I take care of these “beggars” but I just witnessed some rough looking hippie redneck guy walk out of the store and hand them 3-4 packs of cigarettes along with some change. Also not playing in their favor was that the guy asked specifically for $10 so he could eat at Sonic…I wanted to spit in his face but as always, I played it cool and dismissed his requests. Following that experience, I headed to Old Navy to see what their shorts selection looked like, considering I only brought gym shorts with me and it was going to be 90degrees in Phoenix on Tuesday, and just a little bit cooler on Monday. After Old Navy it was time to party. I stopped home and picked up my veggie and cracker & cheese platters then was on my way. I was an hour late and was still only the 2nd ranger there. As the night went on, Susan’s guest count dwarfed the amount of rangers that showed up. I was happy because there were a bunch of dogs to mess around with. After awhile, we had a good amount of rangers in attendance. Somebody started a mini barrel/bonfire and we all started sharing our OC spray encounters…that really loosened us up and a lot of the non-rangers seemed entertained by our stories. Susan has a perfect house for such an event; there were 4 main rooms to hang out in, one of which was set up for her son’s band to play some crappy music, and a large backyard. The goal was to have a summer type bbq complete with horseshoes & grilling, but it ended up being one of the windiest nights yet, thus making it very cold, thus making it a very short experience for me. I dropped EKV off at his car, headed home, watched the beginning of Salt, and then crashed.
The only thing to report about on Saturday is that I found out that Midas was basically going to bend me over & stick it to me if I wanted to get my check engine light issue resolved. It was a catalytic converter or something, which was just below the level requiring repair so my gas mileage was being robbed and my engine output was suffering. This was a very expensive issue but nowhere near as bad as I feared. After hearing all of this, the funk I’ve been in recently worsened. Making that even worse, I had to order the part & wait until Wednesday to have the issue resolved. Instead of being productive in any way, shape, or form…I banged a bunch of movies and stuff off of my Netflix Instant Que…all day. I was basically in bed all day. Sometime around 8pm, I headed to Walgreens to snag some house essentials and rented Due Date to bring over to Travis’ with me. I got to watch some TV while Travis messed with his computer, then we watched the movie…it wasn’t terrible. Headed home and crashed. Boy when we get a day off I REALLY take the day off haha.
Cannonball! Cannonball! Cannonball!
Given my car’s current state the last thing I wanted to do today was drive 2.5 hours down to Phoenix. I’ve tried the past couple days to hitch a ride...since Nick headed down after class Friday night to stay with some friends...Lord knows I’m owed a few. No luck. I worked out briefly, showered, finished up some laundry, packed, and made some MP3 CDs for the trip while I made & ate a banging turkey melt with avocado & tomato on wheat…then I was on my way.
I was looking forward to a little getaway. My music was pumping and the further south I got, the warmer and more scenic the trip got…so the drive wasn’t bad at all but I remembered it being shorter when Nick picked me up from the airport on Day 1. I was surprised that my GPS actually got me somewhere without getting me lost. When I pulled up to the hotel, I didn’t recognize any of the cars in the nearly empty parking lot which was strange because I knew a few people were coming down at least a day earlier. I got out of my car and saw Jake inside…in his bathing suit. Nick Money followed, both told me to get my ass in the pool. I checked in and headed to my room (room 240 baby!). Along the way Brad also stopped me and told me head down to the pool. I wanted to get another workout in before the pool but that was put on hold. It was a good thing I put it on hold because I wanted to lift but the gym only had 1 treadmill, 1 stationary bike, & 1 elliptical…no weights. There were quite a few non-rangers in the pool, not bad for a foreclosed on hotel with a near empty parking lot. The group of rangers that were there (Nick $, Pat, Jake, & Brad) came down the day before to catch an NHL game, Coyotes/Sharks. As a result of purchasing game tickets, they got free admission to a bunch of other places, including an aquarium. What a great weekend they had!
