Brainfarts

Just One of Life's Little Mysteries

2008-09-01T19:24:00.002-05:00

I was just watching Superman and wondering about something that I've pondered from time to time. Why the hell was Clark Kent so taken with Lois Lane? She's probably the most abrasive, obnoxious, and annoying female character ever and yet he seemed so smitten with her. Was this the feminist ideal of the 70s? I remember seeing this movie at the Kadena AFB theatre when it first came out. I thought she was annoying then too and I was probably five years old. Some things I'll just never understand.

Arugula-Eating Bad Asses: Tough Bo-Bo Sends War Veteran Scurrying for Cover

2008-08-20T06:18:00.004-05:00

I just read what might be one of the most absurd quotes of this election. When his patriotism and commitment to success in Iraq was questioned, Obama said, "John McCain doesn't know what he's up against."

John McCain was in the Hanoi Hilton when the junior senator from Illinois was starting kindergarten. When Russia invaded Georgia and Obama got his 3AM call he said, "I'm going body boarding." He couldn't be bothered to yank himself away from his Hawaiian vacation to salvage his flimsy foreign policy image. I'm pretty sure John McCain knows what he's up against.

Olympics

2008-08-16T21:43:00.002-05:00

I abandoned my principles--I broke down and watched the Olympics. I was at the Ford dealership getting my car fixed and the TV in the waiting room was turned to the Women's 50m Freestyle . I couldn't very well say to the other people there, "Excuse me, but due to China's ongoing persecution of political dissidents, Christians, and Tibet, I insist that we change the channel."

So I watched. In spite of the fact that the Chinese, in their standard Asian commie creepiness, had one little girl lip sync while another sang because the singer wasn't deemed sufficiently cute enough. And in spite of the fact that they had "16-year old" gymnasts who could only be 16 if they were forced to smoke, drink coffee, and sleep in a short bed, which knowing China wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility and the fact that the Beijing Olympics has been the biggest Potemkin undertaking since Pyongyang. I watched and it was pretty damn good.

Bees!

2008-07-21T21:53:00.002-05:00

In addition to your garden variety news items, I can always count on Fox News online to have some distasteful, titillating, or absurd tidbit of news. News items such as, “Weenie Dog Gnaws Off Sleeping Owner’s Toe” or “Hillary Duff Puts Scorpion Down Her Pants” regularly scream out from Fox News’ homepage. It’s the kind of news that’s deliciously tacky and brings no end to the pleasure of everyone. One headline that I’ll remember forever is “Truck Overturns in Canada, Releasing 12 Million Bees on Largest Highway.”

I know that bees make honey and do all kinds of lovely things for the world, but I don’t want to have to associate with them and the idea of 12 million bees loose in one place is horrifying to me. To put it simply, I’m afraid of bees. Lots of people are afraid of snakes, but I’m not overly concerned about snakes. Snakes generally leave you alone unless you make it a point to poke them with a stick or otherwise threaten them. Snakes don’t want whatever it is you’re eating and they won’t swarm together and chase you down just to bite you. It just doesn’t really pay to be afraid of snakes unless you live in India or Africa.

It was with great satisfaction that we paddled up to a beautiful beach after an outstanding day of kayaking. It was truly one of the most perfect beaches I’ve ever seen. The weather was about 85 degrees and sunny. After we pitched our tents, a few of us decided to take dip in the sea to clean off. I had taken great care to ensure every hygiene product I brought with me was biodegradable. What I should have paid better attention to was to ensure that they were unscented as well.

After I cleaned off, I decided to rinse out some of my clothes using the same almond-scented soap. I hung them over the tent to dry and wandered off down the beach. When I came back to the tent, I found it surrounded by a cloud of bees. Not only did they block the entrance to the tent, but they had taken up residence in my open water bottle. I was beside myself. It dawned on me that they might have been attracted by the smell of the soap.

A few yards away, I spied an extraordinarily long stick. I figured if I could get the clothes off the tent and deposit them further away, the bees would leave the tent and I could collect my clothes after dark. Gingerly, I attempted to lift my clothes off the tent frame with the stick. Serena spotted my efforts and came scurrying over telling me not to agitate the bees. “They won’t sting unless you make them mad.”

Serena emptied the bees from my water bottle and told me to just wait until dark unless there was something I absolutely needed from the tent. I decided there was nothing I needed that badly.

The bees continued to follow me along the beach, drinking in the overwhelming almond smell emanating from my hair and trailing along like dorky, hopeful, and eager to please teenage boys after a homecoming queen.

Serena continued to assure me that the bees wouldn’t sting unless enraged and that they were attracted to moisture. I tried to keep that in mind as everything we ate and drank was surrounded by bees. Thankfully, darkness came quickly enough and I was able to go to my tent. I got my partially dried clothes inside and packed absolutely everything I could for a hasty take down the next morning.

Sure enough, I was awakened by the sun and an unmistakable whine--BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! I was packed before everyone else was awake. I was up in a flash, packing my sleeping bag and throwing stuff sacks and dry bags out of the tent as fast as I could. Everyone was impressed by the speed with which I was able to take down my tent and pack my kayak.

As we hauled the kayaks away from shore and out into the water, I felt like the family in Poltergeist, fleeing as quickly as we could, abandoning the island to be consumed by bees.

I never got stung, but the afternoon we got there after my encounter with The Swarm, Serena ended up getting stung by bees--twice.

Stay tuned for Part V: A Hole is to Dig

Bye Bye Cantaloupe, Hello Cold Shock

2008-07-21T21:50:00.001-05:00

I’ve always been prone to motion sickness. It runs in my dad’s side of the family. It managed to skip a generation, leap over my dad, and land squarely on my head, while leaving my brother relatively unscathed. Kind of like a terrible barf tornado.

I’ve gotten sick in airplanes, movies in which the camera moved too fast, and of course long car trips. Every summer of my childhood, we drove marathon distances from Omaha, Nebraska to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in either Alabama or Pennsylvania in our 1980 Ford Fairmont. Every one of those car trips involved projectile vomiting, instigated entirely by me. My brother James was a sympathetic puker. The combination of long distances in the back seat, Brach’s Pick-a-Mix candies, and the overpowering smell of coffee from my dad’s giant thermos made my stomach churn. The first time this happened is forever etched in my memory. I vividly recall looking at the front of my pink t-shirt as semi-digested apples exploded downward. I looked over at James. With a look of horror and disgust I’ve never seen on a two-year old before or since, he quickly followed suit. Sometime later in Iowa, the Ford Fairmont screeched into a gas station with my dad screaming, “I gotta get out of this Puke-Mobile!”

Growing up in a landlocked state, I haven’t had much opportunity to bounce up and down on the ocean. So while I can honestly say I’ve never been seasick, it’s only because the opportunity never presented itself.

To say the weather was a bit choppy the first two days on the water in Baja is like saying that if you poke yourself in the eye with an ice pick, it might hurt a little. When we started out, the skies were sunny and the zephyrs light. We loaded the boats and were out on the water in no time. We’d been blessed with three extremely wonderful, patient, and capable guides, Serena, Caleb, and Edgar to lead the way. We were in tandem kayaks and being the lone, unattached person on the trip, I ended up sharing a kayak with Edgar the first day out. I’d paddled in the rain up in British Columbia, but substantial winds were a novelty for me. We saw ominous looking grey clouds in the distance, but Serena assured us, “It never rains in Baja.”

The further we paddled, the greyer the sky got and the higher the winds blew while Serena continued to let us know that it never rained in Baja and when the sprinkles began coming down, she reassured us, “It’s not raining.”

It never really did pour down rain on us. I’ve always heard that the Inuit have some hundred odd words for different types of snow. Maybe folks from British Columbia have varying degrees of rain.

We weren’t out on the water long enough on the first day to feel the full effects. The second day out, the sun was shining. Unfortunately, the wind hadn’t abated. We were about halfway across the water on our way to the island we would be spending the night on. I’d eaten cantaloupe for breakfast along with something else I can’t recall. As our kayaks pitched on the waves, I could feel breakfast sloshing around in my stomach and was worried about what might happen next when my digestive system presented a much more pressing concern--I had to go. And I had to go RIGHT NOW. I mentioned this to Serena and she said, “Okay, just jump into the water and go.”

This took working up some nerve since I’d never jumped into the middle of the ocean before, but I finally jumped out of the kayak into the sea.

About two months prior, Sea Kayaker magazine ran an article about the dangers of cold shock and swim failure. Deep down I didn’t really think this would happen to me. I was in Mexico and it was eighty degrees outside after all. I will say that once I jumped into the water, my priorities were swiftly redirected. It was like coming across a bathroom at a Cenex gas station in Arkansas and realizing maybe you don’t have to go quite so bad after all. If I hadn’t had someone to help me back in the boat, I don’t know that I would have been able to make it back in at all.

I was grateful to finally be back in the boat and shivering with cold, the source of my unpleasantness changed its point of origin. Pitching around on the choppy water for over two hours had finally taken its toll and half-digested cantaloupe began spewing into the ocean coming from guess who. Poor Caleb, who had been so patient with the flabby abs, chicken-armed woman he was sharing a kayak with, remained so throughout the entire time I spent retching over the side of the boat. He told me about being seasick on a fishing boat off the coast of Alaska. “Oh Jennifer, seasickness is so shitty.”

He continued to paddle while I barfed into the sea. We finally made it to our campsite and I couldn’t have imagined a more idyllic and beautiful place to spend the night. Even in my state of physical and mental misery, I had to appreciate the turquoise water and relatively sheltered beach as we paddled to shore.

I grabbed my dry bag with my clothes and quickly stripped down behind a bush to change. It was another hour and a half before I remembered that I still had to go.

Stay tuned for Part IV: Bees!

I'm a New Aunt

2008-07-18T17:33:00.002-05:00

In my last entry, I mentioned how my sister-in-law was ready to give birth any second. It turns out I was right! Literally, she was squeezing out the kid as I typed and I didn't even know it. So now I have a niece. Her name is Cosette and she has a head full of dark brown hair. My parents are racing out to Iowa City first thing in the morning. I'm dying to see her. My brother says she's adorable and since that's a word I've never, ever heard him use, she really must be. She's going to be a daddy's girl.

Drink the Kool-Aid, Baby Parsons

2008-07-17T20:45:00.002-05:00

When I was deployed, I found a souvenier that I just had to have. It was one of those cheap-o trinkets that can be found at fine souvenier establishments from Abu Dhabi to Damascus. It's a stuffed camel that when squeezed, plays a freaky sounding Arabic children's song and--get ready for this--has eyes that light up red. Yes ladies and gentlemen, a toy obviously marketed for children that would scare the hell out of pretty much every child in the western world. My cousin received a Tickle-Me Elmo for her birthday. She was terrified of it. Some caring, thoughtful relative searched high and low for an overpriced toy that was at a premium and Raven will have nothing to do with it. When I mentioned the camel to my aunt, she said Raven probably wouldn't go for a toy created for Rosemary's Baby.

