Pukd Perception

Meh... I suppose I should post something

2009-06-14T14:53:00.002-05:00

So it's been a little while since I last posted any sort of update so I'll try to be concise. Things are going pretty well overall, the weather here is somewhat temperamental which makes for some interesting days. Some days, ie. today, it will fluctuate from over 100 degrees to strong winds and cold rain. Today we had a combination thunder/sand storm which was pretty freaking cool and also ridiculous since I was caught in the middle of it working outside. Things are staying relatively busy here which helps the time pass by a little quicker, definitely helps you keep your mind off home. I spend the majority of my off time at the gym or using the internet to keep touch with everyone back home. The gym thing is really what's been the most motivating here, since I left the US I have lost around 27 lbs. total. I left the States weighing in at a rotund 220 and I'm currently down to about 193, my goal before I leave is to touch 180-185.

So, at work I've gotten in the habit of reading webcomics to kill the down-time and I've become addicted to XKCD, so if you have not been introduced please kindly direct your browser to www.xkcd.com it's a wicked funny comic for those of you who are sarcastic and a little bit geeky. My favorite thing about this comic is the mouseover text that the artist includes, normally it's either an extension to the joke or a side comment that is equally amusing, sometimes more so than the comic itself.

Nike+

2009-05-26T14:39:00.003-05:00

So I finally got my Nike+ gear/account all set up today and I'm not gonna lie, Nike and Apple have quite the killer combo here. The set up consists of my ipod touch loaded with the Nike+ software and built in reciever and a little puck type transmitter that sits in a spot in my running shoes. While i run to whatever music i choose the little transmitter kicks out data to the ipod touch keeping track of my distance/time/mile pace.

Once I'm back in my room all I have to do is sync my ipod to Itunes and it automatically sends my recent run data to the Nikeplus website where I can track my past runs, set goals, join challenges, etc. etc. You can see your runs graphed, check up on how close you are to meeting that 50k goal you set and check to see where you rank in the challenges you've joined.

Bottom line: As a tech geek who has a hard time self motivating, all these gear and the interface and software motivate me to run more than anything I've tried in the past. On top of that Nike worked with musical artists to produce Continuous Nike+ Original Run Mixes, one of which is done by none other than Aesop Rock...really? Could you ask for anything better?

In the desert

2009-05-19T05:46:00.002-05:00

So I finally to Kandahar and got settled in, just moved into some modular housing units with AC and internet! whoohoo! Thank God I'm finally out of tent city and into some semi established housing. Its starting to get hot as all get out here but I work half of my shifts during the daylight hours and half at night so it isn't so bad. All in all the experience isn't too bad thus far haha, I miss all of you greatly and can't wait to see ya again. Love you guys.

Last Leg

2009-04-15T12:56:00.000-05:00

So sometime in the next day or so we make the final jump to Kandahar. Man I hope they get us there quick, I wanna spend as little time as possible on that stupid cargo plane. It may be a few days but I'll start posting again. laters

Wow....

2009-04-14T22:57:00.002-05:00

Tell me God doesn't exist...I love this. This photo was taken by NASA's space-based Chandra Observatory telescope, it's of an x-ray nebula about 150 light years across. NASA says the display is caused by a young and powerful pulsar, known by the rather prosaic name of PSR B1509-58. This is just awesome to me, words can't explain how cool this is. The hand of God is everywhere, in everything.

Really?

2009-04-14T22:32:00.004-05:00

So it's one of those things, I don't believe that I'm somehow enlightened or whatever just because of this deployment but being in this situation really does bring some things into perspective. For instance, who in the world cares that Obama got a dog? I mean honestly, I guess being in my situation makes it seem even more ridiculous than it already is but come on... So the leader of the free world just bought a dog, and that means that it should be headlining news on CNN? Things like this bothered me before but honestly CNN, there wasn't anything else important going on? The press was insane shoving cameras into the dog's face and filming Obama and his family run around behind the dog like a bunch of morons...thats really what constitutes top news these days? I'm done watching the news, there is no more objective reporting it's all entertainment. The most popular reality show of all time is the news.

Transient

2009-04-14T01:59:00.002-05:00

So this whole tent city thing is turning out to be quite the experience. I have to say the worst part about this whole thing is the seemingly endless waits for nothing...we have no job and nothing to do until we can get flights to our final destination so I honestly can't wait to get to work. I hate not knowing what time it's supposed to be, whether I should be sleeping or awake. I wish they would hurry up and get us our flight out of here and into stinking Afghanistan.

Manas AB

2009-04-13T22:19:00.002-05:00

Just arrived in Manas about 2 or 3 hours ago, I can't really remember to be honest. This place is insane, it's like a military refugee camp. They stuff so many of us in these giant tents full of bunks. All in all it is a pretty nice place, really cool weather here, about 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Hopefully we can get out on a rotator soon and get the heck out of here and into Afghanistan. Love and miss you all.

