The Boredom, Week Zero

I love my job.  I don’t often say very much about it, but I’m a military contractor.  Nearly every month of the year, I drive to a military base in California’s high desert where I’ll spend the next 2-3 weeks.

I serve as a crisis actor, embedded with Operations Group Lead Team, by which I assist in training combat medics and combat lifesavers for treating battlefield injuries.   When I’m not screaming my head off, bleeding Hollywood blood in the desert sand, I’m contributing to after-action reviews and coaching individual soldiers on how to improve their medical response.

I take a lot of pride in my job. What I do with Ops Group helps make soldiers into better soldiers, and our work has proven its value in saving lives in Afghanistan.  It’s rewarding to know that we’re giving parents back to their children, children back to their parents, and spouses back to their better halves.

 

On Thursday, November 20, I began a lengthy drive from the high desert of the far reaches of eastern San Bernardino County.  I made my way out of the blackened, cloudy desert towards Los Angeles County.

When I’m not working and living on base, I’m back in my home town of San Dimas, California.  I’m in love with my beautiful hometown and it’s always a relief to see it again after a strenuous rotation on base.

There’s only one problem: I easily get bored out of my skull when I’m back home.

It’s not that there’s nothing to do back home—I keep myself occupied well enough.  It’s that I have a special connection with my job.  Sure, the desert sucks, but on the flip side, I have a mission out there.  I enjoy spending time in the field, I always get an adrenaline rush from the war games, and my brothers are back in the desert.

My longing for the field is the reason I’m starting this series, The Boredom.  Until I return to base in January, I’m committing to doing something every week that’s not only productive, but also meaningful and personally fulfilling on some level.

Day Zero was mostly spent on base where I was closing out some business and keeping promises at my employer’s office.  However, there was one special highlight.  On my way home I stopped in Rancho Cucamonga to meet a young woman who’s smart, sassy, and remarkably beautiful.  Inexplicably, she’s into me—ever the surprise since I’m a geek who regularly quotes Star Wars and a number of cult films and songs no one else cares about.  Whatever, I’m one lucky SOB!

Day One, Friday the 21^st, I spent a leisurely morning sleeping in.  I had to, since I lost a ton of sleep from the creepy, apocalyptic thunderstorm that enveloped my town at 2 AM.  There was torrential rain, quarter-sized hail, and blinding lightning strikes every three seconds that completely illuminated the angry gray sky.  Needless to say, it’s hard to sleep through the Book of Revelations.

I did my morning cleaning and home maintenance routine and then read a little from a really cool novel, Empire State, by Adam Christopher.  The plot covers an alternate New York City, the Empire State, a stand-alone city-state in a parallel universe.  The story includes gangsters and Prohibition, corrupt cops and City Commissioners, superheroes fighting against each other, a mysterious war that never ends, and killer robots on the loose.  I’ll write a review on it soon.

Kabuki restaurant, Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga

After spending way too much money at the mechanic’s shop for car repairs, I closed out Day One by meeting that special someone in Rancho for an amazing date.  We went arm-in-arm to Kabuki, an upbeat and upscale Japanese restaurant at Victoria Gardens, near Ontario Mills.  They had some amazing rolls!  The company was great and we ended up making out under the stars like high school freshmen.  That was exactly what a first date should be!

Day Two, Saturday the 22^nd was mostly uneventful.  However, I took the time to go see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.  It was very dark, but very awesome as well!  No dedicated libertarian needs more than twenty-five seconds to articulate the libertarian symbols with which the film is riddled.  Check back on my blog tomorrow and I’ll post a libertarian film review of Mockingjay Part 1.

Now, those of you who made it this far might be asking why I’m even doing this project.  The honest truth is that, when I get bored, I easily lose motivation to do things.  Frankly, I don’t like to lose motivation because I’m a big thinker, and big thinkers don’t just run out of steam and quit.

Even though I’m not out in the field “embracing the suck” with my brothers, I still have big projects to work on.  I figure that if I write about my progress and keep you all posted, I’ll have every one of my readers holding me accountable so I don’t get lazy during the holiday season.  There’s much to be done, and the main challenge is killing the down time.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.