My brother on the other hand was delighted with the prospect of such a freaky toy. He and my sister-in-law are expecting their first baby any second now. He didn't see the sense in wasting time when we could go ahead and warp the baby as early as possible. This is the same guy who went through a Nightmare on Elm Street phase in which he was fascinated by Freddy Kruger--during daylight hours. Eventually, all Freddy Kruger memorabilia mysteriously ended up buried deep in his bedroom closet, under the bathroom sink, or tucked away in some other odd, out-of-the-way place in the house where there was no chance that the Freddy Kruger doll, poster, or trading cards could ever climb their way out of the toybox or off the wall and shred his face to ribbons while he slept.

Of course I ended up buying him the demon camel. It's the kind of toy that in most of North America would be in a bedroom closet with a chair against the door to discourage any sort of aspirations the toy might have for nocturnal animation and possible escape. Maybe kids in the Middle East aren't worried about a camel with creepy light-up eyes. Then again, maybe it's all relative. They have children's shows that show giant rabbits getting their hands cut off for stealing and bumblebees that teach them how to be suicide bombers. With all that to worry about, maybe a stuffed camel isn't that scary after all.

Who's My Neighbor?

2008-07-09T21:12:00.003-05:00

I just got my copy of Outside magazine in the mail the other day. In the August issue, there's an article by Patrick Symmes about Burma just before Cyclone Nargis hit. Symmes left Burma a day before Nargis came to town and relates the details of a corrupt military dictatorship driven by superstition and such profound greed that not only robbed the Burmese people of desperately needed aid from foreign NGOs, but punished local citizens that attempted to alleviate suffering. No one in Burma had a clue about what would happen until hours before the cyclone hit.

Symmes' article detailed the Orwellian, Pyongyang-style creepiness of the junta's dictatorship. I spend my days at work at a computer reading about evil, oppressive governments and dictators with freakish proclivities and bizarre personality flaws. Stuff like this doesn't shock me anymore, although that doesn't make it any less horrible. The thing that jumped out me from this article was something seemingly more mundane.

Last September, Burma experienced what's now known as the Saffron Revolution. Thousands of Buddhist monks led pro-democracy protests across Burma. The junta put a quick end to the protesters. The official body count puts the death toll at 31, but human rights groups claim the number was in the hundreds.

After the cyclone, the only truly effective internal relief came from Buddhist monks who led truck convoys into the Irawaddy Delta to offer food and shelter to victims at village temples.

I don't believe that all worldviews are equally valid or all roads lead to heaven. Following that idea to its logical conclusion is saying that the ideas of Nicolai Ceaucescu or Stalin are just as good as Gandhi's or Mother Theresa's. Most people would agree that's completely silly.

However, I do think that everyone is responsible for using the truth that they have. Certain ideals are transcendent regardless of culture. Theft, murder, and greed are universally condemned, regardless if someone is Christian, Buddhist, or Jewish. If the Burmese generals don't have some sense that what they do is wrong, they wouldn't have anything to fear from the Buddhist monks and they wouldn't work so hard at hiding their actions from the rest of the world.

And as for the action taken by the Buddhist in the wake of the cyclone, if they didn't have a sense that there was a right thing to do, they would have only been concerned about saving themselves instead of taking care of their homeless and hungry neighbors. I highly doubt that Campus Crusade ever showed up at their doorstep to hand them a pamphlet on the Four Spiritual Laws and pray with them to get "saved" and there are the born-again types who would say that if they don't fill that Sinner's Prayer square, they're going to hell. I don't buy that. Only God really knows what's inside a person. Christ used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate that actions speak louder than the appearance of piety or the letter of the law. Samaritans at that time were despised by the Jews because of their partial pagan ancestry and the fact that their religion wasn't in line with the teaching of mainstream Judaism. They were considered unclean. The Buddhist monks were the ultimate Good Samaritans who didn't have to ask, "Who is my neighbor?" I find it hard to believe that there won't be a place for them in heaven.

Cat Found

2008-07-08T21:03:00.003-05:00

Soapbox of the Day

2008-07-08T16:40:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to think that OKC is run by some secret cadre of socialists. I'm a big believer in minimum government. Some things are better if they're centralized--roads, trash, national defense, etc. and obviously the money has to come from somewhere, but too much busybodyness by Big Brother kills initiative and creativity. Laws should exist to protect citizens, not to fill the pockets of city officials. My own lovely birthplace of Bellevue, Nebraska is notorious for this.

Only proponents of maximum government interference would make it such a pain in the butt to own a 45-lb. piece of plastic and float it on the water.

I went to renew my sticker for my kayak today. The first time I tried, I forgot my card that I got in the mail so the Tag Agency wouldn't take it. Okay, fair enough. So I left work early to go home and get the card. I went to another Tag Agency and they said, "We don't accept debit or credit cards for anything under $25."

I pointed out that the card I got in the mail didn't specify that. In fact it very clearly states that I could use my debit card. All she said was, "Different Tag Agencies have different rules. Sorry." I was really irritated.

I found out not only do we have to pay excise taxes and register kayaks (including inflatable kayaks), you also have to pay taxes even if you made the boat yourself. That's just too silly. I think the people that came up with that are just being greedy, little bitches.

On a separate yet equally annoying note, the first time I bought a bottle of wine in Oklahoma City, I walked all over the liquor store looking for a corkscrew. I finally had to ask the guy at the register where the corkscrews were at. He told me they couldn't sell anything that people could use to open the bottle on the way home. WHAT?! I have a bottle opener on my knife and I could pop open a beer in the car, but apparently I'm much more likely to uncork a bottle of Pinot Grigio and get s@#$-faced on the two-mile drive back to my house. He thought it was silly too, but he didn't make the laws. Also they don't sell wine or liquor in grocery stores, although when I lived in San Angelo, Texas they didn't even sell it within the city limits. Everybody knows that people don't get drunk off of beer, right? All these holy roller blue laws and yet they still manage to maintain one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in America. It goes to show that you can always try to legislate morality, but it usually doesn't work out too well.

ORE Nightmares

2008-07-08T08:59:00.002-05:00

I know all this ORE prep is getting to me now. Last night I dreamed that we had a recall and I didn't know about it, so I showed up to work wearing a wetsuit and Neoprene paddling boots. I don't know why I would show up to work dressed like that even without a recall, but it was a dream, so it doesn't have to make sense.

Drink Some Water

2008-07-05T21:38:00.003-05:00

For some reason, I must look like somebody who doesn't drink enough water. I don't know what it is. I'm starting to wonder if I have some giant scarlet letter on me that's invisible only to me--a big "D" for dehydrated or something. In addition to the standard issue mom-nagging about the need to drink water throughout high school, I've had numerous people throughout life, including strangers tell me to drink more water.

From a friend back home: "You need to drink more water."

From a coworker: "You don't drink enough water."

From a sales lady at the mall in Abu Dhabi trying to sell me facial spray: "You have wrinkles because you don't drink enough water." (Or something to that effect. English wasn't her first language).

During my Baja trip: "Jennifer, do you have enough water?" (Repeat 57 times)

Every time I go paddling: "You're face is red. Have you been drinking any water?"
"You're face is really red. Drink some water."
ME: "Could I please have some water?"
RESPONSE: "Here are five bottles. Drink up."

I've noticed a pattern developing and I'm starting to think that maybe I really don't drink enough water. It's just so hard to do. Just sitting around drinking water doesn't really appeal to me. Flavored water usually leaves a really gross taste in my mouth and I have to drink regular water to get rid of it. When I went through OTS, we had to drink four glasses of water at every meal. That just seemed excessive. I had to pee all the freaking time. I started cheating and only filled the glasses halfway, sometimes only a quarter of the way.

So today, I realized with great annoyance that my one piddling bottle of water wasn't going to last for a 15-mile bike ride, especially with the wind blowing as hard as it was. I don't know what made me think one bottle would last 15 miles to begin with. Fortunately, I saw the OKC Kayak trailer. They always have water and they did this time too. I ended up downing three bottles. I'll have to stop inwardly rolling my eyes whenever somebody tells me to drink some water.

Beer, Bubbas, and Firecrackers

2008-07-05T10:26:00.003-05:00

Nothing brings out the bubbas like a holiday involving beer and the the opportunity to blow things up.

I went on a really cool paddling trip last night to watch the fireworks from the Oklahoma River. In addition to the public fireworks displays (which were awesome) lots of private citizens were setting off fireworks by the river. Apparently, the private setting off of fireworks is illegal in Oklahoma City, although you'd never know it.

As we were paddling, I saw something that will always me etched in my memory. It was a Darwin Award waiting to happen. On the banks of the river stood a woman holding a Roman candle IN HER HAND as it shot off. She appeared to be aiming towards those of us who were paddling. I don't know what was scarier--the fact that she was doing this in the first place or the fact that she was a woman. You would expect stupid stuff like this to come from a dude. Being in the military, I've seen some crazy, scary women, but this bubbette was something else.

Never Try to Give a Cat a Bath...

2008-07-04T18:57:00.002-05:00

...just leave it to professionals. Or else have lots of Bactine on hand.

Welcome to the ORE: Morale Stops Here

2008-07-02T19:22:00.003-05:00

We're getting ready for an ORE. It's the sort of thing that makes me wish for the apocalypse, I hate it so much. It means sitting in chem gear in 100 degree heat. Of course it's practice for the real thing and if the real thing ever comes I'll want to know what to do, but that doesn't make it suck less.

We've been sitting in weekly ORE meetings (Motto: Chipping away at your soul one meeting at a time) that are very slow, tedious, and horrid. It's like being bitten to death by butterflies. Last week they said that the most important thing to remember was to "have fun!"

I try to see the best in things, but some things just aren't fun no matter what. There's no point in pissing and moaning about it--everybody's in the same boat, but that doesn't make it fun.

My favorite part is when we're in the middle of the ORE and somebody reads off a dramatic, new piece of message traffic. They'll say "Exercise exercise exercise. North Korean special ops forces have just gotten onto the base and the wing building is destroyed. Exercise exercise exercise."

There is always that one person that says, "Oh my God! REALLY?" Yes, really. That's why we're all sitting around eating tacos while North Koreans overrun an Air Force base in the middle of the continental United States.

It just occurred to me that it really could be worse. I could be at Minot right now in the wake of their major nuclear surety inspection failure. I'm pretty sure there's not a worse place in America in any branch of the Department of Defense right now than Minot AFB. I'll try to keep that in mind for the ORE.

Part II: The Buzzards of Baja Await You

2008-06-30T20:20:00.004-05:00

Our squadron deployed last year to a place that was far enough away from the shooting that we could visit the most decadent cities on Earth, cities with so much money, they were still trying to figure out how to spend it. However, we were still close enough to the shooting to accumulate obscene amounts of tax-free combat zone pay. After two weeks in the desert, we faced the same dilemma that our host nation faced, namely “what should I do with all this money?”

Unlike our host nation, we didn’t have enough for Bentleys or Lamborghinis, but we did have the money for plasma TVs, and iPods.

