Exploding Wardrobe

Before I started with my current employer, I moved all of my personal effects into storage while I went into training, taking with me only a handful of things that would be necessary.

When training was complete, I moved back to NYC, and began house hunting. The process took WAY longer than expected (almost a year and a half). During that time, I moved back home. However, due to space requirements, I was not able to access my personal effects, and had to make due with what was on hand, and/or build from scratch. This building included clothing to wear.

Now, after leaving the army, I had developed a pretty good wardrobe. I was picky about what I bought. While I was living back home, I developed a pretty good wardrobe. Again, picky.

Once I finally had my own place, and had my personal effects back, I ran into a dilemma. I have too many shirts. I mean way too many. I mean, I have redone my closet so that it had two shirt hanging bars (high and low) and both are full. Yet I still have more clothing. I mean, I could dump my t-shirts, but then I would only have polos and button downs. That leaves nothing to relax in.

I actually see this as a major issue should I ever have a live-in gf or get married. Where would she put her clothing. In fact, I'm almost sure that I have more clothing than many of my female friends. That saddens me.

I've donated 3 boxes of stuff to the Salvation Army. Still haven't made a dent.

Clothing is not the only place where this is becoming a problem. There are some other items that have overlapped over time. For example, for some reason, I have 4 peelers. It's not likely that I will snap one on a potato, so those need to go.

Wayback Wednesday: Circle concept

This post originally appeared on December 10, 2004. The main idea of the post revolves around how hard it is to take care of things if certain base needs aren't met.


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The circle concept

Imagine a series of concentric circles, each one pertaining to an aspect of your life. There is no limit to how many circles can exist in the example, as the possibilities for what can technically be tied to “you” are limitless. In theory, we could create one that had levels spanning out until you had a circle that stood for the universe. Unfortunately, for our purpose, doing this would be useless, as you cannot see your effect on the entire universe, nor does the universe technically need you.

The innermost circle represents you and everything that you have direct control of. This includes things like what clothing you wear, what you have for lunch, what color sheets you have for your bed, and so forth. The next circle out contains things that you do not have absolute control over, but have some direct effect on. This would include things like your workplace, your girlfriend’s or wife’s life, etc. The circles continue outward from there, and can be as specific or as general as you deem fit. Non-related items can share the same circle if need be, due to their similar level of control or importance. Another method of thinking would be to classify each circle by its effect on you. The inner circle holds what has the most effect on you, such as eating, and the outermost circle could be what has the least effect on you, such as the fact that Pluto’s orbit makes it the eight planet from the sun for part of its cycle.

For every individual, that inner circle is the most important, because what exists in that circle is what you control, and what affects you directly. Imagine that the inner circle can be directly related to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. You directly control if and when you eat (most of the time), and not satisfying that need directly affects you in the form of hunger. Effects in this circle will eventually reverberate outward, affecting the other circles. Hunger may cause you to be more easily irritated, causing you to become impatient with your girlfriend. Hunger will lower your productivity and ability to think, or the argument with your girlfriend will lead to you sleeping on the couch, which will move into the next outer circle, causing you to be tired at work, and so forth.

Every individual works to satisfy as much of their inner circle as they can. It would be impossible to satisfy everything in this circle, especially while there are other circles that need attendance. You have a job to do, and that circle steals time away from your innermost circle. However, this does not mean that it has no effect on that circle. If you don't do your job, you will not get paid, and you won't eat. See how easily things come back to that inner circle. So, when you're at your desk pumping out the end of the fiscal year financial reports, you can't deal with what you need to with your inner circle, such cleaning your house.

Every individual will spend a lot of time unknowingly moving between circles, never truly separating the tasks, and grouping them under the catch-all category of “Life.” The job and their personal life are not separate in their mind. It’s just one large series of tasks. Other will begin the categorization of tasks, and separate them depending on importance, and what circle it reside in. When they are at work, their effort is exerted in the “Work” circle, but as soon as work is done, their mind drifts to some circle that is closer to their center. Still, it may not be the most inner circle. Maybe it’s the girlfriend circle, or the house circle. This becomes more complicated depending on the individual, and how they decide to separate their circles, and what they place the most importance on. In the diagram on the right, we have a rather general example. A diagram that would be more specialized may break “Things in your life” into such categories as the house, the girlfriend, the car, and place those depending of what that person feels is more important. Does he love his car or his girlfriend more? If he fails to take care of the car, will that eventually hurt his ability to deal with his girlfriend (placing the car in closer than the girlfriend)? If the car blows up, would that have absolutely no effect on his relationship (allowing the girlfriend to reside on a circle closer to his center than the circle in which his car resides).

