Caught in the corner of my mind

A seat at the table

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:13:26 GMT

This last week was fairly boring but high tension at the same time. At TBS the classes start with 300 Marines, We had 330 between guys reporting in and guys who were already here. During the first two weeks they have to sort out who gets trained and who has to wait for another company to pick up. I was particularly worried as I am not nearly as healthy or as physically fit as most of the other officers here. This last week the major event was the Physical Fitness Test, I scored high enough to be eligible to train, but I felt that I was on the lower end of the score range.

However, I am a decent swimmer and last week I qualified high enough to graduate the course where as they had plenty of guys who did not. None the less, I was nervous all Thursday and part of Friday until they announced who would go on to train in Alpha company and who would marinate in Mike Company for another two months till they get another chance in Bravo Company.

From what I hear, being in Mike company isn't that bad, Other than periodic work details they really do not have much for you to do, so you spend your days exercising, doing martial arts, and working on what ever you needed to improve to train. My roommate got dropped because he wasn't a strong enough swimmer and he was off and drunk by 1500. Where it gets demotivating for Marines is that you are in a holding pattern. The Basic Officer Course takes 6 months to complete and while you are in Mike company that 6 months does not start. If you get sent back to Mike company during the BOC you often have to reset the six months and start over again. Additionally, you don't know what kind of guys are checking in the next time around. So you may have a bigger and more qualified group check in the next time. For example the next few classes are guys coming straight from Officer Candidate School, so they will have been exercising for 10 weeks straight and in excellent shape and up to speed on many of the things covered in our review exams.

I was afraid I wasn't going to pick up and then I was going to have to spend two months here waiting for another chance and currently when I call and talk to fireflychasing I have plenty of days happenings to tell her. It would have sucked if I had to make the call and tell her that I got pwned and would be marking time for two months. Hell, its been two weeks and I am losing my mind.

My fears were groundless, my contact in the Company office laughed at me, she said I was solidly in the zone. So now instead of worrying about things I can't control, I spend my time exercising, studying for the classes and getting my gear ready.

The company got reshuffled so in addition to the people that got dropped from our platoon, Our platoon roster changed, Then I had the most fun I have had since I got here. The squad leaders got to have a draft to pick squads. We did a round robin, made trades, did a bit of arguing all with the Platoon commander as the ref. I had to lose two picks in order to get the ROK Marine in our platoon, my dad and other squadmates think I made a good call. Also I got my squad a series of rooms in the hallway that can receive wireless internet from the lounge, so we are hooked up all the way around.

I had alot to say when it felt like I didn't do much this week. Monday the real fun begins, uniform inspections and initial interviews.

Ten years gone.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:20:05 GMT

I checked into The Basic School this week. I was assigned to a platoon and made the first squad leader. We finish checking in this coming week and then if all goes well I will be in 5th Platoon Alpha company.

We had swim qual this week. I am qualified at the required level for ground officers. it wasn't nearly as hard as I recalled from Bootcamp, but all I remember from boot camp was being 115lbs and getting throw in the water with DI's screaming at us. Other Officer's kept asking me what it was like or what was coming up next, but at the time we weren't allowed to look around, so I don't have many more memories other than back of the head on the recruit in front of me.

I have been fairly busy, I tend to be up and moving by 0445 every day. I spend so much time making sure my squad is doing what they need do, I get a bit behind on my own stuff.

In other news, on a more emotional level, I am having lots of the same feelings that I had as an 18 year old Private. The wierd combination of no privacy yet knawing loneliness. The world has changed alot in the last ten years. I don't have to wait in line at a phone booth inorder to call home. I have a cell phone and someone to call this time around. I also have the added stress of not being paid yet. I have the cash in my wallet and that is it. We are not supposed to get a paycheck till the 15th of November, yet we are required to go out and buy all kinds of stuff. Also we pay out of pocket for food. We are trying to get an advance pay and that would take a load off.

That is what is different from the School of Infantry, I only made 200 bucks a paycheck but it always seemed like I had money, also everything was provided for us and it was free to eat at the chow hall.

I have to say that people are much nicer here, My fellow officers are all pretty friendly and we haven't gotten screamed at yet. I am making new friends.

To sum up, nothing unusual to report at this time.

This is how Bob Vila does it when Mrs Vila is around.

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:36:15 GMT

http://www.homemade-sex-toys.com/

I suspect there should be some Macguyver jokes thrown around.

