Chaos Everywhere

I spent more time out in the field today. We combined many of the skills we'd learned yesterday in one large training exercise today, complete with M16's loaded with blanks, lots of loud noise, "opposing force" instructors firing blanks at us, and what has to be one of the only bogs/swamps in North Carolina. Just to make sure that we got the whole experience, my unit was kind enough to give us uncleaned M16s and cartridges with "dummy" blanks mixed in so that our weapons jammed every 1-2 shots. (S-P-O-R-T-S... I think I've got it down now.) I felt like I was using a bolt action rifle, I was pulling back the bolt to clear jams so often. As often is the case, nothing goes as planned once weapons start going off and things start going wrong, but I think my team still did fairly well. At end of the day, I was drenched in sweat and soaked in muddy water, but it was still kind of fun.
On the home front, it seems like everything's been going wrong this week. Cristin's cell phone broke, we had plumbing issues develop yesterday, and the car had to go into the shop today. Exactly the kind of stress I was hoping that Cristin could avoid while I was gone. At this point I think we've got everything under control, so hopefully things will be more calm next week.