I'm a Reader, Not A Writer..

Or at least lately this seems to be the case. I've been gorging myself on media lately and it seems to have impacted my ability to write. Secretly I was hoping it would inspire me to write and influence my writing style. No such luck.

So as any good blogger would do, I'm going to write about my inability to write.

Kidding, that would be lame and I'm pretty sure I've done that before in college as part of a writing exercise. No instead, I'll give you a quick recap of some of the stuff I've been reading.

1. 'Super Freakonomics' - The sequel (not sure if that's entirely appropriate, maybe the follow up) of the popular and NY Time's Best Seller 'Freakonomics'. It's basically a bunch of odd stories about how people make decisions and how certain things we perceive to be obvious are neither obvious or correct. It had a really good write up on the futility of the fight against global warming. I had already blogged about this but 'Super Freakonomics' presented the all important facts.

2. 'Norwood' - A novel from 1966 written by Charles Portis. I stumbled upon Portis in a blog celebrating his obscurity as an author. Turns out he wrote 'True Grit' which I'm working on now. 'Norwood' is funny. It's a comical look at the culture of North Texas/Arkansas during the 1950's. It's a short fiction story about Norwood Pratt and his odd adventures. The sentences are short and to the point and it took me reading 'True Grit' to figure out that 'Norwood' was a comedy of sorts. The girl at Square Books had tried to explain it to me, but I didn't really understand. It's definitely worth a read though, it has midgets and an educated chicken.

3. 'The Bourne Identity' - Oh yes, Robert Ludlum's fast paced spy novel popularized by Matt Damon. 'The Bourne Identity' was written in 1980 and set in that time period or earlier. As a result, the novel is quite different from the movie, especially in terms of technology. It's a fun read, definitely as much fun as the movie, even if it's not high brow literature. I guess it would be a men's version of those vampire novels that are all popular with the ladies. Team something or another.

I'm in the process of reading 3 books. Why three? Because 2 are hard work and I have to alternate between something that doesn't make my brain melt a little.

1. 'Infinite Jest' - The hot indie, hipster bible. If you haven't heard of it, you're not cool. Don't worry, you're so uncool you don't realize you're cool, so it's cool. David Foster Wallace. DFW. Ring any bells? Yeah, me neither. I kept hearing about this book and decided to pick it up. Imagine my surprise when I saw how difficult it was to pick up, literally (har, har, it's 1500 pages long). So I've started and stopped and started and stopped. It's good, in a 'Wes Anderson' sort of way, but it's still really long and daunting. I think that's part of the joke.

2. 'True Grit' - Quick, go get a copy so that when the Coen Brother's version comes out on Christmas? (really?) you can say you liked the book better. It's actually pretty good. I saw the John Wayne version a long time ago and liked the movie well enough. The book has the same short and to the point sentences as Norwood, but the subject matter is much more serious and dark. This is my breather book.

3. 'Afghanistan, A Cultural and Political History' - No kidding. I'm reading it because I figure I'm going so I may as well learn why. Maybe it'll save my life knowing why the villagers are so damn pissed off. Who knows. It has been really insightful so far and I'm definitely learning a lot, but I like to read for entertainment, not knowledge, so this gets swapped out with the other two.

That's all I've got for now folks, I half-heartedly promise to write more. I actually have some news to write about it, so it's all very likely.

Quick Randomness

I promise to start writing more, I'm sure both of you are excited. Anyways, a quick post with a little insight into my mind. I read the following headline "Buyer Interest in Toyota tanks" and imagined this:

Not this:

A small part of me was really excited Toyota was going to start producing tanks. OK, maybe a large part of me.

Back in Time for 2010

This post is about 4 weeks late, but I'm back from Basic and AIT. Most of you who read this blog are well aware of this fact, but I figured I had to blog about it to make it official.

I graduated and received my castle on December 4th, 2009. I am a combat engineer and damn proud of that fact.

