It's Christmas Eve and These Shoes are Just Her Size...

Two posts in a day, two days in a row? I know it's flabbergasting, but I tend to get pretty bored at home.

That, and I finally remembered to download the song I heard on the way home in the car, that just about floored me. Okay call me wishy washy, but every once in a while a song comes along that gives me that choked up feeling in my throat. Bob Carlisle's "Christmas Shoes" has joined the very short list of songs that have affected me that way. It's a beautiful song by itself, but the lyrics and the story they tell are really what bring out the tissues. The bridge before the final chorus is actually my favorite part. Usually bridges are just sort of thrown in, done as an afterthrought, but in this song its more of a crescendo. Maybe it's Carlisle's voice, maybe it's the subject matter, whatever it is, this song takes its place along his other beautiful piece "Butterfly Kisses" as a permanent selection in my playlist.

Those who haven't given it a listen, feel free to ask me for it, or snag it yourself. I've been told by a friend or two that I only like a "certain kind" of "cookie cutter or "mainstream" music, and never color outside the lines, so to speak. All I can say is if you enjoy the music I've gushed about in the past, there's a strong chance you'll also enjoy both this song, and the ones I recommend in the future.

Predictions...

The thought occurs to me I never got around to grade predictions, so here they are in simple form. First up we have Econ 100A, in which I had a B going into the Final, and received a B uncurved on it for sure given he posted the answer key and I took a gander the other night. We'll go with a B in that class. Then we have Writing 109 EC, in which we got an A on our Business Plan, but I got some B's on various assignments throughout. We'll go with a B+ here. Then we have Econ 119, in which I had a C or so going into the Final which was worth 50% of our grade, which I absolutely bombed, we'll go with a D here. An F would really screw things up, you'd think that would be mathmatically impossible. Last but not least we have Econ 138, which I had sort of a variety of grades in going into the Final which was worth like 30%. Eh I did get a B on the midterm, so we'll go with a C in the class, I didn't do all that bad on the Final, so couldn't be much worse than that. So by my count, we're lookin at bout 9.3 grade points, or a 2.33 GPA. Pretty shoddy, hopefully it won't be that bad. Best case scenario I'm thinkin A- in Writ 109EC, B+ in Econ 100A, B in Econ 138A, and C in Econ 119. That would end up 12 grade points and a 3.00 GPA. That's pretty much wishful thinking there.

Finally got around to finishing Fellowship of the Ring tonight, in no small part due to the fact I'll be seeing the 2nd movie tomorrow night. This leaves all day tomorrow to finish the second book of 320 or so pages, and possibly watch all or parts of the first movie again to make sure I'm on the same page, as there have been many areas in which the movie has taken a different path than the book. After watching 24 and Real World I'll probably head on over to the AMC Theater at the Galleria, ordered tickets in advance from Movietickets.com (for tickets, JUST CLICK IT, didn't you see the commercial?) and I know a few other people who are gonna be watching it there, so hopefully we'll be able to meet up, it's showing on 3 screens at 12:01 so that might prove difficult.

Now to sleep, and then to read.

Hooooome, for the Hooooolidays.

New speed record tonight, impressive given I was never over 80 the entire way. Via the 101 and 405, 1 hour, 37 minutes. It's exactly a half hour to the Ventura railroad bridge, an hour to the Subway I usually stop at for a midtrip snack, and an hour and a half to Inglewood Blvd., my offramp. This is at 10pm though, generally it takes an hour and a half just to get to the Getty, and then another hour or so to get here from there.

Just wanted to update the situation, gonna catch some Z's before carting everything into my room and unpacking my computer tomorrow.

Spreading Warmth.

Yesterday I was closer to speechless than I have been in quite some time... Two of my friends here stopped by to give me a gift at some point... First a bit about gifts, I used to go all out when I had a significant other, when it came to Xmas, birthdays, monthly anniversaries, you name it. I was pretty obsessive about holidays and such. Since I've been riding the single train, I've never really been into the whole requirement of gift giving for holidays thing. Go ahead, call me Scrooge or whatever, or cheap or something, but it isn't that I never give anyone anything ever, I just tend to do it at random times. If I see something in a store that's perfect for someone in July, I buy it and give it to them like that day. I think hiding stuff for months just to stack up in advance for future holidays is ridiculous. So anyway, a lot of the time I receive things for people I have nothing in return, and that makes me feel bad. I just make sure to hit those people who they're least expecting it with something to brighten their day.

Now back to one of the coolest gifts I've gotten in a while. This really warm fuzzy blanket with a beautiful wolf pattern on it, and even two fuzzy wolf pillows to go with it. After all the whining I've been doing about not having pillows for the futon, and not actually doing anything about it, I guess they got sick of hearing me complain. :/ The color scheme even matches the futon, which is sweet, and it's now become my warmth creator of choice for my random midmorning and afternoon naps. I totally wasn't expecting something this awesome when I heard they had gotten me something, the brownie points count in their section of my book just went up by like a berjillion. They were already cool people to begin with, but dang.

They even threw in glow in the dark dolphins for my ceiling, so my place isn't qutie so boring at night. :) Speaking of which, I was goaded into (okay I thought it was a cool idea too) putting up xmas lights in my room, which turned out pretty neat. One of the above friends helped me out, so I've got matching green lights around the bedframe and white one's all around the window. Of course I put this up only like three days before I was leaving for home, but I figure I'll leave them up til like March or I get bored of hearing people complain. I think they look neato anyway.

So yeah, my friends are the coolest ever. Or should I say warmest ever.

Two Thirds Of One Fourth.