It also became clear that a great deal of that money was going to boost the economies of various countries in the form of tourism dollars and I was determined to do my part to help. I finally decided on a paddling trip to Baja. I’d been kayaking for almost a year and bought my first kayak that previous spring. My first time paddling was in the Johnstone Strait in British Columbia, so I wasn’t embarking on this completely unskilled. I was just embarking on it at previously unheard of levels for someone whose lion’s share of paddling experience took place on Lake Hefner.

Undeterred by my utter lack of sea kayaking experience and encouraged by the promise that all skill levels were welcome, I signed on for a six day paddling trip on the Sea of Cortez.

I called my parents to tell them my post-deployment vacation plans. I halfway expected by news to be met with lip-biting concern. Whenever I’d previously expressed my desire to visit Mexico, my dad would send me the standard announcement from the State Department warning people to flee for their lives from the state of Oaxaca and avoid any town near the border. I assured them that Loreto was very safe, very small, and very far away from the drug cartels. I registered my trip with the US Embassy. The only caveat was that my dad made me promise I wouldn’t drive. I made a mental note to cancel the rental car I’d already reserved. It was only after I got to Mexico, that I realized he may have been on to something.

The trip started out from the town of Loreto. I went to the Loreto website and looked at the photo gallery. One picture stood out. It was a picture of some large birds overlooking the water and the caption beneath stated, “Vultures await breakfast amidst a golden sunrise at Juncalito beach.”

Maybe buzzards don’t have the same connotation of impending death in Mexico that they do in the US, but I’m not sure how a picture of carrion birds waiting for capsized, dehydrated, and hopeless paddlers and anglers serves as a great tourism pitch.

When we first started out, the weather was beautiful. We were told by our guides, “it never rains in Baja.”

Of course wind was another matter entirely. On day two, I began to think Baja’s turkey vultures might be eating like kings by the end of the day.

Tune in for Part III: Bye Bye Cantaloupe, Hello Cold Shock

Collared Lizard

2008-06-26T21:00:00.006-05:00

I was on a hike in the Wichita Mountains when we came upon a collared lizard. If he'd had the cognizance to know better, he would have felt like Paris Hilton. We were snapping pictures like crazy.

Part I: In the Beginning...

2008-06-25T17:31:00.011-05:00

My parents were never “camping” people and we never took “outdoorsy” vacations. They were Howard Johnsons/Holiday Inn people and since we were also a military family with a history buff as the for a dad, most of our vacations involved driving 1500 miles to visit relatives, interspersed with pit stops at Civil War battlefields. It’s not that my mom and dad didn’t want to get out in the sun and fresh air, but the bottom line was that at the end of the day, they wanted a toilet that flushed and to be in close proximity to a Bob Evans. One day during the summer, we went on a family outing to one of the state parks and packed a lunch to take with us. Immediately, we were beset by bees. I still have a picture somewhere of my dad trying to swat the bees away with a loaf of bread. Bugs and filth were fine for a day, but they didn’t see any point in turning it into an overnight adventure.

There is one notable exception to this. It was the summer of 1987 and my dad was away on a TDY. My mom got a seedling of a thought that germinated into a full-blown bad idea. Platte River State Park was about thirty minutes away from where we lived and in addition to the very nice, well-appointed cabins, they also had for rent—get ready for this—teepees. A novel way for suburban families of the Eighties to experience what life was like for Native Americans if Native Americans had built their teepees on carpeted platforms and made them from canvas instead of buffalo skins and had sleeping bags, hibachis, and flush toilets across the way. You can probably guess where this story is headed. My mom decided to rent a teepee for two nights and take my brother James and I camping. This necessitated the proper attire. She wore a denim skirt. It made for outstanding comfort and ease of movement when she had to push our stuff to the campsite with a wooden cart. The first night, the weather was hot and windless.

None of us slept a wink, which put us in the proper frame of mind for quality family time the next day. When we woke up, the first thing my brother and I did was pick a fight. What it was about, I have no idea, but it couldn’t terribly substantial since I was thirteen years old at the time. Whatever it was, it was enough to make my mom burst into tears. Nothing puts a damper on a good fight like making your mom cry. What could we do? James and I stared at each other, at a complete loss for words. Mom spent about 15 minutes boo-hooing and wondering aloud what she’d done to raise two such selfish, ungrateful urchins. She finally regained her composure and we headed up to the arts and crafts center where we spent roughly forty dollars making God’s eyes and painting ceramic unicorns (a stellar example of fauna indigenous to the Great Plains region).

While we were at the arts and crafts center, it started to pour down rain. Now, before we left the campsite, the sky was overcast, so my mother made it a point to ensure the top of the teepee was closed up tight. What didn’t occur to us was the roughly two inches of space between the base of the teepee and the ground. When we arrived back at the campsite, the top of the inside of the teepee was nice and dry, but the wind had blown the rain under the base of the teepee. All our belongings were soaked. We gathered our things and left immediately, marking an end to the Parsons family camping extravaganza. It’s the stuff memories are made of.

I went camping again some ten years later with a bunch of friends. The night we got there, we experienced golf ball-sized hail. A childhood friend managed to one-up me though. Her family owned a camper and she related an anecdote of how they had to run from a tornado while they were at Adventure Land, a low-grade theme park in Des Moines with overpriced food and a giant lion as a mascot. She told me how she and her two brothers were out enjoying the fun park and in her words, “having a good old time”. At the end of the day, they went back to the camper. Then the storm clouds rolled in and the tornado sirens started wailing in that special panic-inducing way that causes people living in unstable structures to flee to the nearest ditch with only the clothes on their backs and if they have any presence of mind, a video camera to record the whole thing. My friend said that they fled from the camper shrieking and running through the rain and hail, while her older brother screamed, “Run your asses off!”

They ended the day by drying their sleeping bags under the hand dryers in the bathrooms of Adventure Land.

I did eventually have a relatively successful tent camping experience in Sparks, Nebraska. I went canoing down the Niobrara River with a gaggle of friends where we spent two nights in a tent. Everything went reasonably well. It didn’t rain a drop. The only regrettable thing was the smell in the tent after two nights. When we left, we looked like extras from the set of Braveheart.

While my parents didn't engage in camp out pursuits themselves, they didn't see any reason to deprive me. They were thrilled to have me go off for a week at time, even if it was just to make me scarce for a ten hour period at day camp. I attended summer camp every year between kindergarten and the seventh grade. My first experience was at the Camp Pokamoke in Crescent, Iowa. The only thing I remember about it was that they had a pool and that I experienced the chagrin of having a sensible mom who packed lunches with peanut butter sandwiches, apples, and a thermos of Kool-Aid while other kids had Fritos and pop.

The next year, I started going to Girl Scout camp and by about the third grade I was going to sleep away camp in Fremont, Nebraska, which I’m sure delighted my parents to no end. It was an outstanding camp with cabins, horseback riding, and a pool. Every year, each church in the synod sponsored a week long camp in which they gathered a bunch of grade school kids and about thirty horny pre-teens and brought them out to live in the woods for a week with a bunch of other grade school kids and horny pre-teens. It was a fun-filled week of swimming, horseback riding, night hikes, learning the fine art of wood burning on viciously splintery plywood, mean-girl drama, and week long relationships that everyone just knew would last forever and ever and ever. Camp was only a week, but I would have stayed all summer if my parents had let me. I had gotten accustomed to daddy-long legs, snakes, dirt, and stinging nettles

In light of these personal experiences and since it had been almost eight whole years since I slept outside for three nights without showering, I decided the next logical step was to try this all over again. Only I didn’t go at this half-assed with a trailer, teepee or cabin at a state park. I went at it whole-assed by signing up for an eight day paddling trip down to Baja, Mexico. This was a full-blown, knock down, drag out, crap-in-the-wilderness adventure. It also included yoga.

Stay tuned for Part II: The Buzzards of Baja Await You

Just Say No to Lead-Filled Computer Monitors

2008-06-24T21:11:00.003-05:00

I've been doing some housecleaning and I went to take a computer monitor to the Goodwill. The sucker was mondo heavy and I think I lost a few years off my life just carrying it out to the car. So imagine my feeling of utter dismay when I showed up at the Goodwill's back door and was told by the Goodwill, "I'm sorry, we don't take computers." When I asked her why, she said, "Goodwill has gone green and computers have too much lead"
What? I mean, WHAT THE FREAKIN' CRAP?! I'm not asking them to dump it in a landfill or grind it up and stir it into paint. And it's just a monitor, it's not like they have to upgrade it.
So now I have this ginormous CRT in the backseat of my car until I can find a place that will take it or someone who wants a free monitor.

Loogee Man

2008-06-23T22:01:00.000-05:00

There's this guy in my water aerobics class. In Water Aerobics Land he would be an arch-villain and his name would be Loogee Man.

He never misses a class. Ever. And during every class this is what we hear...

Ungh, Ungh, UNGH AARGH! Whark, whark, whark...P-TOO! plop (sound of goober hitting water).

He starts off with lots of grunting and straining, which sounds like he's either suffering from severe constipation or he's passing an elephant. He works up to the loogee hawking, and finally makes his deposit in the pool. If he does it once, he does it 75,000 times. Woe to the unfortunate person who happens to drift Loogee Man's direction during deep-water aerobics. They spend roughly ten minutes vainly trying to swim away while holding water weights.

I've learned a very valuable lesson from all this--don't ever fall into a swimming pool with your mouth open.

Bye-Bye McDonald's Fried Pie

2008-06-23T15:04:00.005-05:00

You know really fills me with a sense of loss and sadness? McDonald’s no longer sells fried pies. They still have pies, but they’re baked. I was thinking of this the other day when I got one of their lukewarm apple pies.

The old fried pies of the 80s were crispy, greasy, criminally unhealthy and if you weren’t careful when you took the first bite, you could end up with second-degree burns as cherry filling streamed from your lips to the bottom of your neck. However, upon completion of the pie, you were filled with a deep sense of satiety. It made me smile. It made me forget my problems. Those were some good, damn fried pies.

So now the pies are baked and I’m sure it all has to do with marketing a healthier product and not wanting to get sued by people who claim they got fat because McDonald’s didn’t warn them that eating five fried pies everyday and not exercising would make them blow up like a whale. Or maybe McDonald’s didn’t want to get sued when some crybaby exploded hot filling down their shirt. The pies now have holes in them as well, quite possibly to counteract that filling spewing problem. Then again, maybe they just wanted to stay ahead of the Trans Fat Government Nannies who would eventually make them get rid of the fried pies anyway.

Convenient stores remain a Mecca for unhealthy food. When I lived in San Angelo, Town and Country still sold fried pies.

I just think it’s sad that the fried pies have disappeared from the health-conscious mainstream and are now relegated to the fringes of society and gas stations out in the sticks. Oh well, off to Buffalo Wild Wings. At least something good still remains untouched by the fat cops.

President or Savior?

2008-06-22T20:01:00.002-05:00

So, we're in the throes of electing the future leader of the free world. The thing that amazes me most about elections is that people think that if a candidate doesn't fall in lockstep with every single issue that they hold near and dear, they must certainly be the anti-Christ.

