some things on my mind

Namely, the thing on my mind is that someone needs to combat the two-sentence, post-a-picture-of-every-meal-I-eat-and-every-small-child-I-know/fathered/mothered/saw-on-someone-else’s-facebook trend. The internet is for serious, insightful discourse, dammit. And videos of people getting hit in the nuts and/or falling down.

Seriously, I can’t get enough of that stuff.

So, what do you talk about when your (purported) audience is spending (according to unverifiable statistics, mostly from my head) 83% of their internet time looking at the things I mentioned above, and reading the occasional rant from someone getting angry about a dog pooping on their lawn, or some such nonsense?

As it is March, and the madness is upon us, let’s start with that. Irrespective of the success/failure of my bracket (failure), the NCAA tournament is a fascinating animal. Entirely unpredictable results on the court, painfully predictable commentary and insight off the court.

The biggest disappointment, I think, is the new, “serious analyst guy with highlighter at the ready” Charles Barkley. His analysis used to be shallow, simplistic, and sprinkled with misnomers and instances of derailed trains of thought that made it pretty funny. Now we just have to watch him struggling to think of something to say after Ernie Brown and Kenny Smith have covered the most obvious points.

Please, Dr. Brown and Dr. Smith, tell me again how a team down by 20 at half needs to shoot better in the second half to have a chance. Or how those guys from FGCU are playing basketball for the joy of it. Well, everyone is playing for joy when they’re winning. How many care-free alley-oop attempts were we treated to as Florida became the first team in the tournament to actually defend the Eagles in the second half? FGCU was successful because teams don’t work hard at defending, not because they are joyful offensive savants.

Finally, can we now officially agree that next year, when Gonzaga inevitably wins 28-30 games by beating up on my alma mater Santa Clara (CBI Finalist, yo!), LMU, and USF, they are NOT a #1 seed? If we keep making teams like that #1 seeds, a #16 seed will eventually win a game..

Oh, and one more thing. When you beat a team in the First Four, you have not won an NCAA Tournament Game. Congratulations on being the 67th team to get into a 64-team tournament, but please, let’s maintain some integrity here. If every team doesn’t have the opportunity to play in the First Round, then it’s not the first round. It’s a play-in round.

Thank you for your time.

Cheers.

Dostoevsky is pretty awesome

Yes, I know it’s a bit of an understatement, and I’m certainly not the first to appreciate his writing. But I’m currently reading The Idiot, and find a couple things about it very interesting, and even amazing.

1. The facility with which he slides between Russian and French, and the fact that high society in Russia during the time he was writing had that same capability. How many people do you know that can seamlessly incorporate relevant phrases in another language into their conversation, simply because another language helps them to more precisely express their thoughts? The whole concept of a privileged nobility gaining their position by heredity seems pretty silly to me, but these people were educated.

2. I was really struck by the poignant nature of Dostoevsky’s description of a man sentenced to death and granted a last-minute reprieve. I thought, “how could he dig so deeply into the emotions at play?” Then I read his biography, and discovered that he had lived that scenario before being exiled to Siberia in the 1850s. What a fascinating man. Everything he writes is based on not only careful observation, but intimate experience with the emotions and situations he describes. How lucky are we that he had these experiences, and was a brilliant writer on top of it all?

3. There are almost too many characters to keep track of in his novels, and yet each has a very specific purpose, and tells a unique and interesting story through their development throughout the novel. The intricacy of the interplay between his characters is nothing short of brilliant.

Knowing more about him, I now plan to read a detailed biography, and revisit his other works that I read, enjoying them now through a different lens. Can’t wait.

 

 

 

Re-releasing myself into the wild…

Ok, so “Old School” references are a bit out of date.

I’m still trying to organize my blog into something that may entertain me, but figured I should get something new in here as a start.

Random stuff that makes the world a better place:

This poor kitten was exploited just to make me laugh so hard I wet my pants...what a shame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Makes me want a kitten, though. That and the fact that there are few things more entertaining than sliding a cat across a hardwood floor. Before you get all excited – I’m pretty sure they enjoy it. Maybe.

And in the same vein:

He's so skeptical it hurts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I want him to be bitch-slapped by the kitten. Also, how do I know that Skeptical Dog is a guy? Not sure.

So that’s all for my re-entry into the blogoshpere. I will blow your minds with references to arcane literature and unpopular films at a later date.

