Finals Begin...

In about three hours with my first and probably easiest, Geography 150. Nonetheless I've been in the books all day and going over the study guide making sure it's as easy as it should be. Managed to get off my ass this morning and go hit the track after class... Was originally going to do a 3 mile pretty decent pace run, but upon arriving was in the mood to just haul ass, so I decided to run a timed mile for the first time since August. The mile is really at a different level than any higher distance. Normally you have a quick opening couple laps, a bunch of mediocre middle ones, and a couple quick finishing laps in a race such as the 2 mile. Unfortunately the mile isn't that long. You basically sprint the first lap, try to maintain the same speed through the second, when you feel like dying on the third continue to fit in surges whenever possible, and then even though your legs are falling off make sure to try to make your last lap the fastest of the four. Easier said than done. Had been quite a while since I ran at that pace for any extended period of time. Managed a ninety second opening lap which is pretty ridiculous, then managed to hit the stop button instead of the lap button on my watch and thus had to skip a lap's time, then finished with a pair of 1:45 laps. Judging by what it felt like, the second lap was at least as fast as the third, so I gave myself a 6:45 overall time.

For those who have been following my forays back into running, you'll notice that's way below ordinary. The last timed mile I ran at the same UCSB track was an 8:26, giving a 101 second improvement. Pretty much unheard of. Then again I wasn't in the best of shape at that point, and later in the summer as the first half of a 2mile I notched an 8:02. Still never under 8, until last week's first half of a 2mile was 7:37. But a full minute off of that is pretty impressive. I'm actually improving at a speed faster than I expected. Since one mile wasn't a very good workout after a few minutes rest I tagged on an 800 which I completed in 3:10, although I didn't input the full on sprint second lap that I usually do, and was treating it more as a workout than a race. Again though, still faster than previous. One of these workouts I'll probably make a set of 800s, with the first one being treated racelike to see how far under 3:00 I can take it. With this race much like the mile though, high school is a whole nother stratosphere, with my personal bests being 2:15 in the 800 and 5:05 in the mile. My lap averages in the two races at the moment are about 95 seconds and 102 seconds, whereas in high school I was at 68 seconds and 76 seconds. Chipping away here and there is easy, but 25 seconds a lap is like, an entire straightaway and part of a turn at high school speeds.

These last few days I've really been feeling optimistic about my gains though, and through prolonged stretching before during and after I've avoided all leg pain outside the occasional general soreness after running my ass off, and even that disappears shortly afterwards. Running on the UCSB track in Air Max's is like running on foam, I always look forward to getting there, strange as it may be. The itch to get to five days a week is growing stronger, but I'm going to hold off until at least Spring Break, maybe adding a fourth day next week as a test. I will see a lot better gains in workouts when I'm able to intermix speed work with distance runs on an every other day basis, still taking the weekends off.

It would be so sweet if I had some sort of holographic image of my high school self running with me on the track at the same speed I ran my PR's at. Not that I'd be able to come anywhere near competing at this point, but trying to avoid being lapped would be fun, and it would be a great way to gauage where I was at when it comes to improvement.

A First!

Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time ever we have a guest speaker to the blog!

I have no editorial control over what follows:

Hi. Matt has some interesting songs on his winamp playlist. Many come with interesting dances. Perhaps he'll dance for you if you come visit him; i suggest requesting Sisqo's "Thong Song" . . . :)

Hm. Note to self refrain from using guest speakers in the future. Not my fault the guest took so long I was having to entertain myself using other methods. What's wrong with interesting dances anyway! Hmph.

Hung out with the same person for obscene amounts of time today. Was very strange. Way more than average. Cannot explain. I think they put something in the water.

Ran all the way down to the end of the pier today. Lot further than it used to be since I'm way over on this side of campus now and have to run across the island to get to where I used to start from in years past. Definitely the longest run time wise since I've started, going to have Mondays be long slow distance days. Hopefully within a few weeks will make it over towards the airport, and maybe in a few months run all the way around the airport. Should be fun. The two day weekend was good for my legs I think, I hadn't had a two day break in a few weeks.

Today I started actually studying. Actually reading even. Made up a schedule breaking it down over the next ten days, what I'm reading when, when I'm reviewing, etc etc. Even working on the weekends. It's gettin all crazy up in this.

The Endlessness of Space...

For all those looking for a new game out there that is quite good, but won't end up consuming your life, I recommend Freelancer. It was the "immersive" one I was afraid of, but as it turned out the single player portion really isn't as long as it seems like it will be. There are "levels" when it comes to experience so to speak, but the max is only 38, and you only end up getting to around 16 by the end of the plot. All in all it took about eighteen hours to beat, which for a lot of people doesn't even constitute a full weekend. I'll keep my mouth shut on that one. It had been a long time since I played a space sim, or any kind of game that let's you move freely through thrree dimensional space. I remember back in the day I played the Descent series, and those games were great fun because you had that extra axis to work with. Rather than walking down a hallway, you could choose to barrel roll, do some loops, zip through it inverted backwards, or whatever is most helpful in the situation. Only bad thing about the game is you eventually max out your ship and weapons, finish the single player plot, and everything else becomes kind of boring. Unless you really get into it and love to explore the endless realm of space and every base or trade route within it, there's not a whole lot to do. The single player missions however are pretty challenging at times, and the plot is involving enough to make it seem like there's a point. The female lead is pretty cute too. ;) You know programmers and creating female likenesses in computer games.

