Let the nerds unite...

...or so James said when I showed it to him...

So shown above is this Excel spreadsheet that someone with a little too much extra time on their hands created for those of us going through deployments. It's called "The Donut of Misery." For those of us nerds out there, it's fantastic. It has a pie graph and everything, ha. Not only does it count down the days, but also the months, weeks, hours, seconds, etc. It also adds a bit of comic relief with the bottom comment. As you progress into the deployment, the little comment changes. I can't remember what some of the previous comments were, but entertaining nonetheless.

It was kind of depressing early on when it would tell me we had 11% down, 89% to go, but it's getting better. 34% to go isn't nearly as bad. Granted, we obviously don't know the actual date that any soldier will get home, but it's a safe bet that it will generally be around the one year mark, give or take a few days (or weeks). I'm hoping our deployment is on the shorter end rather than like it was during OIF 2. James got stuck with an extra wash rack detail in Kuwait on his way back. As a result, he ended up getting home two weeks after everyone else, making the deployment 12 1/2 months. Yeah, that sucked. I suppose we won't know for awhile how things will pan out with this one, but we can hope for early June. All I know is I wish the green portion of the pie graph would fill up a little faster!