As soon as I jumped in the pool I apparently jumped into a game of catch with a young boy on the other end of the pool. The pool was deepest in the middle, 4.5 feet, 3feet everywhere else. The boy was on vacation with his family from Wisconsin and we quickly became friends with them. Fun fact, the boy’s name was Trentin (Trenton) and he wasn’t from NJ! The group of us played catch. Trentin started multiple splash fights with me. We started off having 1-on-1 cannonball contests but as more rangers showed up to the party, the more people he wanted canonballing at the same time. Whenever somebody else entered the pool area, Trentin & I would either chant their name or cannonball. I felt like a 10 year old at a pool party. It was a blast.
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| Our little totem pole |
Today was ChrisPING’s 21st birthday and there was talk about going out to an Indian casino to celebrate so a group of us headed in that direction. Indian casinos are much different than your typical casino…for those of you not in the know. For starters, we got ID’d on the way in like you would at a club. The place was MUCH smaller than a normal casino and unlike most places in NJ, it was full of smoke…smoke so thick that you could hardly see clearly in front of you and the smell was atrocious. There were maybe 8 total tables for table games…6 were blackjack, they had 1 3-card poker table, and something else. The only roulette table they had was surrounded by video screens for some Rapid Roulette…one of my newer favorites. One of the funniest things about the place was the fact that they had actual water coolers all around the place. I stayed there a total of 5 minutes and NO I didn’t gamble. Everybody was hungry some of us headed back toward the hotel while Arkansas & Sean stayed with ChrisPING, who wanted to gamble a little bit on her big day.
The rest of us decided on Applebee’s. I was mad at myself as soon as I walked into the place because I saw the Dallas Mavericks (my favorite NBA team) were in town playing the Suns...about 15-20 minutes from where I was. DAMN IT! If I knew that ahead of time I definitely would’ve looked into catching the game. Some of the late arrival rangers met up with us; something like 17 total. As soon as I got food in me I came…alive. I was talking more, joking more, and then my dawgs Boyz II Men came on over the radio and I led the sing-a-long to End of the Road; I announced that this will be playing during our recession at graduation lol. Damn Boyz II Men can never be topped! They were the best and always will be. We had a very early day ahead of us so we didn’t stay very late. Stopped at their apparent convenience store chain, Quick Trip, and I nabbed some Gatorades for the next day’s events, got back to the hotel and crash landed in my bed. I actually read a little bit of that Verbal Judo book, watched some TV, and was out…sleeeeeeppppppy time.
Stuntman Training
Vehicles Used: 2010 Chevy Tahoes, 2010 Chevy Impalas, & a mixed batch of Crown Victorias
I was very apprehensive about these 2 days of driving, as I am about every new thing I encounter…I did not see all the fun I had coming!
Once again, my dream of not having to drive somewhere unknown was not fulfilled. In fact, I even picked up some passengers for the trip to the track. Breakfast kind of sucked but I liked the juice fountain. My passengers were slow getting down to breakfast and our directions to the track were from Flagstaff, not the hotel, so we were basically late…but we weren’t the last ones. At one point we had to turn around at a cow farm…where there were dead cows just chilling near the road as if they were part of the landscape.
Listening to directions shook up the order of things a little bit today. We were each giving sheets on which our grades for the different exercises would be recorded. Kathy told us to put our names at the top of every page and hand them to the lead instructor. Apparently there was a section where we were supposed to put our names so my packet was given back to me (some other students made the same “mistake”) but my packet was on top of the stack…which meant that I’d be the first student to participate in the various driving exercises.