The bad news is I'm basically done with it already. The good news is with finals starting on Wednesday and then three more the following week, that's probably for the better.

Interesting documentary on MTV tomorrow night at 10 by a journalist who visited Kuwait and our troops. He did a similar thing as a part of the "For The Troops" special which I thought was really good that aired last year and was largely about the War on Terror in Afghanistan. Should be worth watching for sure.

Immortality.

Quite an interesting topic actually. There's actually a whole lot I could say about it. Unfortunately I'm tired. Tonight's movie is what brought up the subject, as some friends and I took in Tuck Everlasting. Of the short and sweet variety, this one had typical live action Disney fare. Basic concept is boy meets girl, boy is immortal, girl isn't, girl has to decide whether to become immortal with him as well, climax at the end where you find out what happens. A whole lot of sappy lovey dovey goodness in the middle. I actually enjoyed the female lead's performance, and I suppose the male lead did a decent job of being your typical hearthrob. We'll go with 4 M's. It was a mere 88 minutes, so it's one you can just sort of breeze through when you have an hour to kill. Cute, helps to remind those of us who are no longer teenagers what it was like to be one once.

Tuned in to the President's speech tonight, primetime live usually means big news, as it turned out it sounded much like repetition of stuff he's already said. I was expecting more, something along the lines of let's go get em. The wait goes on. Saw an interesting 60 Minutes a few nights ago where they went around Kuwait interviewing a bunch of the soldiers, and they all talked about how bored they were with training, and were basically hoping to either get the hell in and do their job, or get the hell out and go home. The natives are getting restless as they say. I guess it's only a matter of time.

Some of the people I hung out with tonight who I hadn't seen in a few months said I looked much thinner. The best part is when people who don't even know you're trying say that. They're the ones you know are actually being honest. It's not like I was ever fat, or think I am now, but being healthier and more in shape is just a very neat feeling, and it'll only get better.

Vroom.

Man, woke up at 6:15 as usual for a Monday Wednesday or Friday and was still feeling the effects of the cold from the last couple days, it's been sort of a mini version of one that's been going around, but annoying nonetheless. Given the 39 degree outside temperature, decided to go ahead and sleep in and try my luck later on with regards to being able to get a run in and not die of hypothermia. Was a much more livable 60 around 11 when I finally got off my butt, so I went ahead and headed over to the track. It's much more comfortable running on the all weather track than on pavement, and I think it's doing wonders for preventing shin splints. Unfortunately the ROTC group prevents me from doing it in the early morning, so going to have to find a way around that next quarter. Maybe get up even earlier, maybe switch things around in the morning so that I go to class first. Just annoying to have to take 2 or 3 showers a day, that's why taking off to workout right when you wakeup works best.

Anyway, so I decided to go ahead and do another 2 mile time trial like the one I did last Saturday, in which I posted a pretty good time almost identical pacing wise to my fastest 2 mile of the last several years which I ran last July before shin splints put me under. It was still a bit slower though, but I knew with a few more training days it wouldn't be too difficult to surpass it. What I DIDN'T expect, was to haul ass as fast as I did this morning. My opening mile was a blazing (for me anyway) 7:37, which is the fastest mile I've run in quite some time, even though I wasn't even going full speed due to the expectations of having to run another without stopping. At the 1.5 mile mark I was at 11:51. This is also awesome because the requirements for OTS in the 1.5 mile event is 12:00, and that's the first time I've run under it. Yet again though, I could have gone faster if I didn't know I had another half mile to go. During laps 6 and 7 I was really feeling the effects of going out so fast, and my lap times started increasing, but my slow lap on the day was still only a 2:09, compared with a 2:20 or even 2:25 from previous trials. I then managed to turn in the fastest finishing lap I've run since I started training about a year ago. All this put together put me at a 2 mile time of 15:49. Nothing incredibly amazing given my times in the 11's and 12's in High School, but very impressive when comparing with more recent times. I cut over a minute off my PR when not including High School, which most runners know is a gigantic difference. Especially in a four day period. As I was running and turned in that incredible opening mile my goal became to break 16:00, when at the start of the run it was to break 16:30, even with the quicker goal I still made it easily.

For almost three weeks of more serious training, I've managed huge gains in speed. My initial 2 mile time was 18:34, although I definitely wasn't trying for any kind of speed in order to avoid injury. Two days later, 18:10, then two more, 17:54. Couple runs last week outside the track on the beach and so forth more for distance and longevity rather than speed, then Saturday a 16:55, followed with another distance run on Monday, then today's 15:49. It's going to become much more difficult to quicken my times however. Going to be focusing more on the in between runs, going a bit further on the distance runs, trying to get my legs further into the "used to running" shape they need to be in. One goal is to eventually get to training 5 days a week instead of 3, which will really help and allow me to work in some speed workouts along with the distance training. To put that much strain on my legs is going to require at least another month or two of what I've been doing though, until I don't feel the slightest hint of soreness anywhere near my shins or any other part of my lower leg associated with constant pounding. I don't feel ready yet, but I've got plenty of time.

