Tales Of Broken Hard Drives, Car Talk, Range Firing, New Laptop, and Travian

I'm not even going to promise to post 'more' any longer, because I never follow through, perhaps by not promising such things I will actually begin to post more again.

I think it is likely because I spend so much time on other places like SRTForums that I don't really get to posting as much as I should. Yes, SRT as in Street and Racing Technology, as in Ah Toe Mo Beels. My SRT-4 with its cute little 2.4 inline 4 intercooled turbo is at 35,872 miles, and the warranty is up on May 16th (36 months)of this year, or at 36,000 miles, whichever comes first. I am going to take the car into the dealer for a once over, to have them really check everything out while it is still under warranty, and then perhaps I can actually hit the mileage and 36 month on the same day, which would be an interesting coincidence, interesting probably only to me and maybe my other friends who populate, or pollute if you will, the SRT forums.

Once the warranty is up, oh goodie, the fun begins. I have a stage 1 performance ECU, full 3" Borla exhaust with cat delete, rear strut bar, catch can, AGP billeted waste gate assembly, and other fun items ready to go on the car. Right now the car has BWoody HBrace and traction bars, along with an Aeroforce tech gauge, and that is all, none of which can affect the warranty. Hmm, I've probably lost all of the people who randomly read my blog from time to time with these last two paragraphs...

Moving on...

About 2 weeks ago my Toshiba laptop from 2005 began acting up. The hard drive was making clickity noises, and I got a little worried, so I pulled out Mr Noisy 20gig old as hell external hard drive and I backed up my files. I am a GENIUS (okay, in this one instance, very very lucky) because the next day my screen saver was locked up, and upon the obligatory 5 second power button hold down/restart, UNABLE TO LOCATE MEDIA/UNABLE TO FIND OPERATING SYSTEM...

HOORAY FOR ME!!!! Right? Oh, just wait... gets better...

So, now I have no computer... wait, hold on, Belly has a Toshiba that has had a burned out screen for about the last oh, 3 years... so I switch her hard drive over to my computer...

Nothing

Okay, let's try something else, the *gasp!* dreaded screen switch!!!

I looked up the instructions online, and despite it being a relatively in depth process, I needed my internet, so I gave it a shot. About 2 hours later, I had the screens switched, and I hit the power button, and VOILA!!! On comes her screen, first time I had seen that background image in a LONG time.

HOORAY NOW??? No, wait, things start getting worse

I taped the cord to the back of the computer because the battery was completely kaput, either that or the power saver software wasn't allowing the battery to charge. The cord was loose, so anytime it would pop out BOOM the power was off, not good for the computer and irritating for me. On top of that there were 68 processes going at one time, and around 16 different programs that started up whenever you powered up the computer. S L O W I N G down everything.

Late one night I was working away and BOOM, that hard drive crashed too.

Let's see, F word, mother F word, g damn, son of a b, slam fist on table, lament and scream, etc etc... because this time I didn't back up the hard drive and there are some things on that hard drive that I need to have, so I may be stuck with a 100 dollar Best Buy bill if one of my buddies at work can't boot it externally and get the info I need.

Thankfully, Belly's father, being the wonderfully precise and thorough person that he is, had already been looking for a replacement laptop, and found one that still had XP (albeit XP for business, still a shitload better than that god damn Vista or Mojave or wtf they want to call it).

So, after a bit of thought, I chucked down the 600 bucks for it, or should I say, Belly did and I wrote her a check, and then I headed off for range qualification fire.

We spent 4 days out at the ranges, doing our range qual and warrior task training requirements...

Second year in a row I had to deal with weapons malfunctions. Last year had to aim way low (half the target length) because my front sight post was spinning free and I couldn't lower it at all. This year was even worse.

On the zero range, I had fired 3 shots at 25 meters, put them in my usual quarter sized group placement, then on the second 3 shot set the extractor didn't eject the round and it double fed on me...

So I lubed the shit out of the thing and hoped for the best.

Next up, KD range (roughly like what the Marines fire except no 500 meter range).

Fired at 300 meters, slow fire, 1 shot per minute for 10 minutes (to gauge and make changes to tighten up placement). No problems, put 8 of 10 shots in the 5 point circle.

Second... rapid fire 300 meters (10 shots, 70 seconds). 9 of 10 shots in the 5 point circle.

Third... kneeling 250 meters, 10 shots 60 seconds, landed 8 of 10 in the 5.

4th, prone unsupported 200 meters, rapid fire 10 shots 50 seconds, major problems again, 3 misfeeds, same problem, extractor not doing its job...

This isn't a normal misfeed either, when you get a double feed like this, you have to:

1) Pull charging handle to rear
2) lock bolt to rear
3) pull magazine out of housing, sometimes hard as hell because the round will jam against the top of the mag nearly locking it into the well.
4) tilt weapon to the open ejector side and slam fist on side of weapon to push unfired round out and away from chamber.
5) let the bolt slam forward to re-engage the round
6) pull charging handle back and hope the old round ejects this time
7) lock bolt to rear
8) reinsert magazine
9) slam bolt forward to put new round in the chamber

I had 3 misfires like this, and each one takes an eternity to fix, and under rapid fire conditions you have like no time at all

Then it happened to me again on the next one, 200 meter rapid fire from the knees.

