Have nothing new to write.
A few of my co-workers are reading this Blog and one of them started
his own which I have also linked to in my sidebar. He's a good guy and also the co-star of the video I posted last week about my camera.

People were saying that my blog took to long to load, so I skimmed some of the fat off the top. Now it's bare bones but quicker, I'm gonna change it in the near future but want to do some research into other layouts before comitting to anything.

Anybody have inputs as to what they'd like to see/not see?

The Story Of My Camera.

Things to remember when viewing this file.
*  The file is 1.04 mb and my take a moment to download.
*  It plays with either windows media or divix.
*  My parents are so cool I would have just given the camera to them if they'd have asked.

I saw this guy in the store today. He was a suicide attempt a while back and we did an emergency search of his house to find out specifically what pills he'd taken and how many were left etc... Just being there and searching to save his life, finding the note he'd left for his parents and girl friend, it was like I knew this kid.

Anyway I saw him today laughing and joking around with his girl, so different than the last time I'd seen him, half comatose and choking on his own saliva.  It then occurred to me to wonder...
Does he resent us? You know, harbor hatred that we'd kept him from ending it all.
Does he feel violated? He lived off base, so when you add all the Japanese Police to everyone we brought, there were eight or nine people traipsing into his house, laying it bare, opening every cupboard and drawer, digging through his fridge and freezer and pantry.
I would feel violated. 
I suppose his resentment would hinge on whether or not he wanted to actually go through with it or use it as a cry for help.

Today was well spent to say the least...

It started at the butt-crack of dawn, which is about three hours later than I usually sleep except that I didn't go to sleep until four hours previous, needless to say I was one braindead puppy.  I woke up early so that my friend and I could get a workout in before putting a transmission in his car. I've never even seen a transmission before (unless you count the pictures and schematics) and he hasn't either, so it made for an interesting day. The day started slow.  I was shooting some video for my blog, before you start looking it's not out there yet, and we were having fun. Eight hours later that !@#@!@#! transmission was in, but we couldn't rotate the shaft to tighten the last two gear differential bolts down. Frustrated, tired, hot, sweating like pigs, we figured we'd failed to properly bolt down the bell housing and had seized everything up. The guy who was supposed to know how this all worked, who in fact still owns the car until the transmission is in and it's working, decided to bail and wasn't answering his cell phone. Not being able to go any further and not wanting to permanently damage anything we took it all apart and put it back in storage effectively wasting the better part of a day... I wanted to kick this mechanical expert dude in the nuts. I wanted to kick this car in the nuts. I wanted to kick the bell housing in the nuts! I haven't been that frustrated in a long, long, time. You want to know the icing on the cake. What really kicked my nuts? The mechanical expert dude calls Wheel's late tonight to explain to him that it's not supposed to rotate once everything is bolted on because the car was engaged in Park and not Neutral.

Like I said, I learned a lot today. How to install and remove a transmission and also how to stage your tools and everything else for it. Next time, even if this mechanic wanker decides to skip out I think we'll have the trannie installed and ready a much shorter amount of time. 

Also, I realized today that I really like to hear myself talk. I was watching the video preparing to cut/edit it and came to the conclusion that I need to work on not being so conceited. Maybe it was the early morning brain-fog, maybe it was the four hours of sleep, who knows. Still it's something I noticed right away so I'm sure other people pick up on it too. 

MY CAMERA CAME TODAY!
Well, O.K. it came three days ago, but today was the day I was able to pick it up.

I had grand plans for this weekend involving lots of buming around the country taking photos, but my friend (the one who's selling me his Skyline) needs help putting a transmission in his Mustang.  Until he's got the stang up and kickin I don't get the Skyline and without a set of wheels life during the summer in Japan is measured in how long you get to stay in the A/C before having to venture back out into the heat.

But I digress... To make a short story long, look for more pics and videos of crazyness sometime in the near future.

 

Perhaps there's a future for me in this business after all...
 
We had a potentially disturbing call early this morning at work. Since the dispatcher wasn't sure of the exact nature of the situation (whether or not it involved a female) I grabbed my old partner who is now on her own and we both responded. To make a long story short, this is the first time I've ever had anyone so drunk they just wouldn't reason, and force had to be used.
 
I've been to a number of them as an additional officer, but this was the first time I was right there in the middle of it. When everything was said and done, and this guy was safely back on board his ship and on his way to a bad next few years due to the nature of his initial crime, the offgoing road supervisor kept telling everyone how well things went because of me and the offgoing section chief actually pulled me to the side to make it clear that I should transfer into his section.
 