I remember typing in this last summer that my intermediate goal was of course to break what was the requirement at that time when they were still running the 2 mile at OTS, which was 16:30, with my primary goal being to get to 15 minutes. I thought I was a loooooong way off from that. I probably still am, cutting another minute off will be much harder the second time around, especially after how dead I felt after today's. The most optimistic aspect of the whole process is these are times I'm running while alone on the track, never having anyone of the same pace to drag me along, so to speak. When being chased down or passed by hundreds of fellow trainees, with instructors yelling "encouragement" from the side of the track, something tells me the motivation to run even faster will be quite apparent.

Yeah, I thnk that's enough babbling about running today. Looking forward to Friday's weigh in, might see something in the 180s after two weeks ago I was at 190 flat. I've hovered right around there for a while, think it's about time I get into the 180s for good. I forget the conversion, it's something like you should run a mile 5 seconds faster for every pound you lose? Or something like that.

Left Right Left Right A B A B Select Start.

Probably made a mistake a couple days ago when I discoverd a cache of ROMs as they're called, for the prehistoric NES. Also known as the Nintendo Entertainment System, it was quite the amazing toy for my generation. Back then it wasn't quite an addiction, but man were there a lot of hours of fun involved. So yeah, an emulator that can be easily downloaded for a PC can "emulate" a Nintendo system, such that if you download a .nes file, you're able to play the game. In my case, the guy had over 600 games, most of which I've never heard of. But man, when I hear the Super Mario Bros 3 theme, or load up some of the other oldies but goodies, I get taken wayyyyyyyy back.

Luckily the simpleness of the system allowed most games to be beaten in a matter of hours, rather than the days, weeks, or even MONTHS that today's games require. One of the words that always scares me when downloading a game is "immersive," because that usually means it either goes on forever, you can get lost in it forever, or you never want to stop playing. Luckily, I'm not the type to enjoy that kind of game. I usually get bored of a new game, some faster than others. Very rare is the game with the staying power than has me playing it on and off for more than a month.

And yes, I'm still getting real life stuff done too. Last midterm finally on Tuesday, with finals coming in a few weeks. Will definitely be holing myself up at some point, since this set of grades and the next set in June are all there are left to affect my graduating GPA. Did all the reserving and whatnot for Commencement, looks like it'll be 4pm on Saturday the 15th, with all the other hundreds of Econ and Bus Econ majors.

From Downtown...

Intramurals was even more fun than usual last night, as it consisted of the Battle of the Bigs, i.e. the so far winless teams both at 0-5. :) Maybe it was the more competitive skill levels, but my team really had our act together last night. From the opening jump ball that I managed to bring down to our first lead of the season at 1-0, everyone was working hard. Going into halftime we were down by 3 (guys shots count 1 and 2 for a three pointer and girls count 2 out 3) but we had much more confidence than usual. I buried my first three pointer (2 in this case) of the season to tie it up a few minutes into the second half, and did my part in snaggin a few power rebounds and steals along the way. I managed 8 points, which is almost double my total from the entire previous 5 games. As a team our best score had been 17, but this time we managed 29 for a large victory margin going away. Quite fun stuff.

Later that night we headed over to the UCen where a sorority was holding casino night, which was also great entertainment. The only bad part of it was me twitching every time the dealer dealt or tried to shuffle, as they had a lot of people filling in who had never played the game before and had just learned the rules, so it went awwwwwwfuly slowly. I finally persuaded them to let me shuffle when it was necessary, and although I would have had even more fun dealing, I managed to refrain. Although the chips were fake, I ended up with ten times what I started with, figures that the one time the money isn't real I'd rake it in. Below average night at Chumash on Monday unfortunately, although the potential was huge, with two of us making it to the semifinals of the tournament. For some strange reason they decided to seat the semis randomly instead of based on time, so my friend and I both ended up on the same table, something that is usually prevented. Also annoying was the strangely large amount of ties that took place in the first rounds, so our table ended up with 6 instead of the usual 5, with 2 going on to the finals. As it ended up a dealer blackjack on the last hand killed both me and my friend, and we took 3rd and 4th respectively, with no one moving on to the finals to pocket the big cash. Given you win $50 just for winning your initial table though, that brings my tournament winnings up to about $400. Given I've spent $25 to enter combined, I'd say that's a pretty good ratio.

Felt more tired than usual running this morning, probably because I felt pretty dead after the game last night and hadn't had a meal anywhere in between. The long weeked put me on a Tue/Thur/Sat set this week, but will be able to go right into the normal Mon/Wed/Fri situation starting next week. Two day gaps are annoying anyway. Why'd someone have to go and make the week an odd number of days way back when?

Ack Okay Here We Go Again...

Strange shenanigans with my blog lately, having to retype this post, gr.