I was only able to fire 12 of my 20 shots, I left 8 live rounds on the ground, didn't even send them downrange.

The range safety said he couldn't believe I was able to re-engage the target on three seperate occasions from the 250, I don't know how the hell I did it, I fucking HATE shit weapons.

Fired the last one, slow fire standing, and put all 10 in the 5 point range. I had misfires again but with a minute for each shot I was able to fix the problem easily.

I ended up with a 266 out of 350. Well above average but below where I wanted to be. I did the math and if my averages for those 2 rapid fire rounds had been as good as my others (and no reason to believe they wouldn't have) I would have fired a 310, or second best on the day.

So I had a new extractor and spring put on, then went to the actual money course, the qualification range, and got about 10 shots in and had the same bullshit happen again

Fired a 29 out of 40 because of it, I was like 'fuck it' and borrowed a buddy's weapon and got a 34 without zero'ing and I took that, despite being 3 to 4 below my average.

If I could ever get a decent weapon *@(*#@$&*@#*$&ING CRAPPITY!!

But, even with all the problems, I finished 8th out of more than 100 firers, so that was good.

Got home on Thursday, and there was my new laptop sitting by the front door, under the doormat, thank goodness for that bit of 'security' right?

So of course I am giddy and i have to open it and get it ready and...

Yikes, what an ugly mo fo, that was literally my first thought. BUT, that being said, after studying some reviews for the Lenova computers, I realized they are more about function than form, and so far I'm really liking this brutus beast of a laptop with its 'hardened' hard drive (hopefully will keep it safe from my abuse, right?)

One can only hope.

My other bit of addiction lately has been... NO, not tharsis gate, although I still hang out from time to time there, now I have been playing Travian.

No, don't look it up, don't try it, don't do anything with it, you may get hooked on it, and that is bad. Travian is one of those games that, even if you aren't there, you are there. You can't just 'log out', your villages can get attacked, your troops killed, etc. I would like to smack Fantom good and hard right in the testicles for ever showing all of us that game. Oh, but somehow he breaks out and doesn't play anymore. That rat!!!!

I swear though this is the last server I play on, once End Game is over, I'm not playing it again...

Maybe?

NO, I will have will power and resolve this time.

What else went on today? I am at 205 lbs, and I put off my diet another day, and instead of running 8 miles tonite to justify the Taco Bell I had for lunch, I instead went to Burger King and had a massive heart attack inducing BK disaster burger. That isn't the real name of it but christ almighty the thing is huge and I should NOT have eaten it. It is likely I'll be feeling it for most of the day tomorrow.

I did mow the lawn, so I got about 1/100th of a workout in. The lawn is decent size, and it is a push mower, but lets face it, an 8 mile run is way WAY more of a decent cardio trip than mowing my lawn. Even so, the lawn looks pretty good. I love having my own house.

Belly and lil n' are both in Wisconsin, and I miss them. They will be back on Monday. Don't worry, no hookers or drugs here, just me and the three diabolical bastard cats.

Anything else? Well, I'm sure there is a lot more, but tomorrow I am teaching a 6 hour block of instruction on Accident Avoidance to our students (yes, cycle started again, another month of laborous long days) so I need some sleep. I'm going to try to condense that class down to two and a half hours or so, I CAN DO IT!!!!

Time to go be one with the bed. Toodaloo!!!

Parents So "Good" That They Are Horrible

So, I just finished watching a youtube video about some lady who let her kids go trick or treating, but when they got home she took their candy and traded it for 'approved candy' that she bought. From nasty sugar free cookies to some sort of crackers that she praised for being "salt free, food coloring free", I felt like throwing up just watching it.

I have to wonder sometimes about parents who go so freaking far overboard in the idea of 'protecting' their children. I remember when we first brought n' home, and how I was freaking out about the temperature of the formula, about whether to have a blanket in her crib, about how warm the apartment should be, etc.

Yah, I got over that within about a week. And now, some 18 months later, well, suffice to say I'm of the opinion that what doesn't kill em is going to make them stronger. This doesn't mean that I go out of my way to give my daughter terrible things, but when I'm feeding her and she knocks something onto the floor, well a liberal use of the 5 second rule is in effect. Toss your bottle on the floor? Yah, I'm not washing it off. Chewing on your shoe? Woopity doo, who cares?

Honestly, I can remember doing some crazy shit myself growing up, activities that would likely have got my mother into some trouble. I'm sure we had a child seat when we were like a month old, but we never used a freaking 'booster seat'. I can remember crawling all over the back of the car, getting yelled at for not having my seat belt on, being dropped off one mile from home along with at least one sibling because we wouldn't shut up, and it was our punishment the rest of the way, etc.

I guess I just don't understand parents that would raise their children in some sort of protective bubble of hyper overzealous parenting. "OH MY GOD you got your hands DIRTY OH NO, get into the bathroom so we can IMMEDIATELY put anti bacterial soap on it!!!" Yah, let's just fail to realize that by doing so you breed supergerms that survive the antibacterial onslaught and then multiply. Then your kids get sick from those germs, not only can you NOT kill them with the usual antibiotics, but your child has no immunity whatsoever because you raised them in a protective bubble, and they got no exposure to germs and no ability to build their immunity.

