in response to my last post law girl said something about needing to write it. and i guess she's right. i did. i remember reading a (don't laugh) trixie belden book a million years ago and something significant happened and her little brother kept repeating the story to anyone who would listen. and it annoyed the hell out of her, and she had to be reminded by her parents or older brother or somebody that it was just his way of processing it. i haven't told everybody this story, but people know about it. and it happened along time ago, but i still just had to get it out there again. i probably didn't need to share it with all of you and maybe that's not fair to put it out there in a public forum, but it helped hearing (although i'm sorry they went through it too) about other people's experiences.

my sister and i talk about the difference in my mom and dad. originally she was breaking down and he was the stoic one. he still is, but we were thinking that would help her "get over it faster", whatever that means. a year later we're much smarter about the whole affair.

anyways, thanks for letting me get it out there and for the responses. it was a quiet christmas. being snowed in and what not really just let me catch up on some "me" time.

hope all of you had a good one and got everything you wanted.

christmases past...

i really can't remember the last time my whole family was together on christmas. the first year i was in the military i flew home for christmas, but i can't remember if both my sisters were there or not. i couldn't make it home the next couple of years because one year my sister had just gone through some serious chemo treatments and they thought she was too weak for us other kids to come home. she had no immune system and they were worried we'd bring home bugs. the other years i had various military obligations that prevented me from making it home. two christmases ago we were finally going to do it. it was going to be a huge family thing, my mom was incredibly excited to have her whole flock together again.

so two years ago my dad went to see his doctor. he'd had a quintuple bypass a couple years before and he wasn't feeling 100% right again or he had some questions or something. so he talked to the jackass and the guy basically put it in his mind that he was dying. now every one of us starts dying the instant we're born, the question is "when". and this guy made it sound like it was fast approaching for my dad. he and mom had a trip to thailand planned over thanksgiving for months and had bought the tickets and everything so they went ahead and went.

while they were there, he couldn't stop obsessing over the news from the doctor so he came home early and made an appointment to go to the mayo clinic. when he got home he got the word from my sister that she had gone to the doctor about a persistant headache and the word came back that it was a tumor. they thought that she should go to NYC and see a specialist sooner rather than later. dad called mom and got her moving back home quickly. they went in through her nose and cut the tumor out of my sister's head. there was alot of concern because she was a photographer and the tumor was near her optic nerve. they thought she might lose eyesight and possibly sense of smell and taste. they got most of the tumor out and sent her home with instructions to come back for a checkup. when she went to the hospital in s.c. for the follow-up they found out that the tumor had come back and was now growing at a pretty incredible rate. they sent her back up to NYC for an immediate operation. by this time my mom was back and she rushed up to NYC to be with her, and my little sister went out there to help take some of the strain off my mom and to arrange alot of the little details.

a couple days before christmas they cut the top off of her head and dug around in there and got what they could out of there. the night before christmas things started to go bad. fluid was building on the brain and causing pressure and the drain they'd put in her skull wasn't working quite right so they were going to have to back in. my dad couldn't go to new york because the monday after christmas he was supposed to go to mayo for an angioplasty to check his heart out. he thought he was dying and was hoping they'd find something out to give him a couple more weeks or months or years so he could be there for my sister and the rest of the family. but it was killing him not to be there. christmas eve mom called me and asked if there was anyway i could make it to phoenix to sit with dad and to take him to his appointment. it was too late to get a flight home and it's only a 12-14 hr ride so i decided to get a good night's sleep and start driving the next day. i took off and had a fairly catastrophic break-down at the new mexico/colo border. i had no idea what to do and needed to get home, so i left the car and started hiking down the street to a state weigh station. i was hoping to get a ride to the next town to try and rent a car or something. while i was in the weigh station i called my dad and asked him if he could start calling around to try and find me a rental car in albuquerque. the very first trucker into the weigh station after i got there was going to phoenix. i'd never hitched a ride before in my life but figured that must be a sign. two weeks before i'd been in a military school in seattle and had met up with a friend. i'd left my cell phone in their car and was literally lost without it. i didn't have a chance to call my dad to tell him i had a ride to phoenix before the trucker pulled out. so for about the next ten hours he had no idea where i was or what was going on with me.

i finally got into phoenix and had my dad come pick me up. stepping into that house was one of the saddest damned moments in my life. mom had decorated the whole thing. it had never been like that before. stockings everywhere, the works. dad didn't have the heart to tear it all apart by himself so we started to take some of that down after i got there. he's since said that without a doubt that was one of the worst moments of his life. he thought he was dying, he had no idea where i was, he thought his oldest daughter might not make it through the day...

dad went through the procedure at mayo and they told him a totally different story than his normal doctor did. yes, he was having problems and there was some blockage but it wasn't unfixable. it could be treated with medication and if it got worse it was possible that they could use stints. he wasn't going to die that day, and his heart wasn't going to fail on him anytime soon. two days later, against medical advice he flew out to new york to be with them. there was a slight possibility that the change in pressure from flying might've affected the plug they put in his leg from the angioplasty apparently. my sister pulled through that patch and made it until october. there were some rough weeks at the end, but she had a great spring and summer. so last year was their first christmas without her and i was in iraq. i'd made it home on emergency leave when we lost her in october so i couldn't come home to be with them that christmas, so on top of the pain of losing her, they were worried about me. to be honest, i had it easiest of the whole bunch. my sister and i had parted ways years before so the loss didn't hit me as sharply and i was able to throw myself into work. we had alot of kids over there who weren't getting mail so i was rushing around trying to arrange gift packages for them on top of my normal duties and was just really able to drown out alot of those feelings.

in the buddhist religion there are some things that have to be done on the year anniversary of someone's death. my parents have taken some of my sister's ashes back to thailand this year so that my grandmother can honor some of those things. it's hard, but in talking to my little sister who went with them, apparently this season hasn't been all doom and gloom.

past christmases have kind of sucked lately. mom still doesn't know about me hitch hiking and probably never will. i'm the only person that dad talks about the sadness of that christmas with. i'm sure that mom and my little sister were having a similar experience in nyc. she never got her hope of having all of us kids under one roof again for another christmas. but it sounds like they're healing and hopefully christmases will start looking up, beginning with this one.

i hope everyone is safe and happy, or at least content and at peace. i hope everyone can look back on the last year and find something to be thankful for.

merry christmas ya'll.

gift certificates...

... so. gift certificates get a bad rap. i'd like to say something though.

my little sister is one of my absolute favorite people for ONE simple reason. she gets me what i want for every event where gift giving is appropriate. i frequently ask everyone who asks me for gift cards. they really are what i want. i'm not trying to save them trouble. i'm not trying to not be a pain in the ass. i really, really want a gift card. get me a card from barnes and noble, target, the harley davidson store, lowes or any of a couple resteraunts that i like going to. why? because i frequently won't buy dvd box sets or cd's or hardcover books for myself because of guilt over spending the money. but for some reason if i've got a gift card it's different. so when that new hardcover book comes out that i really, really want i don't have to wait another six months for it to come out in paperback. and there were some lean years where a target card got me through some tough spots. or when i'm CRAVING the mongolian beef from p.f. chang's it is a wonderful present to me.

my mom drives my dad insane. she collects alot of clutter. they actually own two houses. this big house that used to hold the whole family but now only holds the two of them but is still filled with decades' worth of crap. and a new house that they plan to retire to someday. dad would absolutely love to just sell the old house with everything in it. EVERYTHING. and it's going to kill him to have to pack up alllllll the junk from it and move it into their retirement house. he loves the simplistic feel in the new place. so for years they've asked that no one get them anything for christmas. and he really means it. if there is something that they need/want they go out and buy it. they have no secret desires for trinkets. all the stuff that people give them just adds to the clutter. so my little sister and i started giving them gift certificates as well. for nice resteraunts and for movie theaters and concerts and stuff. and that's perfect for them. because they both work conflicting schedules they don't get alot of time together. so that's all stuff that they can do but because they're somewhat frugal might not normally pay for themselves.

so. don't immediately assume that people would be offended by them. they're not impersonal. and it really is better to get someone a gift card than to get something that's completely unwanted.

i was tagged...

This is a Christmastime assignment from LeeLee. She tagged me, with the following instructions:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123 and go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Name the book and the author.
5. Tag some people.