So my original plan was to go visit someone in LA on Friday, and the plan was to call her when I was leaving. So I called Friday morning after packing, and she told me something had came up. So I sat around for a few hours moping. Then another friend called and said he was going to San Diego a day later than he had originally planned, which of course I'd had to miss out on since I was supposedly going to LA instead. This ended up fitting in perfectly, and so within an hour or so I was headed off down the 101. I actually ended up stopping by the friend's place since it was only a couple min out of the way, and leaving a funny note on her door. That of course earned me a page later asking me what the heck I was doing in LA and was I still there. Alas I was most of the way to SD at that point, much to her chagrin. I spent the night at my friend's mother's house, which had this really sweet view on all sides from up on a hill looking toward the ocean. After a wonderfully peaceful sleep we were up pretty early and headed out to breakfast at this family restaurant nearby.

Our plan was then to head over to Sea World for the day with his girlfriend, the same group of three I went with a few years ago. Unfortunately the weather was not ideal, as it stayed in the 60s and even colder much of the day. That didn't stop us from sitting in the "soak zone" whenever possible though. One of the highlights of the day was going on the Shipwreck Rapids ride four times in a row, which is one of those rides where the vehicle is shaped like a large innertube with seats all facing inwards, as you float along through rapids and under waterfalls and the like, with the object to not be the one getting waves over your head drenching you thoroughly. I always have such a blast on these types, especially when it's the people across from me getting the worst of it. This one had a waterfall at the end though that stretched across the whole path, so there was no escaping it other than the fact that some parts were heavier than others. Unfortunately the worst wave was the one right before the end, so you could stay totally dry to that point and end up with half your clothing sticking to you. After each ride I would find a dry spot on my body that made it "unacceptable" and chants of "ONE MORE RIDE, ONE MORE RIDE" would ensue. After four though, we'd all gotten hammered thoroughly and decided to call it quits. For the remainder of the day my jeans never dried, and my shirt ended up getting stretched out quite a bit due to the weight of the water.

We also had a bunch of fun trying some of the carnival games, and I won a mini Shamu at one of them where you have to roll golf balls up into a bunch of holes of different increments to propel your racer across the track. There was also a DDR machine there, and my friend and I ended up drawing a bit of a crowd of onlookers. We're not insane or anything, we don't have any of them memorized and can't do it blindfolded, but we're alright. Was very good for warming up, and helping dry off a bit.

As usual the night Shamu show was my favorite, as they rocked the house. The preshow consists of current popular songs blasting through the stadium, as the big Jumbotron video screen switches back and forth between a couple video cameras they have posted around the stadium, which zoom in on unsuspecting audience members at inopportune times. I of course try my best to look as dorky as possible and always manage to appear at least once. My friends were pansies and sat up in the safe section this time around, but I was in my usual soak zone aisle seat, and with the much smaller crowd choosing to brave the waves I managed to get on the big screen three different times, although they claim it was only two. Nothing like being on the big screen. :)

Afterwards the original plan was to go out to dinner with her family, but I ended up getting in touch with another friend and she came and picked me up instead. I hadn't seen her for quite a long time, and she'd made a drastic change to her hair, so that was pretty interesting. I'm hoping to hook up with a lot of the people I haven't seen in forever before this summer, as things will probably get pretty crazy pretty quick.

Later on that night I was introduced to Viejas, one of the many indian casinos down there. I must say that based on that night, Chumash must be really robbing people blind on the machines. I only played a couple machines I didn't cash out on, with some of them cashing huge amounts. We played a lot on the tables as well, and even though I had a below average night at blackjack the machines made up for it and then some, which is usually the opposite of what goes on. I also played a bunch of Caribbean Stud, a game I had never played prior, which is very fun. It can get expensive, but you can win in a hurry as well, and on any given hand you could win the progressive jackpot, which was at over $81,000 while we were there. Pretty crazy stuff, even higher possibilities than Let it Ride.

Unfortunately we had to leave quite early the next morning, so the watch alarm went off much earlier than expected. On the way back I made a second stop in LA, having arranged a lunch meeting with the aforementioned friend who'd kinda ditched me the day before and I'd sorta ditched in return. That was fun, as although she has intentions to come up in a couple weekends, she had never met any of my friends from Santa Barbara. Eventually we got on the road again, and made it back to Santa Barbara late Monday, shortly before the rain.

There, the weekend in a nutshell.

Er, Busted Again?

My last post doesn't seem to be showing up. What the dilly yo.

Yah I Know, Geez.

So I ended up actually taking off for a couple days this weekend, and just got back a little while ago. Was quite the successful venture, will tell ya all about it probably later on tonight or tomorrow morning if I end up just crashing.

Big rain coming I hear, and THUNDER even. Should be fun.

Hm, Site Busted?

Can't seem to access my site through the web, but I can still post to it through Blogger. Strange.

Yeah not much happening around here, been actually studying some, working out some more, sticking to everything as I should be.

Sore All Over...

