08.27.08
Posted in Life at 6:59 pm by TJ
My next base is going to be… Wright-Patterson AFB, OH!
Alright! So maybe it’s not Los Angeles, and maybe I won’t find myself next to potential 2-4 million possible girls I can ask out. Maybe next time. But this is a great first base, I think. I can get my Masters degree here at AFIT (if I get in, of course), and it’s the cradle of aviation R&D! Maybe I’ll get to work on something cool! Actually, I think anything I’ll be working on will be awesome, I just want to see it and learn.
It looks like I’ll be joining the 677th Aerospace Systems Group this coming 2009… I wonder what they’re like. I know I have tech training there after OTS as well. I dunno, I don’t even care if it’s like an AETC base, I think I’ll have fun anyway. Fun learning, fun meeting folks, fun learning the ropes of the commissioned officer corps. Damn… I gotta get ready to go! Need to outprocess, pack my shit, prepare my farewells… so much to do in so little time! AND I gotta get in better shape… I don’t want to go in with an 82 PT score, I want to get back up to near 90! Time to start doing some situps and pushups at home!
Man… here we go. The journey begins now!
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08.24.08
Posted in Mundane at 8:36 pm by TJ
Well it was a beautiful day, for the most part. I woke up about 7:30AM, puttered around my apartment for a little while, then decided to equip my bike with the new saddlebags I bought, some Monzas from Firstgear.
I hadn’t looked at the saddlebags after I brought them home, so when I opened them they had a bunch of straps, some hard plastic sheets, and two bungee cords. Okay… what the hell do I do with all this stuff? I had bought the bags thinking that I could just throw them over my back seat and be good to go, but looking at all this included stuff made me think about whether or not my “throw and go” hypothesis was flawed, since I hadn’t thought about how secure a simply-resting saddlebag would be at 85 MPH (or higher). So, I just did the best I could. Threw the bags over the seat, kinda pinned the two rear straps underneath each tail blinker, and used the bungees on the front to secure them to the new saddlebag brackets I installed. These damn things don’t come with an instruction manual so I pretty much just jury rigged what seemed to make sense to me.
Turns out I did pretty well, as far as bags go. I wanted to test them out, so I put all the stuff I normally carry in my backpack (rain gear, towel, tire pressure gauge, windex wipes, and a ride journal that I never use) into the saddlebags, then packed the backpack into the bags as well. I also put in a shirt to see if the insides would stay dry. Then I geared up and headed for the mountains, which had some dark clouds forming over them at about noon today.
I had no real plan, I just wanted to ride. I ended up heading for Hartsel, CO first. The ride there was nice, but halfway between leaving downtown Colorado Springs and getting to Woodland Park I saw a few drops of precipitation hit my faceshield, so I pulled over and donned my rain cover–just the top half. This ended up being fairly nice, as my protection leathers are a porous textile, and past 30MPH it’s easy to forget I’m wearing a jacket due to the amount of wind that passes through… the rain cover acted as a windbreaker and allowed me to avoid alot of the wind chill. I stopped at Hartsel to fuel up and have a cup of hot cocoa. I bought a map as well, a hard plastic one that I checked out to plan the rest of my trip.
Here’s where I have a “lessons learned” that I need to do when I go to Vegas, or any future trip longer than 2 hours. I need to mentally note my next stop, and make an effort to rest. I kinda screwed up today… after I fueled up and continued from Hartsel, the next time I actually turned off my engine was back home in Colorado Springs, and I got back here by way of Denver. 
I rode a good 150 miles without taking a break, that’s like a 2 hour trip. I need to take a break at least every 75 miles… otherwise I start getting agitated and the ride becomes less fun.
Case in point… I decided to tail some guy who flipped me off on the road, at about 70-90MPH. Bad idea. I could have gotten hurt or worse, fortunately after a while I decided to let my anger go. Not sure what this guy’s problem was… but his Colorado license plate read “018 IUE”. So… look up the address and let me know where he lives. Maybe my next trip can be to slash someone’s tires.
Anyway, on the way back home from Denver it began to hail and I almost got run off the road by some retard in a Cooper Mini. I know this isn’t my fault, but thinking back I could have easily avoided this situation by rolling back on my throttle. See, for some reason this Mini was pulling out of the shoulder, and I guess he just decided to gun it without looking who was in the road he was merging in to. Well, unlucky for me he decided to try to take my space… luckily for me I swerved and the car that was in the next lane saw what was happening and backed away. I’m just lucky really that I didn’t wreck. The driver in the Mini was shooken up, because for the next couple of miles he drove at least a good 10 seconds behind me, which equates to about a quarter of a mile away at the speeds we were going.
