macross40k

I haven't really updated here in a long while, so I figure I should while I have some news.  Just got back to my base in Iraq from my month-long vacation, mostly in Austin, and it was such a blast seeing everyone.  I miss everyone so much now!!!  Honestly didn't get to do half the stuff I wanted to, though...can't wait until I'm back for good.

   My trip back to my base too was a pretty fail journey...among the worst that I've ever experienced.  Which I shall now recant!

 ( Cut for loooooong Kuwait drama!!! )


     Jesus god almighty that was long, but yeah.  Kuwait sucks!  I've only had one experience in an Iraq airport that was worse than this, but that would be about double the length of this story just trying to explain that mess, haha.  Maybe I should just write a book about it :(

    And in other news, in getting back to KV, I found out that I had a job offer, a RIDICULOUS job offer.  Twice the money I make now doing what amounts to the same job I do here...and I already make a pretty good living out here, so twice that is even hard for me to fathom *_*  Only problem.......is it's in Afghanistan.  Tempting, very very tempting, and I've been wrestling with this idea for the past day, which is probably part of the reason I've been unable to sleep and am here typing this stuff up early in the morning :P  I know people out there though from our company who have already jumped ship and went with them and they actually like it very much, and it's at a VERY secure/safe base, so further temptation.  If I plan on doing only one more year out here like I said, the prospect of coming home with twice the money I planned on is hard to ignore.  But I'll be pondering on that one for a little while.

   Anyway, I'll update more on what's been going on here at this base later.  I really miss everyone and had a great time on vacation!  Can't wait until the next time I can party with all of you again!!!

It's been quite a large amount of time before I've made a real post, so I guess now would be a decent time.

I'm back in Iraq again, after a near-drama-filled time in Kuwait, which actually turned into one of my more smooth Kuwait experiences. Got the hell out of there a lot sooner than anticipated :P And now I'm back at work, in a new office with almost entirely new people....and it sucks! The people there seem to revel in gossip and drama and in general love making things difficult for everyone. Fortunately though, my move to the new smaller base to increase my study time has been finalized and I should be out of here in a few days; I've already sent most of my stuff out.

Vacation was a lot of fun...got to see a lot of folks I haven't seen in a while (though didn't get to see everyone I wanted to), and did most of what I wanted. Hung out with almost everyone I care about, bought the new Vette, bought a bunch of guns I've always wanted, went to my favorite restaraunt (Trulucks), drank my favorite wine (Zonin Amarone della Valpolicella), went to Tokyo Steakhouse and had good food and drinks, bought a new computer, then after paying a lot of money to get my car looking showroom new, the rain came and ruined it, haha...was kind of comical in the end, though at the time I was NOT pleased. I actually planned on buying a house while I was down on vacation, and even had some I had my eye on, but decided against it for the moment. The market hasn't quite bottomed out yet, and it's not like I'd be living in it any time in the near future...ah well, maybe next year I'll start researching again in 2010 to see what's out there, but for now I'm not going to worry about it.

First I saw my wonderful Kelley-kitten, who thankfully is doing a lot better (though needs to get on aim more! nomnom). Drove up to Austin to spend the majority of my vacation with Josh and Katie and relive some good old times! Josh T. and I both got new vehicles, haha...and we found an M1A for $1,400. I'm sure most won't understand the significance, but in this day in age that was almost a STEAL. Jeremiah came over once to visit and introduced us all to the wonders of Dr. Horrible and Mad World which made me lol lots. He also put up with driving me around while frantically trying to find a new damn battery for my old car before I traded it in, which proved to be more difficult than originally anticipated! Val came and visited from Louisiana (loves mah Vals <3) and was GREAT seeing her again, and having her hang out with the lot of us. Hung out with Stephanie, Jenny, and Ami a bit, which is ALWAYS much entertainment. Saw Charissa who I almost never get to hang out with due to the whole school in Houston thing...and hung out with her quite a few times during my last couple weeks of vacation ^^ We went to Main Event, watched movies, went to Trulucks with her and her mother (my HS Spanish teacher and one of the few teachers I actually liked!), and...watched movies :P Excellent times though! We'll DEFINITELY be hanging out more when I visit next. I only got to see Caitlin once T_T, entirely due to my bad planning...I swear we'll hang out more next time I come down! Then I went back to SA and spent the remainder of my days with the Kelley-kitten, which was also great even though work kind of conspired against any decent hang-out time, so I spent most of that time by myself...it ended up working out for the best since I needed to organize, clean, and pack everything up. There were a couple things that were annoying and disappointing as hell on vacation, but I think pretty much everyone's heard about it so I won't even bother mentioning it here.