B

last post

46 posts in 15 months – actually, that’s more than i thought i would have to say.  more accurately, it’s more than i thought i would have the attention span to get through.  almost 15 months since i first arrived at ft. riley in kansas for our three-month predeployment training.  i have a hard time believing that it’s almost over.  in about a week, i will be back in the US, and a couple of days after that, back in california, trying to figure out what just happened to me.  

this is good and bad (like everything else in life, i suppose).  good because, quite honestly, there are a lot of people here that i never want to see again.  bad because everyone i deployed with is a reservist, and we’re all heading back to civilian life.  the other two times i deployed, i returned to the active army, and continued working with most of the same people i had been deployed with.  there will be no-one to talk with about the deployment, the good and the awful alike.  all the relationships built over 15 months come to a screeching halt.  i’ll keep in touch with some people, but won’t ever be as close to them.  that’s somewhat sad.

to everyone who has read this blog, and given their support and sarcastic comments, i simply say thank you.  this blog hasn’t been consistent, rarely touched on what could be considered “serious” issues, and was mostly an outlet for me to bring some levity to a scary and dangerous place, but i hope it was amusing.  and i hope it gives folks back home some idea that being deployed is hard and painful, but that if you have good people on your right and left, like i did, you can get through just about anything.

so i will leave you with a final Top Ten list – the Top Ten things i learned in the last 15 months. 

10) the best leadership is sometimes just taking a minute to slap one of your soldiers on the back, and let them know that you know their first name, and something about them. 

9) it’s amazing how many senior officers and NCOs don’t know that.

8) not being able to shoot back sucks.

7) the reward for good work tends to just be more work.

6) the reward for bad work, laziness, and incompetence tends to be less work.  note to self…

5) anything is bearable if you have a good friend to talk to (and who seems to never stop talking to you).  thanks kevin.

4) when there aren’t rockets landing everywhere, baghdad has a couple of things going for it.

3) i believe we are making things better here, but some days i think we should all just leave, and let the chips fall where they may.

2) i couldn’t imagine another 3 months here.  huge respect to those soldiers who have climbed (or are climbing) that 15-month mountain.

and the number one thing i’ve learned in the last 15 months:

1) i have an amazing family, and amazing friends, and they never let me forget it.

so, a few pictures from the archive as i leave baghdad for the second time… 

pretending to be literate

never gets old…i miss 4th grade

the haircut was free…ok??

me and master guns…the image of professionalism

flipping off the camera never gets old, either

army weight control (gaining the baghdad 15)

the most deadly office weapon

one of 700 or so trips on the little purple bus…

for some reason, they decided i was interesting enough to take a picture of…

yes, that’s a picture of Mr. T on my computer…don’t ask

three bald men

 

cheers.

passing the time 1

first, to appease COL T.S., i meant no disrespect to the pet shop boys, as they are a staple of my music library as well.   

and now, the 11th commandment: as thou approacheth thy redeployment date, thou shalt get more ridiculous in thy amusements. 

this is an update for those of you who wonder how soldiers are keeping themselves entertained in baghdad.  areas already covered include “the countdown”, “the status of pants in iraq”, “throwing fruit against a T-wall “(this one never really took off, mostly due to the fact that it required walking outside, and we’re a lazy bunch…),

“crossword puzzles in full combat gear”

and the often-referenced ”cardboard tank”.

prepare yourselves for the latest installment, “naming footballs”.

naming footballs is the older of the two, and began about a month ago when we arrived at work one day and discovered that we had accumulated 10 or so footballs.  not that this happened overnight, but it only struck us that morning – everytime someone gets a football in the mail, they bring it over to us, to help our collection.  i think it’s actually like an offering, to appease kevin and me, so we don’t pelt them with a football the next time they walk through the “shooting gallery” (also known as the open area in front of our cubicle horseshoe). 

anyway, the net result (is that redundant?) is that we have 10-12 footballs now, of varying shapes, sizes, weights, and, by extension, with varying potential to cause damage and/or injury. 

 a pile of footballs begging to be thrown at someone…

each football has really developed its own personality, and given the diverse characteristics represented in the group, we felt is was important to give each a name.  that way, when i want the skinny white football, i tell kevin, “toss me calista flockhart” and there is no confusion. 

so, without further ado, here is our list:

 Evander.  this football is the real deal.

 Orange Crush (appropriately, this football has the most potential to injure unsuspecting passers-by).  broncos colors, and homage to our #77, which began our daily countdown, Karl Mecklenburg.

 Coco.  wife of rapper/actor Ice-T (anybody watched Law&Order lately?).  heavy on the top and the bottom…

 Corey Hart.  glow-in-the-dark football, and bright enough to make us wear “sunglasses at night”.