Ok here's mine:

tortured. it was one of those words that could rip right through the soul and make kidnapping sound almost benign. jack lowered his eyes.

it's from "got the look" by james grippando.

i'm not going to tag anyone. this is a voluntary tagging. if you read this and want to do it, just let me know so i can come read your blog.

there isn't much i hate more than "mandatory fun". don't have christmas parties, etc. and expect me to be there unless you're going to pay me for my time. otherwise leave me the hell alone. not that i'm anti-social or anything. and i'm talking "work" parties here vs. "parties thrown by friends". but we had to have a little organized fun this last weekend for the military. i didn't really mind this one so much because we've got some people going down range again and this is probably the last time i'll see some of them before the leave.

i rarely a) get dressed up in my class "a" uniform and b) want to have a picture taken. this was one of the rare times when both happened, so of course there was no-one around. so yes. i took my own damned picture.

it might be the headcold. but this cracks me up for some reason.

i'm a bad blogger...

sorry there hasn't been much from this corner lately. i've wanted to reply to alot more than i have, but blogger was being difficult because i haven't switched to beta yet. i haven't written alot because i've just been swamped. job hunt, car hunt, school, work, army obligations and army guilt-trips, etc, etc.

hope everyone is having a great time getting ready for the holidays.

i've always loved motorcycles. convertibles or jeeps were the next best things. but i've also been known to be doing 80 down the interstate and stick my head out the window while driving if i was in a sedan. i've always hated being enclosed in a normal car. when i was wanting a road bike dad and me got into a huge argument. so i got a jeep as a compromise.

i'm not quite sure why, but for some reason i got made the operations NCO for our company and our detachment in iraq. i also did alot of the planning and training for the detachment. when we first got into iraq, four of us took off on this whirl-wind tour of iraq. we had to go to all these remote sites around the northern half of the country to inventory the equipment that we'd be taking over from the people we were replacing. we set out in trucks and the rest of the guys flew out later. the very first night after we got there when we first left the wire we got shot at. because we racked so many miles up so fast and had the experience we were the ones that turned around and trained the rest of the guys in the det. i used to obsess before a mission. i'd be lucky to get 2 or three hours of sleep because i was just constantly trying to play possible scenarios out in my head and how we'd respond. i'd try to remember all the planning that we'd forgotten so i could do whatever needed to be done in the morning. whenever something bad happened to convoys i'd look over the reports, talk to as many people in similar positions as me, just trying to sponge up all different sorts of tactics and procedures. i'd take all of this stuff and train out guys. we were constantly refining our operating procedures, up til the last minute before we left the country. i think some of my guys hated me, they didn't understand my paranoia.

i spent a year trying to come up with every possible way to destroy a humvee or lmtv and then tried to come up with ways to avoid that. or if it happened to figure out how we'd respond to save as many lives as possible and keep from losing any more. it's kinda silly, but i can't turn that off now. i hate riding in a car now. i didn't love it before, always felt confined, but it was at new levels when we first got back. i still don't want to wear a seat belt. feels like i can't get out of the vehicle fast enough if something happens. i'm not a nervous wreck or anything, i can do it and have a pleasant little conversation with whoever is in the vehicle with me, but there's definately a nervous little itch that i can't get rid of. blah. silliness i know. i just wanted to explain why i'd rather ride a motorcycle when it's 26 degrees outside than ride in a car.

randoms

-me and the motorcycle had a run in with black-ice the day before yesterday and lost. in true bonehead fashion i sacrified my body for the sake of the bike. we're both fine because it was a low speed accident involving me and the ice and accelerated by the UPS truck that didn't see me and started to turn in front of me causing me to jerk while on the ice. i probably would've lost control on the ice anyway, that just sped it up a little. really starts the day off wrong though.

-spent 5 hours yesterday on the motorcycle yesterday. that was a good way to get over any possible insecurities caused by the spill the day before.

-this last weekend while scraping knuckles on the galaxie and trying unsucessfully to get ahold of the guy i've been trying to get who's supposed to be a mechanical genius and was supposed to work on my oldsmobile i decided "screw it, i'm getting a new car". originally i started out looking at wildly expensive new stuff, then reigned myself in. i have no idea what's going on with my job, etc. i don't need a new car, don't really want one, and it's not a wise move. so i started looking at used.

-i've absolutely HATED looking for used cars just as much as I hate looking for new jobs. i've been just a few minutes late on a couple perfect cars several times in a row now. and my wants keep shifting. one minute i just want the bare minimum. just what i need to get back and forth to work on days i need to carry something larger than the motorcycle can handle or on snow/ice days. then other days i want a bigger truck or a nicer old camry or something. right now i've got my mind set on an isuzu amigo, even though you can't find them here in denver usually.

-i was having a talk with an army buddy the other day. he's convinced that PTSD is manifesting itself in him and alot of guys we know as a lack of energy/motivation. not quite depression, but an inability to do anything other than the bare minimum. these guys who had all these big plans are having the hardest time just waking up and dragging their butts into work. i can see this in alot of them. i'd like to say it's in me so i'd have an excuse. but i was lazy as hell before the deployments. i'd rather read a book or sleep than do homework or anything so i don't have to do the work. there are two things i need to do to really help myself on the job hunt. finish my security clearance paperwork and finish these last two classes for my degree. easy right? not-s0-much. someone want to come tutor me on this trig? and by "tutor" i mean pretty much do it for me?

damned taggers!

julie tagged me, so here goes.

"According to the rules, each player of this game starts with the title "Six Weird Things About Me." People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own six weird things and state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose six people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says, 'You are tagged!' in their comments and tell them to read your blog!"

1) i hate the use of the word "meme" in alot of cases. i don't think a list of things about me in particular constitutes "cultural information". but maybe i'm wrong.

2) i regularly watch cartoons. so much so that catch-phrases will work their way into my vocabularly. from "jinkies" (velma/pup named scooby doo) to "please and thank you" (kim possible).

3) i can pretty much sleep anyplace/anytime except for in bed at bedtime. because of this i must live in the batcave. dark as can be, door closed, fan on RIGHT next to the bed so it both provides white noise and vibrates the bed a little. removing external distractions only helps a little bit.

4) i'm incredibly phobic about revealing too much info on the internet and becoming a target of opportunity. either identy theft, someone who's anti-u.s. and picks me or my family or friends because i reveal something too much and they know i'm military or whatever. and yet i blog and spill my guts frequently.

5) for a period of about 7 years i shut down battery operated watches. wear one, it'd die. take it off, it'd start back up. and it'd usually die at the same time every day. so i got addicted to automatic watches.

6) i like sharp cheddar cheese on apple pie.

i think i'm going to tag new reads with this. of course they might hate me and never read again. so maybe i should go with old. hmmm. no. new. fun to learn more stuff about them. i was going to tag that damned irish, but she's on hiatus.

i think we'll shoot for erika, amy, crystal, celeste, (not new but i've never seen him do something like this before) jl4, and to make sure she's still kicking, law girl.

i'm going to hell...

i've got nothing against homosexuals. a person's sexuality really doesn't affect me at all unless they're shooting me down or continuing to pursue me (yeah. cause THAT happens) after i've said "no thanks". i'm such a walking disaster area in so many ways that i'm WAY too busy worrying about myself and getting myself out of trouble to worry about someone else and their likes or dislikes.

so i realize that they're a minority. and i should be sensitive. especially as a kinda-sorta-not minority myself. (no, not the computer geek minority. the half-thai one.) but i can't stop saying "gay". "that's so gay". "gay it down". "gayness". "don't be so gay". must. stop.

women continue to confuse...

i worked retail in high school. the youngest assistant manager in the history of one fashion retail company at the time. i really liked it, and fed off the energy of dealing with people and thought i'd make a career of it. i really enjoyed the fashion retail stuff and started to take some fashion merchandising classes and retail management and design courses in college. then alot of stupid stuff happend and i did a 180 and was a machinist and lab technician in a r&d lab.

so once upon a time when i was getting huge discounts and cared i was fairly fashion conscious. then i had to start paying full price. and THEN i turned into my dad. "what the hell am i paying these people so much money to advertise for their business?" and then i started dressing for comfort and dependability . my current fashion tastes are what i like to call "boring-rugged-casual".

why do you need to know all of that? you REALLY don't. but you're stuck here and i'm telling the story and now you've read so much that it's pretty silly to back out without knowing where i'm going with all of this right? i was just laying some ground work. while i don't dress to impress now, and while i really dislike alot of current male and female fashion, i could metro up with the best of them if properly motivated. i can accessorize and color-coordinate. i know what periwinkle and coral are. and more importantly? i'm a guy. i've spent the better part of 33 years checking women out, noting what gets a positive and what gets a negative response. i've had thousands of in-depth discussions with other guys. i'm an expert on what looks good on a woman.

so with all of that, why do women listen to other women before they do a guy? i've always found this funny. with the exception of a couple girls who've gone shopping with me and know my dirty little fashion-sense secret most girls i know will listen to other girls first. who's attention are you trying to get? i told someone the other day that i wouldn't wear the combination she chose. i was trying to be polite by saying that it wasn't really flattering to her figure. the truth was it made her ass look huge. huge i say. HUGE. but i was instantly laughed at and told that my opinion didn't matter because she'd received several compliments from women about her jacket. hey, i don't care. if you want to look like you have a huge ass when you're already self conscious about your weight, go ahead and wear whatever you want to wear. and you're right. the jacket does look cute. but the really fitted waist on it only makes your hips look like they swell like crazy. and that just draws attention to the cut of those jeans. and when you wear them with those really high heeled boots it just makes your legs look extremely narrow, which again... draws attention to the hugeness of the assness. i would've been more than happy to point out that a different set of shoes or wearing the jacket with a similar shade but different cut of jean would be a much more flattering combination but after the immediate laughter...

i'm all about dressing for comfort. if i tell you "hey, that doesn't look so hot" and you say "yeah, but it feels great so i don't care". amen. carry on with your bad self. or if you've got a weird style you like? go for it. but it's always amused me when girls who are hunting for guys still ask girls for their opinion. when i'm trying to impress a girl, i ask another girl who i think has similar tastes to the one i'm trying to impress for imput.

of course, i've never understood why on most men's magazine covers, we have a woman. we ooh and aah over her and that's why we first pick the magazine up. after we flip through it we may find other reasons to purchase. rarely is it a guy on the cover unless it's a fitness mag and that's the ideal to work up to, or unless it's such a great story about the guy that we're interested. but the female magazines tend to have the "ideal" woman on the cover. i frequently hear the stories about how men impose these incredibly unrealistic expectations on women, but i sit back and see alot of self-imposed expectations. sure, huge breasts grab your attention like a car wreck, but that doesn't mean they're every man's idea of perfection. i see women buying barbie's for their daughters and snatching those magazines off the racks. i know i'll never look like the guy on the cover of men's fitness, so i rarely buy it. weirdness.