Found a new training regiment online, and began it yesterday. It's actually based off of what Navy SEALs do to prepare for their training. It's eighteen weeks long, but the last nine become pretty ridiculously difficult, so I'll probably just use the first nine. Basically each week adds on more sets or reps of pushups and situps, along with eventually adding more distance to the running and length of time to the swimming. By the end of nine weeks I should have no problem whatsoever with the minimums for the pushups and situps, and might even be able to get closer to maxing those categories. Maxing the 1.5 mile requires something like a 7:30, and I wasn't even able to run that in high school, so I'm definitely not expecting that. Ten minutes flat would be a nice long term goal, although the requirement is only twelve.

Monday night at Chumash brought home happy faces yet again... To make a long story short regarding my participation in the tournament, I was basically as sure a thing as you can get, having 20 against a dealer 10 and being all in, with the only other competitive person having over half her chips in with 15. Had she hit and busted, I would have won. Had she stayed and the dealer beat her (he had 17) I would have won. Had she hit and the dealer still beat her, I would have won. As it turned out, she doubled down on 15. Basically her only chance, and it required a miracle. She got a 6, and won the table, sending me packing. All was not lost however, my friend who had never made it to the final table before finally did, and took a respectable 3rd, pocketing $300. His girlfriend also did well on the night, getting a nice four of a kind on a machine, and then later they both got flushes at Let It Ride. I was up and down a bit overall, occasionally going on winning streaks, but nothing to write home about. Eventually I left up a whopping $10, with the other two up a combined $390. The fourth in our party was the lone downer, but even that number wasn't significant. So great fun in the car on the way home was had by all, as well as a simply hilarious dinner conversation involving a lot of straw wrapper launching at each other. Always nice to be back in 5th grade again. :)

They seem to have mumblings about road tripping for Spring Break and needed a location, I mentioned Yellowstone and they seemed jazzed, we'll have to see how that ends up working out.

Now I must go study for the midterm I have in a few hours. Yes of course there is a method to my madness.

AYYYYYYYYAHHHHHHHHHH!

Okay that isn't anywhere close, but I was trying to get a sound that was at least as loud as the Tarzan yell. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhayayahhhhhhhhhhh is probably closer but that looks like laughter. Anyway you get the idea. Went on a very awesome hike today up on the Red Rock trail off of Paradise Road on the other side of the mountains, and had loads of fun. Unfortunately I wasn't exactly informed as to what type of trail it was, so I went in my usual jeans and comfortable air max's. Turns out that balance was the name of the game, as at least 1/3 of the trail involved scrambling or bouncing between rocks. This was largely because you ended up crossing the river the trail ran along countless times along the way. The trail eventually leads to various swimming holes, and this especially cool rope swing thing thtat zips you way out over an especially deep one. Had I been wearing a bathing suit I would have been in heaven. As it was, due to the recent rainfall, one of the river crossings ended up much deeper than it looked. Like, much deeper, with no alternate route to be found after searching around nearby. So initially rolling the jeans up to the thigh is working out along with carrying both my shoes and socks, then both large rocks I'm standing on about halfway across give way, and given I'm barefoot and all the other rocks are as slippery as they come, after a gallant stumbling and balancing act I manage to stay mostly upright, and immediately learn that Nike's float when you drop them in rivers. After one more slightly less traumatic skidding session I make it to the other side, with my jeans soaked from the thigh down, and a big toe bleeding slightly. Man was it fun though.

For future reference, after rainfall, this could be an even more fun hike. I recommend a bathing suit first of all. Second of all I recommend socks and shoes for the majority of the hike, but also sandals for the treks through the water, goes much easier through the sharp stuff. A backpack obviously helps for carrying everyone's extra equipment. Also don't forget your camera, as we got some really nice shots of each of us slinging ourselves out over the lake on the rope swing and posing as if we were about to fly off. There were some close shaves, but nothing to write home about. The whole excursion reminded me of a trip my family and I made to Dinkey Creek, which was so long ago I don't even have any recollection of where it is. The water up here though was actually a decent temperature though. Not exactly Reccen heated pool, but far from freezing ocean as well. I'm sure I'll be making a return trek at some point.

We also have a movie review tonight, as I managed to get in two social events in a single day, amazing as it sounds. The Recruit walks away with 4.5 M's. This was actually a very entertaining movie, but it gets kept out of the 5 star range due to predictability. There were some twists, but the entire ending is somewhat obvious as it progresses. Huge bonus points though for making me laugh out loud at various random occasions, including the line "metaphysically wrinkle-free." You really had to be there. Huge negative tick marks however counterbalance the previous, due to a chase scene that involved a VW Bug and a pickup truck. I mean, cmon. Not exactly Bond, James Bond. Didn't check the indiglo once though, probably because this fell into the less than two hour category rather than the ever increasingly popular over two and a half hour category. Not a diehard Pacino fan, prefer De Niro myself, but Farrell performed well. Oh, and the female lead wasn't blond. All in all some pros and some cons, and I've heard mixed reviews from other people. I really don't think I could ever take a job where you can't trust anyone. I think I could easily handle working with classified information and not being able to tell anyone, but not being able to trust the people you work with, or even loved ones, because they might be bad guys, is just kind of hard to fathom. Although now that I think about it, if anyone is working for the KGB, it's my brother. He's got that "pretend to be stupid" thing down pat.

