Done

I’m hanging up the blog. I need to focus on real life, and even the possibility of blogging is not a good thing for me anymore. Maybe some day I’ll do it some more, but it won’t be here.

Retraction and beer

Well I got some clarification from the friend I spoke of. Apparently that’s not the guy she’s going to be involved with. That’s good, because I was hoping to avoid breaking any knees this year.

In terms of beer, I’m drinking an Alaskan Oatmeal Stout right now. It’s pretty good, but the aftertaste is a bit strange and takes some getting used to. I really like the Alaskan beers, though I’m on a hefewiezen kick right now. I can’t enjoy watery training beer anymore; even Alaskan Amber, which is a hell of a lot better than the coomillweisers, is starting to seem kinda tasteless.

We’re starting up some mead soon, or rather FINALLY, so I’m hopeful for that come next year. Mmmm alcohol. I don’t drink much when I’m working out a lot, but… good beer is a vice I’m not giving up. I’ll do an extra half mile a day to make up for it.

Completely off topic, but I saw some pictures of me from over the summer and holy fuck was I fat! I lost a ton of fat since I got here. I’ll lose more before I go home, my family will be shocked, and I’ll mock their lack of faith from the summer with cries of ‘I told you so’. Good times. I have another five weeks to lose fat, and on my starvation diet, it won’t be hard.

Guy code

I’m in a bit of an argument with a female friend who is planning on getting involved with a guy who, with full knowledge of the situation, went behind his smitten buddy’s back to ask her out. The disagreement is over the severity of that breach of friendship. I say the guy who betrayed his friend is an utter douchebag. She says it only counts as acting like a dick, which everyone does occasionally.

Ya know, it’s never cool to go behind someone’s back, even if you didn’t know what you were doing. If you find out you undercut someone, you should probably apologize as long as they’re being reasonable and not flipping out (I mean, if you didn’t know, you didn’t know, don’t take abuse over it). I had a friend who was planning to buy a Jeep from a mutual friend of ours, but he didn’t have the cash. I did, and I wanted it, so I approached the too-poor buyer and asked him if he minded if I bought it instead, since he couldn’t afford to. If he’d said no, he was going to make it work, I would have backed down. As it turned out, he was cool with it. That’s how I got my Wrangler.

That’s just a fucking Jeep. A girl is a lot more serious. The two guys in question are in the Air Force or some shit, I guess, which is another strike against superdouche. Don’t fuck over the guys in your unit. If you’re combat arms, especially do not fuck over the guys in your unit. Maybe nothing will come of it, but maybe you’ll get shot in the back too, or left uncovered at a bad time. That stuff happens, ya know. Is some chick worth rocking the boat? No.

If someone fucked me over like that, I wouldn’t follow my instincts and break their jaw, but they would never receive and ounce of help from me again, for the rest of my life. I have had people fuck me like that, not guys, but girls who undermined a relationship I had. They lost my respect and friendship forever over a stupid, jealous stunt. Good bargain, girls? Hope you’re satisfied.

I think I’ve established that the guy pulled a major dick move. The thing that really gets me is how the girl could want to be involved with someone who blatantly fucked over his own friend. That shows a distinct character flaw, and should be raising flags left and right to RUN AWAY.

Then again, she’s 18. What the fuck does she know. If he hurts her, we’re going to have words.

Yay for 17 credits again!

Seven courses. It’s not as bad as it sounds, since there are three one credit courses, but… Wednesday is going to suck next semester. I’ll have classes starting at 8AM and going until 5:30PM. Yeah, yeah, it’s just like a normal work day, but all that thinking can’t be good for my brain. I’ll still have homework to do afterward, ya know.

Actually, it’s just like my life now, since I’m at school the vast majority of the time anyway.

I’m signing up for Calc I again, Mining Operations I & II (above ground and underground), General Chem II, General Geology for Engineers, Intro to Zymurgy (that’s brewing…), and some Anthropology bullshit I need for a core requirement.

