Woman who missed Air France flight killed in car accident

I was trolling net between courses and saw this. Her and her husband has missed the flight and caught another flight the next day, less then 2 weeks later, her and her husband's car veered into an oncoming truck, she's dead and her husband is in serious condition. Now if this isn't reminiscent of the movie Final Destination then I don't know what is, spooky!

Rat in his Wheel

A piece of interactive art I took part in last weekend at a NIMBY event that we went to, the bride did an excelling job at the filming. NIMBY is a place to create anything that your mind can come up with and they rent out space to artists with a wild hair. They have shows every month that are like mini Burning Man festivals, only these people are doing it all year long. Even though I haven't been online as much, it doesn't mean life has stopped. Check out the web site above, if you're ever in the Bay area during one of their events, I promise you a show that you will not soon forget plus it's a really cheap good time, good music, robots shooting fire and things that you could not imagine.



But work is nothing like being in a cage, I'm in the process of checking in still. Corpsman out there, listen up, keep up with your NKO courses or your next command won't give you your keys! Half of my time since checking in has been doing online courses. So far, friendly people and a job that is in need of my skills, I can do this.

Tomorrow I'll be attending the local Corpsman Ball with the bride where we get to make a first impression with the local medical community.

Impressions? I enjoy being so close to the bride, after spending time at Edwards AFB and China Lake, this place is nice. Besides, it's not where you're stationed at, it's who your stationed with. I think I have some good material here. Fresh faces and fresh impressions, wish me luck.

Dinner with one of my oldest friends

Last night I was invited out to dinner with one of my oldest friends Leslie and her husband Scott at Buffalo Wild Wings (the Mango Habanero sauce rocks). Back story on Leslie, we met the summer before my 6th grade, she lived a stones throw away from me and had a big empty lot next to her house with ATV’s that we used to carve up trails around the place with (I also ran over her big sister which scarred me for life, sorry Shelia!). Sixth grade, she was probably one of my best friends and was in fact my first girl friend before we both knew the full meaning of the word. Meaning we held hands a few times and kissed once… in her shed next to the quads. I think her dad telling me that he was watching me might have stopped that back then.

Talk about some old memories, talking with her reminded me just how much I forgot over the years. Items that were important to her back then aren’t even blips that I have thought about since they happened back then. A few items that I had totally forgotten about, I went to Thailand in 7th grade and brought her and her sister back souvenirs, I remember buying souvenirs but I don’t remember who I gave them to, she still has hers. I have a talent for drawing mazes, something I think I could do before I could actually write and I drew her name in bubble letters and made a maze out of it and I guess I drew her a some other drawings, I have no idea what they were but she still has them. In 7th grade, we had wood shop together and she told me that she was going to fail if she didn’t get a box she was making routed and I routed it for her. It was a big deal to her but all I remember was her asking me for a favor, I didn’t even remember what that favor was. The funny thing is, her parents are still using that box (and think that she routed it, heh). I don’t even have any of the my wood shop projects from back in the day. I think my mom sold them at garage sales or gave them away (like she did my comic books). 

Those are definitely some items out of my prehistory that were important to her and she was able to hold on to the memory because she had kept those mementos. They had fallen out of my memory because I had lost so many items from my past like most of us do. I had thought that I had a great memory compared to most of my friends about those days but seeing Leslie showed much of my past I had forgotten, I didn’t have a diary or a camera and most of those items had been added to the rubbish bin over the years meaning that they also fell out of my consciousness because I didn’t have those bookmarks in my memory to keep them fresh.

Forward to today, we both have kids who are in high school, we’re both happily married, in fact, she’s been married to the same guy for 16 years a cool dude. Anyone who stays married for 16 years and be as happy and as comfortable as they looked made the right choice. We both have tattoos, hah, never thought I would see that day. It’s strange experience seeing us both as adults because the last time we were close to each other, we were still children. We were friends after we moved away from that little neighborhood but after 7th grade we didn’t really hang out and grew two different ways but for that year and a couple of months, we were two peas in a pod and our memories of that time are still locked in place and unsullied by the process of puberty and growing up.

In Scottsdale, a mild stress attack and some karma rebuilding

I flew into San Diego the day before yesterday and did something so ignorant that I felt like banging my head into the nearest wall. I had flown down without the key to the car that I had left in San Diego, they were on the keychain to my truck. After a few minutes of pure panic, yes, it was very pure, I calmed down and called my wife, she said she would overnight them too me and that I should spend my last night in San Diego hanging out with buddies and we ended up having a great time, thanks Dang!  With a few words, my bride had calmed me down, it was more of a problem in my head then anything else, just had to remember that this was my town and I did have a lot of friends about to call on in times of need.

