Life in a hotel

It's been a while since I've blogged and wanted to give an update on my last couple of months.

First, I actually enjoyed living in the ATL and was sad to go. For the first couple of weeks, work consisted of mostly online training modules required by the Army, such as Risk Management Assessment, Fire Extinguisher Training, Drug Prevention, etc. Pretty boring and really not enough to fill two months of work. Every two weeks we would get a new group of people into s our office, which was really a trailer, not anything fancy and I basically thought of us (EFD) as the red headed step child of the FAD. Oh, yeah, if you didn't know the Army is full of acronyms, so if you don't know what it is, don't hesitate to ask. I will supply a list one of these days. Some easy ones to remember....


USACIL-United States of America Criminal Investigation Laboratory


So after finally feeling more comfortable with Atlanta, it was time to leave for our 20 weeks of training in Albany, NY. Basically each unit, DNA, Fingerprints and Firearms all went to training academy's all over, we were the lucky ones that get to be up north for winter. If you didn't know, I currently call the Holiday Inn my home. It's not ideal, but it's okay.

There are eight of us here right now and we have a pretty great group of people. I better like them, cause not only am I spending the next five months with them, but I will be spending eight months with a few of them when we are in the big sand box.

School, is school. The first week, aka hell week, was indeed that. Basically they take a semester's worth of info, from genetics to laboratory safety and shove it into a week. At the end of the week there is an exam. At first we were told that in order to pass each module we needed to have a 90%, thank goodness that was lowered to 80%, which took some pressure off. We are now doing serology stuff, which is much more exciting.

Haven't done or seen too much, but we are planning some great trips. First stop is the NYC next weekend........