During the Nebraska primaries many years ago two individuals were vying to be the party's gubanatorial candidate for the November elections. One guy was party base's wet dream. The other guy was more moderate. When things started going south for Mr. Perfect Candidate, his campaign sent out a scurrilous mailer with all kinds of silly accusations on it. One accusation that I recall was, "Mr. Moderate Candidate wants your children to have access porn in public libraries!" It was patently B.S. and it didn't help Mr. Perfect Candidate's campaign. In fact, his political career pretty much tanked after that. I ended up voting for Mr. Moderate Candidate. So did most Nebraskans--he ended up winning the general election too.

We're just trying to elect the best person to lead the country, not the Savior of America. No candidate is going to fit in whatever box, the special interest groups have made for them. We all have things we wouldn't want the public to know, we all have stupid friends, and we all have clay feet. Why should politicians be any different?

Is Anybody Out There? Part II

2008-06-22T19:27:00.001-05:00

Any Sunday school-going American kid could probably sing Jesus Loves Me--it's one of the standard little kid Sunday school ditties. We know the words by heart and as we get older we learn more. I eventually learned The Lord's Prayer, the Twenty-Third Psalm, and the Apostles Creed which I had to learn for Confirmation.

Here's the thing--SETI sits at a telescope and searches the sky for signs of intelligent life, other people toy with Ouija boards, and still other people search for solace in the religion of their choice, so the real question in everybody's mind isn't "Is anybody out there", but the root of the search (at least in my mind) is "If there is somebody out there, do they care about me?"

I never felt like I could sing Jesus Loves Me, because I could never be sure that Jesus loves me. He may love us collectively, but there's got to be what, something like 6 billion people on the face of the Earth and I keep thinking that to God we must look like ants on a sugar cube. I'd like to feel like more than an insignificant speck whirling around in the universe.

Wanted for Murder

2008-06-22T14:04:00.000-05:00

Meerkats are generally altruistic little creatures, but they've been known to kill the offspring of senior members in their societies in order to advance the position of their own offspring. Kind of like mothers of cheerleaders.

I'm sure the one meerkat isn't dead, just resting--or is he...

Is Anybody Out There? Part I

2008-06-15T18:55:00.000-05:00

Many years ago, around Christmas time, I bugged my parents for a shortwave radio receiver. Under the tree Christmas morning, I found a world band radio waiting for me. I thought being able to get radio stations from the other side of the globe was just Way Cool. (Yes, I know I had bizarre ideas about what was cool--that's how nerds are). I'd turn the analog dial ever so carefully, my ears straining to pick up broadcasts from Finland or Australia or Japan for anything in another language. Usually when I got something, it was Tex-Mex music or some Latin American religious broadcast and if I got really lucky, I could pick up Deutsche Welle. That didn't deter me from trying to find more, however, and sometimes I would even listen to the static, trying to discern a voice or a tune--anything that would indicate some sign of life in the chaos.

My all-time favorite movie is Contact. The protagonist, Ellie Arroway, is an astronomer whose passion is the quest for extraterrestrial intelligence. She's dedicated her entire career, much to the incredulity and scorn of the scientific community, to proving that the human race isn't alone in the universe. She's staked her reputation on it and just as she's about to lose funding for her study something extraordinary happens--the message that humankind has been sending out in the form of television transmissions is repeated back to Earth from an extraterrestrial transmitter array orbiting Vega. As more is learned about the message, Ellie is vindicated in all her years of study. In the beginning of the movie and interspersed throughout, we see scenes of Ellie as a young girl, speaking into a ham radio and waiting patiently for an answer to her question. It's the question at the heart of Ellie's ultimate pursuit and it's what every human being seeks to resolve by some means or another. Is anybody out there?

To be continued...

Look at Me! True Confessions, Naughty Pictures, and Letting it All Hang Out

2008-06-13T07:24:00.000-05:00

I recently read a book called Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic. by David Nadelberg. It's a collection of embarrassing childhood diary entries, love letters, pictures drawn, and dirty stories written by twelve year-olds and adolescents with only a notional idea about sex. Anybody that reads these and remembers anything about stories they penned as a kid will be instantly pricked with a sense of mortification as a long-forgotten, unwelcome memory comes flooding back to remind them of how ridiculous they actually were sometimes.

I recall a time when I was three or four years-old and I went through a phase where I kept drawing "anatomically correct" bunny rabbits. I can't imagine what my preschool teacher must have thought. I don't know what made me fixate on this subject for my pictures, but likely it was something rather mundane. At that time, my mom had bought me a book about the human body written for younger children. It was illustrated in bright colors and had a few pages dedicated to human reproduction. Of course the book was written for a younger child--not enough detail to tell you how IT really happens, but enough to let you know that you weren't brought by the stork. IT still had that aura of mystery. Looking back, it all seems so Freudian. How weirdly ironic that as a four-year old I connected the most basic human act with an animal known primarily for its prolific reproduction and in bygone years, a pregnancy test.

When I was in high school, I discovered that my mom had saved these masterpieces, I was horrified. I begged her to throw them out. I was certain I would have died of embarrassment if anybody had ever seen them. Never in a million years would I have posted them where people could see them. That's the way diaries and secrets used to be and there used to be a term for pictures of people in compromising positions: blackmail photos.

So why do people these days feel compelled to post their deepest secrets and humiliating pictures on the web for the world to see? It's coming back to bite them in the butt. A young woman who graduated from teacher's college was denied her teaching certificate by the state when they discovered compromising pictures on her blog. She's not the only one. Employers commonly look for potential employees' blogs and websites and they're not hiring people who post pictures of themselves in their most risque moments.

It's not just blogs either. We live in a voyeuristic society. Look at the glut of reality shows. In spite of their different formats they all have one common denominator--LOOK AT ME!

In spite of the fact that we have more information at our fingertips and more ways to connect with the world around us than ever before, we're more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history. I walked into Panera Bread one day and witnessed three or four people sitting at a table together. They were all working on their own laptops completely disengaged from each other. Together, but still alone.

Not only has cable TV, video games, and the internet contributed to a society of sedentary couch potatoes, they've made the world a lonely place. We now have a generation of people who have no idea how to connect and desperately want to. People want to be known and the only way they think they can make that happen is through message boards, forums, and blogs. That's hardly a suitable substitute for real relationships. Now we have a world of people screaming LOOK AT ME!

Bad Moon Rising

2008-04-12T21:39:00.001-05:00

I was mooned by a skate at the Oklahoma Aquarium today.

Fish Head, Fish Heads, Eat 'Em Up, Yum!

2008-04-12T20:34:00.002-05:00

I finally took the plunge and bought a digital SLR--and this is what I took on my first day out. I went to the Oklahoma Aquarium. It's some kind of eel sticking it's head out of the sand. It made me think of the Fish Heads song.

Leprechauns, Unicorns, and Liberal Support for the Troops

2007-09-01T19:38:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am. I made it through my first week in what must be the hottest place on Earth. It’s about a zillion degrees here in the Persian Gulf and I think we must be about 10 miles from the sun. We flew over on a charter flight from Oklahoma City and our first stop was Portsmouth, N.H. where we were met by the VFW and other local supporters. I know that there are people out there who support us and believe in what we’re doing, but it sure is good to see it in person sometimes. I get so sick of hearing the squeaky wheels that constantly criticize the war and say we need to bring “our troops” home immediately. The fact is, they only care about military members insofar that we’re a useful prop for their Bush-hating agenda. They practically gloat as the death toll rises—more proof of Bush’s so-called failed foreign policy. I’m really into jewelry-making and there’s a bead shop back home that I love, but I’ve quit going there. The guy that works there always wants to discuss how much he hates George Bush, the war, and Republicans every time I come in the store, but he supports the troops! Sure he does and he’s always polite to my face. Then I came in one Saturday when the owner happened to be there and she asked me, “Do you know about our military discount?”

I told her no I didn’t, but thank you. I saw the Bush-hater in the background purse his lips and look away as she told me about the discount. Where is that oh-so elusive liberal support for the troops? In reality this guy is just like the rest of the anti-military crowd. He thinks we’re all too stupid, uneducated, and poor to get better jobs.

We didn’t get the same welcome when we stopped in Bucharest. Not that we would expect it anyway, it’s a different country and they have no obligation to like us. It’s just that when we landed, they wouldn’t let us disembark. We could stand on the airplane steps—that is until somebody got the idea to stand on the bottom step and step one foot onto the tarmac. Instantly, the control tower barked at the crew to “get those people back on the plane”. I hope the air traffic controller remembers this when Putin starts to extend his clammy tentacles into Romania (and don’t think the SOB won’t try).

One thing I’m finding out is that if you’re going to war, it pays to be in the Air Force. It may not be heaven here, but I’m not getting shot at and I’m not exactly deprived. The only thing that really sucks so far is that I’m sharing a room with a perpetually pissed-off diva. Everything seems to set her off. Walking into the room while she’s asleep sets her off. Speaking to her sets her off.

There is a very tiny BX here as well. It sells only the most basic necessities and very little of what you’d actually want. However, when it’s all there is, I find myself eyeballing things I would never spend money on back home. Cheap, chintzy crap I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. The A/C here blows out ice chunks and it gets cold at night so I went looking for a blanket. I ended up with a Korean “mink” blanket with dolphins leaping across it. I bet you’d never see it in Martha Stewart’s house.

In addition to the gym, the giant pool, and free food 24/7, we have a Subway, Pizza Hut, and Baskin-Robbins. Plus, I won’t have to pay for gas for the rest of the year and I’m making money hand over fist. Without having to pay to fill up my car, I’ll be rich as Croesus by the time I leave here compared to before I came.

Please, Please Mr. Postman--Go Away-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay

2007-08-18T19:59:00.000-05:00

I don't know why, but whenever the mailman comes by and I'm at home I feel compelled to hide. My sofa is right in front of the picture window and it sits about 20 feet from the mailbox on the porch. If I happen to be I'm in my living room (which I usually am) and the postman starts coming up the front walk, I suddenly remember that I may need to go to the bathroom or I that I really could use a can of pop. He delivers my mail, he leaves, I come out of the bathroom and get my mail. Today I happened to be sitting in my truck. My local postal carrier came up the walk and I tried to look occupied.

I know how absurd this is, but it must be genetic because my mom told me that my dad does the same thing. He hears the mail truck outside and hides behind the open door until it drives off. It annoys the hell out of my mom.

Maybe it's something subconscious. Mail is a personal kind of thing. You're not allowed to open it if it's not yours and you don't want people reading your letters. The mail carrier sees your magazines, the type of stuff you shop for, who your relatives are, and how many credit cards you have. It's a little like running into your gynecologist in the checkout line at the market. Here's a person, a virtual stranger, who's seen you naked and looked directly at your private parts. Yet here you are at Super Target, making unofficial eye contact knowing that this person could be formulating opinions about you based on the items in your cart, critically eyeballing the three pints of Ben and Jerry's and jalapeno poppers.

Of course it could be just a ridiculous personal hang-up.

