Just wrong

Now I know that several of my friends feel the same way but the other day (I don't remember when or where) I was walking into (or out of) a store in town just as it started to rain. Now rain never bothers me unless I have something I don't want to get wet. If I get wet it's no biggie, it's not like I didn't get soaked before (back in my Army days, as it were) or will again. So it doesn't bother me. But some woman (a grandmother I'd guess) and a young girl were leaving and the girl held a book over her head (a nice looking one, meaning a nice hardbound one) to keep the rain off.

That struck me as very nearly a Sin. A book, a nice hardbound one to read and treasure and pass down to your kids being used like yesterdays newspaper (which is even less valuable these days since "journalism" is even less concerned with reporting Facts). I controlled myself and didn't grab the book and thrash her with it (also a Bad Thing, for the book, not the little girl - but it's not her fault, the grandmother perhaps should have been reprimanded for not teaching her granddaughter the value of books).

The other day I noticed that Matt was done reading two of the books he'd borrowed. One of the Eoin Colfer Artimis Fowl ones and one of the earlier (smaller) Harry Potter ones. The Harry Potter book looked like he'd dropped it in the toilet by accident, the pages were damp and the spine was all curled up. I asked him what he thought would happen if he treated my books like that.

Now I remember

What it was that I was going to blog on.

GO SOX!

They won the first three games of the world series (last time they won was 1919) and the deciding game is tonight. And last night's game was the longest in series history and tied for the longest number of innings. And apparently won by a home run (as dramatic as you could want it seems).

So I hope the home boys take it!

Don'cha hate it

When you get a cool idea for something you want to talk about on your blog and then by the time you get to a 'puter you can't remember what it was. And I rag on Matt because his memory sucks ... ;-P

Both my wrists hurt this morning. I know why the left one does, last Saturday at Karate we were practicing punches and Dave (a green belt) wanted us to hit him. I did okay until it was time to try out left hands (I'm right handed of course). My technique was okay (not good) but I turned my wrist down a little on impact and I could feel it the next day (well there's lots we do there I can feel the next day ...). Today my right one started bothering me. D'oh.

I need to decide what I'm going to cook for the Halloween party on Saturday. Bobbi & Brand can't make it because she has a recital and Jack & Co can't come to town that day. But I'm hoping at least some of them can come.

...

Got interrupted by a phone call. Matt had another incident at school. He didn't get suspended (again) because the teacher got to them in time but he seems determined to fail at life. I've no idea what I'm going to do to turn things around and get him pointed toward success.

Mmmm, cheese

I made this one of Alton's recipes last night. I told Matt I was making it but didn't see the dishes in the sink which indicated that he'd already eaten. His loss because it turned out great.

It called for 10 ounces of grated cheese and I had an 8 oz package of colby so I used that. I added another handful or two of some sharp cheddar and didn't taste it until half way through my first helping. So I had to have some more because the difference between the smooth colby and the bite of the cheddar was wonderful. I'd think that if you make this you should use a mellow cheese with a bit of something strong to give you a nice one-two hit of flavor.

Now to try the baked version (which you can fry up any left overs).

Finished

Well I finished reading "My War: Killing Time In Iraq" by Colby Buzzell. That's the one from the most popular milblog, another of those blogger-gets-a-book-deal. It was an interesting book. The cover blubs compair it to Heller's Catch-22 and Kerr's Dispatches, both of which I've read. I'll have to let it percolate for awhile before I pass judgement on that particular statement. However I did enjoy it (as much as a book on war can be enjoyable).

Matt has now, officially, given up on karate. I suspect if we pressed him for a reason he might actually admit that it was too hard but I doubt it. Surrender isn't a character trait I really want to encourage but I don't want to force him to do things, that often only engenders negative feelings.

Tonight is the first Firefly game. And it seems like my second choice (mechanic, Sharon took my first choice, pilot) maybe be taken by Brand. Guess that leaves me with the Jayne character.

Coming together

Quite a bit of discussion about the new Firefly game. Andy is going to be the "captain/owner". He'll be a gambler who won the ship in a card game. John is going to be a traveling Buddhist monk who is advisor to the captain. Sharon is going to be the pilot and is an ex-alliance soldier who switched sides. I'm going to be the mechanic, I come from Persephone and used to work for Badger (who wasn't too happy with my leaving). No word from Brand yet on his character but it looks to be a fun game. No word yet on what rules we'll use either but since Jack is running it's likely to be some variant of Everway for mechanics and perhaps something else for other crunchy bits.

Serenitoid

We've had a brisk discussion lately about what game Jack is going to run (first session is next Monday, then we move to alternating Wednesdays). Right now it looks like some sort of version of Firefly/Serenity.

The Firefly/Serenity RPG is a cool looking book and has a lot of neat info but the rules are trash so we're going to use something else. Everyway (his favorite and one for whom he is an apostle) or 2300AD or something.

Andy is going to be a gambler who won the ship from it's previous captain. We're going to be various crew (I'm up for pilot or mechanic) who decided to stay on with him for whatever reasons. It should be fun.

OP in Iraq

I'm reading Colby Buzzell's book now (http://cbftw.blogspot.com/) and something caught my eye that I wanted to post. This is taken without permission although from the context it was originally posted on his blog, however I couldn't find it there. It kind of goes hand-in-hand with my previous post about what a deployment is like. That list seems to have been written by a REMF since it has nothing about combat in it. Mr. Buzzell (he's ETSed so he's a civilian again!) would know otherwise since he was an 11B there.

---

To Hell with Observation Posts
[snip]
If you want to know what an OP in Iraq is like, here's what you do: Go put on some boots, long pants, long sleeve t-shirt, some skateboarding knee pads, gloves (manditory in my unit, don't ask why), grab your high school football helmet, and a huge backpack. Not no first day of school backpack either, grab one of those outdoorsy heavy duty ones, like what the European hostel kids carry around.

