Defiantone.com

I love thunderstorms - I love seeing the rain come down in torrents - I love seeing the sky flash with lighting and hearing the wind whip through the trees. I love hearing the crack of thunder that reverberates across the countryside. I don’t mind the aftermath because I got a great show. I love falling asleep to thunder - some find it frightening but I always sleep better during a good storm.

I hate drizzling crap rain. It rained a few days ago and I spoke of my great dislike for the mud. I thought that the worst of the crap was over and that the ground was going to finally dry up. I was looking forward to wearing one pair of shoes instead of carrying a second pair around with me. I was looking forward to not worrying about the mud that gets tracked everywhere. I was looking forward to my roommates no longer tracking in the mud - they aren’t considerate enough to take off their boots at the door. England is notorious for drizzling crap and the pacific northwest is notorious for drizzling crap. I didn’t expect to find that particular brand of rain out here.

I woke this morning to a drizzle that brought down the temperature 10 degrees and that covered every surface with a thin sheen of mud. There is no clean place left on this base. Indoors and out we live in world of slime, a world of filth, a world of muck. I say boo the mud - boo the rain. I don’t want scorching heat but I’d take it over drizzle any day. So, bring on the pain - bring on the heat.

When you get to a place like this one is forced to wonder how it could possibly get any worse. I know at least two ways to make the experience less than enjoyable - add mud and rain.

The military has had a hard time dealing with the extremely fine dirt that gets into all sorts of machinery. Its found a way to clog things that shouldn’t be clogged. Unfortunately, this dirt also makes the worst brand of mud imaginable. Its not like there is a little mud, this stuff really likes to cake onto itself. We have gravel spread almost everywhere but there is little you can do to avoid some patches of the crap. If you’re not careful your boots will weigh an extra pound with each additional step in the mud.

The conditions aren’t terrible but we’re bored more than anything else - something like this can ruin your day. Sure, its a small annoyance but its the one thats on the top of your mind so its bound to drive you crazy.

The forecast calls for rain tomorrow and I am not looking forward to it. It rained a week or two ago and we probably had no more than half and inch of rain. The dirt here has a tendency to turn into creamy peanut butter whenever the rain hits it. You’re probably thinking that it doesn’t really turn into peanut butter - well, if you emptied out a jar of creamy peanut butter on the floor and stepped into it you would find the same consistency I have found here. It doesn’t help that its just as sticky - where is a 50,000 gallon glass of milk when you need it? It doesn’t take a whole lot of rain to do it but the entire place turns into a quagmire of mud and puddles. Whenever the ground is muddy we go into “two shoe” policy. In order to enter most of the public buildings we are required to change out of one pair of shoes (the ones we wore on the way there) to a clean pair of shoes. Its not that its hard to do its just one more thing to bother you. The ground seems to retain most of the water in the top 3 inches so the last time it rained we experienced mud for at least four days. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain more - how much more I’m not really sure. All I know is that I’m not looking forward to fighting my shoes, boots, and vehicles whenever they inevitably get stuck in the muck.

Work is winding down while winding up for me at the same time. You might wonder what the heck I could be talking about. Well, I finished the last shift at my part time job last night but I’ve still got a few weeks left here. We’ve got an inspection the second week of January (which I’ll conveniently miss) that needs my help with preparation. I’ve got most of my programs taken care of, save for the biggest one, so I’m almost up to date on that front. The only thing thats slowing me down right now is all of the training classes I need to take before I leave. I’ve finished most of my online training but I’ve got a three day class that starts today and I’ve got a two day class and another one day class to finish before I leave.

Now it comes down to how good I am at scheduling my work so I get it finished in time. Lets hope I do a decent job.

The first phone call of the day is rarely a good one and today was no exception. During the course of the night someone smashed through my passenger window and removed my car stereo. They messed up part of the dash and put scratches throughout my car. The perpetrators left the trunk open all night (they took the sub woofer) so most of my car got rained on (and in) all night long. Luckily for me my insurance company has been great about the whole thing so I’ve already got a new window and the rest of it is already in the works. I spent most of the day trying to get the ball rolling on it all and I have a feeling this is going to take another day or two of time. I want to kneecap the schmuck that stole my stuff - I want to waste his time like he wasted my time.

I have not posted anything of relative substance for quite some time as I’ve been busy doing this and that… it also doesn’t help that I only have a scant few readers so I’m less inclined to actually write something. Imagine if I was recieving 1,000 visits per day instead of the 10-15 unique visitors that I get. I’m still unsure as to why I feel that I should share almost everything in this forum as opposed to not letting anyone know whats going on. I guess I feel that this forum is relatively anonymous and potentially vouyeristic. I only tell stories about things that have happened to me and about how I react to those events.

My writing style isn’t particularly refined and my stories are only so-so. Once in a while I’ll have a worthy story of note but odds are you’re bound to get the same drudge that you might here from anyone else that you might know.

I’ve been looking on and off for a part time job and I think I’m going to slam one out for the rest of the year. In other words, I’m going to work myself to sheer and utter exhausting for a few months and get ahead on things. Its going to take insane time management and will drain me every day. I know that I can do this and I know that I must do this. I still haven’t had anyone hire me yet but it may not be the job of my dreams… then again, there are few jobs most of us dream of getting save for being professional athletes or high ranking politicians. Is it odd that the only jobs we dream of getting are those that are most likely to have unwanted fans and stalkers?