Rebuilding the Empire One Pup tent at a Time

2007-08-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

In order to "preserve his legacy" (read, advance his personality cult and his autocratic agenda), Vladamir Putin and the Kremlin have a youth group of 18-23 year olds called Nashi (Ours). Bear in mind, these kids were barely out of diapers when the Berlin Wall fell. This is the first generation with no real memory of communism.

Putin's goal is to establish democracy in Russia, independent of any outside assistance. He insists on looking to Russia's own democratic traditions. This is a beautiful idea in theory, but there's just one minor fly in the ointment--Russia has had no democratic traditions for over 500 years.

Nashi just finished with a two-week summer camp at the end of July. Here are a few of the more interesting shots from Reuters.

The top picture is my favourite. It pretty much says it all, doesn't it? This kid looks like he weighs about a buck fifty. He labours under the stern countenance of Vladamir Putin, finger wagging in disapproval. Here we have the mock Siberian labour camp experience, perhaps for the complainers and other assorted squeaky wheels in this two-week wilderness venture.
"Keep moving, Dmitri. You have 70 more bags of turnips to take to the chow hall and you STILL have to make borscht for all 800 people at the camp. Maybe next time you'll think before you speak. This is NOT a Brave New World--it is a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRACY, dammit. And don't you forget it."

2007-08-08T14:57:00.000-05:00

Didn't we all do this at camp? I went to band camp for two summers in a row in Malcolm, NE. I played the flute (and to answer what you're undoubtedly thinking...NO! I didn't). In between band practice, watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the 87th time, and getting together to play another rousing rendition of Louie, Louie, we managed to work in enough free time to grab our AK-47s, dress up like U.N. peacekeepers, and kick each other's heads in. Now those were the days.

It just dawned on me that it's been twenty years since I've been at band camp. Back then, it didn't occur to me to do naughty things with my flute. It was 1987 and we were thirteen years old. We were too busy emptying cans of hairspray trying to get our bangs to a consistency that would stand up to wind, rain, or a nuclear holocaust.

2007-08-08T14:56:00.001-05:00

Here we have the People's Democratic Inflatable Raft Regatta. Note the ubiquitousness of the colour RED.

Attack of the Hollyweirdos

2007-08-04T19:42:00.002-05:00

Sean Penn just went on a grip and grin tour of Venezuela where he was praised to the skies by El Presidente Chavez for being a man of such great courage and standing against the so-called imperialist Bush administration.

Yes, Mr. Penn is the epitome of bravery. His badmouthing of America and the Bush administration to adoring foreign audiences continues unabated. Penn and the other Hollyweirdos would rather be king for a day in a foreign dictatorship than a hardworking citizen in his own free country. He does publicly what Venezuelans will soon only be doing behind closed doors in hushed whispers. Here is just one article with the fulsome, scurvy truth.

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Aug02/0,4670,PeopleSeanPenn,00.html

And just in case you were wondering how religious freedoms might fare under El Presidente's watchful eye, here is another one for you.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290617,00.html?sPage=fnc.world/americas

Honduran cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga warned of increasing authoritarianism in Venezuela and was lambasted by Chavez as a "clown". Additionally, Chavez has called Roman Catholic critics in Venezuela "liars" and "perverts."

Don't you dare call him a dictator.

¡Mire A Mama! El emperador no tiene ninguna ropa.

The Revolution Will Not Be Criticized

2007-07-23T19:29:00.001-05:00

Nobody better criticize El Presidente Hugo Chavez. Especially not on his own turf. He issued a declaration today regarding this after international visitors to Venezuela accused him of being a dictator.

"How long are we going to allow a person — from any country in the world — to come to our own house to say there's a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?"

So, in order to make an example of those that would dare to criticize him, he'll just deport them. In order to prove to the world that he's not a dictator, he's going to expel from the country anybody who calls him a dictator. That'll show 'em.

Chavez despises imperialism, which is obviously why he's been accused of meddling in every major Latin American election over the last year. He only hates imperialism when he's not at the helm.

This is from the man who came to America's shore and called President Bush "the devil" and was condemned by Charlie Rangel (of all people).

The Screaming Craptop of Doom

2007-07-15T19:50:00.001-05:00

I just bought a new HP laptop. I did this for two main reasons. 1) My desktop just died and the laptop isn't far behind. I've had both of them for six years now, which makes them about 257 years old in computer years. 2) I'm about to deploy and I'll be damned if I'm going to wait in line for 45 minutes to check my e-mail on the communal computers while some airman tools around on his MySpace account. I don't want to share and I don't want to feel guilty about surfing the net for something frivolous and stupid while a line of people wait to use the computer.

So I went to Best Buy the other day to look for a laptop. I took my old laptop to SOS and it sounded like it was going into orbit every time I turned it on. It even looks archaic. People would look at it and ask, "What is that?"

I was ashamed of the laptop. Everyone else was working on sleek, silent hyperspace laptops. Laptops that didn't threaten to explode when a Word document was opened. Meanwhile, I was using the bulky, Screaming Craptop of Doom. I may as well have been using a Commodore. I may as well have walked in with feathered bangs and leg warmers. That's when it dawned on me--I'm turning into my parents.

My parents don't jump on every new technological development the nanosecond it hits the shelf. My parents still have dial-up internet. They finally bought a push button phone while I was in college--in the mid '90s. Then my mom got nostalgic and bought another rotary phone last year. It's not that they're cheap (actually I should say it's not just that they're cheap). But if an item still works, why buy something new? Every car my family ever owned was on its last leg when we traded it in. We had a 1960-something mustard-coloured Toyota Corolla station wagon that we kept around until 1986. It had a lovely black vinyl interior that was suffocatingly hot in the summer and necessitated the use of towels if you wanted to wear shorts. It got really sporty if we took the dog anywhere with us. She would pant like an obscene phone caller while producing copious amounts of drool. In addition to the doggy smell that ensued, it made things very slippery.

I'm wondering if this is hereditary. It may explain why most of my cameras are no less than 40 years old. My house is 55 years old. I secretly wish I had a VW bus.

I guess I'm a bit of a Luddite, although I won't go so far as to live with dial-up. So, maybe I'm just a retro ho.

Hellcat

2007-07-05T19:09:00.000-05:00

My parents have been cat-sitting for me while I was away over the last month. Oskar's usually a well-behaved host when I have people over--gracious, charming, and conversational. I think he gets sick of seeing just me and wants to see a new face.

At Mom and Dad's house, he usually doesn't have much to do with company. He already has two people to give him undivided attention, not to mention the two extremely irritating and impossibly stupid dogs he has to share his abode with. When company comes to call, he has no need of them. He just slinks off to his room.

And it started out that way the other day. A nice, older gentleman came over and had a seat on the sofa. Oskar stood in front of him and stared at him briefly. Then he turned around and started to walk off. That's when the guest said, "Good thing I took my pill--I'm allergic."

Well, apparently the word "allergic" was the magic word that spurred Oskar into action. He inexplicably turned around, ran back, and leaped onto the guest's lap.

If he could talk, I'm sure it would have gone something like this...
"Oh my goodness gracious, where are my manners? I'm Oskar. What did you say your name was? You know Bob, you're my kind of person. I don't know what it is, but it's like I've known you all my life. Is that sweater cashmere? Oh god, I love cashmere. Can I just feel it? Oh pretty please. Let me just rub my face on it. I can warm your lap while I'm at it. I feel so close to you right now. I could really use a hug. How about a kiss on the lips? Hey, where are you going? That's okay, I'll be waiting when you get back."

Betrayed!

2007-05-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

My aunt and uncle just brought home their new baby, Abby. They already have a little girl, Raven, who's two years old. Raven is cute as a bug and daddy's little girl. She's been okay with the baby--so far. As long as daddy's not paying too much attention to Abby. My aunt was telling me that the other night, Raven walked into the room while her dad was holding Abby and the look on her face was one of utter dismay. Raven said, "Oh, Daddy. Oh, Daddy. OH, DADDY!" She threw herself on the floor like a mackerel flopping around the bottom of a canoe. It was such a terrible betrayal. She thought she was the one and only. She'll get over it. Especially when she finds out how fun and useful younger siblings can be.

Mt Rainier

2007-05-18T22:00:00.001-05:00

This is Mt Rainier in Washington. I took this from the cockpit of an airplane.

Canada

2007-05-18T21:59:00.001-05:00

Vancouver Island

2007-05-18T21:57:00.001-05:00

Exercise CHARLIE FOXTROT

2007-05-05T20:50:00.001-05:00

Have you ever sat at your desk after lunch in your mid-afternoon torpor and pondered the great mysteries of life? You may ruminate on such weighty questions as...

How do they get the ship inside the bottle?
What causes the skin to form on top of pudding?

And the $64,000 question...

Why are mission support personnel always so perpetually pissed off?

I'm supposed to leave for this big exercise next week. I was actually looking forward to it--until Friday. It started when I walked in the door. The exercise is on hold, they told me. The MAJCOM realized they have no money. We all know the ideal time to realize this would be fiscally challenging is right when everybody going out the door. Finally, they decided we could go after all, but they were cutting the number of people they would send in half to save money.

So, in another attempt at saving money they decided to change the per diem that people would get. Initially, everyone would get partial per diem while a lucky few the full per diem. I'm not sure how they arrived at who would get what. I'm starting to suspect they're using a magic eight ball because they changed it so that now most everyone would get full per diem, except for a few who would get completely screwed, one of them being yours truly. The aircrew would get full per diem because they won't be around to use the meal card except for every other day. Oh yeah, they do get meals from the flight kitchen, so they're still getting free food AND full per diem even though they'll be around to use the chow hall every other day.

If the MAJCOM was so desperate to save money, wouldn't it make more sense to just give everybody the partial per diem? Evidently, it's good enough for the other squadron that we'll be flying with. Another way they decided to save money was to cut the number of intel personnel they would send. The initial plan was to send two intel people--one from each squadron. Now, they're just sending one who will do all the work for two squadrons. I'll be the extremely fortunate individual who will get to work 16 hour days, back to back for two straight weeks. If I'm lucky (and it's a distinct possibility that I will be--this is AWACS after all) the jets will break the minute we land.

Bamboo

2007-05-05T17:55:00.000-05:00

Little Miss Perfect

2007-05-05T17:06:00.001-05:00

If you're familiar with the comic strip Baby Blues, you know that Wanda McPherson has a nemesis named Bunny. Bunny is supermom. Bunny can squeeze out kids, whip up souffles, keep the house spotless and still manage to look beautiful. She's also oblivious to the fact that Wanda can't stand her.

I have a Bunny in my life, a coworker as it so happens, only she doesn't have Bunny's charm and she doesn't pretend to be friendly. I'll call her "Bambi". At least she's in another squadron so, I don't work with her every day. She's uber-competent and uber-organized. She runs marathons, eats a perfectly balanced diet, and for the icing on the cake, she used to be in beauty pageants. I haven't seen her house, but I'm sure that's perfect too. She doesn't have a cat that pukes on the carpet in 17 places after eating the dog's food and it's probably organized like a Real Simple magazine. She's the type that will probably separate in a few years after the first baby comes along and make a mint being an Arbonne International consultant.