I'm happy right where I am. Still it was a nice change to be noticed for doing something right.

So I wasn't able to make it to my friends wedding and now I feel really bad because apparently there were others who didn't as well. When I think back to the good times we've had over the past few years I can't help but feel like a wanker for not being there.  ;(  
 
On the other hand he's found a decent girl (I knew there were a few of you out there somewhere, just didn't think you'd  be hiding in North Dakota) and is well on his way to fat happy grandchildren and all that comes along with them. That makes me really smile.  
 
Gaaaaa. It's been one of those days and thinking kinda hurts.

Not much new happening in my life lately. My old roommate from A school is going to be in Tokyo later this month and it'll be cool to catch up and see how much we've changed having both been out in our selected professions for a year now. I sold my car on accident, and am buying a 93 Nissan Skyline to replace it. I say accidently because, the relationship I had with my old car was really a love-hate thing and as a consequence every time I'd get pissed enough to sell her, something would happen and I'd have second thoughts which would lead to me taking down the flyers and removing her from the market.

As it happened, someone who wanted her a bit more than I did had procured one of the afore mentioned flyers and sat on it for two months while he squirreled enough cash away. His phone call came while the car and I were having issues with the way she can't go into ninety percent of the parking garages here in Japan due to the height of her kit. The cash he was offering was more than I would have been able to get normally, so I sold her down the river and set my sights on something a bit younger.

Went to an amusement park a few days back. It was located around the base of Mt. Fuji and let me tell you the view when you were up on the coaster was just awesome! They the normal rides you'd expect, coasters, that mighty mouse mini coaster thingy, the haunted house, the looping starship, as well as some that I'd never seen before.

All in all it was a full day but not nearly as expensive as I'd thought it would be and actually a lot more fun than I was expecting. That ride I linked to, yeah it held you upside down as it was spinning the socks off of you, but man it was fun. And the Japanese people are always so nice to be around. On the coaster they actually have people stationed on either side of the rails who's job it is to give each person riding a high five as the coaster rolls by them on it's way out of the boarding platform.

I had some authentic Japanese carnival food too, teriyaki glazed corn on the cob and squid on a stick. Yep, the biggest darn squid I've ever seen either I might add. I've never had it prepared quite like that before but I must say I was pleasantly surprised.

I realized today as I was talking to someone about my new partner today and realized how cliche my life sounds...

We've only worked together for three weeks now, she's new to our command but very squared away and goal oriented. Extremely driven, extremely young, and extremely hardcore. I call her "Iron" and tell her it's cause she's so hard, her only response is to laugh and flex some biceps. Truthfully, the "Iron" is because she reminds me of Mike Tyson in how she approaches every suspect we are involved with like a terrier cornering a rat. It's the first thing I noticed about her and it's really not good. Don't get me wrong, she's like the kid sister I never had, and is gonna make a great cop once she smoothes out a few rough edges. I'm hoping that by helping her become aware of how she is perceived by others, she'll slow her roll a little bit and learn to communicate with people to resolve issues rather than unleashing the beast.
The awesome thing about having her as a partner is that her squared away approach to work is really challenging me to better my own self. Without even realizing it I had become complacent in my job, merely doing my time here rather than making the most of it. Ideals are another thing, she's still young enough to have them, to feel the difference between right and wrong on a moral and ethical level rather than one of convenience or politics.

What do you think thirty years in the future will hold for the human race?
Where do you think science will take us?

I was thinking about this while standing post today and came to some odd conclusions. For one, we will be on the brink of digitizing the human brain and recreating an actual consciousness, in some sort of high end computing getup (HECG). The tech for this is getting closer all the time. Every eight months or so the hardware behind it gets faster, smaller, and more reliable.

Which lead to the obvious question of what will we do when the tech gets better than the organic original? When the hardware behind the HECG makes it's host better able to compete in the marketplace because they can out think, out last, and literally outperform the competition.

The way I see it, once we reach that point the human race as we know it currently will come to exist in digitized text alone. It will start harmlessly with a hardware upgrade to your frontal lobe here, and a new cortex there, eventually moving on to bigger and better things.

I thought a lot more, but am too tired to write it all down here now.
What do you think?

I'm getting my old glasses fixed soon! I'm so happy I can again retire the Navy specials that I am currently forced to endure. Also my new uniforms are almost ready and my new boots are on order and should be here in late July! The uniform and boots are something I've been putting off for far to long and just needed to go out and get. The glasses broke and it's been hell trying to figure out who actually made them and where I could buy replacement frames.
but i digress...