It seems like it is almost some sort of sickening contest as to who can be the best SUPERPARENT or something... "You let your kids watch TELEVISION??? NOOOOOOO!!!!" What the hell ever, I know I watched a good amount of tv growing up, and I turned out just fine (despite what some of you may think mwahaha). Therefore if my daughter is tuning in to Dora the Explorer, Ruby And Max, WonderPets, etc, I am not going to really worry about it. Hell the shows are a lot more educational than the Tom And Jerry or WB cartoons that I grew up watching.

So as I watched this goofy lady who took away all her kids decent candy and gave them pure shit in return, I think back to when I was a kid, and how irritating this would have been. I mean honestly, NO CHOCOLATE? How can you do that to your kids? I don't think growing up in a childhood like that would be fun at all, overprotective parents freaking SUCK!!!

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.

It's Been 6 Years, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

Why is it that there is this group of people dedicated to being so ignorant and so incredibly stupid, the morons that believe 9/11 was a conspiracy perpetrated by the United States government? Do they even THINK about how ridiculous they are? Let's discuss the facts...

This is the conversation that trips them up every time:

"9/11 is a conspiracy"

Wow, really? It must be the most devious thought out plan ever thought of.

"It's our government that came up with it, straight from the white house"

So George Bush is behind all of this?

"You got that right, it's all about oil, and using this war to give our tax dollars to his hand picked war companies"

Seriously? Wow, so what do you think of Bush, I mean, compared to the other presidents?

"He's a fucking chimp, a complete moron. He's the dumbest president ever"

Wait, now, did you just say that Bush is behind the most diabolical conspiracy plot ever, that he was behind 9/11, in order to start a war with Iraq?

"Well, yes, but that's not what I meant, I meant Bush is the mouthpiece, Dick Cheney and others set all of this up, they put all of this in motion"

They must have really put some planning into everything, I mean, to trick everyone, the media, most of the public?

"Yes they did, these guys are VERY diabolical and sneaky, they were smart with how they set all of this up, they tricked everyone"

Yes, they were SO smart that they weren't able to frame Iraq by putting a couple of WMD's around Bagdhad and Rhamadi, right?

"Wait, uh, no, I mean..."

No, seriously, this is what you are saying. That they were smart enough to trick the media and the American people by setting up 9/11, but not smart enough to plant WMD's in Iraq, I mean, that was there excuse to go to war, right? If they are lying about 9/11, why not lie and plant WMD's in Iraq, that would have shut EVERYONE up, RIGHT?

crickets.... in the distance a dog barks...

NO conspiracy theorist can read this and stick to their guns, this destroys their platform, they can't stand up to this, it's simple, there is no response for this that makes any sense whatsoever. Of course they will change the subject, or widen the conspiracy theory further to make excuses, but face the facts, you are wrong, you are stupid, you should STFU

Making Friends From Supposed Family Members

My sisters live in a house between where I work and where I live, and where my parents live some five miles away from me. Therefore it's not at all too uncommon to run into them from time to time, be it at Walmart, or out at the farm, or just see them driving by and honking and waving and acting crazy like our entire family tends to do.

Therefore it was no surprise for me, when on my way home from work down highway 75, to see me sister driving along in her Subaru Outback. I was coming up behind her, confirmed it was her when I saw the 20 county license plates on her car, and could see her her in the drivers seat. So I punched the accelerator just a bit, whipped around her, and pulled up almost even, laying into the horn and waving, all the while grinning like a crazy man...

Yah, well, it wasn't her. The lady turned her head, and I realized she didn't have long blond hair, she had long rather white hair, and was probably pushing 60 years old. Her husband (I assume) was in the passenger seat just staring at me like "Who the hell...?" as I drove on by. They did wave back, a small consolation for my bumbling foolish drive by honking.

I guess all in all it isn't too bad. I don't know of anyone else driving a Commemorative Edition SRT-4 around here, with it's distinctive viper racing stripes, so I'd have to say I probably made some new friends. I don't know if I will ever run into them again, but I can tell you this much.... I will never again just assume there is only one 20 county Subaru Outback in the state of Nebraska.

Where's Your Freaking Alligator???

Does anyone else find it rather ironic that Betty White is doing commercials for PetMeds.com? She seems so wonderful and grandmotherly as she discusses getting low cost medication delivered right to her door. But all the time I'm watching her on the commercial, all I can think about is that movie Lake Placid, where she had a 30 foot long 2000 lb man eating alligator for a pet. Honestly, I kept waiting for her to turn and toss a big old pill to her monster gator at the end of the commercial. Damn that was a horrible movie but I'll never think of Betty White in the same way again after seeing it.

Normality?

It’s been seven months since I got back from the Sandbox. After a couple of months everything was normal again. Now back in Nebraska, working, with our lil’ one due in August, I don’t think much about my time in Iraq, except for the occasional time I do happen to hear the news of another fellow soldier losing his or her life, or the thoughts of friends going back over.

So I was at work the other day, actually down in one of the classrooms, when there was a very loud muffled bang from outside, I’m not sure if they were using dynamite somewhere or what exactly was going on, but instantly the hair stood up on my neck and I was leaning over in my chair, as though I would go under the table or something. It took a few seconds to catch my breath, and I found I was breathing very hard, my heart rate was elevated, blinking fast, and other symptoms of a sudden onset of adrenaline when the body reacts to fear.

