I'm not going to get into how long it's been since the last time I've posted, mainly, because I'm not sure exactly when I"ll post next. So, let just jump right into things.

For those of you who don't know (and I know there's very few), we got a puppy. Her name is Scout and she's a beagle/terrier mix. She's cute, cuddly, and has razor sharp teeth. The first night we got her, she had a horrible case of explosive diarrhea. Now, when I say this I mean it literally. There might still be a few marks on the wall to prove it. Since then, she's become the raging ball of fur I'm sure all puppies become at this stage in their lives. The stage where they believe that anything that can fit into their mouths is free game for chewing. I've pulled towels, shoe laces, Michelle's "Better Homes and Gardens" magazine, and even other dog poop out. It's been slightly frustrating.....but then I tell myself, "Nate. It was YOUR idea to get a puppy." Unfortunately, I still have not been able to win an argument against myself. Chewing aside, she really is a very good dog, incredibly smart, and on occassion incredibly sweet. I like to think that she likes Star Trek as well, since we watch it together on almost a daily basis. She'll curl up next to me as the theme song starts and watch a couple minutes before she falls asleep. Maybe she finds it boring but until she lets me know otherwise I'll entertain the notion that she's as much a Trekkie as me.

On the subject of Star Trek, I'm looking for someone who can sew. Specifically a Star Trek Costume. I need it to look like the ones from the newer movies (First Contact to Nemesis). Hannah, if you're reading this I'd be incredibly interested in your input.....I've heard you can put together some interesting dresses. I wonder how you'd be with a jumpsuit?

Well, my time here's almost up, we'll see if I have time to try again later tonight. Till then.

So, good news! Michelle and I have officially found our apartment. It's close by and with easy access to the Metro and West Ox Road make it beneficial for the both of us at the moment. We also got it at a fairly decent price. I'd list it but all the out-of-towners reading this would just gawk and say we're out of our minds for paying that much. Unfortunately, this is the town we live in.

Couple of things, first off recreationally I have three things I would highly recommend. First is the book The Alienist. It was recommended to me by Hannah and it's an incredible read. No, it has nothing to do with aliens or UFO's or anything really with science fiction. It has to do with the United States' first (fictional) serial killer. The title of the book comes from what they used to call psychiatrists at the time. I'm almost done with it, and I almost can't put it down. If you're interested in things like that it's worth every violent, gut-wrenching page.

Second, PS2 games. I'm re-hashing two pseudo-new games that came out within the last year. I recently began replaying the game God of War. Once again if blood and carnage is your forte then this is truly the game for you. What's interesting is the many different ways in which you must sacrifice your victims to appease the Greek Gods of Olympus. I'm currently in Pandora's temple looking for the infamous Box so that I may destroy Ares, the God of War. Awesome blend of greek mythology with Quentin Tarantino style blood and violence. The "cinematic" scenes are also done quite nice and the graphics are absolutely gorgeous. Nate gives this game 5 out of 5 stars.

Next game, newer than the previous, Shadow of the Colossus. Absolutely gorgeous music and while the graphics are not up to the standards of God of War, the beauty and detail that goes into each of the Colossus must are certainly impressive. The story of this game will more likely appeace to more people as well. Apparently, "my" love has died and it is now up to me to restore her soul back to her body. I do this by climbing up giant beasts and destroying them, effectively sucking (?) their life force out to restore that of my love. In either case, climbing up the beasts are an incredible challenge mentally and I've appreciated all 3 hours of the game I've currently spent. I have a feeling I'll be spending much more time with it.