Leaving again was really hard, and most of me really didn't want to come back here, but I still have my career to form out here and need those couple more years to really cement myself in this career field. I HATE leaving everyone I love just because I want to make some money, but especially with our economy back home, I wouldn't really find anything remotely close stateside. But, 2-3 years out here will likely be my limit, then I'll come home for good and enjoy the rest of the good times in Austin.

So, I'm told now that when I move to the next base I have about 30 days to get my CCNA, after which then I'll be moving back to this base and assuming my $30k a year promotion at long last (as well as being the youngest full Net Ad our company has ever had, lol). I really need to kick up my study habits again

And...since it seems like I always have to have something to shoot for while staying out here, I started looking at cars again (something I told myself I wouldn't do XD), and while my opinion on vehicles does tend to differ every once in a while...I'm really wanting (at the end of my final contract in Iraq) to buy this:



An Audi R8, a car which I formerly didn't like, but after quite some time has really grown on me, and after researching prices (especially new) I really don't see me straying too far away from it, even though I normally don't like Audis of any kind. Buuuuuuuuut, for the same price as a new/very lightly used R8 I could buy either a used Aston Martin V8 Vantage or a used Lamborghini Gallardo, each of which would be cool......however, I like the R8 more. So yay, besides the impending house, I now have something else to shoot for and I'll try my DAMNDEST to not do what I did with the Vette and buy it while on a vacation, lol. I'm a nerd, I know (I'm also going to buy an AC Shelby Cobra). And just so Charissa doesn't ever forget, I waaaaaaaaaaant Penelope <3...a red '78 Corvette in need of some care.

Well, hope everyone is doing well and will talk to everyone soon! Keep being kickass peoples!

Had delicious Trulucks with Charissa and Mrs. Allen (my spanish teacher when I was in hs), and it was as delicious as I remembered.  Got a whole bottle of my favorite wine, and the service was MUCH better than the last time I went.  Totally fantastic.  Was glad I got to see them again and eat at that place at least once before I went back.  Always a good time.

And now it's t-minus 6 days until I go back to Iraq...still so much left to do :P  If there's anyone I didn't get to see that feels like hanging out, do let me know.

Take care everyone!

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, here's the new Vette I picked up last week XD

( CAR PICS )
In other news, vacation has been going well. Val came down for a long weekend and that was a blast ^_^ Got to see Jenny, Beauty, Amelie, and Stef again which was as always, much fun.

Hope everyone's doing well! Take care, dorks!!!

My second day in Austin I WENT AND BOUGHT A SHINY NEW 2008 RED CORVETTE!!!! Pictures to follow shortly...haven't had a chance since I spent 4 freakin hours at the dealership since it was busy as hell and by the time I got home it was already dark.

It's awesome though, and somehow still manages to feel like my small midget car...except wider...and with an engine with more than twice the power and 3x the displacement, lol. I'm highly psyched. The other thing that surprises me too is that it's QUIET. At low revs I think my last car made more noise than this, lol.

Other than that too, vacation has been pretty fun ^^ I have 4 firearms that are stripped and awaiting new triggers and pistol grips, and after that they'll be completely finished.

Hope everyone's doing well! Later yaaaaaa'll

So, I was supposed to be out of Iraq by 8pm.......but after 5 simultaneous flight cancellations and trying to sleep in the airport, I ended up not leaving until 8 fucking AM the next morning. 12 damn hours in that airport....then when we arrived in Kuwait we had to wait an additional 3 hours for busses to take us to the base since there were apparently none available (in all the times I've flown into Kuwait I've never once encountered that problem). Then when we got to the base at around noon, I took care of my passport crap, got into a shitty full tent, turned in all my kevlar stuff, then proceeded to use the internet to see if there was any way I could get a flight out of here sooner than Wednesday. However, when I arrived at the internet cafe, at 1pm, there was a sign saying it was closed until 2pm for cleaning...ARGH, so I ate some lunch and lounged around until 2, and when I walked back in the fucking power was out. WTF?! So I waited for an additional hour and now here I am, haha.