No one noticed, they were all laughing and carrying on, the same thing I would have probably been doing two years previous, the sound of an explosion or something large hitting the side of the building would be more of an afterthought than anything else. My reaction was not something I expected at all. I have always been of the belief that I would get my life back to normal, that nothing would affect me once I got back home and my life was back on track. There were so many others I knew, even those I loved, who have been in a lot worse situations over there than I was ever in.

I felt embarrassed later in the day, because honestly, I was never closer than maybe a couple hundred meters from any contact with enemy fire, which, oddly enough, occurred at our home base with a little more than a couple of months left, while I was sitting on the toilet. And despite it being a reasonable distance from me, it shook the small building, and sounded as though it landed right behind me.

There were lots of explosions like that, but further away. Usually we were out on the road or at other bases. But you become bred to ducking down, to covering up, heading for the bunkers placed strategically throughout the area in every camp you are in. I really believed that you could just forget that, and walk away and nothing would take you back there, yet for that split second, my body may have been in a classroom, but my mind was back in that dry, blistering heat of Iraq.

SERVICE?? ANYONE?????

When I go out to eat somewhere, I have a fairly reasonable expectation for the service the waiting staff should provide. When this service is substandard, or worse, downright deplorable, I tend to get aggravated rather quickly. This can include one or more of the following

Wipe down the tables AND the seats

Ah, what joy it is to sit down at a freshly cleaned table and put your hand into a glob of mustard, or worse, sit in it. How difficult is it for the person cleaning the table to also ensure that the seats are clean?

Make sure the appropriate table settings are in place

I wouldn't think I'd need to bring this up, but I've seen this twice in the last couple of months. We were at Village Inn, and I went to get some salt, and there was no salt shaker at the table. No big deal, someone might have stolen it right? So I went to another table, that's when I realized, there were no salt shakers, anywhere. And there were no pepper shakers. I brought this to the attention of my waitress, and I was told "Oh, we are cleaning all the salt and pepper shakers, they are in the dishwasher in back". Uhmmmm, what kind of completely retarded statement is THAT? I understand that at 11 at night there aren't many people out to eat, and it's a good time to clean things up, however, don't clean ALL your shakers at one time, that's really poor management, and foolish. Wash half then wash the other half when you've replaced the first half. I was offered 'salt in a spoon' if I wanted some salt. Yah, uh, no. This happened again, at Pizza Hut, just last week. I was going to put some parmesan cheese on my pizza and there were no shakers around. To their credit, at least Pizza Hut was able to bring some out for me.

If I order an appetizer, bring it well BEFORE the main entree

Typically I order an appetizer in situations where I'm hungrier than usual, so I'd like a little bit of food a little quicker to get me ready to eat. So why is it that several times in the last few months the waiting staff has brought our appetizers out literally within 60 seconds of bringing out the main course? Is it so I can bite thru 1/2 of an onion ring then have my steak and baked potato plate sitting all but on top of the appetizer plate? I swear, if this happens again I'm going to tell them to take the appetizer back and I won't pay for it.

If my drink is getting below 1/3, please make note of it and ask if I need another

Let's be honest here, this is the most important duty the wait staff has after bringing the food. I'm not power drinking my soda or tea, at least not usually, so once every 10 minutes or so, glance over at my table and see if my drink is getting empty, and if so, swing on by and offer a refill. It takes so little energy to do so, and let's face it, I can see your lazy ass joking around with the other wait staff up front. If you see my glass flying your way at a high rate of speed, you can about guess you waited too long. Yes, again Pizza Hut, I'm talking about you.

When you fill my drink, DO NOT TAKE THE ONE I AM DRINKING OUT OF.

This one is aimed directly at you, Chinese restaurant people. Just what in the fuck stupid thought enters your head to think you should take the glass I'm currently drinking out of? This happens at nearly every Chinese restaurant I eat at, and I'm guessing it's because the cheap ass penny pinching jackasses don't want to clean another glass, OH GOD a little bit of work is going to kill you. But just when I thought I'd seen the worst instances of this particularly irritating phenomenon, once again, Pizza Hut: The waitress asked if I'd like another drink, she takes mine, then sets it on the counter, 2 minutes later brings me a DIFFERENT glass. WTF? A full glass flying at the waitresses head this time? Don't be surprised if you see it.

Don't up and disappear for long periods of time

Not to sound like a broken record, but once again, Pizza Hut, sorry, I have to single you out here. A different Pizza Hut this time. I sat down with someone, ordered our food and drink. The waitress brought the drinks out, then the food, then I shit you not, for 45 minutes I never saw her again. After about 20 minutes I started getting pretty irritated. Finally when the 45 minutes came and went, I went up front and told one of the other workers that I'd like my ticket NOW, with angry emphasis on NOW so they would understand that I was not happy about waiting like that. We had no drink refills, no opportunity to order anything else, no one to ask if our food was okay. Pathetic. This is the only time that has ever happened this badly, but there have been other instances where no one showed for quite awhile. It's irritating, don't do it to people!

