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...

My mom's so cyber-gangsta...

She's getting a blog! Well, she has a blog and is teasing me with the whereabouts of it's hosting. I'm so proud! Now if only she'd actually break down and tell me where it is...

I finally finished my BASIC MACHINES NRTC!!!
Now I can start focusing on my in rate qualifications and on the second class exam that's coming up.

Also, I quit playing EQ online. It was fun, but I found myself spending much to much time playing it when I could have been doing something constructive like updating...

The weekend is here! I'm off to buy some stuff to patch the kit on my car and paint it. Other than that nothing new is going on.


______________________________


But then, it being the rainy season and all, it rained all day so I stayed inside played some games and did homework...

I met an old friend at the coffee shop tonight. He is just now coming to terms with the idea that this church he was going to is more of a cult.
I actually met him through them, when I was looking for a church after first moving here. They claim to be Christian based, but that base is about as far as it goes. The first time I was there they had an official greeter who got all my contact information (well, he tried to get it) and while I felt some trepadation about the group I wanted to give it a little time to be sure I wasn't basing my feelings about them on a bad day at work.
They were constantly trying to involve me in church based activities. Every day they had something going on and if I wasn't at work or reading their home published "devotionals" I was expected to be there. It got to the point where I felt so wierded out about them I stopped going all together and started doing research about them on the net.
It should come as no surprise that they were out there, a lot, and nobody had good things to say about them. Most of what I read dealt with the same controlling/manipulative issues I had experienced with them and was published by ex-members who had been with them for many years before friends/family interviened.

After finding that, I never went back. To make a short story long, the guy I saw tonight has made the same decision I did and it still coming to terms with regaining controll over his life. He's been with them for at least a year now and is still so scared to see any of them that he's disconectd his room phone and wanted me to use a code knock if I ever stop over.

Those of you who know me know that I love poker... There's this new movie out, The Big Blind that is supposed to finally capture the essence of the game.

For me, Texas Holdem is the pinnacle of card games.
I still remember the first time I played. I was with some friends, so drunk off my butt that they had to keep repeating the rules, and lost within the first 25 minutes of the game. It was only a $10 game so I wasn't pissed, to the contrary I woke up in the morning feeling like the game had been made specifically for me!

crap. I'm late! more on this later...

I processed a domestic this morning.
They had this cute little two year old who was just so oblivious to everything that was going on to her parents. We were trying to talk with one of them to get some basic information and the whole time she was messing with her mothers paperwork, or playing peek-a-boo from behind an interview room door. What can I say, it's a tough world she'll figure it out some time tonight when Daddy doesn't come home for dinner.

Some days are worse than others, today was one of them.

My bosses aren't a bunch of THIEVING bastards!

After asking around, I found out today that the money went to someone from another section who was having similar personal issues. I think my MA1 was offended when I asked him where the money had gotten to. What can I say, life's tough in the big city and sometimes you gotta ask the hard questions.

In a separate but similar circumstance today, I finally had it out with one of my supervisors who at times can be a real jackass. I was in a bad mood and not putting up with crap this morning when he tried some shady tactics on me. I let him know what I thought and he responded by actually asking me if I was doing ok. He said he'd noticed that I hadn't been my normally cheerful self for the past few weeks. I'll spare you the semantic details that followed in my retort, suffice it to say I gave him both barrels in what I hoped was a constructive manner.
I felt better immediately and at least now he knows how his actions have been effecting everyone in the section.

My friends mother recently was in the emergency room for some sort of heart trouble. He was going to go on emergency leave, so everyone took up a collection to cover travel costs and things like that. The only thing is, his mom turned out to be ok, the emergency was fixed and so he didn't take leave. Happy ending right?

Well, yes it is for my friend, but all that money that got collected never got to him and now nobody really seems to know where it is. How wrong is that? I mean I realize that he didn't end up going and so the money shouldn't go to him, but really it needs to be accounted for somehow and maybe held for the next person.

Right now I'm holding out under a thin belief that someone did set the cash aside and that it was documented somewhere. Basically I don't want to think that I work with a bunch of thieving bastards, but what can I say. A bag full of money is pretty tempting to anyone.

