To Whom It May Concern

What Is Up With fraNk?

Someone online the other day asked me "What the hell have you been up to for the past two years?" I know I haven't been posting much, I keep saying I will. Let's just dispense with such promises this time, although I will do a condensed version of the last two years...

November 2006

We are released from active duty upon returning from Iraq. Moved out to California to be with belly, who is at Camp Pendleton as a Marine.

December 2006

Belly finds out she is pregnant, one week later the Marines, unrelatedly, decide that she will be adminstratively seperated due to a severe injury that never healed correctly.

January 2007

I move back to Nebraska, first day back, find out my car has tires that are NEVER to be used in the snow, and I hit a school bus. For the next couple months it is job searching time.

April 2007

Belly moves back to Nebraska, we get a tiny apartment on main street in my home town. I start work at Ameritrade.

August 2007

August 17th: Shaniqua is born.

September 2007

We decided we need a bigger apartment within days of the birth of Shan. We start looking, with one most important aspect in mind: SIZE, we look for the biggest apartment we can find.

October 2007

We move into a suburb of Omaha, into a 1500 square foot apartment, woo, in a nice little wooded area. It's quiet and plenty of room to store everything. We take our time getting everything put away haha.

November 2007

We have thanksgiving at our apartment, it's a lot of fun. Three of my sisters are here, my brother, my parents, my grandparents, and my uncle.

February 2008

As of 09Feb2008, I hit 18 years in the military. Morons move in upstairs near the end of the month, and our peaceful sanctity is ruined. While there are roughly 5, maybe 6 people living there, it sounds like a herd of 20 elephants. I get a raise at Ameritrade, but I also get a phone call from a master sergeant, offering me a full time position teaching 88M MOSQ (military truck driving school). I accept. On the 28th of February I am given long term leave from my position at Ameritrade.

March 2008

I begin work at the Nebraska National Guard 88M MOSQ school. The curriculum is an absolute joke and it takes the entire month to get ready for the April classes, and the curriculum is still not up to par, but we make do.

April 2008

Our first 88M class, the school is in two phases, each phase is 2 weeks, totalling a month. I go for about 6 weeks without a day off, averaging 11 hours a day. The work is long but rewarding, and I make more than three times my Ameritrade salary, heh heh.

NOW

So, that's a short and sweet total of my last two years. This summer I've probably averaged about 60 hours a week, April through June we didn't get much time off at all and probably averaged about 70 hours a week, now we have a full staff and each of us gets about one day off a week. Belly and I are searching for a house, and just spent a wonderful week in Wisconsin with her parents at the lake. I left my cell phone charger there though, I hope they can mail it back to me haha.

Buying a house is our next big project. I don't spend near the time online I used to, I try and spend a couple hours a night with the little girl, she's so amazing and fun, we are very blessed to have a child that is not even so much as a handful most often to take care of. I say this though knowing that I am not with her 24 hours a day like belly is, so she may think differently :)

The military job is ADSW, "Active Duty, Special Work", and is slated to end in September, and restart again December 1st. They have offered one AGR (active duty) position for a SSG, my rank, but those jobs go to current AGR's first for consideration, then to the ADSW guys. This is ridiculous, because we are currently DOING the job they are offering, but that's how things work I guess, the bean counters always make decisions based entirely on money and no common sense. Even so I put in a packet for the job, and we'll see in the next month how that goes.

I'm not overly concerned because this school is slated to continue for at least the next three years, but I don't want to have 2 months off. I can deal with it, I can either go back to Ameritrade this time, or to the farm for a couple months, or just be a bum and live off the savings I've built up (although that is for the house, and I think that would be a bad idea haha). If I was to work at Ameritrade, I would actually put in my two weeks notice before the school would start again in December, because that would not be fair to them if I just continue to take long term leave from a company each time the school starts up.

I volunteer to work with the other departments of the school whenever I can because I want to be known as a go getter and someone who steps up whenever work is to be done. That way if the 88M doesn't work out in the end, or the school ends, I can be in line for a decent job in another area of the military. It's interesting how far I've come, the first few years I was in I absolutely hated the military, and could not wait to get out. But spending some time working on the civilian side showed me how little companies seem to care about their employees nowadays, and the military at least does a good job taking care of a person. The two biggest problems people have with active duty military is that it is difficult for them to stay in shape, and family problems due to the long hours. Well, I love working out, and belly is a former Marine so she understands the situation.

I will try to post up more but I'm not going to make any promises about huge posts every other day. We are still very busy.