That's all I have left of my college career. I guess that works out to 1/6. Seems like still a decent amount to go, and I guess it is. Just had my last Final this morning, so Fall quarter is officially over. And now without any further ado, we have some TEST TAKING TIPS from Me.

1. The more you try to cram in just before the test, the more stuff that you knew before will fall out the back end.
2. Sit in the middle of the back row, no way they'll catch you cheating.
3. Wear shades to assist sneaky peripheral vision, and be prepared with a story about a rare eye condition that forces you to wear them.
4. Get there 20 minutes early, the ones already in the room with their pencils and scantrons nicely arranged are the ones you should be sitting behind.
5. When choosing someone to "acquire" answers from, don't judge a book by it's cover. I know some really intelligent looking idiots.
6. Be sure someone good looking is sitting at a major focal point, you need aesthetically pleasing atmosphere when you're staring off into space completely forgetting about the final for minutes at a time.
7. When in doubt, the answer is c, and if you doubt that, you're not in doubt.
8. Cough continuously, you'll annoy people and lower the curve. Sneezing works too, but harder to fake.
9. Hope for a creaky desk. If someone complains, blame the polarity of the earth.
AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST
10. You know those clicker erasers that move up and down? And those clicking pens that pop in and out? Try to set a clicks per hour record.

There you have it. Foolproof guide to doing well on college finals. I'll bust out my grade predictions later on tonight, after I've already cheated by checking today's final against the answer key he's posting tonight.

Stripes.

As a kid on family vacations, that's all we wore. My sister wore red and white striped shirts, myself blue and white, and my brother green and white. You could pick us out in a crowd of 100 people easily, I guess that's the main reason my parents did it. We even had the striped socks to match pulled up to our knees. Oh yeah. I have pictures. You should ask me to show you them sometime.

So I happen to be wearing this shirt I have that is made up of three or four large stripes, navy green and white or something. I've worn it like five other times this year at least. Apparently, not in front of any of my friends. Not once, but TWICE, people announced that I was making a huge change from my normal wardrobe by wearing it. WORD FOR WORD, they said they exact same thing "well it's not a shirt with wolves on it or a t-shirt with a smart ass statement..." Two people, exact same statement, different times. Both the exact same "smart-ass" phrase. Pretty mind boggling.

Apparently I need to wear the stuff that doesn't fall into those two categories more often. Maybe Christmas will be a chance to branch out a bit. I've always been a pretty predictable guy, but I wasn't aware that the people around me actually notice, much less care about what I wear. Go figure.

Tomorrow's forecast, a smart-ass t-shirt.

I Know I'm Bad!

Man I'm full of nothing but excuses lately. Ah well that last post was long I figure it kept ppl busy.

Yesterday I was over in the UCen watching a young couple tearing it up on the new DDR machine down there and I got to thinkin. If video game makers came up with more games like this, that involve movement and exercise, maybe tomorrow's youth won't grow up to be as brainless as our generation did. Rather than just having to push buttons and stare at a screen, if tomorrow's games actually involve leg and arm movement who knows, you could end up staying in shape just because you are somewhat addicted to a fun game. I know I enjoy DDR a lot, it's just unfortunate it costs money in the arcade. It's not really worth it to buy a whole console system just for one game and the pads, but then again, if I'm getting exercise and fun at the same time, hmm...

Oops, 24 is on! Can't miss a minute!

Flight Phyiscal, Part 1.

So here goes my second attempt at describing the day that encompassed my Flight Physical. I¡¦m typing in Word this time, so I should manage to get through it without accidentally deleting the whole post again. Growl.

The alarm ended up being unnecessary, I awoke with a start about 5 minutes before it was supposed to go off. I¡¦d gotten a total of an hour or two of sleep, not the smartest thing, but thanks to hours of icing my head was getting back to normal size. Actually it¡¦s now two three or four days later, and there¡¦s still a pretty decent bruise. I made my way out to the loop where I was picked up by the first of three friends who had been gracious enough to participate in taking me up to Vandenberg AFB, a good hour away, and bringing me back later in the day. A two hour round trip at 5:30 in the morning is a pretty insane favor to ask, these ppl must love me very much. Or maybe they¡¦re masochists. Well, I feel the love anyway. :)

We hit the road, and the trip up was pretty uninteresting for me, given I spent the whole time with my head tilted to the side, trying to balance an ice pack on my forehead. We took a minor wrong turn when we tried to make the 101 to 1 transfer and ended up zipping through the stop sign, across the intersection, down the onramp back onto the 101 again, but we eventually got turned around and going in the right direction again. I was horizontal at the time, I should have been giving better directions. :/ I¡¦d planned to get there a good hour before my appointment, so even though we left 15 minutes later than planned and took our time getting up there, it wasn¡¦t a big deal. There were an absolute ton of cars headed the other direction back towards the 101 from Lompoc, apparently a whole lot of people make that commute. It¡¦s a pretty nice one, compared with sitting on L.A. freeways in some of the world¡¦s longest parking lots.

Around 6:50 we made it to the main gate of Vandenberg AFB, and hung a right into the main Visitor¡¦s Center. Here we waited in a short line to get our pass to get on base, but my name ended up not being on the list, so this became quite a production. The airman behind the desk tried calling the number I was given to call if I had problems getting on base, and of course there was no answer. He then told me to use the lobby phone and try calling every few minutes until I found someone to call up there and vouch for me. We waited a good half hour before I finally got through, and even then it wasn¡¦t the right person, she wasn¡¦t in yet. The person who did pick up was able to call up the visitor¡¦s center desk though, and after a few minutes I cut the now much longer line to ask if I could now get a pass, and they said yes. This of course required the driver¡¦s registration and insurance, which luckily I¡¦d already heard was a requirement and thus had it ready. It was now 7:30 and I was going to be late for my initial appointment, so we hoofed it back to the car and into the base after the guard scrutinized our paperwork.

