THERE'S A PARTY IN MY TUMMY! SO YUMMY, SO YUMMY!

I would like to enter the world of Noggin and do some cartoon murdering!!! Few things can be so irritating as the same 15 second string of children's song melody in your head for EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT!!!!

The Words That Move You

I enjoy books, even though I probably don't read as much as I used to, nor as much as I should. Heck, most of my reading these days revolves around my Automobile Weekly magazine, or lesson outlines as we prep for the incoming classes at work.

I was watching the movie Bridge To Tarabithia, I've seen it before, and while it is an okay feature, as is with many other movies, it fails to really do the book any justice. I can remember seeing the trailer and commercials for the movie and thinking "WTF" because they didn't seem to accurately reflect anything from the book. Thankfully the commercials themselves really didn't the movie itself justice, and it was laughable how 'outraged' parents were who expected the movie to be about a fantasy world, when in fact that only explains maybe 5 minutes of the movie overall.

While watching the movie again, I thought about how I rarely have any emotional response to books I read, but that the Bridge To Tarabithia was one of three books I can remember that did so. In my defense, I was in junior high when I read these books. The other two were Where The Red Fern Grows, and an obscure short story that not many have heard about, The Scarlet Ibis.

Did the Tarabithia movie make me feel that way? Nah, in fact they changed some of what, I think, were pretty important aspects of the book when the movie was made. In the book, when the boy comes home from a day he spent with his teacher, he sees everyone sitting in the living room, very somber, and his older sister, (who was very mean in the book, not reflected in the movie either), crudely announces "Your girlfriend is dead". In the book that was a much more crushing blow, like someone just kicks you in the stomach so hard that it knocks you down, and you aren't able to breathe for several moments. I was reading the book for an English class, so at first it was like "Blah, okay, I have to read it" but by the end I really did enjoy the book.

Military Changing For The Worse

Yes, I know, two days, two posts, wtf is going on? Well, anyways... as usual I have so much important stuff to say, figured I'd actually post it here.

Yesterday marked the 19th anniversary of my induction into the military, on December 9th, 1989, I stood up and said an oath to protect the United States, yada yada yada, scared out of my mind, a 17 year old completely unsure as to what was going on.

A lot has changed over the years. When I first joined, I hated the military. Coming from a farming background, I was used to "do your job, then go take a nap or do whatever", so the idea of "hurry up and wait", a common phrase that pretty much describes about 90% of what we do, was so foreign to me and depressing. Fast forward to the present, and I am now working as an active duty member of the military. I would have never in a million years have guessed this is where I would be.

I have always prided myself both on personal appearance, as in wear of the uniform, and relatedly, my ability to max the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). When I joined, to max the APFT, you had to do 82 pushups in 2 minutes, 92 situps in 2 minutes, and run the 2 mile in 11:57. The minimum standards were 42 pushups, 52 situps, and the 2 mile in around 15 minutes. I didn't have much upper body at the age of 17, and at the reception station at Ft Benning, Georgia, to move to the next step of training you had to do 15 pushups. I was only able to do 12.

Yes, pretty pathetic. But, I did the 92 situps and ran the run in about 11:30, so the drill instructors sent me on my way to Sand Hill, Infantry School, figuring that I would gain the necessary strength through my training to pass the pushups. It took most of the 3 months I was there, including a drill instructor who took me under his wing so to speak, when he wasn't chewing my ass non stop he showed me some key points to help me gain upper body strength and slowly increase the number of pushups I could do. I passed the PT test only one time at basic training, the very last test, which was for record, so that was all I needed, 52 pushups and I was on my way.

Within 2 years I was maxing the pushups along with the situps and the run, and I've done that constantly for the last 14 years. Physical fitness is a HUGE part of what we do in the military, and it is extremely important. I do not want to haul an overweight solder out of a burning truck, and much the same, if I get shot on the battlefield, I do not want some fat bastard with no stamina to be backing me up, trying to carry me to safety. To me it is ridiculous, if you are in the military, that you do not take care of your body by running at least 3 times a week for 45 minutes, and doing pushups and situps (at the very least) 3 times a week for 15 minutes a session. That is ALL it takes!

