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| Saturday, January 30th, 2010 | | 10:11 am |
I want the credit, dammit.
On my ship, most religious people know that I am a spiritual person who takes interest in all religions. I am a Christian sympathizer but not much of a Bible thumper myself... In fact I think I am leaning toward the Eastern (particularly Indian) philosophy of thought these days. A friend of mine and I were discussing the issues of the day, on our ship, as well as in the world at large. He made the comment "We just need to give more credit to God, since he really deserves all of it." My response was, "That's the kind of thinking that got us where we're at now. Maybe we should take a little responsibility for our success as well as our failure. I know it feels nice to pass off all accountability to some omnipotent cosmic power but in the end does that really accomplish anything?" | | Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 | | 9:57 pm |
Walk away, don't think, just do it. It's past my bedtime. Make a choice.
I was feeling a little off today, so I was thrilled to step into the Liberty Center and see that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was playing. Such a great movie, actually a bit of a Shadowrun movie, obviously without the tech but there are plenty of very biting bits of sarcasm in the dialog to make up for any shortcomings. If you haven't seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but you like movies like Hudson Hawk, I'd definitely suggest it. Though, then again, I'd also suggest Old Boy to most people, I value my movie suggestion reputation greatly and I know my original showing of that to Kaos and Slawson was a flop but I stand by that movie!!!! Dammit... I need a waterproof MP3 Player... I was in the waves the other day, at a beach called Sandies, which is a few miles past Diamond Head and only just past Coco Head (I know! Such cool names for such small 'mountains'), and I was thinking it would be so much fun to thrash around in the water to my favorite music. I doubt something like that exists... though if it does, I am going to buy it! I started the second Jordan book a couple of days ago, The Great Hunt. I don't know if any of you have the memory of the first two books very fresh in mind anymore, but to me it seems that The Great Hunt is in a completely different league than The Eye of the World. I feel like there was an incredible amount of maturation for Jordan between those two books even though the mass edition releases of the books were less than a year apart. During the first book, I often felt that the plot and richness of the world are what pulled me through since his writing was so rough (telling rather than showing almost always) but it seems The Great Hunt is written by a much more talented Robert Jordan. Any thoughts? Current Mood:  complacent | | Sunday, October 25th, 2009 | | 11:31 pm |
I am currently watching a movie called Shanghai Kiss... It's very odd... I'm not sure what the point of the movie is yet. I wish there was someone around to comment on it with but no one seems to be paying attention except me... Current Mood: chipper | | Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 | | 12:12 pm |
Catching up with the Acadamy Grads...
I planned on waking up today at 0500 to go to lap swim but didn't get up until 0530 which is still okay since I only swam until 0645. I'm doing my best to catch up the the two officers that are in the Search and Rescue swimmer program with me. I am still leaps and bounds ahead of the blue shirts but the officers are a little bit ahead of me. I am swimming twice a day as well as on weekends and I'm working out an extra two hours most days. I'm hoping that doubling their effort will catch me up quickly since I am not very far behind them to begin with. All five of us are meeting today at 1100 to swim until 1300 and after that I am probably going to go to the track and do sprints. In three weeks I want my numbers to improve as follows Current #'s > Goal #'s 1&1/2 Mile Run .. 9:30 > 8:45 Push ups in 2 minutes .. 58 > 70 Sit ups in 2 minutes .. 70 > 90 Pull ups in 2 minutes .. 10 > 15 400m Freestyle swim .. 9:24 > 8:00 The mile and a half time I could have at 8:45 already... but I think it would kill my other numbers. I need 8:45 to be easy like 9:30 is. Push ups and Sit ups won't be too hard to increase. I just need to practice the right form, unlike PFA style, these push ups are chest to the ground and the sit ups are chin to your knees, instead of elbow at 90 degrees and elbows to your thighs, respectively. 400m Freestyle swim is simply a matter of breathing... I'm so used to sidestroke since that is pretty much all I've practiced for the past three years that I have a hard time breathing on alternating strokes. I need to do some diet research and figure out how I should be eating. I don't want too much weight gain but I do need strength gain so I have to balance carefully. Current Mood: hopeful | | Sunday, October 11th, 2009 | | 1:04 am |
Rule #1: Cardio
Wooot! Only a few hours after telling me he'd like to slim down and is starting to work out regularly my friend ordered two big macs and a large fry. Zombieland is awesome! I want to discuss this with people so go see it! Japanese curry is good but eating it three times in a week might be too much when you like it spicy... Children of Bodom are playing at the Pipeline on the 14th... if tickets aren't crazy expensive I'm going to go. Gonna go check out Tower Records tomorrow to see if they have tix, otherwise I think there is a Hot Topic that carries tickets around here... Current Mood: amused | | Thursday, October 8th, 2009 | | 1:47 pm |
I Wanna Be Beef Jerky..
