Funny Story

We all decided we were going to go to Target one day and because of what we were buying (mainly large totes) we needed two carts so perhaps to the casual observer, I (who was pushing the cart filled with stuff) was chatting up a single mother. We both got in line and Kim bought something or other and I was behind her unloading the totes onto the conveyor belt.

The cashier's name was Adam. He's easy to remember. He has a mop for a hairstyle that mushrooms out from his head and a goofy look on his face all the time like he's in a curious limbo between being congested to the point of mouth breathing constantly and being in a state of total awe of the world around him. And his name is Adam.

Anyway, Kim's in front of me and he Adam says to her something like "hey, what's up?" and looks at me and I said "How's it going, Adam?"

Kim thinks this is a weird habit of mine but if you know someone's name, go ahead and use it, right?

Well, Kim says "It's really weird that you do that."

Adam looks at her and leans in a bit and says "I know. I totally don't even know that guy!"

This was around the time that my totes roll up to the front of the belt and Adam looks at me and I say "this too," because he had begun to close out the transaction. He looked at Kim like "WTF?" and she said "yeah, that too."

Then the realization that we're together spread across his teenage stoner-looking face. You could almost hear him curse to himself.

I thought it was hilarious.

Georgia On My Mind No More

I've lived in quite a few places and almost all of them had some sort of food associated with them that I love and miss very much. Italy's delicious pizza, New Zealand's fish and chips, Japan's sushimi, etc. etc.

I try my hardest to recognize the area's specialty and eat as much of it as I can while I'm there and look for a recipe to be able to make it myself regardless of where I am. And it used to be that I thought the thing I would miss about Georgia was the barbecue. There are no cajun roots here, no deep fried whatevers, not a lot of "southern" stuff, but they do have a good and what Alton Brown would call "sickeningly sweet" barbecue.

Ah, but no more. A new buddy of mine exposed me to North Carolina barbecue and it's about a billion times (approximately) better than Georgia's. Not only that, but it was made by a Native American, which I'm sure doesn't influence the taste but it makes for that much cooler of a story.

You bet I've requested the recipe.

So with barbecue eliminated, what does Georgia have to offer?

Nothing.

At least, middle Georgia doesn't. There's an orchard in North Georgia's Ellijay where fried pies are made (like the hostess ones you find at gas stations) that are huge and delicious. There's also an amazing German restaurant in Helen, GA that has the most unique pizza I've every tried but I think that's a German restaurant and perhaps I can find something similar in Germany.

Anyhoo, there's nothing holding me back here anymore.

:-)

Everything Is About To Change

Well, hopefully.

No wait, I take that back. Everything I know is about to change. The people I look up to at work, my professional heroes if you will, are all leaving to go to other bases to do other jobs. The people that are left that I know I feel an odd kinship with because I've known them for so dang long. You know how you feel at high school your first year when you don't know anyone but as time goes on and you become a senior, hey, all of a sudden it hits you that you know EVERYONE?

That's what it's like.

But without the people that I'm learning how to grow and mature from as an NCO, I don't want to be here for too much longer. I want to move on and do a different job at a different place myself. Maybe find some more heroes (you can never have enough).

Anyway, so there's a possibility that I might get a different job going someplace else and if that's the case I'm more than ready for it. I hear people say Georgia's not a bad first duty station and I'm inclined to disagree. There is a lot to do but it's at least a 30 minute drive and with little to do in the immediate area, that just leads to trouble.

For other people, I mean. I'm fine.

But yeah, folks tell me to stop complaining because it could be worse. Look buddy, I've been living on bases my whole life. This is not a "first" anything for me. This is merely one more base that I spent way too long at and now it's time to move on.

This makes me scared of retirement, this constant need to move every few years.

And I want to see the world - well, most of the world, anyway. More importantly I want to show my family the world, especially my kids. Being exposed to different cultures is what made me how I am for the most part, I believe. Those and the movies that raised me. I plan to have a different parental strategy, but different cultures is a must because I don't want my kids to become ethnocentric or xenophobic.

So while things WILL change for me at work with the loss of my mentors, I'm hoping they'll change a lot more than that!

As a side note, one of my mentors wore his Blues yesterday with his ribbons and no kidding, the guy has a million of them and he's in my career field. Now, I have something like 14 ribbons right now after less than five years and that's pretty good. I'm nervous about getting them if I get a ground job since their ribbon racks are usually so much smaller. I know it's a shallow thing, but I'm a sucker for getting ribbons and medals so this guy had me thinking twice about cross training into a ground job, but I just keep saying "the locations are better the locations are better the locations are better..."

Big Day

It's been a big day for me.

First, while harvesting pretend crops on a pretend farm for pretend rewards on the ever-popular Facebook game Farmville, I decided that I was never really having any fun and it was more just something to do. Five to ten minutes once or twice a day and you're done.

But why do it when it isn't fun?

So I quit. The rice I planted has not fully grown yet, but it won't be harvested when it does. I'm not playing anymore. We'll see what the repercussions of that are.

Maybe I'll have a little more time to peruse the internet forums

Oh yeah, I'm not so hip to them right now either. I've got nothing against them, it's just that right now it doesn't look like anything really interesting is happening right now.

Though I will say that the Telecaster forum never fails to post some great looking pictures of worn out Teles and I want one pretty bad. Not a worn one (well, maybe a worn one) but a lacquered one and not JUST lacquered on the body but the neck too. Half the fun of showing wear is showing it on the neck. Unfortunately, Fender doesn't offer this except on the really high end guitars (about 17-2,000.00).

Now, there are builders that will build you a Tele to your specs and more and more are popping up every day so when I say that I've been thinking about a sea foam green la cabronita Tele with a single TV Jones Powertron in the bridge, there are people that can do it (for less than a real Fender too).

But I'm not close to getting a new guitar at all. Not at ALL. Oh well. I'm pretty happy with the ones I have. Sometimes I think I should replace the neck on my Tele for one that's a bit more chunky like an old Tele is, but the idea of carrying the whole guitar stock throughout my career is pretty tempting too. Maybe the frets just need leveled out or replaced. I'd be more prone to do that, honestly.

I also had an afternoon to myself and I drove up to Macon to a Mac store there. Not an official Apple Store with a glass front or anything, a small store that had a fairly knowledgeable staff that helped me out and answered my questions. I told them if I were to get the Macbook Pro like I want it would probably be while deployed and they didn't say they could ship it or that if I ordered it from THEM that I wouldn't pay tax.

Though I would like to order from them.

I'd like that very much.

It would be nice to support a small shop like this one and say that there is a market for this kind of stuff.

Perhaps I could email him from the desert and organize a mail-order.

When I went in there was a kid carrying out a 27" imac. His mother/grandmother referred to it as his toy and it blew me away. Here I am, 26, trying to convince my wife that a Mac is what I need to be able to jump into audio recording and hopefully not break a computer like I seem to have a knack for and this 15 year old kid is getting a "toy" from his relatives.

The manager of the store said that a soldier bought a macbook pro, a real expensive one, and also bought a super duper case. One that costs somewhere around 400.00 that has Kevlar and titanium and all that. In Iraq, while carrying the computer in the case a sniper shot two shots. One ripped the guy's leg right off. The other hit the case. The guy lived and brought the case and macbook in to show that the 400.00 was well spent because nothing on the inside was hurt though the outside looks like... well, like it was shot by a sniper.

The afternoon off was a big thing for me. Kim likes to think that me going to work is a break and I don't want one from the family or kids which just isn't true. I think everyone needs a little time to themselves and always try to give Kim that time because she's a little more vocal about needing it. When I told her it would be nice for ME to have a personal day she sat back and said it honestly hadn't occurred to her that I would want one.

Driving back, with the sun coming down from its apex, music up loud and going a bit faster than I should have, I was having a good time.

And I didn't spend a dime. Not even on a book I want to get called Love Is A Mix Tape.

So I got home, took Kim's library books back, took Annie to the park where no less than seven ladybugs landed on my shirt (must be the color), burned the living hell ut of some pork chops in the last grill of the season, and after putting the kids down for their sleep settled in for a good forty minutes of reading God's Middle Finger, a travel book about the Sierra Madre mountain range in Mexico. Very entertaining. Doing coke with cops, being chased by armed gunmen who want to kill you because they're bored, watching fat prostitutes (mucha carne) strut by batting eyelashes because no Mexican girl apparently feels bad about themselves and every one is confident in their looks, all of this makes for some great reading.

So yeah, big day.

Family: Bah!

I think it's interesting, this idea that your family needs to be together, stick togethe rand help eachother through whatever life hands them regardless of how each family member feels about them.

Maybe I have a unique perspective because being raised in the military I rarely saw my family outside of the nuclear capacity and when I did, it was more than likely grandparents and few others.

So I don't exactly have strong ties. I didn't grow up playing with cousins and nephews and nieces. I don't mind that, either.

I don't mind it because when a person who happens to be related to me acts like an ass, I'm not incredibly torn up about severing the tie. I barely know whoever I'm talking to anyway, so what's the big deal? It's not like we have clans anymore where we'll wage war on an opposing house.

But you can't imagine the grief I get from other family members about "not caring," or "turning my back on a member of the family."

Nuts to that. I would much rather judge everyone equally because this whole tied by blood thing is a myth anyway. No one REALLY cares about that, they just pocket it until it's useful to them to manipulate and I need no more people manipulating me.

If someone's an ass, they're an ass and you don't need to be around them. Why let them depress you and drag you down? There is no reason.