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| Part of the "Road Course"...near the finish line. |
There were basically 2 parts to the track…the road course and another area where would work on different evasive skills. The class was split half, one half stayed in the classroom and would work on the road course while the other half was divided again and took part in the “backing” course. We got an early morning jog down to the station where we were giving a basic overview of the course and then I had to jump in the Crown Victoria, which was super long and a bit strange to drive at first. I understood the course but it was never explained what we were expected to do. I was told we were doing this course for time but I was also told not to worry about the time and just get used to the course for the first run….so I took my time and it took me over 2 minutes to complete it...that’s when I discovered what the point of if all was. We had to successfully complete the course 3 times in a row without hitting any cones in under a minute & 45 seconds. Now that I saw the light I was on a mission. I ended up with one of the fastest times in my group and I was the only one that never hit a cone…JERSEY REPRESENT! It soon became evident that this exercise was going to take a long time…it took all the way until lunch to get everybody in both “backing” groups done. Since I went first I basically had the rest of the morning off hahaha. Kathy stopped by and chatted with us about some things…like the fact that she’s actually leaving after this semester, who’s taking over, some job tips and stories, and she handed back our background checks. I got 48 out of 50 because I got a little check mark happy. There’s a section that asks if you were born in the USA…yes…then right underneath that there’s a question that basically asks if I’m a terrorist and I checked YES! WHOOPS! I also got to chat with Laura found out she cracked 2 ribs after falling off of her couch & onto the corner of her coffee table while she was sleeping. OUCH! Now both my girls are banged up. (I failed to mention this before but Indy’s got early onset arthritis, some sort of contagious parasite, & needs to drop about 7-8 pounds.)
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| Backing Course |
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| Jerzinois Knows How to Back That Thing Up |
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| Kathy Chatting With Us |
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| More of the Backing Course...Look Confusing? |
We only get a half hour for lunch so we did a basic mass Subway order. After lunch the groups switched and it was our turn to drive the road course. We were assigned a #’d vehicle, I was issued a Tahoe and I was SUPER pumped about it! Our first exercise, drive the course as fast as you safely can…letting er rip as long as we stayed on the course…cones didn’t matter. There were cones set up all over the course and you couldn’t help but take them into consideration…so I drove like a bit of a grandma. That got us used to the course. It also gave the instructors, who were either stationed somewhere or followed us on quads, the opportunity to see how we normally drive which they then corrected in the classroom. We would do an exercise on the course for a lap, switch with our partners and then go over them in the classroom. Do another exercise, classroom, etc. I was used as a reference for the “token big guy” in the class here as well and I was brought up to the front of the class for a demonstration on rotational inertia or something. Basically it demonstrated that jerking the steering wheel was bad for the tires of the vehicle.
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| Bad Ass Tahoe |
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| Demonstration Time |
Once both halves of the class were done with these exercises most of the class’ favorite part of driving soon followed…the reverse 180 or J-Turn or “escape” maneuver. Everybody has seen this done before in movies or on TV; drive really fast backwards then whip the car around so you do a 180 and drive almost in a straight line from where you started. **There’s a method to doing this, it’s not as simple as I just put it so please don’t try this at home.** Some students picked up on this tactic immediately; Nick & John were the only two that I saw that got it on their first 2 tries…you needed to complete 2 to pass. It was a little difficult for me; I wasn’t jerking the wheel fast enough. Class ran a little long, it was a long hot day yet we still had to head back to our hotel where Kathy was going to run us through some PT….damn we aren’t off the hook.
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| Somebody failing the reverse 180 |
This is basically what it should look like....but we went faster and did it better
When I got back to the hotel I saw some of my new buddies in the pool. I talked with them briefly and then had to go workout…in the parking lot. Kathy had a 20 item workout routine that reminded me of a combination of basketball practice & high school gym class with the last 2 items being the agility run that we are tested on in the PEB and a 2 mile run…around the desert roads in one of the roughest drug & car theft areas in all of Phoenix…that should motivate us to keep up the pace. If we weren’t so dehydrated I think this run would’ve gone a lot smoother for everybody. We were 5,000 feet lower in elevation, which was a plus, but the air was drier, it was hotter, we didn’t really eat much today, we just had a very long day of driving, and again, dehydration played a huge factor. I saw a lot of people walking during the run that I don’t normally see running and I even finished before a lot of people that usually beat me. I don’t know what’s up with that. I did not see this workout coming. We were given the heads up about having to do PT out here but I didn’t think it’d be this intense. Total mind blower.