 H2 – the bald football (in honor of MG Hunzeker, the former Commander of CPATT)

the resemblance is uncanny…(he’s the one on the right, asking me if you can really make a living coaching soccer)

 Doug Flutie.  not the biggest football, but still useful, when you want to annoy, but not injure. 

 Hector.  a little knowledge of classical literature is required – the football is wrapped in plastic, making it trojan-like (i apologize for the PG-13 rating of this picture), and the most famous trojan from the Iliad is…you guessed it!

so, for those of you wondering where your tax dollars are going as the cost of this war continues to skyrocket, rest assured that we are making good use of our time.  actually, given the exceeding nimbleness of the one brain we all share in our section, the subtle and witty naming of all the footballs took only a few minutes, and i promise we were working hard on acquiring pants for all Iraqi Police at the same time. 

  here’s the story, of a ball named Corey…it was a very Brady day in CPATT.

one of my first posts after arriving in Iraq ended with “3 weeks down, 49 to go”.  well, we’ve come full circle – 49 weeks down, 3 to go.

and just for the heck of it…

 me and kevin getting the shaved head look

cheers.

i am ashamed…

…that i accidentally posted a picture of Clyde Drexler yesterday, when i meant to honor Buck Williams, his (slightly less) famous teammate…

so thanks to the walking/lumbering encyclopedia of arcane and useless sports information – also known as my roommate, kevin – i can now correct this error. 

it’s time for you to come out from Clyde’s shadow, Buck…although those glowing white spandex would be visible in or out of shadow…

and to my former roommates in georgia, DD1 and DD2 (troy and alex), i’m more than a little disappointed that all those weekends spent watching sports and hearing you two argue back and forth about which backup center for the arizona cardinals had a better college career have yielded NO suggestions for the countdown.  it’s truly a sad day when troy and alex have forgotten who played shooting guard for the 1988 denver nuggets, and where he went to college, and what he majored in, and who he was traded for in a three-team deal in 1991…(all events described in that last sentence are fictional, any resemblance to actual players and/or trades that troy and alex argued about while playing John Madden Football on hung-over saturday mornings is purely coincidental, or the product of the amount of random sports knowledge that has been stuffed between my ears, to the exclusion of important and worthwhile information, after living with DD1 and DD2).

bandidas

tonight’s channel 12 offering is “Bandidas”, starring penelope cruz and salma hayek. 

and co-starring their corsets and tight pants.  because if i can say nothing else about this movie, it is historically accurate, and comes complete with training-to-be-bank-robbers montage, a scene where they practice their kissing on steve zahn, and dwight yoakam as the sage who trains the two in bank robbing.  i would write more about it, but i’m completely engrossed in the heartfelt we-used-to-hate-each-other-but-now-we’ve-come-to-respect-each-other scene between cruz and hayek.  seriously, i’m tearing up.

and i apologize for my reckless over-hyphenation in the last paragraph…and i promise to be more careful in the not-too-distant-future.  damn. 

but seriously, how many of you didn’t see that coming?

in baghdad news, our replacements are starting to roll in, and drinking from the fire hose.  it is an interesting crew, and makes me wonder how we looked to the group that we replaced.  we showed up with a bunch of Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) Captains, many of whom had been out of the army for (what i thought was) a long time, maybe 3,4,5 years or so.  Enter the newest group of IRR officers, Majors this time, who have been out of the army, on average, 14-16 years, having left the army in 1992 or so.

i’m sure they’ll be able to help the team, but how deep are we digging when the folks we’re bringing in haven’t put on an army uniform since the Minnesota Twins won the world series?   

i guess this is as good a time as any to admit that i am a Twins fan, although when Dan Gladden’s mullet left, and took Dan Gladden with it, the magic went out of the team for me.  Steve Lombardozzi, anyone?  Dad?

so anyways, we’ll see how it goes with the new crew, and it’s hard for me not to selfishly be happy for their arrival, because it portends my departure.  portend might have a darker connotation than i was shooting for, given that i’ve been looking forward to leaving since i got here, bt i’ll allow it, because it’s my blog, and it gave me the opportunity to write this (i think) witty sentence).

i have to end with a caveat, about our countdown to leaving…as we will not know exactly when we’re leaving, and couldn’t share that information even if we had it, our countdown is more of a ballpark figure than an exact number to calculate our date of departure. (plus, even if we had a date, the odds of us doing the math properly in our over-caffeinated and over-power-pointed state is dubious).  so those of you planning to fly out and meet me when i land, to express your appreciation for my repeated attempts to amuse myself in a public forum, may have to revise your plans…

having said that, today is 52 – Buck Williams of the Portland Trail Blazers (from the eary 90′s).

cheers.