So I was pretty happy in October when our senior course manager SFC for our section mandated 3 day a week PT, 0730 to 0900, monday wednesday friday, for everyone to do. And everyone did it, for about the first 3 weeks or so. Then the fat bodies started to drop away from doing it, and now they never do it, which is a bunch of bullshit, because they are the ones that need it most of all. Not only that, but we were told we could work out 5 days a week, if we wanted, as long as there wasn't something that really HAD to be done, and one particular fat body, another SFC, is butting heads with the senior course manager, and trying to tell everyone they are NOT allowed to do PT on tuesdays and thursdays. Not coincidently he is one of the fat asses that never does PT.

And as if that isn't bad enough, he talked the course manager into forcing us to be done with PT by 0830 instead of 0900, severely impeding on those of us who enjoy running. We complained about it, and got it changed to 0845, but it is still frustrating as hell, especially considering that there is nothing so incredibly important to do right now that requires us to be there that early in the morning on any of those days.

I guess this is just what the military is getting to, not just on the lowest level, but the entire Army fails to recognize the important of basic soldiering skills, be it PT, marksmanship, land navagation, you name it. And they'll promote someone who can't make weight, and/or can't pass the PT test, to an E-5 Sergeant, AND they will allow them to complete the school (albeit with a marginal note on the paperwork DD 1059). How lovely is that? Our future leaders in the military, the most hands on NCO's, the E-5's, who can't even pass the PT test or make weight themselves, way to lead by example there, Army, bravo!!!

The Army gives out stupid uniform pins for all sorts of things, basic shit that medics get, recruiters get special patches, but maxing the PT test, you get nothing for your combat uniform to show you are exceptionally fit, all you get is an iron on badge for your PT uniform. To me that is ridiculous, there should be some sort of recognition for those who max the PT text to wear on their duty uniform, hell they have enough velcro on them to allow it, that is for sure.

Blah, if I get more into this I'll be writing all night. Suffice to say, I get very irritated with people who do not take care of themselves physically, and make excuses for it, or just don't care.

So I Ended Up Buying A Car, And Other Things

So, as winter approached, I knew I needed a vehicle as a daily driver that would make it through the snow. Obviously the SRT-4 was not going to do that...


Commemorative SRT-10 Viper, SRT-4 Neon, and SRT-10 Ram, none good in snow. As much as I wish I owned all three, I only own the one in the middle.

...so it will remain parked. I searched craigslist thoroughly for a good month and found a 2000 Dodge Neon SE, listed for 2500 dollars. This particular Neon has a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder motor, very basic, very thrifty, but it was a little rough, and had 105,000 miles on it. It was owned by a nice young couple with two daughters, it was also smoked in, which never makes me very happy.

I offered them 2000 cash for the vehicle and they agreed to the sale. I spent about a few days doing some sanding and repairing, put a new driver's side mirror on the car, cleaned the vehicle inside and out (still the smoke smell exists, YUCK!), and repainted a few areas to finish it up. On the interior I glued a few things back in place, and took the seats completely out of the car and washed them with a hot water hose. The back seat must have had about a gallon of pop spilled into it over the years because brown water just poured and poured out of it endlessly, until finally after about 10 minutes it cleared up.



So now the car is reasonably fresh inside, for lack of a better word, I don't know that you can ever entirely get rid of that faint musty smoke smell but I'll continue to work with it. I don't much care for FeBreeze because despite their claim that it doesn't 'mask' odors, the smell of FeBreeze gets mighty overpowering after awhile. I do have a vanilla Glade candle just sitting in one of the cupholders. Problem is, in December in Nebraska, the temperature being around 20 to 40 most of the time doesn't really allow something like a candle to really make a car smell nice, especially when it's not being lit (as that would likely be a tad bit unsafe, right?).

In other news, yes, we did purchase a house.



Roughly 2200 square feet furnished, another 1000 unfurnished in the basement. I forgot how much I just LOVE moving. I don't think I need to put anything into italics for sarcasm do I? I'd like to say things went smoothly working with the bank but he made a very jackass'ish mistake and it cost us a lot of money, but if interest rates continue to go down, we will likely refinance and work with the same bank, hoping that they will do the morally right thing and waive some of the financing costs. Yah, not likely right? We'll see, if nothing else I am VERY tenacious.