Wow longest movie review in a while. Must be in a talking mood.

Merry Being Single Awareness Day....

Another big V-Day, another lonely night. It's actually not causing the usual case of felling sorry for myself this year, only because I'm aware that if I did have someone special currently, I'd soon be saying good bye to them for quite a lengthy period of time. Some would argue it's better to have the goods and deal with the bads, but for now I'm satisfied with hanging out in mediocrity.

Ran for quite a decent amount of time today, and then amazed even myself by actually going out and getting a watch. My previous one had slowly been disentegrating over the past weeks, so I went out and snagged a similar version but a newer model. Quite spiff, trimmed in navy blue, will match my uniform quite well. ;) Hm, just noticed it's trying to tell me it's Sunday, forgot to set the day. Whatadork.

So, a three day weekend and nowhere to go. Anyone want a random visitor? Just toss up an invite! Hm then again I might just show up somewhere. I've been known to do such things.

A Couple Days Later, Reflection.

So a few days have passed, and the pure euphoric feeling has lessened at least enough that I can start blogging again. It has been a pretty amazing couple of days. After getting off the phone with the computer and writing that first blog, I immediately called all my immediate family members to let them know. I'm pretty sure they were glad I finally found out one way or another, as they were getting pretty bored of hearing me whine. As I'm sure everyone was. It's a feeling of relief like no other.

Throughout the last couple days I've been sharing the news with everyone who would listen, although most didn't actually know what OTS was, or how long I'd been making myself crazy over the wait. It's actually quite interesting, I keep hearing about people I know of my parent's generation who actually attempted to join the Air Force as a pilot or navigator or so forth, and were "shot down" due to medical problems, eyesight deficiencies, and various other disqualifying aspects. I consider myself very lucky that I've managed to fit the mold they're looking for, and am going to have the opportunity to have the job that a whole lot of people would die to do.

Many people have asked "so what happens now" so I'll briefly outline the future. Potential graduation (hey I don't take anything as a sure thing but it would require great negative effort on my part for this not to happen) is on June 15th. After I complete a bit more red tape, about a month or so down the road I should get a class letter stating when I go to OTS. By all predictions my class should be the one named 03-08, the last of the military fiscal year 03, which starts July 1. This means somewhere a couple days before that date I'll be packing up my new car (which will have been purchased shortly prior) and driving out to Montgomery, Alabama for the 10 weeks of OTS training. Gradutation from OTS is scheduled for September 19th, although there are some different activities involving the bar pinning ceremony and whatnot the day before. Upon successful graduation there is a lull between that and the start of my JSUNT class as they call it, which is Joint Specialized Undergraduate Navigator Training. If I get the track I'm shooting for, I'll be heading to train for Fighters in Pensacola, Florida. Pensacola is actually in the panhandle of Florida, so it's almost due South from Montgomery, not exactly Miami or anything, but I can live. After the different phases of training there, which take a little over a year total, I'll receive my wings and head off to wherever I'm ordered, my first actual AFB and missions and so forth. I saw on a sheet somewhere that the three bases that focus on F-15's are in North Carolina, Idaho, and Alaska. For all I know that sheet was way out of date though, but I can't say I'm really going to mind living anywhere. No matter where you go you'll be surrounded with people in similar situations to yourself, and obviously people living the same lifestyle, so making friends and meeting people shouldn't be too difficult.

So in a nutshell, that's the plan. Graduate at 22, graduate OTS later that year, receive my wings at 23, start serving my 8 year required period, reach the decision point at 31, either head out into the civilian world or as case may be, continue on in the military, potentially retiring after 20 years at age 43, and pocket half my salary for the rest of my life, possibly while even getting a second paycheck somewhere else. Or I could even stay in longer and pocket all the bonuses you get for agreeing to add years. Who knows. I don't pretend to know what I'm going to do in 20 years. :)

For now, I'll just stay focused on the goal. Had a good run this morning, it managed to basically stop raining completely for the period I was out. Had a quick breakfast and bolted off to class, which was of course upwind from my dorm, and with 30mph gusts that was pretty interesting. Got there just in time to see a bunch of people coming out, as someone had noticed a sign on the door saying class was cancelled today and Friday. Funny how he didn't know to tell us on Monday, yet was able to figure it out in time to post the sign so that we could see it after sloshing through the rain at 8am. No worries for me though, it's good to be up early regularly.

I should have much more to talk about from now on, now that I'm not sitting here staring at the clock and the phone intermittently.

The Wait Is Over.

The young man sits in his dorm room, multitasking as usual. Well not really multitasking, more like entertaining himself in multiple ways at the same time. The TV is on in the background, music videos and headline news occasionally filter through his head. Outside students shuffle past, late for midterms, late for class, late for breakfast. Winamp shuffles to the next song. The familiar guitar riff of the Top Gun Anthem plays. Meanwhile, the young man is engrossed in Soldier of Fortune 2, a game he's beaten before, and will beat again. Harder skill level this time, more challenging. Gunshots fill the air, machinegun fire alternates with the cries of enemies. It's a true cornucopia of sound eminating from his room.

