Spring Forward!

April has arrived, and with it, the first benefit of my assignment, even though I'm still at home for one last day: assuming I get to Kuwait on schedule, this month's pay should be tax-free. That's just one of the financial benefits that's making this deployment easier to accept. Not that I'd necessarily say it's "worth" any particular amount of money, but it's nice to be compensated for this assignment. I'm all packed -- well, not really packed up, but everything is set aside for me to do my usual last-minute procrastinated packing. And I'm ready to go. The extra two weeks has been great in allowing me to prepare in a controlled manner, and tie up a lot of loose ends. I'm looking forward to getting started, mainly because the earlier it gets started, the earlier it will be finished! I'll be playing with some "counter" software on the right-hand panel to keep track of how long it's all taking. The title "Spring Forward" refers to the fact that I just realized yesterday that we turn our clocks ahead an hour tonight. So not only will I lose an hour of sleep, by this time tomorrow I'll be on a series of flights taking me to the east coast, and I'll lose 3 more hours. I know I'll be looking for the coffee tomorrow morning as I have to report to NMPS Norfolk. I'm still not sure what NMPS stands for, but you're sure to find out in my next post once I'm there. I'll be there all next week, probably going through the same medical and dental screening that I've already done. Signing off from home... next update I'll be "on my way".