Really? For crying out loud...

Thanks to the magic of facebook, many of the three of you who actually read this probably know by now that my uber-expensive trip to Texas is just so much fun I can hardly stand it. But today as I was out for a drive, I got to do something I've really always kind of wanted to do - a 180 in an intersection.

Of course, that sounds pretty cool if you do it on purpose with a hot car. But when some yahoo in a Jeep decides to spin your new car around like a debutante at a cotillion by slamming into the back quarter panel - well, it takes some of the luster off what should have been kind of fun. If you don't see facebook, I've inlcuded my very own version of a demotivational poster here that shows my car - which I've made all of three payments on, by the way. You'll notice there is no hint of a rear bumper, yeah, the SAPD pulled off the last bolt holding that on so we could clear the car off the street. (The SAPD were really nice, btw, and I even got to ride in the back of a cop car without handcuffs - that was a treat. Note to all would-be criminals, if you are taller than say, 5'3" you do NOT want to ride in the back of a police cruiser -- you are literally wedged into that seat.)

So, that was the fun of my holiday weekend. Black Friday was no big deal here - the roads were actually pretty calm, but the stores - especially Best Buy and WalMart - jammed. For all of you who wonder what the difference is between WalMart and Target, I'll tell you. Go look at the room of your 6 year old - or remember it - and then think of how the room looks (looked) before you moved all your crap into the house before you bought it. That sums it up nicely. Target is clean and tidy and the WalMart looks something akin to downtown Kuwait 6 hours after the Iraqis decided they'd rather go home (or to belabor a point - the Basra Road before the Iraqis decided to go home, and the Basra Road after A-10s and B-52s left the area). The difference is that obvious. Seriously, you would have thought that we shipped in a bunch of Cold War Era Soviets and let them loose with Ronald Reagans' Amex Card.

Despite the car, which hopefully I'll find out this week whether or not its repairable (although the guy at the dealership said I probably wouldn't want it even if it is), this coming week looks interesting. T-W-Th I have my transition assistance seminar which will hopefully help make a civilian out of me and, somewhat ironically, I'll also receive my last military promotion before being promoted to "Mister" sometime in 2012.
 

A small stream in the hill by Payne Mtn - Northfield, VT


In other news, all of one person tried to take a guess at the photo posted here in the last installment. That photo is shown here in full - it's a small stream of water tumbling over rocks. The next photo detail is also provided. 

Right here. Take your guess as to what you think it might be by leaving a comment at the end of this blog.

You'll note that there is now a 'share' link at the top of this blog so if you like what you see and think someone else might get a chuckle - or if you think that someone else's life may seem a little more interesting by comparison and you want to cheer them up - feel free to click the link and it will post this blog address on your facebook site.

Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend and look out for morons on the roads.

The movie-going experience is saved - and your first photo quiz

All right, I admit it. The other day I went to see Harry Potte 7 part 1. It was a pretty decent movie as HP flicks go - those kids (now in their early 20s) are finally starting to learn how to act. Too bad they put us through five movies before they figured it out. Anyway....

So I'm at the theater and I suppose I should preface this all by saying that my favorite theater experience was in England. Not the huge mega-opti-collosal-cineplex, but a theater with only a few screens. After the trailers they'd bring up the houselights about half way and a concession worker would come to the front of the audience and have a tray with candy and stuff. They'd sell this for a couple minutes - and there were always people who waited until then to get their food gear, and they'd leave. If the movie was really long (like HP7/1 at 2.5 hours) they'd come back for an intermission which was great because if you didn't want food, you could go to the loo and not miss anything.  All that and the Brits sell sweet popcorn - with sugar instead of salt - and it's awesome.

Anyway, I've been to this theater before since I've been in Texas and what I saw was new. After by-passing the candy concession - where they wanted $4 - yes, FOUR BUCKS for a 500ml bottle of water - I saw on my way to the theater, a small bar. Five feet of wooded splendor lined with adult beverages - beer, wine and I think wine coolers although I'm not sure technically a wine cooler can be considered an adult beverage as the only people I've ever known to drink them were 16 year old girls. Curious, I asked how much a beer was, expecting a typical movie theater answer - $12 or something similarly outrageous. But not so - only $3 or $4 depending on what you wanted.

Really. Beer is actually cheaper than water - and a whole LOT cheaper than a bucket of popcorn at the movie theater. And you can take it into the theater with you. It's a lot like being at home I imagine but without the potential comfort of sticking your hand in the belt of your trousers and just really relaxing.

Overall, I thought this was a good sign. A sign that the American movie-going experience is finally relaxing a little. Of course, I didn't have a beer because beer treats me like a urinary expressway. Not the best way to actually enjoy a movie. Still, I love the thought and think a little Europeanizing of America is good and it's only a matter of time before we can get a Heiniken at McDonalds.

In other news, the photo to the right (hopefully if I can figure out how to place it) is a detail of a larger photo. I don't think this will be difficult to guess but by way of hint, it was taken in New England not Texas. I'll get out and about with the camera soon. 

I invite you all - both of you - to give it a guess and when you do, please just note where you're reading from just for grins. Winner gets...well, probably nothing, but you never know. Maybe I'll take you to the movies and buy you a  beer.

Ok, what next?

As I sit here with BOB, or more correctly, IN BOB, I'm trying to discover what I can actually blog about. The ride down to Texas was fun enough and all, but let's face it, I don't really want to go through that particular scenario every week just to have something to write about. You're all very nice (the two or three of you who are there) but c'mon, let's be practical.

