HOKIE.US

23 March 2006 2251 EST
23 March 2006 2251 EST So I sacrificed the first half of the Duke/LSU game to head into DC to attend a smelly lecture at the Carnegie Institute with Jane. It was so worth it. It was about an hour-long lecture about the olfactory sense given by Dr. Richard Axel, half of the 2004 Nobel Prize winning team in Physiology or Medicine. It was an awesome lecture, with my little personal highlight being the question and answer period at the end when they gave three people the opportunity to ask questions. I actually jumped over the row of seats in front of me to get to the microphone (what a nerd). I'm usually afraid to ask questions in front of the 1000+ scientifically inclined crowd that usually shows up at these things, but it isn't every day that you get to pose a question to a Nobel Prize winning scientist. It's akin to tossing a pitch to Mark McGwire during batting practice before an exhibition game...or something like that. I mean, in the whole scheme of things, it means absolutely nothing, but it felt good to ask a somewhat intelligent question in front of a crowd like that. At least I thought it was somewhat intelligent...you know, for a non-PhD layman like myself.

After the lecture, I drove Jane home and hung out there for a little while to watch LSU upset Duke while eating some pizza from Papa John's. I haven't had non-school pizza in a little while, so that was a nice change of pace. Now I'm just at home watching the WVU game and wishing that they were showing Gonzaga instead. Oh well. I got the Gorillaz album in the mail today, so that's what I'm listening to for the next few days. Tomorrow is dress up in GMU gear at school day tomorrow for all of the cool teachers...and that pretty much covers all of the random things going on. I'll write something coherent tomorrow, okay?

23 March 2006 0031 EST
23 March 2006 0031 EST I told myself I would go to sleep earlier today, but my three hour nap this afternoon kinda shifted my schedule back a little. That's cool though. I'll be in bed soon, once I finish writing this quiz for my class. I just made plans to go to the Carngie Instittute with Jane tomorrow to watch a lecture about smell titled Scents and Sensibility. That'll be fun. It's 6:45 tomorrow evening if anyone else wants to join us.

Only other things on the horizon are the basketball tourney beginning next weekend for us as well as poker night on April 1st for the teacher union. I'm also thinking about getting tickets for Tuesday May 16th, when Stroke 9 returns to the east coast, playing Jaxx in Springfield. Tickets are just $15 or so. Anyone want to come with?

22 March 2006 0018 EST
22 March 2006 0018 EST It was another good day today. I just got home from playing basketball at the field house for the last two and a half hours. Among the highlights was watching the 400+ people lined up around the field house waiting for tickets that will go on sale at 10:00 tomorrow morning. That seems kinda crazy, but get this. For $130, they get tickets to all three games at the Verizon Center this weekend. Pretty wild, huh? I even recognized one of my old students in line. He was in my first class from 5 years ago, and I recognized him. Pretty good memory, huh? The first time I walked by him, I just kinda stared. That was probably creepy. But on my second pass, I yelled out his last name. I wasn't sure of his first because I knew I had his younger brother in my class too, and I forgot which was which. We talked for about fifteen minutes as I took a break in between games, and he seems to be doing well. He graduates from college this semester.

Other than that, it was a typical Tuesday. I had class at Mason and ate dinner at the parents'. Even better, it was snowing when I left. It doesn't look like there'll be any accumulation by morning though. Oh well. At least it's pretty.

Other highlights include:
- Dreaming awesome dreams this morning
- Forgetting my cell phone at home for the day (this is the most frustrating thing in the world...even though no one called me)
- Losing weight - even though I'm trying to gain weight. I think the hours of cardio playing basketball is hurting me,. I'll work on that.

20 March 2006 2351 EST
20 March 2006 2351 EST Alright, so I need to hurry up and get this blogging done so that I can do my homework and finally go to sleep. It's already late, but I've had such a god-awesome day, I have to share. It's been great from start to finish, beginning with last night's sleep. I got maybe five hours, about average, but I just woke up great. I remember the dream that I had before I woke up. We ended up getting deployed again for some reason, and I was already at the mob station. For some reason, I called Mrs. Hemm to tell her about it. I don't know why I ended up calling her, but it was a dream, alright? Anyway, stuff happened, stuff happened...and this isn't nearly as good of a dream when I try to explain it. Just trust me on this.

Alright, so I ended up setting my alarm clock about twenty minutes early since it was a Monday and I desperately needed to get gas before my drive in to school. So I finished my morning routine about fifteen minutes early and I was out the door. I stopped at the Sunoco right by my house. I'd passed up on getting gas the last two days since the price had gone up so quickly in the last week...to $2.41 and then $2.47. I was hoping that it would go down by this morning. When I pulled up, it was $2.49. Zut alors! Oh well. I had to get it. Anyway, it didn't seem that cold outside, but as I was washing my windshield with the little squeegee thing, I noticed that it was sticking to my windshield and it didn't look like it was getting any cleaner. It ends up that it was actually freezing and I ended up with a layer of slush on my windshield, most of which I got off before heading back down the road.

I know, it doesn't sound so much like a great day yet, but wait. And no, I didn't get lucky and I didn't win the lottery. But I'd say it was still a good 9 out of 10 kinda day. School was about average. I think the kids learned something, so that's always a bonus. But after school, I had a quick parent-teacher conference before heading over to the parents' to welcome my dad home from his month-long trip to China. He brought back a lot of cool stuff - nothing for me, but that's cool. I didn't ask him for anything. Oh, wait...he gave me some tea...and a tea ball. He also got a set of hand-made plates that he was gonna share with the family...like he would split the set up so that everyone in the family would have one. I thought that was a neat idea.