Turkey

2009-04-13T12:54:00.001-05:00

We just touched down in Incirlik AB, Turkey it's about 9PM local time... my body is so confused with all the stupid time changes. So far so smooth, next stop Manas, Kyrgyzstan. Hope all is well with you guys :).

Duetschland

2009-04-13T06:54:00.002-05:00

So we just landed in Ramstein AB, Germany. This whole time change thing is throwing me off like crazy. Additionally, I decided that I hate flying overseas, the planes are too freakin small for the amount of people they try to sandwich into them. Truth be told, I think this may have brought some latent claustrophobia into my life haha. All in all the trip hasn't been too terrible, but this is where things start to get interesting. Still a little anxious to get to Kandahar but not nearly as stressed as I was yesterday. Hopefully, all continues to go as smoothly as it has thus far but I guess we'll see. I miss all of you guys terribly and can't wait to see you again. Till the next time I can mooch WiFi from somewhere...

Ughhh

2009-04-12T19:23:00.004-05:00

BWI is a cool airport but dear Lord I hate waiting around here. I'm about to have my biological clock screwed up beyond belief trying to fly from Baltimore to Turkey in one night, this is gonna be stupid. I am not gonna have any idea what time it is, aghhh... Oh well. I probably won't post for a few days or at least till I'm able to get wifi again. I can't wait to get this over, btw thanks Obama for getting us out of Iraq.....and into Afghanistan.

Here We Go...

2009-04-11T09:43:00.003-05:00

So we're at 24 hours and counting down till I head out, things should be interesting. This is gonna be a long couple of days getting over there but hopefully it won't be too stressful... Honestly my stomachs in knots and I'm just ready to get there and get settled, being there isn't what bothers me, it's the getting over there. Luckily from what I hear though we'll have fairly decent facilities in the way of internet access and all so hopefully I won't hae to stay disconnected from everyone for too terribly long. Well here we go, the final day is counting down.

Air Show

2009-04-05T11:52:00.005-05:00

So I got back from Atlanta on Friday and then got stuck working on a bus during the air show here on base. Great.

Honestly though, it was a really fun time and it was great to see the general public coming onto base and just seeing how excited and curious they were about everything. The children had to be the best part just seeing how happy they were to hang out with those of us in uniform and to watch all the acts we had here at the air show. I personally oversaw the transport of probably close to 1000-3000 people coming into and out of the base and I was amazed that I didn't have a single rude person on my route. Not that I expect people to be rude but honestly I think I got more handshakes, hugs, and thank yous yesterday than in any other day of my life. These people were great, they were genuinely happy to be there and loved our troops.

One particular example which really got me was having a girl probably about 13-14 years old who had Down's Syndrome come up to me with her father and give me a huge hug and say "You know you're a hero, right?". That type of stuff will get you choked up in a heartbeat, all in all it was a really good day and I'm glad we we're able to entertain the locals and those that traveled a good way to come around.

Profile Updating

2009-04-02T15:50:00.001-05:00

Updating the profile a little bit at the time today, step one... no more homoerotic profile picture. :)

New Book

2009-04-01T08:52:00.004-05:00

I purchased a book yesterday called Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry, pretty sweet book so far. I've read about a quarter of the book so far and I'm really enjoying it. The general premise is that a terrorist cell of sorts has engineered a disease/virus/whatever to re-animate dead bodies and infect other live humans. The main character, Joe Ledger, is put in charge of a team which is ultimately going to be responsible for tracking down the creators and closing shop on this bio-weapon. Think 24 meets Resident Evil meets the Taliban. Overall, a really well written storyline as far as I've made it into the book anyways, liking it alot. You should check it out.

Testosterone fueled fun.

2009-03-30T12:05:00.003-05:00

Maybe it's just because I'm a typical guy when it comes to anything car related but I am pumped beyond belief about the new Fast and the Furious movie coming out this Friday, it's gonna be sweet. Between the cars, the women, and the obnoxiously over the top action scenes you can't really ask for much more. The problem with these movies is that it makes me want to get a fast car and drive it crazily on public roads...hmm what to buy when I get back from deployment...of course the smart thing is to keep the car I have now since it will probably be paid off once I return, but it's just not quite fast enough. I feel it's time for an upgrade. Suggestions? Really leaning towards a Mini Cooper S at the moment. Great balance of speed, handling, and gas mileage(which let's face it, in today's economy it isn't really feasible for me to be driving a 300+hp v6 or v8 when I could easily get a 1.6L i4 @210+hp and still getting 40MPG.).

Home

2009-03-30T09:20:00.002-05:00

Made one final run home to say my goodbyes and tie up some lose ends here. It's great being back :). It's also great not being on base at the office having to wear blue's on Monday haha.