Now, I'm not saying family doesn't matter. In my opinion the reason this whole family through and through mentality came to be is because in a good family, their attitudes and love for eachother make you WANT to give them everything you can and stick together and that's fine. That's a good thing. You should do the same with friends.

But if one of your friends was just an awful person, you wouldn't be their friend anymore right? The same rules apply to me and my family. If you're an awful person who's bringing me down, you won't be bringing me down for long.

Post #10

So Adam, my sweet, sweet son who always seems to be happy and smiling and laughing - oh how he laughs when you play patty cake with him - woke at 3:30 in the morning.

THREE THIRTY!

Oh, but I'll survive, don't worry about me. I don't have any coffee, but somehow I'll make it through. At least I don't have to worry about making dinner tonight.

Why?

Because yesterday, with Ida straddling middle Georgia and pelting us with rain and wind (that's gross when you think about it), I took the kids to Publix. Oh, it was GREAT. First off, the rain. Glorious rain. I covered Adam's car seat and carried it and held Annie's hand as we booked it to the store and then into the cart with both of them.

For the record, this leaves very little room for food.

But I was getting so frustrated about not having dinner in the house that I had to do this and I picked up three frozen dinners to tide us over until payday when maybe I can leave a child with Kim and go grocery shopping with a little more real estate in the cart.

It was a nice little trip though. Annie laughed at how she was getting wet and I was just trying to make sure everyone was OK and as dry as possible. It did the kids good to get out too.

So you'll excuse me since I've been up for nine hours already that my blog isn't all that entertaining today. Sorry.

Maybe tomorrow.

Post #9

It seems like I was wrong earlier when I wrote about the Nook, the Kindle and the Sony. Apparently it's only the Kindle that sucks. And by sucks I mean is more forced to get books from Amazon. There are workarounds, but they're still workarounds, while the Nook is open to get books from other sources and the Droid OS is going to help out eventually too.

At least, that's what I've been reading.

I'm pretty excited. I don't get embarrassed when I read books even though I read a little bit of trash, but I was recently thinking of reading the Twilight series purely to see what all the fuss is about. Even Kim devoured it in a little over a day (the first book) and was talking about how it's SO much better than she thought it would be and "oh, Edward..."

I have to know what everyone's so wrapped up about.

And I do NOT want to be caught reading the book with the actors' faces on the cover.

The idea is gross.

But on an ereader no one's the wiser. I could be reading 1776 for all anyone knows!

Post #8

It's like some sort of Disney movie, I swear. On Friday we were in the car somewhere and Kim asked if I would be game for swapping jobs. She would go to work at my job and I would be a stay-at-home Dad. Of course this is impossible to actually do.

Right?

To an extent, I guess. She was mainly asking me to validate her job as a difficult one and it's true, her job is tough. I know this. I knew this before this whole ligament thing. I never for an instant thought her job was cake.

Well, I guess she pulled out a shrunken monkey's paw and made a wish because her back got hurt and now I'm a stay at home dad. But it's like stay at home dad XTREME! Where the usual grocery trip involves Kim taking Annie and me staying home with Adam or her going by herself, I have to go everywhere with both kids.

And we need to get groceries.

It's tough. But it's also mighty COINCIDENTAL that this happened when it did. Me thinks the lady put a curse on me (temporarily). I swear honey, I respect you.

Post #7

Still alive! The 5th Fret dropped out of Nablopomo and so did New Rukian, so that leaves just me. Good thing I wrote that blog about God being a bit of a butt early yesterday.

So where to begin? Kim was in bed all day yesterday which meant I got to take care of the kids. So I did. It was everything I thought it would be, good parts and bad.

I went out to check the mail though, and there was a little boy, probably seven or eight sitting on top of a hill crying in direct view of me, with his back turned to me.

Just sitting there doing the boy cry which is less of a whaaaaa and more of a mmmmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMM. Campbell's should sue.

At first I was going to leave him alone. What business is it of mine? But I looked around and no one was coming for him, no one cared. There were people that could see him and they weren't doing anything. So I said nuts to this and went over there and tried to make myself as physically menacing as possible. Not to scare the poor kid, but to let him know that I'm an adult and can probably be trusted. No sense in me going over there to try to make the kid feel better only to have him run away screaming.

I squatted down next to him and asked if he was OK. He was not. He had a red line with spots of blood going down the side of his face. This is the result of another little boy breaking off a tree branch and beating him across the face with it. A little boy that happened to be watching this with his friends and mother. The crying child also said he was pushed into a big pile of dirt by the same little butthole.

I asked if he wanted to go home and he didn't know. Go figure. I convinced him that he needs to have his folks look at his face to put some neosporin or ice on it. I really wanted them to see the face so they can get good and pissed and put that little boy in his place. He was as good as guilty in my book.

I just thought, what if someone brought home Annie or Adam like that. Oh, I'd hand the kid off to Kim in a heartbeat to get fixed up while I went on a little walk. And woe to the kid and parents of that kid when I get to their step.

We walked past the group of oglers and the boy was telling his mom that it was an accident and the mom was eating it up. I wanted to explain that it could not have possibly been an accident. When you're running through bushes and a branch that you pushed through snaps back and hits your friend, that's an accident. But all of the trees/bushes are cut too high for that to happen in this neighborhood AND the mark was vertical not horizontal. That kid was hit.

I dropped the now-calmer child off with his dad who was concerned about what happened and I left to go back home. I had my own kids to tend to. But the little branch user tried to talk to me as I walked by saying it was an accident mister and I controlled myself enough not to look his way. Best not to get too involved. It would have been way too easy to escalate.

Meanwhile Kimmy was really hurt. Really hurt. I had to take her to the ER and then they told her that she had torn a ligament and it would take quite some time to heal but as for now she can't lift anything heavier than a book and I'm in charge of the kids now.

It will be interesting to see how much longer I can keep Nablopomo up.

Post #6

I'll be completely honest here: I think God exists. I do. SOMEONE had to make this place.

But I for one don't like Him. He's kind of a dick. At the very least he makes life "interesting."

For instance, today we were supposed to drive to Macon. We would get breakfast on the way to an exit far past Macon and go to a park, a nature preserve-ish type of place where we would walk and everything would be fine. Kim would get good pictures, the kids would get air.

Except Kim woke up and while getting ready, her back started to hurt and get progressively worse. She swallowed some Aleve and we made our way to the car, her leaning on me quite a bit, both of us thinking if she still hurts by the time we get to 75, we'll turn back, but we didn't make it that far. No, we got breakfast and had to go back. Then I took the kids to Target to get icy hot back pads for Kimmy (and to give her some quiet relaxing time) and when I got back in the car to go home, the brake light came on. The constant DING DING DING DING DING DING came with it. I was annoyed, but no big deal. The brakes did feel squishy. I'll just pull off to a gas station and get some brake fluid.

Bought some break fluid and Adam was crying (howling) when I opened up the car door to pull the hood lever and guess what didn't release?

The hood.

I pushed it down and it seemed to connect, but when I pulled the lever, nothing happened. I couldn't get the damn hood to open up.

So I drove home with the constant DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING in my ears and when I got home and was feeding Adam his bottle as Annie tried to kiss Mommy better, Kim reminded me that a few months ago, something happened with the car and they said that eventually this one thing is going to need to be fixed and I said it's too expensive so we'll wait. Kim thinks it's that and I'm inclined to agree, but why today of all days?

And it's not like we have the extra money to fix the car right now either so it looks like we're going to be a one car family.

Maybe He is just using this little series of... events... to draw us together as a family.

But right now I just think it's messed up.

Post #5

This is why everyone should consider joining the Air Force:

We had a fund raiser today to raise money for the squadron Christmas party and random things that pop up (like if a military spouse needs something and their husband/wife is deployed, the squadron may be able to help) so we had a golf tournament and had the day off from work to accomplish this. So we showed up in civilian clothes and golfed. Carts with beer, snacks, chips etc. were driven around to us in case we wanted to buy stuff to further support the squadron.

The carts were full of Hooters girls.

Now, I don't like going to Hooters. Their food is awful. But these girls volunteered their time for free to come out and help us out (not really doing anything but posing for pictures and flirting) and I think that's pretty cool.

For the record, this was my first time playing golf. I enjoyed it but after seven or so holes, I was done. I don't know how people can go a full 18. I think maybe if the kids are in to it, I'll get in to it too, but for now I'll save my money for more important things.

We received an award too. A spray-painted gold playstation controller that said stick to Tiger Woods golf because we sucked. The whole team, save one, was out on their first golf outing. So us sucking was expected.

But where else are you going to get a day off from work to golf, drink beer, hang out with friends, AND all the money raised will go to making your future parties great and your families a little more secure?

Go Air Force!

Post #4

I have good news and I have bad news. And contrary to the way everyone usually likes to hear the delivery, I’ll tackle the good news first, then the bad.

So the good news: I found my iPod. It was under a couch cushion.

Unfortunately (bad news) I found it AFTER I took a PT test today. If you walk around a walking track twelve times, it’s tough to stay motivated, tough to stay moving at a decent pace and it gets REALLY boring. So boring your mind starts to drift and you don’t even realize that your pace has slowed drastically. No kidding, a blue jay landed on a tree branch and I almost stopped to look at it. I slowed considerably and caught myself just in time.

Man, I hate PT tests. I know I’m not alone in this either. I understand the need for them, I understand the desire for the AF to keep you trim (you look better in your uniform – no one wants a slob working for them) and fit (so you, you know, won’t die after running a mile in a bullet-proof vest) BUT it still sucks that you’re being evaluated in an official capacity on your body. I don’t know, there’s just SOMETHING about it that freaks me out, borderline scares me.