Suddenly, the young man becomes aware of a different, much more important sound. The motions he goes through next are like clockwork. Take off headset. Mute speakers. Pick up remote. Mute television. Wait for second ring, make sure first wasn't a hallucination. Pick up phone. Is it the father, checking up on him again? Is it the mother, curious as to how he's holding up? Is it a friend, wanting to know if the news has come?

"Hello?"

"May I speak to Matt?"

"That's me."

"Is this Matthew Perry Wilson, Officer Trainee, future Second Lieutenant of the United States Air Force?"

"Yes. Yes it is."

The results are in, and so am I. You heard it here, first. Now to make some phone calls. :)

Zero, Except Not.

Sigh, the world continues to rotate, and yet my world continues to have a looming unanswered question.

The good news is people across the U.S. are finding out their fate left and right. Therefore my turn should be soon, probably Monday. Even if I don't receive a phone call, the list of names should be up on the internet. Either way, the end is coming. The end of the wait, that is.

Stay positive. Try to think positive.

One.

Theoretically, tomorrow is the day.

Will the news come on time? It remains to be seen.

Three.

Well, at least the traditional Monday night Chumash excursion was a great distraction from what's going on.

This time headed up with a couple of the usuals, with plans for a fourth to meet us there later on sometime during or after the tournament. Started off slow, then things started moving, and ended up somewhere around $120 up entering the tournament. The three of us made sure to get different tables, but we were all at the same time, so we were able to sort of eye each other stacks during the round. By some miracle of luck, ALL of us ended up winning our table in the first round and moving on. This is especially strange given we all use completely different betting strategies, with me being the never changes his bet pansy until the final hand or two, one of them being the risks at least half of it every chance he gets, and the other being somewhere in between. Our table was late starting, so I ended up finding out they'd both won during our final hand, which took a great deal of time. With three of us left, the dealer button was at seat 1, with me being in the ideal position of furthest away. He had the most chips leading me slightly, but took a great deal of time trying to decide what to do. General strategy in my books says he should leave out my exact chip count, and bet the rest, forcing me to bet at least the minimum, and causing him to win if we both lose, which odds say is the most common outcome. He would also win if I lose and he doesn't, and between those two possibilities that's over 50% of the possible hands. For some bizarre reason after thinking about it for a good 5 minutes and with a crowd gathering around, he decides to go all in. This forces an all in bet from the middle seat, although he has less chips so is hoping for a blackjack or a situation where he wins and we don't. Being in the ideal position of betting last, I go all in other than the minimum chip amount. Therefore if everyone loses, I win. The hands dealt were all going to require hits, but the perfect ending ended up occuring, with the dealer getting blackjack and beating everyone. I've never been that ecstatic to see the dealer get blackjack before. So with a whopping single green chip of the smallest quantity, I advance from the table of seven to the semifinals, and everyone else goes home.

In the semis the table has five people, and they take two from it to go to the finals. I was quite worried towards the start, as we had someone go all in on the first hand and win. The bizarreness of it came as he went all in AGAIN on the second hand. Yet he still won. We figured he'd immediately lower his bet to the minimum and sit on his huge lead in first place for the remainder, but he went all in a third time. He pushed, still alive. At this point, anyone in their right mind would have gone to the minimum bet. He didn't, he lost, he was done. Suddenly there were only four of us, only a couple minutes into the shoe. On the fourth hand one of the players decided to go after the guy who was leading I guess, and bet half his money, and lost. He bet the other half on the next hand, and lost that too. Wham, there are three players left with at least 3/4 of the cards remaining. Unfortunately we were all using similar strategies involving very small bets. It was quite uneventful throughout the round, with the last hand eventually coming up. As luck would have it again, I would bet last. We all had around 1k in chips, the button decides to bet all but 500. Rationally, the player next to me bets all but 525. Also rationally, I bet all but 550. Unfortunately, as the cards came out, my position became very much in danger. Cheering for everyone (or at least both of them) to lose, I had a 15 versus their 20 and 21, with the dealer's 10 showing. Although the odds say hit, I was forced to stay, because a bust by me combined with a dealer bust would spell certain death. Although I'd been in the better position during the betting, I was now relying on the dealer . Normal thinking suggests a dealer 10 will give him 20 underneath. Unfortunately for me, that would cause me to lose. Unfortunately still, given I'd left the most out to hope for a loss by everyone, if the dealer busted I would still lose. My only hope was that the dealer would make, and beat at least 1 of them. Given one player had 21 and the other 20, this required a dealer 21. Bottom card flipped up, it's a 4. Dealer with 14, odds of him busting just skyrocketed, I'm in trouble. Here comes the hit, it's a 7. Simple math gives you 21, one player pushes, the other two of us lose, with me beating him in chip count 550 to 500 (not real money by the way). I come in second, and I'm now into the final round, where everyone wins money. During the hand however, even more shocking news came through. BOTH of my friends had also come in second at their tables, and were going to the finals. With only eight players in the final table, and a $2000 pot to be divied up between them, things were looking awesome.