"i do whatever pops into my head. i'm like a monkey."

this made me happy.

more happy feet

i needed happiness after the other thing. so here's more feet. i love reef sandals. they're absolutely comfy after a long day (or week) in combat boots, a hard run, fighting the crowds in the mall christmas shopping, whatever. a week in shorts and reefs on the beach puts my head back on straight. when i was in iraq i came across another reef lover. the picture HAD to be taken.

show off your happy feet!

i just got a spam for child porn. i reported it to a child abuse hotline but i still feel queasy. i need a shower.

when the adrenaline dumps...

julie had a post the other day about her drive home and her almost accident. in amazing clarity she rattles off the various thoughts that ran through her head in the instant before her car was almost hit.

i love the "atticus kodiak" series by greg rucka. go. buy this series now. anyways, in the second book he talks about "stupid things that go through your head when the adrenaline dumps". he does a great job writing believeable characters. they're people you know even though they're in fictional, over the top adventures and what goes through their heads is similar to stuff that has usually gone through my head. anything from "oh shit, this is gonna leave a mark" to "lordy, i'm glad i've got a good job with health benefits."

i had JUST read and commented on julie's post and was leaving work to go home. the temperature had dropped and the snow had come in. i was driving down the interstate when a car next to me lost it and started to spin and nudged me and made me spin. just as the spin started i cursed the lack of a good, self cleaning old-school willys jeep treads on my truck. not so great on ice but last night might've worked against the slushy, tread clogging snow. as i continued through my spin i was wondering how much my insurance rate was going to hike and was muttering "son of a BITCH!" as the car that nudged me righted itself and drove off. as i came to the stop of my spin with the nose and cab of the truck in the lane next to the one i started in and saw a huge semi truck coming at me i started laughing of all things... "if i thought i had an unhealthy phobia of being inside a car before..."

oddly enough i got myself righted and out of his way (and he swerved and braked enough) before he flattened me. it still amazes me how many thoughts can go through your head in such a short period of time.

happy feet...

so they're FINALLY shipping the new lines for my galaxie. hopefully it'll be back up and running soon. however it's supposed to snow off and on all week, so no motorcycle for me. so this morning i was getting dressed for work and was reaching for my boots when i saw my old skools out of the corner of my eye. "why not?" i asked. no reason to wear the boots if i'm not riding the scoot. sure i'm pushing the limits of our dress code, but sometimes you've just gotta be a rebel. that's me. damn the man! me and my badass vans.

i love my vans.

the end.

so i love visiting my parents. definately a good thing, but i hate leaving. it's weird. much like the weekend ending. the last day or two are still fun, but there's that feeling of the last week of summer vacation. knowing that you've got to go back to school in a couple days, dealing with the jack-ass teachers, bullies, my parents when i wasn't making straight a's... not an anxiety attack, but just feeling the stress pile on again.

so i'm having a great time with them, but the real world starts up again tomorrow...

i hope everyone is having a great thanksgiving. whether you're with loved ones and doing the whole she-bang, or whether you pulled the covers over your head and slept way late, i hope you had a good time doing whatever recharges your batteries and took a few minutes to appreciate all the good things in your life.

i'm with my parents in arizona. always a wonderful time for me. i don't know why, but this place always puts me at ease and makes me feel relaxed on levels i can't reach anywhere else. i don't know if it's my parents, or the house or arizona and the heat or what. no idea.

i think about where i was last year, sitting in the dining facility in iraq, with all the crew. totally different experience but not a bad time at all. two totally different days but both were days full of reflection and gratitude.

i had a great weekend. i'm exhausted, we worked our asses off at times. but a great weekend.
i frequently am at work until long after sunset. it's great to be outside from dawn til dusk.

i was talking to someone the other day and they told me that i was the most closed off person they'd ever met and that they don't understand how i got to be this way and that it must just hurt to be me. i had no response, still don't really. i'm just me. it doesn't hurt. i don't know anything else. i normally don't spend much time thinking about it. then a few days later i was telling someone about applying for the antartica trip. they looked at me funny and said that most people they'd blow off when they said that, but that they thought it'd actually be a pretty good fit for me. that i was very internalized, that i could work well with a team or a group and not screw up group dynamics but that they'd known me for years and still didn't feel like they knew me.

i still have no idea what to think of either of those comments. when i was a kid we moved around alot. my parents were very careful with their money and i spent time in a private catholic school and a private college prep school with kids from wealthy families. i was a part asian kid in really small towns that hadn't seen alot of other asian kids. not a terribly traumatic childhood, but early on i found it was much more comfortable inside my own head, be it just watching movies that i wrote, directed and produced on the insides of my eyelids or reading books. in my early teen/before the driver's license years my parents moved into a house in the middle of nowhere. not a farm, just a house with the nearest neighbors a ways down the road. that lead to tons of time spent walking around in the woods doing whatever.

i was always one of the "doesn't meet full potential" kids. always in advanced classes, but never getting a's. this bothered my dad, so i would spend the time in between reports cards on restriction. restriction meant no t.v./radio/computer. just me'n'the books.

i can remember coming home in the third or fourth grade and being frustrated by social interactions at school. no sad or hurt, but just frustrated, so much so that while trying to explain it to my dad i started crying. he was really great and comforting to me. then he went out and talked to mom and said stuff about me. i don't remember what, and as an adult with an adult's comprehension, it was probably nothing bad. probably just called me "sensitive" or something. but at the time i took it as betrayal and his compassion as acting. i tried hard to never cry again.

in dating i frequently attracted the broken birds. people who'd been raped/abused/molested. i still don't know why. i'm sure the first couple people i dated i was just giddy and open and like any other goofy teen. but handling some of those bigger problems really made me careful of what i say. definately minefield walking. i came to not rely on relationships for happiness or fulfillment.

do all of those things and a little genetic makeup come together to make me "closed off"? who knows. do these people give me a little too much credit for being "complex" or 3-d? i think i'm a fairly flat, 2-d guy. are they looking for something that just isn't there?

the weird part is that i think i'm a little too open. i frequently feel like i bore people at work or wherever with my stories. i do this blogging thing, but it's really written for me to just sort stuff out and get it down. i love the feedback, and kinda like to ham it up for an audience which i normally wouldn't do as much in person. are "shy" and "closed off" the same thing?

i think people adapt to situations. i'm not talking about faking or lying or anything, but i think most people have different sides that come out depending on who they're with and what kind of environment they are in. is that what happens? a little more open with some people you trust and a little reserved with some you don't on some level?

who knows. it was just something interesting to think about for several hours this weekend when i couldn't sleep. there's probably a... not quite a sequel to this but a tangent post in future.

i've got to go play g.i. joe for the next three days. being the super geek i am, i actually will be carrying my internet access along with me, but i might not have the time to use it. or i might. who knows. just in case, no one do anything exciting or entertaining until i get back.

i love reading and i love sharing good books. so. if anyone wants any of the books from my list of books i read in october let me know and i'll be happy to send it to you. the only caveat is once you're done, you need to attempt to pass it along to someone else. doesn't have to be through your blog. lemme know.

in addition, i'll go through my stack of books at home and try to add more to the list. i saw this going on on someone else's blog for another book and thought it was a good idea.

real men...

a couple days ago i was reading someone's blog and they had their list of what constituted a "real man". one of the bullets was "real men don't bake". i was running errands today and it made me think about that. i had to get 9mm and .308 ammo to go shooting with a friend, i stopped at the dealer to talk about upgrades to my motorcycle, i bought some stuff to finally finish off my desk project and i stopped and bought a new stand-up mixer because i was tired of using a hand mixer to make frosting for a cake decorating class i'm taking. why am i taking a cake decorating class? because everytime i saw a cake i kept wondering how the hell they make the flowers and stuff and because for the life of me i could never ice a cake and make it look normal. most of mine looked like they'd dropped on the floor or something. so i took the first class and had fun and am now taking the second. it's interesting to learn how they do all the intricate stuff, the teacher is an absolute hoot and so are the students. they're a pretty wide mix of people. the added responsibilities kinda help keep me focused as well. i have to spend a couple hours every sunday getting ready for the class and it actually pries me away from the office one night a week. and it's just completely different from everything else i normally do.

