Catch-up day!

Well what a week it's been! I landed in Toronto at PIA about 15/20 minutes late and thankfully my friend D was there to pick me up after waiting 30 minutes for bags! She drove me to Borden and we both searched for the accomodations building and then the building I'm staying at! We started at the wrong end of modular (#20-something) and needed to get to #4! Heavy bags. At any rate, 20 minutes later, D noticed that I had left my wallet in her car, so she had to come back. She now knows where I'm at!

Here's a picture of us landing at PIA. It's blurry because we were moving.

It was cold. And snowy. And minus something-or-other cold. Thankfully it started to warm up during the week.

We started course at 7:30 the next morning - in a classroom with computers and we settled in for 'death by powerpoint' for the next five weeks. Here's an illegal picture of the classroom. I found out after I had taken the photo that we're not allowed to. Shhhh... don't tell, ok?

The weather started improving while we were there... surprisingly warm, sunny and things started melting. Before it did, I took a photo of the view outside of my window.

Now, in the olden days, before real computers, the Supply System worked with micro-fiche and data cards. Then they got a computer system called TNR. Now we're on a destktop system called MIMS, soon to move to ANOTHER system called MASIS. Yeah... your tax dollars at work. Anywho, here's pictures of the old system from the school I'm at:

This is the microfiche system, just like in the old libraries.

And this is the TNR - a computer monitor that could be used as a paperweight, the card system - a series of cards with little holes in them - in the yellow box, two books, known as the 501 and 502 with all the codes inside that made the TNR system do as you wanted it to, and a giant book on a table, the "bible": the 186. The 3-tiered grey in/out box holds our old forms, 2302's, tags (192s), and other various bits of paperwork that all Supply Techs had on their desk.

It wasn't the best system, but it made logistics flow reasonably smoothly throughout the military.

Now we're learning a system that will soon be superceded by a system that is currently in use by the Naval ship repair units. It's taking one single system for all elements and turning it into three seperate entities, which means that the Army will use it differently than the Airforce and those two differently from the Navy. To many of us, it seems like two steps back. I guess I'm just bitter.

I forgot my download cable for the camera (these pictures are from my phone), so once I can get it, I'll download the photos from that and add to the blog - most likely Wednesday, as we're supposed to be getting internet in the shacks on Tuesday. Ha. We'll see about that!