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

What a great day!

Matty showed up at around 0600, and the front door was iced shut so he came in through the bottom only to find that it had been plasticked shut on the inside. Unfortunately, he didn't relaize this until too late and so just finished the job and came in to add to stockings and have a bit of cider. I went back to sleep around 0630 and didn't get back up until the sun had firmly risen.
We had Yulekaga and EggKaka and assorted other traditional foods for breakfast and then the arm wrestling began.
But that's another story for another post, suffice it to say the day was well spent and ranks among the best Christmases I've had in a long time.

It's so cold here.
19 below zero when I got home last night.
26 below this morning.

Samui Tamatama

Christmas leave is going great. It's only been one week, but I already feel like a new man and have more or less cleansed myself of the military mindset. It's so stinking cold here that I'd laugh about it if I weren't afraid of freezing my lungs. You think I'm kidding, it was -19 when I woke up this morning! But I digress.

Looks like Chad and I might be able to meet somewhere on Christmas Eve, so I'm pretty happy about that. I've never met his better half in person, but she's a journalist, and she's managed to put up with Chad now for a bit, so I'm sure she's a stand up gal.

Check out my new site Ask Ace which also appears as a link in my sidebar.
Go ahead, hit me with your best shot.
-Ace

So I made it to Minesoooota alive and man is it cold here.
I've been telling all my friends in Japan about how cold it gets here but found that I'd forgotten how truly cold it is. I'm here to tell you it only got down to -4 here this morning and I'm officially ready to not have it get any colder.

So i did it!
well, almost did it.
I completed my last post and have gone home for the day.
Now it's a three day weekend to pack and then I sign out and am off to the states!

In honor of that, here's a poem about life in Duluth and eating a little bad chinese up on seven bridges road.

Stopping on a Sunday night
for teriaki beef,
I'm reminded of when you and i
ate barefoot on the river rocks
while rushing water passed us by
with laughter.

I have decided that since I'll only be back in the states for two weeks, I don't think I'm going to fritter any of it away on the second floor of UTC; the first floor however is a different story as those fools were always pretty nice to me.

Have yet to hear back from my brother, who's car I may be using to get around, so there are no hard and fast dates yet as to when I'll be in the Brainerd area but right now it's looking like somewhere around the 17th. I'll shoot smartypants and that can-guy an email when I know for sure and maybe we can put out the word for lunch at that Chinese place... Hey Canman, are you still on speaking terms with any of the girlies from Marketing?

Chad, if I don't get my brothers car I probably can't make it all the way out to your new place but if you're going to be in Brainerd or D.L. or even the Fargo area just let me know when and I'll get there if it means hoping one of the coal cars...

Thanksgiving was pretty good to me this year.

I had to work from the butt-crack of dawn till it was dark again, but since everyone else who has a normal job over here had it off there was a lot of foot traffic coming through the gate and everybody was in a good mood and smiling.
Total strangers started bringing us food around noon or so, and plates just kept arriving up until I left for the day. There was so much food we didn't know what to do with it all. The Japanese Civilian Police who work with us couldn't believe that these same people who cuss us out one day were bringing us hot turkey, and ham, and Cajun chicken, and sweet potato pie, and corn, and stuffing, and salad, and curried chicken wings, and more stuffing, and some sort of cornbread-chili-pie-thingy that was actually quite tasty if I do say so myself, and rice, and beans, and more stuffing, and more turkey... but i digress.

So, to answer MadChatthew's question from the previous post, I did have a great Thanksgiving, but not because of the food, it was more the happy people that kept coming in and going out. Nobody has extended family over here, so around the holiday times everybody welcomes everybody, and total strangers will open their homes and invite you on over for a feast you didn't contribute to in any way.

Homework :/

Homework I loathe you for you make me think, you question and frustrate and move me to drink. Another large latte instead of the gym, my waist isn't shrinking but my pocketbook's thin. If you've ever had coffee on the town in Japan, you know what I mean how they long for your ¥en.

In the same way they long I too have a yen, for a night without homework and a day to sleep in. Yet instead of my homework my English, my Psych, I find myself waxing profusely tonight. Which isn't so bad except as I've said I have two assignments before I hit bed.

I found out today that I did extremely well on my advancement exam!
I still won't advance because I don't have enough time in rate and my command doesn't believe in giving out awards. The good news is that I get to take the exam again in March. The bad news is that I don't stand a chance of advancing then for the same reason I didn't this time. The testing cycle they have in place discourages rate specific knowledge in favor of sitting there like a lump until you've built up enough time in the navy to advance at the expense of someone who's test score doubled yours.

