Surprise. Part 2.

Okay so where was I.

Oh that's right. The most warmest bestest hug ever.

Let me teach you about today's word of the day boys and girls. It's called "reciprocation." That is to say "a) a mutual exchange b) a return in kind or of like value." This boys and girls, is the coolest thing EVer.

You'd actually think I'd be somewhat familiar with this feeling, through prior relationships or whatnot. Maybe it has just been a long time, but I really don't recall it being anywhere near as great as this. I truly felt when we hugged that she missed me as much as I missed her.

I wish I could describe her face when she saw me but it's pretty tough. I can do a pretty good impression of it though, ask me sometime. I guess it's a bit of a shock to see someone who you think is several thousand miles away suddenly several feet away. She really did seem happy though. And boy, I was too.

So we bid adieu to the best friend who must now go to work rather than the spa as was previously claimed, and we end up wandering around the base for a bit while she finishes up a few things and introduces me to various officemates. Kind of funny meeting people who recognize you upon sight, even though you've never seen them before. I guess various pictures had been passed around or whatnot. Eventually we meandered our way back to her place, and I got to see the infamous apartment. Only about five times the size of mine, at least. More like eight actually. I have no clue what I would do with all that space, that's for sure. By this time my body finally figured out that it was very far into the wee hours of the morning my time, and I eventually crashed for a while. That evening we got a pretty late start thanks to my snoozing and headed out to a German restaurant which I definitely wouldn't be able to pronounce even if I remembered the name. There I found out how to translate apple juice, as well as different kinds of meat before eventually handling the rumbly in my tumbly. It was fun hearing the gf converse with the waiter, at one point they used a bit of Spanish and I was able to follow along. But for the majority of the weekend I was helpless as can be when it came to speaking, and would just sort of look at her and smile and she'd handle it.

I also will admit to a gross cultural error when we were trying to find somewhere to park at the restaurant... Basically cars were all over the place, in the town there was no real curb or sidewalk or anything so cars were sideways and backwards and on the wrong side facing the wrong way, and we ended up just parking over near some bushes in what didn't look like a spot, so without thinking I said "What, they don't have any parking nazi's over here?" and then as soon as it came out was glad I was in the car and not anywhere where someone was within earshot. Just goes to show even I who claim to be politically correct do still ocassionally use terms such as that or "gestapo tactics." Pot calling the kettle black at times I guess.

I should say something about the weather, it really was quite nice the whole time I was there, somewhere in the 60s probably, and not below 40 at night, sunny both days. Wandering around at night was thus quite peaceful, rather than bone jarringly cold. I had hoped to see it snow, which I've still never in my life witnessed, but alas that will have to wait for another trip. After dinner we headed to downtown Frankfurt, which was actually quite surprisingly big. A really nice river flowing through it, I guess that's a common theme in Europe which is kind of neat. Some seriously tall buildings, and the usual parking strangeness although on a lesser scale. Our destination for the evening was called "O'Reilly's Irish Pub" which as you can probably guess isn't my typical fare. Alas I was not on my home turf and thus I was the tagalong to wherever she desired.

This is apparently her typical Friday night experience, and thus the most important reason for me to accompany her was so that she could flaunt me in front of various other regulars who continuously hit on her previously, and thus advertise that she isn't available. In my experience being unavailable just tends to make people want you even more, but what can ya do. There was much socializing and whatnot, and eventually she and her best friend took over the stage for a rendition of "I Need A Hero" off the Footloose soundtrack, quite a good choice for Karaoke. I'm not quite sure how but at some point I also ended up stage for an encore performance of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" with a few other people, I guess I got caught up in the moment. Been a while since I've held a mic, that's for sure. If you remember "Gotta Getaway" then you remember the last time I sang with a mic on stage, and I'm impressed. Pretty sure we still have video of that one, which luckily didn't get busted out when the girlfriend visited. Phew. I bet my mom will be sorry she didn't think of that.

At some point she and the best friend headed into the dancing section and I was reaching the point I could barely breathe because of the smoke, so I went outside for some fresh air. Enjoyed the downtown Frankfurt scenery for a bit, was pretty dead given it was 3 in the morning or so. But then through the night I heard the familiar rhythm of Usher's "Yeah" which was somewhat of a theme for us during ASBC. Like a wildebeest to a mating call I responded, immediately moving towards the dance floor. Conveniently she'd just left it looking for me, so we walked in a circle opposite of each other for the first minute of the song, before finally she stopped long enough for me to catch up. I've never claimed to be a hotshot when it comes to dancing with those of the opposite sex, but I feel about eighty times more comfortable in public with her than I do anyone else. Whether we're dancing or just being affectionate without being totally gross, it really seems like we're the only two people in the world at times. The next song up was "Get Busy" by Sean Paul, and yeah, there was a whole lot of bootyshakin goin on. Mostly by me mind you. Eventually the heat of too many bodies in too enclosed a space forced us to take our leave, and we made our way out of the place.

More riding on the freeway came next, which mostly consisted of me trying to pronounce place names, and her laughing extensively. I was particularly entertained by their word for the freeway exits, or "ausfahrts" as they're called, assuming I'm spelling that right. I was sure to announce every one I saw. Definitely seems like a cool place to have a fast car. Don't think I saw any going over 150mph or so though, I've heard it gets pretty crazy.

K now she was pretty dead by the time we got home but of course having slept some of the day away I was wide awake, so as is almost always the case when we're together one of us is always tired. Mass laziness ensued, and we didn't actually end up getting out to see more of Germany until around 4 in the afternoon. Out we went a bunch of clicks (kilometers for all you miler people) to a place where I've also forgot the name, to see a castle that was pronounced "Schloss" or something. I asked her where the "Schwinners" were who must have beaten the "Schlossers" in a major battle or something, but she just kind of stared like she does sometimes when I try to be funny, so I guess that one was sub par. I had actually never been to a castle before, so it was quite neat. It was up basically on a cliff overlooking a village and a river, and had a beautiful view all across the river valley. While we shared a hug looking out of the expanse I mentioned that although this view was pretty neat, I could only imagine how many more neater ones we'd see in the future. I must have been in a gushy mood because as we wandered around through the castle grounds we came up with another gross couple idea... We both love hugs, and she especially loves being squeezed and the affection it shows, so at some point I mentioned the idea that she should always try to stay freshly squeezed, and found my own pun quite hilarious. Strangely enough she is almost as big a dork as I am, and so we decided that she should definitely remain freshly squeezed, and if for some reason that isn't the case she should draw my attention to it with an exclamation like "I'm not feeling very Tropicana..." Aw doesn't that just make you want to vomit. Then again you might think we're soooo cute. I can probably guess which is more likely.

Oops skipped the fact that we ate prior to going to the castle, at a nice little restaurant in the area. I ordered pepperoni something or other as an appetizer, thinking pizza bread or something of the sort, and boy was I wrong. That would translate as PEPPERoni, meaning a plateful of jalapenos with a huge glob of garlic. Mmmm. Actually they weren't too bad, I guess I'm not as sensitive to spicy foods as I used to be, after all I love a good bowl of jambalaya, we all know that. They had a couple mirrors in the place, and I did my usual fool the girlfriend trick when I say "WOAH check out that girl, dang she's definitely worth a second look" and in a huff she turns around with an irritated glare only to see her own reflection...

On the way back we stopped at a gas station type thing and they had all the typical candy bars, but they were all in totally differently desigend wrappers, which I found strange. Different tastes on different continents maybe? A long overdue trip to the bowling alley was the next stop, where due to some temporary chemical imbalance in my body or a skewing of the polarity of the earth during the first game she managed to win. I recovered during the next two miraculously, including three strikes in a row that she pretended to not be impressed by. We're both competitve, but she's nicer about it than I am, which makes me feel bad sometimes. Something I'll have to work on. Later that night we went over to her office just to hang out for several hours since I was going to have to leave the following morning. Basically just did lots of cutesy things like reading blogs to each other, since these things tend to take on new life when spoken by the author. Her office is pretty nice, very large, two captain's chairs and a couch, and a nice leather chair for herself, although it's too tall for her and too short for me. Tried to eat all the candy she had but failed, she probably had some stashed away where I wouldn't be able to find it anyway. At some point after the clock struck four times, we were even more tired than before and we took a short nap for a couple hours, eventually having to get up and go home to pack and head to the airport.

