13 February 2007 1214 EST
13 February 2007 1214 EST
Okay, people. It's been an interesting last week. I can't remember much of any of it though. I had drill this weekend though. It started off with a drive down to Staunton to do a little bit of staff training...about seven or eight hours of powerpoint classes over two days before spending a few hours in meetings and then heading back up to Winchester to do some paperwork among other things. Hmm...I know more happened, but I can't remember right now.

Yesterday, I ended up hanging out with Charley at the JC before class. We kinda relearned calculus together in order to complete our physics homework. That was actually a lot more fun than I expected. Class was fun, too. I really like that one. It's like sitting through a 2-hour discovery channel show every time.

Anyhow...I should hurry up and upload this before people start worrying about me. It's snowing outside right now.

05 February 2007 1046 EST
05 February 2007 1046 EST
Super bowl Sunday...good times. It was an interesting one for me as it started off with a nice little 6-mile run with Anna and her friend Melissa on the W&OD trail. After that, I hurried home to put some stuff outside for Purple Heart to collect before taking a shower and heading over to Ben's for the first half+. Interesting was how fast everyone was driving on 66. I was going about 65 on the 55MPH part, and everyone must've been going around 75+. Anyway, at Ben's, I ate four pretty big bowls of chili and then played poker with him and Thuy during the halftime show. It was pretty cool because we used some double stuffed mint chocolate oreos for the big chips. Then midway through the third quarter, I left to join Anna and her friends in Arlington. I didn't really eat much at the second party though...just watched Rex struggle through the second half while being the only person wearing Bears colors.

This morning, I went on YouTube to catch all of the super bowl commercials I'd missed. My rankings are as follows:

1 - Snickers commercials with the two guys working on the car
2 - Coca-Cola Grand Theft Auto spoof
3 - Garmin Power Rangers/generic Japanese super hero spoof
4 - FedEx Ground - "Not What It Seems"
5 - Doritos - "Live the Flavor"
6 - Bud Light - Fist Bump
7 - Foot Locker/Adidas - Kevin Garnett signing autographs
8 - Bud Light - "But He Has Bud Light" hitcher spoof
9 - NFL - "Hard to Say Goodbye" with Brett Favre
10 - E*TRADE - Things you can do with one finger
11 - Bud Light - Auction Wedding
12 - Bud Light - Class Mencia
13 - Nationwide - Rollin' VIP with K-Fed
14 - FedEx - Moon Office
15 - Bud Light - Rock Paper Scissors

Worst commercials go to CareerBuilder and GoDaddy and anyone who thinks that JayZ could outcoach Don Shula...and then there are the girl commercials like the dalmation one, the Chevy ones, and the one about Sheryl Crow's hair color?!?! It's the super bowl for crying out loud!

02 February 2007 1605 EST
02 February 2007 1605 EST
It's been a rough last two days or so, with the internet going down two days ago and me playing way too much online poker in the 24 hours prior to that. Classes are going well though - my number one mission this year - and it doesn't look like I'll even have to try all that hard to finish up my degree this semester. Hmm...I wish there was more for me to talk about, but I haven't really been up to all that much. I put up 265 while I was at the gym yesterday...one step closer to another resolution. And I'll start training more for my marathon when the weather starts getting better, which will hopefully be later rather than earlier. I want some snow days, by golly. Oh, and I did rediscover raisin bran, btw. I've eaten a huge bowl in each of the last three days. "I'd forgotten how much I liked it," says my colon. Hmm...if only colons could talk. I wonder what they would say...
30 January 2007 0111 EST
30 January 2007 0111 EST
I guess I don't really blog much on weekends these days, huh? Well, on Friday, I ended up hanging out with Anna and playing poker over at Stora's. It was pretty awesome. I won the first tourney and got third place for the second round. Then on Saturday, it was family time over at the parents' with all of the sibs except for Lenny and Steph. As always, it was loaded with fun and gossips. I even pretended to be a little slow so that people would laugh. I swear...I was pretending. Then for the evening, I ate cheese fries with Anna and her sister and watched the Hitcher afterward. Umm...they claim that I was screaming like a little girl throughout the movie...but I'd have to say that I screamed more like a little boy.

On Sunday, I hung out with Anna some more as she helped me with my house. We also stopped off at the Home Depot beforehand, as well as the Great Wall. We also watched V for Vendetta...awesome movie. Oh, and we watched Poseidon a few days earlier...not as awesome, but aight.

