I wasn't always a coffee drinker. I fought the demon for years during my early Army days. Coffee drinkers couldn't understand my lack of desire to drink coffee, just like I no longer understand how someone could not drink it. Of course, I go one step further and can't understand how anyone could add cream and sugar to something so perfect as coffee, but I digress... I first started drinking coffee when I attended the Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC) in 1995. That is a cours...

This is the last of the pictures I recently scanned in. I've got more, just not scanned. This is a picture from the Kahukus Training Range from summer of 96. We were moving back from an area we should have never gone to. A couple days earlier, we got orders to move out to a hilltop on the east side of the box. We had reconned that area a week earlier and determined that it was not a good place to go. The roads there were marginal and a good rain could have stranded us up there for d...

Just a quick note before I head off to Suicide Prevention Training. We had some mandatory training on the prevention of sexual harassment this morning. While we were going through the powerpoint slides (powerpoint - is there anything that says Army training more than a powerpoint presentation?), we had a slide that described non-verbal modes sexual harassment. Non-verbal means can include ogling, leering, giving the once over, emails, posters, calandars and even bumper stickers. ...

Yeah, I'm bored today. It's after the second football game and the ALCS hasn't started just yet. So, here are a some pictures from my first tour to Korea. These pics are from the week we spent down in Taegu. Our Platoon Leader (usually a 2nd LT position) was a West Point grad CPT (talk about taking it in the shorts) and was a bit of a jerk. He made us act as if the 'deployment' was under exercise rules. During the drive down and back, we had to be in full battle-rattle. We weren't al...

In my last post in this series, I received my first permanent profile. I had also successfully passed my first Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) since my injury. Right around that time (summer 01), I was told that I'd be leaving the platoon and moving to the company headquarters. At first I was really pissed. The headquarters section is often where units send their dirtbags. I felt that the platoon was trying to get rid of me. I found out quickly that the company commander had actually ...

Sooner or later, geocities is going to figure out I'm only storing pics on their site so I can direct link to them here... and then, I'll have to find a new place to store images... maybe by then, JU will be open for the subscription service and I'll be able to upload them here... Well, here is a picture of me from Haiti. I spent a little over 3 months there (Jan-Apr 95). It wasn't a very productive place to send a team of Korean linguists, but neither is Iraq/Afghanistan. The Army ...

Today we had another MLI outing. Last quarter we went to Oakland and watched the A's beat the Mariners. This quarter we had lunch together and then went out to a firing range. First, we got together for lunch at the Round Table Pizza in Marina to start things off. They have a pizza buffet and salad bar there. Our Chief MLI called ahead and told them that we'd have a large turnout, but that kind of warning went unheeded and we had to wait 20 minutes before the first pizza came out to th...

I'm sitting here in my living room, watching the ball game and wondering if Mussina has it in him to finish this game out. It's the top of the 7th and he's still perfect. The coolest part? I'm typing this on my new computer. We went up to San Jose yesterday to do some shopping at the Korean markets (the ones up there are much better than the ones down here) and my wife and I stopped in the CompUSA up there. We walked out with a brand new Sony Vaio RA710G and 17' flat screen monitor! ...

So, in December of 2000, I started physical therapy for my back pain. I still didn't know what was wrong with me, I just knew that it hurt. Everyday. It seemed to be getting worse instead of better. My first appointment at the physical therapy clinic was mostly a consultation with the physical therapist. He was a Captain and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. I described my symptoms to him and he started an exam. At the time, I had pain in the center of my lower back, that got worse...

A question I get a lot when I meet new people is, "So, how did you hurt your back?" Now, you may ask, "How does that ever come up in a normal conversation?" Well, I'll tell you, it happens more often than you might think, but that's because it's not an unusual topic to discuss in the military. I mean, it's pretty apparent there is something different when the PT leader tells the group to do 50 situps and I brazenly ignore him/her and do crunches instead. Also, when the topic of ruck march...

Tomorrow, 5 Oct 2004, will be 12 years in the Army for me. Sometimes, I can't believe it's been that long. The time seems to have flown by in a blur at times. It's incredible that I packed in so much in that time. I've been stationed in two countries (that counts the US - sometimes Hawaii seemed foreign) and been to three others in the line of duty. And sometimes, when I wake up, I know exactly how old I am and how long I've been in. There are days when it's an effort to get my sock...

So, I got more calls yesterday. They were the standard. "Did you call me?" "Still no. Just like every other time." CLICK. But, things took an interesting turn yesterday. Before I hung up, I decided to vent on this guy a little more. I went on about how he was really starting to annoy me and that I had never called him (not 100% true, I once hit the redial button after an EARLY morning wake up call from him) and that I had no plans to EVER call him, so he should please try to fig...

Well, we had a bunch of time left over at the end of the last class hour today, so before letting the students start the weekend early, I had them tell another chain story. This was a different group of students from the last time, but this one was just as entertaining. Once upon a time (litererally the student said 'when a tiger smoked a cigarrette' which is a phrase that means a long time ago), there was a very manly woman. (This sentence completely threw the rest of the class room int...

I got the idea for this earlier today and have to thank Gideon and Little Whip for the inspiration. It started with Gideon's "Welcome to JU..." article Link . I commented that when I first came to JU, I was kind of mild in my posting. I still am in some ways. I stay off the politics forums. I don't post much that is inflammatory. Mostly funny stuff that happens to me with the occasional rant. Well, while I was commenting, I got a little off topic and wrote about my very first feat...

I nearly ran someone over today as I drove home from work. It would have been an accident and in my opinion, completely this jerks fault, but it still pisses me off. I pulled up to an intersection right near fisherman's wharf in downtown Monterey. The street I was turning off is a one way street that ends at an intersection that has 5 inlets/outlets. I was sitting at the red light, waiting to turn right onto Del Monte. There was traffic coming out of the tunnel, so I waited for a break...