The base itself was quite neat, reminded me of a very large gated community. I can totally see myself living somewhere like that in the future, the housing all looked very nice. After traveling down California and hanging a right at the large missile, we hung another right onto Utah, and a left onto South Dakota, eventually finding the Flight Medicine building near the end on the right. Gotta love patriotic street names. Here I bid my two friends adieu, as they went off to apparently eventually discover a drive-thru Starbucks which made their whole week.

I hurried into the building and was directed from the front desk down to Public Health at the end of the hall, where I picked up my paperwork. I was then sent back to the front desk where I was brought in by one of the people there, and hurriedly filled out the pages I was supposed to have already done, as the two people who were going to be testing me on various things sat around and looked annoyed. I explained the holdup and why it wasn¡¦t my fault, but it didn¡¦t appear that they cared. Then came a flurry of tests that made up the Tech. portion of my schedule. First they did height, this time putting me at probably a more accurate 5¡¦ 10¡¦¡¦ and 3/5. I then hopped on a scale, although fully clothed, including a sweatshirt and various things like a wallet and keys in my pockets. They subtracted two pounds to compensate, but I¡¦m pretty sure it should have been more like 4. Didn¡¦t matter since I was still only 191, decent poundage under the max. They also did sitting height, and measured the length of your thigh from knee to buttock, both of which are important in deciding what cockpits you can and can not fit into comfortably. Next came a reading aloud test, which they actually seemed quite focused during while listening to me, I¡¦m not really sure what they were looking for, I assume it was just a test to see if you were literate. They took my blood pressure and pulse three different times during all of this, once at rest, once after having me hop on one foot and then the other for a minute or two, and then once two minutes later after the exercise. They did all these measurements by hand, so I doubt the accuracy, and it showed given the wide fluctuations even between the different bp¡¦s that were taken throughout the day.

I was then sent into the hearing test room, which was different from the MEPS version in that the booth was only made for one person instead of six, and the room itself had another door that remained closed during the test, thus making the entire place much more soundproof. I still felt like my own heartbeats and breath were drowning out some of the sounds, so you really had to focus the entire time, even though the test went on for several minutes. I did end up scoring much better than the MEPS version, I assume because people weren¡¦t talking outside the booth or shifting around inside it. Next up came a whole bunch of vision tests, some of which seemed quite strange. I had been told my optometry appointment was later in the day and they would repeat many of the more important tests, so even though they ended up apparently failing me on a couple in the morning, I wasn¡¦t all that worried. The tests consisted of a distant vision test, near vision test, color blindness test, peripheral vision test, and a few others I can¡¦t really describe, where they just blocked your eyes in different ways and had you focus on something else, trying to see if they could create movement in the eye, or see if your eyes randomly shifted around or something, I guess.

I was then sent over to the hospital next door to have a urinalysis done, and then to have blood taken. It was officially more of my own blood than I¡¦d ever seen in my life. I¡¦d say a good eight or so decent sized vials were taken, if not more. She just lined em up beforehand, continuously switched them out all the while leaving the same needle in my arm, and then lined em up on a different table afterwards. It was all sort of reddish brownish looking, very bubbly, not all that attractive. Strangely I felt basically nothing during all this other than the initial sting and burn, I was able to wiggle my fingers throughout, and there wasn¡¦t the same soreness that there was after the MEPS blood test. They acted beforehand like I was probably going to pass out and showed me where I would wake up, and then afterward said I should probably sit still for 10 or 15 minutes until I stopped feeling dizzy, but I literally felt nothing. After a few minutes of watching the cartoons in the waiting area, I decided to stop wasting time and zip on back over to the Flight Medicine building to see what was next.

I was then given an EKG, which was a new experience for me. They put all these little tape things on various parts of my body, and then clipped electrode thingies to them while I lay on a hospital bed type thing. I basically just hung out for a while and then they said I was done, and began the oh so fun process of ripping off the pieces of tape, usually taking a few hairs with them. I then was told to wait in the waiting room for a while until my 10:20 doctor¡¦s appointment. As you can see a good three hours had passed by now, and I was just getting started. The doctor ended up being female which was a first for me, I guess the doctor I was supposed to have was out sick or something. A male airman was present in the room at all times, I guess to make sure that no comfort levels were crossed or something. This was your typical physical with a doctor, where they check your eyes, ears, mouth, extremities, test for range of movement, and all that. I basically ended up repeating every single test I¡¦d done at MEPS during this day, and then some. Eventually came the turn your head and cough aspect, and then a new one for me, the infamous ¡§rectal exam.¡¨ Only thing I¡¦ll say about that is judging by the amount of discomfort, I¡¦m positive my door doesn¡¦t swing that way. She then asked me a few questions about why I wanted to be a Navigator yadda yadda yadda to make sure I wasn¡¦t being forced into it or anything. I asked her about a few of the tests I didn¡¦t do well on in the other room, and she made a note on my schedule to have the optometrist redo those tests.

I was sent next door to Dental, where I was ushered into a room to have x-rays done. Their panoramic machine was broken, so there¡¦s a small chance I might have to come back and have that done another time, which would be kind of lame, but you do what you have to. The bitewing x-ray machine was working however, so I was able to get those done, and they acted like only one or the other was needed, so it shouldn¡¦t be too big a problem. I was then checked over by an actual dentist, to make sure I guess that my dental work was still intact, and there weren¡¦t any foreseeable problems. Everything checked out okay, and he filled out some more of my paperwork and inserted the x-rays, and I was back over to the main building.