Anyway, I took a nap there before dinner and then we chatted for a bit before Jane and Ian showed up. This was the cool part. I don't know how the conversation started exactly, but I started asking them questions about our family and how we came to live in this country. It's never been anything I've been all that curious about, but today was different. I was fascinated when I heard about the things that my grandfather went through, along with what a lot of other Chinese families had to go through. There was a little bit of scandal and fraud and shame thrown in, but it all worked out in the end. It was all pretty amazing. I'd never really thought about how remarkable my ancestors were. They were always just faces in photographs that we prayed to when we were little. We never really learned much about them beyond that.

That was awesome though. Jane and Ian stopped by after that. She tried on this really fancy dress that my dad brought back for her, and she looked very Chinesy, like a little Mulan doll was how I described it to her. After that, Ian made a very interesting comment about tempurpedic beds and then I left to play some basketball...which is the reason why I ended up coming home so late.

It was nearly 8:00 when I started and I stayed there at the Mason fieldhouse until almost 11:00 playing...I guess I was just caught up in the whole March Madness and needed to get it out of my system. Anyway, I shot around for what had to be about 30 minutes before I got into a game, but it was cool after that. The best part about pick-up is when you match up against a new group of people. Your past is your past and they have no idea how good you are. So when you just happen to have a hot hand one day, they go away thinking that you are just the best player ever. That was me today. I didn't shoot that much, but I was maybe 13 for 15 and I had some money assists. Yes, I just used money as an adjective. What?!

Last thing...happy birthday, Craig!

19 March 2006 2230 EST
19 March 2006 2230 EST Hey, I admit it. Sometimes, I like to be really immature...especially when I'm out with the guys. So yesterday night, when I met up with Ben and Thuy at Glory Days to watch the basketball games, I got kinda loud. No alcohol needed. It was all from a natural high. But we stayed there for a while and a bunch of people came in and out, including some people who looked kinda high-school-aged. Note that we were on the fringes of Reston and, thus, very close to where students from my school would hang out. I didn't really give it much thought and continued being loud and yelling at the players and whatnot. I mean, it's a sports bar after all. But as a group of another five or six high-school-aged girls came up to the table next to us, my heart just kinda skipped a beat. "Oh no," I thought to myself as I felt a need to censor myself a little now that I knew I was in the company of some seahawks...which doesn't mean much. I just brought the volume down and stopped with the bad momma jokes. It's funny how I felt the need to do that all of a sudden, just because I saw a student there. Oh well.

Today, I just kinda watched the games from home, including the awesome GMU upset of UNC this afternoon. That was sooo good. We followed it up with an all-out karaoke jam that lasted about three or four hours. It was just Thuy, Ben, and me, but we had fun. Joe showed up at home around the last hour or so, but he didn't join in. I wonder what he thought when he heard the Kelly Clarkson being belted out downstairs. Actually, I can pretty much figure out what he thought. He was thinking, "those guys are soo good. The only reason I don't want to join them is because I would be embarrassed..." or something like that. I don't know. It's not like I can read minds.

Oh, I almost forgot. Below is my new favorite PostSecret entry. It's little stuff like this that makes me feel confident about good triumphing over evil.

18 March 2006 1652 EST
18 March 2006 1652 EST I woke up early this morning to head over to Robinson for the regional science fair. I put up a couple of banners and then spent the rest of my time in a little room working on the awards folders. There were more than 600 of them. I put little labels on them all before stuffing them with certificates and paper. Fun, huh? It was actually pretty cool. I worked with two other teachers on this and wrapped up with a female computer scientist when the first two left. I guess it was fun for me because I always see little menial tasks like these as a competition. You have to put little labels on folders? Who can do it fastest? You have to put paper in folders? Who can do it faster? You have to alphabetize things? Who can do it faster? Hehe...I guess that might not seem so exciting for your average person, but it helps to pass the time, you know?

Anyway, as I was looking through the folders, I ran across a very familiar name. It happened to be one of my old students from Mount Vernon. I'd forgotten that I'd taught sophomores my last year there, so there are actually a few of my students around. I'd just kinda assumed that they were all in college already. But yeah, that was cool. I ended up stopping by her project to chat with her for a little bit. I remembered her project from two years ago. She was looking at the difference between stability in tricycles and bicycles. At what turning angle/speed would a tricycle tip over? It was one of the few physics-related projects that my students tried, so I was happy with that. This year, her project was more biology-related. She was studying communion chalices and the likelihood of catching something from church. She just tried various bacteria and looked at how they grew over time, as well as what would be needed to reduce the growth. Basically, a simple wiping of the cup with a cloth would be enough to stop a majority of the spreading. Interesting stuff.

I caught up with Jane around the end of the whole thing and then we all met up at the parents' afterwards. All of my siblings were there, so that was pretty cool. After lunch, though, I just passed out on the sofa with the Duke/GW game on. Now I'm all rested up for tonight. I just need to find something to do.

17 March 2006 2248 EST
17 March 2006 2248 EST So I forgot to wear green today. I didn't even get to first period before one of my students pinched me on my arm to remind me. As a result, I dug through my front shirt pocket to fish out one of my green-colored star stickers to stick on my forehead for the rest of the day. Genius...pure genius.

Oh well...I have to get up early tomorrow to get over to Robinson for the Regional science fair. I should leave the house around 6:15 or so to make it over there by 6:30. What's cool is that Jane'll be there too. She got invited through work or something, I think. She's like a real science professional or something. I'm just manual labor, I think. That's cool though. I'd rather not have to do any thinking tomorrow. When that wraps up, though, we'll all gather at the parents' for lunch. Yenny'll be there too, so that's neat. I'll probably change there and/or nap before heading over to the field house to play some basketball. I'm kind of inspired by all of this March Madness stuff going on, especially with GMU winning over Michigan State tonight. Plus, I should be practicing to get ready for our tourney in two weeks.