So yesterday, my keys arrived at my old landlords office at 10:30 and she told me it was fate that I would stop by and see her again, I caught another ride to base and I was off to Arizona and pulled into my dad’s around 7 PM.  I think I was asleep by 9:30, that stress attack had worn me down.

Today, I looked around my pops place and thought, my dad needs someone one to take care of some of these projects he has sitting around. Not my step mom, she’s busy enough as it is. You see, my father is a hoarder, he has worked with electronics as long as I can remember and his place is loaded down with obsolete junk and he seems to pick more up every time I see him. Being a minor hoarder myself, I know what he’s going through, it overwhelms you. There’s too many projects to do and it’s hard when you have piles of craziness lying around that need to be sorted.

So together we looked about to discover some projects that my talents could be put to use, the back glass door had hung up since he moved in, I said I would fix that, there was a pile of cleaning supplies sitting out on the back porch, he explained that he said that he wanted to put a sliding shelves under the sink, yup, I could do that and his grass was all splotchy, green and tan and yucky all over.  Mostly due to the 6 broken sprinkler heads, can do. So I went to Lowe’s and purchased the sprinkler heads and some rollers for the door, for the shelf, we used some sliders he had sitting about and some laminated particle board that just happened to be on his back porch.

I told him to go back to programming (that what he does) and sent started off with the back door so we could turn the A/C back on, it actually took 3 tries with his help to get it properly set, the spacing where the rollers were wrong and we had to drill an extra hole and put a spacer in but at the end of the day, it worked fine. The sprinklers, while dirty and muddy only took an hour in the hundred degree sun of digging. We argued around the idea of the shelf for a while and I think my idea of the sliders underneath prevailed. Picture below.

Tonight we went to the DAV for a spaghetti dinner on his tab and a couple of beers. Tomorrow, I plan on just hanging out with friends, yes, you Sherri and Leslie and see my uncle Larry. With all of the cursing I did in my head on Monday, I needed to balance out the karmic scales with some good deeds which have been taken care of. Have a great night everyone.

NorCal Trip

I’m taking a hop down to San Diego to pick up the car from work and then driving over to Phoenix to see my friends and family in that area of the world. The last ten days in Northern California has been wondrous. The first night in the city, I went to a Steam Punk party with the wife and some of her friends, every see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow or the game Bioshock? Well we dressed sort of like that, goggles, brass gadgets, old style clothes, live music, belly dancing, a guy playing a shovel, yeah, it was interesting. A bunch of geeky sort of people hanging out having a good time. Here's some pictures.

My wife wasn't the only person with blue hair.

We made a trip to the San Francisco Zoo and in comparison to the San Diego or Phoenix zoo, it’s much smaller and homier. Of course we had to see the pen where the tiger got out of, there were signs saying to respect the animals but no word of warning that the animal could jump the fence and eat you like a snack. I liked it, it was a chilly misty day, we were bundled warmly and I was in great company. It was the first public place I’ve been where, along with the trash can and recycling, they had a bin for compost. While the zoo was smaller, the animals seemed happier and well cared for.

I used to have a goat that looked just like this one

Someone else with matching hair

I'm sure this one wanted to eat me

During the week we also slipped in a trip to see the new Star Trek movie which being the geeks that we are, enjoyed tremendously. Lots of walks down new paths with the Gatsby, installing a lift in the mother-in-laws garage that could lift a 4X8 HO train track to the ceiling, hanging out with her dad, having a Mother’s Day lunch with the brides mom, grandmother the rest of her family. An altogether great time.

The plan when I land is to stop by the cleaners and pick up a uniform that I forgot there pick up the car and run by my old work to pick up a plaque, then hit the road and probably stay at my dads tonight in Scottsdale. From there, I‘ll probably drive up to Prescott later in the week and other then that, I’ll play it by ear. Hope everyone remembered to call their mom on Mother’s Day and be careful of catching the Swine!

Goodbye San Diego

I checked out of Third Marine Air Wing last Friday and will be checking into VFA-125 out of Lemoore (orders change, from a sea duty squadron to a training squadron). 4 years and a couple of months at Miramar including many adventures documented on this blog but its time to move on. The last time I was with that Navy unit was in 1999, the move is going to be a pretty big shift in my way of thinking. I’ve already dropped 600 dollars on new uniforms. I’m going to miss being on the green side, specially the friends I’ve made. Here is the latest snapshot of the crew I worked with out of Miramar.