Today was spent napping and studying for classes. I went to campus early to work on my paper for a bit before my actual classes. I like my profs a lot this semester, and it's shaping up to be really awesome. Like both of my Monday lectures are really fun and educational...kinda the best of both worlds, if you know what I mean. And then I came home and made one of those quick skillet meals and then caught the Daily Show and Colbert with my roommate John. I kept it on CC for the next hour to watch this hilarious guy named Demetri Martin. Good stuff. That's all I've got.

26 January 2007 1532 EST
26 January 2007 1532 EST
I decided to finally talk to my advisor yesterday because I wanted to make sure that everything was settled for me to meet my graduation requirements in May. Anyway, I'd been having problems getting a hold of my advisor, but I got an e-mail from him the other day with his office hours. I e-mailed him back, asking for his office room number...but when I didn't get a response, I just figured I would show up at the department and find his office from there. So I show up yesterday and guess what? His office isn't on campus. It's about a mile down the road at the Mason commerce building by the fire station on University Drive. Luckily for me, a bunch of people were available and ended up helping me with all of my issues...including my transfer credit issue and my internship issue. In the end, I got a couple of forms submitted and even got my advisor switched...and everything looks good now for me getting my degree in May. We'll see how that works out.

After an hour or so on campus, I stopped off at the fieldhouse to get a little workout in. I got a new PR on the bench, putting up 250 three times...but the coolest part came as I walked down a row of machines after my ab workout. I recognized a familiar face in the crowd and I heard someone call out my name. It was Russ Lankford!!! He looked good, but I almost didn't recognize him with his facial hair. Anyway, we just caught up and chatted about siblings and stuff, but yeah...it was cool to see him again.

24 January 2007 2331 EST
24 January 2007 2331 EST
I got a lot of sleep last night, but I still got in a nice nap in between episodes of CSI: Miami today. Then I got up and squeezed in a workout and a shower before heading over to campus early to "purchase" my books before class. Purchase is in quotes because the Army's actually paying for them for me...using your tax dollars. Hmm...I guess that kinda means that you all bought my books for me. Thanks.

Class for today was pretty easy. It's my research class, so we really just end up reading a book and then start experimenting on students for the rest of the semester. Plus, we have computers in front of us during class, so we can multi-task. The girl next to me was doing a crossword puzzle during class when another student asked a question about technology...at which point our professor started to bring up a screen that allowed her to see what everyone was doing on their desktop. So the girl next to me panicked and closed her crossword puzzle, about 60% done. It was so funny. I laughed at her because she was so upset that she had wasted her time on the puzzle and she didn't finish. Teachers are the worst students.

23 January 2007 1008 EST
23 January 2007 1008 EST
The first day of class is always exciting. I almost always forget about how much I love school until days like that. Take my first class. The professor reminded me so much of me...the kinds of things I say and the tone. Like he would say goofy things and then take them back. Or sometimes, he would just stand there and make you wonder if he's serious or not. Like he said, "kids are dumb." I don't know. I laughed because I've said that so many times...not to my own students, but just in conversation. I laughed when he said it, but no one else in class did. Oh, and I helped him get the LCD projector up and running about half an hour into class, after someone else couldn't fix it for him. Plus the prof wore nike shox. That was interesting. Oh yeah...the class is about classroom management, so it is heavily elementary ed...which means five guys and like twenty-five women in the class.

My second class was Atmospheric Physics. It's the first physics class I've taken in seven years, so I was a little worried at first, not knowing what to expect. But after sitting through the first 3-hour lecture, it doesn't seem like it'll be too bad. The coolest part was that one of my friend-teachers from Mount Vernon, Charley, ended up walking into class and sat down next to me. It was cool catching up on what's going on at Mount Vernon these days. Anyway, the prof for that class was pretty cool (i.e. nerdy). Example: near the beginning of class, in response to a question about the math requirement, he surveyed the students by asking, "how many of you have taken calculus?" Given that it was a graduate level physics class, everyone raised their hands. He followed that up, however, with "how many of you love calculus?" Guess how many people raised their hands...hehe...about two-thirds of the class. What nerds. Anyway, the class seems like it'll be really exciting and I'll learn a lot about earth's atmosphere, along with the atmospheres of other planets and the implications of all that. I'm actually excited to head in to campus today to get my textbook so I can start reading. Yeah, I know...we'll see how long that lasts.

