Just got to watch my first Bears game in a long time, big fun, no Rex, and they won! WHOOHOOO!
So long as they have a semi decent QB, I think they can do well, Orton looked decent tonight, so who knows. Urlacher did a good job of keeping the defense focused and twoards the end of the 3rd Qtr they really kicked it up a notch and started showing some serious football ability. Great job guys, hope to see more of THIS team the rest of the season.
Well another week has gone by, we went to the range, cleaned weapons, and drew our vehicles and crew 
served weapons (read: kick ass big guns). The range was fun, I got to shoot the M9 Beretta, the M203 Grenade launcher, and the M4. We drew a M2 (the old “Ma Deuce”) and the 240B, the new kick butt gun. Here I am with an imposing picture of me and my badass weapon. 
This was right before I laid waste to the M203 range. We use these silly orange chalk rounds that make a big splash of orange smoke when they land. Not as cool as an HE (high explosive) round, but still fun to fire.
We also got trained on foreign weapons as well. Here is a photo of our LT playing around with the PK rifle, pretty cool weapon, we are f
iring them on the next range we attend. Should be pretty interesting as none of us have fired any of these weapons before. That same range we will also be firing the crew weapons. Should make for an interesting day with us lighting up all sorts of whoop-arse on the range.
In something completely different, on my way home I had to stop at the Cathdral of the Plains. I had seen the signs many times before and as this 
is probably one of the last times I wil ever drive past them, I had to stop to see what this thing was. You coudl see the top miles and miles away, so I figured it was a rather large building. I was correct! It was pretty impressive, but I wanted to get home to my family so I only snapped a few outside photos before I drove onward. Luckily I was able to find a website about it:
http://www.kansastravel.org/cathedralofheplains.htm
Pretty neat inside there, maybe some day I will get a chance to stop in and look at it all lttle more throughly. Can you imagine going to church there all the time?? Wow!
Well another week gone by, another week less I have to spend in this dump known as Fort Riley. Honestly I do not understand why anyone would want to live here. The two towns outside the base are tiny and have little to offer (omg Hastings is the worse bookstore I have ever been in). Though I will say the Long John Silver’s I went to for lunch yesterday was full of the nicest and funniest guys I have ever met in a restaurant. The LJS guys should give the workers at the Junction City store a bonus, I will definitely be going back there.
We finished up our Combat Life Saver course on
Saturday and I have to say the Army has really changed. This war has really changed the way we do things. It really has changed the fundamental way that the Army approaches combat, our tactics, our goals, heck, even the way we think about things. Given that I have been in over 14 years now, I have seen two armies, the old one I remember when I came in: still using Vietnam era equipment, very slowly progressing. And this new one, all new equipment, brand new stuff every year. You should see all the equipment they have in the Hummers now, stuffed to the T with electronic stuff, some of it really amazing. Above is an image of me stuffed into the back of a Hummer during training. I look like an idiot with my helmet crooked to one side and my goggles slipping back to far. But oh well, I am a killer! grrrr.
Our little team is starting to show a little bit of personality and two of us had a pretty good argument. One of us was told to do something, and he did not, so two other of us (myself included) took it upon ourselves to do it. We went through and worked out who was a driver, who was a gunner, who was a TC (tank commander). We took everything into account, who fires a M203 (Grenade launcher), etc. We showed it to a few people for their input, including the Team Chief (read: head dude). Well, someone else in the group doesn’t like that he is a gunner even though logically it makes sense. Well he cornered the other guy and basically yelled at him for doing it behind his back, even though he has sat on his ass and not done what he should have.
“Stay in your lane” but can you when the fireer next you doesn’t even send a round down range?
And in other news….in the DFAC we have like 2 channels and the bastards that be always set it on MSNBC, frankly one of the worse news stations on the planet. Now if you know me, you know I am already pretty conservative, and therefore I like Fox News (so sue me). At least Fox tries to appear to be bipartisan, 
all weekend MSNBC has been kissing Obama ass all over the place. Every interview (thats allot, remember I am in there for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day) is two Obama supporters. There is never a single person who is anti-Obama and pro McCain, hell someone who was impartial would be a miracle on that station. Every comment is started with ‘McCain’s vicious attack’. It is clear why MSNBC has the shittiest viewer ratings of all the news networks on cable. The anchors, the people they interview, everyone is an anti-McCain Democrat merely selling time on the news for Obama, it is really funny that all the Demos say that Fox is so biased. What the F ever.
