one of many in the wild, wild net.

I woke up today at 6AM, went to work at 9:30AM, and found out at about 10:10 that they closed the base.  In the timeless words of Homer, “Woohoo!”  Homer Simpson, not Homer of Greek literary renown.

I drove around today, and via a circuitous route I wound up at Barnes & Noble next to the mall next to my apartment.  I browsed around for a book that I eventually found out was just released today (The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr by Ken Gormley).  I instead bought two books that I thought might be interesting to read based on the reviews on the back of the books… I know, not very good indicators, but indicators that served the purpose well enough of enticing me to spend money to read what they have to say.  They are Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff, and Have You Seen My Country Lately? by Jerry Doyle.  The former written by a UC Berkeley Cognitive Linguistics professor, and the latter by a conservative radio talk show host… trust me when I say that I try, in my own quite possibly misguided ways, to look at truly fair resources for reading material, and when I can’t find it I try to balance out what I hear so that I get more than one side of a story.

Anyway, I got into Moral Politics, and after getting through the first chapter I put the book down and started thinking about my own political aspirations.  I’ve toyed with the thought of running for office some day–most likely when I retire from my current office in 15-20 years.  It’s been in my head for a few years now, and I’ve told it to Law and my Dad.  Since I commissioned, I’ve gotten to be involved in stuff that has required interaction with Congress–I’ve never done anything that I could consider “interacting with C0ngress”.  I’ve never even thought that in my lifetime I’d be doing something that could be considered “interacting with Congress”, let alone doing something now.  Suffice it to say, I’ve realized in this last year that I’m alot closer to Washington than I previously thought.  I also realized this last year that the real power apparently is in the Legislative branch of our Government.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but Laws are made in Congress, both at the Federal and State levels.  Anyway, I’ve narrowed down that if I run for office, nationally I want to be a Congressional representative in either the House or Senate.  Local government, I wouldn’t mind running for State congress or even mayor of a town.  As I understand it, these are full-time obligations but not full-time jobs… so definitely I would have to have a source of income other than being in the government.

Blah blah.  Anyway, I was thinking I should, at some point, start keeping a page of what my platform stances are on today’s issues.  I feel I need to declare as soon as possible what my stances are, as that’s something I want to get on record as early as possible so that if I run for office in the future, I’ll have something to point to.  As my views change, so will the page, with narrative explaining why that view changed.

If my speech betrays a politically naive person, consider this–by education, I’m an engineer, and as a private person I tend not to research things I don’t have much interest in.  My knowledge of things not related to engineering is severely lacking but ask me about possibilities and I’ll talk all day about them.  I’m ultimately not interested in what we can’t do, but what we could do–we as a city, a state, a country, and a human community.  As each day comes and goes and I learn a little bit more about my world and my society, and at some point I realized that to effect the greatest good I’ll have to do something that will test the limits of my capacity to make things happen.  I think that working in the Legislative branch will test these limits, while at the same time I can provide the input that I want to give to the leaders of our Nation (or perhaps become one?).  There’s alot I want to say, and I don’t type or speak fast enough to communicate everything that’s whizzing around in my head.

Anyway, more on this later.  I’m at a B&N, it’s 8:30PM (close to my bed time), snow is still coming down, and I have to eat something still.

-TJ

How Christian Were the Founders? – NYTimes.com.

I’ve been hearing about this for a while, the article is mostly about the Texas public education school board setting the curriculum for the rest of the country’s public education system.

Whatever school my future kids go to, I’ll be sure to supplement their historical information so they get true history, and not the parts that the public school system allows them to see.

I gotta say this before I lose the thought.  I’ve been playing with Google Sidewiki and an idea just burst into my brain.

First, read this: Google’s Sidewiki page

Then, search google for “sidewiki controversy” and note the opposition to the new communications platform.  Take your time, I’ll still be here.