Now I was in my main big gap of the day, as I had a 1430 (2:30pm) optometry appointment I had to go to, my last appointment of the day, but it was only about 11:30. I noticed on my chart that I was supposed to have gotten a chest x-ray and hadn¡¦t and asked the front desk about it, and they said that was supposed to be done over at Radiology, which is right next to the Lab where I did my urinalysis and blood work, and they were supposed to send me there afterward. Luckily I noticed, or I probably would have had to come back and get it done another day. I didn¡¦t end up getting to see the completed x-rays which was disappointing, I¡¦ve always found it interesting to be able to say ¡§Hey, that¡¦s my liver!¡¨ and ¡§Hey, that¡¦s my rib!¡¨ and stuff. They had the wrong angle on one of the two positions they took so they had to do it again, but the second time went fine and I was dismissed again. I spent a while wandering around the base after that, checking out the movie theater, laundromat, some of the barracks, and various other amenities. Eventually I realized I was tired and lay out in the sun in front of the original building and took a nap under a tree. I was awoken at one point by a Security Forces guy asking if I was alright, I guess they don¡¦t see too many civilians sleeping under trees in strange positions on base. I assured him I was okay and showed him I had an optometry appointment in a half hour, and he went on his way. I decided to see if I could jump start the process and headed back in to the front desk to check in. Turned out Optometry was back in the other building next door, so I made the thirty yard trek for about the 10th time that day. Luckily these two buildings were the only two I had to report to, otherwise it would have been pretty lame given I had no car.

I arrived at Optometry around 2, but they couldn¡¦t find me on the appointment sheet, so they weren¡¦t entirely sure what tests needed to be done. They went through the typical stuff like figuring out what my exact eyesight was and what prescription would be best for me if I actually wore glasses. Found out that as expected my left eye is 20/20, whereas my right is closer to 20/30. They also did the test for I think glaucoma where they blow air into each of your eyes. It¡¦s actually really cool to watch someone else going through it, since you see their eye blown up huge on the screen as it sits there blinking. I¡¦ve always wanted a huge picture of my eye in perfect quality with no reflection, and that¡¦s pretty much impossible to get. Interestingly enough, I started having trouble with the depth perception test again, so he had me put on a pair of glasses with the prescription he¡¦d just formulated, and I was able to do all of them much easier. I also ended up able to name all of the color blind slide numbers, whereas I was unable to see a few in the dimly lit other room, where the light that was supposed to shine on the book was broken. Those were the two tests the doctor had asked to be repeated, so given I passed them without a problem the second time, I assume all is well. I was then told to hang out in the waiting room, where I ended up sitting around until like 3:15, when they finally ¡§discovered¡¨ my appointment in the schedule, which was actually set for 3:30. The reason for this was because my eyes needed to be dilated an hour in advance of some of the tests, which is why I was told to arrive by 1430.

They immediately put in the drops, but I ended up having to around for another hour (I¡¦d been there since 1400 and it was now 1615) before the doctor finally brought me in. They ended up doing a very minimal amount of tests with my eyes dilated, mostly just having me in this one contraption where they shined a light into my eye from various angles and he looked for something, who knows what, maybe the shape of the eye or cornea or something. He ended up writing a whole lot on my sheet and filling in various sections, which was a bit worrisome because he¡¦d had a decent length conversation with the guy who had done the other optometry tests on me before seeing me, I assume discussing something about the tests I¡¦d passed the second time but not the first. The lamest thing about it was the fact that after he dismissed me and I was on my way back to drop off my package, I couldn¡¦t read any of what he wrote because my eyes were dilated. ƒ¼ Worse yet was the fact that since my optometry appointment took so long, the Public Health room where I started the day was closed, and I had to just drop off my package at the front desk, so I was unable to check in and see if there were any obvious problems that would make the infamous ¡§not qualified¡¨ box be checked on the last page rather than the ¡§qualified¡¨ box.

I decided to call the next morning, and did, but she hadn¡¦t been able to find my package yet, although after I told her where it was she acted like she¡¦d go get it immediately following. She said I should call back in a couple weeks, when all my x-rays, drug tests, and blood work would be complete, and she can give me a more legitimate answer as to whether there were any problems. So the waiting game begins¡K

I ended up having to walk the good 20 minutes out to the main gate from the Flight Medicine building because my third friend (who is also wonderful) had the same problem I did with trying to get on base, even though he gave my name and said he was picking me up due to my eyes getting dilated. Luckily I was able to find my way even when mostly blind, and eventually made it to his car. We stopped by KFC on the way home and downed some chow, as I hadn¡¦t eaten since 5pm the day before due to fasting for some of the tests that had to be done. Eventually we made it home around 6:30 or so, and my especially long day was finally over. I was so tired I ended up hitting the sack at 8pm, and not waking up until 9am the next morning.

Even two days later my eyes were still dilated, although not as significantly as the first day or so. Finally today they¡¦re back to normal, and I¡¦ve resumed my normal course of operations. One more hurdle down, now all I can do is wait. Wait to call and find out the person¡¦s prediction of whether or not I¡¦ll pass, then wait another few weeks to find out if the Surgeon General actually signs off on it, then wait til early February for the biggest news of all. Assuming all the other news is positive, of course.

I think I¡¦ve written enough for the day, more about the process when the time comes.

Lazy.

Okay so the Flight Physical story was supposed to be up tonight, but I'm tired. So I'm going to sleep. So I'll do it tomorrow. Probably.