I was going to write about the status of political discourse in the United States. There really isn't much to write. I have had some very interesting talks with friends of various points of view and political inclinations, but mostly I have gotten lots of ad hominen attacks and suggestions that me and the President are having carnal relations.

My favorite page on Wikipedia is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_logical_fallacies.

A close second is the long list of Latin Phrases.

UFOPORNOO!

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 03:40:41 GMT

it is sharing time.

reading back and posting new

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:42:09 GMT

To make a wry understatement, I have had plenty of time on my hands the last few months and I will admit I am going a bit stir crazy.

I have been kind of mopey as well, which is odd as I am at the top of my game. I graduated college in may, I got commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in June. I got a great woman in my life who treats me better than I probably deserve. I got my health.

Want I do not have right now is any paycheck, I am doing some labor here and there for various people, it isn't steady and it is not that often, it gives me some beer money. I need to do stuff mainly to kill time. My girlfriend works decent hours but the problem is that I don't and I feel like I get all weird and needy. I know what it is like when people want to do things and I worked all day or work the next day, and I am not trying to be that guy.

I exercise with a buddy here and there, but it is not to the degree that Rick Grace and me worked out. I am trying to get myself back into some kind of program. I also note that I really miss the gym, I do not have a membership anywhere. I really like to run outside, but I like to do my strength training in doors.

In the next few weeks some of my friends are going to be back in town, so that will help me get out of my rut. Then the suckage is that my woman starts school and then it will be hard to see her as often.

I have been re reading some of my old posts. I note that not a lot about Andy has changed in the last few years. I still use funny one liners and I have a penchant for over exaggerating. I read back to when I first started posting, right after I got back to work at the county. I note that I was very lonely and drunk a lot.

I figure I will start posting more as things come up, certainly I will post a bunch when I am at The Basic School as new and exciting things will be happening. That or the same old shit just with a different flavor will be happening and I will compare and contrast that.

Funny Marine Vehicle Checkpoint

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:43:15 GMT

I lieu of me actually posting something.

thank you Mas69ter

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:12:26 GMT

My Political Views
I am a right moderate social libertarian
Right: 3.59, Libertarian: 3.02

Political Spectrum Quiz

A bit late, Marine Corps birthday

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:49:23 GMT

I am proud to claim the title of United States Marine

check out my shirt

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:03:51 GMT

www.Siude.com

its on the main page today, I don't know how long it is up.

I don't know how to feel about this developement

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:53:52 GMT

I have begun to judge those I know and love not by how I think they acted, but by that when they did act, they did so because they felt they acted the right way.

I feel that if I could extend this manner of thinking further then I could develope a new way of living.

Perhaps the first line of this post is the thesis of my first philosophy.

Economics

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:36:55 GMT

The common knowledge is to buy low and sell high. My economics teachers took it a step farther with today's little gem.

"Buy when the blood flows, sell when fools are celebrating"

Things change, thus is life.

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:41:33 GMT

Allow me to be emo for a moment.

I helped Stephanie move. She has moved to Fort Stewart Georgia in order to pursue opportunities which are not present in Illinois. She could not afford to get her stuff moved so she threw away everything that she could not fit in her car.

I haven't wrote much about what all went down with Stephanie and me. I never really talked about it to her after the fact, I never felt like I could give her any input which would do anything but upset her.

none the less, Her and I are two very different people and She is looking for very different things in life than I am. She is not a bad person and I harbor no ill will towards her.

I helped her clean up her house and throw away things. It was hard for her but also for me. A lot of the stuff that got pitched was things left over from the wedding. A lot of the other stuff was things which were related to us "starting our life together". I am lacking to words to adequately describe how I feel.

We also had a "Fight Club" moment, in that I was noting how much we associate a person's belongings with that person. It was weird for me that in throwing away someone's stuff it is almost like throwing away pieces of them.

Over the last 6 months Stephanie and myself have gone through various changes to our relationship. I left her on the altar but it really didn't sink in that it was over till the week before spring break almost 3 months later. For the first few months she was still in the mentality that we could still make it work and I was still trying to break free. We had a nasty fight before I left for spring break, concurrent with the established pattern of us having a fight right before I left town for any reason, and after that we had no contact till right before I left for OCS.

Returning from OCS we have had contact oft and on, She wanted my thoughts on her situation and her deciding to move. I said my piece but made it clear in a tactless way that I still did not want to be with her as a lover anymore.