Alright...this entry is kinda bland, so I'll throw in some teacher moments for the day. Kids love living through their teachers, even more so than teachers living through their students. For example, my kids must want me to be a player because every time I end up with stuff written on my hand, they get all giddy and ask me whose digits I got. It was even funnier yesterday because I actually had a phone number written on my hand, along with the time, 6:30. I mean, I would almost come to the same conclusion if I didn't know me better. The number ended up being for one of my students who's shown up almost an hour tardy for the last three days of school. I got the number so I could provide an additional wake-up call at 6:30. Silly kids.

16 March 2006 2000 EST
16 March 2006 2000 EST I guess I started looking because I was watching the GW/UNC-Wilmington game. I remembered a bunch of guys who'd gone out to Wilmington to look at real estate while we were demobing at Fort Bragg, and there were so many homes in the 100Ks. So I started looking online at some waterfront property. In the Wilmington area, there was quite a lot of good stuff under 300K, but anything on the beach was about 900K+. It's funny. As I started looking at more and more houses, it didn't seem like that much money any more. I mean, it's not like I have that kind of money in the bank or that I have a job that would take fewer than 20 years to save up for something like that. But at the same time, it didn't seem like something that was so much out of reach. Call me silly. Maybe I'm inspired by the fact that the Senate approved increasing the national debt limit to $9 trillion. I mean, if they can borrow $9 trillion, what's $900K, right?

Anyway, wasting way too much time watching NCAA basketball today, but it's fun. I kinda went on a limb and took Gonzaga to win the whole thing, so I had a little bit of a scare when Gonzaga decided to give Xavier the lead for the first 30-some-odd minutes of the game. With all this basketball, Joe and I have been talking more than usual. That's cool. He took the mail in today too, and in it was a package of stuff I got off of eBay. It was just two CDs, the first being Stroke 9's album from two years ago, All In. The second was a compilation of music by various hollywood stars, including Dogstar (Keanu), Russell Crowe, Brad Pitt (he's so dreamy), Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Juliette Lewis, Billy Bob Thornton, Bijou Phillips, and a collaboration between Iggy Pop and Johnny Depp. Pretty fancy, huh? I think I'll save that for this weekend.

Oh well. I've got about twenty minutes before the good games start up again, and I need to hit the ATM before tomorrow. I spent my last dollar at lunch today and was left with ten Euro in my wallet because I gave Lenny about $150 in cash to pay the tow truck guy earlier this week. It's alright though. I'll just withdraw a few hundred bucks from my bank account. I'm rich.

15 March 2006 2336 EST
15 March 2006 2336 EST I ended up wasting a little bit of time today watching various tv shows...some crappy, some not-so-crappy. I need to stop watching tv again - that's what I realized. I could be getting so much more work done and so much more sleep if I skipped the tv. I'd get even more done without the internet, but that's a fight for another day.

I turned in some paperwork at school today. It was a form for some more free money...yes! Yeah, they have a tuition reimbursement program that'll pay for three credits, so that's almost $900 for me. By the end of the month, I need to submit another form to take next year off from teaching. I was talking to another teacher about that after school today. I told him I was about 60/40 on my decision to take next year off right now. But now that I'm sitting at home thinking about it, I'm moving closer to 80/20 now, and I think I'm psyching myself up a little more every day. I do need to talk to my college advisor, though, before I get too far...just to make sure that I can get everything done. I've been putting that off for a few weeks now...mainly because I don't know who my advisor is. Oops!

Other than that, I spent this afternoon cleaning up a little bit and waiting for prospective new roommate to show up for a walk-through. He was a no-show though. Oh well. There were a couple more people who e-mailed me about the place, so we'll see how that pans out. I'll just keep lifting and eating my tofu and Campbell's until then.

15 March 2006 0037 EST
15 March 2006 0037 EST Okay, I can barely keep my eyes open, so this will be a quick update before going to bed. The plan for today was simple. Finish up at school, head over to parents' for dinner, maybe take a nap, play some basketball over at the field house, come home to finish lifting, and then waste some time online before going to sleep. That was the plan. Oh, and I was supposed to catch the lunar eclipse. Well, sometime around 2:15 this afternoon, that plan pretty much crumbled. There was a faculty meeting that delayed my arrival at the parents'. Then, in the middle of my nap and before dinner, I find out that my brother got into a car accident (he's okay). So we leave the house to hang out with him for a little bit to wait for the police and the tow truck. We haul it back to good ole Santa Clara before grabbing dinner-to-go before driving Lenny and Steph back home. I eat the rest of my meal there before getting a call from Ben to go hang out with him. We actually ended up going in to Georgetown to grab dinner with two cute female friends of his. Yeah, so that wasn't really a bad diversion from the original plan. Unfortunately, it's a school night and I didn't make it home until just now, a little past midnight.

So I made it home safely, but I'm too tired to do any work. I'll grab some sleep and finish up what I need to do in the morning.

13 March 2006 2338 EST
13 March 2006 2338 EST We were supposed to submit a form at school today. It's kind of a multiple choice letter of intent thing for teachers. Do we expect to teach next year? If so, do we want to stay or switch schools, etc. It does seem kind of early for that, but I went ahead and told my department chair about what I'd been discussing with my family. I really think I'm gonna take next year off to become a full-time student for a year and wrap up my graduate degree. Then, as I was justifying it to myself, I started thinking more about ranger school. If I take next year off, the spring 2007 semester will end in May, just in time for me to squeeze in ranger school right before the start of the next school year. That'd give me a whole year to train and work on my sleep deprivation in preparation. So yeah, what do you think about that plan? The only tough part about that would be raising enough money to make ends meet. I'm starting to interview for a second roommate though. That'd help out a lot.

Other than that, my pictures were finally ready for pick-up today. I'd stopped by Wal-Mart twice this weekend, but they kept on telling me to come back. That was upsetting, but I was happy to see my pictures at least. I'd forgotten about my platoon photo that we took during our cookout back at Bragg. That's definitely one of my favorites. The ones on the plane didn't turn out as well, but oh well. Enjoy.