frequently when i pull into a place with other bikers around i get razzed for riding a sportster. "hey, you know what real men say about sportsters?" "uh, i'm not gay. i don't try to pick up men with my motorcycle. so no, i don't know and i really don't give a shit. hey. wait a minute. why do YOU care so much?"

doing a search on the internet i find that apparently real men:

-wear kilts
-cook
-have depression
-are tax deductible
-do yoga
-exfoliate
-are not media representations
-love flowers
-cry
-cheat
-don't cheat
-are promise keepers
-point and laugh at promise keepers
-wear pinstripes
-are real
-want bush
-don't click
-don't play GURPS
-wear flannel

just to name a few... who knows what a "real man" is? anyways. it's funny, i'm 33. i couldn't call myself a man until recently. like, in the last couple of years. when i thought of a "man" it was my dad or my uncles or a couple other people i really respect. calling myself a man was an insult to them. it wasn't me, i was still a kid. i don't know what changed, when i decided things changed, when i could take myself seriously to call myself that. or maybe i never could, but everyone else did and i finally stopped fighting it. but i don't remember ever wearing a kilt...

this is how i'm going to celebrate veteran's day. you know, there are alot of solid movies that portray different aspects of war realistically, but alot of them skip over the boredom and the downtime. alot of them fail to acknowledge that for every soldier out there doing the gung-ho stuff there are a ton of airmen, sailors and soldiers who have a very unexciting, monotonous life far away from home supporting those few guys who are doing the normal rambo stuff.

i have a friend who i went to high school with who got back from iraq just as i was headed over. unlike me, he was stuck in a support role on the same base and hated his entire year deployment. he had an awful chain of command that didn't instill a sense of purpose in the troops. they didn't give them a "big picture" view of what they were doing over there and how they were supporting other guys and so to him, that was a year wasted.

i was largely support as well, but i was supporting tactical teams at the company level and i farmed myself out to other units as well, so i did get to go outside the wire and meet and greet locals and dodge bad stuff and lead some combat patrols. i was plugged in enough to get the big picture as well, how what we were doing affected what was going on in our region of the country.

this movie does a great job catching that boredom and the despair of wanting to contribute and feel important. and it's as true for thousands of soldiers fulfilling logistical roles in iraq and afghanistant and kuwait and other places around the world today as it was after WWII.

i got nothing...

i wanna have stuff to write about, but it's the same 'ole, same 'ole...

trying to go to korea next month, but because some jackass couldn't be bothered to do his job properly while i was in iraq my security clearance has lapsed. i'm not sure that i can get it going again in time before the trip.

i'd love to apply for a 4 month job in the antartic but i'm probably going to wuss out of it because of the uncertainty of life after the job. i'll try to line up a job and i'll check it out, but i can't go down there and then come back here without something to slide into. that's okay though, it's nice to play "what if" about some stuff sometimes without actually going all the way through with it.

so my world traveling plans aren't working out quite as well as i'd like. but other things are going well.

the heated jacket liner kicks ass. if any of you are struggling for a christmas present for a motorcycle rider, let me highly recommend the warm'n'safe products. i was doing 70 mph when it was 22 degrees the other day and arrived to work in a non-seansicle format. it was great.

i finally got a new radiator that fits in my galaxie. apparently it was an oddball and was one of a very small number that was built with a certain type of radiator. it was such a rarity that it took the girl about a week to find the right part and then it had to be custom built. the bad part is that in the process of taking the old radiator out i had to shear off the automatic transmission lines. so now i'm waiting for replacements to get shipped here.

that's it. all the news that is fit to print.

books i enjoyed in october:

"school days" by robert b. parker
"shopgirl" by steve martin
"not a good day to die: the untold story of operation anaconda" by sean naylor
"delta force" by col. charlie beckwith (retired)
"inside delta force: the story of america's elite counterterrorist unit" by csm. eric haney (retired)
"never have your dog stuffed: and other things i've learned" by alan alda
"about a boy" by nick hornby

not as many as i would've liked, but it was a busy month and i was actually trying to knock out some homework...

sometimes i get a tiny little bit overextended...

this last month has freaking flown by and it doesn't look like things are slowing down anytime soon. i'm no busier than anybody else, but i keep saying "yes" instead of "no" when people ask for that little bit extra and that's what kills me. instead of one weekend of reserve stuff this last month i did two, to help out. ran a leg in the denver marathon, helped some people move, put in alot of after-hours time at work, silly stuff like that. next thing i know october is gone....

part of the problem was this post though... when i wrote it, i meant to follow it up, especially after i got some comments. so much so that i was awake all freaking night because i couldn't get my brain to shut off. did i get out of bed and start typing away though? no. that would've been way to easy. two days later when i finally got a chance to start typing it out, i hated everything i wrote. all the stuff that seemed so clear in the middle of the night wasn't... i probably spent another 3 or 4 days trying to figure out what i wanted to say and then life interupted again.

oh well. i'm back on track now with other stuff. here's photos of the marathon fun. two weeks before the marathon some folks approached me about running. not a helluvalot of advanced notice. i agreed but said i wanted to run short legs. i'd run multiple legs, but damnit, they'd better be short. turns out the transitions weren't geared that way, there were going to be two 8+ mile legs, a 5+ and a 3+. i agreed to the 3+. no problem. i could gut that out. the morning of one of the other guys was worried, he thought he'd broken a bone in his foot. so with about 30 minutes notice i took one of the 8s. i figured it was all varying degrees of suckage at that point.

once upon a time i was going through some training being taught by l.a. county swat guys. we'd long since done room clearing and were working on clearing 2 story buildings and city blocks. we were getting pretty good and so these guys were mixing things up. i was first through a room door and one of them was standing in one of the blind corners with a hand grenade in one hand, the index finger on his other hand looped the ring of the safety wire, ready to pull. i started yelling at him to put the grenade on the ground and he just stood there. i really had NO idea what to do and lowered my weapon to ask him what the right thing to do in the situation was. we talked about the scenario for a few minutes and he told me that he had no idea what the RIGHT thing to do was, but that i did the wrong thing by stopping. In his mind anything would've been better than nothing. I could've shot him, and continued through the room and out the window if he pulled the pin as he died, or back out of the room and hit the ground in the hall. or kept trying to talk him into giving up the grenade.

we frequently train and train and mess with one another. we'll never be able to prepare people for every situation. that's not our intent. our intent is to get people to think. and to expose them to as much as possible so that when things go south their intincts will lead them in the right direction. and we're repeatedly told that there is no WRONG decision when you're in the middle of it, as long as you make some decision and keep moving through the situation. outnumbered and out of ammo? fix bayonnets and charge. the bad thing is freezing under the pressure and doing nothing.

there's a song out right now that makes me think of this frequently, "if you're going through hell" by rodney atkins. the refrain goes:

Yeah, If you're going through hell

Keep on moving, Face that fire

Walk right through it

You might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

Yeah you might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

Yeah.

i was reading "delta force" by col. beckwith. he talks about the failed mission by delta force to free the hostages from the u.s. embassy in 1980. the ground force was on the ground and the helos had come in to pick them up and take them into iran. the spare helos had failed and they didn't have enough to lift them into iran so the mission was being scrubbed. the troops were loaded on the c-130's and were ready to take off when one of the helos hit one of the planes, catching it on fire. i'd like to share a passage:

But his surprise was nothing compared to that of the Blue Element operator who had dozed off on the C-130 just before the helicopter crashed into it. At the explosion, he had awakened and joined the line of guys exiting the plane through one of the hatches. There was smoke and fire. The engines were still running and the aircraft was shaking violently as the chopper continued to cut into it. The operator evidently thought that while he was dozing the 130 had taken off and was now airborne. When it was his turn to leave he automatically assumed a freefall parachute position and jumped. He landed spread-eagled on the ground. Afterward his mates asked, having jumped, what he was going to do next without a parchute? "I don't know," he answered. "I was just taking one thing at a time."

i don't know if i can take it to that extreme yet... but i do believe in the concept. i don't know why, but for some reason i've been the guy that a couple people are calling way to regularly to gripe about the problems in their life. and to be honest their issues really aren't so bad. they just need to suck it up and get through it. tighten the belt, kick the cheating girlfriend/boyfriend out, tell the boss to kiss their ass or get serious about the job hunt. they're in these awful situations but aren't taking any steps to get themselves out of it. sometimes it's important to distill stuff down to the basics. these are those little things i have to remember when I'M the one in the crappy situation.

i try not to get into politics...