My dislike began at the end of my last deployment. She was the officer taking my place. The second she stepped off the jet, she was snippy and dismissive and acted like she was barely tolerating my presence. I tried to show her the folder and template for writing a mission report. Bambi cut me off saying she already knew how to write one. The next day she needed my help writing the mission report. She managed to cop the attitude until I left. Every request I made was met with a heavy sigh. Before she got to the FOL, I had called her to make sure she had everything in order and if she needed anything. I suggested that when she got here, maybe we could go for dinner or something. She bluntly told me, "I already have friends."

Well, screw you too. You'd think what with all Bambi's training to be Miss America, she might have picked up some social graces somewhere along the way. I guess charm school wasn't on the agenda. I expressed my irritation with the deployed DO on my way out the door. He said she didn't have any idea what she was doing.

It's not that I resent the fact that she's so together and disciplined. Nobody's holding a gun to my head making me eat jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and I could always organize my house instead of watching Corner Gas reruns. It's just that she's so uppity--like people don't meet her standards. Hell, people are people. Everybody has some kind of vice. Even Bambi. Now to find the chink in her armor.

World's Meanest Boss

2007-05-03T17:14:00.000-05:00

This morning I had to be the bearer of bad tidings. I told my troops they couldn't take the day off to go play paintball. One of the other squadrons is having a paintball tournament. Of course for our squadron this is still a workday. They looked like people who just found out Neil Diamond would be opening for Jimi Hendrix. They were so glum.

They didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't let them leave in the middle of the workday for a squadron activity of a squadron we're not even a part of. What irritates me is that I have to drag them kicking and screaming by the hair to our own squadron functions. They're like stray cats--they won't come out unless somebody sets out food. Then they load up a plate and hurriedly
slink back to the vault so they won't have to socialize.

Kaykas

2007-04-27T21:11:00.000-05:00

Brother, Can You Spare a Square...

2007-04-26T18:06:00.001-05:00

...I'm sorry, Mother Earth doesn't have a square to spare. At least Sheryl Crow doesn't think so. Remind me never to shake hands with Sheryl Crow. Not that the opportunity will ever present itself. I don't even listen to her music. I'll ride my bike and walk, I buy organic food, and I make it a habit to use biodegradable cleaning products. I've started buying organic cotton and every month I donate to Leave No Trace through CFC, but I'm sorry lady. I've got to use more than one crappy square of toilet paper (so to speak).

Daddy, I Want My Tofu!

2007-04-20T17:58:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in City Bites, an OKC hoagie shop, for lunch this afternoon when a man came in with a little girl who looked to be about four or five years old. There was nothing particularly remarkable about them. The guy was wearing a t-shirt that said, "Mothers love good boys, but chicks dig bad boys". A real high-class kind of guy. As he collected his carry-out food, the little girl suddenly started to screech and stomp, not an unusual scene for a four-year old in public. However, the words that came out of her mouth were incongruous considering the white trash slogan her daddy's t-shirt was emblazoned with. She pounded the tile beneath her little feet, following him out the door, past the cookies and brownies screaming at the top of her lungs, "I WANT A SALAD! I WANT A SALAD! I WANT A SALAD! WAAAAAAH!"

This continued out the door and probably into the parking lot. Most kids would kick and scream at the idea of eating a salad. This girl is a dream come true for the anti-trans fat big government nannies. Maybe there's hope for the childhood obesity epidemic yet.

Or maybe not. As I related this anecdote to a guy in M-9 class, he told me about the time he was in a 7-11 when a woman was fingering the candy bars by the register. In a thick Oklahoma accent he heard her little boy say, "Momma, put that candy bar down. You're gonna ruin your appetite for McDonald's!"

Britney Sightings

2006-12-02T21:48:00.000-06:00

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Do the people of this world have nothing better to think about than what Britney Spears is doing? We're at war, the Democrats just gained control of Congress, and I'm still seeing stories on the news about Britney running around NYC without panties. I don't blame this entirely on the media. I blame it mostly on our celebrity worshipping culture that thinks these things are really important.

How many women are barhopping around NYC right now (or anywhere in America for that matter) without panties? How many of them are white trash going through divorces and custody disputes? I'm pretty sure it's not just Britney. I'm equally sure that if the opportunity presented itself, they'd be just as happy to strike a pose for some passing photographer if it would get them their 15 minutes of fame. People have done crazier things. Just watch American Idol. It's just that Britney makes CDs and a lot of money.

The media cares because there's a demand for this kind of banal information. Publicity is publicity even if it's stupid publicity. Maybe if we cared less about what celebrities are doing, saying, and eating for breakfast, aging pop divas wouldn't feel the need to travel to the other side of the planet to snatch little kids away from loving parents behind a ridiculous facade of noblesse oblige just to bolster their floundering images.

Did He Mean It?

2006-11-03T16:36:00.000-06:00

Unless you've been living in a cave over the last week, you've heard John Kerry's remark about the US military, telling a group of California college students that if they didn't study and get good grades they would end up "stuck in Iraq". He attempted to recover (much too late) and tell the world that it was a "botched joke".

Nobody got it. It went over like the proverbial turd in the punchbowl. Not even the stone-faced audience of California students were laughing over this one.

The question of the hour has been, "Did he mean it?" The short answer is yes. I don't believe that he would have publicly insulted the most trusted institution in America had he known (and I can't believe he didn't) that it would create the maelstrom and media feeding frenzy that it has. It wasn't a calculated remark. It was an off-the-cuff remark that betrayed exactly what he thinks of the military and average Americans in general. The mask slipped and John Kerry showed his true colours to the world. Deep down inside, it's exactly what he meant.

Kerry's attitude is not uncommon among his cohorts, though most wouldn't be so vocal about it. The military is a fine institution, we support our troops, blah blah blah--as long as my kid's not the one going to the sandbox. It's fine for some bubba from one of those box-shaped states way out west. It's not like they're going to make it to the Ivy League or anything.

Kerry and his ilk see the military as a haven for the benighted and uneducated. America's unfortunate bastion of backwoods stupidity and ignorance. It's a contemptuous, elitist view.

And the military gave their answer. In a photo that has gone over cyberspace as fast as Kerry's remark, Minnesota National Guard members in Iraq are pictured holding a banner that states, "Halp us Jon Carry-We R Stuck Hear N Irak".

Air Force Public Affairs Officer, Capt J. Elaine Hunnicutt, told the press, "the soldiers' intent in taking this photo was meant as a humorous response to the current debate in the media and the command recognizes it as such."

In plain-talkin' English, "It's just a joke Sen. Kerry."

As military members, we're not allowed to show public contempt for elected officials. The military is officially non-partisan, as it should be. While many in the military lean toward traditionally conservative values, there are plenty of Democrats and others with more liberal points of view. There are varying views on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. One doesn't have to be a Republican to take umbrage at Kerry's comment. The Guard members' banner betrays most military members' (and average Americans') view on politicians like John Kerry as much as Kerry's scornful remarks reveal about his feelings toward us. The fact that the banner has command stamp of approval shows the widening disconnect between Kerry, Dean, Pelosi, et al. and the US military.

Liberals love to talk about how they support the troops and how they're the party that looks out for the "little man". I think the concept of "looking out for the little man" is patronizing. No man (or woman) is little when they have integrity, when they stand up for what's right, and when they're willing to travel to a foreign shore and sacrifice their lives for the sake of a stranger. John Kerry is a traitor who publicly slandered his fellow veterans with false accusations and he continues to make baleful comments about the troops serving in Iraq. John Kerry is a living illustration of "the little man".

Catch a Fire and The Dixie Clucks

2006-10-28T18:06:00.002-05:00

I went to see the movie Catch a Fire today. Catch a Fire was written by Shawn Slovo, daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First. Slovo and First were big movers and shakers in fighting South Africa's racist Apartheid government. They were also top brass in the South Africa Communist Party. The movie is about the life of Patrick Chamusso, a man who becomes an insurgent in the African National Congress (ANC) after being falsely accused and tortured for a crime he didn't commit.

I'm not going to go on at end's length about the movie itself. Suffice to say Catch a Fire is beautifully made. Noyce is good at showing the humanity of all his characters. Even the bad guys aren't just two-dimensional stereotypes.

I've railed on against Communism before and I'll continue to do so. Communism has killed millions of people since the beginning of the 20th century. However, people living under a government where they are systematically denied the right to be recognized as human beings and afforded basic dignities aren't the same as pampered Hollywood liberals who seem to have an affinity for all things Communist (more on this momentarily).

When the people who claim to be Christians and lovers of justice and democracy, are using their faith to justify racist policies, it's understandable that people might look to another worldview. Even the term "kaffir", the South African, equivalant to the "N-word", means heathen or infidel.
One can see why Communism might be a more appealing option. I heartily disagree with Joe Slovo's and Ruth First's worldview and I don't believe that being head of the SACP makes them heroes. They've earned their place in the history books because they stood against a corrupt system at great risk to their personal safety and comfort. They were forced to leave South Africa and First was eventually assassinated by a mail bomb. It's also worth noting that later in life, Slovo questioned how well socialism really worked and criticized the excesses of Stalinism.

Now, back to Hollywood liberals. In a great twist of irony, the preview right before the movie began was for the upcoming documentary Shut Up and Sing. Apparantly Natalie Maines and the rest of the Dixie Clucks are finally screwing their courage to the sticking place and
coming out with the true story of their persecution at the hands of the idiot American public and President Bush. We all know by now how this debacle came to be. At a concert in London, they emphatically reassured their audience that they were ashamed that President Bush was from their home state of Texas. We all know how Texas is filled with peace-loving liberals just like them.

The documentary is about how terribly they’ve suffered for their courage and how the public was censoring them. They shamelessly pandered to a foreign audience on foreign soil. They knew they had a sympathetic crowd. That doesn’t take courage. That’s the antithesis of courage. If they really wanted to be bold, they would have said it in San Antonio or Houston. They haven’t been censored either. Censorship would constitute whisking them off in the dead of night and having government minders at every subsequent concert. They have a right to free speech. They’ve been prolific in their use of it. They don’t have a right a demand an adoring audience who will kiss their cute, little blonde asses while the Chicks insult their most cherished values. The radio stations and former fans that refuse to play their music are exercising their right to spend their hard-earned dollars as they choose. That’s the beauty of a free-market economy, something the Dixie Chicks are beneficiaries of, even as they deride the people and system that allowed them to pursue their dreams and reap the monetary benefits that come along with their fame.

For Natalie Maines to carry on about how persecuted she’s been minimizes the real suffering of people like Patrick Chamusso who spent year after agonizing year on Robben Island, Saddam Hussein’s prisons, the Gulags in the former Soviet Union, or the people who perished in Cambodia’s Killing Fields.