I tend to get quite sad at this point of our times together, I guess that's understandable. There's always a question mark as to when we'll see each other again, but it's never quickly. Time passes so fast at times, and so slow at others. We just stood there outside the security area for about a half hour, since I'd gotten there well in advance of the flight. It's amazing how I can get lost just staring at her. There could be hundreds of people passing by, and I wouldn't be able to tell you what any of them looked like, or even tell you that they passed by at all. I could go on and on, but I guess you wouldn't really understand unless you experienced it. Eventually I did go through the security checkpoint, although I turned back to wave at least eight times. Even as I walked away out of view, she was hopping along between the gaps of the conveyor belts and screening machines waving and smiling through the several glass windows separating us. At the last one I paused and we signed I love you repeatedly, but alas, no matter how we try to stretch, our time together eventually ends.

It was a long trip home, alone. I had a chatty person next to me, which kept me busy for an hour or so along with the movie, but then I got so bored of a stewardness blocking my view to talk to someone for literally at least five full minutes I fell asleep, and missed the rest of the movie and the entire second one which was Lost in Translation which I wouldn't have minded seeing. Oh well. Obviously the first one wasn't that good I don't even remember what it was. I did see the Steve Martin one about having twelve kids on the way over, but I can't remember the name of that one either and I'm too lazy too look it up. It was only decent anyway, a little laugh now and then, 3Ms for whatever it was. They did have good TV on for both directions, Trading Spaces, West Wing, JAG, Whose Line Is It Anyway? to name a few, the latter with Whoopi Goldberg which was quite hilarious. I also almost completely completed (good english there) the crossword puzzle in the Delta magazine which was pretty difficult, and busied me for like an hour. Overall the trip back wasn't nearly as bad, although I was much more sad. Uneventful trip back to pick up my car from the economy lot and drive home, although as usual the songs that remind me of her seemed like they were on repeat on the radio. Jet lag wasn't really an issue since I wasn't there that long, I just always regret sleeping so much when I'm with her, if I could just stay conscious longer we could spend more time together. After all I can sleep any time.

The next time I'll see her is probably the end of May if a trip she's planning works out, and I'll get to show her where I work and sleep. If not it'll be sometime in July when she comes out to Ohio for training and will probably be able to pop down on the weekends. Meanwhile we'll keep doing what we're doing, and it'll all work out.

Ever travelled between continents to surprise someone? I highly recommend it. The trip was well worth it, and if money and getting permission to take leave wasn't an issue, I'd sit on a plane for twenty four hours in a weekend, every weekend, just to spend the time in between, together.

Surprise.

Yes, there was a reason I wasn't blogging for a few days. Alas, the general readership of this blog consists of people whom I was unable to include on the inside of a surprise I'd been planning for quite a while. It actually was quite annoying because I was wanting to blog about all the complicated steps taken as preparation, and I wasn't able to as it would have spoiled it.

I really outdid myself this time. Those who know me know that spontaneity is the name of the game, and I've been known to do some VERY crazy things for people, from spur of the moment road trips, to jacking the father's car in the middle of the night and driving several hundred miles to spend a few hours with someone and immediately come back, to blowing gambling winnings on a totally random trip to New York City to see RENT. I love surprises, even though I somehow always manage to spoil the ones aimed at me. The one's that people have managed to put over me though always blow me away.

But seriously, this just crushes everything I've done in the past. There's only one person I would have done something this grandiose for, and you can guess who that is. To quote an earlier blog around the time we first met: "Germany. It?s a country in Europe quite far away."

As of last Thursday, I had been all over the United States, but had never left the country other than Canada. I'd never been on a plane longer than about five hours. I'd never been somewhere I didn't speak the language. These are just a few of the firsts that took place over the weekend. And there were a lot.

Due to JSUNT starting in the next few weeks, I will be unable to take basically any leave at all other than Thanksgiving and Christmas and thus will be unable to do any sort of travelling to see my girlfriend during that time. That pretty much left these last few weekends as my only real chances to ever visit her where she lives and works at Rhein Main Air Base, Germany. She had been led to believe that taking international leave was basically impossible, but in reality it just requires a bunch of extra paperwork and legwork. Basically the last thing she would have ever expected is that I'd actually just show up on her doorstep in person. She'd mentioned it once or twice, and I'd just told her that "she knew what the situation was" and not told the truth without really lying. Just sort of skirting the issue as they say. I have a new motto when it comes to life in our relationship. With me, ANYTHING is possible.

I researched plane ticket prices and after consultation with the father it was decided that the trip was worth cashing in some frequent flyer miles for. The next problem was the lack of a passport. Having not ever gone anywhere, I'd never needed one. Now all of a sudden I needed one in a hurry. The only place that did them in an expedient manner was Houston, a few hundred miles away. Better yet they only did them by appointment, and closed by 3pm each day. Thus I had to make the latest possible appointment, and then haul ass over there from San Antonio after my morning muster to make sure I got there on time. Funniest thing that happened that day was coming out of the elevator and opening the door of suite 1600 where I thought the passport center was, and finding absolutely nothing. A completely bare suite, no furniture or anything. Beautiful views of downtown Houston in all directions, but just a bunch of totally empty rooms. As I stood by a floor to ceiling window looking out over the city I called my dad to double check the address, thinking to myself that it was April 1st, and someone might have played a really horrible April Fools Day joke and I'd driven all this way for nothing. Turns out it was suite 1400, and I was soon on my way in the right direction. Was pretty funny though. As it was I made it in plenty of time, but was lacking passport photos, thinking they did them onsite. Paid some ridiculous amount to have them done at one of the little places sprinkled around the building, and headed back upstairs. The whole passport process was pretty painless, just had to make sure you had all the right documentation. They ended up getting it done within about an hour, so I only had to go down and refill the meter at the sweet parking spot I snagged once. Sucks to have like four cars fighting through the lot to get to where you're headed to see you put more money in and walk away, but that's the way it goes. So yeah eventually I get the little blue booklet called a passport with my interesting looking mug on the front page. Then came the sitting in traffic for hours ride back to San Antonio, during which she called a couple times, but I had to make up lame excuses so she wouldn't figure out I had been driving continuously for several hours and want to know why.

Passport in hand, I then began the lengthy process of getting my leave approved through the squadron. I'll spare you the gory details, but basically multiple safety briefings were required, anti-terrorism training, signatures from various higher-ups, and a multitude of forms and paperwork. Somehow this all got squared away a couple days before my expected departure. During this time I'd managed to get the e-mail of her best friend from her, she of course thinking that it was so I could send her flowers or something.

We developed quite an elaborate plan on various levels to get me there unannounced. She actually took it further than even I expected, even from what I hear making a "scoresheet" for their "apartment cleaning competition" so that my girlfriend wouldn't be embarassed by the state of the place when I just appeared out of nowhere. She also planned various events throughout the weekend so there was no chance of my girlfriend trying to skip town or whatnot.

So finally everything was set, and I left around 10am for the airport, happy as a clam. I packed light and thus had a carryon for the few days I'd be there, which made things quite easy along the way when it came to not having to check luggage or send it through customs. Totally overestimating the time it would take to get to the gate, I checked in with no line whatsover at the Delta counter, then basically walked through security without ever stopping, and was at the gate a while before 11, with my flight not departing until 12:30. Ordered one of the covered pizza things you usually see somewhere like Sbarro from the italian place inside the airport, since the guy said it had like four kinds of meat in it or something and it sounded good. As it turns out I'm pretty convinced he must have said four kinds of BEET or something, because there were way too many vegetables for my liking. I eat veggies, but not on my pizza. Of course this was only the first of many food orders gone wrong during the weekend.