Following the run I just wanted to jump in the pool, my classmates wanted to eat…they won. Most of us didn’t even shower before walking around the block to some Mexican place. I hate Mexican food in general but this was the worst Mexican food I’ve ever eaten. It was cheap so that’s good & I got Gold Peak green tea so that’s awesome, but again…the food was dreadful. Not a very good post workout meal. To make matters worse, I had to take the Browns to the Super Bowl ever since the night before…so I was hurting. We headed back to the hotel, got approached by a beggar along the way, I handled my business, and then it was pool time. The pool sucked at this point. The sun was gone and it was very breezy. Pool time ended up being more like hot tub time but not without tossing Trentin into the “deep end” a bagillion times first.
When we were chilling in the hot tub we saw police helicopters flying overhead in the hotel parking lot that was next to ours. They had their spotlights looking all over the place on the ground; I guess Kathy wasn’t kidding about this being a bad area HA! More and more of us came outside and chilled in the hot tub…it felt a lot like a vacation that I didn’t want to end. Unfortunately we had another early and even hotter day ahead of us so I headed up to my room, showered, made another Quick Trip run, and came back to see that Nick was still hanging out somewhere…so I got some TV time in without worrying about keeping him awake. I must’ve been living under a rock because I had no idea that the Chicago Bulls were in 1st place in the Eastern Conference. WoW! Channel surfing was fun. Travis stopped by and we BS’d for a bit. I packed up my bags for the morning and crashed before midnight.
NAU PRTP: Hot Pursuit
Everybody checked out bright & early. Breakfast was shorter and the carpools were fewer this morning. I got to head to the track earlier today and I was among the first to arrive. We brought the exercise vehicles through their little pit stop/body shop to check the tire pressure and what not then began our day in the class room again. The groups were split up again and I was once again the first to go on the tactical maneuvering course. The first exercise we did today was the main thing I was worried about coming down here; accelerate down a straight away, get up to about 50 miles an hour, come to about 60 feet from 2 chutes made out of cones where the instructor in the car chooses a chute and you have to react, get into that chute & not hit any cones in the process. The kicker…your 3 other group mates are in the backseat hahahahaha. You get 2 practice runs at 35 & 40mph then you need to successfully get in the chute without any cone strikes 4 times at the 45-50mph range…no braking at any point. I was nearly flawless but my back tire clipped a cone one time. Some of the other students looked like they were hunting the cones down so needless to say…it took a while to get through this. One of the students looked like they were going to collide with a perimeter fence around the track…which was nowhere near where we were working and others were causing all kinds of destruction.
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| Jake holding on for dear life while Alex mastered the little chute drill |
The next exercise was similar only you had to apply the brakes as you headed into the chute, come to a complete stop, and then navigate out of the box that was made by closing the back ends of the 2 chutes. This time I was flawless. I had some sweet skidding around the cones to come to a complete stop, but I didn’t hit any so I was good to go. The last thing we did before lunch was test out the anti-lock breaking system…which was taking out for all the evasive maneuvering exercises. Lunch was Subway again and then we switched. Our vehicles were switched up so today I had an Impala…and I barely fit in it. For all of the road course exercises yesterday, we had to drive through these gates set up by cones, which were designed to keep us in the middle of the road. Today the gates were setup differently. They were designed to keep us near the edge of the road, there was only a 7foot gap between the edge of the road and the cone…the Tahoes are 6.5 feet wide…so it required a bit of precision. You were allowed to hit the cones but if you hit them with anything from the front bumper to the back of front doors…that was an “improper cone”. Of the 7 gates, I had 3 proper & 2 improper cones…the missing 2 were cones I didn’t hit at all.
