1 day of work crammed into 4 days...

yep, you read that correctly... this is a "short" week due to the holiday on Thursday, so we only have 4 days instead of the usual 5.  Which means we only have 4 days to complete about 1 day of work instead of 5 - whew, rough week.   ;)
Well I cleared medical today, so that pretty much means I'm cleared to go on the mobilization... tomorrow I'll finish up changes to my pay records to put me on active duty, then after I pick up my new uniforms on Friday I'm off to Ft Jackson, SC to start the Aaaarrrrmy training!  That will be about 3 weeks of what they call "immersion training" - that pretty much means they try to make it difficult for us on purpose, so we're prepared for the typical difficult conditions in theater.  So we'll have a bunch of guys sharing big tents or barracks, sleeping on cots, showers and heads a short walk away, long days of carrying around all your combat gear and weapons, etc...  I imagine we'll be up early in the mornings (5am?), spend a lot of time on the ranges firing M-16 and 9mm, and some time hiking through the woods, and pretty much be really tired when we get back to our barracks and go to sleep. 
But I'll let you know how it goes when I get there!
And here's another request for anyone using Skype to give me a call sometime - that might be my primary means of communicating from Baghdad, and I'd like to make sure it works well before I leave. 
(This pic shows how we spent most of the past 2 days...)