I was a bit apprehensive as I finally boarded the plane, as it was a 767 and I was on the aisle of the middle section, and with someone large next to me would not be able to sleep in any sort of comfortable position as I tend to need something to lean on. Of course someone was in my seat, when they were assigned to the middle one, so I had to bump them over, and sadly as expected my row was a full one. It was only several minutes later when the stewardesses came by with papers that they said the flight was far from full and we were welcome to move to a more spacious area if we liked. I asked the guy in the middle if he wanted to move, and he responded in gibberish, which was the first time I realized the language thing was going to be an issue during the trip at times. Through hand signals we communicated somewhat and I decided to take over the row in front of us while he moved into my seat. This put me about two rows from the big screen, prime viewing for the movie and tv shows that were to come. My strategy was to tilt the center seat back all the way and leave the other two upright, so I could use them to lean on with a pillow on either side of my head to compensate for shifting back and forth. This would have been a really good strategy, had I not been so nervous. I maybe got two hours total sleep on the trip over, which pretty much sucked. There was only one movie, then an hour or two of tv, and then they shut everything down for the night and the last four hours were pretty much boredom. Too nervous to read AF literature that I'd brought with me, I amused myself with the crossword puzzle and read USA today cover to cover, and basically just did a lot of lying there with my eyes closed thinking about the hundreds of possibilities that might come up when I tried to surprise her and how each of them might result. Eleven or twelve hours of flight later I touched down in Frankfurt, Germany, at around 8am the next morning. Unfortunately we'd been circling for the previous half hour due to traffic in the pattern, lengthening the already lengthy flight some more. Nothing like watching the little airplane on the compass tracker on the big screen soooo close to getting there and then turn around and go the opposite direction. Depressing. Out I popped eventually, into what I thought would be bitter cold, but turned out to be nothing I wasn't used to. Customs consisted of showing my passport to someone and having them stamp away, and then off I went to wander the airport following the exit signs. Luckily they had everything in English too, so it was pretty straightforward, although my gate was as usual about a half mile from the main area of the terminal. I eventually made it there and the best friend found me, with a big grin on her face that brought a big grin to mine as we giggled about what was to come. She then made a beeline right through the place to where she was parked, as I did a lot of neck craning and staring like a typical tourist. Was my first time in a Porsche, wasn't brand new or anything, but hey I can't complain.

The Air Base actually shares a runway with Frankfurt International, so it was a very short trip over to her place from there. We made a quick stop to pick up a couple roses that would signify two months together, and then went over to the best friend's place to call my girlfriend and see what she was up to. Turns out she was still over at work finishing up a few things even though she had the day off, and said she'd be over in about ten. We developed a hide in the kitchen and pop up behind her as she walked in strategy, which was foiled as ten min later we called again, and she was still there fiddling around, so we made up an excuse and said we'd meet her over there. So over to one of the office buildings we went, as my pulse started to double and triple as usual when she's in the general vicinity. I just kept smiling thinking about the possibilities, and knowing I'd come so far, and I was almost there. We had her best friend go in first, and tell her to "close her eyes and count to eight." Now this is what I had planned for LAX back a couple weeks ago when I was going to surprise her but instead messed up her surprise so I expected the number eight would tip her off right away. As it was though after some rebuttal she just closed her eyes and began to count.

As she finished I strode in from the other room, the last few steps of a several thousand mile journey, duffle bag and roses in hand, smiling as bigly as ever. After opening her eyes, my girlfriend followed her best friend's gaze towards the doorway, and as soon as she saw me...

Sounds like a good place to pause. Wouldn't want to make this post too long.

Pardon The Interruption

Bit of a hiatus here, should have another big chunk of blog in a few days or something.

Interesting Humor

K so now that the monstrosity of a post is out of the way down below, I'm going to try to have this be a sort of convoluted thought process post when I feel like it because something weird happened kind of site. We start with something I read on someone else's blog:

"My grandfather died on April fool’s day, my Grandma always says something to the extent of “he didn’t fool us, he went and did it.”"

I found that kind of hilarious, although it's obviously a sad subject. Something tells me that's the attitude I'll have towards sad events in my life, always trying to make it funny or cheerful so it doesn't bring others down as well.

T-mobile started a new plan that anyone with them should look into. My old plan was 600 anytime, free night and weekend, for $39.99. The new one is 1000 anytime, free night and weekend, for $39.99. Sound strange? Yeah my old one doesn't even exist anymore, so I called up and upgraded. Anyone still sitting around on the 600 plan should probably get around to doing that too, unless you don't want 400 free minutes or something.

Bill Cosby is coming to San Antonio the weekend before my birthday. I remember listening to old tapes of him in the car on long trips repeatedly and laughing every time. Think I'll go catch the show.

The Way Weekends Should Be, Mostly, Part 2

Man, I really should have blogged the second part sooner. Now I'll probably forget stuff. Gr. Anyway, where was I.

So we soon arrived at the reception which was actually in quite a beautiful location. It was up near the top of the peninsula in Palos Verdes overlooking the ocean with a gorgeous view. The theme was movie related, and there really were about a million cute things about the way everything was set up. Being in the wedding party was kind of nifty, as we got to be announced by the DJ and enter to rowdy applause before taking our place at the head table. I tried the elbow wrist elbow wrist beauty queen wave thing, not sure how well that worked out. Got some giggles anyway. So the first part of the reception I had to be at the head table and thus my poor girlfriend was left to fend for herself with various cousins, with mixed results or so I'm told. She and my brother's girlfriend became buddy buddy though so that worked out well. Eventually came the various toasts which were quite funny, punctuated by my father forgetting a major portion of his and the DJ adlibbing the jeopardy music in the background to cut the tension. Eventually I was able to meander my way over to the gf's table and it was no longer necessary to speak in sign language from across the room. Unfortunately that's when we realized we had missed the sunset again, which would have been quiet beautiful from that locale, and really disappointed us both.

Then the music started, and we forgot all about that and began just having a blast. Now the really trippy thing here is after they did the bride and groom's first dance, and the bride and father of the bride and so forth, the first dance where everyone was invited onto the dance floor was of course when I took my girlfriends hand and we made our way out. Only then did I notice that the song that was playing was the same one she sang to me on the night we made things "official." We're talking major creepness here folks. The first dance we ever shared is also the first dance we shared at my sister's wedding, the first dance in public so to speak. The song was "At Last" and I'm sure you've all heard it at one time or another. So yeah, we shared a knowing look as we started to sway, and that was just kind of a cool moment.

Eventually all kinds of varieties of music were played, and we ended up dancing to most all of them, from a raucous conga line around the room to a song where I finally tracked down my mom to share a few twirls to what was the highlight of the evening for me, and I'm sure many of the spectators as well. Late in the evening once everyone is high on life on comes "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. Now on those long cross country trips as a kid we had certain tapes that would literally be on repeat for eight hours a day, and my dad's favorite had this as one of many songs recorded on it. Thus we all know the words by heart, and being the animated family that we are, can get quite into it when it's played. So randomly here we all are suddenly from various corners of the room in a circle on the dance floor, screaming lyrics at the top of our lungs and acting out the scenes as we go. There was a whole lot of air fiddlin goin on, and I'm pretty sure my girlfriend keeled over from laughing so hard. So yeah, a few minutes pass, the song ends, and we return from whence we came back in reality.

Did I mention how wonderful she looked? I did? Ok, but seriously, I mean seriously, wow.

We must have smiled for like 88 pictures while dancing, and were even caught on video several times unbeknownst to her, so I'm hoping to acquire as much film and footage of the event as possible, so I have lots and lots of evidence that I was in fact dancing with someone who looked that durned good at some point in my life.

