El oh El.

I’m not the kind of guy to typically kiss and tell… but yeah, pretty much.

(Special thanks to Dave for bringing this gem to my attention)

How would you classify this person?

After a grueling night shift, I’m placidly walking out to my car in Pentagon North Parking when I run across this monstrosity.

How would you term the owner of this car?

a. Tool (my first impression)
b. Joe (USNA slang)
c. “That Guy” (Adam’s suggestion)
d. Insert your own when you comment

P.s. Can anyone say lack of OPSEC?

Thoughts?

Talk about a blast from the past. It’s a small, small world.

Situation:

After a long night on mid-shift at the Pentagon, I’m coming home and entering through the front lobby of my apartment complex. As I’m walking in, I notice a person on crutches hobbling towards me. Being a well-bred Northerner, I decide to wait and hold the door open for him, then proceed to open the second set for of doors for him. This is all a reflection upon how awesome I actually am. Meanwhile, I notice that he’s wearing a Red Sox hat. Not being able to help myself, I declare:

Me: “So you’re a Red Sox fan eh?”
Him: “Yup, I’m from the area as well.”
Me: “Oh really? I’m from MA too!”
Him: “Cool, where are you from?”
Me: “Shrewsbury, you?”
Him: “North Brookfield.”

I pause as I remember someone I knew in North Brookfield…

Me: “Hey you would happen to know Jane Doe, would you?” (Jane Doe is a girl I knew in high school. Real name undisclosed for privacy).

He pauses and stares at me…. then begins to glare at me, like he’s seeing me in a new light…

Him: “Yeah, I do. Actually, I used to date her in high school.”

At this point I realize that this is the same guy who sent me threatening emails when I was a freshman in high school declaring that he was going to track me down and kill me because he thought his girlfriend (Jane Doe) was cheating on him with me. For the record, that presumption was extremely untrue. I think he knew it was me because I said I lived in Shrewsbury. At this point, I have the following options:

a. Panic/Run Away
b. Say “Yeah, I f***ed her, you were right”, then casually walk away like a bad ass. Over my shoulder I smugly add, “Twice.”
c. Stutter, then awkwardly attempt to end the conversation
d. Feign a sudden loss of hearing, or pretend that you don’t actually know the same people, and that you didn’t really mean THAT Jane Doe.
e. Steal his crutch and begin beating him – either because it’s just fun to beat up crippled people, or because deep down I still don’t appreciate being threatened back in high school.

Remember, this guy actually lives in my apartment complex now.

Discuss.

Scrabble

And that’s how you scrabble!

“Blame it upon a Rush of Blood to the Head”

This is an incredible song.

He said I’m going to buy this place and burn it down
I’m going to put it six feet underground
He said I’m going to buy this place and watch it fall
Stand here beside me baby in the crumbling walls
Oh I’m going to buy this place and start a fire
Stand here until I fill all your heart’s desires
Because I’m going to buy this place and see it burn
Do back the things it did to you in return

Ah, ah, ah
He said Oh I’m going to buy a gun and start a war
If you can tell me something worth fighting for
Oh and I’m going to buy this place, that’s what I said
Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head, to the head

(And) honey
All the movements you’re starting to make
See me crumble and fall on my face
And I know the mistakes that I made
See it all disappear without a trace
And they call as they beckon you on
They said start as you mean to go on
Start as you mean to go on

He said I’m going to buy this place and see it go
Stand here beside my baby watch the orange glow
Some’ll laugh and some just sit and cry
But you just sit down there and you wonder why
So I’m going to buy a gun and start a war
If you can tell me something worth fighting for
And I’m going to buy this place, that’s what I said
Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head

And honey
All the movements you’re starting to make
See me crumble and fall on my face
And I know the mistakes that I made
See it all disappear without a trace
And they call as they beckon you on
They said start as you mean to go on
As you mean to go on, as you mean to go on

So meet me by the bridge, meet me by the lane
When am I going to see that pretty face again
Meet me on the road, meet me where I said
Blame it all upon
A rush of blood to the head

The Dark Knight

Sam and I went to go see The Dark Knight tonight. It was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. The Joker was simply brilliant, the action was intense, and the plot was second to none. The Joker literally gave me the willies. I think the fact that the actor who played him is dead right now kind of adds to the creep out factor. All extras aside, Heath Ledger’s performance was truly a tour de force. The man who played the gushing noble in “A Knight’s Tale” stepped into the role of a psychopathic, unpredictable genius who brings terror down on Gotham with the results being one of the most chilling characters I’ve ever seen. He was an incredibly asymmetric criminal – you never really knew what his motives were, where he would strike, or in what manner. Instead of being one step ahead like in most stories, he seemed to be 10-20 moves ahead of everyone else.

Anyways, GO SEE IT.

Liberal Bias? Just Maybe?

Since the New York Times refused to publish McCain’s response to Obama’s “Plan for Iraq”, I’m posting it here. Yeah, there’s no vast liberal bias in the media at all… Could you imagine if the NYT refused to publish Obama’s letter to the editor? There would be claims of racism, and some sort of “vast right wing conspiracy”. Oh yeah, the editor of the times is a former Clinton administration staffer. It amazes and disgusts me that all three major network anchors are in the Middle East right now suckling from the teat of the Obama campaign. It’s like he’s the only candidate. In the past 4 months, McCain has been all over the world, including the Middle East. Some networks didn’t even send reporters.

The Rejected Editorial

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City?actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war?only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

New Work Out

3×10 Goblet Squat

3×10 Rows

3×10 Military Press

3×10 Bench Press

15 Minute warm down run

I figure that’s enough to delude myself into thinking that I’m doing something to stay in shape. The exercises will be done as a circuit, one after another.

In other news, taken from AbovetheLaw.com:

An excerpt from a deposition taken last month in Dallas, Texas:

Plaintiff’s Counsel: Remember we still have a trial. There will be some more of it come up then, but no reason to go over it all now. Can’t have it all. You’ll have cut your hair by then, you know.

Witness: You have a thing about my longer hair, don’t you? Are you jealous or what?

(Off-the-record discussion.) (Exhibit No. 25 marked.)

Witness: Well, you’d probably look better if you shaved it. Anyway, go ahead.

Counsel: I know you would be. I know you would look better if you shaved yours.

Witness: Do you really think so?

Counsel: Yeah, I really do.

Witness: That’s amazing. Your wife doesn’t think so.

Discuss.

Weekend Indiscretions

After randomly deciding to drive the 10 hrs to the Cape on Friday, not sleeping most of the weekend, then driving the 10 hrs back on Sunday, I feel like a tired, confused, and very cranky kitten.

Only a few more hours before I can pass out. Someone shoot me now.

Zombie Survival Quiz

I scored a Z+, which means I’m a bad ass. I got an F in the emotional readiness part though. Silly me choosing to help others.

Find out your Zombie Survival grade here!

In other news, my extension at DISA has been officially granted.  Now, assuming the Navy doesn’t decide to deploy me randomly in the 6 months between the new “end” of my tour here, and my official separation date,I’m golden and I’ll somehow have managed to make all of this work in my favor.