I just got home finally about an hour ago. I checked my bags and sure enough everything inside was dry… nice. Even the shirt I threw in there showed no signs of even a drip of water. I think I’ll be ok for Vegas as far as packing enough clothes for a 4-night excursion. I just have to remember to take breaks at least once an hour so I can continue to enjoy the ride next month.
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08.19.08
Posted in Mundane, Love at 10:45 pm by TJ
I just have one question…
How is a nude female model able to look sickeningly hideous and bombshell alluring in the same photo set?
I stumbled upon a set of photos of some girl, and one of them is on my desktop, but some of them she just looks gross. And she’s not even doing anything lewd, just poses you’d find in Playboy… quite tame.
I just confused my penis.
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08.17.08
Posted in Mundane at 1:59 pm by TJ
Alright, so far I have the following people who sound like they’ll be able to go:
Then the following will possibly go, still checking schedule:
I possibly have a room at the Jockey Club, no word on that yet. It’s my folks’ timeshare and they’ve offered it to me many times before but I never used it, I figure I should ask them this time before I just go and get my own room to save some money. If alot of people end up going then please make arrangements on your own, sorry. I think I can comfortably keep like 3 people in the suite, but if you want privacy then get your own room, of course. (Read: if you meet someone at a club you want to take to your room, you’re not taking them to the suite.)
My plan is to load up my bike and take 2 days to get there, snapping pictures and taking frequent stops along the way and on the way back, stopping for the night when it gets dark and continuing when the day breaks. I plan on travelling at a pace of 50mph, taking in to account food and gas stops and sleep breaks at roadside hotels. I also plan to set aside $500 for gambling and food while in Las Vegas. The important thing is that I plan to be in town the afternoon of the 19th and leave on the 21st, Friday to Sunday stay, returning to town Monday evening.
ALSO… I’m printing business cards. 
I just had this crazy idea, like I’d hand these cards out if I happen to talk to someone interesting, kinda like “you met me in Vegas, holler at me when you get home”. I know… it sounds stupid, but I really want to try this. Call me crazy.
If I somehow win big, I’m paying for a grand dinner Saturday night, and a round or two of drinks that same evening. I have no plans on coming back richer, I just want to have fun, but hey if I somehow make $700 on roulette again… then okay. No use keeping that money in the pocket in the company of friends.
Ok, if I think of any additional details and when I hear back from the Jockey club, I’ll follow up this post.
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08.16.08
Posted in Life at 7:06 pm by TJ
Read the title. That’s right folks, I need a motherfucking vacation.
Read the rest of this entry »
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08.09.08
Posted in Life, Love at 12:26 pm by TJ
I found this article when I googled “smart people can’t get dates”. Yeah… maybe I was being a bit pretentious. 
Or maybe that’s my problem… I’m not properly recognizing my worth and backing it up with a proper attitude. I read this article and it gave some insight on “I’m nice, why don’t girls like me?” What I took away from this was that I may be smart, decently good looking, and financially secure, but I’m not backing all of my qualities up with enough assertion. Admittedly I spend alot of time at home trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing instead of going out and actually doing something… anything.
Check this out http://xkcd.com/439/
It’s dumb, but when I read this I thought this was funny, and yet at the same time it made me realize that I tend to do the same thing. I see a girl I’d like to talk to, and for some reason I kill the initial feeling because really I just don’t want to deal with the rejection or bad times that I may or may not have with this girl. I realize I’m on the fast track to nowhere going down this road. I already don’t meet enough girls day-to-day, and what few girls I do come across I don’t talk to.
Something has to give.
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07.30.08
Posted in Gaming at 10:56 am by TJ
…
Get it. Then add me to your MSN: psychogears at hotmail dot com.
Seriously, I picked this title up when I woke up on Tuesday morning thinking it would be a fun little addition to my small X360 library (I am mostly a WoW or otherwise MMORPG player of late). Imagine my surprise when I looked at the clock as I took my first stretch break… 7 hours of playing. Didn’t even realize it.
Soul Calibur IV lets you customize your characters or create new ones… maybe you know this, maybe you don’t, but this is what was keeping me up. There’s a Story mode in the single player game, a short but sweet session of 5 matches where you go head to head against anywhere from one to four other characters, one at a time, and at least on the normal difficulty “easyness” balanced depending on how many fighers you square off against. Well I’m a sucker for any character creation process, so imagine my delight when I realized I could unlock 2 new weapons for each character after running them through a session of story mode… one seemingly a soul calibur or soul edge version of their weapon, and another weapon that I can only describe as a “fun weapon”. For example, Hilde wields a pike and a short sword… the fun weapon replaces the pike with one of those golf hole flags from the 18th hole, and the sword with a sheathed golf club. Epic. Other characters can be found weilding all sorts of weird items, from a basket and one of those dough roller things (Cassandra) to a giant squid (Nightmare) or a giant ear of corn (Yun-Seong). I want to take my modified Mitsurugi online… I gave him an afro and a practice kendo stick, and colored his vestments brown… he wouldn’t look too out of place as an extra on Saturday Night Fever.