And the second picture is of my local blogging support group, this might be the last time we’re all together in one place. Since I’m on leave hanging and my wife’s the one going to school this week, it will give me a chance to fix the links on the right and update my blog a bit. I was going through a period of backing away from my internet life and shrinking my presence in the cyber sphere into smaller bite sized portions. I was all over the internet and it was getting a bit out of control, turning. Just keeping up with all of my accounts was turning into a full time job and there were a lot of things I still wanted to do with my time. I think the forced separation worked, I’m not feeling the with drawls anymore but needed to step out of the shadows before not blogging became another habit.

Currently I’m on leave for most of the month of May, I’m staying in NorCal till the 11th then heading to Arizona to spend time with my family.

Shining

I'm having some problems with my writing of late, maybe I need to check out this remake of the masterpiece. (thanks Miriam!)

Last Spring Break in San Diego

I got my orders on Tuesday to report to VFA-113 in Lemoore at the end of May so the bride and I spent this week checking out the sights of San Diego while she took her Spring Break. The upcoming week will be spent looking into the move and where I’m going to live after I transfer while we used the prior week saying our goodbye’s to San Diego.

If you’re in the military down here, whale watching only costs 8 bucks at ITT which is much cheaper than the 25-30 dollars that you pay at the pier. Our trip, we went 13 miles out and saw 11 whales, fin whales and humpbacks, the captain said it was a good day. The season is ending soon so you might want to hurry, the 2 hour harbor cruises are also 8 bucks and are not a bad deal either.

Gatsby and I are going to miss all of the dog beaches in the area, hours spent tossing a ball in the water and racing up and down the sand. Taking him out on all of the hiking trails and forcing me to explore my neighborhood foot by foot has given me some great insight on the area. New neighborhoods for us to explore I guess.

On trade off, the drive to see the bride much shorter, my son Collin is a 33 dollar Amtrak trip away, there are all sorts of interesting community festivals that go on in the central valley. I have half a decade till I hit my 20 year mark and have to start thinking about what to do when this path reaches its end.

Without Orders

I'm in a sort of a limbo, a while ago, I said that I was going to Fallon. And those future orders are what my near future plans were orbiting around. Then I got a phone call asking if I would like to go to Lemoore instead (where I originally wanted to go) and quickly said yes and was told that I would get my orders shortly. That was a month ago.

So now I'm just waiting for orders to tell me where and when to go. Co-workers keep telling me I should be upset but I just feel resigned, this sort of stuff is par for my course.

I don't think there is bad intent involved or else I could have an excuse to be angry. I just feel into a perfect storm of what's available, the budget and the needs of the Navy. This is sort of my excuse for not writing lately because all I've just felt is "blah".

Maybe my writing needs more blank time like I have right now. I'm currently waiting for a monthly counselling and only have my Blackberry to entertain myself with and this blog is in need of some serious attention. Maybe I'll get back to my writing soon.

First Post from my Blackberry Curve

I'm still digging down to the bottom of this piece of tech goodness, my last phone was an LG Rumor and I wore out the cable in the slide which caused the screen to turn green. I'm with Sprint right now and to upgrade my phone, it would have cost close to 500 dollars. So I looked on Amazon and found an unlocked Blackberry Curve for 350 by one of their sellers Lux Case.

There was a small problem with my order, they were out of the Red so I opted for another color which did delay my order a bit. I finally got it turned it on and it was in spanish. With the help of an online translating tool, I soon had it spouting out english text.
For some reason I wasn't able to register the phone online so I went to a Sprint store and had it turned on and my contact information transferred.

My take after the first 48 hours? I really like the free google aps, maps work great, I have both the Myspace and Facebook aps but actually like them better going through the phones web browser but both come in handy for uploading photos and status. Sprint has a TV app that I tried out but it slowed down the entire system so I pulled it. For some reason the audible.com app doesn't run smoothly, clunky in the playing of books and slower in downloading so I deleted that too and plan on continuing to use my regular MP3 player.

I'm still working on making this second nature but as with anything, it will take a little time. My Rumor was idiot proof but slow, while this is a complicated toy that James Bond's Q would have traded his left something to own. (It also has spellcheck' bonus!)

25 Random things About Me

I did this over at Facebook, funny thing is, the two girls from question 4 are both friends over there and so are both of on question 7. Quite a few of my graduating class are members of FB, it's been a renaissance of hooking up with old buddies over there. Some interesting comments on the other side of the mirror. Anyway, this was my post.