In more fun news.
I finished up Chapter 3 last night and started work on Chapter 4 this morning. I have to say I am really enjoying this writing, even if it never sees the light of day. I delved a bit into Tarina’s background in Chapter 3, now if 4 I am introducing some new characters to the story, including the town leader and the town itself. Not sure where this will lead, but I am starting to get a well defined mental image of characters now and a clearer path of where this story could go. My aim was to start releasing these stories when I get around five written and edited, we may be getting close now. Then you all can bash it as much as you want.
Yep, stayed up far too late, the barracks dark and silent (luckily my wife and kids bought me that iPod for Father’s Day), and wrote a bunch. Managed to end the second ‘chapter’ on a sort of cliffhanger/twist, then got inspired and delved a little deeper into who Tarina is and why she is who she is today. Google Docs tells me I am up to 4400 words and roughly 20 pages. About 1/3~1/2 done with chapter 3, clocking at about 8 pages right now, I am thinking it will continue for about 5 to 10 more pages, so chapter 3 really adds some length and depth to Tarina and her struggle after the attack. My aim is to get 4 to 8 chapters under my belt before I start releasing them at a rate of maybe one a week or one every two weeks, creating a good buffer for me when I get some writer’s block, which will happen.
I am trying to figure out the best way to ‘release’ these, first I thought of dropping them off at FUM in their blog, but I think it might be better to create PDFs and drop each in a section here on the blog (especially if I can figure out how to switch the listing around to oldest first rather than the usual newest first format). Any thoughts on this?
I just do not understand what is wrong with American businesses these days. Well, maybe I do. I have seen a decline in customer service over the last 5 or so years (essentially since I started having the money to be able to put my money where my mouth is), and I am the kind of a-holethat will tip in relation to how well the service is. I am somewhat of a tip nazi I guess, if you leave my drink empty for a long stretch of time (and god forbid I have to ASK for a refill) you aren’t getting crap. Of course, I am a realist and I understand that sometimes the place is packed and a waitress can just simply get swamped by that one or two tables that are full of jerks, so I try to take all that into account when tipping. Some times there is just no reason other than you suck.
Anyway, what got me on this tirade is auto repair. About a year ago my wife was driving down one of those snowy Colorado roads when some a-hole drove down the middle of the road and refused to move off to one side to allow equal sharing of the road. My wife, being the generally nice person she is veered out of the way to save from having an accident (I told her in hind sight should should have stood her ground and plowed into the bastard). In doing so, she smacked the curb and messed up her front passenger wheel along with the underside of her car. A-hole 1, wife 0. This was of course viewed as her fault (nice eh?), but USAA is a kick ass insurance company and picked up the tab and sent us to one of their preferred repair shops in town: ABRA.
They seemed nice, till it took like 3 weeks to get our car back, wtf? I know guys who can rebuild an engine in a few days, much less repair a car from a minor wreck like this. They told us they were able to machine the parts back to specs and everything was ok (the rim had some pretty ugly gashes in it from striking the curb). I wasn’t really happy with the repair, thinking it should have been replaced, but USAA swore by them (remember they kick ass in customer service) and the repair dude said this is what was needed to fix the car. So we do that. Cost approx three grand.
Fast forward nearly 10 months.
I am at training, the Mazda 3 is nearly the end of it’s warranty time and it is making a weird sound. I am in Fort Riley, so I take it in to the dealer here for it’s check up and an oil change. Come to find out those thieving bastards back in Colorado left all the old parts on the car (this I knew) and that all the parts are bent out of shape (me, did not know) and that it was ruining all the tires put on the car and that it could not be front end aligned because of this. The guy here, never once offered to fix it (he knew of the accident and repair, I am calling him a disinterested third party). So these bastard ABRA auto repair a-holes put parts back on the car that were bent and out of spec, clearly damaged (the guy here knew exactly what happened in the accident from the damage he could see), and ripped my insurance off for almost $3 grand! Now, I have to drive the car all the way back to Colorado to have them fix what should have been fixed in the first place…and I am sure they will claim that too much time has passed or some other bullshit excuse to cover what they clearly fucked up.