22 January 2007 1512 EST
22 January 2007 1512 EST
So this last weekend was pretty awesome. I started off heading in to the armory on thursday and friday to do some work before jumping in the car with Jackie and Thuy to hang out at Charlottesville for a few days (I wore my hokie colors the whole time). There, we met up with Ben, Tom, and Michelle and played lots of board games and ate lots of junk food. It was pretty cool. On friday night, we played a few hours of Cranium, followed by a few hours of Celebrity. Then we played a little bit of poker and went to bed around 4:00 in the morning before starting off the next day. Saturday was a little more laid back, but fun as well. We had a little movie marathon with Beerfest, Pixar's Cars, and the Omen before heading back to Northern Virginia some time around two or three in the morning.

After dropping Ben off the next morning, I spent some qt with the fam. Oh...wait! Guess what happened during all of that? It snowed!!! Yeah, that's right. I know it's not nearly as exciting when you don't get school cancelled, but it was still cool to see snow finally.

I also realized that I gained about five pounds during my weekend and I got a nice little workout just a few minutes ago while watching some more CSI: Miami. I can't stay and blog much more, however, because I have to get ready for my first day of school for the semester. I have a class on classroom management today, followed by atmospheric physics. Sounds cool, huh?

17 January 2007 1906 EST
17 January 2007 1906 EST
After losing my workout/diet log to my hard drive, I've decided to post it up on Google spreadsheets because Google is sure to be around forever, and I'm a little skeptical of hard drives and thumb drives these days. Anyway, I've been keeping that log of mine for maybe four or five months now, but I'll start again with the new year, I guess. It started off as just a workout log so that I could remember which areas to work out throughout the week. Over time, though, it became a log of my sleep, my diet, my weight, and everything else. I don't know why anyone else would care, but there it is in case you ever want to check.

Today was a nice day off. I watched seven straight episodes of CSI: Miami on A&E today. But that was my day off. I just finished my workout and I'll probably end up heading in to the armory tomorrow to do some work with my new boss. Sounds like fun, huh?

17 January 2007 0030 EST
17 January 2007 0030 EST
A few days later and so much more going on. First, Yenny rocks. She fixed my computer and got it back to me when she helped me on my house this weekend. Both she and Anna came over, so that was awesome. Then mom came by on Monday to help finish up on the bathrooms. So that was three straight days working on the house before taking today off to complete my correspondence course stuff for the Army exercise I'm doing in a few months. It took me around 24 hours of work to go through the 600+ powerpoint slides which made up the curriculum for the 17 course modules I needed to complete.

With that done, though, I guess I can wrap up a few other loose ends like working out stuff with Purple Heart to pick up stuff from the house, finally talk to my academic advisor, etc. It also looks like I'll be taking a little road trip on Fri/Sat with Ben/Thuy/Jackie down to Charlottesville. That's cool because I kinda haven't really hung out with them since last year.

12 January 2007 1438 EST
12 January 2007 1438 EST
So here's the story of Wednesday night at the Melting Pot. I got showered and dressed all nice and pretty to pick up the gf, only to realize at her place that I had left my wallet at home...dun dun dun!!! Yeah, it was a pretty lame move on my part, and I can't believe that I did that when it came to taking her out to the nicest restaurant we've been to. Anyway, she was a pretty good sport about it and I wound up ending my chocolate boycott that night. Now, before I get any more comments about ending the boycott for a girl, let me set the record straight. I could have very easily have gone the night without ending the boycott. There were plenty of nice, non-chocolate dessert items available. However, I figured that it was time that I ended the boycott, and it just so happened that I was with a girl at the time. Those two events were, for the most part, unrelated.

Anyway, it was kinda fun breaking the news to my family over dinner last night. I caught a few people staring at me when I took my first bite of the chocolate cake Steph brought for dessert. There were other fun goings ons too. Unfortunately, Jane and Ian left a little early and missed out on the post-dinner karaoke session. We also took some time to look at chinese names for Lenny and Steph's baby-to-be. For Jane, Ian, and I, it was just that...looking at the chinese characters without any real understanding of what they meant. I guess that's kinda sad, but oh well.

Also, I just got back from lunch with Brett and Meg at o'Toole's. That was cool. It was the first time I've seen them in about 15 months, since before Brett left for Iraq. It's definitely cool to see him back and safe at home.

