It was my birthday recently, I’ve got some money to spare, and a Roomba 570 costs less than six months’ human labor. Is it worth buying a robot to take care of this for me?

If yes (noting that my apartment is entirely floored in linoleum):

The treetops blaze in pyrotechnic glory, and the air becomes crisp and cool in anticipation of winter.

How can you tell it’s fall in Alabama?

Air conditioning isn’t necessary until after sunrise.

Standards: Contact the Casualty Assistance office no later than 36 hours before the funeral. Provide them with the correct date, time, and location of the funeral; the name and rank of your service member; contact information for the next of kin and the funeral director.

Description: The military is deeply sorry for your loss and is always willing to honor one of its own fallen.

1. Contact the Casualty Assistance office as soon as possible. They will work with you during this difficult time to arrange matters.

2. Depending on your wishes and the rank and time in service of the deceased, 3, 7, or 15 officers will be dispatched as the honor guard. The honor guard will, at minimum, fold and present the US Flag to the next of kin. Depending on your wishes and the size of the honor guard, they may also serve as pall-bearers or perform a final rifle salute.

3. The military has time-honored traditions for sending off its deceased. Alterations to these tradition might be made if you wish, but this will require pre-planning and rehearsal.

4. Please ensure that the next of kin is prepared to receive a US Flag as a token of gratitute for the service of the deceased.

Evaluation: The military wishes to respectfully honor its fallen. If you are unsatisfied with the performance or behavior of the honor guard, please contact the Casualty Assistance office as soon as possible.

I know that part of this is just that I live in AL, which seems to have intentionally made itself distant from crazy Yankee tastes. However, gift cards also have the issue that they’re less flexible than cash and less interesting than a proper gift.

I do appreciate the sentiments which cause people to buy gifts for me. However, I ask that in the future, people choose either durable goods or simple cash.

Any ideas?

[edit]
Ok; figured it out. Someone’s broadcasting a sine wave over the top of the radio station I listen to. I didn’t catch it at first because in southeastern AL, radio stations don’t operate 24 hours a day; there was no underlying signal this early to remind me that the station wasn’t actually off. I have no idea /why/ someone would take the trouble to overlay a sine on top of a commercial FM station, but that’s for someone else to figure out.

It makes me sad that the military makes me wake up before the radio. It’s bad enough that I have to wake up 90 minutes before reveille, which I had thought of as the expected wake-up time for the military; having to be out and about before public utilities like the radio is just surreal.

In other news, the internet guy finally came yesterday and hooked up my connection. I realize that broadband internet is technically a luxury and that many people around the world live happily without it. However, the same can be said of indoor plumbing. It is mandatory for my lifestyle and the maintenance of my standard of living. Getting it means that I can finally do away with trips to the metaphorical outhouse, which in literal terms mean southeastern Alabama’s public libraries. I can’t complain too much about the libraries; they do have free public internet service and a large number of books which may be checked out. However, a library which is located 20 minutes away by car and which is only open on weekdays, until 1800, does very little to quench my information thirst.

Most other things here are pretty good. My apartment is still nicely maintained, very spacious, and $200 less monthly than the government bonus for living off-base. It is also still devoid of any sort of furniture. I am told that the movers will probably deliver my stuff no later than next Monday, but there exist stories of people whose household goods did not arrive until weeks after the expected arrival date. I am hoping that I will never be able to tell one of those stories firsthand.

Basic ended last Friday morning, leaving me the entire afternoon and early evening to spend with my family and friends who had all come down to see the graduation. I really enjoyed having everyone there; it meant a lot that they had all put in the time and effort to come and see me. Nothing we did was particularly memorable in and of itself, but the companionship was great.

I didn’t sleep that night, as transportation to my flight left base at 0140 Saturday morning. For reasons still obscure, I had to leave a full 24 hours before the other five people from my basic training battery going to the same place. I arrived at Ft. Rucker around 1630, spent the afternoon doing preliminary inprocessing, before collapsing and sleeping for 14 hours. In retrospect, I got a better deal than they did: I missed out on an extra four hours of pass with family and friends, but gained the opportunity to sleep in and to have a completely free Sunday free of any interference from anyone else.

So far, this week has been spent at a slow pace. We’ll have a formation for one thing or another, at which we’ll accomplish in 40 minutes what should have taken 5 due to the policy of using only peer leaders even at this stage of things, then have two or three hours off before the next formation. The one really focused thing we do is morning PT, which is run by a TAC (the Warrant Officer Candidate School equivalent of a drill sergeant–they are commissioned or warrant officer instructors, used because half the class would outrank most DSs) in conjunction with the candidate physical fitness officer, and the TAC does not joke around with PT. Monday we ran about 4 miles; they weren’t fast ones, but at this point of the year, Alabama is already in the 80s and humid at 0630 by the time the run is over. Today we worked on strength, and I pushed harder than I ever had to in basic. I don’t know for sure, but it feels like PT in the morning is going to be a lot more effective than it was in the past, and I think that despite the difficulty, that’s going to be a good thing.

Every WOC will hold at least one leadership position during WOCS, in addition to a permanent extra duty position. I haven’t yet been picked for a leadership position–those who have are all prior-service people who were recycled from the previous class–but I know my duty position: I’m the S-4, the supply officer. I was going to ask to be the song officer, whose only job is to write a class song and teach it to everyone, but this was offered to me before I could, and it’s somewhat more impressive. The work it imposes isn’t bad at all, and it offers some superb opportunities for graft. Of course, that’s not going to be an issue.

They say that once we all arrive, perform class inprocessing, and move into the 1st Warrant Officer Company, things are going to get strict again. We’ll lose those temporary privileges we’ve acquired during this lull between classes: an uncluttered schedule, the ability to arrange our clothes in the cabinet any way we please, the right to wear civilian clothes while not in formation, the right while not required elsewhere to wander the base at will or even leave post, so long as we sign out before leaving a certain [on-post] radius. This last right is very convenient for doing things like walking to the post library and using the free internet-enabled computers there.

I’m told that most classes leave the Junior phase of training roughly two weeks after they move to the 1st WOC. At that time, they regain the right to use phones, cell phones, and the internet. I don’t know whether that last will be the unsupervised internet at the library, or the relatively strict, purpose-driven internet use in the company building, but it’ll be something, at least. On the other hand, candidates are forbidden from possessing or using computers, CD players, or any other recreational electronics during all stages of training.

Basic training was fine, but in the end, you needed only to persist to succeed. There were some really screwed-up people there, and they came through fine. Warrant Officer training will hopefully be both more challenging and more rewarding. I still have very little idea of what we’ll be doing, but I’m beginning to get a sense of what it will be like, and it seems very doable.