One year

One year ago today I started this crazy blog thing.  This makes my 45th post in that year.  I started this thing with my disgruntlement about the way companies try to make anything for some sales with this post. Seriously, Hannah Montana Easter egg baskets?  What were they thinking?  Don’t get me wrong.  I think capitalism is a good thing, but I think that some companies have tried to take it too far for way too long.

I’ve also discussed some of my thoughts on some green items, green thinking, and stuff. Since I started this blog, I’ve switched to using mostly organic shampoos and soaps and even tried some homemade deodorant.  I use less water, electricity, and recycle more now and it makes me feel a little bit better about my impact on the world.  I also realize that I’m only getting started. I have many more ideas I’d like to do to reduce waste and use more.

I’ve bitched about some stupid people in the Army, but that is only a little bit of it.  I got sucked into talking politics, tried to stay positive and not talk politics, and sucked back into talking politics.  Looking back on it, I didn’t have much positive to say about John McCain, but I had lots negative to say about Obama.  I still think that McCain was the wrong Republican to be our front-runner and I’m not really sure he helped himself when he brought in Palin.  One thing this election definitely taught me is that it is more okay to be sexist than it is to be racist.  I’ve tried to remain positive about our new president, but I’m mostly underwhelmed with what he’s done so far.  I believe that Congress, on both sides of the aisle, needs to step up and do whats right for the country, whether it is political sepuku or not.

So here I am, one year and 45 posts later.  Sandy and I know that we’re moving in about 45 days, but we still don’t know where the Army is sending us.  The list of places that we thought they were sending us has completely changed, grown, and morphed so that it is now a 5 minute conversation to tell someone where we might end up. Good times.  At this point it is almost comical when someone asks where we’re going.

My thesis is a little less than half way done, but the half I have done is probably some of the hardest stuff.  All references and stuff.  Out of the five chapters; 1st is at about 99%, 2nd about 90%, 3rd and 5th not really started, and the 4th is only about 40 %.  I’ve got a little more than a month to finish it up.  I better get back to writing…

Thesis Update

Okay, so maybe this is cheating for a post, but I figured I needed to say something since I’ve been so quiet lately.  Writing hasn’t really been my focus, or at least blogging hasn’t.

We had Sandy’s wife and her little one here for two weeks and I was having too much fun hanging out with them.  I always enjoy hanging out with the wife’s wife and this time the beastie was along for the ride.  It was a really good time, I just wish that the wife, twice removed, could have brought her husband to play too.  I guess somebody needed to be working though.

I’ve been busy working on my thesis/ research since the wife’s wife left.  I’ve got a few pages written on the thesis, but it is a slow process and I’ve forgotten how good I am at procrastinating.  “Oh, look!  Something shiny!”  As my adviser said on Monday though, we need to add some beef to the thesis, so I mentioned possibly getting some Weight Gainer 3000.  He laughed, but didn’t know that I was serious.  The bad part is that I know all the ideas are percolating in my brain, but getting them to the end of my fingers is proving to be more difficult than I remember.  Plus, while I really want to be home with Sandy and the animals, I am pretty sure I work a lot harder while I’m at school.  Weird.

“In other news…”

I am officially no longer a captain in the Army.  For some crazy reason they promoted me to major.  To some that would be Major Jack Ass, but whatever.  It is a little weird since I wore captain’s rank for almost seven years.  I’m sure that I’ll get used to it, but there is definitely a break in period.  I just wanted to say thanks to all those that have been supportive of me through the years.  Without the solid base of family, I’m not sure I could have made it this far.  Definitely a huge thanks to Sandy.  I couldn’t have done it without you.  I’m really glad I was sent to pick you up at the Newark Airport for that conference at West Point many many moons ago.

On that note, Sandy and I still don’t know where the Army is moving us next.  I submitted our preferences waaaay back on 22 October, but we don’t know yet.  Last month I finally bugged the guy about news and he said he’d tell us this month.  Then, right when I was about to send anthor email this month, he sent one out.  It basically said that there is another office weighing in on our assignments (mine and everyone else moving this summer) and he would try to let us know something by the 28th, but if we didn’t hear anything by then, just wait longer.  Gotta love it.  We plan on putting the house on the market next month, but we don’t know where we’re going yet. It’ll be a race to see which one gets here first; the Realtor sign or our orders to move.