So, last night I finished reading my first e-book on a 'NOOK' I bought The Shadow for Christmas last year. I kind of like the ebook thing - never thought I would, but I do. And the book was Julie & Julia - you may have seen the movie - if you haven't you should, it's quite good.

The book is good too - chronicaling a woman who decided to start a blog and cook her way through the entire Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook - in one year. Well, that's a great idea but it's not going to happen. First, it's already been done and second, just reading that book raised my cholestorol - the amount of butter used for the recipies in that book are ludicrous. That and the fact that my kitchen and kitchen utensils just aren't up to the task.

So, what to do, what to do? I think what I'll try to do is come up with several interesting photos every week and post them here - and you can guess what they are. That might be fun for my kids anyway, plus it will get me outside (or inside BOB you never know) and taking some pictures. So that might be fun. It certainly couldn't be worse than not writing anything. Hell, there are only 7 of you as it is and I dare say only 2 of you probably show up and see if this thing is ever updated.

So that's it then. I'll do a photo quiz kind of thing. (unless one of you has a brilliant idea). But probably not starting today. I have my finals coming up in less than three weeks and I really need to start studying for that and I'm going home to see the Shadow and kids in four weeks - very excited for that - can't wait to get home even if it is god-awful cold up there.

Perhaps though I'll do a photo or two a week as a warm up starting this week. Check back soon.

FriMday and Potpourri

This Thursday is Veteran's Day -- to all those who have ever served, happy day and thanks for what you've done. Veteran's Day in its most non-veteran sense, however, is a  day off. And it's a Thursday off. Which means you've got to go back to work on Friday. So, do you have two Fridays that week ... or two Mondays?  Whichever you choose, I vote that we call a Friday at work after a Thursday off FriMday.

Obviously I'm not going to get into the budget thing yet - probably not until the new year - but on the way home tonight I heard a story on NPR that bears thinking about. Recently, the Brazilian government threatened taxing a bunch of American goods because of our policy to provide American cotton farmers subsidies. So at this point, we have a couple options. Under World Trade Organization rules, the subsidies are probably illegal - so we could, I don't know ... stop paying US cotton farmers the subsidies.

But wait! There is another option. Instead, with all the shrewdness of a trailer park lottery winner, we offer to pay Brazillian farmers $175 MILLION dollars a year to let it go. Not being stupid, the Brazillians say, OK. Thanks for the cash.

This is sad in a number of ways. 1. Instead of saving some of our money by getting rid of subsidies, the US government has now taken another $175 Mil of our tax dollars and given them away to a foreign power.  and 2. It shows that our negotiators are, let's face it, stupid. The Brazillians thought they'd be getting a token amount of money - and then what did they get the first month? $12.5 million bucks. WHOA! they said (although with a Portuguese inflection). That's a lot of money!

What this tells me is that we didn't really 'bargain' in any meaningful sense. Hell, we probably could have gotten away with paying them $25mil a year, but instead we just gave away the (cotton) farm.

It's irritating beyond words really, how easily bureaucrats throw away our money.

If you know of an easy way for the government to save money, by all means leave a comment. I'm looking for realistic, reasonable ways too - not something silly like "get rid of the Navy". I'm really looking to compile a list of comparatively 'small' savings such as getting rid of the penny ($50Million) and the like - to prove that a few million here and a few million there and pretty soon we're talking about real money. Let's have your ideas.

Time does fly

Obviously the posting 'every week' thing isn't working out as well as I though. But me and BOB (my apartment, BOB, the Box Of Boredom) are doing fine. We know this because I've bothered to name my apartment. As of yet, I haven't started talking to him. And more thankfully,  he hasn't started talking to me. If that happens it's definitely time to move.

So the mid-terms went far FAR better than expected with As in each - actually one was a 100 which kind of floored me. But the big surprise, grade wise, this week came from my semi-annual AirForce Fitness Test - which I have never scored higher than about an 83 on. Well, for one of the few times I maxed my push-ups and sit-ups and had to have a run time faster than I figured was likely (although not impossible). Suffice to say that at the end, I had a 90.1 on the test, good enough for an 'excellent' rating, and more importantly, good enough where I don't have to take the test again for a year. So that's nice.

Class wise we have two more meetings before the end of the semester and right now it looks like my first semester will be my last for a while. It seems that while I have only about 15 months left in the service, Uncle Sam wants 6 of those to be over in Iraq or some such place. Soooooo we'll see what happens. It's not a done deal yet, but it's looking that way. Regardless, in my last two classes we are assigned a group and we have to do a 30 minute class on a subject.   Remember that Father Guido Sarducci video I linked to in the last blog? Well, I did and if you don't remember, go back and click the link and watch the video. Anyway, if you watch that, you'll have a good idea of what's in store for my class in a couple weeks. This isn't just me, either, this is me and four other adults who have agreed to this. I think it will be fun. Maybe I'll get a clip and put it here but I doubt it.

And one last note - I have successfully lost the 12 pounds I've gained since arriving here. I topped out at a rather stunning 200 pounds at one point here back about a month or so ago. I'm 'back down' to 188ish and I think this is the start of getting me down some more. Ultimately the goal of course is 160 but right now I think getting into the 179 range will be excellent and then we'll worry about lower numbers.

Ok, this was a bit of a 'letter home' kind of post and hopefully next time it will be more along the lines of previous stuff. My project I'm looking at it to take a good look at the federal budget. It's amazing how little people pay attention to what we're spending our money on.

So, stay tuned for that -- Roe's ideas of how we can save federal dollars without doing anything really stupid.