Maybe it’s because it feels like – as they wrap the tape measure around your waist – they’re measuring your worth. Your whole worth, summed up in your body, the thing that, as a member of the USAF, you probably don’t use that often. Nothing to do with your intellect, nothing to do with your job skills or leadership skills or anything that really matters, none of it comes in to play. But if you have a 40” waist, oh boy, you better watch out.

And this just seems a little wrong to me. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad if it wasn’t such a HUGE thing to the AF. If you fail to meet the requirements, they can kick you out. How bad would it feel to be kicked out of a job you were qualified for, that you were good at, in a career where you were excelling in ALMOST every way, but you happened to eat fast food too much? And because of that, you got kicked out.

That’s a little ridiculous.

Oh well. It’s not like one guy is going to change this.

But I went out and walked my three miles (I can’t run) and my scores were good. Unfortunately it was a practice test so I get to do it again next week. I wouldn’t be so damn angry if I had FAILED the test, because it was a practice test and I was just seeing where I was after ALS. I’m more mad at myself for not having the confidence to say I can still do it.

But oh man, I’m mad at myself. Not cool, Russ. Not flipping cool.

I like to end most things on a positive note though so here we go: Next week, as I wake up early to drive to work to get evaluated again for a test I have absolutely zero faith in just so I can say that I’m worthy to stick around for one more year, I’ll step out into the chilly air and I will definitely have my iPod ready to go.

Post #3

During Thanksgiving of 2007, Amazon released their Kindle. While ereaders had been around for a while, this was a big step forward both in terms of use and book availability. It was likened to the first iPod.

Then Amazon released the Kindle 2, which featured "upgrades" that slimmed down the body, streamlined the keyboard, made the page turn buttons smaller and stronger, sped up the page turning process and got rid of the expandable memory, supposedly in favor of getting the body as slim as possible.

But the Kindle has some problems too. Mainly that it's a little pricey. The price has dropped significantly since its release, but it's always been a bit high and there's also a big threat of them acting in a very Big Brother fashion.

They can reach into your device and take what you bought if it doesn't seem legitimate or make changes to your library without you knowing it. It would be like if someone went into your house and started marking out words in your books o taking them altogether because they were borrowed from a friend.

A student was using the Kindle and its handy note taking feature in a college class only to have Amazon pull the book off of his system and now he has no book for the class and is pissed. Amazon manned up though and said they're sorry and gave him back his notes but without the text nearby, the notes are practically useless. They also said they would never do something like this again.

They also offer services that other ereaders are offering but Amazon is wanting to charge you for the service and the others aren't.

Since the Kindle has been released, I'm sure many people in the industry are thinking that this is the iPod of books and they want to get in on a lower floor. Look at what happened with Apple. No one else wanted to support MP3 formats and the iPod became the king of MP3 players and now you can ask someone if they have an iPod and they'll say yes and caveat it with "well, it's a Sansa." "Ipod" has become synonymous with MP3 player, much like Kleenex has become synonymous with tissues.

Because of this we have good looking competition from Sony and Barnes & Noble.

Honestly, for me the “benefits” of buying the Nook from Barnes & Noble or the Amazon Kindle just don’t work for me. I will never use text to speech, especially when it sounds like a robot. I can barely make it through automated phone recordings so how can I expect myself to make it through Brave New World? This is not an actor or the author reading the book, this is a machine reading it. Not cool to me.

Also, why on EARTH would I want MP3 features on my reader? It is NOT a computer, why should it be treated like one?

I don’t really understand pictures on readers either, but would rather have the reader to have that capability because it probably means that it could handle illustrations in books.

The dictionary. Whenever I didn’t know a word, my parents made me look it up in the big heavy dictionary. The work put forth in finding it helped me remember the word and its definition. I thank my parents for this because I’m pretty sure it’s what has helped the most with my vocabulary. The Sony does not have an instant dictionary where the Nook and Kindle does but again, the work of finding the word will help you remember what it means.

I also don’t need a web browser on my reader. I just don’t. The reason it’s there in the first place on the Nook and Kindle is because they want you to be able to buy books from them and since you have access to that, they have access to you.

I’m not TOO worried about Big Brother but stay the heck away from my devices.

All the perks of the Kindle and the Nook are probably not going to be applicable to me. I probably won’t be hanging out with other Nook users who have their reader on them and happen to want to lend me a book of theirs for 14 days. I’m not interested in paying way too much for newspapers and abbreviated magazines either.

But the Sony, ah, the Sony. What a great looking reader. It does not offer expandable memory, but honestly, since I’m not going to be paying for a NY Times subscription, and have no interest in MP3s or pictures, how am I going to fill up any level of memory when a normal book is 2mb? And when I finish, am I going to hold on to it or am I going to get it off of my device and into the folder that has all of my other finished books in it? I want my device as clean as possible so I can see which books I have that I’m in the middle of and which books I have that I still need to read.

The price is decent too. At 200 bucks I can get the reader, have access to Google Books which is all but a book dealer themselves now, AND Sony’s bookstore which might cause some healthy competition. Sony’s shop offers books in series at a discounted price too when they’re in bundles. Prices are comparable to Amazon’s shop (B&N is still pricey even in electronic form) too.

It doesn’t have text to speech nor a web browser, nor pictures, nor lending, nor any of that other stuff. It’s just a solid reader with the ability to get books from multiple sources (when Amazon and B&N realize that they should be offering an inexpensive device that can go to different sources they’ll sell more) and at a decent price point too. You can’t beat it, honestly. Not at the price.

I plan on getting it because it doesn’t have all that fluff that, while cool, I’ll never use. AND it doesn’t connect via internet and no one cares what I have on my device.

Take the hint, Amazon and B&N!

Post #2

I seem to have misplaced my iPod. This really bumms me out. I know I had it the night that I graduated (the 28th), because my mom was commenting that Metallica whom the iPod was playing (Damage Inc.) came to town and she didn't even know it.

I'm not quite sure if Mom could handle a Metallica show. I can't remember the last time I ever saw a mosh pit break out at a Metallica show though so maybe she could. I know she REALLY likes the black album and not too much else, so it may end up a disappointing night for her until they play the obligatory Enter Sandman.

God I hate the black album. It was a fine album until my dad decided to play it in the car for (no exaggeration here) 14 months straight. If you listen to ANYTHING for 14 months, you're bound to feel the same way I do. And he would always go back to track number 1 to start the trip off so I could be sure to listen to the first five or six songs and little else.

*shudder*

But moving on. I know it's around somewhere. I need it though. The iPhone is not the best for listening to music in the car what with AT&T's screeching speaker interference, or the fact you have to slide to open then press track forward, backward, menu, etc. The classic set up is much easier to navigate without taking your eyes off the road.

I have got to find that thing.

Ah yes, tomorrow I plan on posting about ereaders, so watch out. My love for the Kindle has taken an odd turn, one I'm not sure it can come back from and what with Sony's new ones and now even Barnes & Noble has one so research needs to be done in case anyone out there is planning on using my info as research of their own for their ereader-buying experience (if so, please let me know your opinions because I'm still a bit on the fence about which to get).

Until tomorrow!

Post #1

Well, it seems that I've missed day one of Noblopomo this year so... dangit. BUT I figured I'll do it anyway and extend to December 1st. I think that's fair.

So what's new in Kid Land? Annie moved to a big girl bed last night. We had to move the nightlight she's used to which is a brass turtle with light-up shell (very cool) because it was just too obvious that there was a plug attached. This might mean that she would follow the cord to the wall and pull out the plug. I'm not worried about her pulling the plug or putting her fingers in the holes afterward but perhaps completing the circuit with the plug halfway out and electrocuting herself... yeah, that crossed my mind.

But after the initial meltdown of not being in the familiar crib, she calmed down and actually slept pretty good. I hear she even had a great nap today.

In Adam news, Adam has a misshaped head. We were a little worried about it, and the pediatrician referred us to a shaping doctor (I think they're called "orthontists") who said that it's purely cosmetic and it isn't impacting his brain at all and the unevenness would probably work itself out as he grew BUT that didn't stop him from doing scans and seeing just how much is wrong with his head.

Now, an interjection. My kid is not Quasimodo or anything. He looks fine but we noticed that in the back of his head he has a flat spot.

Anyway, he said he wanted Adam to wear a helmet and work up to wearing it for 23 hours a day for an indeterminate amount of time.

Tricare does not cover the helmet. The nurses said it was because Tricare considers the helmet to be... optional. Whether that's true or not is beyond me. The helmet costs 2,100.00 and THAT means that Adam is going to have to develop a good personality because we just can't pay for that. He'll get dates, no worries though. He's got eyes that will probably attract the chicks like moths to a flame.

Meanwhile for me, it was supposed to be back to the grind today but between having to take Adam to the doc and having to do some currency things, I was just unable to do any work.

Tomorrow though...

Can I Brag A Little?

Well, tonight was graduation night of Airman Leadership School. 192 class room hours, multiple homework assignments, several speeches, a large number of classroom discussions, interactions, learning about leadership, about taking care of your people and basically how to be the best Non Commissioned Office you can be. It was... rough. So many of the nights I spent doing homework or studying and my lovely wife would watch the kids or accommodate me in some way and it's been a bit trying, but I explained to her that this is worth it. This is the first time in my career that I stood up and took control of my CAREER and it wasn't just going along with the flow, or letting others dictate MY action. I stayed up and studied harder than necessary and before the last test, I was more than happy to volunteer my time helping out in study groups all weekend.

To my wife I say thank you because without you there to help me I wouldn't have done as good as I did.

