Defiantone.com

Irregardless of which way you add up the numbers, I’m going to spend a long time away from work. I have a bunch of leave available and I decided, hey, why not take a bunch of it all in one giant go? I won’t be traveling far from home during the duration of my leave but I’ll have plenty of time away from work to goof around. I only have a few goals while I’m on leave

1. enjoy my time away from work
2. avoid thinking of work
3. goof off whenever possible
4. read a book or two
5. study
6. hang out with Jessica
7. hang out with my parents (who will be here from the 6th-12th)
8. wear all of the dogs out
9. Train for snowboarding season (its right around the corner - hooray!!!!)
10. Go to the Mariners game on the 9th (my birthday coincidentally)

None of the goals are monumental and all are achievable. The only ones that will take a little bit of willpower to achieve are numbers five and nine.

I’m going to study for a few CLEP tests while I’m on leave so that when I return to work I can enroll in school. Due to the manning situation at work (we don’t have enough manning at work) I’ll still be on mid-shift for the next few months. The current schedule looks like I will be working nights until Thanksgiving. It could be drawn out longer but we’ll see what happens when we have people return from this current rotation to the desert. As a military member we sacrifice, this is my current sacrifice; I work a shift that nobody else wants because I’m the only guy that can do it. It messes with my personal life and its going to mess with it further when I enroll in classes in late September. I should have plenty of time to do my homework at night but some of my classes are going to be during the evening. There is no way that I can avoid that - oh well, gotta get my education finished sooner or later.

Training for snowboarding season means a tweak in my workout regimen. I’ll target all of the flexors and core muscles in my body while doubling my lower body workout. I lift legs once every 5 days and do cardio every other day. I’m planning on doing a two day leg lifting split that will have me doing one day of ridiculously heavy lifting followed by another day of endurance lifting. I’m not worried about the heavy lifting - I’m worried about the endurance lifting. Simply put, its going to hurt - alot.

I should have a busy, and hopefully relaxing, month ahead of me.There are times when it’s great to be a government employee - thank god for paid leave.

I just finished reading the book The World is Flat and I’ve got to say that I’m extremely excited about globalization and all of the challenges that we are going to face in the future. The more I dig into books about economics, business, sociology, and trade the more intrigued I become by the subject. I am unable to stop thinking about some of the points and conclusions he has drawn that affect us today and tomorrow. I’ve got to get my hand on some more books in this vein - maybe this is what I should have studied in college from the get-go. Oh well, I’m still young and the military is paying for my tuition so I’m free to study what I want.

I’m also excited because of what is in store for Jessica. We had an intense conversation about her education and from we discussed she is planning on continuing her education. I couldn’t be more proud of her at the moment. Too many of us are happy with being vanilla - to keep ourselves viable as employees we need to be a banana split with a cherry on top. She won’t start until she gets settled in a job but I think its a fantastic idea. We all need to keep expanding our knowledge throughout our lives and she is making the first steps towards doing it. The only thing that separates us from the people above us is education and experience - education is easy to acquire and experience goes along with it hand in hand - there is some short term pain but its well worth it for the long term gain.

Pt 2.

I rarely see any of my family members because I’m a bit of a recluse. Well, thats a flat out lie - I am a complete and total recluse. Its not that I don’t wish to see my extended or nuclear family, I seldom have the opportunity to do so. I tend to use this blog as a one way form of communication - if you wish to know what I’m doing in whatever part of the world that I might be in all that you need to do is to visit this website. Others don’t like to share themselves in the same way - and I don’t blame them. So… I’ve got to get back to the point of the story.

I have two cousins that serve in the Army National Guard. One is from the King side and the other from the Harvey side. As luck would have it (if you could call it luck), one of them is stationed at Balad. We tried to meet a week ago but we probably looked right at each other and failed to draw a mental connection. So, after a volley of emails back and forth we got to meet a few nights ago. I haven’t seen my cousin in years and I’ve got to say - I remember him being at least a foot shorter than he is now. He’s got an interesting job - to say the least - but he’s doing well and he thinks his job is rather boring. The world seems so much smaller when you can meet a cousin you haven’t seen in 3-4 years on the other side of the planet.

The military has a zero tolerance policy to discrimination based on sex, religion, race, or creed. The civilian world has no such policy.

We live in a world where we see should no longer be looking at the race of an individual - we should view each person on their merits. Lines dividing us based upon sex, religion, race, and creed should blur more with each passing day. Unfortunately, there are some out there that try to separate and segregate us based upon these categories.

The United States has an African American man and a Caucasian female running for office. There are some out there that use racist and derogatory terms to identify these people. I have to wonder why they do it. I know that these two individuals, as all others, are equal to me in every way. They share the same blood as I do and they live and die as I do. They are no more superior to me than I to them. We all stand on the same playing field as humans - some of us rise higher than the rest but it has nothing to do with our backgrounds. Everything should be based upon our merits.

I have a few family members that make racist comments - they think that its an acceptable practice. I think they are ignorant fools. I have a few friends that think that an African American should never run for office of president because he is a “insert racial epithet here.” I think they are ignorant fools.

What kind of individual judges people based upon their skin? Should I treat the ignorant as my equals? Should any of us? I would rather hold an individual of a different race that hates me based upon my merits higher than a friend that likes me but hates others based upon their race.

