Grupo Histeria

I slept through softball practice this morning due to setting my alarm for PM instead of AM.  I’m thinking I must have come home at lunch last Thursday and taken a nap.  That’s the only way I can figure that it woul have gotten set to PM.  But I always have my travel alarm set for 0715 as a backup, so that woke me up.  KC brought me breakfast from the chow hall so I didn’t have to make an extra trip.  That was really nice of him!!  We had a Health & Welfare inspection this morning – MST Leader came in and just checked for cleanliness and any visible contraband items (porn, etc.).  It was quite easy.  I even made my bed nicer than usual this morning, and swept our floor.

Once my room had been inspected, I headed off to the band hall.  We had brass quintet rehearsal this morning and it went really well.  I even got a compliment on my playing, so that was nice!  I met up with my friend Denise from Joyful Noez for lunch.  She’s been on leave and it’s nice having her back.  We had a great time talking and getting caught up on the past few weeks over lunch.

After lunch I worked on supply paperwork for most of the afternoon.  At 1600 we had unit and small group photos in front of the band hall.  I was in 4 – Brass Quintet, Tuba Quartet, Stage Band, and then the full band one.  It went very smoothly and quick transitions between the groups.  Then it was back to my computer until about 1730 when I changed into my Grupo Histeria t-shirt (uniform for our gigs is our black t-shirt with the group logo on it and ACU pants and boots).  We were supposed to have sound check at 1800, but we had some power issues and ended up not really having a soundcheck.  We started a few minutes after 1900 and had an awesome gig!  There were probably about 50 or so in attendance and lots of dancing during our songs.  We played for an hour and a half and it went great.  It sure was good to have my first post-softball injury gig.  After the gig we tore down and got everything put away and I finally went to dinner about 2115.  I didn’t want to eat before the gig because I can’t play well on a full stomach.  KC took me to Taco Bell for supper and now I’m about to head to bed.  I’m tired and I have a headache.  

Today’s High:  116
Current:  100 (10:45 p.m.)

A Briefing and more. . .

I started off this morning with a 3.29 mile run in 33:00.  It was a little shorter than usual since I stopped at the gym to get on the scale.  I need to do something because it appears the numbers on the scale are going the wrong way.  Hmm. . .  something like running 4-5 days a week and getting to the gym in the afternoons a few days a week perhaps.  I just need to remember how good I feel after I run in the morning!

After breakfast and formation, we had a briefing by Chief about the gig that the band did last weekend.  They played in an Iraqi village park somewhere away from here.  This village was written off as hopeless 10 months ago, but the unit that is doing patrols down there has completely changed things around.  This village had an arts festival a few weeks ago – something that would have been unimaginable 10 months ago.  And now part of our band did a concert/awards ceremony there, and did a few joint pieces with several Iraqi musicians from that village.  I wish I could have gone and been a part of this, but I’m sure there will be more opportunities for us to play for the Iraqi people.  They had a great experience.

The briefing lasted about an hour and then it was off to my office to do e-mail and some paperwork.  After lunch, during which I stitched for an hour, I headed up to our Property Book Office to pick up a bassoon that another unit is laterally transfering to us.  I also turned in some more paperwork  to get stuff onto our property books from the property books back at Ft. Drum.  Once back to the band hall, I spent the rest of the afternoon working on various kinds of paperwork – to turn some stuff in, to get more new stuff added, etc.  It was a pretty productive day overall.

After work, it was home to shower and change into PTs and then off for pizza for dinner and then a movie with friends.  We watched The Patriot.  What a great movie, but I had forgotten how long it was.  So it was midnight before I got home, and now that it’s almost 0100, I should probably get to bed.

Today’s high:  118
Current:  100 (12:45 a.m.)