Archive for May, 2008

• Who's on First?

  Date: 2008.05.29 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 0

  Tomorrow, John and I will be enjoying one of America’s favorite past times. We will be watching the Mariner’s take on the Detroit Tigers( not to mention one of the best catchers in all of baseball)

  In the spirit of baseball I came across this awesome video I would like to share. John posted about a collection of amazing videos, which you can read here, and I felt this one was appropriate. Enjoy!

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejweI0EQpX8]

• All of the joy of subtitles without the video to distract you

  Date: 2008.05.29 | Category: links!, videos | Response: 1

  I found a collection of videos at Film School Rejects that caught my attention. Instead of watching some of my favorite and highly quoted scenes from movies – why not read them – curious? Watch this bit from V for Vendetta.

• Creepy movies

  Date: 2008.05.27 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 0

  I’m normally not one to watch creepy movies because I’m quite jumpy. In a typical horror/suspense flick the script will call for a fake jump – you know – a random loud noise or a cat jumping into the scene to get everybody on the edge of their seats. While most people remain calm – I jump.

  I know that I’m an edgy guy so I tend to avoid movies that reveal my weakness. It has been an odd week for me because I’ve watched 5 horror movies – all with scenes that make me jump. The Aliens franchise has been good for 4 movies and I watched Hostel a few days ago. I’m sure that I’ll be on edge while in the dark for the next couple of days due to my overactive imagination – but – its the price I knew I was going to pay.

  There has been a strange commercial for a movie – named of all things – The Strangers. Jessica and I are going to steer clear of it – we talked about it and we both know that we would have a hard time walking around our own house in the dark – or the daylight. If you’re feeling adventurous and if you aren’t as easily spooked as I am watch the trailer – don’t say I didn’t warn you.

• What a week

  Date: 2008.05.22 | Category: Life as we know it, desert, photos, videos | Response: 1

  In Iraq I really only knew a few things to be true – I knew that it was going to be hot during the day and I also knew that it was going to be dark and noisy at night.
  

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  When I finally left I rode out on dark and noisy military transport – a continuation of a theme. My camera doesn’t like extremely shaky environments full of low light conditions but I think I captured enough for you to understand how enjoyable the ride actually was for us. If you look at the bottom picture, cram yourself into a closet with 4-6 other people, crank up the volume to the maximum level on your speakers, and sit/stand there for three hours you’ll have a slight understanding of how “comfortable” it was
  

  admin edit – photo removed

  I’ve uploaded a few more pictures from my time in Iraq in the gallery – link removed

  I got home and met a fantastic girl in the airport – well – I it wasn’t the first time I’ve met her but it had been quite a while since I had last seen her.
  

  admin edit – photo removed

  We went home and she showed me around our house – where we had the lengthy task of unpacking looming on the horizon.

  admin edit – photo removed

  Luckily – I’m a task oriented guy and we got starting working at the task so it could be done – and so we could look forward to the party we were to have that weekend.
  

  
  The house is complete with a garage and two dogs in the backyard – one of which will flop around like a fish if you ignore her.

  We had a party and it was a great time despite me knowing only a handful of the people there – I met quite of few of Jessica’s friends but there names are already a mystery to me – damn short term memory.

• Still alive – I swear

  Date: 2008.05.20 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 0

  If you visit this site with any frequency you’d notice that I seldom go a few days without making some sort of post. Well, you can consider this that post. I’ve got a larger and more detailed post thats coming down the pipeline complete with photos and videos but that will come later. I’ve got to wait until the sun comes out so I can snag a couple of pics of the new digs Jessica and I share.

  Thats about it for now – more to come later

• I’m so glad to be home

  Date: 2008.05.12 | Category: Life as we know it, desert | Response: 0

  While I haven’t yet reached the west coast I have arrived in America and its quite nice to be back. I’m still rocking the same clothes that I’ve been wearing for the past 60 or so hours. Traveling via military channels seldom goes without a hitch and I had quite a few.

  I was scheduled to leave Iraq on a nice and roomy C-17. We got to the terminal 8 hours before our plane was scheduled to depart (standard procedure). We got on the buses when the time came for us to depart but were turned around halfway to the plane – our original mission time had been scrubbed due to a sand storm. It dashed our hopes of leaving on time. We waited for 4 hours after our plane was supposed to depart in hopes that the skies would clear – the didn’t. They sent us back to the housing area and told us that we should come back 12 hours later. A few hours after we got back they told us that our flight would be leaving in 6 hours – a full 6 hours early wahoo! It turns out that they lied – we ended up waiting 14 hours at the terminal for our plane to leave.

