Son's new career path, pretty proud father

[EddieWalker]

Getting a letter was huge in Boot Camp. Getting a letter with pictures in it was even better!!! I'll never forget that right after we got our mail, we had half an hour to use the toilet, take a shower and brush our teeth. There was about 80 of us in my Platoon, and about a dozen toilets, a dozen urinals, two showers that had half a dozen shower heads, and probably a dozen or so sinks. We would sit on the toilet and hand pictures to each other!!!! You don't even want to know what it's like when five guys are peeing in the same urinal at the same time because you never wanted to be late when time was up!!!!!

 

[Sigarms]

Getting a letter was huge in Boot Camp. Getting a letter with pictures in it was even better!!! I'll never forget that right after we got our mail, we had half an hour to use the toilet, take a shower and brush our teeth. There was about 80 of us in my Platoon, and about a dozen toilets, a dozen urinals, two showers that had half a dozen shower heads, and probably a dozen or so sinks. We would sit on the toilet and hand pictures to each other!!!! You don't even want to know what it's like when five guys are peeing in the same urinal at the same time because you never wanted to be late when time was up!!!!!

What's interesting now is they don't teach cursive in school anymore. Luckily we kind of forced our boys to at least be able to read it even if they didn't want to write it. Kind of strange where you can have all these young men who don't know cursive and their parents only using it to write.

From the first day our boys came to live with us and even mentioned anything about the military, I told them they would need to get away from their shyness as they grew older about privacy in the bathroom. Not sure if it's done the same way now, but it can be culture shock when you see a bunch of toilets in row with NO bathroom stalls LOL I gave up shaving and just went with a beard for the last couple of decades, but nobody could shave, shower, crap or eat faster than me, including my family today LOL

 

[EddieWalker]

It's funny now when I look back at it. After we got back from the chow hall, the Drill Instructors would tell one side of the squad bay to go use the bathroom. Everyone would run into the bathroom and crowd around a urinal, or toilet and pee as fast as possible. Then the Drill Instructors would start counting backwards from ten. What cracked me up is they would skip numbers to get to zero faster!!!!! Everyone that didn't make it back in time was thrashed. Basically told to do bend and thrusts, or pushups with some sort of added torture to make it interesting. Then the other side would get to play this same game. The faster you got into the bathroom, the better your odds where of using it and getting back before they started counting.

 

[Torvy]

What's interesting now is they don't teach cursive in school anymore.

One of the many failures if modern education. Even though studies show that hand writing and to a greater degree, cursive handwriting, improve retention and understanding of information, the elementary teachers (as a group, not all individuals) don't want to teach it.

 

[gsganzer]

One thing I'll give my boy credit for is if he finds a mechanic or shop that will let him watch and explain what they're doing, he's right there and wants to help with his own hands and wants to learn on his own car (he'd always come home and tell us what he learned). Honestly that's something that is hard to teach.

You should hide all his 10mm sockets and wrenches. Just so he learns to overcome adversity and hardship while he's still young.

Whenever my kids get married and move out and I visit them? I plan to leave a door/window open and let all the heat/cool air out, lose the TV remote, leave the milk out on the counter, leave the lights on, leave dishes in the sink and if I drive their car I'm bringing it back on empty. Just so I can get back at them a little.

Edit: I forgot to include juice box straws, straw wrappers and water bottle plastic caps. But I'll probably stuff those directly into the vacuum cleaner hose, just for efficiency.

 

[Sigarms]

You should hide all his 10mm sockets and wrenches. Just so he learns to overcome adversity and hardship while he's still young.

I'll give the odds that he probably won't get married for at least another 10 years. One thing I got from my father is to wait. Since he hung out a lot with my dad when he lived with us, he's told me he thought we did it right and he's going to give any possible relationship a lot of time until he gets older.