So, now I find out all the lovely things that cost money when you own a house. Of course you have to mow your lawn (lawnmower, push type, 6 hp, 100 bucks off craigslist), you have to scoop your snow (snow shovel, 20 dollars, Home Depot), and among other things, a true kick in the balls was finding out just how much window coverings cost. So I'm gradually putting up shades, trying to go with what belly likes. So far I would imagine I'm about 10% done, I have the living room completed, the master bedroom, and the master bathroom. That was probably 300 dollars, maybe a little more. So I'm probably still looking at anywhere from 2500 to 3000 more to get all the rest done. Yes, I'll be doing this a little at a time, that is for sure.

I don't want it to sound like this is some horrible disappointment though, ultimately it is quite satisfying to pull into my own driveway at night, walk into my house, be as loud as I want to be (as long as lil' n is awake still) and not have to worry about the idiot neighbors making a ton of noise upstairs or downstairs. We do however already have some strange noises in the house, that I hope I can attribute to being on a hilltop and having wind blowing around, and not a possum or racoon living in the attic, or Beetlejuice up there somewhere (although, I think he'd be a lot of fun to hang out with).

So, the little girl has a lot of space to run around in now. This is a picture from this past summer when we went to see Grandma and Grandpa G in Wisconsin...



She seems to really enjoy the house a lot, so much so that I had to purchase a bunch of childproofing drawer locks, following an unfortunate dishwasher tab ingestion moment... oh so easy to install right? NOT AT ALL, takes about a freaking half hour per drawer. You drill, you screw the pieces in, they are not right, you remeasure, you bend the locking tabs, you redrill, repeat, until hair falls out, screaming profanity commences, and finally they work, barely.

Little n' is 15 months old now, and continues to discover new things. She is walking, or running, all over the place now. She likes to dance, clap, high five, strut, no idea where she got that from, strutting for her is walking along moving her head forward and back like she's cool or something, and come to find out yesterday that she has just learned how to open doors. These are doorknobs, people, nothing special, and she has figured out how to work them. I could understand that if these were the doorknobs with the handles, but no, just round simple doorknobs that a normal 15 month old would not know how to use. But, she is my daughter, so normalcy may be out the window, in a good way I guess. Still though, seeing her in the bathroom with the entire roll of toilet paper on the floor, and a shit eating grin on her face, well, it is hard to be angry with her, so being impressed that she somehow got that door open is enough, for now. I'm sure spankings will commence for such actions soon enough.

Anyways, that is enough for now. You have some pictures, you have explanations, and I have to get up early in the morning because, no matter what the temperature, no matter what the weather, I run three days a week in the morning at work. And you thought the postal service was dedicated. I have to run because I don't want to become a fat ass soldier, something that really irks me when I see it. But alas, that is for another time, trust me though, I have plenty to say about certain things the army is doing these days.

Selling A Car, By Idiot

Okay, so I am looking to purchase a decent daily driver car, because I don't want to drive the SRT during the winter, plus I've been putting a lot of miles on the car this summer, and also because the car needs a little work under warranty, and I don't want to be without a car from a week to a month while the work is done.

So I've been perusing craig's list looking at all the cars that are around 2000 dollars, and I've settled in on a few Dodge cars, because those are the cars I know how to work on. One particular car, a 1999 Plymouth Breeze, a nice dark blue color, decent shape, is going for exactly 2200 dollars. So I called the number and left a message around lunch time today. Thus the stupidity begins.

At about 7 pm tonite, he sends me a text: "Who is this?"

I text my name back to him.

Him: "U called me" WTF? NO SHIT? Do you not check your messages?

Me: "I called about the car you have for sale"

Him: "Yah I'm at work right now what do you want to know?" Uhm... DUH?

Me: "I want to come look at the car"

Him: "I have school and i work to marrow and im gonna b out of town all weekend"

What the hell??? At this point I was getting really peeved at this guy...

Me: "Well, do you want to sell this car you posted, or not?"