Don't make me sit with my thumb up my ass for you to bring out the check

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I'm not insulted if the waiter/waitress brings out the bill and my party is still eating, as long as it's reasonable, as in we are just about done eating or the majority of people at the table are done eating. What does get my ire up is when we've been sitting there for 5 or 10 minutes, and no one has touched their drinks or plates during that time, obviously thru eating, and you haven't brought out the bill. Ever wish you had a visual aid to show the waiting staff how quick their tip goes down while you sit and wait? I sure could use one, a digital one at that.

Don't give me lip, and above all, don't cop a fucking attitude

I tend to be a joker, borderline obnoxious at time when I go out to eat depending on what friends I'm out with. However, I'm not being insulting, we just like to have fun. That being said, if what we are doing is irritating you, well, sorry, but don't act like a stuffy bitch or prick, and don't cop an attitude. Be a real person, don't give me that fake laugh where you do it with every intention of making sure we know you are being a fake piece of shit. This is your job, you get paid to please me, so 'dance' dammit. All I'm asking is that you be nice, and don't fake it.

These simple steps I listed above are simply part of a person's job. If you work as part of a waiting staff at a restaurant of any kind, you should be obligated to know what to do and what NOT to do.

Belly chuckles when I get irritated about things like this, when we are out to eat. "You sound like my dad." Well, if my father in law expects decent service then yes he and I think alot alike. No one forces people to work at a restaurant, service should be priority number one. I don't go out of my way to be a jerk. I'm typically a good customer, as long as the waiting staff doesn't do any of what I listed above.

What Are My Rants Worth?

I found a website that calculates just how much your website is worth. In my case:

My Site is worth
$62

How much is your site worth?

That's right, read it and weep!! I can sell my website and pay for a dinner for two at the Cheesecake Factory!! Or... I can sell my website and buy a tank of gas for our pickup!! Or... I can sell my website and buy a ticket to the upcoming Justin Timberlake & Pink concert, and solidify my status as ultra gay!! Wow, so many choices.

What else can I do with such an exorbitant amount of money?

Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful!

So, guess what I woke up to this morning?



At sometime around midnight last night, it began raining, with thunder and lightning, crazy for February. It rained continuously till about 2 in the morning when the temperatures started dropping, as the wind shifted and started blowing out of the north. The temperature went from about 35 down to 15 degrees in about an hour and a half, and it turned into a total white out blizzard.

So, now there is about an inch of ice on the ground, and 8" of snow covering that, with constant 20 mph winds that are gusting to 40 mph. Offutt AFB told all non essential personnel to stay home, the first time that has happened due to weather since 1975, so that should tell you just how bad the weather really is.

In January, the day before I came back, my father mentioned how "We haven't gotten much of any snow, so you shouldn't have too much trouble driving your car around while looking for a job." I have BF Goodrich KDW tires on my car, a fabulous performance tire, absolutely useless on snow and ice. Since I've been back in Nebraska, it has snowed significantly on six different occasions, 4 times bad enough to shut down school, this time being the worst of all. So when this sort of thing happens, I'm stuck at home with my car.

But that's fine, I'm going to be purchasing a cheaper car for winter travel sometime this summer.

Here are some more pictures of this particular great whiteout:

Ellen DeGeneres, You Are NOT Funny

Last night I had the unfortunate chance to catch a little bit of the Academy Awards show. This show is not one I would normally every watch, being that it's just another opportunity for attention hogs to lather themselves out upon the cameras. But I happened to walk thru my grandparent's house up at the farm and my grandmother and sister were watching the show.

What little bit I did catch, I happened to see that Ellen DeGeneres was hosting the show. Of course, there she was with her feeble attempts at humor, which are actually just inane ramblings and observations that aren't removely funny, and watching the audience clap away at her as though they were actually enjoying themselves. If they were, they're dumber than I give them credit for.

Am I the only one who feels this way? I remember a young comic years ago who was funny, she had wry, dry, deadpan humor, it was satirical, it was downright hilarious. This comic was on Showtime in the mid 80's, Johnny Carson, and was labeled by some as the funniest comic in America. Yes, this was the same Ellen DeGeneres I mentioned above...

What the hell happened? It seems like about the time she came out of the closet and announced that she was a lesbian, her career plummeted down the toilet. I looked at her Yahoo actress profile and they actually have the audacity to claim that her sexual orientation is the main reason this happened. Uh, no, the main reason that this happened is that she chose to use her sexual preference as the main subject of her routines, and guess what, that shit wasn't funny. It has nothing to do with my feelings about homosexuality, for the most part, I'm pretty much middle of the road on the issue, whatever you do behind closed doors, just don't throw it in my face. The only fact of the matter about DeGeneres is that sometime in the mid 1990's, she lost 'it', whatever 'it' was that made her funny, and she has never found 'it' again.

I guess she still has a show on television somewhere, and I can't imagine how annoying that is to watch. Her humor now is so unoriginal, it's almost as though it's aimed at making young children laugh, her perfect part may have been the idiot fish with no memory in "Finding Nemo", because she does indeed sound like an idiot, an idiot with no memory of how and when she was actually a really great comedian.

I don't know that she will ever find what it was that she had in the first place, that made her funny at one time. I think the first thing she needs to do is just drop the whole "Hey, I'm a lesbian isn't that great" act that she keeps using as source for her material. She did it again just before the Acadamy Award's Show, saying that this year's show would be "...the most lesbianist show ever." Yah, and coincidently to your hosting, the most 'not funny' ever.