I think that the end state of all things with me and her over the last 2 years is that we are friends and will stay that way. There are no do overs in life, but I think she would have been better off if I stayed broken up with her in November of 2006. She moved down to Carbondale in December and thusly entered into college a semester earlier than she had planned to.

I am not blaming myself for the deterioration of her situations, as it was fairly jacked up to begin with, I just think that her moving to Carbondale before she was ready to really put her in a bad spot.

I think that I lied to myself from the get go. I believed that I could over look her status as a mother and that I would come to want to be the father of her children. I thought that at some point a light would come on and all of a sudden I would be all excited about doing "family" things. That light never came on.

Enough of this for now.

3 days and a wake up

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:42:41 GMT

The end is in sight.

We have no more graded events, I will graduate in the top 10-20% of the company.

This past week we finished things up with graded endurance course, a 12 mile night hike, some briefs on the Basic School and we beat down some fools with pugil sticks.

As predicted, it was three on three and my team creamed the guys we went against. I got the first guy with a thrust to the face. We then rolled up the other two guys with thrusts and horizontal buttstrikes.

I ran my best PFT ever. 19:45 3 mile, 15 dead hang pull ups, and 100 crunches.

all we have this week is a field meet, medal of honor run. a Motivational run and a Log race. Every day we have graduation practice. Wednesday is family day so I will get to spend a few hours with my folks then graduation goes at 0900 on Thursday. I am spending a few days with my folks and I will be in Atlanta on the 5th.

I look forward to seeing you. I have some tough choices to make, but thats my life. Saying goodby to Sgt. Blackout and hello to 2nd Lieutenant Blackout

I got a bunch of your messages, not so much letters.

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:54:25 GMT

The OCS update.

I have been busy as all get out here at Quantico. Week 3 came to an end and I am on my first liberty period. We are the duty platoon so I have to go back to the Barracks at 2200 and then we are let out again at 0800.

Most of us are going to IHOP in the morning. That should be good.

This phase of OCS has been fairly intense. I really like my platoon and I am grateful for having the instructors I do.

I am actually gaining weight this year. They changed how are PT is run so instead of running us into the ground like they did previous years, they are concentrating on "total Military fitness". We do alot less running than last year, but a lot more upper body. We do a thing called the "muscle endurance course", you go from station to station and at each point you do an exercise for 1 minute, as many reps as you can. Its mostly push ups, pull ups, barbell curls and military press. Things of that nature. There is one thing we call the "Spartan Workout" which is a bunch of logs fixed to a pivot pole, you lift the free end up to your chest and then for a minute pop press it from your chest above your head. Good times

We tend to finish with "push pull abs" and my arms feel like jelly after a pyramid of push ups, pull ups and sit ups.

Then they pad out the rest of the day with a few hours of close order drill, classes and field exercises.

We have had a bunch of graded events, I am doing fairly well, My physical fitness scores are in the high 80%, my Academics are in the middle 90% and my leadership score is around an 85%, nothing particularly stellar, but it keeps me in the boat at this point.

This coming week is going to be brutal, but our feeling is that if you pass everything this week you have passed the course.

We hike out to the field at 1900 tommorrow, then at 0200 we have a 9 mile hike, followed by 2 days of "squad in the offense" then we get our orders and set off on the next 2 days of the Small Unit Leadership Evaluation Part 2. SULE II is our final for leadership. It is the most heavily weighed event. You have to take your squad and lead them from a tactical assembly area to an objective, hit and take the objective. You conduct this operation from the planning phase to the execution and consolodation. You are giving a map, a compass, some grids and your squad. Prepare to lead, candidate!

The ass kicker is that everyone has to do it and there are 16 guys in our squads, so we do this 16 times. Each Assembly area (which we have to run to between attacks) is about a klick appart. Then you form up and go on the assault, wash rinse and repeat. We are only going to be running on 4 hours of sleep.

Anyrate, for those of you who need the rest of the address, its E company 2nd Platoon, I will update this to facebook as well as myspace.

Fondest Reguards.
Blackout

Been a minute since I hollered at you.

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:39:29 GMT

I will actually write something. Normally I just get lazy and post youtube videos.

Along the same lines, I have a few videos on youtube the username is Blackoutdaddy.

Things are pretty darn good for me. I have been partying a bit more than I should but on the other hand I PT just about every day. My PFT score has gone up about 60 points since January.