Him: "Well, yah I can see if i can get work off to marrow"

I didn't respond. Not sure if I'll even try to go look at the car "to marrow" considering this dipshit's perpensity for thick headedness.

I mean, come on, if you are going to spend the time on the internet to post up a car, and talk about how you "need money and have to sell it" aren't you going to at least answer your phone, check messages, and RETURN THE CALL, instead of playing text tag and acting like a flaming retarded idiot?

Its all got me a little wary of the guy, to be honest. I don't know if anyone is really this stupid about selling their car?

The Pelini Husker Era Begins

Well, as anyone who knows me even a little bit knows, I am quite the Nebraska Cornhusker football fan. College football is without a doubt my favorite sport, and the only team I truly bleed for is Nebraska. Yah I like other sports, and have favorite teams in each one, but the Huskers are my pride and joy.

The last few years have really sucked. A crappy coach was brought in by an even crappier athletic director, both of them big headed egotistical dipshits who trashed tradition and everything that Nebraska football stood for. After last year's shitty season you'd think anything would be better, but I'm hoping for an 8 or 9 win season, I don't think it is too far fetched an expectation.

West.Mich - definite win
San Jose State - definite win
New Mexico St. - definite win
Virginia Tech - probable loss, but it is at home...
Missouri - home game, likely a win, I hate mizzou
@Texas Tech - win, payback time, defense will show
@Iowa State - definite win, even more defense
Baylor - definite win, poor Baylor
@Oklahoma - probable loss, Oklahoma is good
Kansas - toss up, kansas lost many players
@Kansas State - definite win, kstate is terrible
Colorado - win, but colorado is getting better


So, there you have it, that's my season picks. Did I mention I hate Missouri? More than anything their fans. They have one good year, in which they have two losses I might add, and they act like that makes up for being beaten like 1000 times in a row by Nebraska. Sorry chumps, call me when you have FIVE national championships.

What Is Up With fraNk?

Someone online the other day asked me "What the hell have you been up to for the past two years?" I know I haven't been posting much, I keep saying I will. Let's just dispense with such promises this time, although I will do a condensed version of the last two years...

November 2006

We are released from active duty upon returning from Iraq. Moved out to California to be with belly, who is at Camp Pendleton as a Marine.

December 2006

Belly finds out she is pregnant, one week later the Marines, unrelatedly, decide that she will be adminstratively seperated due to a severe injury that never healed correctly.

January 2007

I move back to Nebraska, first day back, find out my car has tires that are NEVER to be used in the snow, and I hit a school bus. For the next couple months it is job searching time.

April 2007

Belly moves back to Nebraska, we get a tiny apartment on main street in my home town. I start work at Ameritrade.

August 2007

August 17th: Shaniqua is born.

September 2007

We decided we need a bigger apartment within days of the birth of Shan. We start looking, with one most important aspect in mind: SIZE, we look for the biggest apartment we can find.

October 2007

We move into a suburb of Omaha, into a 1500 square foot apartment, woo, in a nice little wooded area. It's quiet and plenty of room to store everything. We take our time getting everything put away haha.

November 2007

We have thanksgiving at our apartment, it's a lot of fun. Three of my sisters are here, my brother, my parents, my grandparents, and my uncle.

February 2008

As of 09Feb2008, I hit 18 years in the military. Morons move in upstairs near the end of the month, and our peaceful sanctity is ruined. While there are roughly 5, maybe 6 people living there, it sounds like a herd of 20 elephants. I get a raise at Ameritrade, but I also get a phone call from a master sergeant, offering me a full time position teaching 88M MOSQ (military truck driving school). I accept. On the 28th of February I am given long term leave from my position at Ameritrade.

March 2008

I begin work at the Nebraska National Guard 88M MOSQ school. The curriculum is an absolute joke and it takes the entire month to get ready for the April classes, and the curriculum is still not up to par, but we make do.

April 2008

Our first 88M class, the school is in two phases, each phase is 2 weeks, totalling a month. I go for about 6 weeks without a day off, averaging 11 hours a day. The work is long but rewarding, and I make more than three times my Ameritrade salary, heh heh.