Combat engineers perform a number of different jobs in the Army, but for the last few years the majority of them have focused on route clearance. This basically means finding and destroying IED's. Engineers are also used to breach doors or walls using explosives, shotguns and chainsaws. Engineers also set up security barriers/razor wire to protect operating bases.

AIT covered all of these things plus mine detection, personnel searches and a few other things.

Basic was difficult and I'm proud I completed it. It was harder than I anticipated and I definitely pushed a few of my limits. However, it was never impossible and with the support of my battle buddies, I always felt ready to take on the next challenge.

Now that I've completed Basic and AIT, I have my regular Guard duty of one weekend a month and two weeks a year. This month and February I will drill with my RSP unit at Tupelo. I will then be handed off to my new Engineer Unit in Houston, MS and will begin training with them.

I was lucky enough to have 2 battle buddies in my platoon who will also be in the Houston unit, so I'll at least know a few people when I start.

I'm unsure about deployment, but I think the Houston unit just got back in 2008 from Iraq, which means it should be 2012 before they are deployed again. Of course given today's environment, anything could happen.

I'm still working on adjusting a little to a weekend warrior lifestyle, but easing into being home with my family took no adjustment at all.

I plan on blogging about how incredible everyone has been towards me and my family, so for now I just want to say "thanks" to everyone for everything.

Essayons!

So Long And Thanks For All the Fish!

I've been blogging in my head about the Army now for almost two months. Unfortunately that's translated into about two actual blog posts, so I suppose I'm a little over due.

I'm leaving shortly to head for Basic Training and my blog will be silent for quite a while. This will come as a relief to the people who hate corny puns and value grammar.

Basic Training is the same experience for everyone in the Army. It doesn't matter if you're in the Guard, Reserves or Active Duty. There are numerous Forts where training is held, but it's still pretty much the same, with some variations here and there. Check out youtube for some videos/picture collages of basic training set to some "angry music" to get a feel for what I'm about to go through.

I'm hoping to keep some semblance of a journal while I'm there, but I'm guessing I'm not going to have a lot of free time. Oddly enough, blogging isn't one of the skills stressed at basic training.

I'm a little apprehensive and anxious at the same time. I'm ready to start the pain and get the experience behind me, but I'm obviously not really thrilled at the idea of running until I throw up or sitting in a gas chamber breathing in tear gas. I'm not thrilled about missing the births of my best friends' first child and the birth of my first nephew. I'm also not real thrilled about missing the most promising Ole Miss football season since Eli's senior year.

I'm definitely going to miss my family. I've been trying to give the kids extra attention and encouragement. My wife has been incredible and brave. I definitely could not do this without her. She is amazing and everyone should be impressed.

I also couldn't do this without our very supportive family, community and work. Holy crap, y'all are awesome. Small towns are good because they're small towns and it doesn't take a national disaster for people to support each other.

I've been absolutely shocked at the amount of people that have supported me just for making the decision to enlist and I am extremely grateful and humbled for how much love everyone has already shown my family. It really means a lot to me. See everyone on the other side.

Things That Have Changed Since Joining the Guard

And all I have done is enlisted and attend a couple of weekend drills. I really don't consider myself as being a real "soldier" until I get back from Basic. But here is how my perspective has already changed.

1. World politics are a whole lot more important and scarier. Every major conflict I read about now comes with an ominous sense of doom as I judge the probability of myself being shipped to some country for what ever various reason. Hopefully the next country we decide to invade will be the Caymans.

2. I have much more respect for the enlisted man. There are about a million reasons (some good, some bad) why the Army can decide that you're not fit to join. It's much more difficult to join than I had previously thought. It's also a lot more physically demanding than I had really expected. Running 2 miles in under 17 minutes and doing 40 push-ups in under 2 minutes is a lot harder for this 31 yr. old than I had anticipated.

3. 7:00 AM is no longer early. It's actually sleeping in now.

4. I feel like I have been given some sort of secret decoder ring. There are a lot of people that I've known for years who I'm just now learning have served in the military. There are a lot of ex-military.