K to avoid getting too gushy (TOO LATE) we'll move on to Sunday. The rest of Saturday consisted of cleaning up, trying to stay awake, carrying a bunch of stuff home to the parents house, and listening to the girlfriend speak gibberish in the car while sleeping and pretending to listen to what I was saying. Then we attempted to get up early and raid the parents house for conversation prior to the family brunch starting, but no luck. Something about not getting much sleep for days at a time really makes a person tired. And now Blogger won't let me widen my edit window so that it keeps scrolling back and forth to the sides. Very annoying. Anyway, yes the brunch. We arrived fashionably late and it was more of the same from the days prior, a lot of introductions to those I hadn't covered yet, and conversation with various relatives about the way things have been, the way things are, and the way things are going to be. As far as I can tell a good impression on all was made by the gf, and I was quite pleased with the results. Who knows when she'll see some of those people again, so it was sort of a one weekend shot kind of deal to please the family, and I think she did. Many more "hang on to this one Matthew"s and "treat her good becaus she's a keeper"s. After an hour or two though we took our leave, as we had other plans for the day, those being to head North to Six Flags Magic Mountain. If you know me, you know I love amusement parks. So spending time with someone awesome at one is really just a wonderful thing. The lines were pretty average I'd say for the most part for a decently busy day. We had to miss out on a few of the rides due to the length or them being down for "technical difficulties" but for the most part she got a solid taste of the park. Both Superman and Deja Vu were busted though, and those are two pretty incredible rides, so I guess at some point in the future we'll just have to go back. Highlights included us playing that hockey game that isn't air hockey but has an actual puck that shoots out of the center of the glass dome and you whack at it with little hockey guys and their sticks, kind of the hockey version of foozball. Hadn't played that since I was a kid, and after a lengthy session of both os us pretty much sucking ass, she eventually launched a perfect shot with authority... directly into her own net. So I won 1-0. Haha. I also reestablished my dominance at the whack-a-mole booth, beating down the opposition (probably some little kid but hey, I need my testosterone boost) and snagging a cute stuffed animal puppy that was appropriately named "Winner" on the spot. But alas that was not the end as we later passed by a booth that had Tweety as a prize (consider me impressed if you remember the last time Tweety was involved in my life at an amusement park) and the eager smile on her face meant I had to give the water gun game a shot. Well turns out it was the big prize and after losing the first time (the gun sight was bent I swear) I had it lined up for the next two in a row and Tweety was given a new home. How she managed to stuff both these animals into her suitcase I have no idea (Tweety's head was as big as mine, WHOA DANG THATS BIG), but she said no one had ever won her something at an amusement park, so I was happy to oblige.

At one point she was talking about something pointless that was irritating her, so I decided to invent something I hadn't tried before. "Couple Pauses" or "CPs" as we began calling them (stop reading now if your gag reflex is hard to control). Basically whenever one of us thinks the other is worrying too much or dwelling too much on something, or for whatever reason isn't being the nicest ever, the other can call for a CP at any time, after which there must be some sort of action signifying we're a couple, such as a hug or a kiss, to remind ourselves of what's imprtant. So we agreed no matter what the circumstances that we'd stop and realize our priority is each other and refocus. I'm sure there will be half-hearted hugs in times of anger along the way, but at least that will signify the other is still loved. It's a very good tactic for when someone is "sweating the small stuff" as they say.

So eventually comes the downer for the weekend. We get out to the convertible, and I vaguely remember her side door opening before I actually clicked the thing, which meant it had been left unlocked. It might have been I didn't click the lock button on the keychain as we left it in the morning, or it might have just been jimmied by some jackass. But anyway, even though it was buried under stuff in the back seat, her wallet and cell phone get stolen out of her purse. We actually didn't even realize this until we'd gotten all the way back to the hotel, after stopping by my parents house to chat some more and watch the video of my OTS graduation so she could laugh and negatively critique my Adjutant skills before my frowns suggested she do otherwise. Not that it would have helped if we realized it in the parking lot, whoever it was was probably long gone, and all over the parking stub it says they aren't responsible. I guess if you're going to break into a car, a converible is a nice choice. So we finally get back to the hotel and I'm dead tired, and try as I might I keep fading in and out of consciousness, while she spends hours on the phone with various credit card companies and banks trying to get everything cancelled and blocked. She'd actually just got the cell phone about six weeks prior, and had luckily just shown me all the pictures she'd taken with it. I felt really bad, and it really was kind of a downer way to end our time together. At one point during the night I pretty much broke down, quite pissed at myself that I couldn't seem to stay awake, even though it was obviously a time when she needed me to console her, and she'd flown like three times as far to get there as I had. Eventually everything got taken care of, and she'd luckily given me her military ID to carry into the park so she'd have some sort of identification on her, so not all was lost.

I think we eventually took a nap for like an hour or something, but then it was already time to leave for the airport, as she had a flight leaving just after 8am. Word to the wise, if you're flying on a Monday morning internationally, they're not kidding about two hours early. The check in line was so long that by the time we got to the front it was past the time when she could check her bags, so for about half the line she was pretty much in tears trying to figure out how she was going to get back in time to go to work. Again, pretty much a really bad scenario for how to end a weekend. By some miracle the guy behind the counter is able to put her on the very next flight leaving an hour later, which arrived in time for her connecting flight to Frankfurt in Dallas, which just ended up giving her a shorter layover. Then came the real sad part though, all of a sudden she was rushed to get on this flight, which meant getting through security, and that wasn't somewhere I could go. So we went from thinking she might be stuck and we'd have a few more hours to all of a sudden only having a few minutes. Nothing like dealing with all this crap while also trying to say goodbye to someone you love for what could potentially be a number of months.

Needless to say tears were shed, and eventually after a huge hug and about 88 waves goodbye from across the terminal, and after I left and came back for one more, I finally made my way back to the rental car. Worrying the same thing might happen to my 11am flight, I hoofed it back to return the car, and conveniently forgot to fill it with gas. So I go to get gas and while I'm at the pump some guy walks up to me and gives me this story about how his wife and child need an extra four bucks for gas to get home while indicating a car with a woman and child across the way, then mentioning the police were right across the street if I felt threatened, and he just needed a little help. Well feeling generous I give him a five, since I don't have four, and seeing that I have a few ones he then asks for just two more ones as well and that's all they need. So I give him that and he thanks me for helping a Vietnam vet or something and goes galloping across the gas station towards the car. You'd think I'd come out of this feeling at least ok, but then I see him give the exact same speech to the people in the car, while indicating another car somewhere else. They ignore him, and off he goes to somewhere else. It's a good strategy really. No one will have $4, so while they're reaching for the five or whatever you can see what they really do have and ask for more. Come up with some story to at least hold their attention, and you can probably make at least $20 an hour. So eventually I return with a car full of gas having been conned out of $7 by some guy who I saw at the next intersection riding across the pavement on a bike at full speed. I guess that's what I get for being nice sometimes.

Did I mention the end of the weekend kind of sucked? So then I end up like two hours early to my flight because self-service checkin (which you can't do on international flights) takes like five seconds so after doing nothing in the terminal for all that time I get to sit on a plane for hours trying to figure out when I'll see her again. She actually apparently got upgraded to Business on her flight because she was so sad and the flight attendant felt sorry for her, which was a very nice thing for them to do. It's tough, but no one said it was going to be easy.

I suppose I could mumble something about what's been going on for the past week or so, but it's almost 11:30pm, which means it's almost 6:30am there, and time to be her human alarm clock and tell her good morning. So yeah. We had a great time, but if only it were longer.

The Way Weekends Should Be, Mostly, Part 1

Warning. Prepare for a sapfest, or avoid this post like the plague. With that said...

Yes the blogs have been sparse. But I'm kind of bored of apologizing. If I manage to spend less time in front of the computer and more time communicating somehow with someone I feel is quite special, then more power to me I figure.