Go back to the drawing board, Ellen, the 'funny lesbian trying to make people laugh' is not working.

Distance + Heart = Not Defined

It's Valentine's Day, that day where two people who love one another are to find ways to express their affections for one another thru candy, cards, balloons, phone calls, dinners, movies, and certainly physical activity of the 'lights out' kind.

As I set up things here in Nebraska for belly's return, I realize we have now spent three February 14s in a row apart. I suppose a person could get down about that, and be upset, about being apart from the person they love on yet another Valentine's Day, but I'm not overly concerned about it.

You see, everyday should be a day where you can show your affection towards the person you love, certainly so many people reserve that for say Valentine's Day or a wedding anniversary, or a birthday, or maybe Christmas, or even Columbus Day for you weird non conformists out there. I think to myself every day how lucky I am to have such an amazing strong beautiful intelligent woman in my life.

Also, although we may not be together on a physical basis, I never feel alone. And this may sound like a corny thing to say but it's true. I have dated people where I've sat right beside them and felt completely distant, and it's a comforting feeling to know that even if I'm say, 10,000 miles away in a sandy hell hole, that I'm not alone and that someone wants to be with me more than with anyone else.

So although we may be apart on another Valentine's Day, our hearts are side by side, and with that in mind I can smile and think fondly of the person who makes every day in my life meaningful.

Respect Your Elders

Well, last week I get a phone call from my mother, and she is talking about whatever, the weather, or shopping, something not all too important or I would likely remember it now. Then at about where the end of the phone call would be, she does this:

"Oh, you heard about Grandma right?"

"No, what's up?"

"She's up in the hospital, she has breast cancer"

At this point I was a little annoyed with my mother, seeing how she stated it as though she were going to say "Hey, Grandma bought a car" or "Grandma is going on a tropical cruise", rather than it being bad news. I was really stunned.

My grandmother is the hardest working person I have ever known. From pretty much the day she was married till she was around 70 years old, she was in the dairy barn, milking cows, morning and night, years and years, hardly ever taking a day off. While growing up I helped out a lot, and if there were a time where I would fall down, hit my knee, slam my hand, she would send me to the house, tell me to take a break, she would continue to do it on her own, I could take my time.

But if she ever got hurt, it didn't matter how badly, she would not leave that barn. I swear sometimes if her legs would have gotten cut off she would have just stayed there, working diligently, that's just the type of person she was. I don't know if she felt no pain, or just learned to deal with it, but like I said, she's the hardest working person that I have ever known.

I went yesterday to see her at the hospital, and when I got there she was the only one in the room, my cousin had been to see her earlier in the day, and my sister was going to be coming up to pick her up later on. She was sitting on the edge of the bed looking contemplative, no television was on, no magazines opened to read. When she saw me come in she smiled, "Oh my, I didn't expect to see you?" Of course I had to ask her what that was supposed to mean, because there is no way that I would NOT come to see her if she were sick or injured, to which she replied "Ah, I'm doing just fine, I'm all ready to go home."

I sat down and we started to talk, it's always funny how my grandmother brings up the weather, and how hot/cold/stormy/windy/rainy/dry it's going to be. She tends to be a pessimist about such things, but then, with the weather being what it is in Nebraska, she has good reason to be. But in all things related to the farm and family, she is always supportive. She asked how belly is doing, and wondered about her great grandchild on the way. I think she's excited about the opportunity of having one that she can actually see more than once maybe every 3 years or so, that's one of the big reasons I want to live closer to home, because your family is important.

I think one of the more interesting aspects about my grandmother is that she never cares to focus on her own situation, instead she wants to know how you are, and if there is anything she can do to help. She has been that way her whole life, she sacrifices anything personal for the good of those she loves. I think about some of the foolish things I have done in my life, and how I would get a stern look and maybe a sentence or two about responsibility, but it was always followed by a cold glass of milk, some cookies, and discussion about happier events.

After about an hour or so the nurses said they needed to prepare my grandmother to get ready to go home. She joked with them about how she would see them again tomorrow, for chemotherapy. They had to go so far as to remove her lymph nodes but were hopeful with the chemo that they could eradicate the rest of the cancer without too much of a problem. I was amazed that she was able to make jokes about something like that, but then that's how Grandma is, never one to focus on the bad in a situation too much, always wanting to move on to better topics.

She'll have to go up every day for chemotherapy, not sure how many days she'll have to do it. Probably until they decide that they've gotten the rest of the disease. I certainly hope we find a cure for cancer soon. You have people around the world screaming about HIV/AIDS but with all due respect to the seriousness of that particular disease, it IS preventable with simple measures. Cancer is not, and cancer affects far and away more people than HIV, I get irritated with the amount of money politicians talk about throwing at HIV, and it's not that it's a bad thing, but I believe that money could be spent better finding a cure for cancer. Supposedly we are close, and that's good.

I guess I get frustrated by a variety of things when I think about how our society deals with their elders. Is it any wonder why senior citizens fight to keep their licenses long beyond the safe point for many of them to be driving? Most of the middle aged and younger Americans have no desire to care for them, they act as though it's such a burden to give their parents a ride to the doctor, to take them shopping for food, or to even go over and visit them, just to see how they are doing. And if that's not bad enough, it's utterly appalling just how poorly the government legislates care for seniors, it's as though they feel it's just a bunch of people who should be put someone and then wait for them to die. Of course seniors want independence, who else is going to take care of them?