12 March 2006 0928 EST
12 March 2006 0928 EST My abs are killing me right now. I'm not sure if it was the 400 sit-ups I did yesterday or the fact that I fell asleep with the tv on. You see, two different infomercials came on for abdominal exercise machines and I found myself dreaming about working out and doing even more ab stuff last night. Honestly, I don't know why I decided to rack out in from of the tv. At around 0500h, I got up and went upstairs to my bed to sleep off the rest of my morning. I got in about seven hours total last night...not bad for a weekend. The day before, I got in maybe ten if you count my late morning nap.

I didn't really accomplish much of anything yesterday other than a heavy workout in the morning. I got my oil changed in my car in the afternoon before heading over to Jane's for Ian's birthday party. That was cool. I stayed there for about five hours or so. I ate sooo much. Jane likes to have lots of good finger food whenever she has one of those little get-togethers. She's getting pretty good at the whole hostess (with the accent on the second syllable) thing. Anyway, Yenny and her roommates ended up showing up. That was cool. I feel bad because they live like two blocks away and I almost never see them. I think I run into Yenny more often at Jane's place than anywhere else...maybe the parents'. But yeah, I spent most of the evening chatting with them and other TJ/Tech people. All of Ian's new workmates kinda sat around a table and talked together. I didn't really talk to them much except for the beginning of the party when no one else was around. They seemed cool and all, but they seemed kinda fancy for me. I didn't want to butt into their sophisticated married people conversations and stuff. I'd rather talk about nerd stuff and competitive eating and stuff like that.

Anyway, I'm really excited about getting my pictures back today. To keep myself occupied until then, I'm working out and doing laundry while I watch a couple of political tv shows, Chris Matthews, Meet the Press, and the McLaughlin Group. Bye bye!

11 March 2006 1016 EST
11 March 2006 1016 EST I spent this morning working out while watching a True Life episode about competitive eating. It was just inspiring watching Takeru Kobayashi train. The episode itself followed three different competitive eaters. One was just starting, one was the rookie of the year, and the last was the champ. I'm just gonna talk about Kobayashi though. The guy is amazing. He's 27 and is in monster shape. The whole atmosphere is different in Japan, though, which helps him out a lot. For example, he walked into this restaurant that he'd never been in before. But the chef recognized him as the eating champ, so he just made sooo much food from him. In total, he prepared 22 pounds of food, including a 2 foot high bowl of shaved ice that he told Kobayashi was mango flavored. It was really chili flavored though. There was an eight pound bowl of pasta along with a couple of other bowls of various Japanese food things. And there was an awesome quote from the show when he talked about fighting the urge to throw up after a meal like this. "When you reach a certain stage, it's your body's natural reaction as a human being to throw up. But if you throw up each time you get to that stage, instead of getting stronger, you would get accustomed to throwing up. My mental threshold is set really high...It's possible to die from eating. But I think to be professional means you don't die."

Seriously, this man is a monster. He knows everything about his body and everything he puts into it. He had tracked all of his split times for each hot dog he ate for the past few years of hot dog eating contests at the Coney Island competition, the Super Bowl of eating competitions. But yeah, he was looking at all of his split times to see when he was slowing down and speeding up in order to improve his technique.

Oh well. I'm almost done with my workout now and I'm just watching all of these other True Life episodes that I recorded by accident. I think I'll be ready for my Saturday nap soon.

10 March 2006 2311 EST
10 March 2006 2311 EST So I didn't realize that it'd been three weeks since I'd last played basketball, but I sure played like it. I think I shot 2 for 8 from the floor today in another disappointing loss. We were in it for most of the first half, but we gave up a big run and didn't recover after that. My assist-to-turnover ratio is improving, but that's about it. The tournament will start up in a few weeks. In the meantime, I'll be splitting my training time between my basketball and my boxing, I think.

Earlier this afternoon, I stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up my pictures. Unfortunately, they weren't done developing yet. They said to come back on Sunday. Can you believe that? That was so upsetting that I had to buy myself a new karaoke disc to make myself feel better. I stopped by Trader Joe's on my way home too. There were a few things I wanted to try out, so I spent a few bucks over there. After shelling out over a hundred bucks to take my Praxis test, though, that doesn't leave me much more wiggle room before my billing cycle ends in two weeks. Oh well...so I tip over $500 this month. I'll make up for it.

Right now, I have absolutely no plans for the weekend. I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to keep it that way.

09 March 2006 2351 EST
09 March 2006 2351 EST I was upstairs watching the Tech/UVa game on the big screen this evening and I really didn't have much else to do. On my coffee table, though, was the photo box that I bought at Target a few weeks ago. It was still empty, so I pulled together all of my pictures from around the house during the commercial break to sort during the game. Anyway, after going through my half dozen or so rolls of processed film, I found maybe a dozen pictures that I liked enough to stick in the box. The rest I stuck back in my closet. It's not like I didn't know it before, but I need to take more pictures. It was then that I remembered that I still had a roll of film that I hadn't processed. It has a bunch of pictures from the flight home from Afghanistan and it's been sitting in my bedroom for maybe six months now. Anyway, knowing that it would sit there for another six months if I didn't do anything about it tonight, I ended up taking a late night trip to Wal-Mart to drop it off. I can't wait to get it back tomorrow. I would have done the one hour thing, but they were closed for the night...and it would've cost a whole dollar more! Oh, and thanks to the Nguyens. I think you guys were the ones who sent me the camera in a care package. 08 March 2006 2227 EST
08 March 2006 2227 EST I was chatting with Pepe today and we were talking about random stuff. I invited him to come out to Hooters with us tonight for trivia, but he was just gonna rack out, I think. Anyway, we were talking and the topic of health food came up. I said that it takes a real man to order a salad at Hooters. I stand by that. So when I joined up with Dave and Ben and Frank tonight, I made sure I ordered a salad. Of course, I squeezed in about 25 wings as well. But I made sure I ordered a salad. I'm eating so healthily these days...hehe. Actually, I made sure I had a pretty good workout before dinner so that I wouldn't feel guilty. I did like six sets on my roman chair before knocking out 51 pull-ups and throwing 800 punches with my hand weights. I don't know if that makes up for two dozen chicken wings, but oh well.