I'm ashamed

2009-03-27T17:58:00.003-05:00

This phone is making me want to get rid of my blackberry...

Let's go already

2009-03-27T17:31:00.002-05:00

You know if there is one thing I dislike about the military it has to be this "hurry up and wait" way of doing things. They want to rush rush rush to get things finished and then you have to sit and wait to really finish things. It tends to make things a bit stressful. As nervous as I am about leaving I really want to just get over there and get back, I see this as a really good experience to have under my belt but since it will be my first deployment I am a tad iffy. The thing that will probably be the worst is the stinking 20 something hour flight over. Well it could be worse I suppose. This whole blog thing feels arrogant sometimes, like anyone actually cares about insignificant day to day activities in my life haha. Have a good night all.

Finally...

2009-03-25T11:46:00.002-05:00

Just got my physical orders on hand :). Hopefully this time in the desert will give me the money to get my credit cards and car note paid off. I guess we'll see, eh I just wish they would hurry up and get me all my gear. Additionally when I get back I'll be eligible to get my eyes fixed finally, for free! Well, somewhat free if you don't count the whole military active duty contract.

On Second Thought

2009-03-24T19:59:00.003-05:00

You know I think I may go ahead and keep updating this while I'm away in some feeble attempt to organize the thoughts and experiences while on the deployment. Current thought/experience stress.... haha. Well as time consuming and stressful as it is getting prepared for this wonderful 6 month vacation I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the end. In other news I finally finished loading Linux onto my little netbook and fighting with the drivers to get the WiFi working so that this baby will be worth its existence. My main motivation for getting the install to work at all costs was not so much that I'm motivated as it was that it would have been a bigger task to re-partition the hard drive and get rid of GRUB and then restore WindowsXP than it would have been to just spend hours sifting through forum after forum until I finally found a tutorial that got the drivers installed.

Overall this little Aspire One is a pretty sweet little piece of gear. I think it's mainly cause of my wicked gadget lust and I'm still a little enthralled with having a new toy but hopefully these feelings will last. The form factor of the thing isn't half bad at all, I've got sausage fingers so that makes the key board a bit tight at times but it is absolutely more roomy than other netbooks I've used. The battery that came with it was a measly 3 cell, btw who in the world decided to package the 3 cell battery with a 120g disk drive and WindowsXP? Did anyone actually think that would be remotely power effecient? Honestly? However, some of the solid-state versions running Linpus or whatever the junk distro they load, come with 6 cell batteries...What a bad bad plan. In any case the only real issue I have with this thing is the battery life, borderline miserable. And a 6 cell battery will run you a bit shy of $70 on Amazon...*sigh* guess I'll have to make the investment. Till next time.

So it goes...

2009-03-20T18:14:00.002-05:00

So the time has finally come, I finally received word of my first deployment. I've got alot of different feelings toward the whole ordeal, part of me is really excited to go but part of me is really concerned and nervous. It will not be a difficult deployment compared to what alot of people I know end up doing overseas but as it is my first deployment it still makes me nervous. It really doesn't help that they keep pushing my departure date back further and further which really just draws out all the stress. I honestly can't wait to leave though, it's going to be so cool to be able to finally be in the country I spent so many months studying. It is a little hard realizing that I have to leave my family, friends, and significant other behind for 6 months, just knowing that their lives go on while mine will be frozen for 6 months. All in all I think it will be a great experience for me and I hope that I will learn and grow alot through this. I'll try to update this thing a little more while I'm away since writing these stupid things tends to make me feel a little better, and honestly it's really cool to have people leave you comments and messages in support of a post that you didn't ever think anyone would take the time to read. Peace to all of you and I'll see ya when I see ya.

And Here We Go....

2008-11-05T00:14:00.001-06:00

Obama is a wonderful speaker, very inspiring man. However, he has little to no backbone, voters have been easily swayed by a smooth talking politician with sugar coated promises of government change and economic redemption. Mr. Obama is the epitome of a people pleaser, nearly 130 times as an Illinois senator Mr. Obama has side-stepped votes with a vote of "present". That's ridiculous, I understand that politics is a grand game and all that jazz but I personally do not want a President who is more concerned with covering and furthering his political career while avoiding taking a firm stand on hot button issues. Mr. Obama's camp claims that some of the "present" votes were placed due to the fact that Mr. Obama thought the provisions were unconstitutional, that's pretty noble of him, I mean really, consider this issue. Mr. Obama was the only senator that voted "present" on a bill that would allow certain victims of sexual crimes to petition judges to seal court records relating to their cases due to his belief that the bill violated the First Amendment. This bill went on to pass in a 58-to-0 vote in Illinois and then later 112-0-0 in the House and 58-0-1 in the Senate. Does Mr. Obama have some special insight into the constitutionality of that bill or was he trying to cover himself knowing that his voting record would be scrutinized in later political endeavors (ie his Presidential Campaign).