Now that you've got all this shit on, go down to the nearest fitness center, like a 24-hour nautilus. Go to the weight room and throw a 45-pound weight in the backpack. No wait a minute, let's make this accurate, the machine gun I carry weights 27.7 pounds, I carry about 400-600 rounds of 7.62, that's like say, 25-pounds (it's probably more than that), the body armor which are two ceramic plates weighs about say, 10 pounds each, and you have your pistol, knife, first aid kit, camera, night vision, and whatever crap you need to carry, let's just say it all comes out to: 80 pounds. So throw in your backpack a 45-pound plate and a 35-pound plate. Don't forget water, grab a gallon of water and throw that in your backpack as well.

Okay, now that you have all that in your backpack and you have your football helmet on, go walk into the sauna. Every good gym has a sauna. Once you're in the sauna, crack open a National Geographic magazine and rip out the centerfold of the Third World country landscape that's inside very issue, and tape it to the wall of the sauna. Now sit there, with all that crap on, and stare at that centerfold for two, four or six hours. Now if you really want to make this realistic, bring a jar full of mosquitoes, flies, and as many different exotic malaria-carrying insects and bugs as you can find and open that jar in the sauna and let them loose.

This is what an OP in Iraq is like.

---

An "OP" is an Observation Post. They're intended to keep watch on places the enemy might come at you. Usually they're manned by a pair of sentries on a rotation of some number of hours (how many depends on your manning). And a gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.

A whole bunch of this sounds very familiar, even though I've never been in combat or deployed to Iraq. Germany wasn't as hot but had all it's own kind of stuff.

It's Oooollllldddd

In a strange burst of ... hmm, how do I use the correct form of "non-sequitor" as a verb? Or is it an adverb? I could never keep all those straight and thank heavens Mother instilled in me enough grammar to have a decent feel for what "sounds right" to stay mostly out of trouble.

Anyway the clipboard sitting next to my keyboard is got to be 15 or 20 years old. I had it when I was the conference coordinator for the 1988 UMEC (USAREUR - US Army in Europe, Military Engineer Conference) in Berchtesgaden. And I don't think it was new then. Which in 2008 would make it 20 years old I guess so now it's 17 years old.

Nearly old enough to vote.

Cheese, Gromit

No one else wanted to go see "Curse of the Were-Rabbit" yesterday so Matt and I went by ourselves.

I called Dad so he could talk to him but he was gone. Matt talked to all the other kids though. And Tricia and I talked about some things. I think if he would have stayed in Arizona he would have ended up in the "bad" school and would have gotten beaten up a few too many times. Now I don't necessarily think that one good lesson in when to keep their smart mouthes closed is something that's crucial to most smart-asses, but multiple poundings by mouth-breathers probably wouldn't have done too much good. Perhaps exactly the opposite. :/

One thing she said though made me think and there seems to be a big difference in our outlooks. She said the psychologist told her he does better with written instructions than verbal ones. This could very well be true from what I've seen, he consistantly doesn't write down his assignments in his planner. And thus consistantly forgets things he needs to do or tell me (he called me this morning at 0726 to ask if I could bring his swimsuit to school on my way to work).

But I think that he needs to be prepared for the frustrations in life and always catering to his strengths rather than occasionally putting him in places where he's weak isn't a way to reinforce that trait. Now I don't think he should always be dumped into places he's weak but if we don't mirror what life will throw at him how are we really helping to prepare him?

And he has a very serious problem with surrendering when he gets frustrated. And how can you help him learn to deal with frustration without putting him someplace where he sometimes faces it? But if he faces it too much then we're just setting him up for failure and his self-esteem is so low that we need to build it up with earned successes before we try to temper it. I guess I need to consider how to teach him how to deal with frustration (without going too much into my personal 'five paragraph field order' method of how to plan for when things go South). He's learning a bit of it at karate and that might eventually teach him a lot of it, as well as reinforcing a "never give up" sort of mindset (well enough of it to be healthy).

On a happy note, Jack has decided that he wants to rejoin the game group. And John suggested last week that we invite Brand to join since it seems like Marlin & Yvonne won't be able to come back to us any time soon. We'll have to move from Tuesdays to Mondays or Wednesdays but that shouldn't be a big shift, since we came from Wednesdays before. And we'll likely move to a two game bi-weekly format since he can only play every other week. I've no idea what we may play in between but we'll come up with something. And perhaps Doctor Feu'u can rejoin the crew.

D'ohh

Well it seems like Marlin and Yvonne can't return to the Trek game after all. That's a bit disappointing but not unexpected. Back to my house but in consolation I made brownies last night and iced them with cream cheese frosting this morning. That should make us all feel better. :)

Matt seems to be trying better in some of this classes. English is up and he's trying in math but he was rude to one of his teachers today so I'll have to talk to him about that. Always something.

I'm reading a book called "Teen-Proofing" by John Rosemond that has a lot of good advice. I'm going to have to finish it and process all he says. One of the most important seems to be "ignore everything mental health professionals have said about child rearing in the last 50 years" and the other is "keep your cool, don't sweat the small stuff". He advocates a macromanagement philosophy rather than micromanaging. I know that it was incredibly counterproductive every time I was micromanaged. So some things I'm doing I'll have to adjust and others seem okay.

Serenity

Okay not saying something which is a spoiler is something that is apparently hard for me. However I enjoyed the movie despite some things which were obviously done so it would appeal to non-Firefly fans. And isn't that all a movie is supposed to do, to entertain us, to make us feel like it was time and money well spent.

But there were a few things that I might have done differently. But then it would have been junk if I'd done it since I'm not Joss.