I guess a good way to start the description of how the weekend went would be quite possibly the cutest thing anyone has ever done for me. Now as gross couples though, if someone was close to us they'd probably place us near the top. Not in the tongue down each other's throat all the time way, but in the talking in a lovey dovey voice constantly showering each other with praise kind of way. Thus many things about our relationship are in that cutesy wutesy kind of category. When her cell phone rings and it's me, it shows up as "Boyfriend" and I sign my e-mails to her the same way, while she of course signs hers with Girlfriend. I guess it's been a long time since I've used that terminology, so I don't mind overusing it. So yeah, fast forward to Friday morning as I enter LAX. I'd just had a really crappy flight from Denver having connected there from San Antonio, during which I'd managed to find a very back row window seat which didn't recline at all and placed me next to a very oversized man. I also managed to get back there just in time to see the last baggage compartment space disappearing, so I got to put my large duffle bag under the seat in front of me. This of course took up any leg room I actually had, and meant I had to put my feet on it, placing my knees somewhere near my chest. Needless to say it was a very long flight. Even so I was quite excited, as I knew that my girlfriend had arrived in my hometown the night before, and would be waiting for me at the airport. So this is where I decide to try to be clever. I figure knowing the airport well I'd know where she'd be waiting, so I'd take another route down an elevator and double back around her to surprise her. Well my plan goes perfectly and I arrive in baggage claim where I expect she'll be waiting, but see no one familiar. I call her cell and she picks up, and I ask her where she is, and upon hearing she's in the baggage claim I look around bewildered. Finally my eyes catch upon long dark hair, a jean jacket and skirt, and heels placing her at a height above what I'd been scanning for. I then put my plan of having her close her eyes into action so I can sneak up behind her, but little did I know. Upon hearing me say that she immediately turns around and starts scanning, and within seconds our eyes meet. I really don't know how to explain the feeling that came next. It had only been less than a month, but it felt like so much longer. The smile that came to our faces upon recognition was instantaneous and genuine. She came running over and I tried to somehow formulate complete sentences while simply downright staring. I'm really not sure whether I'd just forgotten how incredible she looked normally or for some reason she was at a whole nother level that day, but I really couldn't stop looking at her for most of that first day. Even when I was driving I kept wanting to focus on her rather than the road. So anyway, while trying to execute my little plan I foiled hers, and managed to completely screw up what would have been pretty much the cutest thing anyone had ever done for me. Well it was still really cute even with poor execution on my part, but it just goes to show how little it takes. She'd stayed up most of the night prior unable to sleep even after a 15 hour plane ride, and had decided to make me a sign to hold while waiting for me to arrive. Thus had I done what I should have, and come down the normal escalator into the baggage claim where she had been waiting for the previous half hour, what I would have seen is a beautiful young woman blushing, and holding up a sign with hearts and swirls surrounding large block letters spelling out one word: "BOYFRIEND." Had things actually played out that way, I probably would have melted on the spot. Instead I felt eternally guilty, but was sure to tell her how incredibly cute I thought it was.

So yeah, eventually we end up leaving LAX. Actually we had to wait like a half hour for the shuttle back to her hotel, but I was barely paying attention, instead staring at my girlfriend and pinching myself to make sure I was awake. In a way it seemed for a while once I returned here to Randolph like I'd been in a six week dream, and this was confirmation that she really does exist, and I really am this lucky. After checking out we made our way across the street to the car rental place, where we decided to take the first step in making this a cooler than cool weekend. We rented a pretty nifty new strawberry red Mustang convertible, and immediately started cruising with the top down as we headed down the 405. This was actually my first time ever in a convertible, and not only was I in one, but I was driving it through my hometown on an absolutely gorgeous day, with the best companionship I could possibly ask for. Many a time did I just glance over at her and when she asked what I was thinking I'd just say something along the lines of not being able to believe that so many of my dreams were coming true.

We made a quick stop by the Del Amo mall and downed some yummyness at the food court before having to zip home and try on my tux, which apparently was causing some sort of crisis on the homefront as people continued to think of worst case scenarios the day before the wedding. Eventually we make it on over to the church where the rehearsal was to be held. Thus continued the barrage of introductions, as she tried her best to keep all my uncles aunts and cousins straight. She actually did very well in that respect throughout the weekend, it was a whole lot to try to keep together while running on empty due to lack of sleep. This was my first experience as a groomsman, so it was interesting to see how the whole process worked. Saw some folks I hadn't seen in at least a few years, and given that they'd only seen me "pre-military" I got a lot of comments, mostly positive about the changes. I'd of course been working hard all month to get back into pre ASBC condition, and was quite satisfied with the results. The whole ceremony wasn't too complicated, so within an hour or so we were on our way over to the Cheesecake Factory for the dinner. Prior to that though, we took the liberty of racing over to the Portofino, the well placed hotel right on the ocean in Redondo Beach. My father's company has one of the apartments rented out over there, so we were to have one room of the two bedroom apartment while my brother and his girlfriend stayed in the other for Friday and Saturday night. We of course wanted the better one, so we were sure to get there as soon as possible. Lucky for us we did, because one of the rooms was significantly "cooler" that the other. It was the back room, and thus further from the door, and had it's own bathroom within rather than having one across the hall. It also was on the corner, so it had two large windows on two walls that looked over both the yacht club and marina around the hotel and the breakwater and ocean beyond. This was quite nifty, as there were seals a plenty throughout our visit, and the sunrise in the morning was a neat thing to wake up to. Unfortunately we managed to miss all the sunsets that took place while we were there, so she wasn't able to see what a beautiful sunset in the west over the ocean looked like. We also never made it up to SB due to the shortened time frame, so we have a number of things on our list of stuff to do the next time we're in the area. Granted I don't think we'd ever run out of things to do together, there is a pretty long list stacked up of things I'd love to do when/if someone special was involved.

After staking our claim at the hotel we headed to the Cheesecake Factory, where our party had taken over a large room on the upper story. Here there were many more introductions, and I was able to chat it up with various relatives. One highlight included meeting the groom's grandfather, who was a Navigator in WWII who participated in some of the first bombing runs over Berlin. Amazing stuff, we read about that kind of thing in history books all the time, but he's the first Nav I've met from that era. We also took a picture with my entire family and our respective significant others, which I thought was quite cute. The most common guidance I received in regards to my new significant other was that "I snagged a good one" and I should "hang on to this one" and that people "highly approved." This is of course all wonderful, and my usual response was something along the lines of having no clue how I managed to swing such a thing, and that I considered myself amazingly lucky. The food was average given the normal fare at that restaurant is outstanding, and given the set menu we weren't able to deviate. Eventually we took our leave and returned to the hotel, where we eventually finally crashed. Throughout the weekend though there were moments were I found myself in disbelief that I was actually in that position at that moment. I remember coming out of the bedroom after emptying my pockets having just arrived back at the hotel and looking across the living room, where I saw her standing on the balcony with her hand on the railing, looking out over the expanse of water. It seriously looked like some sort of painting, and I immediately ran for my camera. Of course the picture with the flash was destroyed and without was darkness, so I wasn't able to capture it. But I remember when I walked up to her and gave her a hug that I really felt at peace at that moment in time.