Consider them lucky that I cannot carry my M4 and ammo with me…would be one less auto repair shop in Colorado….
Yep, today we training on the Hummer Rollover trainer (HEAT or something). It was interesting, especially when you drop on your head and have to figure out how to get your ass out of an upside down Hummer with all this crazy gear on and in the tight confines of the inside of a fully loaded Hummer. I must admit, for a second or two, I was trapped upside down, feet in the air, head twisted against the radio, and I started to freak until I remembered the training (AHA!) and found the door handle and was able to squeeze my ass out of the door. Big fun! Just hope you don’t have to do it in real life.
Here is me in all my gear (damn stuff weighs about 50 pounds!),
looking like a mean killin’ machine!
Here is the trainer in action with four poor saps stuck inside, and upside down!
We had a pretty good time, and it will definitely make me more confident in a real rollover that I could get my ass out of the Hummer and continue the fight!
Found a kick ass song, real old folky sound to it that just makes it a must listen. I guess this is a husband and wife out of Australia, didn’t know they have country music there, but apparently it is pretty popular there. I really dig the stripped down sound of the song (the one performed is what is on iTunes as well). Anyway, you can check out some of their stuff on their website:
http://www.kaseyandshane.com/
I have an idea. I have lots of ideas. I wanted to start running another game, but given my current situation and the soon-to-come drastic change in timezones, starting something now would be silly so I started looking for an alternative means of creative release. The solution? Writing! (duh)
My idea is a world gone to hell. I was reading about that Large Hadron Collider (see earlier post) and specifically the part where people think it could create a mini-blackhole, and of course we do not really know what a black hole is, we just have theories. So what if instead, the LHC tore a hole in our world, resulting in a portal or other places, dark place man was never meant to go?
Now I love Cthulhu as well (see the writing of H.P. Lovecraft), smart writing with a twist of “what the hell was that guy on when he wrote this???” So it came to me, what if the LHC let the Old Ones back into our world en masse? Now, that would suck.
So the idea is this:
The Old Ones (not specifically Lovecraft’s Old Ones, but something in that order) have returned and had a little fun, destroyed the world as we know it. Now the remnants of our society are struggling along trying to survive in a world devastated and torn asunder. Pockets of people survive in small communities here and there, with warriors patrolling the few towns and trade routes, protecting the people from the beasts of shadow that wander about in the darkness looking for their next meal. Rumors tell of warrior-priests who follow a strong religious sect and ascribe to the day that God will return and save the faithful. Others talk of those who have taken communion with the monsters that prowl the darkness, granting them powers over the monsters and abilities that normal people should not possess. Out story will start with Tarina, a sort of warrior-priestess and her adventures. My concept is a serial novel sort of thing, like Steven King did a few years ago with the Green Mile, release a new chapter every so often as ideas come to me, continuing the story over time.
Tonight we had our first meal cooked by Iraqi workers here at Camp Funston, it was a dish of rice with a beef stew sort of thing thrown atop it. Wasn’t too bad, wasn’t the best thing I ever had. Worst part was trying to eat the mess with my fingers….use silverware people!
Here is me and Chief Clark attempting to eat:
A better view of the meal:
And in case you have not seen us yet, here are the Wolves!
Ok, so I like allot of styles of music, but I got to confess sometimes I really like shitty music. So there I was driving back to Ft Riley and this song comes on and I just fell in love with it, stupid as the song is. “When I grow up” by the Pussycat Dolls (who cannot love that name?), silly, pointless, maybe even dumb, but it has a hard driving beat that is great to drive to while zooming down the interstate at 85mph….and heck, the girls are freaking smokin! And just for the record, I think they say “I wanna have boobies” at the end of the chorus, but that may just be my testosterone speaking.
Case in point:
Ok, so now that I got that out my system, now on to better music. A friend of mine is a jazz/blues musician around the Atlanta area (if I remember correctly). Now, jazz/blues are not normally my style, but I checked out some stuff he has uploaded on his site and I gotta say, the guy has talent! Check out his stuff at http://brennenreece.com/blog/music/ I especially like the songs Poison in my Blood and Hard Working Man. Good stuff Brennen! A big thanks to him for providing me with some excellent songs to offset my poor music choices (see above).
