Lean Six Sigma

While I haven't had much success at taking classes thru the education center on Bagram, I am enrolled and attending training for a program called Lean Six Sigma, a business efficiency methodlogy. It reminds me a great deal of the Gilbreth effort in the early 20th century and their pioneering work in industrial engineering and ergononmics. I have always has been geared towards efficiency and improvement, so this class is coming very naturally to me. There is about 90% common sense, 10% statistics, at least for me.

When I am home, my wife and children often find themselves helping or watching my latest furniture project, shifting couches or chairs or tables to make better use of the space, or adjust to how we use things for the current season. The most unusual event was shifting the entire master bedroom 90 degrees after the children went to bed, around 10PM. It wasn't difficult, but trying to be quiet enough so Joshua wouldn't wake up was a challenge! I haven't had much opportunity to do any of that here.

My buddy who was working days with me has switched over to nights, so meals and breaks are taken solo now. I have found a fellow Officer, a 2LT from another section, to run with at night after shift, but that is not the same. There are barriers because of rank and gender - I don't socialize with female Soldiers or Officers outside work since it can create a negative perception. Everyone knows I have a family back home, but I don't want anyone to question me, even falsely.

I am refreshing my computer programming skills as I design a program to track some aspects of our unit as it moves across the battlespace. There are a lot of individual pieces, and it is taking quite a bit of time and keyboard mashing. I had some help this afternoon from a civilian who is knowledgeable and who joined forces with me for about 2 hours today to work out some bugs. Overall, it will be a good product, easy to use for the Soldiers while automatically providing some useful and cool looking graphics for the higher-ups, it just requires a lot of initial investment.

I logged onto my bank website yesterday and looked over an IRA I forgot I had. This month it will double my original investment, and if the rate stays generally similar, it is on path to double every 6-7 years, and will double 5 more times over the next 35 years, which puts me on a good road to cashing it in when I "retire" and buy my dream sports car, if it even exists anymore in 28 years. $64,000 from an initial $2,000 works for me!

Tonight we ended shift on time, a rarity, so I have extra time. I am playing in a pool tournament, although I will lose in the first round because I am bad at pool. We also have a small but dedicated group for weekly game night, every Saturday evening from 2130-2300. We played Powergrid last week, and will likely play it again this week, now that everyone knows how to play. I look forward to it.

I also enjoy 2 half days off a week now; Tuesdays and Sundays. It is nice to sleep in an not have to go in until after lunch. I look foward to Monday and Saturday, because I can go to bed and not set my alarm those nights.