I was able to change my flight too. I'll be arriving in SA on Tuesday at 11:30am instead of Wednesday at the same time.

God, this military flight shit is so ridiculous...the sheer inconvenience makes my head hurt. Ah well.........almost out~!!!!!!!

So here's a recap of what happened at work today.

- Dude I sometimes hang around with walks into the office -

Him: "Josh, you're going to make $7,200 every two weeks after taxes. Give me your resume, now."

Me: o_O



Turns out, a few of the guys we sometimes provide support before are leaving and have no replacements, so my boss and I (and only us) were offered two spots there by their Area Manager. It's a similar job to what I'm doing now, except with a LOT less machines and a little more specialized software, and occasionally involves some little 2-3 day travels to various bases around Iraq. But for that money, who the fuck cares. My resume's in, now we'll see what happens

http://www.remax-texas.com/remaxtx/?p=findahome.asp&selected=mlsnumber&search=mlsnumber&page=search&listing=true&mlsnumber=7934611&mlsid=3201&acc=

If that's still on the market when I come back on vacation (19 DAYS FUCK YEAH!!!!) then I will be hard-pressed to resist buying it. Hella good deal, and I'd know for sure that I'd never outgrow it, seeing as how I seem to accumulate vast amounts of stuff. A plus (and a negative too) is that the garage is converted, which I would turn into a huge workshop...though, I would want the security and all that of a real garage, seeing as how I do like caring for cars....so, I dunno, we'll see. I'm being preemptive at this point, but I am surprised at the amount of good deals around Austin these days. I have a huuuuuuuge ass list of potentials, but that one is by far my favorite. We'll see though, there's a lot more entertaining things I would rather


Not much new news to report. Things have still been same ole same ole here. Hope everyone's doing well!

lord...all this ridiculous stress this past week or so has made my face break out horribly, like all over :x I look like complete shit.

can't wait until everything starts calming down. We're supposed to be moving back into our old, big office soon where I can set up better organized shifts for everyone and hopefully get the the wire guys all trained up on the network in a less stress-hazardous environment.

That is the THIRD fucking time I've been woken up in the last 3 hours that I've been TRYING to sleep. Fuckers need to stop knocking on my door asking me for shit. Sorry you drove the whole 200 yards from work, but I need my goddamn sleep unless someone feels like giving me an extra day off. Someone's getting an earful when I go into work tonight.

So I celebrated my new year's at work, studying for my CCNA XD I don't think anyone can imagine the excitement watching the year turn over while watching videos on advanced subnetting. Luckily I guess there were all kinds of parties going around base so work was DEAD silent the entire night.

One thing funny did happen today, lol. One of the regular dudes that comes by to bug us walked in, and I made a crack about how his two choices were to either leave immediately or commit step 1 of my troubleshooting process (kill himself :P), then he actually came back with a pretty funny joke/comparo...not really insulting, but funny.

He said that I was, Dr. House of the G-6, lol...because I only talk to "customers" when absolutely no one else can figure out what a problem is, and when I do talk to customers I make fun of them the entire time, and I constantly poke fun of my "coworkers" when they make noob mistakes and ask me noob questions, and that reeses were my vicodin >.> He also made notice of the ghetto whiteboard I use to illustrate the beloved world of networking to the folks I work with (since most of them have zero IT experience and pictures go a long way, lol). Pretty observant dude...haha. Just shows that some folks hang out in our office way too much and obviously don't have enough work to do, lol. Fired, all of them! :P

I'd really like to know if we're moving units or not...though it's still sort of looking like everyone but me will be going, not that I'd complain since the new unit will be assuming command of every other unit on base except for the one we're currently at now. So I'd be in charge of the office, and only have to deal with our own tennant units, rather than all of the Army, Navy, and Air Force units...which cuts the workload down almost 90% It's all so exciting. I'm just sick of none of the Marine leadership not talking to each other to find out what the fuck is going on >.>

Oh well, time to enjoy my day off by sleeping through all of it. Boring as hell today.

So I was coerced by one of the chicks at work to go to the gym despite not really wanting to run...so I figured I'd just do all my weights, then just do a light jog for a few minutes to see how my knee felt.

