fakereality of war

I've been doing role-playing, pretending I'm an Afghan villager. Most of it was sitting around a campfire shootin' the shit, but when the marines did security sweeps it got real intense really fast. The first few days I was an IED facilitator hiding in a small mountain village. I got sold out by my own people the second day so the marines raided our camp, captured me and tossed me in jail. Even knowing it was fake it was freaky having three rifles in my face while being bagged and cuffed. After I was in jail they called a no-play and I got to hang out with the marines. The start learning Eng by age 10 so we could communicate well. I got to hear them sing happy bday in Dutch. After I was released they moved me to a city site.
It is a fake town made out of mill vans rinolined in lt brown. It's quite elaborate. They have a three story mosque with a golden dome. I was no longer the IED facilitator but no one told the second group of marines. So when they saw me this group wanted to arrest me too. This took them off their main target of finding a kidnapped army officer (couldn't be a marine because "marines don't get captured!") we were holding in our village. But they weren't doing thier sweeps of the town correctly anyways so the trainer made them redo the scenario. But this time around they had me drive down the road and fire off some AK shots to liven up the training. My sister was in the village at the time and saw a guy freak when he heard the shots. "What the F!? What the F!?" as he spins aimlessly for 20 seconds searching for a clue, before lifting his rifle and dropping to the ground for cover. The trainers weren't real happy with how things were going thus far anyways.
The last night they planned to enter the village, save the army hostage, gain intel from him, then reenter the village and save the UN hostages that the army hostage told them about. They decided instead to just raid the village while we were all hiding from them (on purpose) so they could free the army hostage and took everyone by surprise. According to the Dutch command this worked so well they felt they needed to mock the training, "Are we done with all this silliness?" among other things. They didn't want to listen to Preston about what they did wrong, so he called the training soon after.
So it was really fun, kind of like getting paid to go camping (sans beer). I have a new found desire to go to Holland, everyone seemed like fun nice people. I have a new understanding on how citizens of a wartorn country could hate the forces that are trying to "help them." It doesn't seem so helpful when they arrest you in the middle of the night while shooting up your house looking for someone you don't know.

girl scouts have a small box

same price less cookies

Candy bars cost 99 cents now too

new P.O.S. album

never better

Taken was a good movie check it out

I just started reading Good Omens but I'm enjoying it a lot

Scrubs is back. It's on ABC now so you can watch episodes on this site.

just a lil news music movies books and tv I'm diggin right now

I'll take the long way home

miles total when I arrived in Las Vegas, 2845 in five days!

how the roads look from Flint to D.C.

it was cold in Flint

stopped off in Cleveland to see the "Q"

Obamamania in D.C.

D.C. stuff

I arrived around 6 a.m. It was pretty scarce of people till about 7. Then the cops and bus loads of blacks started milling around. On almost every corner a sardine can (bus) full of black people was empting. On the other corners were cops with thier lights on for no reason. Besides the horrible roads, five way stops and everything being one way streets, it was just getting too crowded so I took off and headed to Kitty Hawk.

I took a lay over in Williamsburg. It was crap. A bunch of junk stores in beautiful old buildings.

World's largest hammock! It was a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be based on the 20 million billboards talking it up.

The Outer Banks of N. Carolina had these painted pegasus statues all over the place each with a different paint theme. This was my favorite with a an old world map paint job.

Kitty Hawk memorial

Horrible!

Boiled peanuts, they were all over S. Carolina

Krystal! Best chicken biscuit on the market. Try one if you ever get a chance.

Bingo parlors were everywhere in Alabama

Childhood home of Elvis. It was tiny.

Corky's dry ribs in Memphis! They were wonderful, best ribs I've ever eaten.

Mississippi River

Arkansas Nuclear One

The Big Texan. Home of the 72 oz. steak

American Quarter Horse Musem, I had to take a picture for my mom.

These assholes stayed side by side like this for at least 6 mins going 65 in a 75 zone. I hate them with the furry of one white sun!

lil bit o' difference

Driving around the greater Flint area I noticed a few things. Coney joints were the second most concentrated stores next to thrift shops. The normal Stores have different names. Albertson's is called Kroger, Carl's Jr. is Hardeys, there's another burger joint called Halo Burger. Even some of the brand names are different out here. Dreyers Ice Cream is called Edy's Ice Cream. They also have candy bars in Mi that I don't remember ever seeing out west like the Mallo Cup.

end before the trip begins

We finally made it to Flint. After reading Eric's story I realize I didn't have anything reason to whine. I ended up sleeping till 9 pm and staying up till 4:30, It's Always Sunny season 3 is great! It's cold as all hell (does that compute) here. Snow all over and more on it's way. The news predicts temps in the negatives this week. I know it's MI and I should expect it to be this way but I've only ever been here in the summer so I've only heard old Irishman stories about winter in MI so I didn't really believe what they said.