Sigh.

So I was like halfway through typing up a huge blog about the Flight Physical and I managed to accidentally delete it apparently by hitting the escape key picking up the phone. This is why I usually type long blogs in Word. SIGH. I'm tired, I'll do it tomorrow.

I've Done Smarter Things...

I had a conversation with my friend two days ago about how I probably shouldn't go play racquetball the night before probably the most important physical I'll ever go through. After a discussion weighing the risks, it was decided that it isn't all that often cute girls ask me to play racquetball with them, and I should snap up any oppotunity that actually does make itself available. I mean seriously, what are the odds I could actually suffer an injury.

...

We'd gotten through maybe 5 points when I ended up diving for one near the right wall. I made the shot, it came high off the front wall right near the right wall, and came over my head to ricochet off the back wall and bounce very close to it, and fly back towards my position. I hunkered down like I always do when stuck in this position, hoping to get low enough that she'd be able to make the shot over my head. She went for it alright, and was sure to add some extra power into what would probably be a difficult shot. Unfortunately, she slightly misjudged the position of my head, and swung clean through it. Her racket edge caught me just above the left eye in the temple, full force, still accelerating. She even followed through before she realized what she'd actually made contact with.

It surprisingly wasn't as painful as one would think initially. Just an "ow" and I was about to pop up and see if I could return the shot in case she made it. I felt a little wrong though so I reached up with my hand, and was surprised to find I had gained a new forehead. Imagine a golf ball implanted under the skin of your temple. That's what it looked like, I kid you not. It swelled up INSTANTLY like a balloon, the most swelling I've ever had on any part of my body. My main concern was whether or not is was bleeding, and in between "OH MY GOD's" and "I CANT BELIEVE I HIT YOU's" she informed me it wasn't. I made a quick jaunt to the restroom to use the mirror and see what the deal was, although based on the expressions of the people I passed by it wasn't good. I basically scared myself when I looked in the mirror. It seriously looked like a skin colored golfball, almost like something from the cartoons when they get whaled on with sledgehammers. My eye seemed alright though, she'd missed it by a good inch or so. I returned to the court, constantly checking to see if it was beginning to bleed, but it never did. I couldn't even feel it really, it was just numb. I checked as best I could to see if there was any damage to the skull or anything, but as far as I could tell it was just swollen. So, we played three or four more games.

:)

What, think of the options: 1. Go home and ice your head for the rest of the night, by yourself, unable to do anything useful 2. Play racquetball with a cute girl for another hour or so, eventually go home and ice your head for the rest of the night, by yourself, unable to do anything useful. Seemed like an easy decision to me, since it's not like the swelling was getting any bigger. I was just a little more careful when I was in the general vicinity of her shot. She's actually quite possibly the best female player I've been up against. Quite agile, able to get to stuff most don't even bother with. My main concern was the physical the next day, but I was willing to sacrifice a few hours of sleep for the cause. That's what ended up happening, it took a good seven hours or so for the swelling to go down to the point it was only visible if you were looking for it. The only annoying factor was trying to talk the front desk out of calling an ambulance, after making the mistake of going down there for an ice pack. Some ppl can't really handle seeing people's injuries, it just doesn't bother me all that much, I watch those Trauma shows on TLC occasionally, it's all quite interesting. I then got a good hour of sleep before I had to wake up at 5am and get on the road.

Complete report on the Flight Physical, tonight.

Don't Break A Leg...

Usually the opposite is said, but I'd rather not jinx myself the day before heading off to probably the most important physical I'll ever experience. Managing to suffer some sort of injury today would delay the whole process weeks, maybe even months, and could even disqualify me permanently. Needless to say I won't be going rock climbing today, or diving off any high objects.

I'm blogging from a friend's room today, a rare occurence. One of the cool things about coming over here is that there is always multiple partially completed crossword puzzles sitting around waiting for people to contribute. I pride myself in being able to contribute at least one answer to every puzzle, although I occasionally get shut out.

Drove up the 1 last night during the sunset, and made attempts to take a few pictures while plowing along at highway speeds. Might give a pretty cool blur effect, or a car might have passed by during the shot and blocked the whole thing. We'll see how lucky I am. The father has been playing around with his latest toy, a Canon G2 digital camera. Seems to be quite the impressive picture taker, but at a pretty hefty price tag. I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, and this year that's proving to be quite a conundrum. Lots of stuff I don't really need, but wouldn't mind having, come to mind, but the stuff I need really come first. Whenever asked about gifts I always reply with stuff like "well I need toothpaste, and I'm out of shampoo, and uh..." Meanwhile the brother is busy demanding hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise, and offering ultimatums about what will happen if he doesn't get it. Rumor has it he's going to acquire a new car, which will be like his 4th in the last few years, whereas I just moved to my 2nd a short time ago, and it's a '93 Minivan, not exactly a 2002 whatever it is he's planning to buy. Heh, I say he, when of course a very very minor portion is actually his money. His money mostly goes to supply his addiction, not leaving much for non-retarded ventures.

PINK TOENAILS! Ah the art of the segway. My friend's toes are much more exciting than being bitter about other topics. She's making fun of the way I analyze situations carefully ponder all available solutions and then eventually choose one. Her laptop was too close to the end of her desk, so I had to move it backwards so my whole arm could rest on the desk without the edge digging into any veins, and apparently watching me come up with a solution to the problem was more interesting than usual. I've always been able to provide entertainment for people, not always intentionally.