And how good did I do? Well, there are several awards you can win. You can win an academic award which is just top dog for grades only, you can win a distinguished graduate award which is for those in the top 10% of the class that not only showed great academic excellence but also leadership capabilities. You also have the leadership award which is chosen by the school Commandant, and finally the Levitow award which trumps all awards in prestige. The thing about the Levitow though is that if you win it, you can't win anything else.

I was in direct competition with someone and it was mainly out of fun, but we have a bit of a history of rivalry so it was a motivator and in the end, the first award they called was for the academic and it went to me. I was shocked because I'm pretty sure I wasn't the top as far as grades. I was pretty sure I was in second place, but hey, who am I to turn down an award? So I haul myself up to the front and get my very first plaque from the USAF and go sit back down. Oh, there were handshakes from EVERYWHERE and I even got my very first coin handed to me by a commander which was pretty freaking awesome. To get a coin given to you by a person who gets coins ISSUED to them is awesome because they have to inventory all the coins they give out and to whom it was given.

I was pretty happy. Then they called the leadership award and it went to my flight commander and she was more than deserving. She dedicated a ton of personal time to make sure that her flight was taken care of (and she brought in cookies on test days)and there was never a question of whether or not she was there coaching everyone on. The great thing is usually flight commanders don't receive awards because their performance slips because they're too busy helping out their flight members.

Next up was distinguished graduate. They said my squadron and I looked at the only other guy from my squadron there and then they called my name.

My name.

The Colonel that handed me the statue said that what I did was really impressive to her.

I believe it. I was stunned. More handshakes, one more coin. I was super happy.

Then the next DG award (class size dictates how many are given out) was given to my new buddy Sparky who deserved it very much.

Finally the Levitow was given to the Airman with whom I was competing against and before we got our diplomas, I congratulated her and said I was proud of her and she said the same to me. Our flight took ALL the awards and every recipient was sitting next to each other in class too.

But getting the awards were just a small part of the joy, honestly. I felt great that I was now validated. I could look at my supervisor and let them know that their Airman did something that was pretty cool and honestly, I couldn't have done it if I hadn't been groomed by them beforehand. And my mom and her boyfriend was there and that was cool too. I've known Mom's boyfriend since I was ten and he's always been a very strong presence in my life and I'm glad that they could have been there to see it.

Unfortunately Kim wasn't there and to be honest, I missed her very much. I recorded a speech given by a Chief about the importance of spouses, but it would have been cool for her to see me get called up to the front both times. I can't give credit to my supervisors for grooming me without giving credit to my wife for letting me be groomed. She's been more than patient with me in the AF and I only hope that the small tangible things I get can somehow make her proud enough to forget or forgive the long nights alone with the kids while I was busy writing a paper or practicing a speech.

I love you, Kim. More than any amount of words these fingers could ever type. They could pound on keyboard after broken keyboard until the fingers were mere nubs at the end of time and it would still be sorely lacking in telling you the depth and strength of my love for you.

Well, everyone, I think I've bragged enough. Thanks for your time and have a great day!

-Pappy

The Annoying Guy

You know what annoys the crap out me? Return characters that are bad. This applies to both TV, movies and real life, by the way. I hate it when some douche is in your life for some reason or another, then they leave and they're gone for so long that you let out that breath you never realized you were holding. Ah, a rush of relief.

But then that same person comes back in and you just want to scream at him that you were fine without them here. "WHY ARE YOU HERE?" You want to ask. "GET OUT! DON'T COME BACK! LIFE WAS MUCH BETTER WITHOUT YOU AND YOUR INPUT!"

I swear to god it's a like a stray dog you feed once.

So you ignore it and hope it goes away and eventually it does but then some stupid friend of yours drops half of a burger at a BBQ and doesn't clean it up enough and guess who comes back?

It's miserable.

Talk About Light!

I'm in ALS right now. That stands for Airman Leadership School. It's where you go to learn how to be a supervisor and man is it fun. They pack a ton of education, speeches, papers, formulated writing, PT AND homework into a measly amount of time and it is NOT a good time at all.

But it's incredibly beneficial. See, I'm learning a lot, it's just a painful learning process. It doesn't help when there are those unavoidable stressors given to you by family or work but hey, you roll with the punches.

Tonight I was working on my very last brief for the class and then after that I worked on my last two written assignments for the class. In one night I have taken care of three of the six graded assignments and on one hand you would rather have your work, especially GRADED work, to be spread out, but on the other hand, if you knock half of your graded assignments out in one night, what more do you have to worry about?

It's relief.

And it's something else: it's the sign of the end of the time in class. I still have more to be graded on and more time in the class BUT with so much knocked out in one night I feel good.

Yeah.

I feel good.

The Cold Hard Truth About Kids

Make no bones about it, kids are tough, even at the best of times. They cause you to constantly re-evaluate your values and principles and they wear you down like nothing else on this earth can.

They change your entire life.

And at first it is ALL bad. They do nothing but cry, you can't take them anywhere, they don't sleep, things happen naturally and they get sick but you don't know what's wrong with them (with a two year old you ask what hurts and they point to their ear, OK, a possible ear infection). They make everyone in the house tired and miserable which means the company you so desperately want with the other person is soured because they're in a miserable mood which makes you go into a miserable mood and for months life just plain sucks.

But then you start getting things back. Smiles, giggles, coos, and while all that's great, it's when they start being visibly glad to see you that starts making it worth it. There are great things about having kids but for me, they happen way down the line, not in the first few months where you can't talk or even whisper in your own bedroom for fear of waking up jr, or when sometimes everything's fine with the child and then other times he just cries and cries and cries and cries. It makes you think bad thoughts.

But they'll go away.

So.

Handy tips for non-parents. Make a list of everything you want to do in life and do it before you have kids.

Then do it again with kids. Well, some of it. Obviously you don't want to take kids to a GWAR concert.

Weight Watchers

I am back on weight watchers. It's fun this time. Dieting may not SOUND fun but like everything else in life, if you incorporate it with something you like, you'll probably enjoy it a ton more. Like putting a dog's medicine in peanut butter.

And my thing is gadgets. I love them. I downloaded an app for my phone which keeps track of how many points I've eaten per day, has a calculator to figure out points and a favorites list so I don't have to keep inputting the same stuff.

Taking a tip from a review, everything I eat I favorite so eventually everything will be in there. So when someone says let's go to lunch I can ask where and if I've been there, I already have the information and I can say what I want before we even leave. It's awesome.

If I have not eaten there yet, no biggie, I also have an app with nutritional information from a ton of restaurants.

No more having to keep a slide rule with point conversions. No more having to keep a notepad to write in (and then forget to bring with you so lunch doesn't count today).

One makes dieting easy and it keeps me on track and the other makes it possible to make informed decisions, even on the go.

So I started at 171.6 lbs. I'll keep you posted on losses or gains hopefully.

By the way, if anyone out there has an iPod and Nike+, there's a 10K on October 24th at any time of the day. I'll probably be pushing an umbrella stroller with Annie in it, but that's fine. This will be my first 10K. I'm SUPER excited!

-Russ

Drowning

So, the thing about life is that you're constantly learning new things, even if you don't realize it. Life experiences turn into lessons learned and it's because of this most people realize that they've been progressing in life. Remember what you steadfastly believed as a teen? Is it the same now?

Even in the professional area, you're always learning.

I've been an Airman now (E1-4) for about 4.5 years. It's be just about five when I sew on my Staff Sergeant stripe and become a Non-Commissioned Officer. During those four years I've had good supervisors, I've had bad supervisors, and I've had supervisors that give a lot of lip service.

In all three instances I have learned what I like, don't like, and REALLY don't like and I hope to apply those to my airmen when I get them.

For instance, right now I'm in Airmen Leadership School, the kind of place that epitomizes the "take a drink from the fire hose" mentality and it's hard to keep up and I feel like the things that I'm reading, I had access to for the last 4.5 years. I was just never told to read them, never told to start practicing these skills. The rank of Senior Airman, where I am right now is supposed to be a position where your supervisor is grooming you to be a leader by having you do these things.

And they aren't TOUGH things, they're just a LOT of things, but honestly, how much easier would all of this be if I had access to just the outside sources used in class? We have study guides for in the class and I understand they wouldn't want us giving those to our airmen, but we also use publications that I have seen but never paid attention to and maybe that falls on me, but I was never told to pay attention to them.

Anyway, I've been learning and I hope when I come out of it, I can hurry up and finish something that needs to be done and then I'll deploy, and while deployed, my cross training paperwork is going to be turned in. I hope to come home to find orders to go to a new tech school and learn a new job and I'll get some new airmen.

But as for right now, I'm just going to school, reading a TON of stuff, taking ltos of notes and trying not to drown.

School Is In

We moved into our house in the summer time. I didn't pay any attention to the fact that it's right next to the entrance because honestly why would that matter?

Oh it matters.

Now my parking space disappears if I leave the house anytime between 2 and 4 in the afternoon and in its place is a parent who is usually very snappy about moving because it's THEIR spot where THEY'RE waiting to pick up THEIR kids.

My advice is simple. If you want to wait for your kids, that's fine. Walk to the gate to get them. Get some exercise. You're in the military anyway so suck it up and do at least a LITTLE PT.

It's like a freaking parking garage outside my house!

The Morning Routine

When I was a kid and growing up, my dad always woke me up in the morning. Not deliberately, he didn't come into my room and shake me awake of turn on the light or anything like that but his boom boom boom walking around getting ready for the day woke me up.

And he got up so freaking EARLY!

