What could be more important than getting cookies for Christmas?

Books.
Books are way, way more important than cookies.
Specifically the seven books that make up the Chronicles of Narnia are the topic of discussion today. Should they be read in the order they were published, or in the new-fangled chronological order that the publishers seem to prefer.

I think they should be read as originally published, but who am I to say...
Anybody want some extra homework for the weekend. (Chadly put your hand down before the teacher sees it!) Too late... Everybody check out THIS GUY'S SITE and write a three hundred bazillion word essay on why some people feel the need to overachieve, (You can put your hand down now Chadly... No seriously.) While others try to slide by without actually reading the assigned homework.

Got cookies in the mail!!!

I sat and chowed a few of them with my LT, and between crumb-filled munches he wanted me to thank my mom and whoever else helped make them. His actual words were "hmmmm... Not too sweet either!", but in the few short months I've worked for him I've become quite adept at interpreting the true meaning of his leadership type double-speak. You can believe me when I say that what he truely meant could be realistically interpreted as "...mmmmmmm thank your mom and whoever else helped make them..."

1) Check out the funnies at This Girl's blog. (And feel free to comment on her blog too, I feel a bit lonely on her comment board.)

So right now, I'm listening to Marylin Monroe VS The Millennium in a remix of "Diamonds are Girl's Best Friend", and thinking about a quote I ran across last night while doing research...

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
-Albert Einstein

Also, I'm thinking about putting a new rhyming game on my blog in the spirit of Fezzig and Vincini.

The time has come at last to retire the "Super Caloused Fragile Mystic Hexed by Halitosis" in favor of someone much more worthy of your attention. Feel free to click the link and think about the simple power you have to forever change a life.

1. Legal First name?
Asa

2. Were you named after anyone?
I was named after someone my parents knew for awhile while they lived in WA. That Asa was named after his father and was a great Christian -- he really impressed my parents with his faith.
I have a great namesake!


3. Do you wish on falling stars?.
Not unless it coincides with a separate train of thought.
i.e. I wish i didn't have to "O a star!" do homework again tonight.

4. When did you last cry?
Honestly, I don't remember.

5. What is your favorite lunch meat?
Do Italian Meatball's count?

6. What is your birth date?
um um um somewhere towards the beginning of 1975.

7. What is your most embarassing CD???
Sunday Morning Bluegrass.

8. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?
Heck Yeah we would.
Of course, now that I think about it, I might hold it against him for his gracious wit and rugged bravado.

9. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
Yes. Now that I think about it I do, but only in a graciously rugged and brave sort of way.

10. What are your nicknames?
Ace, Schaef

11. Would you bungee jump?
Yes I would.

12. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Sometimes.

13. Do you think that you are strong?
Physically, not like I used to be.
Mentally, better than I used to be... In some ways.


14. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Chocolate cherry.

15. Shoe Size?
10.5 wide

16. Red OR pink?
Um, blue.

18. Who do you miss most?
Of all the things I've found then lost, I think I miss my mind the most.
(oddly enough I can't remember who origionally said that)

19. Do you want everyone you send this to, to send it back to you?
No, chain mail hurts servers.

20. What color pants and shoes are you wearing?
Not wearing either at the moment. hee hee hee
(I'm wearing shorts and have bare feet)

21. What are you listening to right now?
Plumb - All my tears (be washed away)

23. Either gray or dark blue
NAVY blue!

24. What is the weather like right now?
dry and mello, slightly chilly, maybe 70.

25. Last person you talked to on the phone?
MA1 Lewis

26. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
hair

27. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Yes I do, she's the best thing that could have happened to my brother from another mother.

28. Favorite drink?
Fruit Juice or Pepsi

29. Hair color?
It used to be brown, but I have a feeling it's turning grey.

30. Do you wear contacts?
Yes

31. Favorite Food?
General Tzo's Chicken.

32. Last Movie You Watched?
The Princess Bride.

33. Favorite Day Of The Year?
Christmas

34. Scary Movies OR Happy Endings?
Happy endings.

35. Summer Or Winter?
Fall. but winter's not so bad either.

37. What Is Your Favorite Dessert?
Pumpkin pie!

38. Who Is Most Likely To Respond?
Christy Cory

39. Who Is Least Likely To Respond?
Robert or Chad

40. Living Arrangements?
Does my office count? Ok, I live in a flat on the seventh floor with a great view of the lighted citiscape at night.

41. What Books Are You Reading?
Hebrews, Understanding Terrorism in America,
Domestic terrorism and incident management,
Terrorism 2002, Bass Basics, When God Calls Your Name,

42. What's On Your Mouse Pad ?
Don't use one.

43. What Did You Watch Last night on TV?
About ten minutes of Sgt. Bilko, then the last episode of Frasier.

44. Favorite Smells?
Coffee, Baking Bread, Fresh cut grass, vanilla,

45. Favorite junk food?
Popcorn, pretzles, Teriaki rice biscuits.

46. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
You can keep em both.

I got the best thing in the mail the other day. It was a stocking from my family complete with:

Chocolate Coins!
Quarters!
A chocolate reproduction of Paul And Babe! (which is slated for consumption on christmas morning)
A magnet!
A Spinney Gig!
A Pen!
Silly Puddy!
More Silly Puddy!!
And my favorite... An AWIKA!

What do you think about the Airplane Shooting?

Ever feel like you live in a sitcom?

Today we were pulled from our normal jobs to spend the afternoon at an Admiral's call. For those of you who aren't military, it was a bunch of different commands and departments in military formation being addressed by a visiting Admiral. In this case, the department I work for was required to be there. The reason for this, we found out, was that the Admiral specifically wanted to single us out and thank us for an outstanding job in protecting the supplies flowing into Iraq.