I guess Dave is working on his diet thing these days. He said he lost twelve pounds already. That's cool. Thuy got himself a personal trainer too, though I still don't think he's working out more than once or twice a week with that work schedule of his at Booz right now. Me, I slacked off last week and took two days off, but I'm getting in some lifting at least five days a week right now. I'm not so much gaining or losing weight per se, but I think I'm looking better. I just need to find more excuses to take my clothes off now in order to show it off. I mean, when you sit in front of your computer all day, people don't really notice when you're getting all buff. I mean, short of taking pictures and posting them up on mySpace...yeah, not gonna happen. I guess that's the one thing about the pool and the beach. That's like the commonly accepted place where guys and girls are supposed to show off their bodies, right? I don't know. Can you think of anywhere else? Oh, the cafeteria ladies made a nice comment about my physique the other day. That was flattering...hehe. Oh wow is this post pathetic today. It's too much work to delete the last paragraph though. I'll just move on.

Trivia night was disappointing tonight...mainly because we didn't win. We didn't even come close today. But on the bright side, Joe's car wasn't in his spot when I came home, so I kicked on the karaoke machine and rocked out to Neil Diamond (ahem...and Kelly Clarkson). There's still a lot to look forward to this week though. Tomorrow afternoon will be dedicated to napping and Friday is basketball. What more can you ask for?

07 March 2006 2250 EST
07 March 2006 2250 EST I don't really have much to say, but I was watching my DVRed SNL from this weekend and I was laughing my butt off at this video of Natalie Portman. It was hilarious...the funniest SNL I've seen in years. Oh yeah, I watched Joey today too and last week's episode of the Office...all of this after class at Mason today and stopping off at the parents' for dinner with Grandma. I really have nothing though. Upcoming highlights for this week include trivia night at Hooters with the guys tomorrow and basketball on Friday night. 06 March 2006 2203 EST
06 March 2006 2203 EST One of the things I pride myself on (besides being one of the most awesome snow shovelers in the history of man) is the fact that I can carry a lot of groceries at one time. Even if it is just for the thirty seconds to get from my car to the kitchen, I hate (and I do mean hate) taking a second trip to the car. So today, when I thought about what I needed to carry with my one had so that I could unlock the door with my right hand without putting anything down, a little bit of concern could be seen moving across my face. It only lasted for a second though. After that, I placed bag after bag (a total of ten) in my left hand before waddling slowly to my front door. I think that's a record. Here's a rundown of the shopping list for the night - it was just over 80 bucks, so I'm gonna have to tighten up the next few weeks if I want to pull another sub-$500 month.

Stuff for school: lotion + 2x boxes of band-aids
Cereal: 2x boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats (strawberry), 2x 16ct Pop Tarts and 3x boxes of Vanilla Yogurt Life - That all but replenishes my cereal bar with almost twenty boxes now
Personal Hygeine: 2x 4-pk Schick Extreme 3 razors (that's right, baby! Three blades!! I was so excited to see that someone was still carrying these, that I bought the last two off the shelf), Neutrogena shave cream, listerine, and blistex
Tea Bags: 100x Orange and Black tea, 20x French Vanilla, 20x Raspberry
MEAT!: 4lbs ground turkey, 3.5lbs chicken strips
Misc Foodstuffs: 8x cans of Campbell's Select soup, 1-lb shredded cheese (for lasagna), 2x packages of Golden Oreos (Mmmm...), 2x packages of Snyder's pretzel pieces, and Bertolli's chicken vodka stir fry dinner for two

Can you believe I carried all of that with my left arm? That was practically a full shopping cart full of stuff. I am such a manly man.

Speaking of manly man, I am drinking some tea and watching #1 Single while I'm typing this. It's funny because she's going out with this young guy (30) and they're going shopping together. He just bought her almost $300 worth of stuff and then he carried all of the bags in the end...there were like six of them and they were pretty big. That was manly, but it's kinda sad that he paid for all of that stuff for her. I think this is a re-run though, and she's going to end up paying him back for it in the end.

No more talking about TV though. I woke up from my nap this afternoon when I got a call from my brother and an hour or so later when I got a call from my grandmother. They were all at the parents wanting me to come over for dinner, so I rushed over there just a little before 7:00. Dinner was cool and I clipped some coupons before sitting around with the family watching Jeopardy! That was really cool. It was like a flashback of the old days, though there were a lot of people missing from the picture. Lenny and I talked a lot about teaching though. He and I are so similar in our styles, it's funny. We also talked about our plans for next year...him more about where he's living and me more about whether or not I will be teaching. After talking to him and my dad (on the phone in China), I have almost decided to take next year off from teaching while I go to school full-time to complete my masters. What do you think? I just need to work out the numbers to make sure that I can keep up with my finances.

05 March 2006 2042 EST
05 March 2006 2042 EST And 48 internetless hours later, I'm back. I've been starving all weekend, for sleep and for food, but boy did I have a great time. I mean, I'm still a bit of a pogue and I did a heckuva lot of paperwork this weekend, but I still got a chance to get out and do a little walking in the freezing cold. I got to see a whole bunch of guys I haven't seen in a long time too...from each of the companies as well as my old platoon. But yeah, to get a good indication of what a pogue I've become, I did the road march with my company, but I didn't draw an M-16 this weekend. I knew that I wouldn't have an opportunity to fire it and carrying it around just meant that I would have to spend an hour cleaning it for no particular reason. So instead, I marched around with about 50-60 pounds on my back and my clipboard in my hand. That's right. Everyone had an M-16 or a SAW and I had my clipboard with my paperwork, stapler, post-it notes, and two pens tucked safely inside. After all, the penis mightier, isn't it?