So early in fact that even though I wanted to get up and tell him to have a great day at work and see what he looks like at that hour in the morning, I could never convince myself to get out of bed.

Ah, to be young again.

And now I'm on the other side. I don't think I wake Annie up because I take care not to, but here I am, waking up at five in the morning to get ready to work out.

Sometimes, especially with these little realizations that I'm doing a lot of the things my dad did, I hope that I can do a better job. I think every parent wants to be better than their parent but in my case, I want it more than most.

Adventures In Dad Land

Well, today we had to take Adam to see the doc about acid reflux. That’s kind of like heartburn. It sucks. He has it, just like Annie did but he’s on meds and is doing well because of them. Today was just a check up to see if it’s working well.

So we walk in and there’s a woman with a baby and a Playboy diaper bag. Bleached hair, inch-long black roots, and gold slippers. I doubt the common sense of anyone who has a Playboy diaper bag.

Anyway, we take Adam to the examination room and lay him down and the nurse says to take his clothes and diaper off.

Taking the diaper off a boy is always a dangerous thing. There’s a weapon being housed in there after all.

I take the diaper off and he has pooped. No big deal. I grab some wipes and wipe him down because he has to be naked to be weighed. Well, as I’m wiping him down he flexes and a ton more poop flies right out of his butt.

By the way, a disclaimer: this blog deals with bodily functions. If this bugs you, you should probably stop reading.

Anyway, it’s pretty bad, like pushing the pump on a Play Doh toy and making a tube or something. So I’m waiting for him to be done so I can clean him up to get weighed. I’m holding his legs up so there’s as little mess as possible and he decides that NOW is the time to pee. So he let go and peed all over the place. Well, less all over the place and more all over his face. It was a direct hit. The best part is that he was shocked about this shaking his head like “WHAT’S GOING ON?! WHY AM I GETTING WET?!” And yet, the pee keeps coming.

So he finally finishes peeing and pooping and I clean him up and we weigh him (9.9 lbs by the way) and he’s crying as I take him back to the examination table and he locks his legs and I tell Kim it’s crazy, it’s like he wants to stand up. She looks away from the nurse and to Adam and apparently she looked like she was on fire and Adam decided he was going to put her out with the only tool he had available. He peed on her. It wasn’t like she was close either, she was a good distance away, but he still let her have it. I laughed hysterically. Oh, the table was all wet, there was still the nasty diaper around, Adam was crying, Kim was now wet, the nurse wasn’t too happy but here I was in uniform and clean as clean can be. Amazing.

Ah, being a dad…

Two Things...

1) I was selected to pin on Staff Sergeant. That's E5, the same rank my dad was when he RETIRED after 20 years. Hopefully I'll make at least E6 before I do the same. A little less than half of the eligible Senior Airmen were selected so odds were pretty good, but still, it's cool that I made it.

I always wondered where I would be and what I would be doing when I passed the test and made the rank. I don't think I REALLY thought I would still be at my first duty station, in my first enlistment term, doing the same job but with two kids and four bedroom house. It's cool.

I haven't been promoted yet though. That should happen next time I deploy I think. It'll be great. I'll be out there and one day I'll be a SrA, the next day I'll be a SSGT. I'm going to need to order new nametags...

2) I finally figured out Nike+. The problem I was having with it was that I KNEW I was walking significantly further than I was getting credit for and frankly, it's disheartening. So I looked online for troubleshooting and whereas some people were saying it measures by impact and the strongest impact is in the sole of your shoe so get out a knife and cut out a niche in your shoe for the sensor, I also found a significantly less intrusive way of just turning the sensor over. Turns out this is a common problem. I guess Apple and Nike think you'll KNOW which way to put it in whatever case you do or that it even matters.

Well, it does matter. The difference is last time I got credit for 1.2 miles I think and this time I went 4.13 miles. That's a big difference and once again, I'm inspired to get back on this thing.

-Russ

Roto Rooter

Rooting is a thing that infants do where they're looking for something with the only thing they actually know they have: their mouth. It freaks me out. I'm sure I'm the onyl one though because that's what people tell me. There's just something about a baby that doesn't know he has arms and legs yet squirming around on my chest, mouth open and searching for either his bottle or his nuk (pacifier and pronounced "nook"). It reminds me of aliens or bad guys from Doom 3.

I don't really mind though. Yeah, it freaks me out, but I'll get over it.

But last night, he was rooting around in his pack and play where he sleeps ALL night long grunting and whining and the onyl time he was quiet was when Kim fed him, I held him, or when I finally lulled him into sleep for about an hour. Apparently I'm a very sleep-inducing guy when I want to be.

All night.

In the long run, one night isn't a lot, so I'm not really looking for "you're overreacting" or anything, I just felt this frustration that comes with little sleep and is somehow attached to wearing the most uncomfortable uniform possible the next day on a Monday and running out of soda.

So I'm not complaining too much here, it's just a bad night of non-existant sleep. I feel worse for Kim though since she sleeps next to Adam and therefore the grunting is louder.

The Kindle

It's no secret I'm a huge fan of the idea behind the Kindle, even if some of the things that come with it are flawed. Not every book is available on the Kindle (but the same applies for bookstores and even Amazon's book department), the new one does not have an SD card slot which was handy to archive your purchases, the fact that Amazon has the power whether they say they'll use it or not, to reach into your Kindle WITHOUT you permission and amend, or delete books from your library. That's ridiculous.

Even iTunes, which is what the Kindle gets compared to all the time anyway, has an OPTION to download updates to the apps you buy on your iPhone/iPod Touch.

There's also the fact that the thing is freaking EXPENSIVE. The price went DOWN to 300.00!

Then there's the price of the books. 10.00 may seem cheap, but considering that I don't really OWN the item, it's not cheap at all. I can't loan it to friends or sell it, and for this inconvenience I'd like to see the price of books drop to reflect the fact that they aren't selling me an item but an "experience" as another blogger put so eloquently. Not to mention the money everyone's saving by not actually printing a book.

Some reviews suggest a price of 3-5.00 which seems right to me as a consumer because I would probably buy more books, but what about as an author? Well, the same blogger that called the item an "experience" also said that money paid to authors needs to be re-thought and looked at like at a library where certain countries acknowledge the fact that the author is getting zero money when a customer borrows a book vs. buys one and pays them either a flat rate or an amount per time the book is checked out.

The main thing is the price though. Amazon needs to get this device into the hands of the public and the public will make it rise or fall accordingly. Nintendo had a habit of taking hits on hardware costs because they knew that they would get the money back with software sales. The same applies here.

Also, publishing companies need to realize they aren't going to get away with charging Amazon the same amount of money for an ebook which would give them who knows how many percentage points more in profit. They need to adjust the price they sell Amazon the books for to reflect the same profit margin or maybe a little less to pay the author a little more.

However with all of this, I still want one. They're damn pricey but cool as all get out.

8.19.09

Alright, everyone, settle down. Lots to go over today.

1) I was published in the October issue of Vintage Guitar. I’m pretty pleased about it, not only because I’m helping out a charity and actually lending more credence to it by getting it published in a major publication which makes people that approve grants more likely to approve but because I finally achieved my dreams of writing for a magazine, limited though it was.

How limited? About one hundred words limited. It was painful to write so little after I had just gotten done writing so much on my own for the blog that led VG to agree to the article.

I’m not complaining though, I was published in a magazine which would have been enough, but I was published in a GUITAR magazine which has always been a dream of mine.

I’m pretty proud.

2) I’ve added a guitarist to my crazy list. I’ll share more about this at a later date, don’t worry. You don’t think I’d keep YOU in the dark, right?

3) The angry whopper. It’s not so angry. It’s actually pretty good. Kim says she was able to work through half of one before giving up and going to chicken nuggets. I say she eats like a girl!

4) I have a target audience of one for the 5th Fret. I just wanted to write and say that when I write for the Fret, I’m basically writing with this person in mind and because they’re so dang cool, smart, funny, caring, etc, hopefully everyone else can enjoy it. I think it’s working. To that one person: you’re awesome. I don’t even know if they read the Fret (or this blog for that matter) but they should feel good knowing they’re who I imagine I’m writing to every time. It helps keep me in line.

5) That’s about it, I guess. I did want to say I’m grateful for the friends that I have because sometimes I feel like certain members of my family are a great big letdown. Of course I can’t say WHO just in case one of them is reading (they like to talk to each other), and tons will claim we’re family and need to stick together no matter what. I disagree. I think there’s a breaking point and a couple are teetering dangerously close to it and like Everclear’s “Santa Monica” I’ll want to move on to something better (though I won’t be attempting suicide by jumping off the Santa Monica Pier like Art Alexakis did).

6) OK, one more. The results of my recent promotion test come out tomorrow. We're well beyond jinxing it so I'm not worried about putting the information out there. Last time I took I had a distinct feeling when I looked at every single multiple choice question and it was "Well, I have no F'ing clue which one to pick." This time I only felt that way about two of the four possible answers so hopefully enough well-placed stabs in the dark will end up tacking another stripe to my arm. I certainly hope so. The money would be welcome.

That's it!

Until next time!

8.16.09

Oddly enough, it's been really easy recently to write blogs for the Fret, but not so much here. You woudn't think that's the case though. Here I could just jot down my thoughts for the date or what happened where on the Fret there's research, and they're usually quite a bit longer so I have to type more and more time is dedicated to it. Honestly, I think that's why I don't write here quite as much as I would like to. After writing a Fret blog I'm exhausted. I enjoy it though.