5. I have an extremely high metabolism. I'm putting on weight and gaining some mass, but it's a definite struggle. I don't see how people could ever think that Barry Bonds was a result of just exercise and nutrition.

6. It's a lot easier to recover from a night of drinking now that I'm exercising so much more.

7. Camouflage gear is suddenly cool.

First Day of School

Charles starts 2nd grade tomorrow. We had open house today and met his teacher, signed him up for the bus route, and got some information about the cub scouts. They grow up quickly, etc.

I'm extremely proud of him and could not ask for a better son.

I'll try and take some pictures of him waiting for the bus early in the morning. The bus was debatable. Charles has been dying to ride the bus since 4k. Mom and dad were not so excited about the prospect of our kindergartner riding with high school kids on some giant yellow monster with no seat belts. Never mind the interesting corruption that would occur on the back of the bus, what if someone was mean to him?

Anyways, he has friends that ride the bus and do just fine, so we decided to let him try it this year. I'm guessing the time being stuck on the bus (an hour and 15 minutes) each day will eventually wear him down and he'll decide to become a car rider again on his own. We're trying to be respectful of his independence and let him make some major decisions. However, if he comes home with any prison tattoos, it's a deal breaker and he's back to riding in the car.

Edit: Pictures. And since my dad doesn't have facebook, pictures of the truck.

Global Warming the Cockles of my Heart

It's not widely known among my liberal friends, although I believe a few suspect that I'm a closet Republican, but I do not believe in Global Warming in the same way Al Gore believes in Global Warming.

I know that sounds like blasphemy coming from someone who voted for Obama and loves promoting solar technology and electric cars, but it is true. I do not believe that man-made global warming is actually occurring, or at least not in any significant amount to actually impact the environment.

Having said that, let me clarify a few points.

1. Is the Earth getting warmer? Yes, I think that's easy enough to demonstrate.
2. Is pollution bad and should we lower carbon emissions? Yes. Nature is a beautiful thing and we should do all reasonable things we can think of to preserve it and ourselves.
3. Don't you love polar bears? Of course. I've loved polar bears since watching Binky the Polar Bear at the Anchorage Zoo throw a pink bowling ball around like a leaf.

So, why is the weather getting all crazy and why are temperatures so high and how do you explain increased carbon levels and polar caps melting?

A geologist convinced me, quite by accident, that most (99.99%) of the temperature changes we're currently seeing are related to natural occurring fluctuations in the earth's temperature.

The geologist was trying to explain why global warming was man's fault and I was quite eager to believe him. Up until this point, I did believe global warming was our fault.

Using charts and graphs, the geologist explained that every 100,000 years the earth goes through a long cycle of cooling (ice age) and warming (interglacial warm period).

Looking at the graphs, I thought to myself well then surely we must be in the warmest period of the Earth, thanks to pollution. Nope. Warmest period was a while ago (few thousand years ago, way before LA traffic).

Ok, well maybe we can see a trend shift where we should be in a cooling period, but we're not. Nope. We're actually right on schedule and in about 2,000 years should be heading into the dreaded ice age.

Well damn. So what's the problem again? Well there are increased carbon monoxide levels in the atmosphere and this was probably the only compelling chart in favor of man-made pollution having a global impact on temperature.

However, it wasn't strong enough to prove a direct causal relationship between pollution and global warming. If anything, the other charts proved yet again that man has overestimated his impact on the earth and mother nature.

So, I remain convinced that we should stop polluting, but also stop believing that we're baking the earth with greenhouse gases. We should stop polluting because it's killing our lungs and causing us to be heavily reliant on finite resources. However, way too much energy, time and resources are being devoted to something that is probably way out of our control.

Which leads me to the fun part. What should we be doing with those resources? Let's stop for a moment and assume that the extremists on both sides of the argument are correct and the world is doomed (either hot or cold).

Then perhaps we should be figuring out a way to live in that type of environment.

"we must not allow a mine shaft gap!"

Or we should concentrate on getting off the world and onto another planet where we won't freeze/burn and be able to grow something to eat?

Just a thought.