  While there we experienced the ubiquitous indirect fire attack (they were shooting mortars at us). I was asleep on one of the benches as EVERYONE else in the room hit the deck and covered their heads when the klaxon alarms went off. I didn’t move and inch. I woke up a few hours later and laughed as they told me about what had happened. I laughed because its funny – really – it is. I guess you have to be a complete and total cynic to laugh at sleeping through a mortar attack. Truth is, I’ve slept through dozens of them and was fine. They can’t aim and the base is HUGE! The odds of probability were on my side.

  So – eventually we got stuck on a C-130. I’ve got to say – worst plane ride ever. Most of you have been crammed into economy seats – these seats economy look like first class. In order to cram us all in we had to be creative. The plane had seats along the outside wall of the plane and seats in the center facing out – while seated you were facing someone else. In order to make the fit we had to alternate legs – your leg, the person across from you, your leg, another person across from you – I have a video that I’ll upload later when I have time (and I’m not paying for internet by the hour).

  We got to Al Udeid (in Qatar) and we scheduled to come back to the terminal in 14 hours to catch our flight. We were supposed to meet up at 5PM. The time came near and we were told that we weren’t going to leave as planned. We were told to meet again at 5AM. We got to the terminal at about 0530 expecting to leave around noon. The airplane gods are a vengeful bunch and delayed our plane – again. Our departure time slipped an additional 3 hours. Oh joy!

  I’m finally home and thats the important part – and – I’m only hours away from seeing my girl. I can’t wait.

• Wonderful Deutchland

  Date: 2008.05.11 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 0

  Well, I’m halfway home and I’m trying to type this out on a keyboard that was made for germans… das ist nicht so gut.

  I’m in Leipzig at the moment and I’ve only got a 8 hour flight ahead of me before I get to my connecting flights in the states. All in all, I’ve had over 36 hours of delays while I have tried to make my way home. The delays ate up my free time in Baltimore but its no big deal – I’m going to get home soon.

• Getting out of dodge

  Date: 2008.05.08 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 2

  Well, after 130 some odd days my time in dodge is finally over and I am getting the heck out of here. I’ve got more time to kill before my plane gets here but I don’t have to sleep another night (or day in my case) in Iraq.

  The most baffling thing about my trip is that for some reason I haven’t made the Iraqis free. I put together explosives and they get dropped on people and for some reason we haven’t cleaned up this whole debacle yet. I figured I, of all people, could come over here and stop the shenanigans in Iraq.

  Alas, I have failed in my quest to make them free – I don’t think this one is going to be fixed overnight (or within the next 3-5 years).

  Oh well -

• Movin' On In

  Date: 2008.05.07 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 0

  Last weekend was a very busy one for my family and I. We spent all day Saturday moving mine and John’s stuff into our new house. As it happens on move in days, it rained most of the time. It wasn’t too bad though. John and I had wrapped up the stuff from his apartment pretty well with plastic wrap when we put it into storage. Thanks to my parents, sister and Jeff( Kayla too) Katie and Cameron, it only took about 5 truck loads to get all of our stuff into the house with ease.

  Oh right, the house. It is about 2000sqft. It has 2 floors with a finished basement. It’s not too big but it’s perfect for the two of us. It’s on 3/4 of an acre and is fenced so Duke and Christmas Bow can come and live with us. The landlord is a guy who works on the LFD with my dad so he’s giving us a great deal on the place. I got to sign the lease and it’s ours for at least a year. It’s amazing and oh did I mention that it’s perfect for us??

  I tried to start to put stuff away the other day but it was very overwhelming. John gets two weeks off from work when he gets home ( on 5 days by the way) and said that he will help me putting everything into its place.

  My parents have been a HUGE help. They are helping with a some holes in the fence as well as taking care of some of the excess brush in the back. We are very appreciative of their help with this. I just think they can’t wait for me to move out finally! It’s also just a block from my grandmother’s new apartment so I get to see her way more often.

  Point being that I am really excited to have a place of my own, even it I do have to share it with a boy!

• The Economics Party

  Date: 2008.05.07 | Category: ahh the news, links! | Response: 0

  Scott Adams, scribe of the popular Dilbert comic, may be on to something with his “economics party”. I’ve been intrigued by economics for the past year or two and I often wonder why our government decides to ignore economists. These guys study markets and how they interact – they can typically tell us if a spending decision will provide the expected results or if it will flop. Politicians rarely pay attention to these “intellectuals” because well, what the hell do they know?

  Heck, I’m all in for this one – are you?