As an aside I'm planning my drive home. What would you want to see if you could go anywhere in the eastern USA?

grounded

Our flight to Chicago got delayed in Reno from 1:15 to 2:10 to 3:15, then we boarded the plane and sat for 30 mins on the runway. I was crammed next to loviedovie russian couple and my dad had three seats to himself. Half way through the flight they got up so I ran to take away my dad's freedom too relax. Only to find out that the guy in front of me pushed his seat back farther than legally possible and there was a baby crying behind me while his older sister kicked the back of my seat; damn I love kids! Due to the delay we arrived in Chicago at 9:05 our connecting flight to Flint took off at 9:03.

I lost my dad on the way to the next terminal so he called me and asked if I wanted to stay in a hotel or on a cot at the airport. I sure as shit decided the hotel. But come to find out they didn't comp us a room we still had to pay $75 to stay at a hotel that took over an hour to get to becuase everyone that missed their connecting flights were refered to the same hotel, the Aloft, and they only had one shuttle.

So this is where I'm typing from right now. It's actually a really nice place, but it's midnight now and we have to get up at 6 to get on our 9:30 (cross your fingers) flight.

Here's to travelin'

wagon train is lost

My dad and I are flying back to Michigan Saturday to visit my G'ma. He will fly back ten days later. I will be driving back in my G'ma's 03 Focus that my dad is buying. I'm not really sure on the plan but I will be heading farther east, loop south and head back west while going through as many states as possible.

I put a link to Kathleen's blog about her and Alx's experience in Afghanistan.

happy xmas and a merrily '09

Alx called and said they were flying out, then he said kept flopping back and fro with a horrible scratching noise and are you there? Don' you love cell phones? So, I didn't really get any details but Kat and him are gone, '09 at war. They both seemed to be in good spirits before they left. I flew down to vegas the 20th. Their coworkers held a party, not sure if it was a going away party or just a party, but it was fun either way. We learned a new drinking game, 1/4 pong.

The next night we went to midnight bowling. I'm a horrible bowler and Alx almost fell asleep in the lane. The following nights we went gambling. I'm a horrible gambler. I played roulette for the first time, it was pretty fun. Alx killed it the first night. The dealer or roller (what ever she's called) ran out of black chips cause Alx had them all. I don't think he actually won anything cause he took us out for ox tail soup at 5 in the morning on our way home. It was wonderful. The 2nd round of gambling was dominated by Kat. She was the only one that could even stay on the table for longer than 5 mins.

Thanks to Alx and Kat for letting me visit, for all the good food and fun. I wish you the best on your deployment. I hope it all works out for the best.

We went a few miles out of vegas and there is just a giant pile of trash and empty shells where people go shooting. Kat is quite the dead eye, don't F w/ her.

Christmas eve I drove to Elko with Jones. It's a 6 hour drive that ended up around 91/2 hours long. Jones drove most the way but being as he just got his wisdom teeth out his mouth started getting sore so he made me start driving (might be safer if I'm not in the passenger seat anyways, just ask Alx). It was snowing so much we were going marker to marker. It was a complete white out at parts, not being able to see past the windshield. I drove a little more careful than usual because it was Jess' car and if i wrecked it I would never hear the end of it. We made it just fine.

Christmas day was pretty uneventful. My dad got some steaks and we had a good dinner. His friend Jay gave us some deer salami that was wonderful. The next day we heard about the train derailment next to Carlin so we hopped in the ol chev to check it out.

Happy New Year and i hope everyone had a wonder Christmas!

mainstreamclearchannelsucksballs

I would like to thank Kevin Pereira for making a completly worthless song, inwhich the music took fifteen minutes, the vocals took five and it was all created in GarageBand with built-in effects, to mock pretty much every mainstream hiphop song on the market. Only you can help stop shitty music from being made. Heed my call, stop purchasing or even listening to auto-tune bullshit. *uck-a-kanye

just fyi the shit we are fighting against

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBqfEwydx8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=740d8sTpM7U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT_fnAjZNDY

sorry to anyone that actaully listened to the links

truth in laughter

gears 2 in 1 min

then till now

1/4th of my thanksgiving dinners. we did a standing rib roast and a balsamic pork loin roast in kt's garage thursday. My mom did a bagged turkey saturday morn. saturday night schy's mom did an alton brown turkey. The next sunday ash and i made the one in the picture.

