Misc. Day Off

Well today was my day off. I slept in till about 7am. I normally get up at 4:30 to work out at the gym. But today I slept in. I’ve been trying to brainstorm about ways I could connect with other SDA soldiers who may be around the base here. It’s not easy cause unless you’re already a leader with ecclesiastical endorsement (www.adventistchaplains.org/endorse.htm) from your church; you can’t use any of the official channels. That include bulletin boards, interest events ect. So while I’m waiting on the Illinois Conference (www.illinoisadventist.org) to get back to me about that endorsement. In the meanwhile I’ve set up a group in the Army’s Web AKO Community (www.us.army.mil) called, “Camp Victory SDA Fellowship.” I set up a homepage with information and instructions at www.geocities.com/SDAguy_InChrist1978. Then I set up a permanent chat room at AKO for SDA soldiers. All these things are new as of today so we’ll see if I have any luck connecting to other SDA soldiers. Lord willing the wind will pick up and the right folks will blow my direction.

This past week I had a few class sessions on drivers training. See in order to get an army drivers license you need to go through 40 hrs. of their drivers education. It’s going pretty well. I’m getting licensed up to 5 ton, which is very good size truck. The classes have been somewhat boring. And they not only include topics on safety, weather conditions, and defensive driving. They also include sections on how to do a complete Preventative Maintenance and Safety Check (PMCS) on every vehicle on the ladder up to the 5 ton. This is actually a very useful aspect of the class cause we PMCS every Monday morning. And so far beyond checking the fluids, lights and washing the windows I really haven’t known what all PMCS entails. Or even how to properly fill out the forms that go with this procedure. So I’m getting the whole nine yards on all that. I even have a learners permit for now while I’m going through the class. And I’ve gotten out a bit and driven these hulking monstrosities around the post for various errands. The hardest part is stopping, and also turning. See as far as braking you’ve got to apply a lot of pressure, really slam your foot down hard to stop the thing. Turning is the same thing. I’m pretty sure there’s no power steering on these beasts cause you’ve got to turn the wheel a hundred times as you’re gripping the thing with white knuckles to get the thing to turn. All this is certainly new to me. But it’ll be fun to be able to drive some and not just be a passenger.
I went to a bible study Friday night. It was more like a vespers in that it wasn’t a discussion format. The speaker presented a study about the seven churches in Revelation 2 & 3. Of coarse I raised my hand and got some of my own thoughts in there. I really enjoyed it and plan to attend weekly. The speaker is a first sgt. So he is a lay leader and he is on fire for God and a very charismatic individual to listen to. There were about 40 people there so it was very well attended. This week I’ll also be exploring some of the other groups that meet. I’m going to make it a point to get out some. For example tonight they have a movie playing outside on the deck in front of the PX and I’m going to go and pull up a chair and catch some of that.