Day One

Today was a very long travel day, followed by a longer orientation process. Things are going well though, and I'm quite happy here.

I met up with three people in the Albany airport, Paula, Kyla, and Dan, all headed the same direction as me. We ended up doing three flights, from Albany to Philly, then to Vegas, then to Sacramento. Very cool people, since the shorter two flights were way underfilled I managed to sit next to Paula, got to know her pretty well and I think she's going to be a solid friend here, Kyla as well. In the Vegas airport we played slots, one dollar each (I lost, of course). Traveling was long, but otherwise uneventful.

Once we got to the airport we waited for an Americorps van to show up and were driven to base. Once here we got fitted for all our gear, including PPE and steel toed boots. I signed up for a new Bank of America account to use while i'm out here, although I have yet to go through the details of it. It was interesting really seeing how many people are here, it's more overwhelming than I anticipated. I just wanted to make friends with everyone all at once, but I'm having trouble remembering names and details. Ah well, I'm starting to get a few people. I found out later that I'm in a room with three people, which makes me a bit unhappy, but since we don't use our rooms for much I don't think it'll be a huge issue. I did manage to get to Target and buy all the supplies I needed, so I think I'm all settled in.

After dinner I played some pool with Paula and Kyla; I think I may have been a little over the top with my heckling because apparently they've declared a prank war on me. However, they can't figure out where my room is, so I'm safe for now. They walked right past it at one point too. After that I met some more of the people living around me and figured out the showering schedule with my roommates and other little details. I think I'm gonna like it here.

It's an interesting neighborhood we're in. Across the street from our base is a sketchy run down store with a confederate flag and a Burger King mascot in the front yard with the words "Army Boot Camp Training" on the window. Seems legit to me. Also, there are several orange trees on base, but we're not allowed to eat the fruit because it's contaminated with radioactivity from an old seepage into the local water table.

Breakfast is as six tomorrow, so I gotta get to bed. I'll write more as events warrant.