Oh well...not much else new to discuss. I've pretty much been working on some correspondence coursework for the Army and working out a lot these last few days. Oh, and Lenny "fixed" my dad's computer that he lent to me, so I'm back online for the time being. Things are definitely looking up for me.

10 January 2007 1205 EST
10 January 2007 1205 EST
Let's start with an anti-resolution today before I rattle off this year's list. I am seriously considering ending my chocolate boycott today after nearly four years because I'm taking Anna out to the Melting Pot tonight, thanks to Jane's little reminder on her page about Restaurant Week. I don't know. Especially considering the fact that I'm actually trying to gain weight these days, I don't really see any point to the boycott any more...except for the whole child slavery thing of course. Thoughts?

Okay, now to this year's resolutions. A lot of these will be continuations of my sabbatical resolutions, which I've somewhat misplaced, but here goes:

- Sell (or rent out) 14836 Bodley Square
- Call people on the phone to resolve issues instead of letting the anxiety of human contact fuel procrastination
- Run a marathon (I'm hoping that my iPod shuffle will assist with this one)
- Earn my masters degree with a minimum 3.8 GPA
- Bench press 300lbs
- Max out my PT test
- Limit trips to Target/Best Buy/Circuit City/Wal-Mart/etc to once a month except for emergencies
- Buy items that I need, not just shiny things that just happen to be on sale
- Make lots of money and/or win the lottery
- Make time for family and friends despite horrendously busy schedule

I'd go ahead and make a chinese fluency resolution, but I probably won't spend any time on that until at least mid-summer. I'm sure I'll do a round of mid-year resolutions before then anyway. But yeah, that's it for now.

09 January 2007 0957 EST
09 January 2007 0957 EST
I've definitely had my ups and downs this last week...more ups than downs, but the downs definitely stand out more. I'll start with those, though, just so I can end on a more positive note. Number one on the list: computers. You know how I said that my computer died? Well, my dad ended up lending me one of his spare laptops...which was awesome. I got the wireless up again and I was online. Bad part? I broke his computer less than 48 hours later. Something happened with the power button and it shut off...and I couldn't turn it on again. Go figure.

Let's see...other bad thing is that I started to get some head congestion during drill this weekend and it's worked its way to a sore throat now. I kinda ran out of my vitamin C supply a few weeks ago and I just haven't been dosing myself like I used to. *sigh* My apologies ahead of time if I wind up getting anyone else sick. I'm making myself some earl grey right now. Hopefully, that'll help.

Okay, enough with the bad stuff. On to the good side. I stopped by Mason yesterday to work out a few financial aid things and to get some copies of my transcript to turn in to 1) Army and 2) FCPS to complete my application for my full teaching license. While I was there, I got my GI Bill for Spring semester submitted and followed up with my Fall 2006 stuff which was never paid...until yesterday, when a little over 1K of free money was deposited into my bank account. Then I submitted my request for refund for last semester, which I had paid for with my credit card. It took forever for my federal tuition assistance to come through, though. And now that it has, I have about $3500 coming back to me. Not bad, huh? After that, I got a workout over at the field house and then stopped by the parents for some QT before heading home.

Also cool was that I returned to HHC in Winchester this weekend. It is finally official. I am now a staff pogue, also known as the S-1 or the battalion adjutant. What does that mean? Well, I am still an infantry officer, but I will pretty much be the head of the personnel section for our unit...a small price to pay to pick up my captain, something that'll hopefully happen in the next few months here. We'll see. If it doesn't come through, I'm pretty much the one to blame since I'm heading that section now.

Anyway, without my computer, I don't know how frequently I'll post, but I'll try to pick it up from here on out. I'll start with some resolutions next time. TTFN

02 January 2007 0928 EST
02 January 2007 0928 EST
Well, it looks like my computer is down again. Even after getting the new hard drive, it was back down less than a week later with the blue screen of death. I can't even load up in safe mode now. I don't know. Maybe it's a sign.

Anyhow, lots of stuff going on. I spent much of the last week hanging out with Anna since she was on vacation, watching about a season or two of Charmed along with random episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent while working on puzzles and stuff. I was also able to fit in a lot of sleep and a lot of eating and a little bit of exercise, too. The pace will probably pick up soon, though, with new responsibilities with Guard stuff and the new school semester starting up in a few more weeks.