What can I say, tomorrow's another day.

I was bored the other day...

I found out today that I didn't make the advancement to MA2.

To be fair to myself, there were only 17 openings in the probably 500 people who took the exam. Still that's like 3.4% which means all I would have had to do is score in the top 96.6 percentile.

I have to say I'm not used to not succeeding, so for a few hours there I was really in a pretty bad mood. Then I talked with a friend who's missed making first class three times now, and they're percentile is a bit larger than 3.4%. The way he handled the news really put things into perspective for me and even though I'm now at a disadvantage for taking the test this spring, life goes on and I'll just have to study more this time than I did last time.

Just what I need, more homework...

My mind has turned to mush. I've been reading to much and not playing nearly enough Halo2 or Battlefront. My T.V. sits in the corner quietly giving me the evil eye of neglected solitude while I curl up with this blog and a copy of the sound and the fury, which reads like it was written by Benjy instead of about him; but which also, when compared to Steven Kings treatment of Duddits in the Dream Catcher, seems like he straight up kicked Faulkner in the literary nuts and stole the character of Benjy while he was writhing on the ground in agony.


But i digress...

The Homework Question...
5)We hypothesize that people in a good mood are more likely than those in a bad (or sad) mood to help another in need. Plan and design an experiment to test this hypothesis. Include enough detail to show you understand the essential steps for constructing an experiment. Be sure to identify the independent and the dependent variables. What extraneous factors do you need to control for?
_____________________________________________________

My answer....
Experiment Overview:
College Students in a 100 person lecture were asked if they would like to help a psychology professor by filling out an anonymous 20 question multiple choice survey dealing with their adjustment to college life. Those who agreed were randomly assigned to three groups.

Group A: Would be induced to a good mood with the promise of 25 dollars cash (they would see a stack of five dollar bills in the researchers hand) paid in full upon the completion of their survey. Additionally the researcher would have a second survey which he would claim was his own and explain that he was an undergraduate psychology student who would really appreciate some help with a study of his own. On a totally voluntary basis, if they would fill out the second survey upon turning in the first it would really help him out.

Group B: Would be induced to a bad mood with the promise of 25 dollars cash paid in full upon the completion of their survey. Additionally the researcher would have a second survey which he would claim was his own and explain that he was an undergraduate psychology student who would really appreciate some help with a study of his own. On a totally voluntary basis, if they would fill out the second survey upon turning in the first it would really help him out. As soon as they began the first survey, another researcher would enter the room, have a word or two privately with the first researcher, and then address the group claiming that due to overwhelming volunteer response, there was only enough money to pay two groups of volunteers, and their group had "picked the short straw, as it were."

Group C: Would have no mention made of the 25 dollars, however the researcher would have a second survey which he would claim was his own and explain that he was an undergraduate psychology student who would really appreciate some help with a study of his own. On a totally voluntary basis, if they would fill out the second survey upon turning in the first it would really help him out.

Independent Variable: Payment of the 25 dollar reward.
Dependent Variable: Helping the undergrad with the second survey.
Extraneous Variables: Time of Day, Location, amount of time between when they enter the room and when the survey is handed out. Gender and attire of the researcher administering the survey, Time of year, Questions on survey 1, Survey 1 and 2 need to both be 1 page. Layout of the room, adherence to script by the researchers.

What a day...
Military spouses really get to me some days.
We impounded a car last night and the drivers husband was a Chief.
He came down for an appology today and I had to sit there for an hour while myself, another patrolman and our Chief explained to him how his wife had broken a number of laws, became extremely irate when cited for it. He was pissed and wanted to file a complaint against one of the other MA's because of what had happened out there. In the end he ended up not filing a grievance, mostly because his wife kept telling him she didn't want that to happen. I think that she finally realized what would happen to her if her actions were to come out in any sort of formal inquiry. After all, if we were to have done things by the book, she should have been aprehended,searched and brought to the staion for simple assault on a police officer. The reason we didn't is basically that while it is within the boundaries of the law to apprehend someone for getting out of controll pissed-off over two traffic tickets to the point where they threaten their safety and ours, it's also a bit punative.

So I'm looking at my blog with a friend "Jon" who for the purposes of anonymity will otherwise known as C-Love. He doesn't understand the appeal of publishing a blog, so I figured I'd introduce him to it and thereby record our conversation for posterity.

Ace: C-Love, is there anything you'd like to tell the whole wide world?
C-Love: umm, hee hee hee, grin... no.