So I'm back in Hawaii... along with Khaki's and two blue shirts who are all going for the whole Search and Rescue Swimmer school. I was very pleased with myself today after our first work out. Out of the Blue Shirts I was in the best shape... The two Khaki's were overall in better shape than I am (they both just graduated from the Academy) however I did have more upper body strength than one of them, and matched the other in running. Our instructor is a Chief who demands we call him "Todd" since he can't pick up girls when we call him Chief... Though, I have a sneaking suspicion that he isn't really interested in picking up girls. He is in incredible shape. He is around half a head shorter than me and probably ways a buck and half, so he's a thin guy, but there really isn't a lick of fat on him. He has the darkest tan I've ever seen on a natural born caucasian person. He kind of looks like a walking piece of beef jerky. Today the work out he lead us in involved some interesting things, including climbing to the end of a high dive board to do pull ups. He called those "be strong or be wet". Either you do the prescribed amount of pull ups or you drop in the water. The core work out he had us do was killer, my legs were about six inches above the ground doing various kicks and swirls and tracing shapes in the air. Along with a few hundred sit ups. After that was a six mile run that was up and down the entire time. Then we swam a timed 400m swim. Three more weeks of this and then off to SAR school... which is a month of 8-10 hours of the same thing. Soon I will be beef jerky... Current Mood: chipper | | Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | | 5:14 pm |
Writer's Block: Concert mania
I'd really like to see Propaghandi, MSI, Snake River, and Manson live. I would travel a few hundred miles to do it. Of course, Snake River is no more, at least not with the original vocalist so that won't happen. But the other three are possibilities. | | Sunday, October 4th, 2009 | | 11:27 pm |
It's amazing how much better the Soda tastes over seas. In the US high fructose corn syrup is used to sweeten Soda but in the Gulf they use real sugar because it's healthier. Not that soda is that healthy in the first place... Still, real sugar does wonders for the taste of the beverage. I'm sure Slawson remembers this too. In Japan the ship stocked up on a brand of canned coffee called "Georgia Coffee". It's much like a starbucks iced coffee except it tastes more like coffee and less like flavored milk. Yummy! Japan also makes vegetarian chicarrons'... which are amazingly good. They are similar to their porkified cousins in taste and texture, but instead of looking like deep fat fried fat they look more like a rice crisp. The main ingredient is green peas. On another note, I leave the ship tomorrow or wednesday to go to school. As of right now my leave chit is written for Nov 2 - Nov 15. Still not sure if that is the case though. There is still a chance it will be Dec 16 - Dec 31. Current Mood:  anxious | | Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | | 4:47 pm |
Just sayin'
I bought a book before deployment called "Lonely Werewolf Girl" by Martin Miller souly because it had an endorsement by Neil Gaiman on the back. The endorsement wasn't for that specific book as much as it was for the Author in general. I really hope that his other writing is much better. The subject matter and the concept aren't horrible, he is very creative, but the way he writes reminds me of the way early adolescents write. Instead of using action/dialog to glimpse into the way people are thinking/feeling he simply tells you their thoughts constantly. He never eludes to facts about their past through character interaction, just simply.. BLAM this is this character, this is where there from, this is how they are when they eat breakfast, oh right, back to the story now. Actually it kind of reminds me of the way new role-players tell people about their characters and how they did this and that and how cool their powers are going to be only if they could get this one item and blah blah BLAH! I'd really like to lay down some quotes from the book to exemplify my distaste but I don't think that would be quite right... Its the first book I haven't bought used in a long time... only because of my high regard for Gaiman and I am sorely disappointed because now I am out 15.95 + tax.... oh well. Live and learn. By the way, I've tried to read it twice, the second time only getting ten pages further than the first before I exclaimed, "Fur Gan's sake!" and tossed it aside. Current Mood:  apathetic | | Monday, September 21st, 2009 | | 5:55 pm |
Meatloaf Sundae!
