I'm trying to save up some cash and so have been laying low for the past few weeks. Not much exiting is going on over here. I watched AVP last night. Character development was pretty non existant, but lets be honest you don't watch a movie like that to find out a particular characters motivation. If they see you they kill you, that's enough motivation for anyone.

I want a puppy.
I was reading a post by Petunia about walking her cousin's dog in the park and it made me regret not being able to obtain a mutt of my own. I'm not looking for a super expensive dog, nor any great mastiff with bloodlines that lead back to the dawn of black and white T.V.. Rather I'd prefer a puppy from the pound, smallish to medium size, and good tempered.

The way things are right now though I won't be able to get a dog until I get out of the service. O well. T-Minus 3 years, 3 months and counting.

This is one of my favorite pics in the whole world.
Back when I had one, it hung in my cube.

I was hanging out at a furniture store today while The Big Wheel was taking care of some business, so I used the time to my advantage and snapped this photo with my cell-cam.

Haven't updated for a while becuase I've been doing other mundane type things.
It's coming up on the hottest part of the year over here and my section has shifted to working nights. I love the fact that we escaped the heat, but also I feel halfway bad for those poor suckers who rotated to days. It's like I've always said, if it was fun they wouldn't pay us.

My baby brother has been back from Bosnia for some time now so I called to see what he was up to. As it turns out he is moving up in the world and has taken a management position within his company.

Also, I called CanOpenner even though I check up on his blog often enough. He's doing good but has, as it were, bats in his belfry. That's a story for him to tell though so I won't ruin it by blabing here first.

Not normally the type of guy who gets into eating cream from a colon, tonight I made an exception... And people wonder why I say Japanese junk food is so much fun to eat.

My life has been really boring lately.
I went looking for ghosts last night with a friend who knows of an old POW Camp for Koreans. There are a lot of local legends surrounding it but we didn't find any ghosts, or perhaps they didn't find us... :(
I can't say I'm surprised. After hearing all the stories about floating heads, bodyless footsteps and blood chilling screams from behind, I can't help but feel a bit robbed by the whole experience.

I put this together a while ago and am still working out the bugs. For those of you who are interested, here is a Virtual Tour of a park near the base I work at.

While waiting for a meeting with our Senior Chief after work this morning, my roomate and I entertained ourselves over breakfast.

Also I did submit a new dream sheet today with totally new choices for where I want to go. My top choices were to areas where I'd be guarding important people in potentially hostile environments, after that came a few places in Europe and also an opening on the central east coast.
If I get any of these I'll be happy, so now it's a waiting game for a week or so to see if I was picked up for any of them.

My ride is now tinted and sporting some tunes!
Towards the interest of posterity, I've documented the Cinderella like audio conversion.


Laugh if you want, but you should have seen what I was listening to before.



My temporary $14 speakers and mp3 player.


What have we here? I puzzle over the connections which are nothing like the wiring harness that came with my stereo. Notice the gecko floormats. I like em, my friend says they're too girly. What can I say to that, if I was looking for validation from a car I wouldn't have sold my monster to buy this tin can.


I know there's a lot of electrical tape over connections, but don't worry that was just a temporary thing until I can sort out some electrical problems with my acc.


The satisfied smile that can only mean no traffic and sweet melodies.

The weekend is here! The weekend is here!
I've got a new car to play with, the weekend is here!

That's right. Instead of waiting for the skyline, I broke down and bought an Escudo. I've never owned anything quite like this before, but find it to be the perfect vehicle for Japan. It's short, but has surprisingly good leg and head room for the driver/passenger. If you want more than two people in it though things do get a bit crowded. The guy I bought it from neglected a few things on it's upkeep, which I don't mind so much as fixing it up gives me something to do on the weekends.

To Do List of crap that needs fixin...

1) Install Stereo - It's stereo was sawed/ripped/cut out by some wayward youth a few months before I bought it.
2) Window Tint - I have a home tint kit for the back windows. After reading the instructions that came with it (they were in kanji) the basic idea seems to be to get more of it on the window than on me, in theory this should be no problem.
3) Touch Up Paint - It's a 4x4 and has lots of little scratches and scrapes.
4) Spare Tire - The spare tire is dry-rotted and flat. Thanks to my old car this shouldn't be to hard to replace as I have a tire man who knows me by name and is always happy to hook me up.
5) New Windshield Wipers - Don't know how that cheap-O went without new wipers for so long.

I put in my dream sheet for orders today.
Ideally I'll be going to Bahrain or London, but will probably end up working stateside on the east coast or somewhere equally mundane.

Mundane is good too though. Being stateside would mean more trips home and getting to start paperwork on some real estate up around Lake Superior's
North Shore

You will sink in a mire. You like to think you're
normal, but deep down you really just want to
strip off your clothes and roll around in chicken fat.

What Horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?

Also, It was a long and hot today which only served to confirm my existance ala Descartes most famous supposition... "I stink therefore I am."

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.