Anyway, at the beginning of his speech, the Admiral turned to address the whole formation and asked where my department was. A few of us raised our hands, but he had turned slightly to scan the whole formation and didn't see the hands. A group at the very end who are being trained to replace us sometime next year, but have yet to go on more than one or two missions all raised their hands which he did see. So this is where it turns into a sitcom... He basically proceeds to turn his back to us, the people he meant to talk to, and tell these clownshoes down on the end what a great job my department is doing and how much he appreciates their dedication and the long hours they've put in and personal sacrifices they've made. Except that instead of naming my department, he looked at these fools and said you. I appreciate the great job you are doing, I appreciate your dedication, and your sacrifices etc... The real salt in the wound is that the department he was talking to is in training to replace us and hadn't been on the island for more than a couple of months and had only training missions under their belt instead of the hundreds that we've performed, but felt that they were entirely justified in stealing our thunder, and didn't feel the need to explain any of this to him.

Like I said, the whole thing was rather comical and just made me mentally shake my head and laugh until it was all over. To be honest, even though he had his back to us the whole time, what he had to say made me pretty proud. It also reminded me of a poem I heard a long time ago.


Ahem...
"Life, it is so like the bluebird,
as Omar the poet once said.
Some days it sings at your doorstep,
but some days it poops on your head."
-unknown

God was good to me this week.
It's been a busy week with too many bosses asking for different things, and of course each one says to make their's the priority. But at the end of the week the job is done and everyone is where they are supposed to be. Orders were cut and signed, I was only cursed out by a few people, and although there was this one time I was really, really close, I refrained from cursing them back. I was able to help some of the younger guy's with their paperwork, and even managed to lock my homework in an office I didn't have the key to on the busiest day of the week. At first I was mad, but when I got home there was nothing to do but relax... Well, let's just say that it went from the worst day to the best day in the space of five minutes.

Also, I got to see a picture of a semi sliding across the ice at this gir's blog, and it made me kinda miss home. Then I saw how cold it is back there and decided that maybe I didn't miss it quite so much after all.

So I was looking through an old website and came across some mischief from my days at BISYS. Judge for yourself, but it made me laugh.

Well, I don't know about you, but my Thanksgiving was rather nice.

The base had free breakfast lunch and dinner, so I slept in then caught the lunch with a few friends, helped someone with paperwork for about an hour and then went off to do homework for the afternoon then had dinner with a different group of friends.

All in all it was a nice way to spend the holiday. I could get used to this desk job and actually having holidays off. I felt kinda bad for my freinds who had to work, but sometimes life is like that. Whenever my job goes away, and it's going to any month now, I'll be right back there on the gates with them, so I might as well enjoy the sunny afternoons while I can.

Speaking of sunny afternoons, man did we have a cold snap here today. I'm not kidding either, it must have been in the low 70's... Enough to make me want to break out my sweatshirts and jacket.

AHHHHHHEM!!!
To be sung to the tune of Monte Python's "I Like Chinese"

I-am-debt-freeeee!!!
I-am-debt-freeeee!!!
College-loans... A-stack-up-to-my-kneee.
but-now-they're-paid.. And-that's-why-you-see,

I'm-in-a-debt-free-moood.
My-lender's-are no-longer-rude!


ok ok ok, you get the point.
After twelve long years, I've finally managed to pay off the last of the blood sucking vultures. Now I can take all that cashola I've been using to pay them off and put it into bonds or maybe a mutual fund, or some sort of investment instrument so I can save it for buying a house.

Let's see, where was I,
O yes...

I-am-debt-freeeee!!!!
I-am-debt-freeeee!!!!

My mom emailed these to me, she's got to be the one of the punniest people I know.

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The Stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says "Dam!"

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive."

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?", they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, " I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy Flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so,--- thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

I started my Arabic language class last night!
It is a pretty basic class, but I'm looking at it as more of a foundation for further study elsewhere than a college level language course. (it's taught through our Moralle Welfare and Recreation people)

Last night we worked on proper pronunciation of sounds the Arabic language has that English doesn't, and some basic informational phrases. I'm not sure what the next topic will be, but I'm sure it'll be interesting.

See this movie

Play Scrabble Online!
Or, download it Here.

Here is a slideshow of my flat. Some of the pictures are a few months old.

Look Ma, it's clean.

If my blogg were written by a redneck, it might look a little something LIKE THIS

If my blogg were written by a Swedish Cheff, it might look a little something LIKE THIS.

If my blogg were written by a Elmer Fudd, it might look a little something LIKE THIS


In other news just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you...

Two Words, Squirrel Fishing.




I don't know why, but for some reason when I saw this page I thought of two things. The first being how much my Dad would probably love this sort of thing, with a close second being how the whole experiment roughly symbolized the corporate working environment.


But I digress...

Well, it's official. I'm hanging up my sealegs and pulling up an office chair.
The other morning MA1 asked me if I knew anything about computers. I was a bit leery at first, thinking I might get roped into some sort of nightmare involving tech support on a pc that had been around longer than I have, but admitted sheepishly that I used to do some stuff with software support. After that, he dropped it and I didn't think any more of it until I heard him ask someone else the same thing later on that same morning.

I have to admit, I was a bit put off that he hadn't asked me to fix whatever was broken, so I stopped by his cube at the end of the day and reminded him about our conversation and asked if there was anything I could help with.

As it turns out, nothing was broken but our department Yeoman is moving on to another command and we need someone she can train in to do her job in a hurry. I guess the thinking on this was that since I know how to type... Well, you get the picture.

In order to appreciate the horror of this tasking, you have to realize exactly what it is they asked me to do. To put it in perspective, it would be similar to asking Bob the janitor to take over as the bottom half of the HR department, and executive secretary because he already knows his way around the building.

Oh well, this too shall pass.