Eventually we get up the next morning, and she discovers that the dress she'd planned to wear didn't actually fit due to some sort of sizing error. This was of course a crisis and after various plans were considered it was decided she'd take the Mustang to the mall to do her thing and get her hair and makeup done and whatnot, while my brother and I got ready and headed over to the church early to perform usher duties and whatnot. I was sad that a few hours of the very small number we'd have to spend together that weekend would be spent apart, but it worked out. It had been a while since I'd been all decked out, and was actually only the second time I'd worn a tux in my life, the first being my Junior prom (asked the gf at the time to the senior prom and she said no, so I didn't go after several other later rejections). I must say when I actually take the time to worry about the way I look, I don't look to shabby. Or so I'm told, really. So we cruise on over to the church and end up beating the groom and the rest of the groomsmen there by like an hour due to some sort of limo conspiracy of some sort. Then there's a minor fiasco as the bride is out in front of the church taking pictures as the limo pulls up, which forces my brother and I to become human roadblocks while the bride dashes off to safety. The near-miss is the only hiccup of the day however other than me potentially blocking the videographers shot with the back of my head at one point. About a half hour before the ceremony my girlfriend arrived, and I remember walking over to the stairway that led down to the parking lot, and watching her as she reached the bottom step and began to climb. I really liked her dress, with is something I pretty much never say in general. Everything about her looked exceptional, and I was forced to stare. The first several sentences she said to me were lost in my brain somewhere between the "wow" and the "oh my goodness" although I think it was something about something not being what she wanted or something. I sure as heck wasn't complaining, and I tried to convey the fact that she looked incredible. A very smooth flowing ceremony followed, and I must say hearing the infamous organ piece as my father walked my sister down the aisle was quite moving in person, something I hadn't experienced previously while standing up front. Also neat was getting to escort my girlfriend down the aisle as one of the last into the church, and one of the first to leave. There were various parts of the ceremony where something was said or read that made me glance towards the second row where she was seated, and a huge smile was always waiting for me. I literally smile whenever I think about being locked in her gaze. Following the ceremony and umpteen million more pictures we got the heck out of dodge and plowed up the hill to Palos Verdes and Los Verdes Country Club where the reception was located.

And I figure I'm about halfway through the timeline of the weekend. I'm temporarily bored of writing and you're temporarily bored of reading (and holding back your gag reflex) so that works out perfectly.

Some Thing Aren't Meant to be Easy

Back in San Antonio. Whirlwind weekend. Very tired. Details tomorrow.

A Week? What the Heck?

Yeah I have no idea how that happened... The really pathetic thing is there really isn't anything to report...

The case came, and I've been tinkering away working with the various modifications I'm adding, thus far it's gone pretty well. I'll spare you from the gory details since I'm pretty sure maybe 0.01% of those who read this are interested in case modifications. When it's done eventually I'll post a big blurb anyway with a warning to skip that post to those normal people.

Basically just been working out on a regular basis, sticking to the eating routine I'd been on, and have managed to fall down to 176 as of today. That's only a pound off the alltime low since the beginning of college, and at least 14 probably closer to 16 off what I was 19 days ago. The 10k around the perimeter road and golf course I ran today helped I'm sure, since I managed to pick a day when the three mile backside was all into a strong wind and about four miles in it started pouring rain. Then I stuffed myself at dinner even more than usual so that probably cancelled it out.

Yeah other than that have just been counting the days until this weekend, flying out to my sis's wedding on Friday and will be seeing the gf, so quite excited. Truthfully I guess if you talk to someone special a couple times a day about what's been going on in your life you're not as desperate to tell your computer.

Ten Thousand

Congratulations to whomever it was that hit this site a little while ago and read the hilarity posted below, you were also the 10,000th hit to this blog. If you did happen to get a screenshot feel free to e-mail it to me and claim your prize. Photoshopped versions not accepted. :)

It's been about two and a half years that I've been pounding away into this, and it's around 440 single spaced pages. I'm over halfway through rereading the entire thing, editing it for spelling and grammar, and reorganizing it chronologically into a Word doc for easy reading start to finish. I can think of only one person who would even remotely be interested in everything I've had to say here, and even then probably just to skim if anything.

I'm also putting all the Navigator and Air Force related blogs and sections of blogs into a separate file which I'll continue to do up through the time I graduated OTS, so those interested in that aspect of my life as an educational tool of the way things might be for them can e-mail me for a much easier read. The next several months will be dominated by that stuff and would make it too time consuming, but it'll be easier to catch up anyway.
But wow, just goes to show you can put pretty much anything online and due to the world of search engines and very bored human beings people will happen across it.

Rereading my mindsets and opinions years later is very interesting, I've come about face on some things, and believe even more strongly about others. Some people who were staples in my life at the time aren't anymore, and vice versa. As time changes, things change I guess, and people change with them.

Haha

You know what's funny?
Getting all ready for bed and turning out the light on the far side of the room and almost half asleep already walking across the room to your bed in the pitch black dark and about halfway across accidentally stepping on the large bubble wrap you left on the floor from the package you got that day and sending a gigantic bang through the room and scaring the hell out of yourself.
Yeah, that's pretty funny alright.

Ten in Ten

You know for not really having anything to do I certainly seem to make days disappear. I guess not much exciting goes on so I don't feel the need to blab about it. Once training starts I'll have whatever I did that day to give a little blurb from, but at the moment I'd be pretty boring.

I do need to mention something absolutely amazing that happened the other day... There's only three washers and dryers per floor here and ours were full so I used the 2nd floor's and of course forgot I had stuff in the dryer for like three hours, and went down there expecting it to be in a gigantic heap on the floor... Instead I find the two loads in two separate areas of the counter FOLDED. We're talking organized by size and color, matching socks and everything folks. I'm thinking it must have been one of the few females here because I can't imagine what guy would go to that trouble just to bump someone out of the dryer. It's like they were worried I would come after them or something. So yeah whoever that was you rock, not that I'll ever be able to track you down.

Okay we have a couple movie reviews here as well. Friday I noticed a decent movie was playing at the base theater so for the can't go wrong price of $2.50 I saw The Butterfly Effect. Unfortunately I can't say a lot about what I'd like to say a lot about because it would spoil it. You probably know the plot from the previews but I hate people who spoil endings so I won't. I will go on record however saying the ending was just so not satisfying enough. I mean with the concept of going back in time to change the past (all obvious from the preview) you can go pretty much anywhere, and they just sort of ended the movie with I guess what they see as the way it "should" be and that's just lame. So unfortunately I have to hack it some points there. What we do have though is some amazing suspense, I spent half the movie with my half ears plugged squinty eyed look goin when I know something spooky is about to happen. And there's really no warning, especially in the first major portion, just a lot of unexpected action. I really liked the cinematography, it made me quite afraid of some of the characters at times. Some really dramatic camera angles and such really added to the suspense. We'll go with 4.5 M's, not quite into that 5 M full pricer category thanks to the ending making me want to upchuck, but definitely check out a matinee or catch it on DVD.

Next up we have the movie everyone has something to say about, which I believe is called Passion of the Christ. First I'll give it a rating, 1 M. Now I'll explain why. I downloaded this one, wasn't willing to spend money to see what the hubbub was about, and I'm glad I did. Now when it comes to the 7 M scale I'm basing it off of the entertainment value of the movie. To get into the highest categories the movie has to affect me in some way, or make me think about things differently or whatnot. You'd think this is the type of movie has that potential, which is why I sat through it. And I do mean sat through it, at about the halfway point the fact that it might at least educate me in some way regarding religion and people are always telling me to broaden my horizons was the only thing keeping me from closing it out. Here's the thing. Anyone who has at least had the minimum religious education or even has somewhat paid attention when other people talk about it know the storyline behind Jesus' death. Therefore going into the movie you already know the entire plot. The only thing the movie does is give you a visual to go with it. Make no mistake, when people talk about the amount of violence in the movie, and talk about how graphic it is, if anything they are understating the level of it. It is essentially a how-to guide on torturing someone to death. Now from what I've read it seems that some people really do gain something from this movie. Changes them so that they realize how Jesus suffered for their sins and they must become better people or whatnot. Frankly any literate person should have been able to get the same from reading the story in any religious text. Does a person really need powerful, bloody visuals to show them what it was like? So if you really want to give yourself nightmares or for some reason enjoy watching the human body destroyed as much as possible while still at least temporarily sustaining life, then put yourself through the two hours of this movie. That's all it was to me. I stand by my rating of 1 M, that it's not worth the 10 cent CD to burn it on.

I think I'm going to go through my old blogs tonight and start spelling/grammar checking them. I think I'm somewhere around 500 pages single spaced and I had better finish off the product before it becomes totally unmanagable. That and make it chronological instead of reverse the way it is now in the Word doc I back it up in. You never know at some point someone might want to read it all from the beginning. I can't imagine why. Man would I do a lot of skimming.