NOW

So, that's a short and sweet total of my last two years. This summer I've probably averaged about 60 hours a week, April through June we didn't get much time off at all and probably averaged about 70 hours a week, now we have a full staff and each of us gets about one day off a week. Belly and I are searching for a house, and just spent a wonderful week in Wisconsin with her parents at the lake. I left my cell phone charger there though, I hope they can mail it back to me haha.

Buying a house is our next big project. I don't spend near the time online I used to, I try and spend a couple hours a night with the little girl, she's so amazing and fun, we are very blessed to have a child that is not even so much as a handful most often to take care of. I say this though knowing that I am not with her 24 hours a day like belly is, so she may think differently :)

The military job is ADSW, "Active Duty, Special Work", and is slated to end in September, and restart again December 1st. They have offered one AGR (active duty) position for a SSG, my rank, but those jobs go to current AGR's first for consideration, then to the ADSW guys. This is ridiculous, because we are currently DOING the job they are offering, but that's how things work I guess, the bean counters always make decisions based entirely on money and no common sense. Even so I put in a packet for the job, and we'll see in the next month how that goes.

I'm not overly concerned because this school is slated to continue for at least the next three years, but I don't want to have 2 months off. I can deal with it, I can either go back to Ameritrade this time, or to the farm for a couple months, or just be a bum and live off the savings I've built up (although that is for the house, and I think that would be a bad idea haha). If I was to work at Ameritrade, I would actually put in my two weeks notice before the school would start again in December, because that would not be fair to them if I just continue to take long term leave from a company each time the school starts up.

I volunteer to work with the other departments of the school whenever I can because I want to be known as a go getter and someone who steps up whenever work is to be done. That way if the 88M doesn't work out in the end, or the school ends, I can be in line for a decent job in another area of the military. It's interesting how far I've come, the first few years I was in I absolutely hated the military, and could not wait to get out. But spending some time working on the civilian side showed me how little companies seem to care about their employees nowadays, and the military at least does a good job taking care of a person. The two biggest problems people have with active duty military is that it is difficult for them to stay in shape, and family problems due to the long hours. Well, I love working out, and belly is a former Marine so she understands the situation.

I will try to post up more but I'm not going to make any promises about huge posts every other day. We are still very busy.

The Sun Sets On 140 Years

Many of you know that I grew up on a farm, our family farm. In 1867 my family started farming in Nebraska. From the beginning there were dairy cattle at the farm. So for 140 years, cows have been milked twice a day, EVERY day at our farm. That's 102,200 milkings total, if you are counting. In the mid 1950's my grandfather modernized the facilities, and his sons (my father and my uncle), grew up helping with the dairy. My father went to college to become a diesel mechanic, and he was very good at it, landing a top dollar job at Caterpillar in Omaha in 1972. But shortly thereafter, my grandfather had a heart attack, and my dad moved into a house across the road from the farm, and went back to dairying. My uncle also came back a short time later to work at the farm.

On a dairy farm, there are no days off. On our farm, between the hours of 5 to 8, morning and night, the milking was done, because it had to be. Because of this, nearly all my memories of the farm are in some way tied into the dairy. I was helping out in the dairy barn from the age of 4. Sure I wasn't able to do a lot of work at that time, but I would take a scraper and push manure around. By the time I was 8, that was my responsibility all summer long, and on weekends, to clean the back of the barn. Most dairies milk twice a day, and by the time I was 12 I was helping out with the evening milking every day all summer, and during the school year on weekends, making 2 dollars an hour, and 2 dollars an hour being put away for college. I used to tell my friends I played with more tits than all of them combined. It was of course a joke, and 'teats', not tits. The summer before I went to college, my father and I, with help from other family members, were able to get to 10,000 pounds of milk every two days, from 125 cows. There was so much milk that it would nearly flow out out of the top of the milk cooler if you took the lid off. I went to college the next year, and although the dairy never hit 10,000 pounds again, it was fairly successful over about the next 10 years.