Honestly, it wasn't that bad. I got a lot of paperwork and counseling done, but I did get to spend a number of hours in the field catching up on a lot of the real infantry stuff I missed out on in my last few years in HHC. I'm starting to pick up rank, though, you know? And it's only a matter of time before I become a full-time desk jockey. I need to soak in as much field time now while I have the chance. What's funny is that a number of people mentioned their family members reading my blog. That was kinda cool. I'm glad that some of my fans have stuck around to read about my regular life.

Some highlights of the weekend though...number one was being able to sleep on the bus. Back when I was in HHC, we would have to convoy about three hours down to AP Hill. And when you're driving a truck, you're not supposed to sleep. But now that I'm back in the line, I got to take advantage of the hour and a half trip downrange. Granted, my first night ended at 0200h in the morning and resumed at 0500h. But I got a chance to catch up on Saturday night, when lights out was at 2300h and first call wasn't until 0530h. I don't think I would have gotten that much sleep if I were at home this weekend. Some other highlights included walking around to all of the training sites and meeting a lot of the newer soldiers near the end of Saturday night right before chow showed up. Everyone was starving, including me...and something about that brought forth this brutal honesty from all of the troops. One of them even happened to be the boyfriend of one of my problem students at South Lakes. That was interesting, but I think I worked out a deal with him to make her behave better in class. Basically, she behaves or else I will drop him like crazy every time I see him. Good deal, huh? I don't have that much power and authority, but I'll sure as heck use what I've got.

That's pretty much it for my highlights though. I spent about six or seven hours on Saturday combing through regs and getting reports together. That doesn't sound as exciting as it actually is, but I'm not going to be able to convince you by explaining it on this blog. Just take my word for it, okay?

Anyway, I'm just babbling now because I have to catch up on all of my missed writing. I'm also catching up on my eating. After a big bowl of high protein/fiber cereal and a big shower, I cooked up a pound of chili and dumped in a pound of tofu to quell my GTC cravings. I think I've sufficiently fooled my stomach for tonight. Plus I went with regular chili tonight...none of that vegetable chili crap (*whisper* it's not really crap). Anyway, it's not even nine o'clock yet, but I can see myself passing out within the next hour. I hope your weekends were equally eventful.

02 March 2006 1635 EST
02 March 2006 1635 EST I'm serious, people. Free money rocks! I checked my mail for the first time all week today, and I got two pleasant military-related surprises. First, there was a copy of my travel voucher submission from last year. It's about a thousand+ dollars that I haven't gotten yet because of two lines that were not complete on my form. But once I get that re-submitted, everything should go through fine. The second was from Veterans Affairs regarding my GI Bill payments. It kinda explained why I stopped getting them last year. I guess they have this online verification thing you have to do every month to confirm your student status. Then once you check the box, they give you your money. So I checked a couple of boxes just now and I should have a check for about $500 coming to me in a week or two...which should show up right around the time that my tax refund gets direct-deposited. Cha-ching!

Anyway, it's been a busy week. Interims were due yesterday and my group project was due the day before that. I had a conference call last night and I have another one tonight in preparation for drill this weekend, which'll start about four hours after I leave school tomorrow afternoon. That means a couple of things. One, I have a lot of packing to do tonight; two, I need a haircut; and three, I need to prepare for 48 hours without the internet. The last one, I'm not so sure how to do. With my old phone, my sister had gotten me an attachment to let me dial in with my cell. But with my new phone, I don't have such an accessory. I'm really kidding though. 48 hours without the internet isn't so bad.

01 March 2006 1645 EST
01 March 2006 1645 EST You know that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning, look over at your alarm clock, and realize that it is an hour later than it's supposed to be? Well, that particular feeling was what yanked me out of bed this morning, forcing me to cram my usual 30-minute routine into about six minutes as I flew out the door on my way to school. Luckily for me, traffic was cooperative and I made it in time to get a parking spot approximately two miles away from the school.

But anyway...that feeling. I love it and I hate it. It's an awesome rush. I mean, once you do your double-take and confirm that, indeed, all three of your redundant alarm clocks failed you on this particular day...and once you do the quick calculation in your head of how much time you have left between now and when you have to be at where you have to be...and once you determine which morning rituals must be adhered to and which can be sacrificed, it's just an all out dash to get everything done. It's amazingly efficient and just flat out exhilarating. I mean, as long as everyting turns out okay in the end, it's an awesome way to start off your day. For me, except for the fact that I didn't get my shave on this morning, it didn't turn out too bad. I highly recommend this to anyone trying to spice up their life...or try turning off your roommate's alarm clock if you think they need a little more excitement.

27 February 2006 2246 EST
27 February 2006 2246 EST I honestly didn't think it could be done, but my credit card billing month closed yesterday with a balance of $429.29. That is a record. And considering that a hundred dollars of that was gas, a hundred came from the trip I took last weekend with Thuy down to Roanoke, and a hundred went to groceries, I'd say that I really did excercise some restraint this last month. Can I do it two months in a row? I'd bet money on it.

Dinner tonight was vegetable chili with half a pound of tofu mixed in. I don't know how tasty that sounds to you, but it was goood. I ate that in between sets of my workout and in between reloads of the Ultimate Blogger 2. Some other guilty pleasures for the day include watching #1 Single before my nap this afternoon. The episode ended with her making out with one of her friends from college. *gasp* Then during my workout, I flipped on WWE and Ric Flair is still fighting at age 57. Crazy stuff. The only reason I watched wrestling, btw, is because I am boycotting all of those stupid reality shows on network tv, including the Apprentice and the Bachelor. And I'm not saying that wrestling is of better quality. I'm just saying that I refuse to watch those other shows.

Interims are due this week, though, and I have a little more grading to do before bed. So good night.