but i've just got to say... just because we stop fighting them doesn't mean they're going to stop fighting us.

http://www.army.mil/terrorism/read.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/

the wonder years...

i used to watch "the wonder years" alot as a kid. i guess i kind of grew up with it. kevin arnold was roughly my age, give or take a couple and things that happened to me usually happened on the show, or vice versa. sometimes he was a little ahead of my time and sometimes i grew up before he did, but the shared experiences were there. i think i was probably a little older and graduated before he did, but it moved in a little more of a compressed time frame. we moved so much i didn't have a huge circle of close friends, so things like that helped a little. nice to know you're not the only weirdo out there, you know? i think one of the really neat things about the timing of the show in my life was the narration. daniel stern was there as the adult looking back on his life to let you know that maybe you never forgot the crap that happened to you, but you learned to deal with it, the pain got less with each passing day and life goes on. my dad isn't a big t.v. watcher, but that was one of the few programs he could stomach, and it was kind of the same with him. there was such a commanality about the show, so many can and could relate to it. it'd remind him of something he had done or been through as a kid and he was able to talk about it as well. kind of helped us communicate.

one of the episodes dealt with sons realizing their dads aren't superman. it was funny, this really didn't happen to me until much later in life. i mean, i knew my dad made mistakes but he was always my hero. when it got weird was later in life, when i was a young adult, making some decisions based on morals. my dad is a good man, but he grew up in a different time than i did, and definately in a much harsher environment. a dirt-poor farm, a one room school-house. bread and butter sandwiches because there was no money for anything else to put between the slices. hand me down everythings, from books and clothes to musical intruments. up before dawn to do chores and bedtime when it was dark because of no t.v. and no money to pay for alot of lights. he hated the farm with a passion and couldn't wait to get away from it. he did this and that for awhile and ended up eating cereal the last couple days before the paycheck came. where i joined the military out of a sense of obligation and and adventure, he joined strictly for the college money. he didn't go to vietnam to fight for god and country, he went because it was the only way to get the extra money for school. huge difference between the two of us. he's a realist first, and an idealist second, i'm probably an idealist first and a realist second. funny how much of a gulf that difference in priorities can create when you're in your early 20's and making some serious life decisions.

we spent a couple years where we had very little contact with one another. not because of any problems, but my whole family is fairly autonomous. we'd call once every couple of months to check in with one another and that was good. there were supposed to be christmas visits, but my older sister was home recuperating with no immune system and so our visits could've been deadly. other times i had military obligations and life just kept going on.

in recent years we've become significantly closer. i'm not sure what happened. i'd like to say it's because i've grown up, and i'm sure that's a part of it, but i don't think that's all of it. i think dad comes from a different age, where providing for the family was the most important thing ever. and he was in the partnership with mom. she took care of us in her way so that he could travel and do his thing and take care of us in his. he missed alot of birthdays and soccer games because he was on the road traveling. but he always told us he loved us and he was a great dad. he doesn't have alot of imagination. he had problems playing pretend games with us. and that hampered our ability to connect with him when we were really young. but as i've got older i went to him more and more for advice because he's just the smartest person i know. he's got an amazing ability to detach himself from a situation and look at it from all angles. i would've loved to see him as a military leader. i think as all the kids have moved out of the house and the retirement fund was fairly well topped off, dad started to take alot of time to enjoy life more. the weight of responsibility was off of his shoulders and he was able to breathe a little. that made him alot more fun. and for some reason we all sold him short. thought of him as a little more rigid and closed minded than he really is. i think there was "dad, the father" who had to be somewhat strict and overbearing and "dad the person". now that he's not responsible for our rights and wrongs he's not preaching and lecturing so much. now that we've shown we can stand on our own two feet he's more open. it's been neat getting to know more about him.

i think we all grew up alot with this last year. losing my sister brought us all alot closer together. we say things we said before, but we say them more often now. dad surprised the hell out of me the other day. i got a very nice letter from him and a box with a beautiful book about fathers and sons and a good luck charm from a recent trip to japan. we're different, both from each other and from the way we were years ago, but this new phase in our relationship is really exciting me. he still disappoints me sometimes, especially when he listens to what he hears on the news about iraq and the middle east instead of me, the guy who's been there twice... and i know not alot irritates him more than me riding the sportster every chance i can. but we've gotten over the silly little battles about silly little things.

one of my worries in the blog thing is repeating myself. there are times when i sit down to write and get part way through an entry and it sounds so much like something i wrote before. whether that's just because i was THINKING about writing it before while i was running or driving or doing whatever...

trouble had a post the other day that started out kinda rough (the situation, not her writing) but ended with a warm and fuzzy. she defines "home" in a way that clicks with me and my definition of the term. when i was in jr. high or high school i brought home "platoon" to watch. alot of people at school had talked about it and i wanted to see it. my dad and i had watched some other war movies and he'd opened up about some things and at that point we weren't communicating as well as we could be, so it was nice to have that way to bond. i thought platoon might be another good experience. about 30 or 40 minutes into it dad shut the movie off. the next day we were doing yardwork and he talked to me about it. it wasn't that it was bringing back any memories or anything like that, it was the cursing and violence with the rest of the family watching. he said that if i wanted to watch that by myself, or with him when my mom and sisters weren't around, he'd have no problems with that. (i should say here that in 33 years, i've never heard my mom use a curse word stronger than "darn" or "shoot". she's worked in resteraunts and retail, so she's very much aware of them and exposed to them, she's just decided that she is not going to use them.)

i asked my dad why, and he went on to say that he wasn't stupid. he knew us kids were exposed to stuff outside the house, and he was sure that we all probably cursed and did things we shouldn't when we weren't around him and mom. the thing is, he felt that a home should be sanctuary, a place to escape the ugliness of the world. we always moved, we've got a white-as-white can be father and an asian mother, we all inherited my dad's clumsiness and what not... we were all picked on in school. no worse than anybody else probably, but at the time it always felt like the spotlight was on us. he knew this, and wanted home to be that place where we could come, be ourselves and know we were loved and accepted. we fought and had our disagreements but at the end of the day we were still family. not watching a movie like that with everyone around was one of the ways he felt he needed to protect that. my mom and sisters didn't necessarily want to watch "platoon" in the first place, so i was forcing that ugliness on them.

now i'm weird. i'm just now starting to plant roots. i've actually lived in the same city and worked for the same company for 7 years. i kind of like it here. but between the army and being a nomadic family growing up i have never really felt like "home" was some region of the country that i made trips back to. "home" is just wherever the hell i drop my bags and pass out for the night. all i really need nowadays are my cellphone, laptop and a book or two to read. i love to travel for business and have been trying to find a 100% travel job. i get into a routine wherever i'm at and i'm happy. one of the things that makes this possible is that i'm comfortable in my own skin for the most part, and i do things my way, just the way i like them. this makes cohabitation a total battle for me. it's not "my way of doing things" anymore. it's "our". i'm not the only one that decides where to put stuff or how to do things in the house, and it's amazing how much stress this creates and how much it takes away from the sanctuary of the home. and it's amazing how vulnerable that comittment can make you. you take what used to be good hearted joking around to heart. no one can hurt you so much as the people you let into your heart. you're not just giving them the run of the house, you're giving them free reign in your nogin... they push the furniture around up there and go digging through your mental closets looking for skeletons. i'm not sure how long it takes to sync with someone and get over that stress. my parents did it so amazingly and made it look so simple. in some ways their "perfect relationship", while a great example for what love can and should be also set us kids up for failure because they made it look so easy. we didn't see the compromise and give and take that are necessary in a good working relationship.

my dad and trouble really know what the idea of a true "home" is, the problem for me is figuring out how to get there sometimes.

i'm being a lazy ass tonight. eating chips and dip on the couch while watching stupid t.v. shows. the dip tastes kinda funny. but i can't stop eating it. if a couple days go by and you haven't heard from me? send the police to my house in case it really was bad.

thanks.

p.s. i bought it from albertsons. sue the hell out of them for me.

the poor old galaxie...

it's the little things in life...

i went for a ruck tonight. for some stupid, stupid, stupid reason i felt so good after i took the ruck off (60lbs lighter, insta-diet when you include all the water weight i lost, heh) that i decided to go for a run. so two miles later i decided i REALLY earned a beer and was sitting down on the couch flipping through the channels when i come across an "according to jim" where courtney thorne-smith chases kimberly williams around the living room, pushes her over the arm of the couch, jumps on tops of her and starts wrestling with her. see? sometimes there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

yes. i am a pig.

oink-oink

i am NOT on my way to D.C.

when i was a fresh graduate from basic training and had just showed up at A.I.T. i got some great advice that served me well throughout my military career. basic is where they break you down and build you back up. "soldierization" is what they call it, turning a group of civilians into a group of soldiers. A.I.T. is your "advanced individual training" where you get your training to perform your specific job in the military. but it's also the transition from the tightly controlled environment of basic training where you're watched closely all the time to the more relaxed life of the everyday army. when you're not deployed and you're not out in the field training, it's not much different from a 9 to 5. and alot of young soldiers are fresh off the bus. they've never lived alone before, etc. so A.I.T. is kind of a safety net.