Now to more serious things. Walter Reed currently has an opening for a pharmacy tech position. It's a GS-6 position which would be a substantial pay raise not to mention the benefits from receiving said position would be incredible. However, this does have many down sides to it. For starters, the commute is ridiculously long. I would also have to work at Walter Reed for a minimum of 1 year before I could even dream of transferring out to another outlying clinic. It's also an inpatient position, which I actually have mixed feelings about. I worked Inpatient when I was stationed at Womack and I loved the work. Now, though, I do supply and logistics and while I don't prefer one over the other I certainly don't want to give up the job I have now. Also, their metro stop (Walter Reed's) is notorious for it's shooting, stabbings, rapes, and other sorts of pleasant activities. I know that if I hold out, I'm almost guaranteed a GS position with either Radar Clinic at the pentagon, or at Dewitt on Ft Belvoir. I'm just not sure if I should wait that long.
I think what I'm going to do instead if talk to my supervisor and see if she can re-write my job description. Currently, my job description states that all I should be doing is filling and dispensing medications for the pharmacists. Instead, I've been placed in control of a budget that runs into the millions, I've had to rearrange the pharmacy, I've done all the order and supply, while also helping out with administrative work. Oh, I also order the drugs for the immunization clinic located in our facility, though we're not supposed to since we receive no money or credit for it. So, anyway I think if I can get them to re-write my job description to that of a Supply Pharmacy Technician instead of just a regular Pharmacy Tech, I might also be able to ask if I could receive a small pay raise. I wouldn't ask for much, but I would let my supervisor know that Walter Reed is reviewing my resume and that they would be offering me slightly more than what I'm willing to settle for with the clinic I'm at now. I just don't know how to say this without sounding arrogant. Damn my arrogance! So, I plan on trying to put that into action tomorrow. Wish me luck.

I don't know if I'm going to post again before Sunday, so let me just shout out to all the other Steelers fans out there.....this is our time! We have waited too long for this, and don't let anybody else steal our time in the light. For all you people out there who aren't Steelers fans yet, just jump on the band wagon. We'll forgive you this time. GO STEELERS!!!!

Good night, all.

So. I'm back. It's been almost two maybe three months since my last post. Many reasons for this, I've been incredibly busy what with the holiday season and I was incredibly disheartened by a comment left on my last post. But I'm past all that now and am prepared to hopefully, continue this online journal.

Work as of late has been becoming increasingly stressful. I feel like I'm working with a bunch of monkey's half the time. Mishelved medication, misfilled medication, and people who wouldn't know how to work a computer if one fell on their friggin heads. Let's start with the refill crew.

I can only come to two conclusions with the night crew. They're either completely blind or completely ignorant. As neither one of these choices are good for filling medications which people's lives depend on, I guess it just makes me uncomfortable having them doing any kind of "work".

I had planned on complaining more about work, but 3 martinis and 2 hours of relaxing have kind of taken that out of me. Wow....NCIS rocks. Well, I guess I'll call it a night for now. Maybe I'll post more later. In either case, it's good to be back.

There's a lot of things on my mind tonight. Watched an episode of Boston Legal tonight, and if people out there haven't seen it I highly recommend it. It's one of those shows that's not afraid to speak it's mind. That and James Spader is the man. I've liked him since Stargate. Going back on topic, tonight they dealt with two cases. The first was light hearted enough, it was a dispute over showing witches in a public school pageant and how both a Christian family and a Wiccan family disagreed about their portrayal of the now common conception of an old green lady with a wart on the end of her nose who cackles maniacally at the thought of eating little children. They lost, as they should. People these days take things too seriously and I believe that in an effort to become more P.C. this country has instead swerved to a point where we're continuously afraid to say what comes to mind. Kevin Smith had to pay off some official Gay/Lesbian committee because he used the line "gay" in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. No offense at all intended to the homosexual community, but that's friggin ridiculous. The press is first to announce how "freedom of speech" is a constitutional right, but apparently it's only a right if it's not offending anybody else. We feel that we must continuously be on guard with everything we say. Of course I don't and the reap the repercussions of my actions. Most aren't pretty.
The second case hit very close to home. A sister of a soldier who died in Iraq (yes, they went there) tried sueing the Army because they lied to her brother after he joined the National Guard. After receiving no training in dealing with explosives, he was killed by an explosive that his motorcade ran over. Before all you people start criticizing with the "well, he was a soldier" bit, his MOS (his official training for you non-military people) dealt with cannons. I had a patient come to the window the other day. He was 39 years old, had already done his 20 years in the service (which is how long it takes for you to retire), and the army called him back in. Because he was under the age of 40 by 4 months. The man had been out for 2 years after serving a full term in the military and was told that in 2 weeks he had to be fit to go back in to be sent to the desert. I myself was in for 2 years as a 91Q. According to my contract I have five years left in which I could be recalled to active duty. My fear is not in going back into the army. It's not getting sent to Iraq, it's not even dieing there. My fear is that I will end up as just a statistic. A number that some General gives his boss to let him know how many soldiers wound up either killed in action or MIA. I don't want to be a number. I would want people to know about who I was before all that, and what happened afterwards. But, as James Spader's character stated we're "more interested in the relationship between Angelina Jolie and Bradd Pitt than we are about our soldier in Iraq". He's right. If you turn on the evening news, you'll hear very little if anything about what's going on over there. CNN, MSNBC, even Fox News treat it like yesterday's trash. The last time I remember hearing about a soldier's death was when that football player died after enlisting. It made headlines. Funny, that it's the death of an NFL player in Iraq that brings news. Not the death of the kindergarden teacher or the doctor or the local Prom King. Nobody seems to care anymore, and the apathy of the situation is starting to get to me. Deserved attention should be payed to our soldiers on the front. Not the wrong kind of attention, however. The lady who keeps protesting over her son's death.....something's just not right about that. It feels more like she's just trying to get attention than trying to do something about her son. I don't feel comfortable even seeing her on the news. I'm not anti-Bush, I'm not anti-war. I just want people to remember that we ARE still over there. To remember those who have fallen. Is that too much to ask?