26 February 2006 2232 EST
26 February 2006 2232 EST It was another very productive day for me today. I started off by finishing up some work for my group project (due Tuesday, btw). Then I cut my hair before heading over to Jane's for her cookie exchange. I got there and hung out for an hour or so before I had to meet my group at Murky Coffee in Arlington. It was a great place with fair trade coffee and free wi-fi. What more can you ask for, right? Well, except for an empty table to do some work, that is. So after about 15 minutes of hanging out, we actually left to go to the library down the street. That place was packed, too, and it took us about 10 minutes to find an empty table there. We got our stuff done eventually, though, and I even circled back around to Jane's to finish up with cookie exchange. Oh yeah...women in Arlington...I don't know if it's because I haven't been going out much lately, but they looked really good today.

Anyway, when I got back to Jane's, the parking situation was pretty bad, but I did an awesome parallel job into spot with about 18 inches of clearance total. I was pretty proud of myself. But yeah...spent a little more time there before heading over to visit Ben. It was cool. Thuy ended up coming over too and we ate dinner with Ben and his dad. It was funny when we started to inject a lot of sexual innuendo into the dinner conversation. I get the feeling that Ben's dad probably caught on at some point, but he didn't really say anything to indicate that he was in on it. But yeah, good times all around.

26 February 2006 0927 EST
26 February 2006 0927 EST My incredibly productive Saturday continued yesterday with a short and controlled shopping spree, starting at Wegman's, where I got my own shopping card and spent about $16 on about six pairs of food. I bought two each of the following: Wegman's fitness crunch cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios, various Powerbars, vegetable chili, and lasagna noodles. From there, I stopped by Circuit City, where I carried two items around with me throughout the store before putting them down and walking out empty-handed. Go me. What self-control, I have, huh? From there, the next stop was the Target by my house because I wanted to hit the Chipotle on my way home. I love the houseware/home design stuff at Target, btw. But again, I was able to control myself yesterday. I ended up spending only about fifteen dollars, picking up some 1.5 pound hand weights for my boxing training and a cute little black box for my photos that was on clearance.

After all of that, I sat down at home with my chicken burrito from Chipotle and watched the McLaughlin group, which was on at a suspicious time. It was great though. It was funny how everyone on the show was against Bush on the port deal except for McLaughlin. That's a strange thing for me because I usually find myself thinking that he's a little off. Yesterday, I found him dead on, though. And when he was ripping everyone's heads off, I thought about how that was exactly what I wanted to do sometimes. Anyway, just before 8:00 last night, I decided to go to sleep, fully expecting to wake up around midnight to work on my group project. I think I woke up for the first time around 2:00, but I kept on going back to sleep for hour-long increments until finally getting out of bed around 7:30 this morning. That's crazy...almost 12 hours of sleep. But it felt great and the dreams were starting to rock near the end. In the last dream, I was Batman and I was surrounded by like a hundred bad guys on a beach or some man-made water thing. Anyway, I jump into the water after I tied one end of a rope to a chain-linked fence surrounding the water. Eventually all of the bad guys are in the water swimming after me. Me, I'm swimming deeper into the water while I'm pulling the rope I tied to the fence. The fence is just unravelling, like a sweater. Anyway, I keep pulling it as I swim. At points, I look under the water and there are dead bodies floating around. I use them as obstacles for the bad guys. Anyway, in the end, I wake up before I find out what I was going to use the fence for. But that's alright. I was Batman!

25 February 2006 1437 EST
25 February 2006 1437 EST So I don't know why I always put off doing my taxes. I always have so much fun with them. This year, my adjusted gross income ended up at $15,343. HA!! I think that puts me on the end of the family picture this year. Most of that is due to 30K+ of non-taxable income from when I was overseas. Then, on top of that, I have my 10K+ of mortgage interest and I maxed out my investment losses this year (not something I'm particularly proud of). Anyway, this year, the Army has a program that lets you do your taxes with TurboTax online for free. That's awesome. I didn't even have to pay for the eFile fee, I don't think. But hey...guess how much I'm getting back this year? Everything!!! I mean, with a $15,343 income, I'm practically straddling the poverty line, you know? So I ended up pulling in about 4K with my federal and state returns. YEAH, BABY!!! That's almost as good as winning the lottery. On top of that, my federal check from 2004 just arrived in the mail last week, so I'm actually going to the ATM to deposit it once I finish updating here.

But yeah, it's definitely been a productive Saturday so far, and I still have plenty of Saturday left. See what happens when I cut down on the mySpace? I got my kitchen table all cleaned up this morning, sorted my mail, and I ripped a dozen of my CDs with iTunes...even though Ben still has my iPod. He's en route from Roanoke right now. He finally got released, so it'll be cool to see him again. Other than that, I'm gonna try to run a few errands and do some grading before I crash for my afternoon nap.

24 February 2006 0001 EST
24 February 2006 0001 EST I ended up getting some great QT with Jane today. I linked up with her in DC after my nap to attend the lecture on the origin of the Earth and Moon. It was awesome from start to finish. I even took two pages of notes. The speaker was really good and there were a couple of really awesome animations they showed us. I wish I could find it on the internet, but this is the closest I could find. Oooh...wait. Here's something very close to what they showed us. That's a protoplanet about the size of Mars hitting what was the Earth as of about 4.5 billion years ago. The increasing wavelengths of light indicate the temperatures reached during this collision. Basically, the Earth got rocked, but eventually coalesced back into something resembling what we are more used to. The other pieces of the explosion, though, ended up forming a ring which eventually formed the moon...which is actually pulling away from the Earth at about two centimeters per year. Anyway, it was a really awesome talk, and one of my students even showed up to see it. That made me happy.

