Slowing Down

Well, it's really starting to slow down as we start to draw the unit down. I went from a record high, 60+ patients in one week to about 30 patients this week. Next week looks to be even slower as we get rid of the "problem child" battalion. Due to the slow down I took the day off today to go to Liberty to get my airborne physical finished. Looks like my eyes are still good. Hearing is still relatively good, but it continues to slowly decline from exam to exam. Kind of sad. Oh well, maybe I'll get some disability for it. So today ended up being a pretty chill day. Left in the late morning so I was still able to get a good workout in. Then took an hour Blackhawk flight to Liberty. As far as flights here go, it was relatively scenic as we passed over the Crossed Sabers (arch of victory), the Soccer Stadium, the Martyr's Monument and the Tigris. Flying with the doors open also helped make it a more enjoyable trip. The flight back wasn't so fun. We flew in Chinooks which are not super comfortable, and when we were standing in back waiting to load, the exhaust from the engines felt like it was buring the skin off my face. Overall, not a bad way to spend a day, and that's one more day down. On a bright note, we should be coming home toward the end of July, so the light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to brighten.
The day to day routine is starting to get a little old. I've even noticed that I've beginning to lose enthusiasm with going to the gym. I guess it's a little hard to keep up the energy to hit the gym hard for 8+ months straight. One thing that has been occupying my time a little is my new hobby of stock market investing. I found that my secondary savings account was only earning 1% interest, so in essence losing 2% a year due to inflation. So I figured I couldn't do much worse on my own by investing. I opened a brokerage account with USAA and have been doing some minor trading. I haven't done too bad so far. I started with some blue chip companies, mostly ones that issue a quarterly dividend. My plan is after laying a good base I'm going to start getting a little riskier with some other things and try some day trading. I get 100 free trades over the next 90 days, so I figure there really isn't much to lose. Anyway, it's something to do and maybe I can even hasten my retirement!
Well, that's about all the excitement for now.