while ash and amber went on the wine walk i sat back at the tap house. we ended up drinking with the bartender and i think the owner. after they got off we went to there house for some more drinking. it was a really nice house right on the river. but when we got there they stacked the logs too high and when they burnt down a lil a log fell and broke the glass door. later on some guy fell over while holding a box of rice chex, thus dusting the entire kitchen floor with chex. it was a strange night.

scott got his box of heads. those africans know how to pack a box i didnt think it was possible to get all the heads in a box that small.

alx's arm vd

joe s and jess j playin with skin and bones. we had a party over at palmers aparto.

one of the nights joe was up from tempe we went to slots of fun. we lost money.

good thing they werent behind us

were a safe family

family tradition. we did an early christmas at my moms house because kt preston and the kids are going to california, my dad has to work and i dont know what ill be doing. ash and i are going to her christmas party is this friday. saturday im flying to vegas for alxs going away party and driving back with palmer and schy the following weekend.

this i swhat it looked like in reno this morning. it snowed all night and most of the day. mr weather dude says we have another day of it too. when i was just driving around sliding my car i saw 4 car wrecks.

Happy bday alx

the wii reminded us!

for the next few weeks

true terror

Hallowed Eve has ended.

The little Hegan boy fearlessly consuming his confectioner spoils.

Thinking the spooks and witches have gone into hidding.

Feeling warm and safe for another year.

Unbeknownst to him,

the True Terror

is just begining

3 days before

GoW2

Happy Halloween!

These are our Jack-O-Lanterns this year.

Beerpong party tonight!

huevos

Hofbräuhaus

Bobbi Jo and her Bfriend Jr. were staying in Vegas for a couple days so we met up for dinner. Palmer and Schy had been telling us about Hofbräuhaus, large beers and good music. We met up and all ordered a liter of beer! My arm got tired holding it so I had to drink it faster! I ordered the Dunkel everyone else got the Oktoberfest.

The band was great...when they played the German music. They played some newer pop stuff that just didn't seem to fit the ambiance. The singer was German but the others were Swedish.

Jon and Santa Maria were an old German couple that got seated next to us. It's fam style seating with giant tables and other parties get seated next to you if you don't fill the table. They live in L.A. and come to vegas every few months to do some gambling. They go to Germany at least once a year and have been in the OG Hofbrau Muchen during Oktoberfest. Here they made us try a German Cherry Schnapps that wasn't sweet...at all, it was like tequila with a slight hint of cherry.

This guy pounded a liter of beer, that's as big as Palmers beer boot, while standing on top of a ten foot tower of speakers! He then played the drums on every table in the place and on our beer glasses at our table. Later Schy and I were talking to him and he gave away his beer chug secret. "It's half water." Moral; don't believe in anything.

"Thirst is worse than homesickness"

planning for the future

If you had purchased $1000.00 of AIG stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.
With Fannie Mae, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.
With Freddie Mac, you would have less than $5.00 left.
If you had purchased $1000.00 of WAMU stock, you would have $49.00 left.
If you had purchased $1000.00 worth of Lehman Brothers stock, you would have nothing left. But…
If you had purchased $1000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for recycling, you would have $114.00!
Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle!

Jr. High!

I had this hanging in my locker

Early?

This video is from the day before but it is spot on from the vegas concert

On a side note I had a vision of a comic. Palmer tells me I need to write these ideas down so they arn't forgotten.

Soooo it's a Zombie vs. Robot rip. But this was a wonderful, quite possibly great comic (if you or anyone wants to read it let me know). Idea is; timeframe null, with advanced cyborg tech.

Main character, cop with some sort of shady past, is in a lab solving "x." During this issue a beaker is broken on Main characters gun. This gun is later fired at a perp that dies.....then rises with zombosease and, reawakes (dramaticly).

So the diff from this and all other z'ed word movies/comic/shorts is the cyborg part works perfectly normal on the zombos. The zombies are really slow and want brains (yeah so?) The cyborg parts are just as super-human as ever.

This story however, every zombie is diff. If he/she had borg legs it could run just as fast as before it was a z'ed. But its brain is still dead. If the arm was borg it could crush a can just as fast as when alive and a normal cyborg. (twist) the main characters partner had a Borg mind.... but he/she got bit and is now a zombo! He/she becomes the lead zombo because the body needs brainszore to live but still has the thought capacityto lead as before it was zombofied!

let me know what you think?