When I actually started running I didn't feel any pain for about 5 minutes...but right after that, there it was, fucking hurting like the fire of a billion suns. But instead of stopping, I just kept running, trying to keep a majority of the weight off of it, then about 20 minutes in I decided to alternate between walking and running every 5 mins as to not stress it as much. And after a couple cycles of that, MIRACULOUSLY for whatever reason it completely STOPPED hurting and I was able to finish off 6 miles for the first time since before it started giving me problems. FUCK YEAH! I was pretty ecstatic.

Though, unfortunately, when I woke up today it was SO goddamn sore on that one spot that I had a hard time even making it to the bathroom. I keep saying it, but I still need to make a doctor visit here pretty soon, lol.




god I want some fucking Trulucks!

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! Last week I put gum in wiltingflower's hair (-12 points). Last Saturday I invaded Iraq, broke it, and couldn't glue it back together before Mom got home (-1012 points). Last Tuesday I stole raven_wings_'s purse (-30 points). In August I bought porn for akai_nekobujin (10 points). Last Wednesday I put money in scortia's expired parking meter (14 points). Overall, I've been naughty (-1030 points). For Christmas I deserve a moldy sandwich! Sincerely, macross40k

Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username:

Today I'm going to explain the intricacies of gun control for those that may be ill informed or really just don't pay attention to how it works in certain states (and is about to soon nationwide) and of course, my opinion on the matter.  On a lot of social and political issues I don't swing aaaaaaaall the way to the right, and there's some things I do agree with the democrats on (abortion being one of them), but when it comes to firearms, I'm about as right as it comes.  And I think anyone that owns a gun or ever has would agree with me...especially someone who's had their home broken into before, or been mugged on the street, or been in fear of their well-being living in a certain neighborhood.

   There's a lot of points I'd like to make, and I'll try to keep it as cohesive as possible.

( Cut for massive firearms rant )

Gun control as it stands (and is going to thanks to our uber-liberal new pres) is not only completely useless and stupid, but dangerous and hurtful to all law abiding gun owners.  But, left wing gun scare tactics used to sway those that know nothing about firearms continue to sweep the nation...woooooo, gotta love love the beginning of infringement on our 2nd amendment.

 But yeah...things here have been pretty normal lately.  There was a huge party today celebrating the Marine Corp's b-day and everyone was allowed 2 beers, which unfortunately didn't even give me the slightest hint of a buzz, lol.  This week has been BUSY as hell though since we've been doing a lot of tinkering with the network that you all probably wouldn't understand, but I'll explain anyway.  network IPs over both SIPR and NIPR were once only available through reservation only, but at some point (before I got there) were switched over to DHCP acquisition...but we've been having a lot of problems with people hooking up personal computers to the domain, so we're switching back to full reservation setup, which has been causing a few hiccups everywhere....as well as our network push for new local admin accounts and a new general group for all the administrators that's going out to all computers with moderate success, but people are pissed because now no one has any of the local administrator passwords (the intended effect XP)  kekeke.

  Oh yeah, and today I got woken up early to go to an awards ceremony and get a coin (giving personalized coins is a huge military tradition for those that don't know) from our Colonel for the work I (and a lot of others) did during the building transition.  It was kind of neat since about 15 Marine folks were honored and only 4 of us civilians were recognized. 

Hope everyone is doing well!  Talk to ya'll soon! <3






  

I shouldn't make lj entries right after I get off work, lol...I'm tired and everything I write tends to get rather rant-heavy. And I notice a few things I left out, though I didn't want it to become an epic-long goddamn huge entry that no one would read :P

But for all my political ranting I really am a huge fucking hypocrite. I'm staunchly anti-war-for-profit and very against the privatization of war. But here I am, a government contractor paid many times more than the soldiers who do the real work out here. But the sad fact of the matter is that this is something that isn't ever going to go away, because no matter what it will always cost the government less to send one of us than to send a soldier...so someday, and mark my words, the only people wearing the military uniform are going to be the ones who fight the actual wars. It's s shitty system letting private companies make profit on war, but it's the way it works, with the added bonus of saving taxpayer dollars...so how could the government possibly want to put a stop to that?????

mrrr, and time to get ready for work. this'll be my last semi-politcal related lj entry since everything just seems to want to stir up arguments rather than debate.  I greatly enjoy debate, just not when it's based on, "well, I think this would work..." or, "well, the current administration sucks so i'm going to vote for the complete opposite."

