I finally got a good night sleep. Not in the way I had hoped, but certainly in the way I knew would work and expected. Ketel One was the main contributor to my late night pass out on the couch and this morning luckily I'm still thankful. I could pursue drugs for sleep instead of this self medication. That's a scary concept, both sides. Drinking to sleep sets me up for becoming an alcoholic and dependant on the drug. Taking pills to sleep is the same risk of dependency.
The concern is there for me as well as from the ones that love me. Alcoholism doesn't really run in my family, and though it's socially accepted at work to drink as much or as often as I do, it's certainly not so in a civilian-common-sense-ran society. What does that mean for me then? I've gone countless nights without being able to sleep for more than an hour here or an hour there, but I tip back a 60 dollar tab at the bar and it's zees for hours. Self-medication.
I'm not the only one with this problem. It seems my entire platoon suffers from not being able to sleep, and while at work it's very apparent. We can barely make it to noon without long yawns and deep drooping bags under the eyes. We all have the problem, and hopefully it will go away. It's still kind of early to try and get fully adjusted back into the stateside world. I guess anyways. I thought all I was going to get from that deployment was the cancer from the electronic warfare systems we use. I never expected this.
Other than the lack of sleep, my leave has been going rather well. I stayed for a week in North Carolina to be with my girlfriend before I came home to Cali, and she went home to Wisconsin. It was a great week for me, sleeping in and relaxing. I did some Christmas shopping and tried to surprise Gina with a couple things, including a Wii. I got Jodie's subs installed in my car. Thanks Jodie. The last weekend (this past one) spent in North Carolina was in Charlotte. I had never been to Charlotte and found it very refreshing. I find that anywhere outside of Fayetteville in North Carolina is nice. The Triangle area where Gina lives is fantastic. And fortunately Charlotte was too. The downtown was reminiscint of a bigger city, and at times felt like it could be Chicago. It wasn't windy enough though.
Gina and I had a lot of fun there. We went ice skating and went to the Carolina Panthers game. Ate dinner at some nice restaraunts, and pub hopped. I hadn't been ice skating since I was a small boy, but the years of roller blading in the Southern California sun seemed to translate well when it came to lacing up out on the ice. The Panthers game wasn't much of a game after the first half, and I watched my Vikings suffer only their third loss season at the hands of a local hero here in So Cal, Matt Moore. The pubs had been nice the night before, and downtown wasn't as crowded as I thought it could, or should be on a Saturday night. Everything was in walking distance, and despite the cold it was well worth it. Gina and I ate at an upper scale restaraunt that was nearly barren. Even though I had a reservation, I certainly did not need one. Our Matt Dillon look-a-like waiter was good, and the food was even better. Some Mahi-Mahi and garlic mashed potatoes hit the spot perfect. If you're ever in Charlotte, I suggest Aquavina as a good place for a nice dinner. A little pricey, but 80 for the two of us with a couple of drinks, it was well worth it.
I'm in California now. Not a whole lot planned till after Christmas. My birthday at the races, and maybe some camping. Not looking forward to the days flying by as they have been, but having a good time despite. Lunch today with my old bosses and drinks tonight with my twin sis coming all the way down from Berk-town. Exciting the holiday season isn't it.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tiger Woods, The Age-Old Story We Love
Tiger Woods has been through quite an ordeal over the last few weeks, starting with his wife hitting him in the head with a golf club. The media has had a field day with it, and as well they should. Tiger Woods, a seemingly morale compass on the list of high profile athletes and celebrities in our world, proved he's no different from a Terrell Owens, Michael Vick, Adam Jones, Justin Timberlake or even more similar Kobe Bryant. They all have made mistakes, and being so close the public eye, even under a microscope on the pedestals we have put them on, they have made mistakes. Tiger Woods, who was so perfect, and by far the world's greatest golfer of perhaps all time, head and shoulders above all others in any sport not only in skill of sport, but in popularity and celebrity from his accomplishments. Even someone so pure, who we have bought Nike and Gatorade products just because, can fall from such high grace.