I sleep so much better at school compared to at home it's ridiculous. I'm not entirely sure why. I sleep bunked up on my bed, which has a normal sized matress but no boxsprings, so it just has a slab of wood underneath. You'd think that would be less comfortable than my trundle bed at home. Maybe it's the temperature, my room never gets all that warm here, whereas at home even with the window open I'm in the hottest room in the house. Then again maybe it's the traffic, at home people are always up and about and slamming doors and having loud conversations in the hallways, whereas here when my door closes, it's totally silent other than the whir of my computer fans all night. Then again maybe it's the light level, I prefer total darkness, and it's closer to that here than it is at home since the front porch is outside my window and that light is on a lot. Or maybe I prefer sleeping at great heights compared to next to the floor. Hm.

I have to fast starting at like 6pm tonight, that should be nice and lame. More when there's more.

Three For the Price of Free...

...is always a good deal. Managed just that thanks to a friend of mine down near Irvine today, who had connections at the local theater. We ended up seeing a couple scary flicks, then when she left for another commitment I decided to stay for a third, largely because I didn't want to drive home by myself in the dark after the first two. :)

First up was The Ring which is definitely the freakiest movie I've seen in quite a while. I'm the type that never closes my eyes, but quite often plugs my ears. I can handle the gory or scary visuals, it's just the WHAM in your face sounds after drawn out spooky music that gets me. I think the reason it bothered me so much was the fact that there wasn't really any downtime, it was just constant spookyness. The infamous video itself has some pretty creepy visuals, and without giving away too much of the movie, there's some pretty scary lookin faces involved as well. The little boy actor was quite good, not quite the level of Osment, but very impressive. Creeped me out plenty. We'll go with 5 M's out of 7 because it does have a few twists that I didn't expect, and it succeeded in freaking me out and will probably give me a nightmare or two over the next few days.

Second on the plate was Wes Craven's They. After seeing the first movie this one was pretty much a letdown. Some scary moments, but overall just not the same level of plot or spookiness. Besides which the lead actress had a really bad haircut, and was much too thin! Not to be picky. Real women have curves okay. Eh, 3 M's I guess, if you're bored and need a ninety minute quickie freakshow.

So after coming out of those and not having any plans afterward since my friend was moving on to bigger and better things (no bitterness there really) I decided to pick up the latest Disney movie, Treasure Planet. Main beef I had with this one was there was only 1 song! I guess not all animated Disney movies are musicals. The main plus this one gets though is it contains the cutest Disney character of all time, Morphie. If there's a reason to go see this movie, Morphie is it. So cute I could just squeeeesh him. Outside that character there's nothing particularly special about this movie, all the predictable plot elements you expect from Disney. We'll go with 4 M's here.

Yeah I know I give out a ton of 4 M's, but here's my theory there. If I actually went to a theater and spent time and effort seeing it, it's probably going to at least get to the "entertaining" rating. When I can tell movies are going to suck, I avoid wasting time and/or money. Occasionally movies dip into the 3 M's range, generally because I theater hopped to them due to lacking better choices. More often movies bump up into the 5 M range, with the occasional 6, and the VERY rare 7. So when you see 4 M's, assume entertaining, generally worth a bargain matinee. Higher ratings mean worth full price, and in some cases, even more.

Wee early morning hours, the brother seems to have arrived home with various females to watch a movie, who knows I might sit here and be entertained by their antics. Case in point, one of them just announced she needed a blanket because her nipples were sticking out of her nightshirt. Apparently they're spending the night. Always nonstop entertainment around here. Heading back up to school tomorrow, er later on today, who knows when, I'll probably try to avoid traffic in one way or another. No point in going to sleep just yet, when mad giggling would keep me up anyway.

Gobble Gobble.

Made my way down to the Irvine area night for turkey day, representing the young-uns of the family since my brother had to work and my sister was up spending time with her in-laws to be in Santa Rosa. Much food was had by all, which probably ruins the fact that I was down to 189 this morning. :) Went to check out Die Another Day last night with the father, the 20th in the infamous series about James Bond. Wasn't too high on the "realistic" scale, but still had some pretty cool stunts. I can't say I liked it as much as some of the others though, a few too many one liners, sexual references, and entirely impossible sequences for my taste. Still 4 M's out of 7, I guess because it's part of the legacy.

I heard from my recruiter and found out my interview was rediscovered, and I won't have to redo it. That leaves the Flight Physical on Tuesday as the last big hurdle I have to get over before my package goes to the Board again in January. I should find out while I'm taking it if anything major goes wrong, and if not a month later when the official word comes back from the Surgeon General.

I've discovered that one of my buddies is a Jeopardy afficionado; always fun finding trivia buffs with which to compete on a regular basis, occasionally saluting them for their greatness, usually stomping, crying, whining and claiming cheating took place whenever a loss occurs. :/ We spent some time playing online when equally bored over the last couple days, we seem to know about a lot of the same stuff. She's a CS major, which automatically gets her big bonus points in my book. She's one of the ppl who's been in a relationship for 23489734 years though, so there won't be any worrying about how many points she's at overall. For some reason it has always been easy for me to categorize people who are unavailable, and never give it a second thought. Most people call me a liar when I say I've never even considered the idea, and I'm not going to act like I'm totally immune, but it's just not something I think about. It's funny, there were like five females in my room the other day and an R/A walked by on rounds and made a comment about how I "had it goin on" and I didn't really know what he was talking about until I realized the guy/girl ratio. For me it was irrelevant, since everyone in the room had either long term boyfriends or current flames. That's just sort of the way things tend to be these days, everyone's either paired off, or too busy sleeping with everyone to settle down. Alas.

One of these days/weeks/months/years/lifetimes I'll find someone compatible who likes a lot of the same stuff, who isn't currently occupied. What's the rush, anyway.