anyways, the drill sergeant had us all in formation and told us that we'd have no problems while under his tutelage or in the army if we could follow two basic guidelines. "be where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there" and "pay attention and do EXACTLY what you're told to do, no more, no less". you don't have to be in the military to know how important timeliness is to us. heaven forbid you don't show up on time for first formation. heaven forbid a group of soldiers doesn't move out on a mission on time.

my company commander was former active duty tabbed out infantry. so everything i just said about being on time went double. definate fits of rage if we weren't hitting the road on time. when we got to iraq and were doing our transition with the unit we were replacing the people we were replacing told us that they didn't get so hung up on time. that things happened at a slower pace in iraq, and that if you were a couple minutes leaving, to just take it in stride. our bosses didn't like this. but on our third or fourth mission with these guys we were slow getting started. about an hour down the road we came up behind another u.s. convoy that was slowing down, then stopped. they'd spotted an i.e.d. on the road. just a few minutes after we stopped, we started taking incoming mortar rounds. nothing close. they'd been targeting the area where we would've stopped had we hit the i.e.d. and didn't really adjust well to our new location. they just fired off a couple rounds really quickly then got the hell out of there. had we left on time, we would've been in front of the other convoy and probably wouldn't have spotted the i.e.d. in time to not get hit by it. over the first couple of weeks in country we had several similar "situations".

needless to say, we were converts. we still set a mission start time, and still tried our best to meet it, but if something happened we just kinda assumed it was for a reason. we didn't yell and scream and chastise someone for screwing something up and making us late. that was because we took it as God or "fate" intervening on our behalf and because we wanted people upbeat and positive before we went out the gates, possibly into combat. we wanted everyone to think he was a heartbreaker and a life taker, a real badass. we'd undermine that if we chewed on him for awhile and called him a shitbag for forgetting where his gear was or for not setting up the vehicle right.

it will probably rain here this weekend and might snow. because of that i decided to drive to the airport instead of ride the motorcycle. i figured i'd leave the scoot tucked in safely in the garage. it's been awhile since i'd driven the galaxie and it's about 30 minutes to the airport so i thought that'd be a great chance to get her out on the road. about 1/3 of the way there the radiator blew a seam and the vehicle overheated. i called someone to pick me up and they showed up early enough that there was a good chance of getting me to the airport on time to catch my flight. we set off and got most of the way to the airport when i confessed that i was freaking out a little bit. between everyone bailing out, their replacements bailing out and then the car it just really put me in the iraq "maybe someone's trying to tell you it's okay to be late" frame of mind. so i decided we needed to turn around and get the car and i came home and called it a night. i called the airline and can't get another flight to d.c. until late sunday night. basically i'd get off the plane for a couple hours then turn around and come back. so now the weekend in d.c. is canceld and i feel kind of foolish.

anyways, that's the recap of tonight's adventure.

well, i had this really long post in draft form about changes that MIGHT be happening and decisions that might be faced with. turns out i was putting the cart in front of the horse. one of the projects i was hoping to work on got canceled before it ever got started. so life goes on.

going to d.c. this weekend. i'm kinda excited and kinda not. hopefully i'll see alot of really good friends and catch up with them. but my traveling companions bailed out, so now it's kinda becoming a pain in the ass as well.

i love my body...

this isn't a tmfi-selflove post, don't worry. totally "g"rated stuff here. well, okay. maybe "pg" but only because of the possibility for adult language.

i added another ten pound plate to the rucksack tonight. i was running really late, and it was about 10:30pm before i found a clean pair of dcu trousers, got my boots on, got the music keyed up, etc... because of the time i thought i'd only do 2 miles or so. to make up for the shorter distance i figured i would drop another plate in. so i set off with 60-65lbs. it killed me at first. i was wobbling like a drunk. it felt like i couldn't bend my right knee, i couldn't get a full stride, the shin splints started kicking, the works. after about a mile and a half i was seriously debating with myself whether to kill it at 2 miles, or try and force myself to do a third. huffing like an old steam locomotive. then i started fiddling with my earphones. pushed them in all the way. got the bass to resonate in my skull. turned the music up to force my brain to shut off. "nearly lost you" by the screaming trees came on, followed by "good thing" by fine young cannibals and "plowed" by sponge.

my body took over. it's been doing this for over a decade. i stopped fighting myself. i straightend up under the load so i could start sucking in full, deep breaths. my arms started pumping and my legs followed suit. my right knee was still not giving me a full range of motion but everything else started compensating for it. before i knew it i was finishing my 5th mile and i was making decent time. really good time. light-fighter time. sure it's not a 3 day combat load of batteries, bullets, my share of the demo bag and my personal gear but it was okay.

i'm old. the body's got a lot of mileage on it. and alot of damage. but i'm not ready for a dirt-nap yet.

you guys are the best freakin cheering squad a fellow could ask for. but that's not always what i'm looking for out of blogging. i'm not fishing for compliments or anything. i should probably keep a journal or diary as well as this, but to be honest, i'm much to lazy to annotate stuff twice. as always there are random thoughts floating about and i find that getting them out there helps me figure out what is going on in my head. fleshes stuff out more, makes me think things through and helps me make better decisions. the other thing i like is being able to go back and see what was going on. not enough time has really passed to fully appreciate this benefit, but already i've flipped back to the beginning to get the frame of mind from iraq to help decide whether to go again or not.

anyways, the long and short of this is that in the near future i might write some stuff, but i might turn comments off on some posts. it's not that i don't appreciate the feedback, but the way some of it's written might sound like i'm fishing for "attaboys" and pats on the head when i'm really not. some of this is my own freakish paranoia. i see someone doing something i don't like and i'm super paranoid of doing the same thing. i just don't want to lose anybody because they think i'm always trying to paint myself in a certain light in order to get responses.

thanks for reading!

randoms

-thanks for sharing your musical tastes. i'm on my third laptop in 3 weeks, but i think it's finally the "one" for the next year (or more hopefully). so i'm going to get serious about getting my music together and on my mp3 player.

-work bites. i've spent today on conference calls with lawyers. i'm a geeky computer tech. i shouldn't ever be having such calls. 'nuff said.

-i've been without my motorcycle since saturday. with only 2600 miles on it, they've had to tear the heads off of engine because it burned over a quart and a half of oil since the 1000 mile service. i'm going to be really happy to get my bike back, but i'm a little upset that it took so long for them to do the repairs and that it's had to get cracked open so early in its life. i don't smoke, i don't drink coffee, i'm a pretty boring guy. riding that bike is one of my few vices. i'm jonesing bad to get it back.

-we're coming up on the 1 year mark for losing my sister. she had stopped talking to me years before so i'm processing the loss much differently than the rest of my family. it's interesting to watch them. we've been a family for so long that some members of the family are having problems communicating. one person will say something and instead of actually hearing what that person is saying, the others are assuming they know what's being said and are tuning it out. it's amazingly weird to kind of watch this happening from the outside.

-did i mention that work bites? for some reason my new boss continually assumes i'm being negative. we'll have a conversation. the first ten minutes are a discussion of how what i said was incredibly negative and unsupportive of the department. then we have another ten minutes where i explain what i meant over and over and finally a light bulb goes off and we're good and on the same page. this isn't necessarily full biteage, but it does wear you down eventually.

-if you're looking for someone to add to your blog "must reads" i recommend erika. she's not trying to solve all the world's problems or anything. but she's funny and talks about life without whining. and she draws awesome stick figures on the computer. i'm jealous of her mad skills.

-is it weird that two of the quotes i keep returning to are ones i got from comic books 20 some odd years ago? "given the choice i'd rather laugh than cry any day" when asked how they could make jokes at such a terrible moment and "today's as good a day to die as any and the company is better than most" pops in my head when i'm realizing i'm about to do something really stupid.

-i realized i've still got some pent up anger. a couple days ago some serious rage washed over me. i don't know what triggered it off but it's just anger over people having the nerve to try and kill me. and it's totally irrational, they were doing what they believed to be their mission in life, i was doing mine. but there it is.

-i will be going to washington d.c. next weekend to see old friends and run in the army ten-miler. if you knew how bad my running was right now you'd be laughing with me while you read this. what's even funnier is that about an hour ago i agreed to run a leg of the denver marathon the following weekend. possibly two legs.