Anyway, get it, and let me know your XBL handle so we can play. Laters.
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07.18.08
Posted in Programming, Gaming at 3:18 pm by TJ
Made this in 45 mins. Alvin.
-- AVShouter
function lib:AVShouter()
local tradechan, msg;
msg = nil;
if GetNumRaidMembers() == 0 then
-- starting AV raid
msg = "Starting AV Premade. Have Enabler, be 70, follow directions, and open quickly. PST";
elseif GetNumRaidMembers() < 40 then
-- filling open AV raid
local rl, rotable;
rotable = {};
for raidMember=1,GetNumRaidMembers(),1 do
name, rank = GetRaidRosterInfo(raidMember)
if rank == 2 then rl = name end;
if rank == 1 then table.insert(rotable, name) end;
end
msg = "LFM AV Premade ("..rl.."). Have Enabler, be 70, follow directions, and open quickly. "..(40-GetNumRaidMembers()).." spots remaining.";
msg = msg.." PST ";
msg = msg..rl;
for i, v in ipairs(rotable) do
if i == # rotable then
if i == 1 then
msg = msg.." or "..v;
else
msg = msg..", or "..v;
end
else
msg = msg..", "..v;
end;
end
msg = msg.." for invite.";
end
if msg then
SendChatMessage(msg,"CHANNEL" ,nil , GetChannelName("Trade - City"));
else
DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Raid is full dumbass.");
end
end
LibStub("AceConsole-3.0"):RegisterChatCommand("omavs", lib.AVShouter);
-- end AVShouter
Requires AceConsole-3.0 and LibStub
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07.16.08
Posted in Duty at 7:42 pm by TJ
So. Today I went on base for something (I’m off today). That something didn’t happen and at this point is no longer relevant to the story I’m relaying.
After that, I went into the office to check my email. And…
I got my OTS class date!!!1!11!!one!limit of sin x over x as x goes to zero!!!1!1
YES! I’m (tentatively) signed up to be in training beginning 5 NOV 08. I was starting to think that this day would never come, but apparently and thankfully I was wrong. Alot of my plans for the next few months were up in the air because I didn’t have this date. Now I can plan some leave, plan my apartment stuff, plan where I’m sending all my shit, etc etc.
Unfortunately this means that I will not be able to be around for the holidays. OTS lasts 12 weeks, so this will take me all the way to early February 2009. Last year I took four days, and it seemed quite short as I didn’t have enough time to hang out with some friends back home. I am hoping to take a month off this time before I go, and it looks like I’ll be able to get a mail-in ballot sent to my parents’ home so I can even vote for our next president! GOD I’m so excited!
Anyway, for all 3-5 readers of my blog, I will probably be in town by early October or even late September. I’m going to take a real vacation, and I’ll be moving out of my apartment before I do this so I don’t even have to renew my lease agreement. Woo fucking hoo.
The next piece of news that I’m waiting for is… where am I going next? I put Los Angeles as my number one, Wright-Patterson in Ohio as my number two, and Hanscom in Massachusetts as number 3. As soon as I find out, you’ll find out.
Out!
-TJ
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07.10.08
Posted in Mundane, Love at 5:50 am by TJ
Well, I’ve recently started focusing on building up my social life now that I’m locked in for the next stage of my career. I figure I need to start dating or at least meeting and talking to girls so I can be less afraid of the initial contact.
So I get occasional emails from the different websites that hold my profile, and I get some from Cupid.com about their “predating” events (read pre-dating, and not PREDating, which is how I first read this word and thought of The Predator). I had been getting a couple, and finally I clicked on a link in one of these emails just to see what the event had in store. Well I looked at the form, then left it alone because I had to go to work, and I really wasn’t that interested in participating in something that could be seen on a subsequent documentary on We or Lifetime.
After I had visited and failed to follow through with this form, I started getting emails mentioning how I didn’t complete the form. I guess Cupid is pushing these predating events hard… normally you pay $35 to get into one of these.
Then I checked my mail this morning after work. I have a message here from a personal AOL account which I initially thought was spam, but opened it anyway. Apparently someone locally runs these events, and she actually got word that I looked at this form online. She made me an offer that was pretty good, and now I’m registered to go to one of these speed dating things at the Melting Pot next Tuesday. Apparently they’re overflowing with ladies and need men to equalize the ratio. We’ll see if that’s good or not.
Anyway, Kudos Cupid.com for hustling the honest way. Not by spam, fake ads, or numerical misrepresentation, but rather by providing a service and following up with customer support. Good Job.
-TJ
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