And now I need to get back to my thesis…

O B E

Overcome By Events…

That pretty much sums it up right now. My research has hit a wall.  First, we (my adviser and I) were trying to convert my code and run it in an older version of the optimization program we were using (ILOG OPL is the name).  The newest version we have here at K-State is OPL 4.2, and it isn’t working.  My adviser was pretty sure he could get it to work in an earlier version, but after a half hour of jacking with it, he’s now convinced that we need to put it in a completely different computer language, CPLEX.  If you know anything about coding, this is about like having something the way you want it in HTML, but it just won’t work, so you now have to convert it to C.  Not fun.

So when my adviser told me this yesterday, I felt like I had been hit.  A little dazed, a lot confused, and very frustrated.  Now we have to get this code working, AND I still have the whole thesis to write.  It is doable, but very daunting.

So, I thought I would check out one other option.  Graduating with a M.S. is all the Army wants me to do right now, so why do I need to kill myself this semester with this coding nightmare and writing a thesis (expected to be roughly 80 pages).  I could graduate if I just dropped the thesis hours this semester and picked up two courses to get to the required 30 hours for the degree.  I found two courses, and they’re both open.  But, the last day to add classes without instructor approval was last Wednesday.  I could still do it.  Both instructors are in my department.  One even has an office directly across from me and the other has been published over 70 times.  One of the classes is also part of the Masters in Engineering Management (MEM) a degree I’m interested in getting anyways (down the road a ways, life 5 years or so).

But, it is OBE.  At this point I realize that this thesis is more for my instructor in many ways.  He’s young and I’m not sure he’s published much in the academic journals.  The goal is to tie my research in with the military background and possibly get published (again, down the road, but more like a year to two) in one of the obscure military journals.

Now if we can just get it to work and I can stay motivated to finish…

FUNK!

It’s just a really fun word.

You know, it sounds kinda dirty but it totally is not at all.  Funk music is fun to listen to (ref. George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars).  If something is described as funky, I think that it is probably pretty cool and a little quirky (another really fun word).

However, for me right now, funk describes my state of being.  For some reason I don’t want to work on my research/thesis at all.  I’m supposed to graduate in May, and if nothing else, the Army says that I have to move in May, so I should really be working on this Masters of Science thing, but I don’t wanna.

The FUNK would be why I haven’t posted in forever.  I’m just feeling funky, but not in a good way.

The bad part is that when I leave school and go home, I’m only slightly more productive.  Funk-a-delic.  Funk-i-fied.

Or is it just plain funky?

Snow daze

Well, the weatherman got it right, sort-of.  We were supposed to get snow last night/this morning.  We have snow and it is still coming down, however, it was only supposed to be 1 to 2 inches.  I am pretty sure it was closer to 3 when I was shoveling at 7 this morning and it has continued to come down since then. (It is noon now, and the “forecast” says snow showers this afternoon.)

Driving the 10 (or so) miles into Manhattan was fun though.  Glad I was driving the front wheel-drive car instead of my rear-wheel drive Explorer.

Now I’m supposed to be studying for my one final this week, which is tomorrow, but I can’t stay focused enough to stay with it for longer than about 10 or 15 minutes at a time.  Not good.  Network Flows and Graph Theory (just one class with an unfortunately long title) is hard enough when you have studied, I’m sure that it is only going to be harder if I can’t stay focused long enough to study more today.

So yeah, I guess I’m in a snow daze today.  I don’t feel like studying, but I guess I have to.  I’d rather just sit on the couch and read a book the rest of the day.  A fun book, not a school book.  Well, at least an interesting book.

Slacking off

So obviously I haven’t been writing all that much lately.  My last post was a couple of weeks ago and it wasn’t much.  I’m trying to shift gears and get away from the political/ religious commentary.  I haven’t even been reading the blogs I normally read.  I was going to call this post “Catching up…” but I was beat to that title.  Thanks Sandy!

Anywho.  I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately.  By most people’s standards, it probably isn’t all that much, but I read slowly, so it takes me longer to get through books.  So a little can seem like I lot if you do it slowly.  Sandy says that it is because I read every word, but I’m so intent on catching every detail that I can’t skip too many words and if I do I always feel like I’m missing something and I go back to re-read it.