Flashback: Inprocessing in Italy

Like I said last time, I would be reposting some of the best stuff from my old blog. I'm going to make this on Monday's (Memory Mondays?). Honestly, the day of the week that this will happen will be based on what say I believe will give the best name (e.g. Time Machine Tuesdays, Wayback Wednesdays, Flashback Fridays). I'm actually trying to figure out which day is the most boring. Ok, I've decided. Once a week, in the middle somewhere, with one of those names (also Time Machine Thursdays).

This was originally posted on November 8, 2004, and was around the time that I arrived at my first duty station in Italy. After 3 years there, I can't say that my perception changed much. However, if you got away from the base, you could partake of some fun stuff.

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Holy crap, I'm tired. And it's only 1355 (that's 1:55 PM for you civilians). The jet lag must be hitting me pretty damn hard. Either that, or it could be because I didn't go to bed until 0130, and then woke up at 0525. Maybe it's because I had that Grande Soft Taco from Taco Bell, and my body doesn't know how to deal with that much food.

Today was pretty interesting. We started it off by having a health and welfare inspection for knives. Apparently a soldier went downtown with a huge knife on him, and there was some kind of incident. So all of the leadership had to go and search all of the rooms for knives, which would then be tagged and stored in out arms room. Can you believe it? Thy're taking knives away from the Infantry. It's funny because my platoon alone is issued 40mm grenade launchers (imagine a machine gun that shoots grenades), 50 caliber machine guns, 7.62 M240B machine guns (7.62 or .308 for you civilians), Squat Automatic Wapons, and enough ammunition to level a small town.

BUT, we can't have knives. I mean you should see the stuff that some soldiers had. There were a couple of tomahawks, switchblades, and my favorite, knives with blades 8 inches and larger. Hell, I heard one guy in Iraq basically carried around a katana on his back.
On a lighter note, today started the first day of official inprocessing. This is a huge part of why I'm sleepy. Some of the classes are interesting. I've learned that in Italy

1. Recycling is part of the law, and the fine is HUGE.
2. Italy is about one-third the size of Florida, yet has a population of 60 million, and it's very packed.
3. The Pope is apparently mad with Northern Italy for having lots of sex for purposes other than procreation.
4. Apparently, this place is the "World capital of fashion", which is supposed to explain why the guys dress like they're gay, and the women refuse to wear anything except pointy shoes with heels (apparently some refuse to wear a pair of tennis shoes).
5. It's not uncommon to see women walking around holding hands, or walking arm in arm. Apparently. the Italians are very physical, and have no idea about what personal space is. Apparently, it's not uncommen to see a father-son combo walking with arms linked, either. This seems to go "hand in hand" with the way that they dress.
6. Italian drivers SUCK. Seriously. Imagine the worse driving you have ever seen. No imagine a whole country drives like that. Welcome to Italy. There are almost no lights for crossing the streets. Pedistrians just eventually cross when the chances of death are minimized.

If there's one thing that I have definately learned at these briefings, it's that if you're married, you have a whole assload of paperword to do. This has led me to a couple of conclusions about a few choices in life:

1. While in Italy, don't get married to someone in the US who will want to come over to Italy and live with you.
2. Don't marry a native Italian woman, because that will only lead to more paperwork.
3. If you are married and your family stays in the US, you can bank off pretty well on the fact that the army will pay you to compensate for rent back in the states where your family is, AND what your housing costs here.

Lastly, I learned not to make a Voltron reference when the Company Commander is talking about Brigade Combat Teams and says "and it's all modular, so you can combine them and they form together," all while making some kind of combining motion with his hands.