A long week

Sorry it's been awhile, I haven't really had too many exciting things happening and I definitely haven't found anytime to write you all or my school report for the week.

Mon Jan. 30 - I went into work today and I was the only one there with Kim for almost half of the day. I got a lot of work done on snowboards and getting them returned to get ready for the trips this week. As of today, 15 outta the 21 are already rented for Saturday and a few for Wednesday. The only ones left are the really short ones and the two really long ones. They probably won't get used. By the end of the day, I had almost half of them waxed and ready for their rental and almost all of them booted and binded. I'm getting pretty efficient at sharpening and waxing the boards. We did have two come back ruined from the weekend and two more in desperate need of some help from Rosario. It was nice today without all the staff and we got a lot of work done. As everything was being returned throughout the day, I started somewhat of an inventory list. They have tens of thousands of dollars of equipment here, and no record of what they have. I wrote MWR on everything in that entire shop today. Coolers especially, tables, chairs, helmets, boots, etc. When Rosario came in, he taught me how to use P-Tex, which is like a hard plastic that you melt to fix any breaks or deep scraps in the snowboards. A lady from a big swim meet over the weekend came in and returned 98 folding chairs and about 15 tables, so I had to help put all of that away. The day surprisingly went by pretty fast. Near the end of the day, I sat up front and worked with the customers. We had to cancel our trip to Venice today because not enough people signed up for it. They were only 2 short and throughout the next day, we had over 6 calls about it. Oh well, these people have to realize that we need to book the airline and hotel tickets. We did create a new trip for the month though. It's a trip that they did the weekend I got here to Reggio Calabria. Its a beautiful ski resort on the southern tip of the boot of Italy. The girls all really enjoyed it and they said the hotel was awesome. There's a selection of ski hills (easier compared to Etna thank goodness), hiking trails, and other outdoor things to do there and its less than $300. Kim told me that I'll probably just have to pay what their cost it. She said around $200, so I'm definitely gonna go. Its Feb. 17-20. I guess it'll be my Valentines Day present to myself since I won't be able to be with Jeff. It sounds really fun and I'll finally be able to get some games of Phaze 10 in with the staff. After work, I just went to my room and hung out. I have no hot water in my room still so I'll have to hold off on a shower and laundry. Nasty huh, they promised me their getting it fixed by tomorrow.

Tues Jan. 31 - I pretty much did the same thing at work today. All the boards finally got returned so I've been a waxing machine. I know I finished everything for tomorrow's trip and I've only got a few more to do for the weekend. We have a big problem with the 4 that got broke over the weekend. They're all boards that need to go out. Hopefully, the shipment we ordered about a month ago will arrive by Friday (fingers crossed). Well today was freakin crazy, it's been raining for about 24 hours now and the winds have been crucial. There were rumors of possible flooding again at one of the big housing complexes that everyone lives in off base, so many people went home early this morning and everything was shutting down. Kim and I stayed at the office all day because everyone else at ITT either went home around 11:00am or called in. I had nothing better to do than sit in my room, and Rich (another supervisor guy) asked if I would help clean out rooms and set up cots for possible emergency evacuations and overnight stays. This was serious and people were freaking out because they are just got all getting moved back into their homes from the floods in mid-December. We ordered pizza for ourselves and got a lot of organization kinda work done around the office. She was happy to finally get some stuff done and have time to get her work done without everybody asking her a million questions. I think we were one of the only buildings on NAS I that didn't close down. We had to go ahead and cancel the snowboarding trip for tomorrow because rain was in the forecast for the next 24 hours. NAS II was completely shut down all day. I called the people signed up for tomorrows trip and told them it was getting canceled and to see if they wanted to credit their account to another trip. Everything worked out great and I sent emails to all the people signed up for the Venice trip to tell them it was canceled. We ended up closing the office around 4pm and it was another night of doing nothing in my room. I was finally able to take a shower and get my laundry done. Secret Window and Blue Crush was on tv so I just sat and watched those. I ended my night early out of boredom. These nights just sitting in my room are really starting to take a toll on me. Oh well, everyone else was worried about the flood getting in their house, so I couldn't complain. Goodnight.

Wed Feb. 1 - I overslept today because I wasn't feeling too good, but I got to work around 10:30 and was still one of the first ones there. Megan came back today from being off all week due to the cleaners fixing her house from the flood. Her house was in the Red Zone which was the block that got hit the worst. Her house is one of the last ones to get fixed up. Rosario was trying to fix the 2 somewhat-fixable boards, but by the end of the day he could only fix one completely. Still no shipment either. I guess Ill be calling those people tomorrow and tell them that they can't attend the trip. We got our shipment of rock-climbing gear in today for the wall in the gym. They really ordered some nice stuff so I've been trying to convince them that I'll volunteer my time on Saturday or Sunday mornings to belay kids that don't know how to rock climb. Its a great wall, but during the entire time I've been here, I've never seen anyone use it. They've got the gear at the gym to rent for no cost, but I guess it's hard to find a friend that knows how to do all of that. James got back yesterday, so I've been talking about that idea to him. He's back for good and told me that I can probably just go on that Calabria Ski Trip for free. That was good news to hear. We also got some word about the Olympics now. The Naval Base in Naples and Gaeta are taking sailors to Torino and their sign up didn't go as well as they thought. SO NOW, theyve given us the details and said if we can take the ferry to Naples, that they can shuttle us to Torino each day and we just have to find our own tickets and stuff. I don't know how feasible this is, but if it turns out that people are actually gonna go, I'm going to try and tag along. I've got other things that I need to work on right now though. I have to start planning my special project, that's starting to worry me. I'm thinkin a Strong Man Competition, Eco Challenge, or some sort of Mini Olympics. Any ideas? James pulled me outta work around 3pm today because he told me they finally found a room for me. Its a room with a kitchen in it, so I had to wagon all of my things into my new room and get settled in. I ran to the commisary to buy some groceries, when it dawned on me that there is no oven in the room. How weird is that. Its only 2 burners and a sink different than my other room. Oh well, it's alright. Now its just really hard to get adjusted to a new room, especially when all I do is sit in it all night and watch tv and movies. I cooked some pasta though, that was a nice change from microwave dinners and burritos. The bathroom is really nice and the room and actually a little smaller than the last. I got some upgrades, but I think I took more downgrades moving into this new room. Oh well, 2 more months and a week and I get to come home and sleep in comfortable beds and not be bored and lonely everynight. I think people have just been busy lately and I haven't met anyone that lives on this base. All the people I've met either live in housing or on NAS II. American Idol was on though, so at least I got an hour of hilarious entertainment. This weekend should be fun though. I might go snowboarding again and Super Bowl is huge here at Sigonella. I'm running late for work, so I'll talk to you all later. BYE