I had blueberry pancakes this morning. Not Navy blueberry pancakes either, I'm talking made from scratch with actual berries and everything-they even used real butter and served them with mapleish type syrup-BLUEBERRY PANCAKES!!! There's this place over here called Ricks country cooking, and i've been hearing about it for the past three weeks from everybody. Ok ok, it was a bit expensive, $9 for three six inch cakes and a litre of o.j., but I put some Nina in my discman and savored every expensive bite. They weren't as good as the golden delights my sainted Mums and Pops can produce, but I'd say hands down they come in second.

Also, my agent and I are having issues with my contract. Apparently the landord want's three months rent up front for me to move in. Rent is fairly expensive over here and three months is roughly equivalent to buying a nicely maintained used car. The good news is that I recieve a monthly alotment for the rent, so really I only have to come up with the second and third month in advance and even then there are short term loans I can apply for, the bad part is that for the next year, each month they'll be depositing my alotment and then removing it twice because they forgot that they took it the first time. Suffice it to say taking a loan from your boss/payroll provider/accountant/sole means of financial support is a daunting thing to undertake, and requires a tremendous ammount of trust that no paperwork will get misplaced and nothing will get screwed up.

I graduated today!
I guess all good things must come to an end and so it's time for me to once more join the ranks of productive personell and pull my weight around here. I got to meet my section leader and he seems like a pretty decent sort. I think I'm going to like it out here. Everything is much more high speed low drag and the sense that what we are doing really matters pervades every aspect of life.

My textbooks have arrived! I haven't actually signed up for the classes yet, but since I'm sure they'll approve my chit for school, and since I wasn't sure how long it took to get the books, I send off for them ahead of time.

We spent a lot of time in the sun today working on some training evolutions but had to call it short when people began to show the signs of heat fatigue. I'm not in the greatest shape in the world, but I have managed to run a couple of times per week while out here and I think that helped. As I'm typing this it's 1807 and still 95, but as soon as I'm back at the hotel I want to take a run down along the beach to see if there are any open apartments back up in there.
I think I found the place I want to move into, the problem is that it isn't empty quite yet and won't be for another month or so. That works out ok with the Navy, I don't have to have a permanent home until the begining of August, but I hate to think about waiting that long for the place simply because someone else could still get it before I do and then I'll have two weeks left to start from scratch and find somewhere I love. The place I want is in the same building as my friend from Japan, has two huge bedrooms, a huge kitchen, and two bathrooms, but most importantly of all it comes with a huge private patio overlooking empty sand lots, a whole lot of highrise apartment complexes and about 75 feet of oceanfront. Call me a geek, but I can't wait to do late afternoon homework out there.

In a related story, Grapefruit May Make Women Seem Younger...

Everyone out here speaks english or spanish or some other non-arabic tongue.
I'm trying to learn Arabic and thus far the only people I've found to practice on are the guy's selling five dollar rollexs and nikke shoes.

Still, there's a class that I'm checking into and will probably start attending here in a few weeks that's supposed to teach basic vocabulary and culture. As much as I'm looking forward to that I can't wait to get into my own place.
One more month... one more month... one more month...

I'm going to go horse back riding next weekend!
It would have been in just a couple of days, but my checkin process was set back a bit so I have to come in this Saturday morning to makeup a few classes. That's ok though next week isn't so far away.

Also, I've been running on base here but never off until today. It was really an interesting experience. Halfway home this group of construction workers about ten stories up on this new highrise started hollering and giving us the thumbs up. I looked up to see that they don't use any safety gear here. I thought for sure this one guy would lose his balance and fall off he was waving at us and hollering so hard. It brought to mind something someone told me earlier today, "not everyone here is a F@#%!ng terrorist, most of these people are really quite nice..." at any rate, it made me smile.

So there's this club at my hotel that's so loud you have to yell in the rooms just to have a conversation with someone. By rooms I mean your hotel room, and by club I mean booty shakin, wall pounding, thankfully shuts down at 12:30, do they seriously expect anybody to sleep in these rooms ever, type club.

I guess that's just how they do it over here. I've already requested to change rooms once and that didn't really help the problem although the old wet towel under the door seems to have helped a bit. At any rate I'm only here for another month so it shouldn't be too bad.

Holy crap is it hot here.
We were in the transport on the way to the hotel last night at about 1900 and the outside temp was 105!!! Don't know how accurate that was, but still it's hot out here.
The gym out here is supposed to be pretty nice, but I haven't had a chance to get to it yet. Altogether this is shaping up to be a nice place with the possibility that I'll actually get to rotate out on time.

This week has been pretty nice! I was able to go and visit a number of friends in addition to just sort of chilling out and taking it easy. I'll be back through the state one more time on Memorial Day to catch up with one last friend and say goodbye to a few others before taking off.

Here's a pic of my Granny.

