7 Things About Me

a. List seven of your habits/quirks or seven facts about yourself.
b. Tag seven people to do the same.
c. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say you tag 'whoever wants to do it.'

1) I have a gambling problem.
2) I have a commitment issue problem.
3) I tend to be a generous tipper.
4) People like me for some unknown reason.
5) I'm not scared about going down-range.
6) I'm a sucker for a pretty smile and/or tears.
7) God hates me. No, hate is too strong of a word. Let's see, how about, God likes to throw obstacles in my way so as to amuse God. That's the only way I can put it.

7) Brien, Tom, Kristy, Alan, Ron, Dustin, Marty

ok, here we go again...

I've just been informed by several people that pirates are beneath their notice. Particularly whenever it comes to a cheezy HK fight scene staged in a friend's backyard against robotic-ninja-jedi. Come on, where are the pirates? Jedi's get waylaid by pirates all the time. I'm sorry, but Luke got his ass handed to him by Han Solo, who, as everyone knows, is a freakin' pirate. Maybe corsair would be a better word for him, but pirate, corsair, privateer, all the freakin' same. Ninja's don't have the same oomph that pirates have. Sorry, have you seen a ninja movie make as much money as the three Pirates of the Carribean movies did? Of course, the last two sucked, but never mind, Pirates are firmly embedded in the sub-consciousness of America. And don't forget when New Orleans was invaded by the British in 1812, who was it that came and helped out Governor Claiborne. Pirates! Jean Lafitte and his merry (make that blood-thirsty) crew of miscreants and mongrels came out and helped turned the British back. Nevermind that the battle was fought after the Treaty of 1812 was signed, and nevermind that the most respected British general (Wellington) refused to come to America to fight the colonists, but still, pirates helped out. Where were the ninja's I ask? Where? Hiding I tell you... hiding...

Here's my friend's blog that has raised my blood to such an ire...

http://asshatuprising.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html

and the best reason why pirates are better than ninjas....

Pirates get more booty.

and oh yeah, there's a pron movie called "Pirates"... don't remember one being called "Ninjas".... yeah, you know I'm right... pirates are better than ninjas...

I truly am innocent, this time around...

ok, I'm reading Paca's blog, and I come across the one where he goes to Amazon and he sees all these ads for women's nightwear. I had a similar experience the other day. As I am wont to do, I was running searches on google for my name, both last and first. It's interesting to see what's out there on you, but I digress. And I come across this image. Needless to say, I had to get a closer look. And needless to say, I was a bit surprised. Surprised that they knew me so well.

Down Time At AIT

Thanks Plotnik for reading.... maybe you can give me some tips for surviving the military....

But back to my late series of posts....

During AIT in San Antonio, we had some down time, mainly during the weekends. Friday, if you were good, you got an 11 pm bedcheck... meaning 10:30... running across the barrack area at 10:59 was not a very good idea... And we got an extra treat on Saturday morning, we only had to be up by 6:30 am... but then we had to clean the barrack area until around noon or 2 pm, when the drill sergeants would run an inspection and decide if we were to be released for the day or not.... so around 3 pm, after a round of showers and waiting for cabs, we were released into San Antonio, a pack of sex-crazed and drink-hungry recruits, and that's just the females. I tended to stay away from the Riverwalk area, because, dammit, I see enough green uniforms during the week, and I'd rather see civilians in normal clothes, with long hair. So I headed to the Quarry, an upscale version of a strip-mall. There, I would indulge in my love of books, music, and movies. And then, around 4:30, I'd call up a couple of cabbies that I've used and would head towards something else that I didn't get to see enough of during the week, women in various stages of dress shaking their ta-tas at me.

I could go on and on about the strip clubs, but I'll try to keep it short and just to this one post. Most of the places in San Antonio are bring your own beer, but because of this, they're allowed to be fully nude. The first place we went to was this place called Paradise, but we didn't realize that it was BYOB. I had to run out and get a couple of six packs at the nearest gas station, but that wasn't much of a problem. Paradise is the place for you if you love latino women. It's also pretty seedy, with a large majority of clientele there being Mexican. Think of the strip bar from "From Dusk 'til Dawn" and you'll have a nice picture of it, but only in a long squat building that could almost be a double-wide. I felt totally comfortable there.