-there should be more, but i have to get back to work.

more of my favorite commercials...

ken always was gay...

who knew ikea was more than great furniture?

more ikea....

i hate cats...

and birds aren't high up on my list either.

in response to SBS's comment on my previous post about queen songs, this has always been one of my favorite commercials.

questionable music tastes...

one of my biggest problems with working out is time involved. i can muscle through the pain and all of that stuff, but my brain just starts wandering and boredom sets in. with running, there's not really much i can do about that. for whatever reason i can't run to music. i think it's largely because i try to get in step with the music and end up screwing myself up. i should probably give some of the new mp3 players a shot though, some of my problem in the past with running to a walkman was probably discomfort of the huge honking thing, cd's skipped, tapes were large and radio stations didn't keep the beat up.

we've got to "SOF Certify" next month, which means a p.t. test, a swim test and a ruck march. none of these events strike fear in my heart, i've been doing them long enough. i'm having some problems with my run, mainly because i'm still not acclimatizing to the altitude for some reason and because shin splints are still kicking my ass. but i ice those down every night and take ibuprofen and i can muscle through 2 miles, no problem. the ruck march just takes work. you just have to get out on the road and log the miles. put 55lbs of dumbells in a backpack and go. you have to toughen your feet up, get all your little stabilizer muscles from your feet to your neck used to moving around with the weight and you're fine. the biggest problem for me, is again boredom. you just walk and walk and walk at a quick pace for two or three hours.

i knew last night was going to be a problem, and i'm in the process of switching out computers so i just had a couple minutes to throw a handful of songs on my mp3 player before i hit the road. i was going for humor, nostalgia and tempo. so what'd i pick?

"never underestimate 15 beers, a little enlightenment and the power of rob base and d.j. easy rock"

-"joy and pain" by m.c. rob base and d.j. easy rock
-"it takes two" by m.c. rob base and d.j. easy rock
-"last cigarette" and "anything, anything" by dramarama
-"i know what boys like", "square pegs" and "christmas wrapping" by the waitresses
-"i like candy" by bow-wow-wow
-"i hate everything about you" by ugly kid joe
-"deeper shade of soul" by urban dance squad
-"sinnerman" by nina simone
-"just a friend" by biz markie
-"another one bites the dust" by queen
-"if you want blood" by ac/dc
-"ring of fire" by social d

that got me through in good time last night. i'll probably take tonight as a run night, but either tues or wed i'll have to go out again. hopefully i'll have access to all my tunes by then. feel free to throw out suggestions for work-out tunes.

poh-TAY-to/poh-TAH-to

love is interesting. it's funny the semantics we can get caught up. once upon a time i was talking about re-establishing a relationship with someone i had dated in the past, then they had moved away and broken ties. we were going to be back in the same geogaphical area and there were still feelings there. for some reason, it was EXTREMELY important for me to not talk about the future too much because i was insistant that we take things one day at a time. i didn't want to mention "living together" or "marriage" or any of that stuff because i felt enough time had passed that we might've changed. sure, in general the feelings of love/lust were still there, but could we still sit in the same room for an hour or two together without irritating the hell out of one another? had sleeping habits changed? was there residual resentment from the way things had ended earlier? i just refused to make these statements about the future.

to her, this was bad. this was refusal to commit on my part. this was me being my normal, flakey self. sure, neither person was moving for the other, circumstances were bringing us close together, but there was still an emotional investment that she wasn't willing to make without something bigger from me. at that time we weren't thinking very clearly or logically and we couldn't expess things clearly enough for the other person to understand. we were just getting hurt and defensive and it turned into a huge, ugly mess. in hindsight, i can see what she meant very clearly. and when i sit and think about it and her, i know full well that she is/was a strong, independent girl. if we got together and it wasn't working, she'd have no problems telling me so and calling the relationship off. my stubborness was probably unfounded.

the flipside to that is so was hers. in the past i'd been been willing to drop everything and follow her when she moved across country. i'd proven committment there. i'd never cheated on her and i didn't take dating lightly and she knew that. considering that she was the one who'd had doubts before and called it off, she probably could've been a little more understanding about my cold feet and hesitation.

we were getting so hung up on words or lack-thereof. it didn't work out, and obviously that was for the best, if we couldn't communicate over something like that, and we'd had our shot once before and failed it, it probably wasn't meant to be. but in the heat of it, it was so painful and brutal to be arguing about something that seemed so simple. the "leap of logic" that neither one of us could help the other make. i couldn't get her to see that i wasn't saying i wasn't open to ideas of a long, happy future together, but that i just needed to take it slowly. that i wasn't playing games with her, and that i wanted something to work. she couldn't make me see that she just needed me to say some words to reduce her nervousness and that she wasn't going to hold me to them if we were both miserable.

law girl's blog has made me relive this series of events in my head. i'm not comparing my past to her current situation, or taking sides or anything. i'm not discussing her particular situation, i don't know enough about it and have only seen the one side. just saying that things that she has written about have triggered the memories.

which brings me back to the love being interesting thing. i've seen situations where someone can't come out and say the word. there's some traumatic issue in a past that prevents it. or they're stupid. or whatever. but their actions show the love and affection. which should be enough, but it isn't. that proclamation is needed. between couples. between parents and their kids. between siblings. between grown men and women on a battlefield. it's amazing the power that that word carries. not just the emotion. not just the actions that stem from those emotions or lackof. but the power the utterance of the word itself. remember the first time you said it to your one, true love? or heard them say it to you? weak in the knees, swoony elation. and how much you need to hear it from them in the tough times? you need that assurance that even though you're pissing each other off that you still love one another and you'll get through it? it's amazing the first time someone you really love dies. and you can't remember the last time you told them that you loved them. it changes the way you address the loved ones who are still living fast. you make sure to end every phone conversation with an "i love you", just so that they know.

damnit.

i am a dork...

i realized this as i was doing 80 down the interstate this morning, front up on my mask, singing at the top of my lungs, a little bit of spit streaming out the corner of my mouth because of the wind, completely euphoric. normally i have to go through a near-death experience to feel that way. craziness. i've been shot at 3 times here in the states. there were several stages after that, but one of them was that complete thrill to be alive. there were several situations both times overseas. the first time i jumped out of a plane and was on my back on the dz looking up and seeing the planes exit the area and watching other jumpers hit the ground and the realization that i'd just done something really stupid and survived. this was nice this morning. it was a beautiful, crisp day, not a cloud in the sky and just a great feeling. and the motorcycle does it for me.

a couple of days ago i took it to the dealer. it's only got 4000 miles on it and it's burning oil. this did not thrill me. while i was there, the guy who sold me the bike came out and talked to me. i felt a little guilty because my bike was a little rough and dirty and said something about "it needs to be washed" and he looked and me and said "no, it needs to be ridden. your bike is my favorite one in the parking lot right now because you're not spending a beautiful day bolting more chrome onto it or wasting time polishing and washing it. you're out riding it." he's right. when i first saw a similar bike two years ago i immediately lusted after it. i rushed home to look it up on the website and find out what it was. the extra wide rear tire, the low slung handle bars, the orange racing paint job... i dreamed about it the whole time i was in iraq. it's not one of the bigger, badder harleys, but they don't talk to me the same way this one does.

this is my baby. i'm not going to abuse it. but i've come to terms with the fact that it's going to get scratched. "there's two types of motorcycle riders. those that have been down and those that are going down." well, i've already been down a couple of times, but that doesn't automatically mean i'm not going down again. i've had to accept that as well. in ten years my bike might need an engine rebuild, a tranny rebuild and a fresh paint job, but as long as it got that way because i was was howling like a moronic coyote and laughing my ass off and just feeling ALIVE, it's money well spent.

gotta go. time to ride...

updates

-so, i just wanted to say thanks to everyone who told me about their friend/romantic relationships. it was interesting to read all of the stories and it was kind of refreshing to read about the happy endings.

-the desktop is glued, filled and sanded. i've got to sand the legs and the front of the drawer and then i'll finish it. this weekend i've got to go back to the reserve unit. i hate to say it but i could use a couple more months off. it's funny, when i was on active duty all the old timers used to make fun of reservists and guardsmen, and without knowing any better i just assumed they knew what they were talking about. but (and not just because i AM one) now that i've seen them in action i have to take my hat off to them. the reserve/guard system isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, there are serious gaps and weaknesses in the training, but when it comes down to it, it takes a considerable amount of dedication for these guys to do what they do. it's easy to be in shape when part of your daily schedule is to work out every morning and your coworkers razz you constantly if you don't do well with the physical challenges. and "one weekend a month, two weeks a year" doesn't sound like much, but the reality is that makes for a really, really long two weeks, or a long month. the higher up the ranks these guys climb, the larger amounts of paperwork and planning is required to be done unpaid on personal time. and the way the world is today, i know reserve guys who've spent way more time in combat zones in the last ten years than any active duty guy can touch. the unit that i'm currently hanging out with has ALWAYS had at least one group of people deployed over the last ten years. Anyways, i was definately wrong before.

-i had a two hour interview with the ceo of that company today and a rep from a consulting firm. i wish i had a better feel for the interview now that it's over. i don't feel like i tanked it, and i don't feel like i slam dunked it. so i'm kinda on the edge of my seat until i hear from them again. sounds like a neat company and a great opportunity though. be interesting to see what the thought of me, and if an offer is made, what all it includes.

third post of the day...

Jim McKee posted last week about flirting with someone and making their day. It's amazing what a kind gesture can do for someone.