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| I had the Impala on Day 2 |
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| Tahoe > Impala |
For the next exercise, and basically the whole point of these road course exercises, the last cone was removed and we now had a 9 foot gap between the edge and the cones. This sets us up for the turns we’ll be making during pursuits called “early apexes”. Basically when you come to a curve you take it deep and narrow instead of trying to hug a curve like they do in NASCAR. After explaining the techniques to us, the instructors drove the course with us in the cars four times. The first lap was like a 2mph orientation to where we should be for certain turns followed by the proper hand movements. In the next lap they drove like we did on our very first attempt at the course…jerking wheel around, crossing over hands, etc. It nearly made me car sick. The 3rd lap was a “no brake run at speed” which is a fast lap around the course without using your brakes to make turns…with the exception of one that comes from at the end of a straightaway and into a hairpin turn. The 4th was a normal lap of them showing us what they wanted us to do the rest of the day. After the demonstration, we took 2 laps with our partners…mine was Travis. There were instructors observing from a tower in the middle of the track and they monitored everything then reported to another instructor at the “finish line” via radio. We had to show that we could make these turns and at good speed. In my 1st run I pulled up short on a few turns and went a little slow. At the end of my 2nd run, the finish line instructor held the radio up to my ear and they said over the radio “those were the best turns I’ve seen all day!” JERSEY REPRESENT!
Following this exercise it was classroom then qualify on the course without the cones showing you where to go time. We had to make 7 of the 10 turns and complete the course in under 1:21. My first run was good but slow, 1:25. Second one was faster but missed like 4 turns. Third time was a charm and I did the course in like 1:15, missing 1 turn. Then the real fun began, we had to complete a no brake lap in about 1:25, my 1st attempt resulted in me barely going off the track, so I had to do it again. I was flawless on the second attempt and again near 1:15. When we wrapped that up the entire class came together again and it was time to put most of what we learned all together. We got to do a mock pursuit!
For our pursuit we had to stay within 8 seconds of these hell cat driving instructors, lights & sirens going. For the first lap, we just followed them with a radio mike in our hands…focusing on the turns and steering methods that they showed us. There was a catch. We were traveling in the opposite direction that we’ve been practicing the past two days…we started at the finish line. Added fun bonus – after you’ve gone, or were near the end of the order, you be a passenger in the “getaway car”.
I was the 4th person to go and I was reunited with my Tahoe. After a brief introduction to the lights & sirens, I flipped them on and I was on my way…chasing down the instructor I spent the most time with. The point wasn’t as much to keep up with him as it was to see how the techniques we learned made our pursuit more effective…but I caught up to him pretty quickly and stayed close to him for the whole pursuit. For the 2nd pursuit run you had to actually talk on the mike while in pursuit. This proved to be a bit more of a challenge, especially since it was near impossible to hear “dispatch’s” transmissions. Again I caught up to him and stayed with him and I gave good transmissions out, but at one point with all of the steering, my giant hands activated the blinkers and I was fussing with them trying to turn them off. That Tahoe is sooooooo bad ass!
After I pursued, I jumped in the back of one of the getaway cars with Forrest & Brad. Oh man if something happened to that car I don’t think the class would ever laugh again; we’re the 3 funniest dudes in the class. Our brakes forgot to work and we drove off the track, when we got back on the track we were facing the wrong way and were essentially “caught”. That didn’t stop our driver…he accelerated in reverse and pulled off a gorgeous reverse 180. It felt like a ride in an amusement park back there. I stayed in the car for a couple of runs. My driver cracked me up. He would get so far ahead of his pursuer that he’d be able to double back on an access road and get behind them, cut across another access road and get back in front of them…it was fun. I mentioned to him that I think this was the only time I bet nobody in the class bitches about having to stay late…because we did stay late…just over an hour late.
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| My hometown area code on top of the getaway car I was in. |
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| We went through 6-7 getaway cars...so many messed up tires. |
We had to put the cars away so it was the last time I’ll be driving an SUV for a while. I changed my shoes...now that my supposed to be shiny uniform boots look like something you’d wear in Desert Storm…hit the bathroom then began my journey back to Flagstaff. I stopped at Quick Trip for some gas and some Jeff’s body fuel, set my GPS, and I was off. The delay in wrapping up class resulted in dealing with the post work rush hour. I wanted to stop by the giant outlet village I saw on the way down but I didn’t want to drive in the dark through the mountains like I did on my Vegas trip and this traffic was nuts, so I headed back up north. The trip home sucked, much worse than the trip down. I was exhausted but my music kept me going. I practiced the hand positioning and steering tactics that I just learned and I was a bit heavier on the gas this time around (even though the speed limit is 75mph I still drive the normal GSP speed limit of 65mph).