And things are going fairly well for the Fret. We're well on our way to breaking another record for amount of hits per month and while that number is NOWHERE near what other guitar blogs do, I post quite a bit less and I honestly think I'm getting those numbers honestly. I don't post much news and I don't flood reader boxes. One of the blogs I read has parenthesis for amount of blogs (like are next to the months on the left)only the parenthesis are next to the DAY. That's craziness!

No, I write blogs that are saying something that's in my mind and I don't want to flood the inboxes and succeed in both making blog readers stop caring about what I write and burn myself out in the process. I love the guitar and blogging just as much as always so I'm still going strong. The Fret's only a little ways away from it's first birthday. Whoo!

Adam's doing good, still growing. He slept through the night last night. He's way more comfortably with Kim than me.

Kim's doing good too. Healed and ready to go.

Annie is Annie. I love her to death. We went to Home Depot and walked in and she said "WOW!" and while I'm not too keen on HD, it's cool that she is.

I'm happy. Tired, but happy.

-Russ

BBBRRRRAAAAIIIINNNNSSSS.....

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. Since Kim had major abdominal surgery when Adam was born, she’s been fairly immobile. It takes her about five minutes (literally) to sit up in bed so if Adam woke up needing changed and fed (because it’s a package deal in our household when it comes to infants) it would take her forever to get to it and there would be a lot of bending over to get the tote with all the stuff in it, twist around to get Adam, getting back to where she can sit comfortable, etc. etc.

So I’ve been sleeping on Kim’s side and taking care of Adam. A couple of times Kim has helped out usually around 4 in the morning when I’m feeling particularly… non-sympathetic. I’m not a bad guy or anything, there are just times when you lean on your spouse and say I can’t do it this time, I’ll go insane, you do it. It happens and that boat rows both ways.

But lately I’ve been doing it all at night and I am worn OUT. People come in at work and talk to me and I’m not my usual chipper self. I have tried to write a couple of blogs for the 5th Fret but they came out bitter, incredibly sarcastic, jumbled and ultimately boring. I couldn’t even proof read them, they were so boring. I couldn’t in good conscience post those, now could I?

I feel very zombie right now. And each day it gets worse and worse. It’s rough. Honestly, a ton of people LOVE the newborn phase. I honestly can’t see why. The baby doesn’t smile, talk, recognize you, sleep through the night, or reward you in ANY way besides breathing. I don’t mean to sound like a douche or anything, but that’s the truth. The first few months is ROUGH.

But then the fog clears and smiles start coming out, babbling starts, maybe some rolling or crawling, but honestly it’s just that smile that really matters because that probably happens first and with it you know that things are going to be OK, and they’re only going to get better.

I wonder if post partum depression occurs more with first time parents or parents who already have kid(s). My money’s on parents without kids. Parents with kids know it’s going to get better, no worries, just keep. Pushing. Through.

That’s what we’re doing right now, just pushing through.

Status Update

Wow, 208 posts. That's craziness.

So what's the status update? Well, let me tell you. For a little while it looked like I would get no sleep whatsoever because Adam refused to sleep at night. That was the first night. Then the second night he slept quite a bit more during the night and last night he only woke up once for a feeding and changing and then it was back to sleep until 7 in the morning.

Annie was most definitely NOT like that.

So how else do they differ? Well, Annie didn't lift her head for a very long time or show any motivation to go anywhere. If you put her down on her stomach she would stay on her stomach with a "meh" kind of attitude only to be super pissed seconds later because when you're on your stomach, EVERYTHING is exercise. A baby does this thing called the Superman where they lift their head, arms and legs off the floor while keeping their belly on the floor.

Give it a shot and you can see why they would be pissed. Their brain wants to do this and their body needs to be trained to. The good thing is it requires nothing from parents other than putting them on the floor.

Like I said earlier, Annie didn't sleep through the night or close to it for a long time too. I think this may have had something to do with Kim and me though since we were both wicked stressed because a baby is a huge change to life and we weren't really ready to let it go right then. This impacted our marriage and there was some stress in the house. And Kim had wicked post partum depression. But the stress is gone and this time around Kim's fine depression-wise.

I was so freaking excited about Adam waking up only once (this means he also didn't wake up playing the Nook game which is where the pacifier falls out of their mouth and they grunt and moan and eventually cry for it back only to lose it mere seconds after you put it back in their mouth. This game was not played last night by HIS choice, not mine) that I practically SPRANG out of bed saying my little rockstar slept almost all the way through the night AND let me sleep to a decent hour. How about that, I'm going to buy you a guitar.

I already had the guitar picked out too. A Gretsch Corvette.

I've been giving this some thought, buying the kids a guitar. At first I was thinking a Telecast because they're strong guitars, but a Corvette isn't exactly fragile. They're light, with fairly thin necks and short scales so while it may be easier to fret than, say, a Tele, it wouldn't lead to a dependence on a kid-size guitar.

So I'm thinking both will get guitars if they show interest in it. I know Annie's showing interest and if she still has that interest by age three where she can understand not to poke the strings that are sticking out at the headstock and avoid cutting herself, I'll get her one and even try to track down one made in the same month and year that she was born.

Same with Adam.

I may get one for myself too. That way they can say they play a guitar just like Daddy.

And your very first new Dad tip:

Sleep with a shirt on. I know it's all the rage to go to bed bare-chested but with kids there are two things you want to wear to bed: pants and a shirt. Most importantly a shirt. Your baby will be puking and snotting and all that on your chest during midnight feedings (if you're doing the bottle thing). It's best for that to go into the shirt and then just change your shirt instead of on your chest where no matter how hard you scrub with a towel the feeling of its presence just won't go away.

-Russ

7.28.09

Well, still no baby yet. I'm not worried, he'll come eventually, but I really want him to come soon. So does Kim. She wants it to be natural, the whole she's doing something and then oh god, time to go to the hospital thing.

I'm cool with waiting for that too. It's just that right now there will be at least two days in the beginning of August where I won't be there all day, one day to shoot and one day to fly, both to maintain currencies (I'm not a guy that enjoys shooting very much so it wouldn't count as a hobby) for work and all so I can go to ALS.

For those not in the know, ALS stands for Airman Leadership School and there are a couple of ways you get put in it. You can either make Staff Sergeant and need the class (you have to graduate before you can sew on your rank) OR you have to be in the AF for more than four years and be a Senior Airman. That's the route I took.

Honestly it's best to knock this out now anyway, even with a baby hot from the oven. Later on family will be coming down, then more family, then I'll deploy, and then I'll be trying to cross train into a different job so when else does it look like I can dedicate weeks to studying?

Anyhoo, the baby can come whenever he wants, I'm not worried. I don't have to take all of the days the AF will give me off work at once, so it'll work out.

Annie is a recent convert to the world of George of the Jungle from 1967. Hilarious show. I used to watch it as a kid and now I still enjoy watching it.

Anyway, here we sit with fingers crossed. I hope the baby comes soon.

-Russ

7.23.09

I don’t understand why companies release exclusive stuff and keep it exclusive.

Consider this: a company releases something REALLY cool, but only in limited numbers. Then the collectability of the thing goes up and resale value is huge. Does this do ANYTHING for the company? No. This only positively impacts the buyer who is now the seller because he makes more money.

Look at Beanie Babies. They had a few rare ones and the collectability was huge and there was a gargantuan market for these little bean bags and the company did what? They made more of the rare ones. Makes sense. There is no reason someone should be making more on a company’s product than the company, right?

I’m all for releasing something exclusively at first, but then just go ahead and release it. DVDs documenting the construction of custom guitars that only come with the custom multi-thousand dollar guitar. Just go ahead and release it. I bet at 15-20.00 it would sell and the company could see that maybe there’s a small market for this kind of thing. Yep Roc’s cover CD of Reverend Horton Heat songs is an exclusive only included in a fifty dollar limited edition package for the Rev’s new CD. It’s just not practical for me to buy it because 1) I need a real CD case and 2) I DON’T need a shot glass. It just doesn’t make any sense.

I’m bummed though because I DO want to listen to that cover CD.

Anyhoo, it’s silly guys. Stop it. You underestimate the pack rat’s mentality and over estimate their self control.

-Russ

7.21.09

Man, what an opportune/inopportune time for Kim to have a baby!

I mean, I guessed the baby would come closer to the 23rd, Kim said SHE thought the baby would come closer to the 3rd. There’s money on who’s date is closest (both post and past, not Price is Right rules). And I feel… I feel like I need a break from work.

Let me clarify: I don’t think I need a BREAK, because looking after a two year old while going back and forth to the hospital to check on Kim and see the new baby and make sure everything is fine on two, maybe three fronts if work decides to get in my business, that’s not a break.

But the AF is absolutely amazing when it comes to family time and I doubt they would do anything more than come over to visit, see the baby, make sure everything is fine, that kind of thing. It’s pretty awesome that the boss would do that, by the way.

However, I am sick. Annie is sick. I’m not lying on the floor dying, but I am sick and I wonder if the doc would say “you stay back. I don’t need your baby to come out only to get a cold and die.”

If that could happen, I mean.

Yesterday a co worker who I look up to had his going-away lunch. I feel wicked bad but I couldn’t go. I was tied up at work. How lame of an excuse is that? Well, it happened anyway. So I felt bad and went to the BX where they have greeting cards and they were all sold out of going-away cards. What a bummer. So I ended up getting a blank card and writing a note.

I feel pretty bad that he’s going away, honestly. There are so few people in the world and in the military in particular that are smart and compassionate and professional. He’s what I want to end up being in the military.