Tiger Woods is only different in one way from the top 10% of celebrities and athletes alike. And that's that he's been caught. Men like John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, who we elected due to their morale and ethical obligations to a nation did just as bad, if not worse at the stage that they were representing. We've held Tiger accountable for being a role model, as we do with every major athlete that we thrust into the spotlight. It's not un-American even. Adultery dates back to even the greatest and first American's like Thomas Jefferson. I'm not saying what Tiger Woods did is right, along the lines of ethics, morals, or even in the prospect of responsibility of wife and kids and above all else, the essence of being a man. But our history has proved that that is what a man does. Great men, leaders in public sway and opinion have always had that flaw in the bedroom, and with spouses. Infidelity has always been their greatest weakness'.
It's not excusable, other than the fact that traditionally we have excused it. As long as the man is considered 'great' enough or loved enough by society, we've allowed such mistakes to go without punishment. Other than the comedy writers slants and jokes that make the headlines. This Tiger Woods ordeal seems a lot different though, than other scandals that I've known in the past. For one, it proves that People, Star and Esquire are horrible at their jobs if they can expose the scandals that don't happen, and not this big one that is happening. It also proves how big Tiger Woods actually is. Kobe Bryant's cheating flew over in a few weeks with a 2 million dollar ring to his wife, and his endorsement losses with Sprite and Adidas. Tiger might lose his endorsement with Gatorade, or more or less with his own Gatorade product line. But Nike seems to be holding with him. Then again, they can take some heat off of their sweatshops.
There are a lot of celebrity stories just like this one, or even worse. This is legendary though only because we had believed that Tiger was that moral compass that despite his immense pressure and stardom, we thought he could prevail as that perfect individual. And not just in his short game. He broke that compass, and isn't the role model we all wanted him to be. He may never have been, but wouldn't it be great if he was? We wanted to believe it, we wanted him to be that great of a guy. It's disappointing that he's not. But it's not the end of the world. It's not the worst thing that any person has done, that any American has done. It's been weeks, and he's apologized. Time will heal this wound no doubt, and I think he's handled the situation the media has now crammed into his face with a lot of professionalism and moxie. Best of luck returning to the best of the public's eye Mr. Woods. I'm sure you'll win a major or two and all will be forgotten.
Tiger Woods is only different in one way from the top 10% of celebrities and athletes alike. And that's that he's been caught. Men like John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, who we elected due to their morale and ethical obligations to a nation did just as bad, if not worse at the stage that they were representing. We've held Tiger accountable for being a role model, as we do with every major athlete that we thrust into the spotlight. It's not un-American even. Adultery dates back to even the greatest and first American's like Thomas Jefferson. I'm not saying what Tiger Woods did is right, along the lines of ethics, morals, or even in the prospect of responsibility of wife and kids and above all else, the essence of being a man. But our history has proved that that is what a man does. Great men, leaders in public sway and opinion have always had that flaw in the bedroom, and with spouses. Infidelity has always been their greatest weakness'.
It's not excusable, other than the fact that traditionally we have excused it. As long as the man is considered 'great' enough or loved enough by society, we've allowed such mistakes to go without punishment. Other than the comedy writers slants and jokes that make the headlines. This Tiger Woods ordeal seems a lot different though, than other scandals that I've known in the past. For one, it proves that People, Star and Esquire are horrible at their jobs if they can expose the scandals that don't happen, and not this big one that is happening. It also proves how big Tiger Woods actually is. Kobe Bryant's cheating flew over in a few weeks with a 2 million dollar ring to his wife, and his endorsement losses with Sprite and Adidas. Tiger might lose his endorsement with Gatorade, or more or less with his own Gatorade product line. But Nike seems to be holding with him. Then again, they can take some heat off of their sweatshops.