Typically I like to keep all of my foods separate, to better enjoy each distinct taste, but today was different. I didn't really plan on doing it until after the CS2(Culinary specialist second class) plopped a heaping pile of noodles onto my plate and I realized there wasn't anything in the mess line that was remotely made for the topping of noodles. There was, however, meatloaf, gravy, mash potatoes, and corn. I proceeded to instruct CS2 to pile each consecutive item on top of my bed of noodles. A CS3 Neely (I always greet him by saying 'Well 'Ello Mistah Neeeeely!' in as thick a British accent as I can muster) noticed the trend and asked if I was making a Meatloaf Sundae. This made me smile and I said 'Right you awr Mistah Neeely! Spot on!' It did look like a Sundae, with noodle ice cream, a meatloaf brownie smothered in gravy sauce with corn sprinkles. I don't think the visual picure that paints is very enticing though... The combination was quite bold, especially the noodles, but all in all it was very satisfying. Now my eyelids are pleasantly heavy and I've decided to skip my work out for the day. If only I had a bigger bed and a down comforter to get lost in, but my rack will suffice for now. Current Mood: full | | 12:25 am |
Well, At least I get to hang out!
I'm sure many of you have read the Dark Tower series. I'm not giving any spoilers of course and don't want any since I've not read the final book. I'm just curious if anyone else found Song of Susannah kind of Blah? I'm curious to read the last book just to see if it makes this book seem a little better, at least in memory. The other 5 books I was really pulled through, but this book seemed more like I was pushing to get through just so I could get to the last book. Anyhooo~ Once again I'm swept up in the schedule killing tornado that is the Navy. This time it really won't be so bad, I think. I guess it all depends on how the whole SAR school pans out. If I end up getting flown out of Guam, which I am hoping is not the case, I'll end up taking Leave in more of a Thanksgiving period. Otherwise school will start in November and because of numbers and required manning and blah blah blah, I'll have to take leave from late October to early November. In the case of Thanksgiving leave, which is leaving after school, I won't get to bring my Warhammer minis because I'll never actually make it back to Hawaii before I fly to Florida for SAR school... This would be very sad... but I think I could still manage to hang out at the shop and at least participate in some of the skylarking and tomfoolery. Current Mood:  contemplative | | Friday, September 18th, 2009 | | 11:49 am |
Am I smooth yet?
I feel like a rough stone in one of those polisher tumbler thingies being turned over and over. I wonder if the stones feel as mushy brained as I do? We are sailing on twelve foot seas right now (as I am typing this the keyboard is sliding back and forth, time for new velcro). Unfortunately, due to a very ill-timed act of Mother Nature (I WILL be filling out her comment card), we had to leave Yokosuka a day early. Apparently a typhoon is rolling in. Generally, when large weather systems form, while everyone else is holing up in their basement we Navy ships get underway to go have fun on the rough seas. Smacking around in ten to twenty foot seas on the open ocean is unsettling, but even six foot waves can cause damage when you are moored to a concrete pier. Time to go run a GQ drill... woo hoo! Current Mood:  drained | | Monday, September 14th, 2009 | | 3:20 pm |
Rambling Update
Quickies: Yes, the arm-disease is improving daily. Yes, I love Japan. As for a slightly more in depth update of the flesh eating thing. It seems that I am on the definite up and up. The patch of painful rotting flesh, which previously subsided into sleep-depriving itchiness, has now become little more than an irritating patch of dry skin. By the looks of it, there may not be very much scarring at all. I don't want to speak too soon on the whole scarring bit though because I haven't seen much sun lately since we've been underway so much. (Inside the skin of the ship is where you spend 22-24 hours a day). I might only spend half an hour a day outside and it isn't always sunny but the fresh skin blends in with the pale-Spainy at least. Now as for the last two nights spent in Japan (mostly Tokyo, Shibuya, and Rappongi which are all pretty much Tokyo). Refreshing doesn't even begin to describe how much relief being off the ship among non-navy people was. Revitalizing? Closer. I will admit that Tokyo didn't quite meet the lofty place I had for it in my head but I still had a great time. My friends and I slummed around Shibuya in a touristy fashion, while doing our best to be respectful, and taking as many pictures as possible. We found that Japanese girls are more than happy to oblige being in the pictures with us (Yay!). I also had a big ego boost when we got lost in the train system and through the small amount of Japanese I do know I fumbled my way through getting directions from this nice elderly man who spoke no english whatsoever. It did involve some pointing and repeating since I seemed to understand what he said more often than he could understand what I said(I guess my Japanese enunciation really is that bad...) but the end result was we got where we needed without anymore hick ups. Highlights of the nights: I danced for a good three hours, most of which was with a cute girl named Yoko and her friend Niho. I ate some amazing and inexpensive Japanese Curry, a couple of times (this is a staple for me in Hawaii too but it was much better in Tokyo). Also a few beef bowls and miso. Sushi will be Tuesday. I flavored the rainbow... The Chu - Hi rainbow that is. Chu-Hi is the most evil alcohol known to man(well, I haven't had the Spy's Demise yet...). At 8% Alc content chu-hi is almost double most American domestics however it tastes like sweetened carbonated juice. Very refreshing. I met a girl named Yuko on one of the Trains who gave me her email and phone number. I think I will try to hang out with her on Tuesday. There are pictures that correspond to sight seeing and more shenanigans but those will have to wait until I'm not on a govt pc. Current Mood: excited | | Saturday, September 12th, 2009 | | 8:56 am |