Next to Alexander Soltsynhitsen and others like him, Miss Maines is a spoiled little brat who’s screaming, holding her breath, and stamping her feet when her demands aren’t instantly met. This upcoming documentary will allow the Dixie Chicks to continue publicly wallowing in their own self-pity. Spend your money on Catch a Fire, don’t waste it on Shut Up and Sing.

2006-10-28T15:53:00.000-05:00

2006-10-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

Purple Orchid

2006-10-27T19:15:00.000-05:00

Looks like a hawk swooping down to devour something...

Wax On, Wax Off!

2006-09-02T17:57:00.000-05:00

I'm still in South America being deployed, but I'm making the most of it. There's an outstanding spa downtown and while it's not Sundance or Tucson, it's pretty darn nice--and more importantly, they don't charge Sundance prices. Needless to say, they've had my patronage on a pretty regular basis.

So I went in today for a specific procedure. While I won't go into all the details, I will say it's the sort of thing a woman does if she wants to wear a swimsuit and not look like someone named Olga who just stepped off the last Aeroflot jet from Moscow.

Since I'm planning to go to the beach this week and wear the swimsuit, I subjected myself to this. Here's how it played out...

Me: Es mi tiempo primero (explaining that I've never done this before).
Waxer: Esta bien.
Me: EEEEEE! AAAAAH! Holy crap! Dios mio! Caramba! Oh god! Is this gonna be a Brazilian?!
Waxer: No mas!
Me: Thank God!

It only took 15 minutes, but it seemed like an eternity. The coworker who came with me got a good laugh. She was across the hall getting a facial. The Brazilian comment put her over the top. The lady giving her the facial almost lost it. Even if she didn't know English, the word "Brazilian" sounds pretty much the same in Spanish. I'm sure she took my meaning.

I was mortified at my wussy behaviour and I later asked the wax lady in my broken Spanish/Portuguese if otras pessoas screamed as much as I did. I felt reassured when she said todos. They all scream. That probably explains why waxing rooms at beauty salons in the US are always secluded from everything else.

No Necessito Chicles

2006-07-13T09:33:00.001-05:00

I seem to be a magnet for street urchins and local Chiclet sales representitives. The other day, the most adorable little girl with nothing on but a filthy Winnie the Pooh tank top and a pair of underwear (either that or very short shorts) and caked in dirt came racing down the sidewalk after me saying something too fast for me to catch. I asked her where her mother was and she pointed up the street. I was mightily impressed when, during a break in the conversation, she managed to get an index finger up each nostril simultaneously and pick like she was a county fair contestant in a Booger-Picking competition. If there had been such a competition, she would've won hands down (pun intended). I'm just really glad she wasn't selling any Chiclets.

Worship the Dear Leader

2006-07-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

I don't know who took this picture, but it obviously wasn't me. I just found it on Yahoo images.

It seems like there should be a fiery furnace involved here somewhere. I thought this sort of thing went out with Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednigo (did I spell that right-- probably not). It seems silly to most of the free world to bow in front of a statue of a dead guy, but North Korea isn't the free world. I guess it doesn't seem silly to them, since they've been cut off from reality since about forever.

First Day of Freedom

2006-07-07T10:25:00.000-05:00

Yay! Yesterday I finally was able to escape from my daily routine of going to the gym, eating, and watching Miami Vice and get off base. I went to the local mall. Back home, I wouldn't go to the mall just to kill time, but I'm not at home. I'm far, far away eating very bland food at the chow hall.

The local cab company came and picked up myself and my cohort. I was a little unsettled at the lack of usable seatbelts, but real fear didn't start setting in until we really got out on the road at which point the driver was continuously beeping, dodging, and weaving all the way to the mall. Kind of made me wish I'd brought a blindfold--or at least a change of underwear.

Everything at the mall cost like sin. I went to a couple of beauty shops asking for shampoo with sunscreen (in Spanish) and they kept handing me shampoo for frizzy/unruly hair. Not what I asked for, but I took it home and used it and now my hair is behaving a lot better. I don't look like The Flying Nun anymore.

Air Force Core Values

2006-07-04T08:05:00.001-05:00

Integrity first.
Service before self.
Excellence in all we do.

Every person in the USAF knows what the AF Core Values are. However, knowing what they are and applying them to their daily lives are two different things.

I blogged earlier about the OTS roommate who was, well--truly awful. I also had a commander who had the attitude that rules and AFIs were for suckers and that people who followed them were uptight. The man also cheated on his fitness test and when sexual harrassment allegations were brought against a squadron member, he "fixed" the problem by moving the offender to another squadron. And this was from a squadron commander.

So why is senior leadership so floored when cadets are busted for sexual assault, drunken stupidity, or cheating on tests? When I was in tech school at Goodfellow, every time we had a commander's call, the CC would be beside himself because of Something Else That Happened.

The problem is that you're bringing cadets, OTs, and basic trainees from a world that tells them the end justifies the means. If concepts of right and wrong are all in the eye of the beholder, then the Core Values are nothing but a 2 hour lesson to kill time during training. Leadership can't expect that a few hours during ROTC or basic training will make up for 18 plus years of moral relativity, especially when airmen and lieutenants see the same behavior coming from their squadron commander.

I started thinking about this more last week after I met my new boss. I didn't have my M-9 card to deploy with because I wasn't told I needed it until the day before I left. Mobility was running around with their hair on fire trying to find a way to get around it. The boss asked later that day what Mobility was doing about the M-9 issue and asked me, "They're not doing anything wrong are they?"

He said they better not be doing anything illegal or immoral to get it done. I know I looked at him kind of weird because I didn't assume that they would. But maybe we'd all be better off if more people asked that question. By the way, I did get a waiver (all above board).

The jury's still out on the new boss--I haven't made up my mind yet. Maybe he's a good guy or maybe he just another patch-wearing, zipper-suited jerk that doesn't give a flying crap about the BDU wearers. Time will tell. But the fact that he took the time to think about whether something was right or wrong puts him well ahead of a lot of people.

Another Day in Paradise

2006-07-04T07:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Fourth of July everybody! I'm on day 5 of my deployment--only some 55 odd more to go. They're breaking up the monotony with a BBQ.

I'm currently taking malaria pills and they're making me feel like crap. I asked about the other version of pills and was told by the flight doc that they can be worse due to the fact that they have hallucenogenic properties.

Right now I'm working with an airman who spends every second at work and every second of his free time padding his resume for the next 40 years. In the last year I've worked with him, he's openly stated how he expects to get BTZ and how all the stuff he's doing is fodder for his BTZ package. He's also constantly working on stuff to fill up quarterly awards and star performer packages. I finally told him to put a lid on it because he was overplaying his hand and it was obnoxious.

I don't have a problem with people who are true go-getters, but I wonder how much he'd be motivated to do if he thought he wasn't going to get something out of it.

The guy is very smart and knowledgable when it comes to retaining information. However, his assessments aren't always on target, offering constructive criticism sends him into a tailspin, and he tends to be condescending to people he perceives as less knowledgable than he.

The thing is, I'd rather have an airman that doesn't have a crapload of knowledge stored in his head, but doesn't treat other people like dirt and doesn't brief like he thinks his audience is stupid. I guess I'm a little biased though. In my OTS flight, we had a glut of prior enlisted individuals. Two in particular had a combined 20 years of experience between them and they didn't mind letting us non-priors know what a bunch of idiots they thought we were. One of them was my roommate--the Sluggo to my Mr. Bill. She was extremely good at telling the instructors what they wanted to hear. She would spout off the Core Values in class like she looked at them on a sticky note on her bathroom mirror everyday to make sure she memorized them. She also lied, backstabbed, sweet-talked FTOs in one breath and badmouthed them in the next, and was banging guys like a screen door in a hurricane (incidentally, she was married). And what do you suppose became of her? Well, she got Distinguished Graduate (DG) of course. Now she's attending AF Weapons School at Nellis, where she can hone her character flaws in a supportive and nurturing environment. I'd like to make it to the top as much as anybody, but I don't want to be the kind of O-6 that people avoid like the plague. Maybe it is lonely at the top, but I imagine it's a helluva lot lonelier if you treated people like crap to get there.

Deployment

2006-07-03T07:41:00.000-05:00

For the first time in my four years in the Air Force, I finally get to deploy--and I'm bored as hell. Fortunately for me, I'm not in the desert, I'm at the beach. Unfortunately, it practically takes an executive order to get off base. We arrived at our location last Thursday night at 7pm. About a second later, the plane broke in addition to the other already broken jet, so...now I'm just sitting on my butt waiting for something to happen. My day goes something like this...

Wake up
Shower
Eat
Show up at work to find out we're not doing anything
Check e-mail
Go back and change into civvies
Go work out and play basketball
Shower again
Eat again
Watch Miami Vice Seasons 1 and 2
Eat yet again
Watch more Miami Vice
Go to bed

Wow! Sounds exciting, doesn't it? And I couldn't wait to leave in order to avoid the Unit Compliance Inspection (UCI).

Who's Your Mommy?!

2006-05-21T08:33:00.001-05:00

STOP THE PRESSES! DROP EVERYTHING! And for God's sake, call the Department of Child Welfare. Britney Spears was caught on camera when she almost TRIPPED while HOLDING HER BABY.

Truely an unprecented act in the world of motherhood, since we all know good mothers never have accidents like this.

Okay, the girl's a ding-dong who doesn't know how to use a car seat and rode with the baby on her lap. She's an dumb bunny in other respects anyway, but come on. It must've been a slow news day to capture this moment on film.

Michael Jackson invited little boys over for sleepovers, veiled his children in public, dangled his baby by the ankles from a balcony and is now hiding out in Dubai where I'm sure he has as much public acceptance as a social nudist at a Pentecostal church picnic. We all know how welcoming Muslims are to white women who used to be black men and whose proclivities run towards underage boys.

Maybe Britney should crossover and do gangsta rap, announce that she's a lesbian and go butch. Then she might be able to stand on the Brooklyn Bridge and swing the baby around by the neck with impunity.

Communism--The Essence of Ingratitude

2006-05-20T08:32:00.000-05:00

I was in my friendly, neighbourhood Borders bookstore last night picking through the World music section, when I ran across a bizarre CD. It was a CD of communist anthems. Now, I spend my days scrutinizing what communists round the world are up to and the more I learn, the less I understand the Left's enchantment with communism.

This is a philosophy that has killed more people long before Hitler ever came onto the scene and continues to kill people today. Movies about the terror of the McCarthy era are legion (Good Night and Good Luck) and the message seems to be that the fear of communism is more evil than Stalin himself. Nobody on Earth has suffered like Hollywood stars. The only movie I can think of off the top of my head highlighting the terror communism has actually visited upon the world is The Killing Fields.

What's freakish is the number of celebrities who are speaking their undying admiration for communist leaders and countries. Harry Belafonte embraces Hugo Chavez and calls Bush the world's biggest terrorist. Alec Baldwin loudly announced that he would move to Cuba if Bush were elected. It's six years later and we're all still waiting, Mr. Baldwin. Promises, promises. He also said that Henry Hyde should be stoned and his wife and children killed. Dictators have always been big on generational sin and retribution.