So, I finally finished “A Bridge Too Far.”  For a history book, it was superbly written.  Sometimes I felt like it was a little ridiculous to keep up with every little individual in the battle, but it made the battles more personal and the first hand accounts gave a great perspective.

Next, I decided to go for some fiction.  I got “The Last Templar” for my birthday and hadn’t gotten to it yet.  I finished it in early October or late September.  I was initially very interested.  I had hoped that it would be similar to “The Jester” by James Patterson, but I was disappointed.  This book seemed to be very similar to the Da Vinci Code, but instead of the investigation centered around art history, it was based on archaeological findings.  The beginning started off pretty good, then it slumped.  I was pretty disappointed with the ending.  Here’s my review from Shelfari:

I wasn’t really impressed. The story line and plot were mediocre. If you’re interested in the Knights Templar, this book only barely touches on the actions during the 13th century. I was hoping that this novel would be similar to The Jester by James Patterson and give us a fictional life during the time of the Crusades, but that was not the case. Most of this story takes place in the present time. Similar to the Da Vinci Code, but based more on archaeology instead of art history.

And the good news, last night I finished Brisingr, by Christopher Paolini.  I enjoyed this addition to the Inheritance Cycle.  For those that don’t know me that well, I really enjoy reading Harry Potter and other fantasy books.  This series was right up my alley.  I was a little unimpressed with the second book in this series, but I flew through this one.  I think it was written better and had enough fight “scenes” to keep me interested.  Obviously these books aren’t for everyone, but I enjoyed it.

What’s Next?

Next I think I’ll shift back into some non-fiction stuff.  Maybe.  I’m thinking of reading either “On Killing” by Dave Grossman or “Band of Brothers” by Stephen Ambrose, but I don’t know.  I also picked up the most recent R.A. Salvatore book, “The Orc King” which centers around one of my favorite elves, Drizzit.  I know, I’m kind of a dork, but I think that it is good to keep the imgination flowing sometimes.  I’ll have to keep everyone updated.

Totally Procrastinating

Yep, I should really be working on a couple hundred different things right now, but I felt like writing something really quickly instead.

So, Sandy posted about our new “baby” a couple weeks ago.  Well, we figured out that her Best Good Friend had our baby’s twin.  Seriously, it is scary how much they look alike.  Well, turns out (and we all knew it, just hoping to sneak it by) that the BGF could only have ONE cat according to her lease.  So the landlord had an unfortunate find when he came across the new kitten.  (By the way, we named ours Wilson partially from the guy on House and partially because of Tom Hanks on Cast Away.  The BGF named hers Dozer, the brother of Tank on the Matrix.)

Anywho, when Sandy told me about this, I said “What the hell is the difference between one cat and two?”  And she came back with the nice reply of, “And what’s the difference between two cats or three?”  See how that came back to bite me?  She’s witty that Sandy.  So now we’ve got Dozer until the BGF’s lease is up (in May) and she can move to a more cat friendly place.  Whether she finds a more feline friendly place or not, I don’t think we’re moving Dozer across the country.

Having actual twins is one thing, but these two are crazy.  Dozer has not been accepted by all the animals yet, but she’s playing with her brother and tearing up the house now.  Trying to sleep while they’re scampering from the bedroom to the kitchen and back is a little difficult.  It only makes it worse when Tiger, aka the Crumdgeon, is growling at them when they stop long enough for him to be annoyed that they’re too close.  At midnight I finally threw Tiger out of the bedroom and got some sleep.  Until the babies started walking all over me while I was in bed.

Its just funny to watch these two kittens that look almost exactly alike playing, running, and wrestling around the house.

Rick-rolled

An old roommate of mine posted this on his Facebook account and I couldn’t help but laugh.  I wanted to share the laughs, so now I’m putting it here.

Maybe you’ve been Rick-rolled, maybe you haven’t, but I have and I didn’t even realize what the point was.  They younger kids I am friends with sent me a link that got me rolled.

So, now you’ve been Rick-rolled.  It’s funny, but I don’t know that it is all that funny, but here’s the funny part.

Hope you thought it was as funny as I did.

Identity thieved again!