--"When I get home people 'll ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do ya do it man? Why? Just some war junkie?" Ya know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is. "--

Hey everybody.
To those who know me, yes I'm jumping on the wagon. I just think it's going to be easier to keep an online journal where I can type what I'm saying as opposed to writing them down on paper. To those who don't, "Hi". My name's Nate. As the blog site shows (?) I'm a huge Batman geek. Own all the movies, comic books, hell even the Subway toys that come with a kids meal.......and yes, I'm proud of that.
Tonight felt like an opportune night to start something like this, being Halloween. It's my favorite time of the year. It's a time where you can truly be whatever it is you've always dreamt of being. For many little girls, that could be a Disney princess, or a butterfly. For little boys it's always a superhero. However, as you get older your costumes become less and less exciting. For example, we had more angels at work today than the Sistine chapel. I went as Batman. (Didn't see that one coming, right?) For the past 4 months I've been working on this suit getting all the necessary parts together. Most of it was bought off of e-bay from other fanatics like myself, and were fine by themselves. Gloves, a belt, a cowl, those were all fine. The body suit, however, was a different story.
I had purchased part of a mold from a bat-friend of mine, Paul who has become a professional at these. However, all it was was a front chest/cod/thigh piece. I couldn't just put it on, it needed to be attached to something. After discussing it with other friends and listening to message boards, I decided to apply it to a wetsuit. This was easier said than done, and I have the burn marks to prove it. All and all, it ended up being ready for Halloween.
I go into work wearing the completed Batsuit and things kind of fell out from under me. I felt like I was in a photo op all day. I barely got any actual work done because patients were constantly asking me to take pictures with them, or to take pictures with their kids. I ended up winning first place in the costume contest which was kind of nice, and people just couldn't believe "how real it looked". I think the best part was when this little boy came up to me and said, "Batman, you're my hero." I just didn't know how to respond to that. So anyway, now I have this fear that tomorrow's going to be a rough day. I can't help but shake the feeling that because so little got done today (though I kept telling myself enough was done), that it's all going to slam tomorrow. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Last part of the day, I took my little brother trick-or-treating. He also went as Batman and there was some playful banter on who was the better. I let him win, he's 8 and I just couldn't bring myself to have him think his costume was worse than mine. In actuality, his was very good. He looked like the real thing. Michelle, my fiancee, couldn't make it she had class tonight. I know she felt bad, she had even bought this cute little Helga the viking costume to come with us, forgetting she had to make it to school. It's ok, though. So now I'm home, laying in bed, writing a blog, wondering if I should get up early to go to the gym tomorrow. I guess we'll find out tomorrow. Same Bat-time, same bat-channel.

-Theatricality and deception are powerful agents. You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponent.-