Now, if you are so politically inclined, you could install google sidewiki, and join or start a conversation on bills that are passing through Washington by going to thomas.loc.gov, searching for–oh, I don’t know–the healthcare bill, and get smart on what it actually says.  Using Google Sidewiki, you can finally leave comments on those pages, so now our elected officials who are cutting-edge enough to have google sidewiki installed can go to thomas.loc.gov and see what the public (or those who have sidewiki installed, anyway) are saying about sections of bills being passed through congress!

I’m gonna try it.

-TJ

Yeah, so I apparently don’t think things all the way through.  I was talking with Alvin last night over my new netbook (HP mini 311, upgraded to hell), and up to now I’ve been slave to my impulses.  I quit Facebook on a whim back in January, without thinking there were people I actually communicate with via that website.  I deleted my website last night on a whim thinking I was going to retool it from the ground up.  And today, I fumigated my bathroom without really considering how far the poison gas would spread in my apartment… I sat two rooms away for about 3 hours.  Granted, I shut off the vent, closed the door, and thought that it wouldn’t travel through my heater system, but now I’m feeling just a little bit off.  I’ve been out of my apartment for about an hour now, having gone to eat and sit here at Panera Bread surfing the web.  I feel kind of yuck, though, I don’t know if it’s because of the pesticide or for want of sleep… I went to sleep last night at 4AM.  Woke up this morning at about 8AM, so it’s not like I lost that much sleep… 2 more hours and it would be my norm.

Anyway, when I get back home I’ll be disposing of that can and airing out the apartment again.  Actually, I wonder if I can just get away with turning on the bathroom vent for half an hour.

Ugh.  I can’t wait to move into a house.

-TJ

Just finished The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs.  Pretty good book.  I recommend it to anyone open to new perspectives on religion and faith.  Website is here:  http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp.

-TJ

- Plan ahead, organize thoughts, lay out a strategy to engage in any problem that comes my way.

- Lose my gut Go to the gym and sweat 5 times a week to become stronger, faster, and more durable.

- Buy a house – consult with USAA, make a plan on how to do this by April.

- Enroll in grad program for Computer Science and Engineering, or something close to it.

- Eliminate any reason for me to frown in public.  I should be having the time of my life, why do I feel lost?  Again?

- Buy the goddamn Rosetta Stone for either French or Russian and learn a new language.  Finally.

- Don’t get paralyzed by the act of planning.  Make a best effort, then execute.

So I watched this movie, and I only have a few things to say about it:

- There were a couple points in the movie I laughed, not because it was funny, but because there were some random “What the Fuck?” moments. If you see this movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

- It was obvious that, for a movie about a secret Army project, they didn’t have a military consultant. The movie opens up to a man with two stars on his collar, and the words “Brigadier General” in subtitles underneath his name.

- Finally, the whole movie is pretty much anti-war. There’s a really good point in the movie, though, where one of the the protagonists, who is American, apologizes for a shooting that happens in an Iraqi friend’s town, and says that he hopes the Iraqi doesn’t think that all Americans are like that–in turn, the Iraqi man apologizes for a recent kidnapping, and hopes the Americans don’t think all Iraqis are like that… I personally liked that part. Army soldiers on LSD in 2009… not so much. (This isn’t the view of the Air Force… just a view of one guy who happens to be in the Air Force.)

Anyway, I don’t recommend this movie to anyone. Good night.

-TJ

So I haven’t mentioned any progress on my health endeavors as of late. Just a quick update, I hit perfect attendance about a month ago, I think. I feel like it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been going to the gym 5 times a week consistently, but it may just be 2. I discovered hash running 2 weeks ago, did run #1 at John Bryan State Park here in OH lead by a duo dubbed “Penishead” and “Bermuda Triangle”. Met alot of good folks that day, and discovered that some of them I’ve seen around on base but never really took notice… imagine my shock when we meet a guy named “Bitch Whisperer” and he waves me down at the gym during the subsequent week… I had to think really hard when that happened, but I figured out who he was. Good guy. Good guys and gals. All of them.

