Day 0: Off to Fort Bliss

Well, today I got up at 7am, finished final packing and met a lot of family at Monument restaurant in Georgetown. Around 10am Shelly and Cherokee and I headed out to the Austin airport.

We got me all checked in and hung out until about noon or so. After a pretty tearful farewell, I headed to Houston and then on to El Paso and Fort Bliss.

The winds are evil out here right now. Probably 20-30 sustained and 45+ gusts. As a result the landing was pretty weird. I was on this glorified puddle-jumper that had 2 seats on one side and one seat on the other. Our wings were bobbing back and forth and about 20 feet above the runway we dipped to the right about 3 or 4 feet. I thought we'd come down on just the right wheels but at the last second we straightened out.

The military life is certainly different. I did an ITT pre-briefing briefing at 17:30 and apparently all of the "excitement" will begin tomorrow morning. For Sunday I get to sleep in and don't need to be at the briefing room until 7:45am. After that I'll be up before the crack of dawn.

If there are any medical issues that can be controlled, like high blood pressure, that are detected, I may be delayed in my deployment. I should know about that by Wed PM.

That's about it for now. I am going to hit the sack early tonight.