I have lost an inch or two around my waist, but I still weight the same. This rocks so hard. I got a good tan, as a friend hooked me up with a package.

I get into feelings here and there but I have a variety of ways to deal with that, mostly exercise and video games.

I spend a lot more time in the saddle. I have also been giving rides to the some of the honies I run around with. I am very pleased to report that the heaviest one so far has been 120lbs. She is about 5 ft 7.

I have hit a lot of the speakers going at SIU. I have had the opportunity to enjoy some of the great minds of our day.

I will admit, not everything is ideal. My grades are going to be a little worse than normal, but I have been concentrating more on other aspects of my life. I should still get a mix of A's and B's but I believe that there will probably be more B's this time around than normal. Perhaps a C, but truly these Econ classes are getting rough.

However, I was honored at the University Honors day, my scholarship was increased, and it feels good to have the School up on your nuts. I have a free ride for next year locked on via FASFA but I got some plans for the cash that the School will kick me.

I am going to leave things at that, but in the next installment I will have to fill you in on how I went from the creepy room mate to the awesome room mate with a quickness. Additionally how I have been cradle robbing bridger style. Lord knows I have always desired women who have bodies which are pure yet minds that are corrupt.

Easter

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:02:12 GMT

"Even if I die in Iraq, ain't nothing to it, Gangsta Rap made me do it.

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:59:21 GMT

When ever I do things, no matter how fucked up, I find the media which praises my behavior.

watch the war unfold.

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:13:14 GMT

http://icasualties.org/oif/WndByState.aspx

The website shows all kinds of graphical representations of the war. There is one option which shows the casualties by date and you pretty much watch the war as it unfolded. It was interesting to me as I could see where major battles had occurred.

I could also see the running battles along the MSRs and as well as other actions.

when big guys visit little guys, Marines die.

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:37:10 GMT

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csnews.cgi/csNews.cgi?database=Unlisted%202008%2edb&command=viewone&id=7

I got this link off of www.SFTT.org which is David Hackworth's site. None the less, the meat of it is a cover up or white wash of the deaths of 3 Marines from Lima 3/7.

I read the letter and its from a Seabee and my heart sank as I read the names. Vangyzen was in 2nd Platoon Kilo during my first tour and I road in the same Amtrack with him. Dallas Kerns was in first Platoon with Mo Bronson.

Torres was best friends with a radio operator we had named Garza.

Garza was shown in a picture in the base paper at 29 palms at Torres' memorial service and then the next day was wounded by an RPG that hit a command bunker.

The story about Torres was that he was driving a humvee and returned fire during an ambush but was taken out by enemy small arms.

I knew that Vangyzen got it from an IED in Husayba and I knew Kerns didn't make it.

None the less, I am up and down with emotion. The whole upset and mad once moment, want to cry the next thing that we veterans seem to do.

I tell myself that regardless of how a man dies, it is not important, what is important is how he lived.

Benny Hill makes me feel good

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:43:27 GMT

I am sure my auntie Kray will dickpunch me for laughing at this,but really Yakety Sax+ anything equals comedy.

This is who I wish I could be when I grow up.

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:24:16 GMT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2008/02/09/db0901.xml

How can people protesting for "peace" be so offensive?

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:33:08 GMT

http://www.zombietime.com/hall_of_shame/

I bump my gums for the local newspaper

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:24:16 GMT

http://media.www.siude.com/media/storage/paper1096/news/2008/02/01/Voices/Sound.Off.img.Srchttpmedia.collegepublisher.commediapaper1096templatetemplatemed-3182530.shtml

I am on there twice, once running my suck about electric rates, another time about Presidential elections.

The People Vs Me.

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:02:26 GMT

"So that in the nature of man we find three principal causes of quarrel: First competition; secondly , diffidence; thirdly glory.
The first maketh men invade for gain; the second for safety and third, for reputation. The first use violence to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives ,children and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by reflection in their kindred , their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name."

Thomas Hobbes "Leviathan" Chapter XIII paragraph 6 and 7

Hobbes is saying "you are an idiot, Blackoutdaddy, now enjoy your 215 dollar fine and 90 days of court supervision"

Economics for the day

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:12:53 GMT

Are you tired of telling the same boring cliche about economic theory at cocktail parties? Well enough spouting tripe while your super cool friends act like you are someone profound.

I present to you an Economic principle at its most true in the real world and in the theoretical.

"Perfect complements: No quantity of right shoes can replace a lost left shoe."