Defiantone.com

I’m not in the mood to write a full post so I’m going to give you a file and a couple of links. First off is the best appeal to an Article 15 punishment that I’ve ever seen. Its well worth the read - I had a feeling that I wasn’t the only sarcastic ass in the Air Force.

Next up is an writer that looks at our nation and its productivity if we completely eliminated obesity. Its more editorial than fact but she does bring the work of a few economists into the mix. Its an interesting read thats worth checking out.

Last is an article about corn and how it is and isn’t impacting the cost of food and gasoline in our country. For some reason, as an Iowa native, I feel compelled to write about corn whenever I get a chance. My home state only stands in the spotlight once in a great while. Most Americans only hear about Iowa once every four years during the Caucus. It’s a shame that most of them are still unable to point it out on a map.

In an influential 1932 essay, Lionel Robbins defined economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” (from Wikipedia)

I read a fascinating article about our current economic “woes” and it turns out fear is more of a factor than short supply. Simply because we desire them more they become more “scarce” causing the price to rise exponentially.

Congress and the White House have tried to help out our economy by giving creating an economic stimulus package that should hit most of our bank accounts within the next week. This was hardly the correct solution as our problems were created, in part at least,.by an economy that went from a traditional supply and demand model to one of scarcity. There has been quite a bit of fighting between the parties and the branches in an attempt to play the blame game. This year is charged with politics and I can see both sides using any fodder available to put their party into a more favorable light.

Gas prices have risen greatly in the past year because we have placed an increasing amount of desire for the fuel to keep our lives normal. We have placed a priority on fuel and as such we’ve seen the prices rise through the roof. Supply has dropped by a small amount but speculation has lead to dramatic price increases. I wrote about somebody talking about the futures market a few months ago talking about the rising price of oil - he couldn’t see the logic in the market. I don’t think there was any logic - we’re seeing a market that is being driven by fear. Fear is anything but rational. It is a reactionary impulse that causes us to hoard and make quick judgments. We fail to completely think through the problem.

The media fails to help our situation as they feed us with line after line of diatribe causing us to grow increasingly more paranoid about the situation. Its a shame that there little wrong to begin with. A state news organization is not the correct direction to head but we should ask more from the media. Sure, they’re in a business and they’re going to try and drive a profitable and addictive story that will keep readers and listeners coming back, but, they’ve got to show a little more responsibility.

Yes, there are more factors involved than a scarcity economy and yes - this is part socialism and economics but its probably the root of current ill. It’s a shame there isn’t much we can do about it.

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The American dream is to consume and we do it better than almost any other nation. Lately, prices have risen sharply on an item we all use - oil. We are consuming oil at an alarming rate and despite legislation to increase the gas mileage on cars we are pushing record levels of consumption. As a result of the spike and the lack of new refinery construction we have seen prices at the pump rise to record highs. We have sought ways to make ourselves more energy dependent and one of those ways is through biofuels. The most popular biofuel is ethanol - a product that is grown and produced in my alma mater, Iowa.

So - you’re probably wondering - what the heck is my problem with energy independence? Nothing. I believe that if we reduce our dependence on foreign oil our economic and political decisions will be based more on our needs than those of an other nation. Its a good thing for national security and stability to control our energy prices.

So - you’re probably still wondering - whats my problem with biofuels? That answer is slightly more involved. In order to offset the carbon needed to produce ethanol we are actually polluting more than we are saving by growing the fuel and converting it. Growing cellulose based fuel isn’t as efficient as other types of ethanol (ethyl-alcohol). If we had the appropriate climate, we should be growing as much sugar cane as we possibly can - and I say this with a caveat - we don’t want to do this and negatively impact the environment or food prices as we are currently seeing with traditional ethanol production. Why sugar cane? - it provides larger quantities of fuel while using fewer acres of land and resources to grow. I read an interesting piece at Time magazine and found the following excerpt.

Why is so much money still being poured into such a misguided enterprise? Like the scientists and environmentalists, many politicians genuinely believe biofuels can help decrease global warming. It makes intuitive sense: cars emit carbon no matter what fuel they burn, but the process of growing plants for fuel sucks some of that carbon out of the atmosphere. For years, the big question was whether those reductions from carbon sequestration outweighed the “life cycle” of carbon emissions from farming, converting the crops to fuel and transporting the fuel to market. Researchers eventually concluded that yes, biofuels were greener than gasoline. The improvements were only about 20% for corn ethanol because tractors, petroleum-based fertilizers and distilleries emitted lots of carbon. But the gains approached 90% for more efficient fuels, and advocates were confident that technology would progressively increase benefits.