From the year 2000 and on, things started to go downhill at the farm. My grandmother, who had milked morning and night for many years, retired from milking. My dad took over completely, but despite doing his best, things were getting really run down. At 56 years old there is really only so much he can do. He spends his days working as hard as he can just to keep the dairy up and running, and everything else is secondary. Therefore the little things that need to be done for upkeep of the farm itself fall by the wayside, as all my father's time is spent doing the bare necessities so the dairy remains operational. This includes painting, building fence, trimming trees, fixing non dairy equipment, etc, all tossed aside because my dad had no time to get it done. Anytime you run a business, you have 15 minutes to a half hour of clean up and general up keep that has to be done each day. This hasn't been done on the farm for the last 15 years, you can imagine the mess that has piled up, because my father just didn't have enough time to get to it.

So my father put in for the government dairy buyout plan two years ago, but he bid too high. This year, he tried again, with a bit more conservative bid, and it was approved. Dad wanted this, but I was there when the call came in that they had approved the bid, and my father had a relieved, but very sad look on his face. I believe it is for the best, but how do you change your lifestyle when suddenly the activity, basically 6 to 8 hours daily of your last 35 years, is no longer available? Another sad note is that this is the last dairy farm left in Cass county in Nebraska, and perhaps the last family dairy within a 60 mile radius of Omaha. The writing, however, was on the wall. Given the state of affairs at the farm, either Dad had to take the buyout, or watch the farm collapse later and receive nothing at all.

I work for the military and for me to try and go back to the farm would be a huge pay cut and no guarantee that we could fix things enough to really make it worthwhile, I mean EVERYTHING is in disrepair. Still though I feel guilty, because for every generation of my family since 1867, the oldest male has always stayed on the farm. I moved on to do something different with my life. Of course now, some 15 years later, I question my decisions, and worse, blame myself for what has happened.

So tonite I drove down to be with my dad and milk cows for my first time in quite awhile, and what will be one of the last milkings ever at our family farm. I will likely be out there tomorrow night too. We talked about a lot of things, mostly related to the dairy, a lot of 'what if's' came up, along with a lot of fond memories, ending many times with a forlorn sigh. I guess I didn't expect it to affect me so much, seeing the sadness in my dad's face. It had to be this way, he's too old to continue on the way he does, he'll kill himself doing it all on his own. But even so, he feels guilty about this, and sad, because he raised all these cows, and now he's sending them all to slaughter at once. He said he actually broke down two days ago in the barn, realizing he was about to send the first load of cows off in the truck.

On the drive back home from the farm, I had to stop because I broke down myself, partially due to guilt, and because I hate seeing my father this way. But it's also because it is very hard to see the dairy part of our farm close it's doors, after having spent so much time in that barn milking cows as I grew up. This is a lot like experiencing a death in the family. If I feel this sad about what has happened, I know it's 100 times worse for my father. The last of the milk cows will leave the farm on Wednesday, and perhaps the biggest chapter in the history of our farm will come to a close.

Yahoo Image Search Sucks

I have used Yahoo for years, it's been my home page since I began using the internet some, wow, 12 years ago, maybe 13 years? Those were the days, internet down some days as much as it was up. Good old Netscape, Netscape Navigator, Netscape Gold. I started out using hotmail, then they are bought out by MSN and basically sold all there email addresses out to spammers, not to mention screwing up their website big time with idiotic ads and annoying shit. So then I moved on, to Yahoo. I remember yahoo being like this:



I was one of those people who actually got my real name @yahoo.com as my email address, using my first initial and last name. The nice thing about Yahoo, as you can see on the above image, was that you could use the service, there wasn't a bunch of bullshit fluff. ESPN.com was nice that way too, but then, a few years in, and MSN bought them out also, and overnight the spyware and shit advertising began on ESPN just like on MSN. God help you nowadays if you decide to go there and look up something sport related. Prepare for a Gillette advertising video to download and a bunch of scroll over ENLARGING talking advertisements, along with streaming video that, unless you are on the fastest of connections, serves no purpose except to destroy your ability to surf the website.