My kid brother finally got hitched!
What could be better than that you ask.
Decorating his car of course!!!

(I know it's spelled wrong, that wasn't me)

My Mums!



ALSO,
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND...

The Story Of 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.

The last couple of days have been pretty busy. My brother is getting married this weekend and since I have time off I volunteered to lend a hand in setting things up. 46 banquet tables and 350something chairs later the U-Haul was loaded and ready ready to truck on out to the reception site for unloading.

Believe me when I say there was nothing gentle about the ride. That poor poor truck, I think we might have broken it.

On a much more enjoyable note, I was able to help build the dance floor for the wedding!

CanMan, MadChatthew, Holly and I all played canasta the other night. CanMan didn't want me on his team cause it's been a while since I played and he he thought I wouldn't be any good, so MadChatthew took me as a partner. CanMan was partially right, but it turns out that MadChatthew was good enough to compensate and managed to capitalize on their one mistake and carry "US" to victory.

A picture speaks a thousand words,
MadChattew and I are "US", CanMan and Holly are "Them".

Why the long face?

Molly's a city dog who was getting her first real taste of the country dog life, and I'm telling you she didn't want to get back in that truck when it was time to go.

I'm leaving Japan today, in exactly 93 mintues to be exact. Two years will change a lot of things in a man and I'm interested to relfect on the changes I've seen take place in myself. I had a few close friends here, and leaing them was hard. It's not like when I left Bemidji or Brainers, although that was hard too I knew I'd be back eventually to check in on things. Not so with Japan. We exchanged email addresses and did the handshake man-hug thing and tried not to dwell on the idea that we'd never see eachother ever again.

When I arived at the comand, I was new to the police field, and then somewhere between the 30 man bar brawls, dead bodies, child abusers, more dead bodies, child molesters, rapists, and trying to keep living bodies from becoming dead ones my friends and I suffered together and grew together until one day I looked in the mirror to find that the balding pot-bellied computer geek had been replaced by someone a bit leaner, a bit harder and a bit balder.

I'm through with police work for a while now as my next command is going to be oriented in a slightly different direction. I'm learning the local language already "Shokran Gazillan " and plan to become as fluent as possible throughout my time there. I have this sinking feeling that I'm going to spend more time there than I am supposed to, but right now I'm content to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Valleyfair is going to be open while i'm back in the states!!!
"WHOOOOO'S COMIN WITH ME?!"

Also, my camera broke yesterday while I was taking some shots of Landmark Tower. It's a few years old, and I'm debating now whether to get it fixed and keep it around for a bit or just bite the bullet and get a new one. The pictures (I hope) should be recoverable and will make a nice addition to the "Studying Japan in charcoal and chalk" site that I'm hoping to put together.

I learned how to use people's eyes to tell whether they are lying today. Purely in the interest of perfecting the science, I tested this newfound technique on a lot of people today and found out a number of interesting things. I'm not great at it yet, but it is definately a usefull skill and something I'm glad to have learned.

I'm home in just a few weeks!
Already my schedule is packed, but I'm hoping to get around the state to visit everyone at least once or twice.

In other news, THE MARSHALLOW SHOOTER
All I can say is you fools are lucky I don't still live in the cubicle jungle.

Ever wanted to learn Swahili?
I am trying to learn Arabic. The cdrom I bought had Swahili on it too, and I thougth to myself what a great language to know.
Here're a few really quick first words:

Yes - Ndiyo
No - Hapana
Good Morning - Habari za asubuhi
Good Afternoon - Habari za mchana
Good Night - Habari za jioni
Please - Tafadhali
Thank you - Asante
Thank you very much - Asante sana
Sorry - Samahani
Hello - Habari
Goodbye - Kwa heri

that's right, I'm a geek.
Asante sana,
Kwa heri.
-Ace

Summer is almost upon us over here and boy it is nice outside!
Unfortunately, I'm inside doing homework but only for another week or two.

Yesterday was... Interesting.

Almost as soon as my shift started I was sent to a domestic disturbance. Imagine my surprise when I round the corner and there stands a good friend and mentor. What can I say, I was at a loss for words. Training took over and I processed it like any other domestic, checking for signs of violence, any visible need for medical attention, kids or other people in the house etc..., the whole time this little voice inside my head is screaming "I can't believe this, Just can't believe it!"
As it turns out no physical violence had taken place, and he's actually the one who called us when he saw where things were heading. I promised him I wouldn't repeat any of our conversation, and to be honest I haven't even told my supervisors about it, but we did sit down and talk about what had happened and what started it and where it was heading. I suggested a marriage counselor, or a chaplain and we talked some more until I was satisfied that he wasn't going to do something crazy the moment he was alone. There's more to it, but I don't really want to put him out there, so you'll all just have to mind your own business. Needless to say, it gave me a lot to think about.