Karma says, "Payback, it's like natural selection, now with feelings of euphoria!"

Now, I don't mean to boast. However, when you're having a crappy couple of days, and then something small comes along and suddenly you're full of energy, excited, and get a small sense of vindication out of the deal, I feel as though it is blog worthy.

My current job title is the Assistant Manpower/FIT Analyst for a class squadron. What does that mean? I sometimes get to pour over pages of data regarding the training and schools of various ships that my command is responsible for and provide input to my higher ups so they can make decisions regarding policies and, my favorite, funding. Perhapes the favorite part of my job is that when I actually have something to do, my recommendations and research are ACTUALLY USED. I'll give you a quick example. In essence, the Navy tells each ship how many graduates from each school they are required to have. Some are insignificant and 'nice to have' but have little impact, such as PREVENT (PREVENT is like the Navy's version of DARE, plus some financial management type stuff) to things that have a major impact. Say, a Visit, Board, Search and Siezure (VBSS) Boarding Officer, where a shortfall will decertify a ship's VBSS team. This is bad.

Last Thursday we were vetting a request for money from a ship to send people to school. I pulled up the information on their prospective gains and pointed out that they had a person coming with the school which would put them at their optimal numbers for another year, and recommended that we not fund that request. I saved the Navy $8,200 that evening, and you better believe that's going to be a FITREP bullet!

Well, this morning I come into the office and, lo and behold, a similar request for money from USS LASTSHIP! Guess who they came to as the resident expert on USS LASTSHIP/schools in Japan? If you guessed the guy sitting behind me, please assign yourself one demerit. If you guessed this guy, with the thumbs, give yourself a high-five!

I can't say how things will turn out. They may not even tell me what happens. I just know USS LASTSHIP likes really low numbers, like my last eval!

I get to check out on leave this afternoon to go to Missouri for the weekend. It's going to be a really good day.

Keep it in the family.

Day 1: First Order of Business

Day 1

Yet another uneventful day here at work. I have projects, but I'm waiting on people outside of the command to get me things or do things so I can progress. It's much akin to watching paint dry. So, I decided to give myself a mission.

I thoroughly enjoy cuddling and playing with our 1-year old Doxle every morning and evening. Taking her for walks (or better yet, runs!) and to the dog park are a frequent occurance and is the one solid 'hobby' my wife and I share. However, having a dog can be expensive from a frugalist's perspective. I occasionally get into a 'Freebie Kick' and scour the internet for free stuff. I am, afterall, cheap.

Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. In order to best facilitate obtaining my freebies, I created a g-mail account to keep all of my free stuff e-mails seperate. I can't check this at work, which is probably a good thing. I want to keep my regular inbox less-cluttered than it currently is. I average about 3-4 e-mails of spam a day in my regular inbox. On top of the dozen or more e-mails from Facebook, I end up deleting most of my e-mails anyways. But I don't want to have to sort too hard, hence the seperate e-mail.

Next, I did a quick search. By far the best hit I came across was this very useful site. There are dozens upon dozens of free offers with no obligations, and some with obligations. I ignored the ones that had an obligation. Sadie should be well stocked in September and October with various samples of dog food, dog treats, and by far my favorite sample is a dog sleeping bag. Why a dog needs a sleeping bag, I don't know. I look forward to picking up the stuffing when Sadie rips it out of the bag, though. It is, afterall, free. There's also ferret toys, iguana food, and samples for cats. I know I don't have an iguana or a cat, but in the event I come across someone who does, maybe I can bargain with them to get something cool for it.

If I had a printer, there are copious quantities of coupons. This requires some additional effort on your behalf, plus the cost of the paper, ink, and gas to redeem the coupon, but at 0.8 cents per piece of paper ($3.99 for 500 sheets at Wal-Mart) for a $3 dog treat is a fair trade in my opinion. We go to PetsMart on a bi-weekly basis anyways, so it practically pays for the gas and then some. I think my next mission might be to get a free printer, or free ink since we have a printer at home. It just isn't set up.

I don't want to overload anybody's reading senses, nor do I want to run out of good ideas to blog about. So I'll wrap up this post.

Thanks for reading. Keep it in the family.

Welcome to... the Gnafia

So I'll admit it. I got bored. So, to combat my boredom I have created a blog. Now you, too, can follow me as I try and combat my boredom to improve my overall state of mind!

A little about me...

I'm an ENSIGN in the United States Navy. I'm currently stationed in San Diego, California, on limited duty. I just got back from Japan in June with my beautiful wife. We have a one-year old doxle puppy named Sadie. She is absolutely adorable and loves to play, but also likes to bite. We're working on it.

I believe in goals and missions, so I'm going to outline the overall mission of this blog first and foremost: I have a LOT of free time while on Limited Duty, so I'm going to do my best to make the most of it. Preferably cheaply, given the current economy. I'm usually pretty frugal, so if a lot of my posts are about being cheap and how to be cheap (but hopefully still classy) then so be it. I'll throw in some random rants, too, because I like ranting. So this will just be a place for me to set goals and missions, share experiences and other tips, and overall be a source of entertainment for members of the Gnafia.

Just to answer any questions about the 'gnome fetish': I play a lot of fantasy RPG's. Ever since about 2004, when my childhood favorite MUD introduced two new races of gnomes, I've absolutely loved the little guys. I tend to root for the smaller, under-powered, under-privileged, yet highly intelligent and agile gnomes because they're almost always the underdog. How many times have YOU played a game and gone, "Oh man! Gnomes are the BEST!" In World of Warcraft, there are any number of better races to play on the Alliance side (yes, I was a gnome when I played WoW), and it rings true in every other game I've ever played. If you happen to know of a game where Gnome's don't blatantly suck, please let me know. Until then, any gnome-fan knows that within the gnomish gnooks, the only way to survive is to band together. This particular band... is the Lawn Gnome Gnafia.

To quote my favorite USMC Gunnery Sergeant, "Keep it in the Family."