So anyway, I went home and wrote the note as I’m eating a delicious peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich and Kim is looking at me kind of smiling and she says she thinks she’s going into labor but she doesn’t know for sure. She thinks she’s going into back labor. I had never heard the term, but apparently you can have wicked pain in your back that blocks the knowledge of contractions and when they come and go. How about that? The back is a curious thing though what with all the nerves clustered at the base. When you have a kidney stone, you have absolutely no idea what’s wrong with you because EVERYTHING seems to be wrong with you. You think you need to pee, to poop, the stand up, lie down, sit up, walk, stop. Nothing helps and in the end the pain that can show up in places like your stomach, your side (obviously your side), your genitals, all of that pain can build up to such agony that you say OK! Nuts to this, I’M going to the hospital.

So I didn’t doubt that she was in labor. To be fair she did say she wasn’t sure. I called work who gave me the rest of the day off just in case and after Annie went down for a nap, Kim relaxed and the pain went away. So we figured we would try to induce with a walk. Kim wanted to walk in the AC so we walked through Home Deopt a couple of times and then took Annie to a park and nothing happened.

I don’t feel bad that nothing happened though, I’m just excited to get this ball rolling and get Kim in the hospital, the baby out, and Kim and the baby back in the house separately.

Anyhoo, that was MY day.

-Russ

7.16.09

I like to Google old schools occasionally. I don’t know why, really, but I do. I like to see how the buildings have changed or if the grounds have been altered.

I always start with Roydvale Primary school which was the first school I went to when I moved to New Zealand. I loved it there, though the other kids weren’t always the friendliest. I understand though. I’m not your average bear in any way so I could see how I didn’t fit in exactly with the other kids. I’m not worried about that, and it doesn’t hinder the fact that the kids and staff were amazingly nice for the most part and that New Zealand is the most beautiful place in the world.

It is.

I’ve checked.

They have new pictures up and the buildings are the same, they still have the same tree standing that I used to eat under. They changed the park and added a new one for the smaller kids. The uniform is the same.

The staff doesn’t look familiar at all, but why would they? I went there about fifteen years ago, so why anyone would still be kicking around would be beyond me.

It’s bittersweet in ways that I can’t really describe. Not that I’m holding back or anything, I’m not. I don’t like the idea of putting out less than everything (that’s the extremist in me). I really can’t describe it. Maybe I ache for the days when there was so little to worry about and I know those days will never be back again.

Maybe I just miss the surroundings and nice folks.

Maybe I miss reading during lunch.

I don’t know. I just look at these pictures and think of the times I had.

And before anyone starts thinking bad about me, this isn’t really different than dragging out a dusty photo album to stroll down memory lane.

I really wish I could put Annie and the baby in that school. It’s a good one. I learned a ton from that school and did a LOT of things under adult supervision that most American parents would flip out about.

We read a book for three hours straight and took care of math the next day.

We make miniature hot air balloons and filled the basket with ethanol spirits as fuel. Let me repeat: we were in fourth grade.

Ah, youth. I miss it.

Sometimes I’m tempted to email back and see if someone can get me a phone number or email (preferably email) for one of the teachers from there that taught me, but I don’t. I’m not kidding, I didn’t fit in as a kid. I don’t even know what made me so weird, but I was nonetheless. I don’t think anyone really liked me.

Oh well. There are still some memories from there that I really liked. Going to the parks, going to movies, playing cricket. I definitely miss playing cricket.

-Russ

7.15.09

This morning I woke up and decided that today was the day that I got to work calibrating my Nike + system. For those of you who don’t know, Nike + is a glorified pedometer that takes the amount of steps you’ve taken and equates that into distance so you know you’ve run half a mile or whatever, all while keeping the time and giving you vocal reminders. This is going on while you listen to your iPod. The music will fade out and you’ll hear a woman say “half mile completed” or something like that, then the music will rise back up.

It’s a pretty sweet thing.

When it works right.

But on Friday I walked/ran for an hour and it said I only went 1.62 miles which is slower than a slow stroll. That was completely bogus. I got in my car and found out I really went a little over three miles and THAT means there’s a BIG problem. Especially if you’re looking at my little avatar off to the left that says how many times I’ve worked out and how far I’ve gone.

It’s not that the distance is what’s bugging me but it is a big thing.

My thing is this: for years I’ve had an injured hip, I hurt it on duty my first year in and since then I’ve had problems running. So much so that I have taken the walk test where you walk three miles as fast as you can for the past three years. Twelve laps is a bummer and I have future hopes of getting jobs that require you to be able to run 1.5 miles.

So I’ve begun my own rehabilitation. I walk and for the last one minute, I’ll run. Then the next week I’ll run the last two minutes. The next three minutes and so on and so on until I can run 1.5 miles after warming up a little.

I’m using the Nike + system as a stopwatch more than anything in this regard but I want to know when I’ve hit 1.5 miles and when I’ve hit 3 miles. If I can get my walking to a point where I don’t need to run and still go 1.5 miles in a good time, then hey, no need to run and no worries about my hip. I can just work on walking from then on.

So this morning I went out and went to the school next to my house. Every gate was locked though (it is summer time after all) so I hopped the fence and went to the track. I started the system and started walking and after a quarter of a mile it said I had walked .01 miles. But this is why I’m calibrating right? I end the calibration after the quarter mile and (surprise) it says I did not walk a quarter of a mile. It won’t let me say “yes I did” and reset itself to that, either.

What a bummer!

I’m going to have to wait until the middle of the night and get in my car and drive to the 1.5 mile mark on my path and spray paint a little line so I’ll know to look at my timer, then the three mile mark too.

So I came home a little upset and went in and decided to upload a bunch of Led Zeppelin a friend had burned for me. I’ve always wanted to check them out a little more in depth and the last few days I’ve been working myself up into a frenzy to do this. But I also want to spend time with Kim so I don’t get on long enough to upload it all.

Since she was still asleep though I could. So I started and iTunes would only take certain songs and claim an error with others. Then iTunes would crash. It took me an hour to get most of their stuff on and I’ve figured out how to upload the rest though it seems to create a huge strain on iTunes.

Then I forgot to drag it into the playlist my phone syncs to and now I don’t have my Zepp for the day.

Bummer!

On the plus side, I did order Kim’s anniversary present. She should be pretty stoked when she gets all that smell-good stuff. I really hope she likes it.

That’s all for now.

-Russ

7.14.2009

Annie decided to wake up at four in the morning today. I wasn't so worried. She'll eventuall go back to sleep I said. Except she wasn't doing what she normally does when she wakes up which is talk to herself, playing with the assorted dolls in her crib. There was some consitsant banging which may or may not be coming from her room (certainly was coming over the monitor though) and Kim was getting worried. What if she was choking, her neck wrapped by a five inch cord tethering a magnetic pen to a magnadoodle. Maybe someone was trying to break the window to kidnap her.

Well, like I said I wasn't worried, but I did what any good husband would and went to check on her.

To say she was awake was an understatement.

She was AWAKE.

She popped up when I opened the door and insisted on me picking her up and I figured that since Mommy was so worried about her, I should bring her in to our room so she can see her with her own eyes.

I did and Annie bounced around on our bed until Kim got sick enough of her constant moving at 4 in the morning that she picked her up and put her to bed in the most soothing possible way which just pissed Annie off and she screamed bloody murder. Then, within minutes, she quieted down again and went back to drawing on her magna doodle (which is one of the greatest inventions ever) before going back to sleep.

The morning is starting off well.

I will say a shining moment so far is that Kim updated the iTunes account and I bought two apps, a countdown app because I need to know stuff like that, and a post card app where I can take pictures and send them in a "post card" complete with message and fake stamp. I'm pretty excited about them.

I was thinking about getting the famous fourtrack app but it's ten bucks and I want to try something out first which is just using the voice memo feature. It isn't four tracks, but I may like it just as much.

Blue Monday #1

Wearing blues on Monday sucks. It just does. They’re uncomfortable and you never have a pen. Well, almost never. As a flyer, I keep my pens on my sleeve in handy pen pockets. They are always there. If you do not have pens in those pockets, you fail as a flyer. That’s like not bringing beer to a check ride.

On Monday though, those pens are still in your flight suit and you are in your blues. Your itchy, non-breathing blues. It sucks getting into them anyway but that first time when you need to write/sign something and reach for your pen only to realize it’s at home is a horrible moment.

Because since everyone keeps pens ON them, there are NO pens in the office. They have a way of growing legs if you know what I mean. Several people I know label their pens “Stolen from XXXXXX.”

Today though, was especially sweet because it was starting to rain on my way out to the car. I’m not worried about a little rain though it’s obvious it’s a great idea to get the raincoat out and hang it up to get the wrinkles out. And buy some new rank for it (it still has one stripe after all while I have three).

I got to work and the rain had slowed from drizzle to nothing and went in unscathed. However I went in the wrong door and entered oven by mistake. Apparently the air conditioning for the building broke over the weekend and it didn’t send out an alert to someone to come fix it. Instead the ever growing volume of complaints from flyers (who like to complain anyway) that are wearing blues (so they’re already in a bad mood) apparently woke up someone and a repairman was sent out.

I wanted to get out of the office though and a suggestion was brought to me that a group of us should go out to Target and buy soda for the squadron bar.

OK.

No problem.

The A/C sure was nice in the car. And in Target. And back in the car. But then an idea came to me that all this soda would need to be brought up to the second floor and put in the fridge in the bar that is now fittingly a Furnace (it’s called the Furnace officially, by the way).

And yeah, it sucked all right. I was there, loading up all these sodas into the fridge sweating through my blues thinking that life is pretty awful right now. After a while though, it was done.

