I have the new printer/scanner that Matt got me for Christmas and it works great!
Here's a pic of my brothers from back when we were all pups. (Matt's the one on the left)

I don't know if I'll be able to come back for Rob's wedding...
I ran a request chit for time off and they didn't even bother to send it up the chain of command, but just let it sit around until last night.

I'm going to rout another chit, but they don't really want to give me leave for only a week if I'm traveling back to the states. All they see is the thousand bucks it'll cost me for the tickets and so they want me to spend more time when I'm over there. What they don't understand is that I don't have more than a week I can spare and it's not like I need the vacation because I just had one and am transferring out in a few months anyway and so will be home for another month then.

Have you ever seen an honest man cry?

So I was at a post this morning trying to keep the person standing it awake when these three guys passed us and proceeded to get into a car that was parked about twenty feet away. I hadn't paid attention to them as they passed, but a third person who was also at the post mentioned that they all seemed piss drunk. I pointed them out and asked her if it was the guys in the car, just to make sure I hadn't misunderstood her, and then proceeded to stop them. The guy in the driver's seat swore up and down he was stone cold sober, but it was apparent he was drunk, scared, and about to cry. He said the other two had been drinking, but that he was just giving them a lift. The person who had first noticed these fools showed up and we both agreed that nobody in the car was sober enough to be driving. His two friends came with me, and I explained what an accessory after the fact was while the other MA had "a little talk" with the guy in the driver's seat about what an alcohol related driving offense would do to keelhaul his career in the Navy.
In the end, the guy in the driver's seat was given the option to submit to a breathalizer or leave his car and walk the five blocks to his barracks. Oddly enough, for a man as innocent as he claimed to be, he chose to walk.

The reason I haven't updated lately is that I'm a fool.

My cable internet was cut off because I forgot to pay it.
I thought I had paid for it when looking at my online payments for the month, but what I actually saw was payment to this other company with a similar name.

Anyway, 39.95 in late fees later I'm re-connected and will be posting more often.

I was reading about wealth today in Luke 16: 10-13. At first glance it struck me from the don't let it rule your world perspective, but upon reflection I realized that Jesus was taking it one step further and talking about using our wealth as a tool for helping others, rather than as a goal by which we measure our success.

Heartfelt charity is an awesome thing. Whether it's giving your money or your time, the rewards you get back are so much greater than what the investment costs to you. I sponsor a child overseas and it costs me less than one can of coffee per day. Do I miss the coffee? Sometimes. Would Lute miss the schooling, the food, the new well in her town that I got to help fund, or the vaccines? Ok, ok, there's not a kid in the world who wouldn't be happier without getting poked by the doc, but other than that I'm sure she's getting more use out of the cost of that coffee than I ever could.

Don't be a schmuck, suck it up and help the kids...

It rained today, and yesterday too come to think of it. I am wet, and lukewarm, and on my break for another thirty minutes before going back out to finish the shift. Luckily the lawless like rain even less than I do, so aside from this one guy who got a little too genki and threw the table he'd been drinking at down the stairs of a club he'd been dancing at, it's been pretty quite today.

Ok, Ok, for the most part the mountain kicked my butt; but I am getting better... The ski resort we went to is called Kawaba and is located on Mt. Hotaka, just east of Nagino. I didn't take this picture, but posted it because of how accurately it captured the layout of the runs.


I have owned a snow board before, and had every intention of learning, but never really got around to it. So yesterday, with a bunch of friends hitting the slopes, I tagged along and learned the ropes, counting it a major victory when I advanced from four feet before I fell to the point where I was able to go six.

I slept in till 0620 this morning!

That's right, it is my day off and I'm enjoying every minute of it. I went to work out with "The Big Wheel" at 0700 and spent the rest of the day after that pretty much relaxing and doing homework. Right now I'm working on a paper comparing Willa Cather's Geoffrey St. Peter with Fitzgerald's Gatsby, and am having issues with keeping it short enough to fit the four pages that the assignment is limited to.

Right click and "save as" to view this at it's full size...

From His Deathbed

Remember me and think of this
for though I've succumbed to the fight.
I once was young, as you are young
forget the day...

Seize Your Life.


-Ace

Well, I've been back to work now for a few days and if there's an interesting time of the year for my job, Christmas and New Years are it. Don't want to go into the details.

Lord Of The Rings risk is a lot of fun.
If you're not familiar with it, it's loosely based on the original risk type structure, but with entirely new lands, some "action" cards that let you break the rules in frustrating or interesting ways, rivers and mountains that act as borders which may not be crossed, and of course The One Ring. The action cards are the most interesting evolution of the game, and I was able to use one successfully to cross some mountains and give Steve, who was winning the game at that point, the old "Rear Admiral" and take his unfortified territories by storm.
hee hee hee