Nothing new to write. Well, almost nothing. Lets see...
:: I almost lost my finger in a bizarre air conditioning accident.
:: I Rearranged my room to make more efficient use of space and give me a spot by the window to read.
:: I made a lot of headway in the not choking out my boss department this week.
:: I resolved to sponsor an underprivileged kid (probably through CFC, but I'm looking into other avenues as well)
:: I started writing again, and have tentatively published a new blog with some poetry and what not. It's called Imagination Blooms and can be found in my links.

that's about it. Like I said nothing much is new this week.

Not much happening lately. I'm working on this Navy course called "Basic Machines" and it's really frustrating me... It's nice because I never had a lot of math or science related classes in college, but it's sort of frustrating at the same time because we're dealing with fluid dynamics and gear ratios, and other equally interesting topics on which I have no background. So I end up doing a lot of extra homework.

The upside to it is that I get to mess with my friends heads. They'll ask if I want to go to a movie and I'll tell them I can't because I'm working out problems based on the effects derived by varying the amount of hydrostatic pressure on a torpedoes depth engine. Their response is usually a wild eyed stammer followed by a hastily beaten retreat, unless their job is to deal with torpedoes in which case they do my homework in their heads while I'm looking for car keys and then we go to the movie.

What can I say, at least something about this homework makes me smile...

For Mike on his birthday

They played Pink Floyd again tonight
And you were nowhere near
My oldest friend I raise a toast
It's been to long, wish you were here.

Asa
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Headache

You ever had one of those days
where life just keeps kicking
you in the head

that's been my whole week
so quit whining
I've got a headache.

Asa

Today was a very long/boring day.
It's starting to get hot, but it's also the rainy season which means you can expect a good soaking at least once a day. People still aren't bringing rain gear to work with them and I'm just amazed... I mean we stand outside for a living and you're gonna forget your poncho during the rainy season? They get what they deserve I guess. a

and now for a brief poem:
ahhhem...

The weekend is here!
The weekend is here!
The guy who was going to buy my car wasted all his money on cheap whisky
and bar girls, now it burns when he pees!
The weekend is here!

I know it won't win any prizes,
but there's no dening it came from the heart.

P.S. Anybody want to buy a car?

I almost tapped out my boss's boss today...
He lost some paperwork I gave him and called me out at guardmount to make an example of me for losing it. That's not what set me off. It was a tough thing to do, but he's new to the section and I didn't want to make him look like an idiot in front of everyone so I told him I'd explain it after guardmount. When everything was over, I reminded him that the last time I saw the paperwork was right after I gave it to him to sign. He signed it and I watched him give it to our dispatcher to log. Do you know what his response was? To yell at me for not having made a copy! Still, I kept my cool and went to go look for this paperwork on our quarterdeck. It wasn't anywhere to be found, so I re-filled out the form and brought it back out for him to sign. After he signed it I was heading back to the quarterdeck to log it myself when that !@O*#U@*#!@!@#'N BASTARD was heard to say that I was "unsat and a dirtbag for having lost the paperwork in the first place and trying to cover it up." (You have to understand that in the Navy there's nothing more detrimental to your professional reputation than to be labeled an unsat dirtbag.)

I tell you the truth. When I heard what he was saying about me, it was just to much. MA1 or not he was, as we say in the Navy, "In for heavy rolls". Thankfully, my partner saw what was going on and immediately headed me off at the pass before I could do or say anything I would regret.

A few hours on post did wonders for me. I calmed down and was able to think about the situation from a rational point of view. The bottom line? What's in the past is in the past, but from now on I'm photocopying EVERYTHING.

Had an interesting day today. Well, ok, maybe not...
I spent a majority of it on watch contemplating the various activities of anyone within sight. I'm working days now which means less drunken brawls and more traffic accidents. Other than that it's pretty much SSDD. Dishwala is playing tonight, but I don't think I'll go. It's beginning to heat up and right now the A/C in my room is much to enticing.

It's the weekend today and I have most of the day off. I do need to go talk to my career counselor about my next duty station and also need to fit in some time at P.A.W.S. and a Bible study. For the next six or seven hours though I'm free, so I'm heading to Yakota with my boys for some fun in the sun.

That's right, no drunks, no rapes, no traffic accidents or injuries, no boats, no work no nuthin!!!
-so what the heck am I doing writing this?