A Scratchy Arm is better than no Arm
Ah! The itching!!!!! But the good news is that my arm will stay attatched to my body. After we moored to Yokosuka I was able to be diagnosed by some one who knew a bit more about medical issues and they were worried it was allowed to go as far as it did. However twenty four hours on the correct medication and it seems its already started to recede. Oddly enough, my arm didn't itch before but now its horrible! Though I won't complain too much about that since, in the the long run, it is better to lose a little sleep due to a bit of itchiness instead of an arm. This is the first liberty port we've had since we've been underway. The few ports we've been to previously on this deployment have all been working ports. All due to silly receptions for bigwigs in the foreign countries... For those of you who don't know what we do in seventh fleet (the asian rim) is we go to the many ports that inhabit its mucky waters and attempt to get them to like us better than Muslim-Extremists. Many of these countries are primarily muslim but, of course, they are just as apt to not tolerate the extremism as we are since it makes the rational non-suicide-bombing Islamic community look poorly. What this means for day to day sailor life is that after sailing around the ocean for anywhere from three to thirty days we get to pull into port but instead of being allowed off the ship we grab our buckets, brushes, and rollers and do a two day paint-ex. The general rule of thumb is 'one over dust and two over rust' which i guess is a form of job security, since simply concealing the problem never really fixes them. Yokosuka, however, is one of our Naval Bases and Japan, in general, is quite fond of us already. So no dignitaries to host means that we get to go enjoy the sights. Current Mood: hopeful | | Friday, September 11th, 2009 | | 9:08 am |
Don't handle lines in Indonesia
Don't go swimming in Indonesia, or along those same lines, don't handle wet lines(as in ropes, for mooring a ship) without copious amounts of alcohol based hand sanitizer readily available. Or a blow torch. Why? Allow me to explain. Apparently I've contracted a flesh eating skin disease which recently had been diagnosed as one thing, prescribed medication for that one thing, and hence has gotton worse due to misdiagnotion. People around the ship are already calling me "Stumpy Mcgillicutty" in preperation for when they(and there is already a betting pool on this) have to cut off my arm. Naturaly I took the 10 - 1 odds that they won't cut it off at all. The odds are shit but, hey, you have to root for the home team, right? I think that whole ordeal, along with the fact that I have been treated like a leper for the past two weeks, is probably the reason that a severe case of "I want to go home. RIGHT FUCKING NOW!" has set in. Of course I hide it the best I can, since it does me no good to display the symptoms of either ailment. Yesterday I wasn't able to contain my complete dislike for the people around me and when I blew up on two senior people in my work center for not know how to do their job and relying on me to do it for them my cheif asked me "Damn Spain, what's eating you?" I held up my arm and said, "I'm not sure, Chief, you want to take a stab at it?" Current Mood:  aggravated | | Friday, May 8th, 2009 | | 7:47 pm |
| | Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 | | 9:16 pm |
I'm about to run a game in a system that a friend of mine created, partly in effort to assist him in beta testing and partly because I've recently been really interested in running an RPG that is very miniature intensive. This desire was spurred by my very recent, however intense, lust for both Wyrd and Freebooter miniatures. I was seeking good reasons to purchase copious amounts of both of these lines when I realized that I could accomplish a number of things with this endeavor at once. 1. Help my friend, and the creator of the system I shall use, test out his combat rules in a much more visual manor. 2. Indulge my own insatiable need for these beautifully crafted miniatures. 3. Further develop a world I created for a novel I finished a while ago and perhaps motivate myself to not hate it so much. I myself have always been a story driven scriveler(my term for people who pretend to be writers) and as such generally only flesh out things that deal directly with the story I'm currently concentrating on. However in order to be prepared for a game driven by the wills and minds of others instead of my own very ill calculated and predictable plot points I have begun to dig much deeper into my creative goo. Once I get around to painting a few of these miniatures, which probably won't take long, I am going to post a few pics of them for you. They are incredibly eclectic... Current Mood: cheerful | | Saturday, March 14th, 2009 | | 9:06 pm |
