I had my second funeral of this rotation on Saturday, 7 Jan 06. This was another two man job and was at a cemetery in Seaside that I'd been to a number of times before. At the Thursday practice before, we only knew about one Saturday funeral and the overall NCOIC had planned on doing it. On Friday, I got a call that I'd need to come in on Saturday and take care of a second funeral. When I got to the base on Saturday, everyone was there and ready. The NCOIC had originally planned to t...

I'm back on the funeral detail again. This time it will run from Jan-Feb. We started practicing with the outgoing team during the holiday break, or as TRADOC likes to call it, Exodus. It was a pretty busy couple of week for the detail. The overall NCOIC for the detail has not done the detail before, so she wanted to get with the three assistant NCOICs beforehand. We've all done it before, so it was mostly just a matter of getting her up on what all goes on. She even attended a funer...

Don't get me wrong, I like COSTCO. I don't mind the crowds of people there. I don't have a problem with buying a membership that could potentially cost you more than you save, if you only buy bagels and big pizzas. I don't have a problem with their exclusive policy on AMEX or cash. I like COSTCO. We go almost every weekend and buy at the least, a couple cases of waters. I hate their shopping carts, though. I don't know if it's the coating on their carts, the floors, or maybe the ...

I came home from work the other night and my wife had a friend over that she'd met at work. The woman was also from South Korea and they were hanging out. Shortly after I got home, they went outside to smoke. That's when the fun began. The woman had parked outside our house on the street, but on the wrong side. I park in front of the house so I didn't see her jeep around the corner parked against the red painted curb or else I'd have told her to move it myself. Well, in that little bi...

So, it's my birthday today. Happy Birthday to me! I've always liked this song and so, today, I figured I'd share the lyrics here. The song is by Concrete Blonde and named Happy Birthday. All rights and credit to them (specifically, Johnette Naplitano and Jim Mankey) and all. It's a short song originally off their album titled Free and but it's also on Recollection: The Best of Concrete Blonde. You can find it on iTunes and several other online music services, I'm sure. Check it out....

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted anything. Bite me. This started as a comment fueled by two separate blogs ( Link and http://bakerstreet.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=93566) and it grew too long to make just a comment. It no longer touches on just the two points brought up in the original blogs and has grown to include not only the comments, but also more of my own thoughts. Too bad if what you see here is hardly recognizable as being related to either blog any more. I'm feeling...

I've been busy at work since getting back from my TDY trip to Cleveland so it's been a long time since I posted. This may be the longest I've gone without posting since joining JU a little over a year ago. I've even let two weeks go on my fantasy football league updates. As for the trip to Cleveland. It was a fairly busy week. I got my orders late (they were ready for pick up for a while, but I was on leave) so I ended up not taking any leave in conjunction with the trip. I flew out ...

than reduced fat peanut butter? BLECH! My Ecosystem Details

OK, so I posted this last year, but I figured in honor of national talk like a pirate day, I'd repost it. Yeah, I'm lazy. Years ago (1991), I was a part of a GASP (Gilbert And Sullivan Players) production of The Pirates of Penzance - The Slave of Duty. It was my first attempt at community theater and it was a lot of fun. In honor of National Talk Like a Pirate Day, I dug out some OLD pictures from that production and scanned them. So, here you go - Pour, O pour the pirate sherr...

Next week, I'm going on a TDY trip to my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio for to take part in a TAIR trip. TAIR stands for Total Army Involvement in Recruiting. I'll spend the week going around to schools and trying to sell the Army and more specifically, the Defense Language Institute. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, free trip home and a week away from the office! Woohoo! So, if you live in Cleveland and you read this blog, shoot me an email or leave a comment. My Ecosys...

I came back from 11 refreshing days of leave yesterday. The running joke all day was, "Oh, by the way, this/that/the other came up while you were gone and it's your job to work it. Now, the reality is most of it was really my stuff that had just piled up while I was gone, but it was still funny for everyone else to let me in on each piece of information a little at a time. I found out that I have lock up duty this week. That's fine, because the last time before this recentl vacation, I ...

I burned the last of my use or lose leave for the year last week. It was nice. I didn't think about work for 11 whole days and I got a fair bit of WoW in. Yeah, I'm still feeding that addiction. I did get out in the sunlight and away from the keyboard, though. I'm not that far gone. My wife got off early on Saturday and we packed up the dogs and headed up to Lake Tahoe. It was kind of a last minute planned thing, so I had to scramble to find a pet friendly place. We didn't want to s...

I sometimes use a Magic 8 Ball in class. Usually, I will use music and a hot potato style game to give the students something fun to do. When the music stops, the person holding the Magic 8 Ball will have to do whatever task I've set up. Mostly, I use it in grammar sessions and it gives the student a chance to use the new grammar with each other while keeping a sense of randomness (it's not random, I watch and make sure everyone gets a chance to be holding the Magic 8 Ball), so they don't ...

Fairly hectic day today. Started out at 0630 when I woke up with a minor headache. Normally, not a big deal, but today, I had my reading comprehension DLPT. This is my annual Korean test and based on my scores, I get paid up to $2400 extra a year. Reading is my strong suit, though, so I wasn't too worried. If you're a long time reader, or just a back page digger, you'll know that I scored a perfect score on the reading test last year. I took a different new form this year (there are...

I usually listen to the Bob and Tom show on the drive to work. I like the morning laughs. Especially since most of the radio stations around here are lame. Well, I also got some laughs from the commercials this morning. The first was a commercial that was promoting the music from a group named COQ-ROQ. I first laughed because they spelled the name out just like that and I thought it was a funny way to get a potentially offensive name out on the radio. The really funny part was ...