What else. I had a running joke for about a week when I told my friend RG (here at WPAFB, not at PAFB) that I lost 2 inches off my waist during a Saturday workout, then subsequently told him again that I lost 2 inches off my waist during a Saturday workout not even an hour later. When he told me “you lost 2 inches off your waist? Yeah, you told me that not even 30 minutes ago,” then it became a joke to tell him a few times a day, sometimes twice or three times in a row… I harass people up here, it’s what I do.

Anyway, life’s been overall good. I worked out with my PT last week (or maybe it was 2 weeks ago?) and she changed up my regimen. I’m also taking some whey protein before going to the gym now. I remember I used to live with a girl who was a former body builder, and she was all into this stuff. I used to look at this barrel of whey powder and think she was nuts and/or hardcore at body building. She was, but the powder itself is just protein, and just a highly efficient way to take in nutrients at that. So now I just drink 1 serving of this stuff about 45 mins before I work out, then I work out when all the protein is floating around in my blood… or something. I don’t know quite how it works, despite RG’s best efforts to explain it to me–I was paranoid at first because I saw the word “creatine” in the ingredient list and I thought I’d be ruining my liver if I didn’t take this stuff correctly. Anyway, no allergic reactions, no blood in my pee, so far so good.

I think my next step is to get organized, then go to school. I need to start planning out my next long-term plan. Having commissioned just this last February, I achieved something that I previously thought was not within my reach, and now I really don’t know what to do with myself. People tell me “school”, “masters”, “vectoring”, blah blah blah… I’m going to do this on my own terms, as I always have. I work with a bunch of great, bright people, and they’ve been giving me insights to officer development, and there are some interesting things out there that I may be looking into in the future.

That’s it for now. I’ve got to go to bed… tomorrow, as every day, I’ll be learning a bit more about defense acquisition. This is one charlie foxtrot of a system we have, but it’s the best we can do, and only through learning about it as it is now will I be able to contribute to streamlining and improving it in the future.

-TJ

Some mostly robotic or highly armored aliens have arrived, and are sitting around a circular meeting table with one of my bosses at work.  My boss has a very stern look, like he’s deep in thought.  I read “Well… this is a fucked up situation.  What are we going to do now?” from the look on his face.

The aliens apparently have come to take alot of people with them–not sure what for, slavery comes to mind–and we are actualy given a few hours to prepare to leave.  I thought we were being taken away to be servants because a black guy in my dream–another fellow abductee, and some kind of scientist–started humming “Wade in the Water”. I’m one of the people that are going to be abducted, but I’m not running away because the alternative is to stay behind and be destroyed.  One of the thoughts that cross my mind: all the things I was previously worried about don’t matter anymore, and all I want to do is call my family back home to let them know I was ok and to say goodbye.  In my dream I’m already planning how humanity will overcome this situation… I would do my best, and encourage those around me, to silently learn the technology these aliens possess and analyze for weakness while doing their bidding, and in a few years when the time is right we would use their tools and weapons against them.  Another weird thing… all the abductees were all scientists and engineers from what I could tell, and I felt others yet were all highly educated… and then there’s me.  I have no idea how I fit in there, but I guess it’s because I know a little bit about stuff.  I was boarding their vessel with everyone else, walking up a long ramp into something that looked like… an ark.

Then I woke up, and was thankful I’d been dreaming about the whole thing… it was something between a bad dream and a crazy dream.  It was a dream, though, because for a moment there I thought “Well… I guess we don’t have to worry about 2012, because apparently the world is ending tonight.”

That’s right! I can run for 30 mins now without feeling winded! It’s exciting because I think the last time I felt this way was when I was 16 running greens back at Whitney. I used to like running, but after 10th grade that all went out the window with the mandatory PT class.

I’m by no means fast, but I actually felt wind while running indoors near the end of my 30 min run. And now when I wake up the next day I don’t feel sore in my legs and I feel like I can do it again. I think this is thanks to going to the fitness trainer… guess this hard work is paying off.

Next step: eat better.

-TJ