MEPS, Part 1.

Okay okay enough already, I'm blogging. Ever since I found out the news got delayed three months I've been pretty apathetic about everything, but I guess that has to come to an end at some point.

The ride home was quite uneventful, just a lot of thinking about the whole concept of joining the Air Force in general. I really need to start hooking up with other people to make the drive, having someone else in the car just makes the time fly by. After a quick stop at home to pick up my Social Security card, I made the 15 minute or so trip back up to LAX, to check in at the Westin hotel. This was a lot more than I expected when it came to accomodations, I had no complaints whatsoever. I got directed up to the 3rd floor where they'd set up a sort of makeshift lobby for all the applicants to check in at. Turned out that you ended up rooming with whoever signed the check in sheet immediately before or after you. I happened to share the elevator with a man named Johnny, who was being shipped out the next day to South Carolina. He was a pretty cool cat, headed into the Army as a combat historian, which basically means he's a photographer that records history as it happens. Definitely a job I could see myself doing, if my whole plan doesn't work out. You should see me when I'm setting up a shot with a frikkin disposable camera, everything has to be perfect.

Anyway, so they have us sign this sheet with like 293487234 provisos on it about basically what we will and won't do while staying at the hotel, which basically covered everything we could possibly think of doing that was bad. Everyone seemed pretty laid back though, I don't think anyone was in a real hurry to get in trouble with the military before they even got anywhere. They had a few phones in there, and a few comps set up with internet, so you could busy yourself while they worked through your paperwork, and later once you're wandering around bored. There was also a TV, and a pool table outside in the patio area, which drew the interest of a dozen people at any given time. Quite the interesting makeup of characters, everything between your typical 17 year old enlistee right out of high school to 20 something priors heading back in to a different branch or different career. A whole lot of "what branch are you?" and "what are you gonna do?" It's always an interesting atmosphere when you're hanging out with people you've just met and quite possibly will never see again after the next few hours. There were a whole lot of rules about fraternization probably for that very reason. Can't say I've ever had a one night stand.

Dinner consisted of a buffet style meal down in one of the smaller ballrooms, which actually wasn't too bad. Your typical meat and potatoes fare, with some pasta and salad thrown in. Was plannin on hittin the pool afterwards, but ended up just playin a few games of pool until I managed to finally sink my pairing's winning streak by burying the 8ball in the wrong pocket after a difficult bank attempt. It happens. Decided to hit the sack around 8:30pm, knowing the wakeup call was schedule for "oh three hundred" I was quite impressed by the number of pillow they offered, there were like six per bed and then another lengthy one, along with like four sets of comforters, but I ended up kicking most of them off during the warm night.

We set the alarm a bit earlier and thus were relatively awake when the cheery recorded voice informed us of the time. After the usual shower and shave we made our way down to breakfast which wasn't quite as impressive as dinner, but still offered all the usual fixins. I'd decided to drive to MEPS to avoid the wait for the shuttle back to the hotel when I finished up, so I was on my way around 4. Quick stop for gas and I arrived at the L.A. MEPS around 4:25, and strangely enough saw people from the hotel already in there in the initial briefing, even though I was sure I'd left several minutes ahead. A shuttle must have left earlier, or something. I was disappointed since I was hoping to get in front of the initial line and thus expediate the process, but I wasn't too worried. Eventually the second shuttle showed up, and they filed us in to the initial "welcoming" room. A marine led the briefing, and after an initial joke of leading us in what was supposedly going to be a thousand jumping jacks to wake us up, he basically briefed us on everything we weren't going to do, unless we were in a hurry for our "procedure to be terminated." After giving up the pocketknife I forgot to leave in the car, I headed back to the Air Force service counselor to get my paperwork. I had been a bit worried since I wasn't on the check in list at the hotel, but I didn't run into any problems once I reached MEPS. After receiving my paperwork I was directed back out to the control desk to pick up another folder, and then headed deep into the medical area to the medical briefing room.

Once there, we were briefed on various aspects of our paperwork, and filled out various forms. In the meantime they sent around someone who took everyone's bp, and gave on the spot breathalyzer tests. No one got busted that I saw, seems like a pretty simple concept to me, don't be stupid, and you don't get caught. My bp was 140 over somethin, which is higher than I'd like. Since I stopped running due to splints though I haven't been doing a whole lot other than maintaining my weight, so it's not all that surprising. I've never been higher than that, so it's not cause for worry. Tends to be a good gauge of how in shape I am. Getting into swimming and cardio again, gonna have to stay off running as long as possible, which is frustrating.

Next up was hearing, although they were sending people to various stations all at the same time, and you basically rotated through to stuff you hadn't done as you finished the previous station. This test was actually much more difficult than I expected, the booth wasn't all that soundproof, you could hear people talking outside, besides which the other five people in it seemed like they were constantly shifting position and causing me difficulty. I've never had any trouble with hearing, in fact I always thought I was above average, but I still didn't score as high as some people, although I was still well within allowable levels. Could have been the fact I was sick during the week prior, and could have still been a bit under even if I wasn't feeling it.

After hearing I headed to give blood, which was the slowest part of the process, as some people had some problems. The line was about fifteen people long when I got there, and even the fastest person took at least a few minutes. Once it was my turn it wasn't a big deal, I got over needles at some point, although as a child they really bothered me, much like anything else involving pain. I've actually found that watching the needle go in makes it easier, since you know when to expect the pain. It's not the most pleasant thing, but it's not as bad as smackin your funny bone REALLY good, or getting your toe slammed in a door or something. They only took a small vial, but it was still pretty sore during and afterwards, which should make giving whatever number of pints they take next week more interesting than I'd like. Maybe they just didn't do as good a job, or something.