Rick's Cabaret is a nicer, up-scale "gentleman's" club. It's a bit farther away from the centre of town and Ft Sam, but to those of discrimination tastes, it's well worth it. I took a buddy of mine who's marriage had fallen on hard times there, and he forgot all about his troubles, but at the expense of his wallet. It's not BYOB or fully nude, so beer is pretty expensive there, and the girls, well, they know how to work a drink or two out of ya.

Wild Zebra is a little hole in the wall where the beer is cheap, the lap dances are only $10 all the time, and you get what you pay for. The saying from the Hustler club is reversed here: 100 ugly girls, and 3 pretty ones. Competition is tough for the attention of the pretty ones, so unless you're gonna "make it rain", go for the ugly ones. They'll appreciate it more. *laughs*

Now my home away from home was XTC Cabaret. It's somewhere between Rick's and Wild Zebra, but prolly close to the Zebra than to Rick's. Most of the guys there were ex-military (surprise, surprise) and they were rather accommodating to us fellows from FT Sam. And really, I just went there to get away from base and drink a little bit, really. At first, it was just me and another guy, and then he started telling other people about it and all of a sudden, my getaway place was crowded by other freakin' soldiers. And the worst ones there were the females. I just wanted to drink my Bailey's and support the single moms.

Like I said, I could go on and on about the clubs in San Antonio. I did look forward to the week-ends because I knew that I could go, relax, drink my drinks, and look at pretty women dancing. On the other hand, I did spend a lot of money, because between the cabs, cover, beer, and the requisite wad of singles and twenties, it could get expensive. But in my mind, it was worth it because it kept me sane. Or maybe stable is a better word, since my sanity could, and has been, questioned time after time.

Reflections on Basic and AIT

Sitting here, waiting for the rain, I've decided to say screw it and just forget about the whole structure thing. I'm just gonna lump Basic and AIT all together, that way when I remember something I want to write about, I'll just write about it, instead of waiting for the correct chronological order.

OK, this post is gonna be kind of racy, so those with weak stomachs, or just don't want to plain know about this kind of stuff, go away someplace safe...

OK, I talked about the DFAC food at Basic for a bit, and about how mediocre it was... well, besides being mediocre, I swear that they must put something into food to prevent morning wood. Actually, there must have been something to have retarded sexual desire period. Prolly about 90% of guys have morning wood. I (I'm not ashamed to say) am one of those guys. Hey, at least I know it's working. But all throughout Basic, I didn't have one occasion of morning wood. Hell, I admit it, I'm one rather lusty individual, but I didn't even get random wood during the day. Yeah, it use to be a problem during school, but I'm better now, honest. There was some guys that, just to make sure the equipment still worked, would go into the latrine and practice their digital manipulation. I didn't have this problem during AIT, so I will maintain that they've put something into the food.

Just a thought before I go...

Strippers are very canny individuals... never underestimate them... 'cause one time I got taken advantage of by a deaf stripper... of course, I did deserve it 'cause I thought I was the one getting the good end of the deal... but like I said, she was rather canny and came out on top...

Recollections of Basic Combat Training, Part 4

Worst day of Basic

I'm trying to think of any really bad days I had during Basic. They all pretty much sucked, but trying to figure out which one sucked the hardest, well there's a pretty dilemma. I can think of moments of suckiness but not an entire day.

Early morning PT sucked, but there was that one morning, where my whole body ached from the march the day before, where I just wanted to quit, just lay there and do nothing until one of the drills saw me laying like a log and started the yelling. Memories of her ran through my head, and I knew that I deserved everything that I was going through. I guess flutter kicks are my bane, because they hurt like the dickens, but they allow you to look up at the sky and to hope, to realize that there might be better days, but then you have a drill yelling at you to straighten your legs and get them six inches off of the ground and you lose all hope. Hope's a wonderful, yet a horrible thing at the same time.