What should we do with ethanol production in the future - spend more money on research. Food prices have risen sharply and we have seen the start of a global food shortage. Many countries, that depend on our surplus food, have seen prices rise sharply as more of our output was diverted to fuel production. Hopefully, these countries will quickly increase their agriculture production and avert a crisis. They might do as some farmers in Brazil have done and grow food for fuel - thus compounding the problem. You can read a further detailed explanation of the issues at Time magazine.

I’ve been crashing the last few days for some unexplained reason. I’m not driving vehicles into solid objects but rather experiencing my body deplete its energy reserves. Last night, about an hour before chow I noticed that I was having an extremely hard time concentrating. Little bits of time were disappearing and I was wearing down quickly. I knew that I needed to eat soon but I don’t have the ability to speed up time.

We got on the bus to the chow hall and I promptly passed out and woke when we reached the parking lot. I entered, ate my food in 5 minutes, and returned to the bus to sleep for the next 40 minutes. When we got back to work I attempted to check my email and I found that I was falling asleep between messages. I knew that we would be returning to work in 40 minutes and that we would take the bus so I went back outside and passed out.

When we arrived I was a little groggy until we started working. At that point, my body found its energy and I was fine for the rest of the night. I fell asleep, at the normal time, with relative ease.

I woke up two hours early today and I haven’t been able to get back to sleep. I decided to eat something - I am never awake for what the day walkers call “lunch”. I’m not sure how this is going to affect me later. Only time will tell.

My only guess to the cause of the crashes is that is related to my diet. I am not eating enough whole grain foods (that break down slower and provide longer lasting energy) so I’m going to tweak things a bit. We’ll see how it goes.

The did it in Abu Ghraib prison to people that didn’t deserve the treatment. I do it to myself on a daily basis. Why in the world would somebody beat the ever living crap out of their body? Why would someone push themselves until they were in so much pain that they thought they were going to puke?

Boredom

I decided to see how hard I could push myself today. My shoulder is almost completely rehabbed - almost to the point where I don’t have to worry about it. I’m still working on strengthening the anterior deltoid muscle (the weak one in the bunch) so that it keeps all of the other muscles where there are supposed to be located. It was leg day - the most brutal day of the week. Leg day is an all out assault on the largest muscle group in the body. It is the muscle group that is constantly in use and the one that takes the most punishment (save for the heart of course). I went through my normal routine but I cranked it up to three sets of 20 reps. I normally work in the 3×12 range but I essentially doubled my reps while maintaining the same weights. By the time I was done with each set my legs were on fire - veins were starting to pop out from my skin that I didn’t even know existed. I could barely walk by the time that I was done - not being able to walk isn’t a bad thing in this case - it merely shows that I properly worked out the muscle group. If you’ve watched any bad horror movies and have seen zombies stumbling about - its probably close to how I’ve been walking around. We probably smell the same too - its been a few days since we’ve had running water. Unless the world goes to hell, I’ll get my first shower in days tomorrow morning.

I’ve been resisting the urge to expunge the material in my stomach - its been 30 minutes since I’ve walked out of there but the pain is so intense that I can barely hold my guts in check. Its a hobby - albeit a painful one.

I’ve been feeling a bit better and have spent some more time at the gym in the past few days. So far, things have been going well and I’m slowly working my way into my program. I spend a lot more time stretching than I did last time because I’ve found that a few parts of my body are prone to repetitive stress injuries (my left shoulder and my ankles). I’m going to be at the gym 7 days a week but I only plan to spend 4 days lifting out of that time. It should allow me adequate time to properly recover so that I can hit it hard again the next day. On weight days I’m going to start at 20 minutes of cardio. On off days I’ve cranked it up to 40 minutes. I’m not sure if I want to increase the cardio times or if I just want to ratchet up the intensity. Only time will tell as I see how my body reacts to it.

The food here is actually quite good - for once I have Dick Cheney to thank - in a roundabout way. KBR, a Haliburton subcontractor, is responsible for the food on base - so far I’ve had beef brisket, chicken curry, crab legs, lobster tail, and steak to name a few. Lets just say that its quite easy for me to eat a high protein diet. I’m starting to sleep a little better and I barely wake up when the other guys come into the room. I’m cramped in a room that is made for two people that has four beds. All of my stuff is in my bags underneath the bed so I’m literally living out of my suitcase.

I’ve got my daily schedule worked out fairly well - I think I’ve got 90-120 minutes of straight study/reading time before I head to work. There are quite a few things wrong with the programs at work and they need some TLC - as soon as I get finished working through them all I should have some additional time to study there.

The hospital on base needs volunteers. I’m going to help out on my day off because it keeps me busy and its a good thing to do. I know they need help carrying litters from the choppers when our guys come but aside from that I could be doing almost anything. I don’t know how I’m going to react to it but time will tell. I took a few more pictures today and I’ll try to edit them so I can upload them tonight. I’m not sure how the firewall is going to react to it so it may have to wait until tomorrow.