Last in my rotation was vision, which basically consisted of looking into a binocular style machine at your typical "read the smallest line you can see" test. There was also a book of those color blind number tests, where you find the numbers in the circles. Up after that was the depth perception test, which was actually quite difficult. You had to decide which circle in a row of five was closest, and the slide was dirty or something, with weird spots all over the place, so some of the rows appeared to be all at the same level. I ended up passing, but I'm prety sure I missed a few here and there.

I then went around the corner to urinalysis, which is more interesting at MEPS than normal due to the fact someone has to be present to make sure that it's actually your urine going into the cup, I guess. Pretty sure they use it for the drug test aspect, along with all the tests they do on it as well as the blood to make sure everything is as it should be. Somewhat interesting to be standing in a line holding your own urine before passing it off to the nurse who seals it and has you sign some more paperwork, but you do what you gotta do.

I next waited in line to see one of a few doctors in private rooms, where they went over your record and did the typical aspects of the physical, inspecting your eyes ears and what not, and the infamous "turn your head and cough" and "turn around and spread your cheeks" aspects of the process. Not a big deal for me, the guy was like 85 and could barely say three words in a sentence without taking a breath, and I'd rather know that something was wrong with me before it got too serious.

Then I was ushered into a large room where once a few dozen of us has assembled we were told to put all our clothes save our underwear in a basket, and form a line over by the scale. I'd hopped on before the guy came in and found I was 195 fully clothed, and given the max for 5'10'' was 194, I wasn't too worried. As it turned out, my official height ended up 5'11'', which bumps the max up to 199, and I ended up being only 191. Plenty of breathing room, even without being as fully active as I'd like. We then did a whole lot of exercises under the watchful eye of the practioner, basically to display that we didn't have any types of injuries, that our spines were all normal, we all had ten toes and fingers, and we didn't experience any pain when performing muscular activity.

After returning to the warmth of my t-shirt and shorts I headed back out to the medical control desk, where eventually I was given a copy of all the paperwork that had been completed, and was sent back to the service counselor. He checked everything over and then dismissed me, at appromiately 9:30am, five hours after I arrived. He'd told me as an officer's candidate I'd finish around noon, so I was quite surprised. It was still pretty strange to feel like you're midway through your day, check your watch, and find it's 7am. The process as a whole was much simpler than I expected, and after picking up my knife, I made my way across the way to the Rite Aid where I'd left my car, and headed on home.

Next up is the Flight Physical up at Vandenberg AFB, which I've heard very interesting stories about. Rumor has it I'm going to lose some of my chest hair during the EKG, and that the process will be a whole lot longer, with various aspects of the schedule taking place between 7:30am and 3:00pm. The other bummer is due to all the blood they take and the fact that my eyes get dilated towards the end, I'm not supposed to drive home. This basically means I can't drive there, since someone else would have to drive my car home anyway, unless they spent the day hanging out at the base or in nearby Lompoc, or maybe up the coast at Pismo or San Luis Obispo or something. Once I get confirmation on the exact schedule I'll go begging to my friends.

Can't say I minded lapping up the luxury for a couple days, even though it did mean I drove the oh so repetitive drive between here and L.A. a few more times in quick succession.

Something Worth Blogging...

"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

Hee haw. Hee haw. Still getting around to a long blog. Been working on my 40+ page Business Plan with my group all weekend, and it's finally just about completed.

Neglect...

I'm back, everything went fine, I just haven't felt like writing. Full story soon.

I'll Be Bawk.

Heading South for a couple days, should be back late Thursday, more possibly more likely sometime early Friday. Page away if you feel the need.

You Better Lose Yourself in the Music...

Got a couple movie reviews to post tonight, as I've managed to make my way out to the theaters a few times in the last week or so. Two very different types of movies, I must say.

Up first is Jackass which is pretty self explanatory. If you enjoy the show, you'll enjoy the movie. There was actually a lot more funny, and a lot less gross out than the show usually averages. Just a whole lot of "OOOOOOOOH THAT ONE HURT EM" and pretty much constant hilarity. We'll go 4 M's out of 7, just because paying 8 bucks to see an extended version of a TV show is pretty lame. :)

Tonight's film earns 5 M's, which I must say is more than I expected. 8 Mile is Eminem's first performance as an actor as wel as a musician, and I was more impressed than not. The rhythms throughout are quite addictive, and there's a very interesting version of "Lose Yourself" in the middle, during a scene where he's shown coming up with the lyrics to it. This song is definitely in my top 3 or so rap songs of all time. Although it's not my preferred genre, I still recognize a good beat when I hear one. The group I was with gave the sex scene two big thumbs down, and I must admit the forty five seconds it took up did seem pretty ridiculously quick. The actresses in the movie weren't at all attractive, but I think that was sort of the point. Didn't look at my watch outside of a few occasions, so that's always a good sign for a movie.

My new pager finally came, so I'll be available for all your paging needs again. Strangely when I try to page myself it only seems to work about half the time. :/ Not very useful if ever there's an emergency. I always return pages within the hour, so if I take longer or you think I'm taking too long feel free to page me again.

Got stuff to do tonight so I can take time off to head down South tomorrow evening, guess I better get to it.

The Skys, They're Falling Again.

Off to go hang out at Carrows for a while and then head up into the mountains for the annual Leonid meteor shower, which absolutely floored me last year. They say it won't be this brilliant again until 2098. Get off your keesters all, and get out there and watch the fire fall.