After getting caught up on some things I plan to move out of my current residence into another that is slightly more spacious and that provides a few extra ammenities (a place to put a grill and a in appt washer and dryer). While those things may seem trivial, I have found that I am more than tired of going up and down the elevator in my building and fighting with the coin operated jobbies. Having a grill would be equally splendid because its one of the few cooking surfaces that I would no longer have to clean up. I’ve become fairly skilled in its operation and I would only become more skilled as opportunity increases.

Jessica (the girlfriend) is doing well save for the stress she puts herself under. She’s got quite a few things on her plate at the moment and I’m sure that I would feel quite overwhelmed. Luckily for her, as of the 23rd of this month most of those things will be done and over with (Bridezilla… err I mean her sisters wedding).

She’s on the ropes as to whether she should end her internship and finish her AA or stay there and only get a technical certificate. I think that the AA degree would only help in the end if she should get out of her career field at some point in time. The degree is in biotechnology and from what she has told me there are quite a few people with that degree and no job in the industry. I’m unsure if the degree program isn’t worth her time or if the other candidates were less than sterling. Needless to say, she’s got about as much on her plate as I have on mine. It creates a significant amount of stress on the both of us and as you can imagine we can take it out on eachother. Luckily, we know that neither partner deserves the extra (and misplaced) animosity so we’re quick to cut it off.

Ok… thats the update of sorts. Hopefully I can provide something that is actually interesting to read at a later time.

Several days ago I attempted to use an alternative operating system and things went fairly well. I only ran into a few snags (no flash support and no drivers for my scanner/printer). If I could work around those two problems it probably would have turned out that I could refrain from using microsoft. It turned out that I couldn’t get it to work so I decided to restore my computer back to the original settings. In the process, I lost everything. I’ve spent the last few days looking cluster by cluster for my documents, photos, music, and videos. I’ve recovered most of it. Its a shame they don’t make backup disks bigger than dvd’s because I took the time to backup my music files before I started and ended up with 12×9gb DVD’s.

oh well… that will learn me

I decided to climb a very big hill today… Well, most wouldn’t even dare call it a hill but they probably would call it a mountain. I drove up to Mount Rainier today and took a few photos. While I was there I also recorded a few videos.

I’ve been trying to get out of my current career field for a few years now and the chance is upon me. I’m going to let the best chance to retrain pass because I think I’ve found a better plan. If I was to retrain I would undoubtedly move away from here within the next year - no doubt about it. If I didn’t retrain I could use my job reservation and reenlist whenever I chose to do so. I have a guaranteed job for the next four to six years if I take the oath once again. Odds are, unless I place Korea on my list of bases I won’t leave here for a few years. Some people have been at this base for eight years - I’ve never heard of anyone being stuck at a base for eight years

Since I’ll be hanging around I can do a few things -

1. I can stay here with Jessica until she finishes school - she promised me she’ll be done my spring quarter
2. I can continue to work the second job and continue to pay off my debt
3. I can start taking classes again - if I’m not moving there is no better time like the present
4. I can still go snowboarding in the winter - if I were to move I might get stuck far away from them thar hills
5. I can continue to hang around a very important girl
6. The docs can continue to evaluate why I have a hard time running and hopefully solve the problem

After she completes her school, I can still apply to retrain but it might be a different career field and it will probably be under a different retraining program - its slightly harder to retrain in this manner but I might be able to do it. The other option is that if I finish my degree and she’s got hers done I could separate early from the military and become… a civilian again. I love the military but that doesn’t mean I can’t move on with my life. The military provides a great sense of security and in some ways I may be afraid to take that risk.

So… here’s the risk… and I hope it all goes well

If only I could keep it up -

So, on Thursday night I spent the evening wearing a polo shirt that was provided to me as I stood directly next to the stage at a Faith Hill and Tim McGraw concert. For the evening I was a member of the security team. My only job was to be a visible presence, answer questions, and remove any fan that attempted to jump up on the stage. I only answered one question and nobody attempted to jump on the stage so it was a relatively boring evening. I’m not a fan of country music - save for Johnny Cash - so I almost fell asleep a few times. Jessica was with me and was watching from a different part of the floor. She was rather jealous of me and wished that I could have been sweat on by either one of them - I don’t quite get it. She had fun but it was an extremely long evening. If only it was music that I actually liked - Stevie Wonder would have been awesome.

Friday was another night of fun as we went to watch the Tacoma Rainiers play in a triple AAA game. I’m not a huge fan of watching baseball but when you go to the park there is a lot of other stuff to watch if you have little interest in the game. They also have two of my favorite food groups: brats and beer. I haven’t had a good brat in a while - you know, brat, bun, sour kraut, catsup ( or ketchup) - all the things that make it good. We were staying for the fireworks that were at the end of the game and I guess it was a good choice. The game was all tied up through the 9th inning and we gave up 5 runs in the top of the 10th. Three of them were from an unforced error… doh! Since the Rainiers hang out at the bottom of the standings I didn’t think they had a chance in hell of coming back from that one but a miracle happened and scored 6 runs. I was extremely tired by that point so I really didn’t care but it was one heck of an ending. There were fireworks after the game but I almost fell asleep. If I’m tired I’m willing to sleep almost anywhere.

Saturday - last night - I went to Katie’s house - she is one of Jessica’s friends. We imbibed large quantities of behavior influencing liquid. Needless to say…. I was inebriated. Good times were had by all.

The girl is making me pancakes right now - she could be a keeper. If only all of my time off of work was this enjoyable.