There are a lot of celebrity stories just like this one, or even worse. This is legendary though only because we had believed that Tiger was that moral compass that despite his immense pressure and stardom, we thought he could prevail as that perfect individual. And not just in his short game. He broke that compass, and isn't the role model we all wanted him to be. He may never have been, but wouldn't it be great if he was? We wanted to believe it, we wanted him to be that great of a guy. It's disappointing that he's not. But it's not the end of the world. It's not the worst thing that any person has done, that any American has done. It's been weeks, and he's apologized. Time will heal this wound no doubt, and I think he's handled the situation the media has now crammed into his face with a lot of professionalism and moxie. Best of luck returning to the best of the public's eye Mr. Woods. I'm sure you'll win a major or two and all will be forgotten.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Wooden Shoe-Bragg Edition
With my mom being a preschool teacher for so many years, I didn't really grow out of the phase of playing House. Not the M.D. either. The classroom at the nursery school had a section in every class for napping, playing with blocks, finger painting, and living like an adult. Pretend adult hood anyways. Those teachers, the Ms. Cynthia's, they would take away any chance of a plastic food fight or disagreement that the would-be adult kids could have. I'd throw the plastic banana, and time-out, then nap. Maybe some fish watching and finger painting too.
You probably did the same things, and though I'm a boy, I could still play wife, and dress up to. I was a fairly open-minded young lad. You pushed around the baby carriage with the racially mixed baby to include everyone, even though half my class didn't even speak english. The teacher would drag me away from any fun I would be having. Good fun, or bad. Either it was a time stipulation, or a break in the rules causing my ejection from the 6x6 square that was my un-walled house. My refrigerator, microwave were the wood kind, and didn't work. The phone wasn't connected into the wall, and the dishes were always piled up on the sink. I thought I had escaped those boundaries with adulthood. I thought that there would no longer be anyone to mess with my time, to have unrestricted access into my home, and to have the authority to tell me all of the rules. The hindrance of all that still exists today.
The biggest is the time interference. Our job at the moment does not consist of a lot, other than the medial paperwork to be filled out. No benefit to us, just the C-Y-A of a commander and his great idea for making something 'safer.' The plan will most certainly fail every time, and the wasted trees, ink and time are made up for with this DUI, this fight or that death. And every time the leaders are covered. Little do they realize it's usually their hindrances, their interferences, their covering their own asses that leads to the problem. Trying to stop the problem only increases it. You can preach and preach not to do something. Hold people at work longer, and take away weekends, or use some duplicity to try and scare individuals to not to the wrong thing. To not drink so much, to not fight so hard. But the stresses added have a bigger effect on the every day, and the not-so every day soldier. They cope with drinking, and pushing and punching, because after all didn't you train them to do that? and then pull hard on the reigns when it came time to run.
They not only fuck with our time out of their own personal ass protection, but they also fuck with our families time. A family who has been waiting to see us for 11 months or more, and they can't get a straight answer. They get the run around like we do, and they wait all night for us to arrive, only to be told multiple times of this change or that. A 3 hour bus ride later, and then an early morning the next day, and a shorter than promised weekend (promises have not been kept), and then the grand invention of re-instituting our normal schedule of CQ, or PT and all for what? To waste our time more, and yours too. Be wary of any man with marital problems who is in charge. They like work.
I'm not saying that I don't want to do nothing, I have a job in garrison. It has to be done, but you have to wonder at what point it should start. The common sense factor, a factor not used in 2P, would determine that if your equipment is still on a boat on it's way from Iraq, and won't get here for awhile, what work, what training can be done? 24 hour guard duties on long weekends? Is that training for what a day of deployment felt like for their girlfriends or wives? I'm pretty sure they don't need any reminders. A man not being able to come home to dinner because a ridiculous time wasting institute like 24 hour duty of guarding the barracks.
The barracks, they're not all bad, except they might as well not have walls. Suite style, with two people per a bathroom and kind-of-kitchen area, that is more like the one from my preschool class. Dishes piled high in the sink with the pizza boxes on the refrigerator, and the microwave filled with aroma of Ramen Noodles. Not a real kitchen. No where to cook. So you're subject to eating on a time schedule at the Dining Facility, that's always over crowded and always changing times it opens, and you finish dinner at 5 and hungry at 9, and you wish you were old so you could just go to bed. You eat the same menu day after day, and long for one from mom's table. Or at least your best imitation.