This is something I strongly believe in, not only because of what I see, but lets face it, we all have a very personal stake in this particular topic. You are either going to die young, or you are going to get old someday and have to deal with the very problems I've mentioned above. Even putting money away for yourself so that you have a nice nest egg doesn't always help, there are greedy children who declare their parent(s) incompetent for no other reason than to keep them from spending their hard earned money, just so they can get ahold of an inheritance when 'mom and dad finally kick the bucket'.

I don't mean to condemn everyone with broad statements, because I like to believe that the majority of Americans do care for their elders, it's just that our government is doing very little to make the quality of life for the older generations anything that you could call respectful. Our lawmakers in Washington are going to be older someday, I guess though that when you have thousands of dollars a month coming to you as part of a self promoted pension plan, then you don't have many of the same concerns that Joe Smith the life long auto worker, or Jane Williams the career waitress have to worry about. For people like them, social security doesn't really do everything it should and they live month to month hoping to have enough to survive, especially if they have no help from relatives to get them by.

Other countries do a lot more to support their elderly. I'm not even saying that we have to have our parents live with us at an older age, but there is no reason anyone over the age of 65 should have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or how they are going to pay for their medication, who will take them to their doctor's appointments, or even if they can afford their own funeral. I certainly hope this situation changes at some point. We need to have more respect for our elders, it's likely going to be you and I having the same problems someday if something doesn't change.

Reflections On California

It’s interesting that I can think of only a few places in the United States where I would absolutely NOT want to live. New York City comes to mind, Boston is another, but in terms of entire states, I was always opposed to living in California. I don’t know if it was because it seems like every person I had ever met from there has been shallow and self centered, or the idea of being in earthquake/forest fire/mud slide central, or even if it were something else about California that bothered me. So how interesting it was when belly and I found out a year and a half ago that she would not be stationed at Yuma, Arizona, but would in fact be at Camp Pendleton, in good old California.

So from the middle of November 2005 to now belly has lived in Oceanside, right next to San Diego. As for myself, I was there from November of 2006 till middle of January 2007. All together, I spent roughly 105 days in California, including the two weeks back in May when I was home on leave. As belly finishes up her time in the USMC, I’m back in Nebraska getting things ready for our return to the Husker state. Being here allows me to look back at my time in California and reflect a bit.

I’d say the first impression I got out of California was people, everywhere. There are just SO many people. I think you can be on any stretch of road or interstate at any time of day or night and there will always be other cars out there with you. If you want to get out and really “drive”, good luck. Better do it in the middle of the night because between 6 am and 10 pm, the interstates are far too crowded, and people of foreign persuasion have absolutely NO concept as to WHY the left lane is called the “passing lane”. To them it’s just another lane to drive 5 mph slower than the speed limit. Yes Hispanic and Asian drivers, I’m talking to you.

There were a lot of other SRT4 drivers out there, oddly enough I rarely ever saw one while just out driving around, but I went to a couple of meets and also to the California Speedway at Fontana to race a couple of times down the track, and they were all over there. There is quite a community online to work with in that area and that was nice. To put it into perspective, in Nebraska I have seen only one other SRT4, on base a few days after I got back. And in the regional sections on the srtforums, there is basically nothing going on in the Nebraska area, where as the California sections had a good amount of information and feedback, and events going on. I guess that’s just the difference when you have some 10 or 15 million people in an area that in Nebraska holds about 1 million.

I guess maybe coming from Nebraska I was a little unprepared for the volume of humanity you find in California. We experienced the worst of this on a Saturday in December when we went to Disneyland. It was a lot of fun early in the day, and even at about 3 pm it wasn’t too bad, but for some reason, after 5 or 6 pm people just started flooding the gates, it was like ants marching or something. We really thought that going to Disneyland in December on a Saturday would mean we’d get a lot more freedom to move around and wouldn’t have to wait in line very long for rides or food, etc. We couldn’t have been more wrong. I don’t know that I have ever seen that many people in one place at one time. It was really crazy.

Of course, with all these people, you need a way to feed everyone, and places for everyone to shop. Can’t say I have too much to complain about in that department. It seemed like you could see the golden arches of the next McDonalds from any McDonalds you went to in California, they were everywhere. There were also around 10 Walmarts within about 10 miles of our place. It was interesting sometimes how belly and I couldn’t decide what to eat, we’d just drive around and there were just too many places, how do you choose? It also made it hard to stay at home and eat, and that can be a bad thing, both on your waist and your wallet. But for all he different places shop and eat, there was very little open after 11 at night. Omaha has several 24 hour Walmarts, all of them around Oceanside closed at 11. Same with most of the places to eat, which in all reality is just like Omaha. That surprised me.

The weather was amazing. On January 1st, I went outside at about 1 in the afternoon and it was 81 degrees. That is just unreal. The weather tends to stay between 50 and 80 for the most part year round. There are a few exceptions, I don’t know about the hotter times, I wasn’t there at all during the summer, but there were a few days when it approached freezing while I was there. That seemed quite cold at the time. But I’m looking out the window now in Nebraska, at 6 inches of snow on the ground and a constant 5 degree temperature, and somehow 35 degrees actually sounds kind of nice.