Once again a long while has passed since my last update. Don't worry though, its okay now, long lapses in presence are EB tradition. Its a trick i do, where i create this little shadow in my head then conceal myself in it, unfortunately existential shadows seem to be much stickier than the simple lack of light real life ones... Takes a bit longer to get out of them. My Senior chief sat down with me a couple days ago for a special evaluation, since I was taking the advancment exam... It went well, typical you're a great work with room to improve(not much different than corporate bullshit). The good news is I got a 4.0 eval(Slawson will know a bit more about what that means) which will give me a great chance at making the cut to Second Class Petty Officer. While I was there Senior Chief(who I will from now on only refer to as Senior) asked me why I wasn't participating on the ship's basketball or softball team. You look like an athletic guy, he said, you should play. I think he sensed my hesitation in answering because he quickly added before I could reply, don't you like sports?(this last question had the whole 'aren't you a man?" type of undertone) Why yes, I said, I just don't like the other people on this ship. Luckily, Senior is avery understanding person, and a sci-fi nerd at heart, so since I am his current star technician, he allows me to be super anti-social and mostly just leaves me to my own devices. As long as I get the workcenter's work done, without him telling me to, I'm allowed to be a ghost. And ectoplasmic I am! For the first time in my life, I deeply regret a choice I made. Not the whole, joining the navy(actually I think that it has been a wonderful choice and will be a great benefit to me when I get out in four and a half years) but chosing Hawaii as my duty station was definately a big mistake. Of course, there really is no way I could have known it before making the choice. I can't stand Hawaii for most of the same reasons I never liked anywhere in small town America... accept since it is actually an Island all those small townisms are horribly magnified. The whole tourist attitude makes almost everhwere downtown completley incompatable with myself. China town is better... but on a very small scale. I do love the beaches though, and the warmth, but I hate the rain. It doesn't rain here like Michigan. Michigan rains are good, cleansing rains. The kind of rains that made holing up in the Carpet Ship or Chaos House with a good book or a movie and a bunch of the tribe so much fun. Here in hawaii, the rains are like summer colds... just wet and cold enough to be annoying but otherwise insubstantial, not enough water falls to wash anything away so it just makes the pier wet and foul smelling, and all the stupid locals slow down to 10 miles an hour (they were only going twenty-five by the way, and the speed limit was fifty). The only repose i have here is a local game/comic ship. Luckily there are some great hobbiests as well as some devout Neil Gaiman fans... both of which I get along with. The downside is that I rarely have time to spend with them since I'm billetted to the most active ship on the pier. Luckily Obama's policies are changing that. All the pointless underways that we did to make the Captain look good are going away since Obama said "No, Mr. SECNAV(Secretary of the Navy) you have to be smart with money too." By the way... this should piss all you economists off(it sure pissed me off) The christmas before last the ships spent $15,000 on christmas lights... (Granted it wasn't taxpayer money, it was money generated from junk sold at the ship store... but still a huge waste if you ask me.) It's a FUCKING WARSHIP... we need to be READY to go to WAR at anytime... but no... I spend three days zip tying $15,000 worth of Christmas lights to the Dam CIWS and VLS Launchers. IS THAT FUCKING OPERATIONAL READINESS???? Aparently Saint Nick had a lot to do with naval holiday strategems. Peace out bitches. I miss you all an incredible amount... and even though you may not hear from me often... know that you all are constantly in my thoughts. I'm somewhere on the ocean... doing all I can to make the world safer for my friends. And that is the thought that keeps me motivated. Current Mood: lonely | | Monday, January 19th, 2009 | | 7:59 pm |
| | Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 | | 12:28 pm |
I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but I found it terribly funny. True story that happened on the smoke deck at school today: My friend Long and I are talking and he says, "You know Spain, fuckin chicks is gay." "I think you're confused." I reply. "No, listen," he says, "You have to put nice music on, and say sweet things, maybe even burn some scented candles. You might have to rub lotion on them and give them pretty flowers. Its all so fruity. But," He says taking a drag of his cigarette,"Two hairy lumberjacks taring eachother's assholes up. THAT'S MANLY!" Side note: Got my laptop sent to me a couple days ago, so I'll be around here again. Kaos: I know I was supposed to call you last week but I lost my phone charger in chicago and haven't gotten around to getting a new one yet. I'll make sure to call you this weekend. |
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