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1.I once saved a dog from the bottom of a mine shaft.
2.Another time in a mine, I set my hand on fire using a polyester sweatshirt as a torch and got third degree burns.
3.I used to wear big nerdy glasses.
4.In sixth grade I was beat up by two girls for throwing rhino beetles on them (they might just be my friends here on facebook).
5.I never ever bought porn from Dino.
6.But I do know someone who did.
7.In 6th grade, I ran over my first girlfriends big sister in a ATV.
8.The first time I went to TJ, I got drunk, blacked out and had a stranger give me embarrassing pictures the next day.
9.I never drank that much in another country.
10.Every 6 months after #2, something combustible blew up on me, the bad luck streak last for 3 years.
11.When I was young and free climbing, I use to almost die, a lot.
12.I have an addiction to technology.
13.I own over 2000 books and don't look forward to moving them.
14.I don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up.
15.I was suspended for fighting outside of school.
16.I fell for my wife the first time I laid eyes on here and knew we were going to be married before we said one word.
17.I miss taking as many pictures as I used too and have lustful thoughts about a new camera.
18.My sister and I didn't get along till we were adults, now we talk a couple times a week.
19.I'm afraid of heights but love jumping off of cliffs.
20.Social networking is as natural as breathing for me and I'm glad technology is catching up.
21.If it's mechanical, I can probably fix it.
22.I can't roll my tongue.
23.When I was 3 I ate an entire box of Ex-Lax thinking it was chocolate and have never quite trusted chocolate since then but do like it.
24.I've had people call me from out of state to make curry for them when they visit.
25.My wife knows that makes me tick and it is sometimes very spooky.

Naval Air Station Fallon Nevada

I should be getting orders sometime this upcoming week to that area of the world. Over the last few days, I’ve been mildly distracted by research in the area and over the last day have taken to reading the local paper, the Lahontan Valley News, it has an online site with a comments section on the stories. It‘s interesting reading the local stories and seeing the comments of people who were actually involved in them. 

A little about the area. Fallon is located 60 miles east of Reno NV, has a population of 7500 in the city proper and one of the major employers of the area is NAS Fallon, home of TOPGUN since the Marines took over Miramar.

I’m going to miss the ocean, beach and beauty of southern California. I really do love the area but my wife is going to grad school in northern California and my son lives in Sacramento. I’m about to hit the 15 year mark in my career and I think it’s time to make some sacrifices for the family. It’s closer to both of them, not quite as close as the NAS Lemoore I wanted but 200 miles closer then where I’m at. Inside, there are parts of me that do miss the qualities of living in a small town and if anything, it’s not where you’re at, it’s who your with. I’m looking forward to working with a new crew.

Surgery on my Acer Aspire One

When I picked up the new computer, I noticed reading online that it said you could replace the installed 512 ram chip with a 1 gig module and since that gig module was only 12 bucks on Amazon, how could I go wrong and pressed the one click button. Then I started looking around for directions and ran into this YouTube video and cringed. And started going though the message boards. It was split 50/50 between the people who did it and the ones that were too scared to open up their machines. I was torn till the card showed up in the mail and I couldn't help myself, I'm no mouse when it comes to fixing gadgets (and my percentages for fixing them grow higher each year).

You see, you need to take off 8 screws on the bottom including 2 under the rubber feet, unclip the key board, unplug that, unplug the touch pad, then take out 7 tiny screws and pull off the top faceplate. The mother board is jammed and only held in by the shape of the body and two screws and 2 cables and the wireless card plug. When I got to this part, I discovered that my model was different, I had a regular hard drive that was actually attached to the motherboard and the edge shoved under another metal panel, so had to unplug everything and pry up a corner and pull everything sideways then up leaving the hard drive attached to the motherboard then turned the motherboard over to get to the RAM located on the bottom. RAM is RAM, I popped out the old one and slipped the new one in. Being an ex mechanic, I‘m well versed at taking things apart and putting them back together again, everything went back together smoothly and it turned right on. It took about half an hour, I don’t recommend doing it unless you‘re good with your hands and people call you geek behind your back. After putting it all back together, I’m thinking that I should have videotaped the entire process, oh well, next time.

As far as use of the Aspire goes, this thing is better then sliced bread. I’ve got used to the touchpad and between XP and Vista, XP has it for speed hands down. This boots up in under a minute, with my card, it takes around 2 minutes to get my wireless modem to configure on Vista, this, it’s about 10 seconds and XP hasn't jammed up with Facebook yet. I think Microsoft needs to come out with a patch that strips Vista the crap out of Vista. The netbook runs cool on the lap, I have a 3 cell model it lasted for 2 hours and 10 minutes playing movies, probably more if I had turned off the WiFi. It’s amazing that you can get this much tech for 350 bucks.

Google maps is a peeping Tom

I was at a friends house and google maps caught me in her front yard unloading my wifes car! I've only been there 2 or 3 times, I just wanted to show her how street view worked. Sheesh! What are the chances of that? Maybe big brother is following me around.


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