I’m in the undesirable position of having to sprint my ass up to the natural sciences building after anthropology MWF, because the passing period is 15 minutes and the two buildings are just about as far apart as two undergrad buildings can be on this campus. However, since anthropology is in a big ass auditorium and I don’t give a shit about it, I’ll probably sit in the back and leave five minutes early to make sure I get to Chem, because it’s 10x more important to me. There’s no way to change the schedule to rectify the situation, so… shit happens.

Now I just need to figure out who my advisor is…

Chem test tomorrow. Should be pretty easy. Maybe I’ll study a bit before I leave today, and actually get something done besides spending money today.

Nice job, dumbass.

I saw some tool wreck his low end sports coupe in the Sports Authority parking lot today.

It snowed today, an inch or three, and the roads are pretty slick; the parking lots are a lot worse, because they’re just sheets of ice on the best days, and a dusting of powder on top of that ice makes them very treacherous.

So I got to my car just in time to see this guy try to take off in a tight turn, fast, in his rear wheel drive car. He got going sideways pretty quick, and he was apparently doing it on purpose, aiming for the exit of the parking lot, trying to be mister cool guy and powerslide out onto the road. Never let off the gas, just kept gunning it and trying to steer through the skid.

Instead he nailed the curb going sideways at about 20 mph and blew his rear tire. His POS skipped right over the curb and almost went down into the ditch. He gets out, takes a look at his cracked rear right wheel, and starts making phone calls. About five of us saw him do it, and nobody stopped to help, especially me. If you’re that stupid you can pay for a tow truck.

I had been hoping he would slide into a light pole, but the curb thing was pretty funny too. Idiot.

Odd dream

I had a dream between alarm rings this morning, which means it lasted less than 1 minute.

First, let me say that ROTC cadets around here piss me off. The clueless butterbars that wander around piss me off more, because they have no excuse for being fucked up. I haven’t gone off on any of the ROTC kids yet, but it’s very tempting.

In my dream, I walked by this ROTC guy who was wearing ACUs with sneakers, no cover, and he was unshaved. I flipped the fuck out on him, and I was really chewing his ass when some other ROTC cadet, probably older, tried to stop me. Right when I was about to rip into him too for condoning such fucked up behavior from one of his fellow cadets, my alarm woke me up again.

Argh!

The ROTC people here aren’t actually that screwed up, but they don’t meet the standards of the infantry. They violate AR 670-1 pretty much all the time. For some reason, they wear a patch on their right shoulder, which is where a combat patch is supposed to go, and that pisses me off a lot too. If I see someone wandering around without a cover on outside, or wearing it inside, or wearing stunna shades or something like that, I’m going to rip their ass.

Fucking wannabe officers. They’re better than ring knockers, but fuck. I hope the PSGs at their units square them away. You can’t be fucked up in front of your men if you want their respect, and appearance plays a large role there.

Silly cold weather

It’s weird how much warmer it feels outside than it is. Right now it’s somewhere south of zero, probably -8F or so, but it really doesn’t feel much worse than normal NY winter weather. It’s easier to bear, actually, because I’m a lot less of a pussy than I used to be, and I know how to dress for warmth these days.

So since it really doesn’t feel THAT cold out, it’s easy to forget stuff in your car and let it freeze solid. For example, I was going to do laundry today, but I realized I had left my detergent in my truck since the last time I did laundry, and it was a solid detergent block. It’s in front of the heater now, thawing for tomorrow’s laundry adventure instead.

Everything gets really cold, really fast, too, just being exposed to the air. As it gets colder, I imagine I’ll have to be more careful about handling stuff without gloves on, because if I leave a pistol mag in the car and it gets down to -40 overnight, I could easily get contact frostbite picking it up.

Life here takes a little more planning, but it’s worth it. So far I haven’t had more than a few minutes at a stretch where I was genuinely cold (mostly waiting for my stupid car to warm up), and I haven’t even started wearing my long underwear yet. Going home to plus 20 degree temperatures in NY after getting down to the minus 25-30 degrees we’ll have here by December is going to feel like a summer vacation.