To most of the people in my demographic Mr. Obama's plan on taxation and redistribution on wealth sounds like a dream come true, of course it does when you're in the happy liberal fishbowl that is known as a college campus, completely oblivious to long term effects of this program. Please for a moment if you will consider how drastically the situation differs when you are grossing $250,000 a year which is not at all an astronomical income for 2 working adults in a household. Socialism and communist leaning economic planning looks and sounds amazing. I mean looking on the bright side and least maybe we'll be able to create a better repertoire with China seeing as we'll be sharing the same economic system soon. Call me greedy but I completely disagree with the so called "redistribution of wealth" that Mr. Obama speaks of, why should American's striving to reach the "American Dream" be punished by being taxed to death to support lower income citizens? Capitalism is in no way a perfect system but it beats being punished for good work ethic.

Change....

Not the one we need.
The change promised by Mr. Obama is that of expanding the ever reaching arms of big government. The change we need is back to that of state's rights taking priority, not giving Big Brother a helping hand. As history shows the more the government puts its slimy little fingers into things, the worse they get. Look into any country which is under an heavy government and tell me if you'd want to live there, the reason America is so great is because you make your life. A lot of Mr. Obama's platform caters heavily to lazy, complacent, free-loaders who are all about receiving Government hand-outs at the expense of those who are better off. People have idealized Mr. Obama as something of a modern day Robin Hood, you are mistaken. This is not a medieval caste system, you are not as stuck as you'd like to believe. God forbid you have to make some tough decisions or take some paths you are not particularly fond of in order to reach your goals, but that in itself is the beauty of this nation. You don't like how your life is, change it.

Personally....
I'm going to go ahead and speak my mind about this man before I'm not allowed to. I have made decisions which will make this man my boss in a little over 2 months time, after which point I will serve his every lawful order and directive, as it is an oath I have taken.

Since I'm sure some of you rabid Obama supporters will foaming at the mouth to tear me apart for this let it be known that I voted neither Democrat nor Republican, do your research and realize there are other individuals in the political realm who can greater represent your individual political interests. Do not box yourself into the 2 party system, always keep an open mind. The current American presidential election process is a joke, I hope you felt good about playing your part, you performed magnificently.

Let It Go

2008-07-29T18:05:00.003-05:00

If you are easily offended by truth and harsh reality go ahead and direct yourself away from this page.

America, it's time to let 9/11 go.....

9/11 was a tragedy and a terrible event in our nation's history and many innocent lives were lost during those attacks. To be honest every time I think of that day I have this nagging thought of, "why are we drawing attention to the single greatest failure of national security in our nation's known history?". Every time the event is brought up it's like salt in the wound.

But let's get down to the real root of the problem. I'm sick and tired of 9/11 being the justification for every single political injustice and infringement (ie The Patriot Act). Additionally, whenever a politician is losing steam you can nearly always count on a motivational speech in a pathetic attempt to bolster support by motivating Americans with imagery of the attacks. They use this as if they alone will be able to prevent attacks by people who wish harm upon our country. We as a nation are continuing to wallow and mourn over this tragedy all the while those that wish for our nation's downfall are getting exactly what they desired for. What the government and media has done is essentially produce a movement motivated solely by fear and revenge. Don't lie to yourself, this isn't about honor or retribution, it is about political control by fostering ideas of revenge and fear.

We've spent nearly the last 7 years exacting our revenge on a scattered group of terrorist cells in 3 countries, that we are publicly aware of. The vast majority of the suspected hijackers were of Saudi Arabian nationality, however we consistently brown nose this nation and proceed to destroy 3 other nations in the process of our "war on terrorism". That is the most ridiculous thing to declare war on that I've ever heard, and yet people still can't see it. Sorry to burst your bubble America but you will never uproot terrorism. There will always be racial, social, religious, and economic divides which will cause tension, then conflict, then violence.

For evidence of how much a failure this "war on terrorism" will be please look to America's "war on drugs"(est.1971), or maybe the "war on poverty"(est.1964), those seemed to be pretty successful right?

We can be a strong nation without living in the shadow of those two towers.

Wake Up America.

and i'm back

2008-05-21T19:21:00.004-05:00

so i neglected the blog for a while due to the fact that i inadvertently set the language to farsi and was too lazy to change it back therefore i couldn't sign in to post....oh well.

Things have changed...drastically, I wish I could just make everything the way it was but thats not really an option. Sometimes you just have to do things regardless of what everyone will think or say, just because its the right thing to do, even if everyone believes otherwise.

Now that I've torn my own life apart, its time to rebuild. I pray everyday for the guidance and wisdom to put this thing back on the right track.

One Love.
“And this is love for God, to obey His commands”--(1 John 5:3)

Additionally....check out the most recent Atmosphere album....