After two nights and several IV antibiotics I'm home from the hospital. Those Germans don't mess around with illness! The normal regimen is three days on IV, but the doc let me loose early with just one day of IV and six days of pills. Man, my last two kidney infections I didn't even get ONE bottle of IV antibiotics, and only one of them gave me anything for pain, and that was the American ER 12 years ago and it was one shot. Had I said I had pain still, I'd have gotten more than the one shot I got on admission. It was only sore by the time Friday morning rolled around, so I didn't think I needed anything.

As an added bonus, I don't have to work tonight and we're actually getting a weekend! Wooo! Already mowed the lawn, although my back is still a bit sore, a combination of the kidney infection and being in bed all day Friday, I'd imagine.

Hey all! I'm safely back in Germany, and as soon as we get something working we'll be watching the new episodes of Chuck! Hope you all have a great day.

Today is my last day off here, since Monday of next week I'll only work a half day then be DONE working here! Then I just have to pack. I hate packing to go home--you always leave with more shit than you started with, and I started with two huge suitcases and an A bag (the big green bags that aren't duffel bags) and have to mail a bunch of gifts back to Germany so that when I get home I can sort and mail them all out. There is no way I'll fit the gifts into the suitcases.

Right now I'm doing laundry, and when that gets done I'll probably go ahead and start packing shit up that I won't need in the next week or two. That is, if my roommate is gone when I get back. I'm not going to start packing while she's still sleeping.

I bought the first season of The Mentalist on DVD several weeks ago, but hadn't gotten around to watching it. When I finally started watching them, I finished all 23 episodes in about 2 1/2 days. Needless to say, it is an awesome show. It's a combination of humor, forensics and drama that hits all the right notes. It's the same reason I like Bones, House, Psych, Burn Notice, etc. I also started watching Life, which I had seen an ep or two of and thought sounded good, but knew was canceled recently. It's still a good one, although not a great one.

Yes, I have a lot of TV watching time on my hands here. We have access to a lot of movies and TV shows, which I play on my computer at work while I'm doing other things. Too bad it doesn't have all the shows I watch, because I'm very behind on several series. Oh well.

I'm almost done with my photography class, which has been a challenge to do here, due to the fact that there's really only a bunch of rocks and sand to take a pictures of. But I've been muddling through!

That's about all that's new or interesting. :) Have a great day!

I was bitten by the Christmas Spirit (or something)and bought a little tree and a string of lights yesterday. I sorta set up the tree but haven't hung the lights yet. They're German lights, which is ironic since I'm not actually in Germany. They also have a HUGE transformer on the plug, which is annoying because now I can't plug my tree into the light string like I was hoping to do. Oh well. I'll figure something out.

Once I get everything set up I'll probably take a picture. They you all can see my new room, too. Ya know, the room I'll only be in for about 40 days. :P

EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION!!! Spread the word far and wide to the whole world!!!


Chuck will be returning early, in January, and they've already ordered SIX more episodes!!!! WOO HOO!!!!

Oh, and I got five books in the mail today! WoooooO!!!!

I voted for Cobra Commander at the costume contest. Had I gotten my stuff mailed I would have been pirate #3. I'm OK with not competing.

I need to do laundry but I want to see who won, and a bunch of people I hang out with are all leaving in a couple of days so I'm sitting here, not really chatting with them while we all surf the internet. Ah, togetherness.

PS Karaoke--oh, right, they billed it as "scary-okie"--still sucks here.

PPS The Joker won over Cobra Commander, but if her description of "guy in the silver mask" is accurate, Cobra got second place.

I miss you.

Chuck has officially been renewed for 13 episodes! They've gotta cut back on the budget, too, but hey! At least it's back!

The Gods of TV are benevolent today.

I spent this morning at work moving our shop equipment from bay 3 (that both Servicing and Maintenance have been working out of since there were German contractors refinishing the floors in bays 1 & 2) back into bay 1, which is our work area. Then at almost lunch time we had to get started on some minor maintenance that was waiting for us. I am the only one of the 3 Sgts on Days that has red X orders (meaning I can sign off serious maintenance actions) so I was tasked to look over a brake handle on a light cart. Should have been an easy, five minute check that the brakes worked properly, then about 15 mins to clear the job out of the computer.

But oh no. It wasn't to be so easy. I don't know if the wrong brake handle came in or if they grabbed the wrong one, but when I tried to adjust the damn thing so that the brakes would actually HOLD the unit I ended up with the stupid thing in about 20 pieces only to discover that there was NO WAY the damn thing would ever work properly. So I erased the corrective action and ordered a new brake handle. That 20 min job took me an hour and a half. During which I got SUNBURNED. I now have a stupid farmer's tan sunburn. Grrr. And ouch.

Some brilliant soul on the flightline decided that shutting a heater down properly was too much work, and killed the thing before it could cool itself down from 200+ degrees, which caused the heat exchanger to warp just about every flat surface inside of it. However, it wasn't cracked and it still worked, so who cares? I rolled the bitch back out.

I was also working on another heater that wouldn't start, which is kinda funny. They have a pull start, so that if the battery dies you can still start it, rather like a lawn mower. This one wasn't charging the battery though, which I ran out of time before I could swap out the battery to see if it was the problem. I left it for swing shift.

And that is my day. Tomorrow, there isn't an episode of House to look forward to (boo!!) but there is Chuck and a bonus episode of Bones! Whee!!! Chuck!Chuck!Chuck!

Oh, almost forgot. This weekend was the Spring Bazaar on base, which is where local (and not so local Englishmen) come on base to sell us stuff. I bought the wine glass and carafe set we gave Mom and Don for their wedding at the last Spring Bazaar. That's also where we infamously spend and ASS LOAD of money on some Wegewood china that while beautifil, is also AN ASS LOAD OF MONEY. So what did we do this time? Yep, we are buying more. *sigh* We are two months away from paying off the service for four (which includes silverware, btw) and as soon as that's done we start paying off serving dishes, two more sets of dishes and silverware, and a box to store the silverware in. We figure that by next Spring (or Fall) bazaar we might be able to get those last two sets of dishes to get us up to service for eight. Whee. In case you forgot, here's what our pretty china will look like--

ChuckChuckChuckChuckChuckChuck!!!

With Scott Bakula and Chevy Chase!

Whee!!!


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