I took the weather for granted while I was there. My car was always clean and sparkling, the interior still looked and smelled new. Now my car is covered in salty grime, the interior has little dirt swipes along the bottom of the doors, there is sand and grime all over in the floor mats, it’s not a disaster area, but it just doesn’t look brand new anymore. But even for how crummy the weather is now, I prefer having the seasons, both because it gives you a change of scenery, and activities, and you also have something to look forward to, if you don’t care for the weather, wait a couple months, it’s going to change.

One thing that didn’t surprise me about California, the people can be very rude. They will cut in line at the store, they will steal your parking spot right in front of you, they will talk over you if you are asking someone a question, just so they can get help before you, it’s really surprising to see just what they feel is acceptable. That’s not to say you always see this, but it is really prevalent. Certainly this isn’t just in California, whenever you throw millions of people into one area you will have this. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy it regardless of where it happens. I was appalled at what I saw from time to time.

Another surprise about California: I seriously thought that I would have to contend with hoards of Hondas and other low rate foreign cars trying to race me all the time. This never happened. In fact, the people driving those cars were reasonable to be around, rarely ever revving the engine at red lights or driving stupid. It was morons in pickup trucks that did all of that. I swear, I’ve never seen so many idiots driving pickups, always trying to race. Time and time again I’d be at an intersection waiting for a light to turn green, sitting next to a lane that would end just after the intersection, and some dumb ass in a pickup would pull up into that lane and inch out ahead as though to get ahead of me. Time and time again I’d leave the morons way behind, as he drives his oversized phallic symbol of a truck as hard as reckless as he can, failing by far to get ahead. It probably has something to do with having several large military facilities nearby, along with having the sand dunes within a couple of hours to the west. But still it was a surprise to see that the idiots aren’t driving little sports cars, they are driving 4X4 pickup trucks.

I will admit though, California wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The scenery was beautiful, the weather was amazing like I said. We really didn’t take advantage of being that close to the ocean like we should have, and I should have been out running every day, but I wasn’t. With so much fast food all around, and because I spent 15 months never cooking for myself, I got too used to hopping into my car and heading down the road to Jack in the Box, Carl Jr, McDonalds, etc, to get a burger and fries, many times with a milkshake. It certainly didn’t help that I loved driving my car around too.

But for all the little nice things about California, there are just too many people around for my liking. I am not claustrophobic by any means, but I like to be able to get away from human contact from time to time, to just go outside and get away from people, but out there, so many people. It’s nice in Nebraska to just go fishing or hiking somewhere and not see anyone for an entire day. I suppose had we lived a little further away from the coast in Cali it might have been different. Who knows, maybe we’ll be out there again someday. I know we’ll visit. Not sure if we’ll live there though. Three months is likely enough.

The (White) Crap Show

I don't think anyone can really say that reality television has come 'a long way' as a positive thought, more that reality TV has gone a long way to become a complete and total joke, especially over the last couple of years. With the Total Makeover and Bachelor/Bachelorette shows, and even worse the Surreal Life, the entire genre is truly circling the toilet bowl.

So today I'm hanging out up at Alfonzo's studio and I happen to catch a little bit of a couple of episodes of a new show on VH1, "Ego Trip's White Rapper Show". Now the premise of the show doesn't sound too bad. Ten contestants from across America will live in a run-down South Bronx tenement, and will be put through challenges that will test their knowledge of Hip-Hop culture, as well as their ideas about race.

So, could be interesting, a show that could highlight the rap culture that many young white Americans have embraced, showcasing their talent, right? WRONG!!! In no way, shape, or form did VH1 go for talent in this particular show, they went for the most screwed up, idiotic, totally half assed morons you could think of. Oh they have attitude and they are loud, but they are not talented at all. I guess they must think that the obnoxious arguing and fights are what bring in the ratings?

That's not to say that there wouldn't be obnoxious arguing and fighting among really decent rappers, but at least they would have talent. I looked over at Alfonzo and he had this "What in the FXXX??" look on his face when three of the guys on the show were 'freestyling', which is basically doing lyrics without any background music and without paper, it's all out of your mind. I told Al that the white guys I've seen rap in the studio right here are better than this. He said he had NO idea that this show was THAT bad, and yah, there are a thousand other white guys doing rap that are without a doubt better than that.

I seriously think VH1 wants everyone to have a good laugh at the expense of the white community. I mean honestly, what would happen if you took 10 blacks and put them on a show looking for the next great black country music star, but you picked 10 people who, in terms of music, had about zero talent, instead focusing on character defects and obnoxious personalities to sell your show? I can tell you right now, there would be a monstrous amount of uproar about the show being racist. But hey, these are just stupid white people trying to rap, right? Oh, I guess that makes it all okay???

I will not be watching this show again, even if I do happen to surf past it. There isn't anything even fun to watch, it's just bad. I'd be hard pressed to think 10 random white people couldn't do a better job at rapping than these morons are doing. Thanks VH1 for making white people look even less 'hip' than we already are, appreciate that immensely, because it's not like me going out there and dancing is going to fix that!