Oh wow I got all the way to clicking the post button before noticing the title I put for the blog, I guess I better mention that. As of ten days from returning from ASBC I'm down ten pounds from 190 to 180. A couple more and I'm pretty much where I was when I left. All those curious how to lose an easy ten, just exercise at least daily including plenty of running, don't drink anything but water, and just eat something like cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, maybe fat free yogurt or some fruit in between to keep the metabolism, and essentially whatever you want for dinner although whatever is high protein is a good idea. No soda or candy for like two weeks, this is the probably the longest I've gone, ever. Alas two weeks of suffering to go and then I'll be able to work such things back in as I'll be only trying to maintain instead of lose, which is much easier. So yeah, I guess that wasn't so hard.

Catching Up Part Deux

So there was one more weekend where I left off last. About midway through the week I clamped my foot down and said I was definitely not going to be driving anywhere because I had to rest up for my 850 mile trek coming up early the next week, and was planning to just vegetate all weekend. Right. So anyway we ended up down in Pensacola again to help celebrate one of her sister's birthdays. This was an interesting trip as we ended up crisscrossing the entire city at various times, seeimingly whenever we wanted to get somewhere it was clear on the other side of town. It reminds me of LA somewhat, you can drive for like 45 minutes and still be in town. It's not as interesting though, instead of buildings and freeway interchanges you have a lot of swampland and dimly lit highways. Scrabble was the name of the game at one point, and I somehow ended up winning due to some rule about a failed challenge against me giving me a bonus 50 points, although for some reason the word Pez was accepted about halfway through on a triple word score and that gave me about half my total. So yeah more eating out, more buffets, more enjoying myself a little too much. More on that later.

We eventually graduated that Tuesday, and found out we were the top flight in our squadron, which was somewhat unexpected and kind of cool. Was a bit sad to close up shop back at the room, as it usually is when you move your home from one place to the next. Luckily all roads seem to lead to Maxwell at some point or another (or unluckily some might say) so I'll probably be back as a captain for some more fun.

I knew coming back here the scale wouldn't have good news, given I spent six weeks eating out constantly, having pizza for lunch, and all in all not getting the amount of exercise I'm used to. Little did I know it would have 190 pounds worth of issues. Those of you who recall I it 175 a few weeks before I left and was hovering around 178-180 will realize that is a whole lot of work lost. Well I've been cranking it back up ever since I saw the dreadful news and am back to around 185. The new goal is to be back to 175 by my sister's wedding on the 27th, which won't be easy. Alas when you screw around and let yourself balloon, it's a lot harder to lose back what you gained. It's not like I didn't know it was coming though. I just had a really amazing six weeks socially, and sacrifices tend to be made for such rare occurrances.

So now we move on to the difficult concept of keeping in touch intercontinentally, which is definitely not something I've tried. I've hooked myself up with dialpad.com, which lets me use my comp to call her landline for three or four cents a minute, rather than the twenty nine it costs via my cell. She's also found a way to use the military DSN network to get to me, although we won't be able to use that as extensively. Meanwhile we've started up the ol e-mail/e-card thing, although with no computer at home yet that's limited as well. The seven hour time change is most of the problem, so when she gets home from work I'm just leaving for work, and when I get home she's going to sleep, and when I go to sleep she's leaving for work. So we've been using the in betweener times when we can, and e-mailing and text messaging the rest of the time. She's in the process of trying to get leave for my sister's wedding so she can meet the whole family and we can at least spend a couple days together, but barely anyone in her office has been able to take leave so it's looking worrysome, should find out tomorrow. At the same time the price of her ticket is like half what it was a week ago, but it has to be purchased by Thursday, so the clock is really ticking. Here's hoping.

In other news it looks like I'm pretty much in JSUNT class 0505, so this journal will become relevant to those navigator types pretty soon now. Start date is 20 April, with graduation sometime in January I believe. More details as they become available, in the meantime I have another forty days or so to do nothing but work out and explore the wonders of recreation.

It's a little different though this time. Somewhere way over there is someone important. Better yet, she thinks I'm important too. And that's kind of cool.

Now That I'm Relaxed...

Okay okay I hear you geez look I'm blogging happy now?

So where was I. Looks like the last real post was the day after things got official up in this. And here we are almost a month later. Well I'm certainly not going to make any excuses about why I haven't been blogging, because I don't need to. That last month I spent nearly 24/7 with a quite a swell person, and given I had no internet, it was rare that I wanted to trapze over to the library and waste time staring at a computer screen. Instead I spent the time having an absolute blast.

Valentine's day weekend was the first of many trips that were to come. That one was a jaunt down to Pensacola, where her parents house is. I ended up meeting pretty much her entire local extended family, and good fun was had with games like Boggle and Cranium. Her mom is almost as competitve as I am, so we had a good time talking trash all in good fun. The highlight of the trip revolved around the fact that I'd "acquired" her address off the 29B form we had to fill out as a safety precaution before leaving for the weekend, and had a dozen roses delivered to her parents house the night before we were to arrive. As she tells it, her mom told her to go in and look at the dining room table, and seeing the flowers she assumed her dad had gotten them for her mom. Her mom then bragged about there being a card and when she looked at it, she realized it was her name not her mother's on it. I guess a bit of setup is necessary, I've always not been a huge fan of flowers, and had spent the whole week downplaying them, talking about how they die and are pointless and why would anyone want them and whatnot. Yeah well anyway, the inside of the card said "Because I said I'd never get you flowers." Of course I managed to step into the restroom for like fifteen seconds having been dying for the previous hour on the road and missed the entire thing, not knowing it was going to take place so quickly. According to her mom the look on her face was a sight to behold. Speaking of which all you men out there, FTD.com does same day delivery even the day before Valentine's Day, which I was quite impressed by. Quality product too, I didn't have any complaints and I don't think she did either. It was just a day trip down there, as we had the big test to study for the next week.

The following weekend was a bit more of an extensive trip. I finally caved after about a week of poking and prodding and agreed to go to the Founder's Ball for her sorority in Tallahassee at Florida State. By the time I figured out I was going though it was pretty much too late to rent anything semi-formal to wear, so I had to hustle through some last second calls to LA to get my measurements from the tux shop where I'll be renting for my sister's wedding, and then to the suit place here that was about to close in order to get the order in a day in advance. Unfortunately we forgot about the time change on the way down there, so after getting on the road around 3pm we didn't actually arrive at the event until 8:30pm, even though it started at like 7. It ended up working out though, as she got about ten feet into the room before she was swarmed by every person there at once. It's quite a sight, let me tell you. Meanwhile I held her stuff and stood off to the side admiring the wallpaper, before a few of the girls noticed and started introducing themselves. I tried to announce myself as her chauffer or tagalong but it seems that story didn't fly. Good food was eaten along with some delicious cake, and many a picture were taken of the event and its participants. By the end of the night I had a bunch of the names down, after getting a lot of "I've heard SO much about you"s and "oh so THIS is Matt"s. She went out with the girls afterwards, but I retired back to the room knowing the days ahead would be quite lengthy. The next day was filled with various activities like lunch at the Olive Garden where you can never go wrong, as well as a trip to the mall where I made friends with the sig other of another of the girls, and we eventually escaped back to his place to watch some quality television while they raided the Mac counter. Dinner was at a Thai place I think where I downed the biggest plate of fried rice ever, quite good stuff. Again it was an early night for me, and a late night for her, but given she wasn't doing any of the driving (not by choice) that worked out. Oh I almost forgot, they have this lake/pond thing over there that looks really pretty at night, and we did our "gross couple thing" for the day by taking a walk around it and enjoying the scenery. We both agree watching other people do such things is gross, and thus we must take advantage of opportunity to rub it in other people's faces for once. The next day we were supposed to get an early start, but instead a trip to Starbucks to play the ten fingers game (always entertaining) followed by a trip back to campus to see the sights as well as take a bunch more pictures. The coolest thing we did was head over to the stadium, which college football fans who have seen Florida State play will recognize as a major one. Although they had the place pretty locked down, we managed to find an entrance through a chain link fence that was normally closed and locked but what looked like a repair truck had gone through recently at field level. Thus for the first time in my life I went walking out onto field level of a football field, with the towering stadium all around. She said she'd been to a truckload of games and never been down there, so it ended up being pretty neat. We went out to the 50 yard line after some peer pressuring from me and assurances we wouldn't get in trouble, and checked out the 360 view the quarterback gets during a game. Trying to imagine the place sold out full of screaming fans was pretty tough though. After a quick kiss on the 50 just so we could say we had and then a quick stop at the bookstore to pick up some edible supplies for the road and a hat we were on the road again, this time for Gainesville. To complete the rivalry tour we visited her sister at the University of Florida, home of the Gators. This was the only immediate family member I hadn't met yet, and thankfully I wasn't immediately cast aside and we got along pretty well. To continue the eating out trend (more on the result of that later) we headed to TGIF and then Coldstones or one of its variations, before eventually touring the campus and again getting into the stadium at field level so she could spit on her rival's mascot or something. The real bummer of that weekend though was the trip back. We didn't leave Gainesville until 8pm or so Sunday night, with the trip back to Montgomery being 350 miles of which like 200 were on a winding rural highway with a whole lot of nothing to look at. I easily saw more deer that night than the rest of my previous lifespan combined. I'd estimate the number to be about 150, and I'm not exaggerating. I was slowing down constantly every time I saw them up ahead, with those glowing eyes that give us the saying "deer in the headlights." Eventually we got in at about 1am, and then promptly had to be in class by 7. The 500 mile day altogether had me pretty dead. Good times.