The first exposure to this that I can remember came at an early age. My dad was restoring a 1950 Cheverolet convertible and was looking for parts. We went to a classic car swap meet and he'd ask this guy or that guy about parts. One of the guys he talked to was an old coot who started rambling on and on about stuff that we'd already heard about all day. No new information was relayed. Being the easily bored kid that I was, as soon as we were out of earshot I started complaining. Dad cut me off and told me that it had cost him nothing but time to sit there and listen to the old guy ramble on, and that the old guy probably left the experience feeling pretty good about himself and how he'd really helped that young kid get parts for his car.

We had several other conversations like this over the years, and the gist of them all was basically that if you can just let someone feel like they're helping you, or if you can say something truely nice about someone, why not? The worst it'll cost you is a little bit of time, and maybe a little embarrassment but you can totally make the difference in someone's outlook of their whole day.

I'm shy by nature with strangers by nature, so it's hard for me to practice this. And it's easy to get out of the habit. I get so wrapped up in myself, pondering the lint in my bellybutton and feeling bad about how life's kicked me that I forget to look around me. But if I see a guy driving a car I like, I try to make a point to tell him so. It's fun to watch their chest puff out a little and the swagger they get when they walk away. Sometimes if they're just climbing into the car, they'll chirp the tires a little and toot the horn with a wave.

One of the times that sticks out foremost in my mind is from way back in the college days. In one of my classes there was a slightly older woman. Not old by any stretch, but not the normal 18 years old drunken college kid either. It was an evening class and she'd come rushing in, invariably a little late from work. A beautiful woman but she always looked a little frazzled. We did group work in that class and the poor woman got paired off with some of the dumber/lazier people in the class and you could tell she was really the one that pulled the whole project together. The class was a philo class, so there was some group discussion and I always enjoyed debating her. She was quick. That class ended and the next semester I had her in a poli sci course. Pretty much the same routine. Always late, always looked way overworked and underpaid. And always one of the ones who contributed most to the class. The last day of that class the instructor left the room for some reason and we started comparing schedules and making chit chat. all of a sudden there was a little more spark to her. she seemed really severe and focused in class and in the debates and this just kind of rounded her out more and made her more of a person. She made mention of being exhausted and a little worn down from the schedule of school and work. As we were leaving the building I remembered thinking that she was a pretty neat woman and Dad's advice rang in my ears, so I told her how much I'd enjoyed having her in both of the classes. That she'd taken two classes that had the potential to be extremely boring and had made them kind of interesting because of our arguments and her point of view and I hoped she hadn't thought that I was picking on her because I so frequently countered something she'd say.

The effect was amazing. She just stopped, looked at me for a few seconds and started laughing. Said that she pretty much looked forward to debating with me in class and frequently came up with arguments that she maybe didn't fully believe in just to see how I'd respond. But the smile and widened, less tired eyes were worth it. She ended up being one of my best friends for years. She is a smart, funny woman with tons of common sense who has given me great advice over the years. I miss her, but as so often happens life intervened and we lost contact.

The funny thing about taking that extra moment to say something nice is how often people aren't expecting it and don't know how to respond to it. Guys look at you funny, like you're a salesperson trying to make an opening. Girls automatically assume you're hitting on them. General conversation between strangers seems to be so rare in the cities these days that it just shocks people. The girl I mentioned above made a quick point to mention her husband just to let me know she was married when I first said that to her. It's really sad how much we've walled ourselves off from one another.

P.S. I meant to write this on Friday. But what kind of strikes me today as I'm writing this is the 9/11 thing. Courtney asked the question "Where were you, and how will you remember?" on her blog. I had originally said that I'd remember it by thinking of the guys who are deployed, but I think the other thing I'm going to try and do is get back into the habit of saying nice things. It was kind of neat how after 9/11 we were a country united, and sad how just 5 years later we're so quick to attack each other again, based on sexual preference, political affiliations, etc. I'm going to go back out and try to get that community feel back in my little corner of the world.

how i spent (some of) my weekend...

i've got a thing for old speakers. i repaired a set last month and they sound great now. a couple weeks ago i went to look at a pair and the guy had not one, but 2 sets. so i bought them both. i want to try and fix them, and then i want to try my hand at selling a pair or two of what i've got on ebay. as we were loading them in my car we were talking about why he was getting rid of them and it turns out he was having a garage sale the next day because he was moving. he started pointing out things he was getting rid of and he had this really classic looking solid oak student desk. it was pretty rough, but the price was right. the top had one crack that ran the entire length of the top. i glued that back together and clamped it on saturday and i now seem to have one solid desktop instead of two pieces. sunday i applied the filler. i'd wanted to sand it and start the staining process but life interrupted. i'll hopefully start that after work this week. it'll still be kinda rough. you can't do much with the nicks and gouges from the chairs and years. but hopefully i'll be able to get a nice, solid finish on it and have a good piece of furniture.

I took this on the first anniversary of 9/11 in Afghanisan. When I was younger I was kind of a screw-up. Not a bad kid, just no sense of direction, etc. I'd dropped out of college, ammassed a decent sized credit card debt and was just looking for silly ways to sabotage myself in life, in love, etc...

I frequently wonder how many people shock themselves with the realization that they're a grown up. I might've even mentioned it here before. There are times when I look down at the ground, and am kinda surprised how high up I am, like just an instant before I was only six years old and half my height. People at work frequently look to me to explain the way things work, either in the I.T. field, or business in general. Wow, I've actually done alot of weird jobs in my day and picked up alot of general knowledge about manufacturing, inventory control and the related accounting processes. Not an expert by any means, but I can walk someone through the concepts and show them how we can help them streamline things.

This day was one of those moments. I couldn't believe where I was, what I was doing and all the events that had changed the world and led up to this event. Terrible, terrible sadness and anger tempered with self-pride that I had been called to serve and had answered.

so i was going to write a post today that was kind of trigged by something jim mckee wrote on his website. but it was an insanely long day and i wrote a response to something that jl4 wrote that was so long it was rude. and i'm kinda typed out. so i won't do justice to the topic that jim triggered.

so what was going on today? i'm an i.t. geek. about 2 years ago my company grew enough that we needed a new email solution. at that time we presented solutions "a" and "b". we weren't really tied to one, but as the guys responsible for the health and security of the network we liked solution "a" a little better. much more secure and stable. all the same features, just in a slightly different way. well, the boss jumped on "a" when he saw the price. never looked at any of the demos we set up. we rolled it out and the first time he used it he hated it. this is the head of the i.t. department. we offered to give him the same email client he was used to using, so that it would be transparent to him, but he wouldn't do it. so less than two years ago we spent a decent amount of money on one solution, and because he didn't like it, we're now rolling out solution "b". for a ton more money. so now we're scrambling to get it deployed and to secure it because of unrealistic time limits imposted on us. and i'm the project manager as well as lead worker bee. joy-joy.

before i went to iraq i bought a new laptop. something small and light to be easy to carry. when i came home in october it failed. sam's club was awesome. although wal-mart scares the hell out of me, sam's club has been awesome to me. even though they lost money on the deal, the took back the laptop, absorbed the loss and let me swap it for another. the new laptop hasn't been such a good thing. since i've had it the case has cracked, the keyboard has failed the power supply has failed, the trackpad has worn so smooth that it couldn't be used, the system board failed and the media wasn't included in the box when i bought it. a couple weeks ago i sent it in for the trackpad repair. when it came back the screen had two or three tiny cracks in it. i contacted the manufacturer and asked them if they were going to cover the repairs of if they needed to file a claim with the shipper. they told me to ship it back (AGAIN!). i sent it back and it came back today supposedly repaired. well, in addition to NOT being repaired, it's missing memory. i purchased a 1GB memory upgrade that's now missing.

of course i called and complained and in their defense, they offered to replace the laptop after all of the problems i've had. i don't know if this means i get a new model or if they've got refurbed models of of what i've got sitting on the shelf someplace. but the condition of this was that i had to provide receipts for both the laptop purchase and the memory purchase. do you know how hard it is to come up with receipts that you took to iraq with you? let me say how wonderful new egg is. even though i bought the memory over a year ago they still had a receipt i could print out online. and sam's club? they can't find an individual receipt for the laptop so they're going to print out my ENTIRE purchase history for me. hopefully that'll be ready tomorrow or sunday.

i ordered a heated liner for my motorcycle today. a couple years ago when i was mobilized for the first time i commuted between denver and a base about an 1.5-2 hrs away. great ride during warm weather, but there were winter commutes when it was so cold i'd have to stop every 15 minutes or so and warm my hands by putting them on the engine block and i'd have to scrape frozen condensation off the inside of my face shield from my breath. i'm loving the sportster and the ride to and from work helps relieve so much stress. i don't want to give that up just because the mercury is dropping a little. for my sanity the 200 bucks is hopefully money well spent.

so after a 13 hr work day, and a run and assorted pushup and situps and dinner and the long-assed reply on jl4's site my brain is pretty much tapioca.

night.