Happy Veterans Day!

Happy Veterans Day to all the people out there who are serving our country now, and also to those who have served in the past. May everyone in harm’s way come come safe real soon. I did my time from 97-01 in the Air Force in Charleston, South Carolina working as an airframe mechanic on C-17’s and occasionally on C-141’s. I think all the 141’s are boneyarded now, thank goodness. They were old, dirty and stunk like piss inside. Anyway I had a lot of good times back then with a lot of awesome people. If I was smart I would have stayed in. I would be 6 years or so away from a retirement check and would be a Tech Sergeant. Sounds a lot better than 34 years from a retirement check and Line Rep II. Here’s one of the only existing pictures of me in my blues, right at the end of basic training. I don’t even have any stripes yet, just my name tag and a marksmanship and basic training ribbon. I didn’t get the honor graduate ribbon which is the third ribbon you can leave boot camp with since I got into a little bit of trouble… whoops! Damn I’m looking svelte! I still had abs then!

Looking at that picture reminds me that someone has been playing a practical joke on me by sneaking in and switching my pants with the same pants, just slightly smaller. I’m not enjoying the “muffin top” on stuff that fit fine not all that long ago. I really need to get back at it since I really haven’t done anything in about two months now running wise and I can really tell, especially now that it’s getting colder and the nights are getting longer. Seeing no daylight day after day for several months really makes me feel like shit and puts me in a real foul mood and regular exercise really helps me a lot. I bought a pretty nice treadmill off Craigslist that had about 20 miles on it and originally cost $700 for $75 last week. The reason that it was only $75 was because shortly after they bought it they moved it and then it decided to incline all the way to it’s highest setting and then stay there, overheating the incline motor if you left it plugged in. The guy tried to mess with it but he isn’t handy at all and was unsuccessful at doing anything to it. Then it sat for a year and a half until his wife put her foot down and told him to get rid of it because she was tired of looking at it. Here’s where I come in. We went and got it and I opened it up, swapped the positive and negative terminals on the incline motor to run it back down to the level position and then left it disconnected. It now works just fine, it just doesn’t incline… yet. After consulting with some treadmill repair people the problem appears to be a common sensor problem on the treadmill motor that tells the motor when it is at it’s maximum and minimum position. I ordered a new sensor for $40 and now I’m waiting for it to arrive. Hopefully that will get it all fixed and I will have a quality treadmill for 16 cents on the dollar. If that doesn’t fix it, oh well I can just use it with no incline. Now I need to find some other equipment for pennies on the dollar so I can keep myself in shape, but not have to leave the house to do it.

Jessica got a through the mail audit in the mail from the IRS last week . They say she owes $1000 from 2008. She doesn’t really have $1000 sitting around right now to give so of course this panicked her just a skoshe. So far it looks like everything will be ok though, it looks like it’s just a mix up and her sister the CPA is taking care of it. We’ll see how it goes.

My class is going a little better than it was before, I managed to get my point across that the point of the class was to understand and apply the material not just memorization and regurgitation. I didn’t get all the things I was arguing for but I got a few. I ended up getting a 100% on last’s weeks work (after again arguing for some of my answers).

Why does Niles Paul see the field? The freakin’ guy almost cost us the game again just like last year with another screw up at the worst possible time. I thought for sure that we were going to lose that game but Iowa State made a really ballsy call and went for two and didn’t make it. They should have, the play was open but the holder kind of lobbed it like a left handed girl or something. Also, don’t we have any other quarterbacks on the team? The first, second, and third string QB’s are all hurt and they run the wildcat for a good chunk of the game? Where’s Latravis Washington? He’s a senior give hims a shot, he couldn’t be any worse than Green. I hope Martinez heals up soon but at least it’s a good week to be hurt against one of the worst teams in the league, Kansas. Rest Martinez this week and get him back to 100% because we will need him next week against aTm who is back in the top 25 and looking a lot better than I thought they would.