I don’t know if “thieved” is proper English or not, but my identity has been used again by someone else.  Talk about frustrating.  The first time this happened, Sandy and I didn’t find out until we were trying to get a mortgage.  Our mortgage company said that they’d have no problems giving us a deal, we would just have to clear up this one bill that had gone to a collection agency. Turns out it was a $550 cell phone bill.

This time we found out because the collection agency actually sent us a notice.  I’m not sure what’s so different about this time that we’re actually getting a notice instead of finding out from our credit report, but at least it isn’t as dramatic.  Last time someone had started a cell phone in my name in Nebraska.  It was easy to prove that it wasn’t me that time though, because I was in Afghanistan at the time and I was stationed in North Carolina; plus I’ve never lived in Nebraska.  It looks like it is a cell phone again, but we don’t know where yet.

I’m wondering if it was/is the same person using my identity to start cell phones.  That’s one thing that annoys me.  In the Army, our personal information is all over the place.  I’ve been more guarded about just handing out my info now, but apparently it wasn’t guarded enough.  I’ll post again after we find out more details on the situation.

End of July

Okay, so at the beginning of the month I said that I would change my tune, and while I have written about some different things, I really got stuck on politics the last two weeks, which has been the majority of my posts. In this process I did figure out that I need to re-register to vote, but I ran into a snag.  My driver’s license is from Texas, but I’m living in Kansas.  The license is easy to renew since I can just go online (although I don’t need the glasses requirement anymore), but I figured out that trying to renew the registration on our two vehicles is a pain in the rear through this particular county in Texas.  So, I don’t know how/where I’m going to register this year.  I’m going to try to register here in Kansas and hopefully they don’t give me too much crap.  I own a house here, I have two vehicles registered here now, and I should really be able to vote here.  I haven’t tried registering yet, but I have a feeling that it might be a pain in the rear.  I haven’t had much luck dealing with the local government in Kansas.

I did get involved in a couple of things this month though.

My brother sent me a link to Pickens Plan, which I hadn’t heard of before.  I’m really excited about the ideas and I hope that Mr. T. Boone Pickens can get more action on his plan and more traction in reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

I also posted about the Story of Stuff.  I had sent the link out to a number of people, but I really wanted to try to help spread the word.  I’m not sure that I’ve been all that successful, but I’m doing what I can.

The wife and I started composting this month, thereby reducing the amount of trash we’re sending to the local landfill.  Our compost tumbler is doing it’s thing, so hopefully we’ll be giving some natural, organic nutrients back to the yard and our tiny little garden this year.  Can’t wait to see what happens.  We even chose to go with the small company instead of Amazon on the tumbler, and it was delivered in one week, so it was pretty impressive considering the weight of the packages.

I even posted about BMI, weight, and health.  Crazy part is that I posted it right before the Center for Disease Control released their most recent findings about obesity in America.  I know that I have weight I need to lose, but I’m not obese and if you just go by “my BMI”, you’d think I was.  I think that most people with more than two muscles are at least overweight according to individual BMI.  I think the people that say “you need to lower your BMI… yada yada” forget, or never knew, that muscle weighs more than fat inch per inch.

Even though I posted a lot of videos saying how bad I thought Sen. Obama was, I really respect what he’s done.  He’s united a lot of young people and gotten them involved in the political process.  Unfotrunately, I think he’s an empty suit and mostly just a bunch of good speeches.  But he’s made it very clear that America wants to start in a different direction, or at least that seems to be the prevelant thought.  I think that the media is largely responsible for his success and the media definitely set the stage by bashing President Bush at every opportunity.  I don’t think that President George W. Bush has been a superb leader, but I think he’s done moderately mediocre and he’s had to deal with a lot bigger issues than the previous president.  He’s also not been caught with an intern, so at least he’s been loyal.  Loyal like a puppy.

I’m going to attempt to withdraw from the political rhetoric and work on talking about some of the other issues.

Lastly, as a follow-up to my post about Dave Ramsey, the wife and I are now dept free!  We paid off the last of our student loans this weekend and are now living our wage.  I haven’t carried credit cards since last October, and I won’t again.  The debit card still says Visa, but it’s really my money with Visa’s security on top.  I’m tired of los bancos getting my hard earned money.  Now the wife and I are moving on to saving up for three to six months of emergency fund and saving up for our next big purchase.  Living on a budget is a lot easier than living on credit.