 Wish I could run for office someday without stuff like this finding it's way into the general public XP

Last night my internet decided to die RIGHT as a logged on AIM ~_~

And it stayed dead all the way through my day off, haha...what fucking timing >P The only day in the week I can stay up late enough to talk to everyone back home; mehs. And now it's doing it again! Fuck you internets!!!!!!!!!!

So as I was walking out of my room this morning to go to work, our site manager flagged me down to tell me that the company was about to have 7 Net Admin slots drop pretty soon and was aware that my intention was to get that job from the getgo...but I'm not certified yet so he told me to step up my study habits and get on our Senior Net Ad's team they have going during the weekends doing labs for the CCNA test ASAP and I could probably snag that job. Sure makes a difference when the higher leadership all know who I am and my job history >P That job would be pretty awesome, being that it of course, pays $1,000 more a PAYCHECK than my current job, and involves a job environment I'm a LOT more familiar with ^^ Making more money means less time spent here in Iraq, and with the taxes I'm dreading paying, every bit helps, lol.

So today I thought myself ready enough to put myself back on my old marathon training regiment at last....and after that I came back to the room and discovered I had a whole right foot of bleeding blisters, but nothing on the left. Guess I'm putting too much of my weight soley on the right foot...but either way, those blisters fucking hurt like 'god almighty kill me.'

And in other exciting news, my humidor (for cigars) came in yesterday...so I had it charging (leaving a cup of humidifying solution in the case for the wood to absorb the moisture) for most of the day, then I calibrated the hygrometer, set the humidifier and now I'm good to go, wooooo, haha.


Also, for once I'm not going to throw a political statement in my ljs, lol. Too tired and not caring so much for this election the closer it comes. I'll still watch the debates with a very close eye, but I don't expect anything to really WOW me there.

I forgot if I've done this one, but EVERYONE'S totally doing it so I'd better not be the only kid on the block to not do it...:P

Pretend I'm asking you these questions. Post the answers in a reply.

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any tattoos and/or piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a pessimistic or optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

So this has made it's round around work today, lol...and naturally the first person that got it lolled, forwarded it to me and said I'd love it. Even though when I saw what it was, I was disappointed that it was this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html

which has already made it's way into my inbox 3 times and my lj once XD I just wanted to talk about that for a little bit now...if it wasn't so late this would probably turn into another sprawling epic, but Josh is tired and needs to have sleep so I don't fall asleep with some colonel on the phone :P

On surface value, yes, it's fairly cut and dry...typical media friendly take from the rich and redistribute to the poor. It'll certainly draw in a lot of voters, because YES, over 90% of the voters, mostly middle class are receiving tax cuts...it's fantastic! Shift the tax burden to those families making the hundreds of thousands and give the struggling middle/lower class a break.

But to really understand what's going on BEHIND the graph, you really need to of course, have some idea of how economics are run, as well as some of the easiest little corporate business practices that will exempt them from this, that Obama won't be able to do anything about. And like has always happened in our history, when the revenue quotas are not met....who's going to be paying those taxes? Here's a really simple tax evasion scheme that a lot of higher level executives can use. Say I'm an exec and I make $3 million a year, I'm one of the fucking top 0.1% of the nation and life is fantastic. Now this Obama tax plan comes into play and is going to tax me an extra 10%...of course I wouldn't want to lose that much money, so I have my state my salary just under the curve and label everything else as an obtainable perk or something similar.

And still the misunderstanding of rich vs. wealth. All the people with appreciating assets out there don't make a standing salary...and we can't tax them. There's a little thing called wealth redistribution that could be put into play, but of course, that's the kind of thing that topples empires so probably not in our best interests.

Point being, there have been several of these tax the rich, give to the poor scenarios thrown about, but they all end up the same...the "rich", while they still pay 95% of our taxes don't make the quotas and the rest of the tax paying public has to pick up the slack. Oh, and Obama wants to double the capital gains taxes, which is the earnings you make on the stock market.

So with this dude's corporation tax, "rich" tax, and capital gains taxes...I'm wondering how he thinks this is going to bring new jobs to america o_O I see people jumping ship and going overseas in even greater numbers. Fuck that shit.

I'll go more in depth with McCain's side of it tomorrow...but for now, tireds.

I MISS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!! <3333333

btw, we should all vote and mark "Stephen Colbert" on the ballot