They are always clean, but not out of discipline, or good house-keeping, more out of fear of punishment. Anyone ranked above you can come in and go through all your belongings, search your drawers and be satisfied with you cleanliness or make you pine oil one more time. You don't have any rights, and though you don't pay for your room, you would rather have the option to. It's something a civilian would call and invasion of privacy, and you wonder why your CO doesn't have to have a search warrant.
The Physical Training in the 35 degree weather with shorts and t-shirts is something I've been used to since day one of the Army. Infantry is hard, and it gets tiring. At some point it's okay not be hard every day. You don't have to prove that you are a bad ass by exercising cold, or staying at work late or going in god awfully early. I don't buy into it, especially with the wasted efforts. All that we do, our early morning wake ups and the 5 mornings we have ran till we puked the night befores wine, beer, or whiskey up, is not going to matter come January 13th. We have 30 days approximately of doing nothing but kickin' back at home, tippin' up beers and get fat on all the foods that our mom's can cook. The fish you're going to reminisce about to buddies that your aunt can make is going to negate all the efforts we are putting in this morning and tomorrow. Worthless really, and it's amazing that something so clear isn't perceived that way. So we run our 5 miles and 100 push-ups and freeze in the process, all so we can get fat and bloated on Christmas turkey and New Years champagne.
This might sound like some kind of sob story, or a complaint about work. I don't mind doing what I need to do here. PT is whatever, and I've never had a problem, even after a long night of drinking. But it's this sense that it matters, that we should be hard and not miss our families, not want to spend time with them, and that that power is put into the discretion of morons who are so institutionalized that they wear a belt to wal*mart that has enough gadgets to make Q or Batman a little upset. Life is a preschool class to us. We have our finger painting areas, and our outside areas. We have our teachers that enforce the rules, and give us timeouts. I guess the only real difference, other than the obvious age one, is that in my preschool class was organized. Even through all of that chaos, my teacher always got us our nap time, our playtime, our food, and didn't hold us after class just because she thought there was more that we could do.
Without a kitchen, and my desire to cook... I'm drawn to my g/f Gina's kitchen where I attempt recipes I grew up on.
Even for my gringo mom, this enchilada casserole is excellente.
there is nothing that says killer better than a calendar full of kittens...
You probably did the same things, and though I'm a boy, I could still play wife, and dress up to. I was a fairly open-minded young lad. You pushed around the baby carriage with the racially mixed baby to include everyone, even though half my class didn't even speak english. The teacher would drag me away from any fun I would be having. Good fun, or bad. Either it was a time stipulation, or a break in the rules causing my ejection from the 6x6 square that was my un-walled house. My refrigerator, microwave were the wood kind, and didn't work. The phone wasn't connected into the wall, and the dishes were always piled up on the sink. I thought I had escaped those boundaries with adulthood. I thought that there would no longer be anyone to mess with my time, to have unrestricted access into my home, and to have the authority to tell me all of the rules. The hindrance of all that still exists today.
The biggest is the time interference. Our job at the moment does not consist of a lot, other than the medial paperwork to be filled out. No benefit to us, just the C-Y-A of a commander and his great idea for making something 'safer.' The plan will most certainly fail every time, and the wasted trees, ink and time are made up for with this DUI, this fight or that death. And every time the leaders are covered. Little do they realize it's usually their hindrances, their interferences, their covering their own asses that leads to the problem. Trying to stop the problem only increases it. You can preach and preach not to do something. Hold people at work longer, and take away weekends, or use some duplicity to try and scare individuals to not to the wrong thing. To not drink so much, to not fight so hard. But the stresses added have a bigger effect on the every day, and the not-so every day soldier. They cope with drinking, and pushing and punching, because after all didn't you train them to do that? and then pull hard on the reigns when it came time to run.