Another bad moment happened on a weapon range. We had to, in full gear, run/jog a mile and then immediately conduct reflexive fire drills. The point of this exercise was to expose us to the effects of exhaustion and a very rapid heartbeat on your marksmanship. I remember the run, my M-16 in both hands, a gallon of water strapped to me, my flak vest cocooned around me, my LBE flopping against me... yeah, a good time was had by all. About half way through, one of my straps came off, and my 2 quart canteen came off. Trying to fix the strap while running with ragged breaths coming out was quite the chore. On top of that, I had our senior drill sergeant telling me to hurry up and catch up with the front of the pack. And then I had the misfortune of having our First Sergeant in the back of the pack, motivating the slower movers. That was one of my prime motivations, not having him on ride me the rest of the way to the freakin' range. I did manage to stay in the middle of the pack, so not to bad for an old man, but still, those minutes on that run sucked. It seemed to stretch on forever.

Recollections of Basic Combat Training, Part 3

The DFAC (Dining Facility)

My niece has had many comments on my eating habits of late. She says I eat way too fast. I admit, I do eat rather quickly, and I'm trying to actually slow down and taste my food now. I blame the Army for my current eating habits.

I really looked forward to chow time, not because of the chow, but because they (drill sergeants) couldn't smoke us much in the chow hall. They'd generally wait until afterwards, so that they could smoke the whole lot of us at one time, without any wasted expenditure of energy on their part. Time was always a constant enemy of ours during chow at BCT. The drill sergeants would wait until the majority of the platoon was through before going through the line, and by the time they got up from eating, God help us if we weren't all outside in formation. So if you were one of the last ones to go through, you were pretty much screwed. You had to "eat your food now, taste it later."

The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. It's like going to Picadilly everyday, but without that number of options. There was cake and pop, but we were told that if we touched any of that, that we'd have to sweat it all out. Not to say that there were times that we were tempted, but just the mere thought of having to do PT afterwards on a stomach full of DFAC food sent the hardiest of malcontents scuttling away from the dessert table. We did have one occasion where we were allowed to have cake, nay, even forced to have it, and that was our Thanksgiving dinner (which happened the day before Thanksgiving). It was good, but the goodness led to all sorts of badness the next day. There was left-over cake and some of us (not me!) was under the impression that it was ok to partake of the sugary goodness. What befell us next was right out of a scene from a Shakespearean tragedy, with plenty of name-calling, finger pointing, pointless exercising, and even a fight breaking out. Somebody had the foresight to ask the drill sergeant if it was ok to have cake, and then after getting a negative, actually said that there were recruits already eating the cake. Once outside with the whole company (normally we went in platoon formation, but since it was a holiday, there was only two drill sergeants on duty instead of the normal four to eight), the finger pointing started. After listening to that for a couple of seconds, the drill sergeant dropped the whole company and started doing "front, back, gos." {You start in the front leaning rest position (push up) and start doing them (head toward the DS). If the DS called out "back", you'd get into the sit-up position (with the head away from the DS). If the DS called out "Go", you'd get up and start jogging. And they would vary it, like thus, "Front" wait a minute, "Back" wait another minute, "Go" wait two minutes, "Front" wait a second, "Go" wait two seconds, "Back" wait a second, "Front", etc, etc. By the end of the session, you were filthy with dirt, because you'd end up rolling around in it just trying to figure out what exercise you had to be in.} The whole company is on field (all 220 of us) doing "Front, Back, Gos". After about 30 minutes of this, he calls us to a stop and says that we'll finish with our smoking if we can all do 10 push-ups together. Sounds easy enough, but they're six-count push-ups, and the whole company has to do them correctly for them to count. And if enough of the company does them wrong, well, it takes away from the count. {An 6-count push-up by the way is this: Starting position is standing, 1st count - go to the squatting position, 2nd count - thrust your legs out together and straight out and you'll end up in the front leaning rest position, 3rd count - down, 4th count - up, 5th count - tuck your legs underneath your body in one smooth motion, once again legs have to be together, and 6th count - come back up the the standing. That's one, count it, ONE push-up.} After forty minutes of being stuck between 3 and 4, some bickering started out as even more people started pointing fingers at the slack asses who weren't doing the exercises correctly, and a fight broke out, which the DS allowed by throwing them in a middle of ring of people and letting them fight under the combative rules. None-the-less, it made for an interesting Thanksgiving day.

Hmmm, this post has turned into more of one on punishment more than the DFAC. Oh well. Thankfully, the food did get better at AIT, as did our time constraints. Hopefully, I'm not bringing up to many bad memories in Alan.