I’ll miss the coldest part of the year, and that makes me feel kinda like a pussy, but oh well. Next winter I’ll stick around.

Actually, I should mention something that genuinely sucks. Hauling water in these temperatures is a royal pain in the ass. I tried to get some last night, and not only did I freeze balls trying to get the water in the jugs, but my dumbass tailgate lift struts don’t work for shit when it’s below about 40, and it was -5F last night… the tailgate just kept closing. Ever try to load a 60 pound water jug in the back of a Jeep when the tailgate keeps closing on you? Yeah, I’ll be using my truck next time.

Good week for powder

I picked up five pounds of Blue Dot (for 10mm) on Tuesday, and when I was in Sportsman’s Warehouse today, I found a few cans of Viht N110 and Accurate #7 too. The N110 is good for my revolvers, and I bought the #7 because upon doing more Blue Dot research, I found out it’s apparently temperamental in cold weather, where #7 isn’t. Obviously I don’t want my Glock to stop working just because it’s -30* outside.

Now I just need some 10mm brass and bullets, since I left mine at home. With any luck I can score some primers tomorrow–I’ll be going in around noon to try to meet the delivery truck tomorrow and tuesday.

Sports Authority had a ton of 45 Auto but there was apparently nobody working, and I got pissed and left when the only employees I saw were cashiers. I’ll swing by tomorrow and see if anyone is manning the gun counter; it’s shitty WWB JHP for $38/50 but considering I have fuckall for pistol ammo, I’ll pay. I don’t care, I want a few hundred rounds to tide me over in case the zombies show up before I get my loading bench set up.

Not powder related, but I bought a Ross 9S suede lined belt slide holster at Sportsman’s Warehouse for the low, low price of $40. That’s pretty god damn good, considering the Ross website has the same holster listed up in the $60s somewhere. It matches my fancy stitched belt, it doesn’t move around because it is a very tight fit to the belt, the pistol doesn’t move, and it’s lightning fast. I much prefer this holster to the Bianchi Black Widow I’ve been using for years, because I can get a solid grip right off the bat instead of screwing with a thumb break (which can get tangled in a shirt too).

I’ll probably give the Bianchi to my buddy to see if he likes it. I need open carry compatriots, after all. The Bianchi has served me well, but it’s time to move on.

WTF?

So I just got woken up to someone pounding on my front door repeatedly at 4:45 AM. I could hear them saying something, and it sounded like a woman, but I have no idea what it was.

I’m way too paranoid to go running to my door at oh-dark-thirty without a gun and my glasses, and it’s like negative ten out, so I threw some clothes on. By the time I got to the windows to take a look outside, there was nobody in the area any longer. I heard no vehicles. I went out with my 1911 and my surefire to take a look around and saw nothing, nor any evidence of strange happenings. I even went out to the road and had a look up and down it. Nothing.

So what the fuck just happened? The only person within half a mile is my neighbor, and her place looked undisturbed. I hope I didn’t let someone get axe murdered, but… I’m sorry, I’m not opening my front door to pounding before 5 AM without a gun and pants.

Update: Well, some flatbed tow truck came by just now and took my neighbor’s old car away. I assume these two things are connected somehow, which is fucking stupid. If you’re pounding on my door at 4:45 AM on a Sunday morning, it had better be life or death. I’ll be putting up a laminated sign to that effect.

Back to sleep for me. It’s not like I just went to bed 3 hours ago or anything.

C’mon caffeine

I feel like I’m hitting a wall already. It’s only 1:20 AM!! Unacceptable. As long as I’m in bed by about 4 AM, I’ll get plenty of sleep before Chem at 2:15 PM tomorrow. I hope this next liter of Coke I’m going to drink does the trick, because I want to finish my history assignment and another reading response before I take off.