I took a trip yesterday to San Francisco and took a few photos while there. I had the opportunity to ride on the trams and have a “Full House” moment. The weather was freakin’ great so it was a very good day to go out there and see the sites. I’ve only uploaded the pictures you see below due to my extremely slow internet connection. While down on the wharf I had the chance to get some chowder in a sourdough bowl. All in all it was a fairly cool trip and I got to see some cool stuff. I’ll upload the rest of the pictures when I get back.

I’m working on uploading the rest of the photos, you can look here for them. It may be a few days/weeks before they all get uploaded but know that I’m working on it.

this is old but funny

I’ve heard the epic tales of the great In-n-out burger but I’ve never had the opportunity to take in the wonder that is a burger produced by this California based chain. Many have been unable to accurately describe the taste, the experience, and the delight of eating said burger. So, since I’m in California for another two weeks and Google graciously lists the locations of almost any business of note I quickly found that there was one right down the road. Well, it was 30 minutes down the road but I really didn’t care - 30 minutes down the road means the trip from my house to work or vice versa on a bad traffic day. Thirty minutes is a mere drop in the hat - pittance to pay for the opportunity to eat at the great In-n-out.

We easily found the eatery off of Hwy 65 in central California. It decor was reminiscent of a fifty eras diner and had relatively little extra accoutrements scattered about the establishment. In other words, it didn’t look like a garage sale vomited throughout the interior of the restaurant.

The menu was simple - so simple anyone could make a decision - there were almost too many choices

1. Double double - two hamburger patties and two slices of cheese
2. Cheeseburger - one hamburger patty and one slice of cheese
3. Hamburger - duh!

So how was it? The lettuce tasted crisp and fresh, the tomatoes were ripe and tasted like they were vine ripened. The meat was not overly cooked nor overly greasy - the balance was perfect. The best part was that I decided to eat a double double - two patties… mmmm…. burger….

Was it the greatest burger ever? probably not

Was the value for price off the chart? absolutely

Would I make this my first choice in my burger consumption needs should it be an option? absolutely

and now to the crappy part

My dad had a colectomy today - from what my sister said all went well. My sister and mother had a difficult day but that was to be expected. If I would have been there I would have had a difficult day. I’m sure I’ll have a hard time dealing with reality the first time I see him again. It doesn’t feel real unless its right in front of me.

Its so hard to stay conveniently occupied and entertained and keep money in the bank account. As it stands now I’m on the edge of broke; but, I’m not completely broke so I still have a little bit of breathing room. The new job is going to help out a bunch and I may catch an extra couple of shifts much to the chagrin of Jessica. I need this money and I need to get ahead of things. If I work as little as 20 hours a week I’ll net a few hundred extra a month and it gets me out of hot water immediately. I’m not late on anything right now but if I went another month this way I’d be forced to start doing something drastic like selling plasma or becoming a male prostitute. I really don’t want to become a male prostitute for a few reasons (who else has time to think this out? ) - the clientèle I would draw would be much like the women that Rob Schneider attracted in Deuce Biggalo, the STD’s would be a huge drawback, the military would probably imprison me for trying (thus exacerbating the lack of income), and it would drive Jessica away (again, another bad thing). I could start selling my plasma to make a few bucks here and there but it freakin hurts. I had a friend in HS whose sole source of income was from the plasma he harvested from his body. I’m waiting to go to the desert because I can stop paying for a two giant money killers: rent and food. Both are paid for in the desert and I can take that cash and throw it on a bill. Hopefully, I’ll be down one credit card by the time I get back. If I’m good I’ll be able to get one partially gone before I leave.

It sucks being broke but its nobody’s fault but my own. I’m stupid for doing it and I hope to hell I’ll figure out how dumb I’ve been and never repeat my mistake.

Boredom is synonymous with a lack of creativity and lack of cash flow. There are very few things I can do that take absolutely no money. Think about it - if you want to go somewhere you’ve got to drive and use gas - even if you spend nothing while there you’re out the gas. Unfortunately if you’re gone for long enough you’ll need to bring some food. Sure, you’ve got some stuff in your house that you can bring with you but thats the stuff you bought for lunches during the week. The other option is to eat on the road and spend cash that you didn’t want to spend in the first place.

So, if you’ve got some extremely low cost ideas on how to spend your off duty time let me know - you can only watch TV and goof around on the internet so much - both of which cost money - before you’ve run the gamut and need to find something else to do.

Gee - this was quite a long rambling post - it saved me from boredom for a few minutes but its a solo activity and left out somebody thats sitting on the couch begging for my attention

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