So, anyways, back to Yahoo. I always found it refreshing that the usual corporate bullshit didn't seem to matter to them, they were always about keeping it clean, and avoiding the bullshit. That's why I've used them as my homepage, free email provider, web search, sports page, and image search provider. But lately things have been turning for the worse. It's no news flash that Yahoo is having problems in terms of turning a profit. The sad thing to me is that 'PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT' seems to be all anyone cares about. What about being providing a decent product for the consumer without screwing them over with advertising, spyware, and website search favoritism? That last part, favoritism, is what I'm getting to with this post.

First let me explain how the whole web search thing works. When you type in something to search the web, the search engine looks for web site pages/pictures tagged with whatever you are searching for, then puts them in order based on their popularity, as in, how many people actually clicked on that picture to look at it. It's a simple procedure, and it WORKS.

A couple of years ago, Yahoo Image Groups decided to close their doors and integrate their images with Flickr, an (at that time) unaffiliated site that specializes in hosting images. No big deal, they had a set up that would move all your images for free. I didn't really keep much for images on yahoo so the whole thing occurred without much of my attention. Shortly thereafter, however, I noticed something troubling...

If you go to Yahoo's image search, to try and find a photo of something, wow, whadayaknow, Flickr images overwhelmingly appear first. Does this mean that these pictures are the web's most popular? Hah, hardly. This just shows that Yahoo is selling out. Flickr is a partner website now for them, so now they show favoritism towards Flickr images. Skeptical? Don't be, go to Yahoo, click on Image Search, and type in the word "Horse". I'm sure the actual ordering/numbering will change, as Yahoo no longer goes by popularity and instead focuses on affiliation, but for the search I just did, 12 of the 18 images on the first page are from, yep, Flickr.

All this does is serves to drive their own customers away. I don't give a shit about Flickr, I have no intention of using their service, even their own customers seem to despise them, which is why I use photobucket for my image hosting. So lately I just go to Google.com and use their image search instead. I just searched Google images for the word "Horse", and wow, holy fuck, not ONE Flickr image on the first page. Not only that, but I searched through TEN pages, not one Flickr image. In fact, I'd be willing to bet there are NO Flickr images on the first 100 pages when based, as the search should be, on JUST popularity.

Way to go Yahoo, screwed the pooch on that one. Might as well just sell out to MSN and quit fighting it, you've already begun the transition into a worthless website.

Winner!!! Of H7UT 83VF!!!

I really shouldn't drink soda. It's not good for you, it's fattening, it's bad for your teeth, it's not really all that cheap anymore either. But the fact is, I enjoy soda, so as long as I cut back, and continue to work out, that will be alright.

I can't stand Coke. I have drank it before, but only in cases where it was free. I have never in my life purchased a Coca Cola, I just don't like the taste that much and given a choice I will buy a Pepsi. The fact is, most people cannot tell the difference between the two. Oh, most of you think you can, but you can't, that was proven to me in an experimental psychology class while in college, I was one of only 2 people out of 45 who could consistently tell the difference between the two.

Most soda companies have these little contests, typically the low end prize is a free soda, and the high end will be a large cash sum or a new car or some such thing. I've won some ball caps and a couple tshirts, but generally I'm happy to spin the cap off a bottle and read the inside of the cap, and you win a free soda, it's like "YES, buy one get one free!!" sort of thing.

This is what would be commonly called an "INSTANT WINNER!!!" Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Oh the prizes are pretty much the same, but you can't win anything instantly anymore. Now you spin the bottle cap off, and you win a 28ZO 8IW8, awesome huh? Then you have to go to your computer, log into a special website set up just to take some personal information from you, so that the soda manufacturer can send you a bunch of fucking shit spam mail about things that you don't give a crap about, to even have a chance to win a prize.

And if you do win, well, you probably won't know anyway. You have to enter your code and then THEY will send you an email, IF you win. Most email providers will send those emails to the spam folder because they recognize them as emails sent out in bulk. So basically the entire process is a complete joke except to the really persistent no lifers who have the time to scan their entire spam folder to see if they won, and they likely haven't anyway...

So, needless to say I don't give a shit anymore, I don't even try to play the game, it's pointless and it's too much effort just so that you can get more junk mail from a company looking to get more information about the consumers who use their products. Screw em all!!!