They not only fuck with our time out of their own personal ass protection, but they also fuck with our families time. A family who has been waiting to see us for 11 months or more, and they can't get a straight answer. They get the run around like we do, and they wait all night for us to arrive, only to be told multiple times of this change or that. A 3 hour bus ride later, and then an early morning the next day, and a shorter than promised weekend (promises have not been kept), and then the grand invention of re-instituting our normal schedule of CQ, or PT and all for what? To waste our time more, and yours too. Be wary of any man with marital problems who is in charge. They like work.
I'm not saying that I don't want to do nothing, I have a job in garrison. It has to be done, but you have to wonder at what point it should start. The common sense factor, a factor not used in 2P, would determine that if your equipment is still on a boat on it's way from Iraq, and won't get here for awhile, what work, what training can be done? 24 hour guard duties on long weekends? Is that training for what a day of deployment felt like for their girlfriends or wives? I'm pretty sure they don't need any reminders. A man not being able to come home to dinner because a ridiculous time wasting institute like 24 hour duty of guarding the barracks.
The barracks, they're not all bad, except they might as well not have walls. Suite style, with two people per a bathroom and kind-of-kitchen area, that is more like the one from my preschool class. Dishes piled high in the sink with the pizza boxes on the refrigerator, and the microwave filled with aroma of Ramen Noodles. Not a real kitchen. No where to cook. So you're subject to eating on a time schedule at the Dining Facility, that's always over crowded and always changing times it opens, and you finish dinner at 5 and hungry at 9, and you wish you were old so you could just go to bed. You eat the same menu day after day, and long for one from mom's table. Or at least your best imitation.
They are always clean, but not out of discipline, or good house-keeping, more out of fear of punishment. Anyone ranked above you can come in and go through all your belongings, search your drawers and be satisfied with you cleanliness or make you pine oil one more time. You don't have any rights, and though you don't pay for your room, you would rather have the option to. It's something a civilian would call and invasion of privacy, and you wonder why your CO doesn't have to have a search warrant.
The Physical Training in the 35 degree weather with shorts and t-shirts is something I've been used to since day one of the Army. Infantry is hard, and it gets tiring. At some point it's okay not be hard every day. You don't have to prove that you are a bad ass by exercising cold, or staying at work late or going in god awfully early. I don't buy into it, especially with the wasted efforts. All that we do, our early morning wake ups and the 5 mornings we have ran till we puked the night befores wine, beer, or whiskey up, is not going to matter come January 13th. We have 30 days approximately of doing nothing but kickin' back at home, tippin' up beers and get fat on all the foods that our mom's can cook. The fish you're going to reminisce about to buddies that your aunt can make is going to negate all the efforts we are putting in this morning and tomorrow. Worthless really, and it's amazing that something so clear isn't perceived that way. So we run our 5 miles and 100 push-ups and freeze in the process, all so we can get fat and bloated on Christmas turkey and New Years champagne.
This might sound like some kind of sob story, or a complaint about work. I don't mind doing what I need to do here. PT is whatever, and I've never had a problem, even after a long night of drinking. But it's this sense that it matters, that we should be hard and not miss our families, not want to spend time with them, and that that power is put into the discretion of morons who are so institutionalized that they wear a belt to wal*mart that has enough gadgets to make Q or Batman a little upset. Life is a preschool class to us. We have our finger painting areas, and our outside areas. We have our teachers that enforce the rules, and give us timeouts. I guess the only real difference, other than the obvious age one, is that in my preschool class was organized. Even through all of that chaos, my teacher always got us our nap time, our playtime, our food, and didn't hold us after class just because she thought there was more that we could do.
Without a kitchen, and my desire to cook... I'm drawn to my g/f Gina's kitchen where I attempt recipes I grew up on.
Even for my gringo mom, this enchilada casserole is excellente.
there is nothing that says killer better than a calendar full of kittens...
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