Funny thing... the only thing that I've spoiled him on the last year is picking up some tools for him because he actually uses them. Before he shipped out, he went over to two friends houses to help them wire in new lights for thier cars because they needed his help (I'll admit, when he replaced his car seat motor, I was impressed that he had the door panel completely off and he wired up the motor himself, although I think it's a stupid design when you have to do that LOL).

I asked him why his tool box was on the front porch and not in the trunk of his car. Turns out he put in these huge subwoofer in the trunk, and now he doesn't have the room for his tool box.

I was going to give him grief over it, but the only thing he's really every spent his money on is that car, and in the grand scheme of things, there are things far worse we could complain about with him spending his own money.

He installed some doo hicky that apparently controls the engine in some fashion. He did impress me because apparently it did increase his gas mileage by about 4 miles per gallon (and that Mercedes only uses premium gas). Same doo hicky can also apparently increase the HP so he has more get up and go. He can control this doo hicky on his phone even. He asked me to idol the car every so often because now it sits while it's gone. He informed me before I left the car is "economy mode" because he doesn't want me driving it fast if I deced to drive it LOL

Tells you what I know when I call that thing a "doo hicky"

 

[civilian]

"He informed me before I left the car is "economy mode" because he doesn't want me driving it fast if I deced to drive it LOL" Great statement. Jon

 

[caver]

I had a decent recruiter who loosely told me (Navy) boot camp is one big mind game. He was right. About a week or so before our company graduation our (CC) Company Commander sat us all down for a chat. He talked about how some of the stuff may have seemed silly but it had a purpose. Attention to detail and learning to follow orders etc. I tell new kids heading to any boot camp to keep your mouth shut and pay attention. Maybe the first week after we settled into a routine it was lights out in a barracks of 80 guys and bunk beds. Someone started the whole John Boy Walton thing goodnight Mary Ellen .... our RCPO (also a recruit) said knock it off after it started going around the room.

 

[Yander]

You should hide all his 10mm sockets and wrenches. Just so he learns to overcome adversity and hardship while he's still young.

Whenever my kids get married and move out and I visit them? I plan to leave a door/window open and let all the heat/cool air out, lose the TV remote, leave the milk out on the counter, leave the lights on, leave dishes in the sink and if I drive their car I'm bringing it back on empty. Just so I can get back at them a little.

Edit: I forgot to include juice box straws, straw wrappers and water bottle plastic caps. But I'll probably stuff those directly into the vacuum cleaner hose, just for efficiency.

You left out toilet paper roll, and full trash can.

 

[Yander]

I'll give the odds that he probably won't get married for at least another 10 years. One thing I got from my father is to wait. Since he hung out a lot with my dad when he lived with us, he's told me he thought we did it right and he's going to give any possible relationship a lot of time until he gets older.

Funny thing... the only thing that I've spoiled him on the last year is picking up some tools for him because he actually uses them. Before he shipped out, he went over to two friends houses to help them wire in new lights for thier cars because they needed his help (I'll admit, when he replaced his car seat motor, I was impressed that he had the door panel completely off and he wired up the motor himself, although I think it's a stupid design when you have to do that LOL).

I asked him why his tool box was on the front porch and not in the trunk of his car. Turns out he put in these huge subwoofer in the trunk, and now he doesn't have the room for his tool box.

I was going to give him grief over it, but the only thing he's really every spent his money on is that car, and in the grand scheme of things, there are things far worse we could complain about with him spending his own money.

He installed some doo hicky that apparently controls the engine in some fashion. He did impress me because apparently it did increase his gas mileage by about 4 miles per gallon (and that Mercedes only uses premium gas). Same doo hicky can also apparently increase the HP so he has more get up and go. He can control this doo hicky on his phone even. He asked me to idol the car every so often because now it sits while it's gone. He informed me before I left the car is "economy mode" because he doesn't want me driving it fast if I deced to drive it LOL

Tells you what I know when I call that thing a "doo hicky"

LOL, Doo hicky. I think you have the right idea on picking battles. I'm guessing it is probably a "tuner". I guess that is a thing to put in your vehicle to interface with the car's computer.