After we left there, I drove Jane back to her place, where we cleaned up a little and ordered a bunch of chinese food. We hung out for a while, just chatting about work and life while eating food and watching the Olympics. As it neared 11:00, though, I had to make a decision to go home. The only problem was that I really wanted to watch Sasha skate; and I knew that she would come on the ice once I left Jane's place. Oh well...I left anyway, and I actually ran into crappy traffic on 395 because they decided to shut down two lanes. So, knowing that I wouldn't make it home in time, I called my roommate (basically admitting to being a complete tool in not so many words) and asked him to turn on my DVR so I could catch the finals of the figure skating. Hehe...I know that's bad. Even worse, though, was getting home and watching Sasha fall twice. It's too bad she's all the way there in Italy. Otherwise, I could be there to console her.

But yeah...anyhoo...I've got a conference call tomorrow evening. But at this point, all that matters is that it's FRIDAY!!!

22 February 2006 2357 EST
22 February 2006 2357 EST I almost didn't work out today, but I started my exercising during the short-track competition this evening after my three-hour nap. I'll be short on my cardio this week with a bye week in our basketball schedule, so I am up for anything if you want to get together this weekend...running, boxing, basketball, whatever. Give me a call. Tomorrow evening, though, I'll be in DC attending the Carnegie Institute lecture on the origin of the Earth and Moon. Cool stuff. I'm really looking forward to it.

Anyway, I just wanted to update real quickly today before I went to sleep. Class today went really well...my first block especially. I'd been having a lot of problems with that class, just maintaining enough order to get some work done. But today, the kids were great and we got a lot of stuff done. I think they may have even learned something in the end. Hopefully, we can keep this up.

Oh well...I know this is short, but this is already my fourth entry for the day. If I update any more, it might give the impression that I don't have anything else to do.

22 February 2006 1146 EST
22 February 2006 1146 EST I'm still hot about the whole port thing that's been in the news these past few days. Considering my first experience of actually going to a port and experiencing all that went on there, there are probably so many more issues about ports that are more significant than what's been in the news. I guess that's the good thing that's come from it, at least. I've read about a half dozen articles today, trying to get at it from various viewpoints. I even searched for an article on the BBC site to see try to see if this seemed as racist to everyone else as it did to me.

Anyway, I won't preach (any more). I'll just point to another article I found on the Council on Foreign Relations Terrorism Site regarding their security analysis of our ports. Seriously, people. Get over it. If you're really interested in security, it probably wouldn't hurt to see how it works before you jump on the bandwagon.

21 February 2006 2334 EST
21 February 2006 2334 EST I am going to go to sleep once Sasha skates. I promise. Hehe...okay, maybe not. I have no idea what I'm doing online tonight. I honestly could have and should have gone to bed about three hours ago when I came back from class. It's not like I worked out tonight. I chose to eat, blog, and watch the olympics instead. I talked to Ben on the phone for a little bit. He seems to be getting better. He's allowed to eat real food now, at least. With some luck, he'll be back up in NoVa some time tomorrow.

Hehe...okay, I admit it. I'm still addicted to mySpace. I do kinda like how easy it is to blog on that thing as opposed to hand-coding everything. At the same time, though, I don't have as much freedom when it comes to the design of that thing. So that's why I spent an hour or two tonight playing around with links and html and stuff. I can't remember the last time I spent so much time on basic html.

I was reading the Post during lunch today and there was an article about blogging in China in the A section. It was really interesting. It made me feel so insignificant when I read about these patriots using the internet to fight for free speech and whatnot. It put a lot of things in perspective too. A lot of people in this country criticize the government for all that it does; but it wasn't until I read this article that it really struck me. How lucky we are to be able to criticize our government without fear of censorship or even worse. You know what else is so great about this country? Sasha Cohen...hehe...she just finished with first place in the short program.

You see, I try to be serious for a few minutes and it just doesn't last. Anyway, I promised that I would go to bed, so here I go. Until tomorrow...

Oh yeah...one last thing. Racist people are stupid. The Coast Guard rocks and the State Ports Authority rock, and they are in charge of security of the ports, period. When we were in Afghanistan, we shared a camp with soldiers from U.A.E., but that's not even the question. It just amazes me how everyone in the media seems to blow everything out of proportion whenever they want to criticize Bush or whoever else. It's stupid stuff like this that makes us overlook all of the real important issues.

20 February 2006 2118 EST
20 February 2006 2118 EST I got some really bad/sad news in my inbox this morning. It was enough for me to let out some expletives in frustration. Sergeant David Stevens died in a vehicle accident over the weekend. He was a good soldier...one of the mortarmen I worked with over in Afghanistan. He was a young guy, in his early 20s, and he was a hard worker who always took care of his team. He's the second person I know from our battalion who's died since returning home. SSG Dove was killed last fall in an equally tragic situation. I don't really know what else to say other than that he'll be missed. 20 February 2006 1123 EST
20 February 2006 1123 EST I wasn't doing much this morning, so I was thinking back to the visit to the hospital yesterday. Ben was in pretty good spirits and we joked around a lot. First off, he's been put on this liquid diet. They have this juice drink they give him...a lot of sugar but some good protein as well. I guess since he's not allowed to eat solid food yet, it's important for him to get all of his nutrients. Anyway, we were joking around about his IV and everything and talking about all of the good things that'll be coming from his hospital stay. One is that he'll lose weight. We were talking about trying to get the nurses to switch him onto the low-carb IV...maybe use Splenda or something like that. Plus, if he gets his spleen removed, that's another half pound or so. There were some other positives too, but I don't really remember what they were. I guess he gets a few days off from work. That's good. Plus, once he gets back up here and his computer hooked up to the hospital wi-fi, he has an excuse to just sleep and blog/mySpace all the time. That's like the best life ever.

Oh well...the other thing that kept coming up was that none of us really knew what the function of the spleen was. I finally got around to looking it up this morning. Here's a neat little link with a cute picture.

Last thiing...I added a little link in the corner so you can check out my stats now. Now you can see how I cyberstalk all of my cyberstalkers. It's kinda creepy how much I know about you guys who read my page.