A few premises about communism and it's logical conclusion...

1. There is no god. God is a creation of man and the qualities attributed to God are really qualities of humanity. The logical conclusion; we're all gods unto ourselves and every decision we make is inherently good and right. And of course being gods, our every desire should be satisfied. Hence, the Ceaucescus and Kim Jong Il. Nicolai and Elena managed to wallow in obscene amounts of wealth and the Chonger still does so. They lived the Marxist version of the American Dream, the Worker's Paradise--their subjects did all the work while they lived in paradise. For the Ceaucescus, paradise ended abruptly on Christmas Day.

2. Materialism; nothing exists other than what we can see with our own eyes. There's no heaven or hell and our ideas are nothing more than our own creation. There are no transcendent truths. Marx believed that people's ideologies prevented them from clearly seeing the material conditions of their lives. This is why a book like What's the Matter with Kansas can be written and the writer is genuinely incredulous that people will continue to support a principle when it fails to contribute to their overall quality of life. Quality in this sense is being rich and having stuff.

3. Because our personal belief systems are what keep Midwestern yokels like myself from seeing our material conditions and knowing what's good for us, we need elephantine government programs, eminent domain, and politicians like Nancy Pelosi telling us we don't have the sense of a radish to know how to take care of our own money.

There's a basic idea believed by many that the more you get, the more you want and the less satisfied you are. Maybe this explains why the wealthiest and most famous people in America are so dissatisfied with the current state of affairs and so enchanted by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. In spite of the fact that these movie stars are reaping the fruits of capitalism, they're still not satisfied. By their words and actions, they spit on the graves of those who spilled their blood so they can maintain the right to perpetuate their own extravagant lifestyles. Communism is the essence of ingratitude. When you divide the world into the haves vs. the have-nots, the have-nots will never have enough no matter how much they get. So, maybe it's not such a mystery why Hollywood liberals are so charmed by communism after all.

And what would happen if these people realized their wildest dreams? What if Bush were impeached and imprisoned, the press became impenatrable to any conservative influence, pastors that preached against homosexuality were dragged into court and punished, and the state decided what was best for your children? Of course once you're in power, you must hang onto it at all costs. Silencing dissenters is key--just ask The Chonger how important this is.

Alec Baldwin could be named head of the secret police--he's obviously well-suited for the job.

OKC Zoo

2006-05-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

Infrared Pictures

2006-04-14T23:32:00.000-05:00

These were taken at Myriad Botanical Gardens in OKC using a yellow filter.

Myriad Botanical Gardens

2006-04-01T17:16:00.000-06:00

The New Macro Lens

2006-03-28T06:01:00.000-06:00

If there was a Most Uncooperative Subject award in photograpy, Oskar would be in a league of his own. I must've taken at 10 pictures to get this one. He lays around like a slug until I pull the camera out. Then he suddenly wants to climb in my lap or rub against my legs.

My co-workers thought this picture looked like the cat from Pet Semetary. Oskar would have been offended by that--he's a nice cat.

Great Salt Plains State Park

2006-03-06T21:09:00.000-06:00

This was a rather disappointing state park. First of all, it was nigh impossible to find. Then when I got there, I couldn't actually drive through the park--I had to drive around it and it wasn't a short drive, let me tell you. I did get a few pictures though.

I used a graduated fluo mauve filter, a four point star filter, and a diffuser on this one. The mauve filter really brought out the star effect--unfortunately, it did the same thing for sun reflections.

Just a Passing Thought...

2006-02-10T19:09:00.000-06:00

After sitting in front of Fox News day in and day out at work, I've had about all I can take of the NSA's so-called "wiretapping", the Alito hearings, etc. going on ad nauseum. Watching all of this makes me wonder one thing. How can somebody who drove his car off a bridge into a river (while allegedly intoxicated) and left a woman to die in said vehicle, do so much sanctimonius lecturing as Ted Kennedy does? If I were Teddy, I'd be careful about nitpicking over somebody else's past. In fact, I'd probably avoid ever running for public office. Obviously, it hasn't deterred him and for some mystifying reason, the people of Massachusetts keep voting for him.

I've never believed in the Kennedy Curse, unless unprincipled, reckless, and foolhardy behaviour is somehow genetic.

Executive Order 12333

2006-01-28T08:29:00.002-06:00

Dear God! Head for the hills everybody! Uncle Sam is listening in on our phone conversations.
The NSA probably knows all about those 900 numbers you've been calling every Saturday night. They've probably been listening in on the phone calls you made to your therapist and now they know all your dirty little secrets. They know all the details of Uncle Ira's prostate surgery and they may have even written down the recipe to your grandmother's blueberry crumble. Because of this wretched Patriot Act, ordinary citizens will have to start living in fear. If you ever sent money to NARAL or showed up at a College Democrats meeting 30 years ago in order to impress a girl, you can start expecting a midnight knock on your front door any time now. Or maybe it will happen in the form of a dramatic, Gestapo-style take-down in broad daylight on a bustling city street. You just better be looking over your shoulder.

Call Earth.

If the government was going through phone books and randomly picking out Arabic-sounding last names to tap the phone lines of, that would be illegal. If the NSA were wiretapping US persons based on the websites they frequented and political or religious organizations they belonged to, that would be illegal.

Executive Order 12333 was enacted in 1981 precisely because of abuses like this that took place during the Vietnam era. EO 12333 details exactly what intelligence activities can be conducted and how. It also details the protections afforded to US persons. They define US persons in four ways.

1. A US citizen
2. An alien known by the DoD intelligence component considered to be a permanant resident alien
3. An unincorporated association substantially composed of US citizens or permanant resident aliens
4. A corporation incorporation incorporated in the US, unless it is directed and controlled by a foreign government

It does NOT afford these considerations to foreign terrorists who are regularly communicating with individuals inside the US, nor to individuals in the US conducting illegal activities. The NSA hasn't committed any violation of law here. The Patriot Act does not override this. However, the individual who leaked this information and the New York Times who received and published this information are most certainly guilty. The term generally applied to this sort of behavior is sedition. This is simply a desperate election-year attempt to whip up a non-existent abuse of power and make it look like an inevitable conclusion of the Patriot Act.

One wonders what liberals consider treasonous anymore. The rights most liberals seem to be concerned about--the right to kill unborn children, the right to marry a dolphin, the right to pull down their pants in museums and call it art, the right to not be offended by somebody else's public religious observance--are at best ridiculous and at worst horribly twisted. Most don't seem to realize that if Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry have their way in the War on Terror, we'll all be saying "Allah Akbar" and pointing towards Mecca five times a day in short order. Even our most basic rights won't exist anymore and the absurd "rights" that most of them demand and take for granted are usually punishable by death in countries where Islamo-facism is the law of the land.

2005-10-21T17:25:00.001-05:00

Osoyoos Lake

2005-10-21T17:25:00.000-05:00

Tsa-Kwa-Luten Lodge / Cape Mudge, Quadra Island, BC

2005-10-17T17:31:00.000-05:00

Bleeding Hearts - Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha

The following are pictures I took last year on vacation in British Columbia...

Aging (Dis)Gracefully

2005-07-10T00:05:00.000-05:00

There's a man I know, whom I'll call "Herb" in order to protect the guilty. The first thing I noticed about Herb when I met him was his hair. In addition to being silver all over, he seemed to have an excessive amount and it was combed rather, um ... weird. At first I thought it was a toupee, when somebody enlightened me. It's not a toupee, they said. It's a combover. Oh dear. Herb had fallen victim to a brutal combover, the likes of which I have never seen. I walked in one day with my camera in tow to take some happy snaps of an event we were at, when he saw the camera and exclaimed, "You're taking pictures? Oh no, I have to fix my hair!" He raced out to the car and a few minutes later, I heard the unmistakable hiss of a hairspray can. I should also point out that Herb is 52 years old.

Now, aside from this particular quirk, Herb's a pretty nice guy. It's just that when age, wisdom, and maturity came knocking at his door to escort him into his middle-age years, Herb dug in his heels and had to be dragged by the wrists kicking and screaming.

It's fairly well-established that Western society idolizes youth and views aging as a regrettable aspect of life's journey. Everybody wants to be young and vital forever. The elderly are seen as a burden and the first appearance of a grey hair or disappearance thereof has people reaching for the hair dye and Rogaine.

I was reading a quote by historian Douglas Brinkley on the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson (yes, I know it's old news) about how he supposed Thompson had a good 67 years and "didn't want to suffer the indignities of old age". Yikes.

When did growing old become undignified? I suppose it's more dignified to shoot yourself while on the phone with your spouse and with your son and grandchild in the next room.

Unfortunately, I've witnessed this attitude creeping into churches. A church of which I was previously a member had a thriving combined youth/young adult group. Later it split (thankfully) into separate groups for the youth and young adults, but while I was there, I observed something Many of the adult leaders, including the youth pastor, dressed about 15 years younger than their actual age. Now, I'm a 30-something adult who's been blessed with 23-year old looks, but with the position I'm in with my career, I can't dress like I'm 23 anymore. Technically, I could get away with it, but it's harder to respect a supervisor that shows up to the squadron picnic in a rubberband miniskirt and a t-shirt emblazoned with some slogan like, "It's Better in a Bikini" or some other catch-phrase indicating the female wearer is as loose as a DD-cup bra on Kate Moss.

It's also hard to respect a 38-year old man wearing baggy-butt cargo shorts with a chain wallet and who's still shopping for his wardrobe at Hollister Co. and American Eagle Outfitters. I'm sure they thought they were being "relevant" and getting down to the teens' level. Except they're going about it all wrong. The youth in America's churches don't need youth leaders and pastors who dress like they're 17 and getting down to a teen's level doesn't mean seeing how many times you can work the word "booger" into your sermon. Kids need adults to act like adults, because ultimately a leader's (and parent's) job is to turn kids into productive, intelligent, godly, adults.

Another thing I noticed in church is not only the hyper-promotion of youth ministries, but the neglect of other demographics, particularly the elderly. What's being done for elderly widows and the infirm--people who need the support of the church the most? Churches have become so compartmentalized. There's a different ministry for many people, but it seems the only time they come together is Sunday morning.

The ironic thing about Brinkley's "indignities of old age" quote is that as people grow older, the younger they try to look and act, the more undignified they become. A wrinkled, 80-year old woman wearing a mumu and sitting in a rocking chair has more dignity than a 50-year old woman with a Sexy Grandma t-shirt or someone whose face looks like a terrified raccoon from all the plastic surgury they've had.

Here's Oskar

2005-07-09T11:59:00.000-05:00

Animals Have Feelings Too

2005-07-02T10:03:00.000-05:00

One day, in class, we debated about whether or not animals have feelings. One person said no. Some of us said yes. I offer this picture as positive evidence that animals do have feelings. As soon as I snapped this picture, Windy shook the antlers off her head. A picture's worth a thousand words--this one says, "The minute I tear off these damn antlers, I'm going outside, rolling in poop, and coming back in to take a nice long nap on your bed."

2005-06-12T22:22:00.000-05:00

Raven and the First Men