Smallpox is not something you’d hope for. Here’s my arm 10 days after getting the smallpox vaccination:

It may not be much to look at, but at least it’s painful and itchy.

Here’s a picture of the back side of one of the Humvees we’re training on. I think the Arabic writing says “Infidel on Board”.

Not much new to report, unless you count my trip to the emergency room yesterday. Nothing to worry about, though. It turns out that the medication I was taking for high blood pressure contains a diuretic; when you combine that with a substantial increase in physical exertion, it results in dehydration. They have switched me to a new medicine that does not have the diuretic component, so everything should be fine now.

Next week we’ll be doing more hands-on stuff out in the field, so hopefully I’ll have some good pictures to post at the end of it.

Here’s a look at where I’m living for the next few weeks. Living in a large room full of dudes is not a preference, but it is a little better here as we were able to construct “cubicles” out of the wall lockers. Here’s my bunk (I don’t have anyone sleeping above me, which is also nice):

Here’s a longer view down the hall; my bunk is the first on the left:

And here’s the best part–most open barracks that I’ve lived in in the Guard have had extremely crappy shower setups. It is usually one shower pod with four spouts at the top, so you get to take a shower with three sets of junk in your face. But here, we actually have shower stalls with curtains. Luxury.

Finally, here’s me wearing my new 60 lbs of crap:

words

Historically, I’m crappy at maintaining a blog. I have brief spurts of bloggy goodness that usually only occur when something substantial is happening in my life, such as trips to Poland or the birth of my children. I’m thinking that being deployed to Iraq will fall into that category.

We’ve been at Camp Atterbury for 5 days now, and most of our time has been spent going through various inprocessing stations (medical, dental, finance, etc.). More accurately, most of our time has been spent waiting in line for various inprocessing stations. Our actual training starts tomorrow. I’m not sure yet how specific I can be about any of this, but I think the major focus of all of our classes will be in tactical line-standing.

My intent was to post some pictures today, but I just realized my camera battery is dead. I’ll recharge it tonight and hopefully post some pictures tomorrow of the barracks and the company area.