Guess I won't do this all at once, will probably cover most of the rest in the next post.

832 Miles Later...

Note to self, that's a long way to drive in one day alone.

Was up at 3:30am yesterday, dropped her off at the airport from 4:30-5am, started driving soon after, stopped at the border of Texas for a bit of a casino break for a couple hours, eventually arrived in San Antonio at 9:30pm. Somewhere around twelve or thirteen hours of actual driving. Then I had to report the next morning at 8. I'm a bit tired. Still unpacking/recuperating, probably will see some lengthy posts soon.

Yeah I'm Horrible

Okay so really I'm going to catch up soon. Reason being I'm graduating from ASBC tomorrow and at some point ending up back at Randolph with nothing much to do. So I'm going to catch up on the last few weeks. What can I say, been busier than average. Apologies to those who care.

Like OMG

Ok so I have five minutes in between classes to slam away at this so I can't give details but I headed down to Tallahassee for the weekend and pretty much had a blast, stories as soon as I have time to hammer away.

I will say hi to all the new people I met though, you're pretty nifty folk, and hi to whoever was putting gibberish in the guestmap. Much to blab about but must skedaddle.

Major cookie points as usual to all those who tag the guestbook/map.

TEN DAYS? HUH?

K so apparently things got busy around here.

I can't imagine why.

I actually mentioned it to one of my friends on the phone and their explanation was that now that I wasn't single I didn't have to have a relationship with my computer anymore. I guess that kind of makes sense, but that doesn't mean I'm breaking it off with my cute wittle puter nonono.

We actually had our major test today, the one academic thingy we have here at ASBC. I missed two questions for a 95.56%, which is of couse two more than I was planning to miss so I was of course irritated. Better yet they were silly mistakes, which is always irksome. But anyway the rumor is 95 and above gets a special bullet on your training report saying you got academic excellence or something or other. Our flight is looking pretty good in the overall rankings going into the last event, so we might even get something spiffy out of that.

Yeah and on the social side of things life is good. I'm actually sitting here in the classroom in the back while we're on lunch break and she's over there writing notes to me on the whiteboard when the few other people in here aren't paying attention. Every time I look up from the screen I end up smiling. I actually had kind of a doldrums day yesterday due to a lengthy battle exercise that basically involved like eight people all trying to tell me what to input into the computer since I was the GUI operator and then changing their minds every five seconds and having me redo everything. So yeah she just does like a million little things to make me feel special. As much as I love to say don't sweat the small stuff, I guess sometimes it's the little things that count.

Oh, I should update about the fact that Valentine's day was actually relevant this year too, go figure. More soon now that I no longer have to study.

Whoda Thunk.

The above translation of "who'd have thought" is something I've found myself mumbling several times over the past few days. I'm often asked whether or not I believe in fate. My usual response is that it's a load of BS people use to make themselves feel better about potential for the future. Well yeah I still have that opinion, although recent evidence has caused some doubt.

Over the past few days and weeks I've been doing my best to find the negative aspects of an entirely positive situation. I've been focusing entirely on what might go wrong or what might make it difficult, rather than what was so positive or optimistic. Call it doubt or a lack of self-confidence, but I really wasn't seeing what was right in front of me. If the world was perfect no one would know it. If a relationship was perfect it would be boring. One only has to look as far as my parents to realize that conflict keeps things interesting and is part of a functional relationship.

So yeah I'm getting around to a bit of a news event here. Kind of interesting that during the entire life of this blog I've always been single. Well last night I decided the drought should end. It was actually kind of interesting the way it happened. We went to this Chinese buffet restaurant which was all you can eat for like $7 which was a pretty sweet deal, and anyway they bring the fortune cookies at the end and I eat mine and it's something lame about showing passion towards what I'm doing or something which I just sort of shrugged off. My car of people was the last to leave and as we're getting up I notice that there's one more fortune cookie at the end of the table that has been left. I of course snag it immediately and upon busting it open find not one, but two fortunes. I'm going to edit this with the exact quote of the first one which I of course kept later, but it was something like "romantic attachments are not always logical, nor rational." The second said something along the lines of "you never know what will happen until you try." I tend to be a pretty spontaneous person, and it's one of those totally random things that will usually swing me off the fence into a decision. Well, that and 8 happens to be my favorite number, and that was the date. So off we go later that night on a moonlit walk down to the lake by the golf course, which has become my new favorite place on Maxwell. Breaking tradition there was no preparation whatsoever, and thus I spent several minutes stumbling around in circles before eventually saying what I'd dragged her down there in the dark and cold to say. Sometimes command of the English language just doesn't suffice.

So what we have here is a new challenge I'm facing. When writing notes back and forth when in the large lecture auditorium, I recently busted out some spur of the moment poetry towards this now significant other. The last two lines are probably the most relevant.

"What will happen next, who really knows.
We'll see if across the Atlantic, only water flows..."

Red Means I've Been There.

(Large map removed due to spacing issues, basically the whole map was filled in red except for North Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, North and South Carolina, Hawaii, and Alaska)

Hm, guess I've been around.

The Way You Move...

Just a quick blurb of a movie review here, saw You Got Served over the weekend, and it was pretty much what I expected. Some pretty amazing dance sequences, intermingled with some pretty terrible plot elements. So yeah, go for the rhythmn, hit up the snack bar or restroom during the rest. Spend a lot of time going "WHAT THE" as they do things like skid across the floor on their head or bend their bodies in incredible ways. Pretty bumpin soundtrack too, which is the main reason I recommend seeing it in the theater vs renting it, unless you have a monster system yourself. We'll say 4 M's due to my love for music in motion.

Did I mention I fell off the bed like a week ago and bashed up my elbow pretty good? Pretty funny stuff. If you're lying on your right side, and you're at the very left edge of the bed randomly, don't try to roll onto your back, or you'll find out how far off the floor your bed is. Been a while since I've had as good looking a scab.

In other news, there seems to be rumors of going various places during various weekends upcoming, but I'm not sure whether any of it will actually pan out. Still riding the fence on the major topic at hand though. Seems popular opinion among my rational friends is the rational side of it. I guess that makes sense.