Lincoln Marathon, May 2008

A year ago when I got back from Iraq, I think one of the more difficult aspects of integrating was, oddly enough, just getting back into cooking for myself. Instead of doing that, every day I was going out and eating fast food, twice a day. In California, there are like a thousand different fast food places in about a 5 mile square radius. This was a bad situation for two reasons. 1) I was wasting money I had saved while I was in Iraq probably at a rate of about 15 bucks a day on food, and 2) I put on about 30 lbs during a three month time period. In December after we found out that belly was going to be getting out of the Marines, so I headed back to Nebraska shorty after to get things set up for us there.

Despite getting a job and a place to live, I never got set into a decent workout routine to lose this weight. I got myself down to 200 but never lower than that. While in Iraq I was typically right around 190, and about 10 lbs of that was from working out upper body at least 4 times a week. So, fast forward, on Christmas Day just a couple of weeks ago I was pushing the scales at 215 lbs, and I really want to be back down around 180. It's difficult to say when I was last at 180 lbs, I was there while belly was at boot camp, but I was also really sick from losing weight way way too fast. As far as being at 180 for an extended period of time, maybe not since before 2000?

So what does a person do to focus and actually lose this weight in a methodical fashion, healthy and feeling great? I'm focusing on the Lincoln Marathon in May. Now, I ran a marathon in Iraq, and while I was able to do it, going 26.4 miles basically without training, I would never recommend doing it and I won't ever do it again. That being said, there is no way I could do that right now. In Iraq, even with a sporadic schedule, I still tried to run whenever I could, usually late at night, I would take a 4 mile run around the base.

The goals? 180 lbs, and I'd like to run the marathon in 3 hours flat. However, if I am able to hold an 8 minute mile pace that means 3.5 hours, which will be acceptable. Right now it's hard to hold an 8 minute mile pace for even two miles, but I know that will get better with time. I've been running for about 2 weeks now, every other night, 2.5 miles outdoors. It's cold as hell but I wear my military Under Armour along with my Army running suit, stocking cap, and gloves. On the other nights I do pushups and situps in the apartment, and of course I am watching what I eat.

Tonite I'm at 208 lbs, and feeling better already. I hate being over 200 especially, it's a sweaty nasty feeling, I'd rather be cold and thin than sweaty/clammy and out of shape. I am not fat, I'm just not in shape. I can fit into most all of my clothes, however some of them, including my new ACU uniforms, are rather uncomfortable. I have a guard drill this weekend and by that time I hope I can be down just hitting 200 lbs, if at all possible.

There is no doubt that I'll make all of my goals, I just hope that my running times improve as my weight goes down, I really do want to hit 3 hours flat, but I'll need to do a lot better than I did in Iraq. Training Training Training!!!

Where You Been?

Okay, I'll admit I've been rather ridiculous as of late, well, as of late being the last few months.

Here are the updates:

In August, our little girl was born. An amazing event that, despite thinking I was ready for it, really blew me away. She was screaming immediately, and really pink, almost none of the protective white coating either. The nurses were blown away by that, saying she was the 'pinkest' baby they had ever seen.



As they laid her down under the warming lamp, she was still screaming, as they all turned their attention to belly, I went over and wrapped my hands around her little 6 lb, 9 oz frame, and talked to her. She stopped screaming and curled up in my hands. There are no words for how that felt.

So, in October we moved back into the Omaha area, closer to where I work, and we have a giant place to live (1500 square feet), and we've settled in nicely. It's something when you realize that you've sort of been living out of a bag for a long time. We had so much stuff in storage, and rather than ever go thru any of it, we just kept putting more into storage. Finally you realize that you either need to stop and go through all that 'stuff' or you'll be living out of a bag forever.

Anyways, we spent the first month going through all of the boxes figuring out what we need to keep, and what needs to go. Basically we are done, except for going through and filing some paperwork that is all piled up in one area. The little girl "Shan" is doing awesome, she's seems to be ahead of schedule in terms of growth and abilities, and she's out of the 'screaming bloody murder' stage, even laughing from time to time and nearly always smiling. She is extremely headstrong and strong willed though, which is good, as long as we get her stared on the right path. We're working on that :)



So, anyways, another new year.