Continuing Boredom
Sunday, February 26th, 2006Day 106-107
ho hum. Weekend.
Aaaargh, thppt, thppt. Sleeping in is out of the question. Our support NCO just called. “Didn’t you read the TB tests for the Battalion?” Just being woke up, I intelligently replied, “Umph, hegl, uh, yeah, some of them.”
Seems that rank inefficiency has reared its empty head again. When they give a TB test here, they don’t make any provision for anyone to read it. So the unit scrambles around looking for someone, anyone, who can do that. I’m elected today for one of the units going through here. So, no more sleep but, hey, at least I’m doing something useful!
Since there’s nothing else going on, I may as well describe the facilities at our disposal for fine dining and for working off all that great food.
Actually, the food isn’t too bad, you just have to be a little picky about what you eat. They serve as if we were all a bunch of teenagers who could eat all day and have no problems but, a large portion of this crowd is at least middle aged. That’s being generous to a few, by the way. Some of the people here look to be in their seventies…….
Anyway, our assigned dining facilities consist of three buildings built on the same lines and at the same time as our barracks, except that they’re only one story. They’re about 90 feet long by about 30 feet wide. The kitchen and serving line are on one end and take up maybe a quarter of the floor space, with the rest being occupied by more tables than the fire marshal can possibly be happy with. With the new people that are showing up this weekend, it’s starting to get just a bit cramped. Long lines and no time to dawdle over a meal.
The meals are nutritious, I’m sure but, the presentation isn’t real great. You have to keep in mind that these folks don’t have a whole lot to work with. They really don’t do too bad a job, it’s just that there is no room to do a really great job. I usually eat one meal a day if I’m not working hard, otherwise they could use me as a Goodyear blimp.
Now, if you want to walk a little further and ignore the fact that we’re supposed to eat in ‘our’ facilities, you can go over to the MP Brigade dining facility, which is one of the very new buildings they’ve been putting up here for the last couple of years. It is a completely modern cafeteria. Plenty of room, even though they’re using only half of it most of the time. The menu is much the same as in our place but, the presentation is much nicer and the atmosphere is way more mellow. You have space to relax over a meal and visit with people.
UPDATE: The ‘good’ dining facility is now charging for its meals. It’s only taken four months for the powers that be to figure out that they weren’t managing to control every action of the soldiers under their purview. Now that they’ve figured it out, I think they’re using the payment issue as a way to keep us in ‘our lane.’ No sense in paying for ‘ambience’.
As for exercising to stay in shape……… There are four gyms on post that I’m aware of. They’ve got just about everything you could want in the way of weights, machines, racquet ball courts, etc. There is also a shuttle bus that runs from our area to the most important areas on post but, the gyms are apparently not considered important because the busses don’t stop at any of them. So, if you want exercise, you can get all you want by walking to a gym and back. No real need even to stop in, since the shortest distance between any two points here is miles and miles……..