How long has it been again?

Yes, I've been lax in my posting, but in all fairness I'm expecting to deploy sometime in the next 6 to 8 years. Yeah, that seems like a good time frame. While we're on the subject of deploying, if I die then I'm going to start making funeral wishes. Yes, that's right, I'm planning my funeral, and it's going to be an awesome party, with me at the center. I'll do one a post for the next however long. Today's request is that it needs to be in North Carolina. Not only is it an awesome state, but Harry hates it and the only way he'll go back there is if I die or get married there(future wife, our wedding is in North Carolina, I hope you're OK with that).

Anyway, I'm getting really excited to deploy but these last few days I've been thinking of the awesome fun things I'm going to miss when I'm over there. This weekend was a great weekend to have near the end of this run in the US. On Friday I had some friends over and we had out Mac N Cheese/Cheddar Brat concoction and watched stand up comedy, so that was great. The next day, I did very little of anything all day, which was fun and not abnormal and last night Baxter, Ned, Harry and I went to Miller's Grill and ate. Looking back on last night and the last two years, Harry and I are some of the WORST people for strangers to be near because we are loud, are prone to laughing uncontrollably so hard we want to vomit, have way too many inside jokes, and it just gets worse throughout the night. All night(and today, too) Baxter's catch phrase was "I can't take you guys anywhere" because we laughing so much and so loudly which just made us laugh harder and louder.
Today the same group of us left to Springfield for no real reason at all, which is usually the best reason to do something fun. All the way there Harry and I were in the back seat talking and laughing about the dumbest stuff. I've realized that my favorite time EVER is spent in cars talking to people I like. With Harry or Frank or Old Man or ANYBODY then it's the best time in the world to be driving around, jamming out, and yelling at random people out your windows and just being happy(yes, you might ask "but how can you be happy when you're yelling at people?" Well, we don't yell mean things, but we do yell. EX:"Hey! You in the bug! Are you hot?" *she turns around to see who's yelling* "HOLY CRAP! You're gorgeous!" Yeah, bit obnoxious, but we're young and its alot of fun. Someone needs to do it, right?). Anyway, we went to Barnes and Noble and I finished buying the rest of the Y the Last Man series, and Harry got some headphones at Best Buy and we ate our favorite restaurant. We went to Pet World and played with their hamsters and rabbits and that was fun. We ended the night going to Bass Pro shop, which was HUGE and this got a bit out of hand.
Harry and I have no desire to be there except to play and the store is SOO big and Baxter went off and Ned just followed us, so with Harry and I leading the way we decided to go stare at their turtles swimming around and all the stuff animals. Yeah, this store is so big they have creeks and all sorts of stuff everywhere! After so long we found LIVE ducks swimming around, so we tried to sneak up on them and touch them before they could swim away and I was the only one to BARELY touch a tail in time. We found a stuffed bear and Harry got this picture. He likes taking pictures of stand ups and stuffed things, but I like this one alot.

Anyway, we wandered for a bit longer and were pretty bored and couldn't find Baxter, but we did find an ATV. Ned jumped in the driver seat and Harry jumped in the passenger seat and I said "What? Are we recreating that scene from Jurassic Park?" Harry said yeah so I jumped in the back and looked as hurt as I could. "Faster, faster, must go faster!" and we rocked it back and forth and there was an employee probably only 40 meters away, but luckily he wasn't paying attention. THEN(this is where it may have gotten a bit out of hand) we decided we should put it in neutral and push it away. So we did. Only about 10 feet away and onto a ramp so nobody could go up or down it.
We found Baxter and came back. It has been such an awesome weekend and I can't wait to deploy, but I'm going to miss things like this every day that I'm deployed I'm sure. And I don't want to go back to work tomorrow, that's for sure.

Late Night Reminiscing and Resolution Update

Or early morning, depending on how you look at it.

Regardless of the time, I was feeling productive and I had just finished the last lego I had(once I make them I don't unmake them) and I needed something fairly quiet to keep my occupied because my roommate was sleeping. So I headed over to my closet and pulled down these old blue bins I had with stuff I had packed before I was in the army. So, this was kind of like opening a time capsule of three years or so and the old me showed. And even though I like who I am now, it helped me recognize how much I've changed in the last few years, going from a young man into an adult(I don't throw the term man about loosely) but it did still point out the things that I miss about my old life and the old me. I ran across alot of old books, things like Garfield and Charlie Brown, but also ones like Great Expectations which is probably one of my favorite books and I remember Ben got it for me when I turned 17. I also found some old posters of plays I was in and that made me really miss doing plays and being around fun people all the time. Its a really hard feeling to describe what I'm missing, but its something more than the play and the people, not to belittle my friends and the people who are here. I do miss that I've gotten out of contact with alot of my old friends though, I feel like I always had great great friends, but I always kept them sidelined for the "cooler" crowd and that makes me sad because now all the great people have moved on without me it feels. I know that I get in these mopey moods alot, I guess that's something I should have expected when I joined the army at a young age, all well. No changing it now.
In other news, I'm officially 1 week sober on mountain dew and when my roommate came home tonight he grabbed one(I still have PLENTY in my fridge for social events) and I could smell it from across the room. It was a very "Come to meeeeee......" moment where I wanted to go and get one, but I guess this is the first step in losing my Mt Dew belly.
I haven't done real well on scriptures, mostly because I have no set bedtime, maybe I should try and set one to regulate my life a bit more? The teeth thing I've been doing good on, but again, the no bedtime thing affects it.
The gym I've been good on, considering I've been on leave, I haven't been going to the gym, but I'll do SOMETHING, a few days a week. I need to get better still though, baby steps though(Thanks, Dr. Leo Marvin!)