Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

It was actually a few days ago.

First, my truck died. It's not really mine, but I control the keys and have regular access to it. It was working just fine, I parked it for a minute to pick up some papers, and then it was dead.

Fine. So I got it jump started in the morning. It happens. I drove back to pick up a bunch of equipment to put in our cargo container and left the engine running so that the battery could keep charging while I loaded the vehicle. Once it was loaded I turned around and it stalled as I shifted it from Reverse to Drive.

Awesome.

Not quite the middle of the road, but close to it. And very very stuck. No lights turning on. Nothing.

Awesome.

I crammed all the equipment from the bed of the truck into the cab and locked the doors. I walked over the the vehicle maintenance shed and they gave me the paper work to submit a work order. It sat on my desk while other fires came up and had to be put out.

The truck continued to sit in the middle of the road, near the hooches. I actually walked by and heard a young female NCO tell a senior NCO that the truck was making her paranoid that someone was stalking them, they way it just sat there by her hooch.

I had to tell her the backstory, which made her full much better. I also offered to write "Free Candy" in messy handwriting on the otherwise dusty white truck so as to complete the effect.

I didn't.

Anyway, just after the truck broke I found out that an all too common and oft repeated screw up was happening again. It was something I'd actually taken great pains to warn about. Now it looked like it would end up causing a lot of trouble for two of our Airmen... not cool.

Thus began a crazy scramble of emails, internet chat, and international phone calls to track down the issue and resolve it.

The good news was that while I may have never gotten any response to my warnings, and while they were most likely lost in cyberspace or ignored, the problems I'd warned about were not the actual cause of the problem.

It was a stupid database management problem. Another issue that often comes up and is known about, but yet to be fixed.

Fortunately my final After Actions Report has not been submitted yet. I'll be updating it for these last little hiccups.

There were a bunch of other little things that day, but it's all a bit of a haze now.

The Airmen are taken care of.

The truck is being fixed. A more complicated process than it should be, but it's being fixed.

Our flight home is in the final planning stages.

My car will be running with good tires and working brakes when I get back.

All is well.

...provided Michigan doesn't choke. They're down in the fourth quarter right now. I'm getting along pretty well with the OSU guy that sits next to me right now. I'd hate to have to shoot him this close to the end of his rotation.