I was on my way back to my office and someone popped up from NOWHERE and said that I looked like I was really hot. I was. Well, he needed help unloading his car because he had a similar idea and went to get food for the bar. So back downstairs, get the food, bring it upstairs and load it up.

On the way to lunch the A/C was pushed to the max on unsympathetic passengers.

-Russ

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

In conversation, I often mention that I'm putting paperwork to cross train into a different career field. It isn't that m job is awful, it's just not for me. People fly and love to fly. I love to fly commercially as a passenger, but I'm not so keen on the added responsibilities that flyer's have. That's just me though.

So when I say this people often ask me what job I want to cross train into. Well, there's a few. Mainly they are the ones on the ground that wear their blues often, but there are some that stand out.

I do plan on auditioning for AFN (or Armed Forces Network) hopefully as a radio personality. TV's fine, but I don't feel it is where I would excel. I also want to put in to be a journalist for the Air Force.

These are both dream jobs, sure, but I've been told all my life that I have a vivid personality that would work for entertainment but a face that demands to be seen on the radio. I've also been told from a young age that I am excellent in writing and over the time that I have been writing, especially things like the 5th Fret, I feel like I've been honing my style into something that is both unique and awesome.

I'm not trying to brag or anything. I've read a ton of official or semi-official documents and they are dry as dirt. Who would WANT to read that? And I'm not even trying to write official documents, but articles for base newspapers or magazines. I think my conversational style of writing would come across well.

At least, since writing for the 5th Fret I haven't received any hate mail saying that my writing is crap.

However, recently I've begun to doubt my writing ability. I can't help but feel passed over when something else gets more attention. I'm sure there's a childhood psychological reason to this, but it makes me feel that perhaps I'm not good enough.

After all, tons of people tell other people that they are great singers - amazing singers and if they went on American Idol they would win for sure. The people then go to the audition and find out they aren't good at all and that their friends were just being nice.

It's hard to take that pill. I write and think I'm good at it, other people say I'm good at it, it feels good to be behind the keyboard, typing away, sometimes just watching my fingers FLY and think to myself this is fun. Because it is. It's fun and it seems to be a talent.

I'm not complaining too loud about a particular event or anything because it isn't just ONE event, but it definitely does feel like I'm being ignored and maybe it IS because I'm not good enough.

And if I'm not good at something that I genuinely think I'm talented at, how good am I at anything else?

Ah well. Dont' worry about me, I'll bounce back. I always do. And I'll probably write even more when I do. Maybe if I'm not good enough now, I just need more practice. Charles Schulz was of that mind and look where he ended up. I just need to keep working at it and keep putting things out there.

Until then it's nice to have this seperate space to vent when things aren't going all that well. Charles Schulz didn't have that. He ended up going a little nuts because of it.

-Russ

Sometimes

Sometimes I feel pretty great abotu what I do. There are a lot of perks to being a flyer. You get to wear the flight suit, you get to wear wings, you get to know you are part of less than 1.5% of the enlisted AF and most of the other jobs either exist to directly or indrectly serve you (meaing to get you in the air and keep you there, not serve YOU specifically). Whenever there are check rides there is check ride beer and in very few other jobs would you finish with a mission and sit around and talk about it while you drink FREE beer (unless it's your check ride, then you're buying the beer).

My AF coin, a thing every AF member is supposed to have on them at all times for the coin chellenge game (someone throws down their coin with an audible slap and everyone has to produce a military coin of their own. If they do NOT have a coin, they buy the next round. If they DO have a coin, YOU buy the next round. This can make for a fun time) is a bottle opener with my wings on it.

We're a very proud people.

But flying jobs are limited both to aircrafts and to bases. My particular plane is INCREDIBY limited and as a result you see a lot of folks stay at a base for far longer than a non-flying enlisted AF member (some people stay upwards of TEN years before moving, some even SIXTEEN meaning they would go ONE other place and probably retire). I joined the AF to see the world and pay the bills and hopefully have a lot of fun along the way and while I AM having fun (now more than ever in my career), I am about to turn in my cross training paperwork to ground myself and get a different job.

Part of me is bummed about it. I know a lot of people are going to ask why I wanted to LEAVE flying when so many people are trying to get into the fields, and the wings are permanently attached to my uniform (it's a rule) so I'll always be open to those questions, but I want to go more places and see more things. I want to go back to Tucson, and go overseas. I don't want to be limited.

That's pretty much it. I don't want to be limited.

So while flying is awesome for some people, and is something that I would probably enjoy if I weren't surveillance (perhaps a boom operator, or load master), I'll be leaving it (hopefully) soon.

Meanwhile, let me tell you about this morning:

We woke up, and took Annie to the Air Museum because she loves planes. It's odd to see her love things that we don't really expose her to, but she comes to naturally. I think the thing she loves more than anything in the world is trains. All the time, if she sees a train, she's happy and she wants to touch it or play with it. She loves trains. She loves planes too. And cars. She's very tomboy.

Of course she loves guitars too...

Anyway, after the museum we went to Cracker Barrel and ate, then went to Target and picked up some assorted chemicals and the movie Cars for Annie.

It doesn't SOUND like a lot, but to a two year old it is. She went down for a nap and she really went DOWN. I think she was asleep within five minutes of closing the door.

Awesome.

Back!

I apologize for not writing recently. I’ve been obsessed with keeping the maps updated and on the front page. That’s my fault. And I’m sorry.

But hey! I have news!

I bought an iPhone. I’m pretty freaking stoked about it though I do have SOME minor complaints, like how in the office it makes for an awful iPod. After a little while the iPhone locks so when a song comes on that you aren’t in the mood to listen to, you have to unlock the iPhone, select iPod if you’ve gone to any other screen and then press next track. Good thing I have an actual iPod.

Anyhoo, I love my iPhone. I have a Facebook app and a Myspace app though honestly I’m on Facebook much more. Facebook just seems to have more friends though I really wish everyone in the world would log onto one system and keep everything updated like maiden names, schools you attended, etc. etc. That way I could find anyone I’m after.

Ah, but that’s the crux of the matter, eh? Enticing people to go to a different social networking site? Look at Virb. I haven’t heard anything on Virb’s front, but when I was on it, it was very very slow. Almost dead...

I’m ALSO very excited to have my iPhone because I plan to get a blogging app so I can update the blog when Kim goes the hospital to have our next child, a baby boy.

I’m hoping it works out and I can add pictures directly from my phone AND type in landscape mode (it’s the only way to go, really) so I can keep everyone updated on what’s happening.

I know you’ll be just as anxious as I will be.:-)

Should be good stuff!

2009

2009 is the year of activity for me. I want to see just how much stuff I can do before the year is up and so far I think I'm doing pretty good. I've read something like 25 books, written over 50 blogs for the 5th Fret, took three pretty challenging professional tests, took something like 13 CLEPs out in the desert (they're free for the military to take, by the way, so you take them and if you fail you just try again in six months) and I'm only six credit hours away from my associates.

Now, a little tangent. I fully realize how sad it is that I graduated in 2002 and here in 2009 am planning on finishing my FIRST degree. That's seven years for a two year degree. Yeah, I don't feel so great about that. But rather than let it beat me down and give up altogether because it's just easier to say you never went to college or you could do it if you weren't so damn busy, I'm not playing that game, at least this year. Besides, it's still kind of a big thing and at the core, it's something to be proud of. I THINK - I'm pretty sure - that I'll be the first person to get a degree higher than a high school diploma or a technical degree. I'm pretty excited about it, but I'm even more excited to get started on my bachelors.

Anyhoo, back to the activity. I moved, I took my Staff Sergeant test, and (don't say this too loud) I don't think I did TOO bad on it so let's hope the cut off score is really low and everyone else was sick or distracted when they took it so I can be really high and get my stripe soon.

For those in the know, making Staff is a big deal. My dad retired as an E-5 in the Navy (which is a petty-officer 2nd class, but in the AF is Staff Sergeant) after being in the Navy for 20 (I wish I could capitalize numbers) years. Here I am, I've been in for a little over four years now, and I've taken the test once and missed the cut off score so I'm hoping to get my stripe before my fifth year mark and start working on E-6. While I wouldn't be happy at ALL retiring as an E-6, I could at least know I did one better than dad. And if I make it to E-8 (one step away from E-9, the highest you can go) I will have made it past my father in law.

Of COURSE let's not forget the baby that's on the way. That'll be quite the hash mark on the "things done" list.

Tons of stuff and I'm trying not to be lazy about it. I'm pretty excited.

Video for Mark!

I guess everyone else can enjoy it too:

Progress

I know you want to know. May was a record month for the 5th Fret. I have been accepted by Guitar World on their blips page which isn't THAT big of an honor but one more place that my blog can be read giving me a wider audience and probably GW some more money in some way. I don't mind.

Because of this GW thing I was able to join a forum of blog writers where I'm learning all sorts of stuff like their monthly numbers and let me say right now, I'm pretty sure I'm the lowest number-getting person there. I don't beat myself up about it though because if you look at my numbers, so long as I'm posting, the numbers are going up.

There was that time when I deployed where the numbers did go down, fairly steadily while I was gone but then I came back early May, started blogging as soon as I could and the numbers went past the previous record of 1,1XX (x=something I can't remember) to 2,0XX. The website was visited over 2,000 times in May. And that seems so small written out, I know, but honestly, when I started writing, I was happy that over 100 people came to visit. So there's progress being made, the numbers are going up, I think my writing is improving and there are even guest contributions about cool stuff I happened upon, one of them scheduled to come out on the 12th has an incredibly well-written article to go along with his amazing pictures.

I'm proud.