At the point of the trip where the elevation changes from 5,000ft to 6,000ft, my car wouldn’t accelerate over 55mph…even when the pedal was all the way to the floor…good thing I’m getting that part replaced tomorrow. I didn’t think I was going to stay awake for the whole trip…that’s when I talk to Laura to keep me awake. I was so tired that I stopped at Burger King when I got back into town but I ended up throwing it out and going to sleep when I got home. When I woke up the next morning I still had a full soda sitting on my desk…the hole for the straw was still intact. As tired as I was, I wanted to look up the Wrestlemania results online and that’s when I realized how truly out of it I was…Wrestlemania is on Sunday, which I thought was today, nope…it’s Tuesday. I better hit the sack ASAP. For the first time since I was maybe 8, I was asleep for the night before 9pm. Tactical driving is cool.
Good Day Wednesday
Whoa, I can’t believe its Hump Day already. We basically just had a 4 day weekend. Early to bed, early to rise, gets J~DuB to Midas to fix his ride. I dropped my car off and called Nick to cancel my request to have him pick me up after I found out that Midas was basically 1 block away from the lot we park in for PT. I was surprised when the manager at Midas offered to take me to class…did not see that coming.
I was expecting PT to be a bit challenging; instead it was probably the easiest day so far…I did NOT see that coming either! I actually participated in the AM BBall game with the guys, some of them were impressed with my skills…even though I didn’t really get to show them much it was good to see I still got it. We then went through our usual warm-up and then some Travis led suicides. We were told to go lift and Stan ran to get us a bench…he was too late haha. PT is so frustrating…we’re supposed to have the weight room reserved yet there’re normal students on all of the equipment so PT turns into stand around and wait, complete bullcrap! I did get on a bench early and I went right for the glory. As of right now I need to bench 228 1 time with the PEB form in order to pass that portion of the PEB. Started at 215, no problem so I went for 225…hardly a struggle but I nailed it…the most I’ve ever benched. I tried for 230…got halfway there then failed..tried it again and could hardly get it off the arms that were holding it at the PEB starting location. I was frigg’n ecstatic! Just 2 weeks ago I was 20lbs away, now I’m just 3lbs away. If I drop like 6-7 more pounds I’ll be in the clear!
After lifting Mike got everybody together and asked who thought that running was their weakest point…myself and the other slow kids raised our hands high…some did not and I was wondering why…all the way up until now, at 3:13AM on Thursday. There was at least 1 individual who I definitely thought should’ve raised their hand, they didn’t because they feel they need more work on the bench press. Us slow pokes were sent outside to run the last course that I posted about that I couldn’t even run a mile of last week because I had nothing in my belly except 3 aspirin. Well ladies and gentlemen I was the only 1 in the group that didn’t stop to walk today! How about that!?!?!?!!! Slowly getting better but I gotta put in the extra time myself…we only have 7 PT classes left!!!
I was first to jump in the shower during our PT to class transition and it was probably one of our quickest transitions yet. I finished cleaning up and shining my boots, fixed up the facial hair, and we were on our way. I saw the Coconino County Sheriff SUV outside our door on campus so I was pumped that we’d be doing some more DUI stuff with some cool instructors. That took up half of the class. We spent the 2nd half of class covering different types of warrants and we got our radios right at the end of class…SWEET!
I didn’t do much after class…basically just hung out and watched 40 Year Old Virgin. Toward the end of the evening I caught up with Mama Jane & talked about life’s events…all of which I just shared with you so it’s time to put this day to rest.
Good Night Ya’ll!
Flagstaff Observation
You Down With OPP? Flagstaff has an awesome “classic” hip-hop radio station out here. It play stuff from back when rap was good, back around Jr. High – College. So many of the songs remind me of Sweet 16s. The screwy thing is, when you look up the radio station online…where you can listen live…it’s listed as like a Catholic music station….weird. I wish they had this station back East. L
MOUNT UP!!!
