Weekend of Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 through Sunday, 11-Feb-2024
My friend Dave is getting a promotion!
Well… technically, he’s already gotten the promotion, and this was just the ceremony to officially instate him at his new rank. It’s the Army, I’m not going to worry over-much about the minutia of how it all works… though I’ll admit that I’m pretty jealous of the simplicity and clarity of how their system works. There’s clear requirements, transparent timelines, and a whole system dedicated to keeping it all moving smoothly. Kind of wish the private sector would listen in on that…
Anyways, ranting aside, I flew to Oklahoma!
It was lovely – One advantage of having a work laptop, and being able to work remotely, is that I could save aside a few of my projects onto my harddrive and then boot the beast up on the flight to get some analysis done and summaries written. It didn’t go beautifully smoothly, unfortunately, since “the beast” is an apt term for my laptop’s power consumption, it turns out… I wasn’t aware, but seatback power is limited to 75W… and the 180W power brick keeping that laptop running SUPER overloaded that circuit. No fires caught, of course, it just simply didn’t work.
Thankfully batteries are a thing, so progress was made and a book was read after the laptop died.
Once in Oklahoma, we had a combination of whirlwind adventures and quiet relaxation.
The ceremony itself, along with the time leading up to it, was chaotic and busy by nature. The morning before, and the days following, were beautifully quiet. It was lovely – a good ceremony, great cake, and good speeches. And, of course, excellent celebratory scotch afterward – regardless of glassware choice.
The rest of the time was gloriously relaxing. Catching up with friends, hearing stories and learning new little details about what life’s been like. We took a few nature walks, visited an excellent diner, and had an excellent evening full of pizza, whiskey, and even a few hands of poker! First time as an adult I’ve played Texas Hold’em, and I didn’t do too badly… didn’t do great, of course, but had a good time and didn’t get wiped out too early. Also, I learned not to bet against Dave because he doesn’t bluff. He had the luck of a recent promotion, and didn’t need to bluff.
Jerk.
We poked around the on-base museum (and saw a super cool WWII-era Morse-code transmitter), I took an artsy photo of a bike… I mean, it was a chance to visit with friends and see the life they’ve been building in the middle of the country. It was worth every minute.