Some people need to grow up - we are living in a world where lines of race are blending with each passing day. Areas that used to be dominated by one race are seeing many cultures prosper. Should we shun these newcomers? - absolutely not. We should embrace them and all they have to offer. We should meld their culture into ours and learn about their history. These people are our long lost cousins. They are family to us - we’ve just been apart for generations.

Racism should stop - unfortunately, as long as the ignorant live we may never see the end of it.

Morality is something that can come into our minds when those we care about become ill or get into an accident. We never know when we are going to think about it but once in a while we are forced to take a real look at our values. Nobody in my life is going away any time soon - unless there is a freak meteor strike - but I’ve been thinking about it lately because of my dads bout with cancer.

If something did happen my life would go on. If I lost all of the people that are important life would go on. Life from that point on would transpire in a completely different manner but it would still go on.

Have you ever thought about loosing the people that are important to you?

I’ve only lost a few people in my short time here and each was hard - loosing a significant other, parent, or sibling would be far worse. We are all quite resilient. I’m sure we would all be amazed at the amount of stress and grief that we could cope with but we all go forward. We all must keep on living - because thats exactly what they would want us to do.

I’ve been back home for the past couple of days hanging out with my family. The girlfriend has been with me and for the most part we’ve been having fun. I had to deal with reality for the first time when I took my dad to his chemo and radiation treatments. I’ve been out of the loop for a while and it makes a convenient way to avoid what is going on. I’ve dealt with it now but its still not a cool thing. I’m glad that he’s only got until Monday and he is done with all of the bad stuff. Hopefully they’ll get it all on the first shot and he won’t have to go back for a second round.

We haven’t really done anything of note but it is Knoxville and there is only so much to do. I haven’t taken any photos because I left my camera behind and its sitting on my desk at home. I’ll be back to my normal routine on Monday so until then I’ll enjoy my time here and I’m going to eat as much food as I can… I love vacation

I know that for the 2 readers of my blog you’ve been wondering where in the heck have I been for the last week or two? Well, I haven’t gone anywhere but I’ve been busy doing other things. If you didn’t catch the other post, I spent a week with my sister when she came out for a visit. We did some of the tourist type stuff but after that we ended up just sitting around my apartment and really just hanging out. Its been a long time since we’ve done that and it was really cool to get a chance to hang out with her for more than a day at a time. Her visit got me thinking about some of the other family members that I rarely see. Its a shame that I don’t have the time to get out and visit more of you but thats just a hazard of my job. Oh well, thats why they invented phones and email.

I’ve spent most of this week working at the Tyarget (Target). For the most part, its an extremely boring job where I get little to no job satisfaction. Once in a great while does something interesting happen (we catch someone stealing, a fight breaks out, etc) While I’m waiting for something to happen I get the wonderful opportunity to stare out the front door and wait wait wait. I really want them to transfer me to the Tacoma store as its only a few minutes away and I’m not looking forward to paying the $4.00 a gallon that gas is speculated to soon cost to drive all the way down to Lakewood. Its not that I don’t like the people there, I just don’t like the drive and what I do there. Wow, its much like the Air Force… I loath my daily job but the people keep me interested. One day I hope I’ll get approved for that holy grail of a job. Speaking of jobs, I’m off to part 1 of my physical today…. this should be interesting. I was originally scheduled to return from leave Friday to go see the doc but as I expected they called me and moved it a day forward. Luckily, I left one day open in my schedule to prepare for the inevitability of military scheduling… oh what a joy it is.

For those of you reading between the lines: yes, I’m dating a girl and she is great.

Thats all she wrote until later

Due to time constraints and poor planning, I’m forced to eat out and I cannot take the time to plan out a meal. When I go to the grocery store, I buy things that are easily made into edible food but I rarely buy simple ingredients with the goal of combining them to create a tasty treat. In other words, I rarely cook from scratch. You might say that you cook from scratch but how likely are you to buy that packet of pre-mixed spices or that jar of random sauce? When I cook from scratch, I really cook from scratch. I attempt to try new things every once in a while in an effort to expand my repertoire and satisfy my stomach. I have been known to throw out bastard children that could be considered unsuitable by mangy dogs. Yes, I have an abortion once in a while. Last night I was particularly pleased with myself because I made shells alla caprese without even looking at a recipe. I had a vague clue as to what was included and I decided to make it from scratch… and it was GOOD. I got the proportions a little out of whack and I need to change exactly when I start cooking some of the ingredients but it’s a sure fire hit.

If I have a general clue as to what is in a dish I can create it on my own with a little experimentation. I really love to cook and I wish I had someone around to be a guinea pig for my creations but that’s why family shows up every once in a while. I just need to check if my ability (and willingness) to eat about everything is ruining my sense of taste.

I’m not a big Christmas cheer kind of guy… I try to tolerate the holiday season to the best of my ability. If they were to film my life it would be closest to the Griswold family… minus the humor. But, if you’re in a big Christmas mood and only have 30 seconds to spare… or have 30 seconds of tolerance for Christmas cheer, you can watch It’s a wonderful life in 30 seconds as performed by bunnies. Check it out here.

I’m not a big fan of posing for photos as I’m extremely unphotogenic. Most of the photos that I share are the ones left over after I’ve removed all of the bad pictures from the rotation. Recently, much to my dismay, we had family photos taken. I’ve only posted the ones that I thought were decent after somebody else had discarded all of the really bad photos. So, here they are… my family. More photos can be found in the gallery.