Heh, I'll never go into this much detail again because if you don't know blackjack I'm sure it's pretty boring, but this happened to me quite the irregular tournament. So a short time later we're all at the final table, with our fourth finally showing up to watch the remaining festivities. It appears the pansy betting strategy was working that night, because in the final table that's really all you saw. There's also the fact that you're not really playing for first as much as playing to beat as many people as possible. People going out early is a godsend. Unfortunately only one person was that stupid, leaving seven of us going into the final hand. I was fourth to bet, losing my ideal position of the previous rounds. One of my friends had been losing consistently and ended up with only 300 at the end, which betting second he put all in. The chip leader bet just before me, putting in the minimum. The first bet had already kept out 1k, which was my exact chip amount. Knowing I couldn't overcut him, and the only way I was going to beat the chip leader was putting in just about everything, I decided to leave out the minimum of 25 and put the rest in. This in effect put me above my friend in the odds race, with three betters to come. Expectedly, one left out 75, and the next (my other friend) left out 500, putting 300 on the table. Can't remember what the last better did, she ended up not being important in the grand scheme of things. I end up with 15 versus a dealer 10 again, sad as it was. I hit, and manage an 18. A few people end up busting, leaving them with little or no chips. My friend snags a 21 (although not a blackjack) likely putting her chip total to about 1200. The chip leader already has about 1400 though and with a minimum bet isn't going anywhere. I personally had 975 on the table, a victory would take me to 1950 and the championship. A dealer 20, again, would kill me and put me way down in the rankings with merely 25 in chips left. Dealer flips the down card. It's an 8. We push. In a way this was good, I keep my 1000 in chips which pushed me far ahead of some people. In a way it was sad, a dealer bust or a 17 and I win the whole shebang. As it turns out, I take 4th. $250 more comes in a large tray of chips, the real kind this time. The friend of mine who only had 300 going into the final hand had busted, putting him, in last of the 7 remaining giving him 7th place and $100. My other friend though with the nice 21 at the end bounced all the way up into 2nd, taking a cool $400, not too far off the $500 prize for the table winner. So all in all, the three of us taking 2nd, 4th, and 7th, pocketed $750 of the available $2000 at the final table. Not bad, not bad at all. I spent quite a while telling the "big fish" story about how close I was to winning the top prize, but all in all I'd have to say I played well. I managed to get to the final round, and had a decent shot at winning in the last hand. As long as I have at least a shot at the $500, I can't complain. Not that $250 is a horrible deal either. Especially when you tack on the $50 from winning the initial table. That put me all the way up to $375 up on the night, with us as a group being up over $1000 thanks to the 7th place finisher's healthy machine play from earlier.

Following the tournament, we were all on a pretty huge high, with the fourth member of our group being the only slightly depressed one in that he missed out on the bank. We played just about everything for a while, all the stuff that you never get to play because the odds are poor but is fun, and can still pay thousands if you "hit the big one." We did mediocre here and there, even played a decent dose of Let It Ride, the one that gives you the possibility of $15,000 on any given $5 hand. Eventually the time grew later, our lungs gave us the signal, and we made our escape. Two of us finished up $300 and $400 respectively, which happened to be our takings in the tournament. The third who was up somewhere in the $400 or $500 range earlier, ended up with a mere $180, due to a largely unprofitable spree of playing high stakes machines during the remaining hour or two we were there. As he always says though, "you have to bet big to win big." And that "any one of those 20's" could have become hundreds or even thousands of dollars. I personally am generally satisfied with my blackjack winnings, and keep machines to a minimum during each trip, knowing that is how they build multibillion dollar hotels.

So, it was my 2nd most profitable trip ever, behind a fluke trip two years ago when I managed a $625 jackpot on one machine and then managed to win a whole lot more too, and left a whopping $760 up. Final tally from last night, three Benjamins. These soon joined the two I'd won in mid January, which puts me at a tally of up $500 in 2003 after four trips, having never left down. This is where everyone can now say "well, you're due then." Hey, they said that tonight too. Frankly though, given I don't throw around money like a jackass, I'll never lose as much as I win on big nights. It would take a gigantic losing streak of trips consistently for me to even approach losing that much money. So let that assuage your fears. I know what I'm doing, really. :) Even if I do end up losing the next time we go, I still have a blast every time I go, from the trip up through the mountains with my buds who I basically never see because they live downtown, to the chatting with the dealers, to the feeling you get every time you get a blackjack (only 11 last night by the way, the 22 from the previous week will probably stand for a long time), to the euphoric feeling of doing well in the tournament. Out of 140 players, I took fourth, with all three of us finishing in the top seven. That just rocks. Benjamins for everybody. Want to be a part of the $880 bank the group as a whole took home? Gimme a call next Monday ;)

In other news back in the doldrums of everyday life, still no news, and the rumors of there being a delay and the results not actually appearing on Friday are starting to show up. I've yet to see any forum postings by someone with actual connections say that though, and the people who call their recruiters are getting a "call back on Friday" response, so we shall see.

Five.

Wow. This is the most boring blog ever. In other news, there's still no news. Luckily my friend decided to come keep me entertained for the weekend, so it's not as bad as it could be.

Seriously though, soon as I do something interesting you'll hear about it.