April 13th, 2003
It's April now, and obviously I haven't written in a while. I'm really not doing justice to this page, but really, I only have about 3
people now that look at it regularly. I was going to keep this site up maybe when I'm gone to training, let it ride for the 3 months
that it'll take to train me, and go from there, but because nobody really checks it out, it's not really worth the work. Both of these sites
will come down around July sometime. There really isn't a point to put in the work when nobody comes here anymore. I get a few hits every week
from people who want to check out my Nova, and then my physiological test page comes up a lot in search results, but that's really it. Obviously,
you see that it's pretty pointless to continue with it. So that's the plan for my sites. If you want to keep in contact with me, then you'll have
to email me or mail me, but that's the end of my websites for now. Probably never put something like this page up again. So anyway, I'll write a
bit with what's going on in my life.
So I joined the Army, which most of you know by now. I'm a Fourteen Tango (14T) which is a PATRIOT Launching Station Enhanced Operator/Maintainer
for those not familiar with Army lingo. Which I'm not either. Basically, I set up the Patriot missiles with a team of guys (no ladies for this job).
I drive big huge trucks, operate a 10-ton crane, and shoot down missiles that other countries shoot. It's rather technical, as I'll learn a lot
about electronics, mechanics, and computer stuff a little. When I joined the Army, I was really wanting to do something with computers, you know, get
some training with computer stuff, so that I don't have to get a degree, and I can do what I want when I'm done. However, when I was driving up to
Phoenix, I was thinking about my life a little. I'm young still, and I have the rest of my life to sit behind a desk in an office writing lines
of code, or whatever. So I wanted to get out in the field a little more. Run around, get in good shape, mix it up a bit. While I'm doing all that
I can take classes in the off time, paid for by the Army. I think it's a better route for me. Anyhow, I'll tell you a little bit about how the day
went at MEPS.
I had to meet my recruiter at 4am Monday morning, because we needed to be in Phoenix by 6am. MEPS is a whole day process, so you have to be there
early. So I meet him at 4, and we drive to Phoenix. I didn't sleep the night before because I was quite nervous, about what was going to happen
to me at MEPS, and about making sure that I can get up early enough. So by the time I got to Phoenix I was quite tired. Immediately upon entering
I saw I was there with about 75 other people. From the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army. We all do it together. It's actually run by the
Department of Defense, not by the individual branches. So I got a name tag, which had my name, what I was doing there that day (taking the ASVAB and
getting a physical) and what branch I was applying to be in. Let me stress that the military is very particular about who they let in and who
they disqualify. It's not like you just sign up, you have to be pretty much a perfect person. Perfect Health, good background record, all that
stuff. So I was nervous about everything. Anyhow, this is a pretty large building in downtown Phoenix, which they only use for military processing.
They do it 6 days a week, year round. So the people there see a lot of recruits. My recruiter told me before I left that "it's the recruiter's job
to get you into the Army, and it's the MEPS people's job to get you disqualified". Which isn't entirely true, but at MEPS if you have even the
smallest problem that comes up, your day is done. So I was nervous.
Anyhow, we go up to the 6th floor, all the other 75 guys, and 25 of them leave right away because they were getting shipped out to basic that
day. So I was with 50 other people who had the same goals as I did. So then we wait. We waited for about 45 minutes, just sitting in a big
flourencently lit room, nobody knowing each other, bored as hell, and I was damned tired. Then this Marine comes out and starts yelling out stuff
about what we had to do that day. It was pretty intimidating right away, and that took about 20 minutes. Then we had to get papers from our branch
and move to another place. I was second in line, so it was good, went fast for me. I got to the front desk, and they told me I was missing a
sheet. So I had to wait in the back of the line, then go to another line, and wait in the back of that. It went from waiting in line for about
5 minutes to waiting 45 minutes. That sucked. Then I was good, went downstairs to another room, where the guy who ran the place came out
and talked to us for about a half hour. He was quite cool, which was surprising considering the horror stories I've heard about MEPS. Then a
Army medic came and told us about how our day was going to go, then a head doctor had to guide us through a bunch of forms, and he was
cool as hell too. So that was nice, surprising that everyone seemed to be in a good mood. So that whole ordeal took about 2 hours, boring
boring boring. Man, I was thinking that this was going to be about the longest day of my life at that point.
Next was the ASVAB. I did well on the practice test, but I still bought a book to help me along, work on the things that I wasn't good at.
The ASVAB is a test that measures how good you are at just about everything mentally. There is a math, science, reading, vocab, mechanics, spatial
thinking, and some other stuff on the test, 10 sections in total. Well, we sit down to the test, and my monitor is fuzzy, which sucks ass.
So I start the test, and it was damned harder than I thought it was going to be. I was so pissed taking it. Pissed that my book wasn't harder,
that the practice test wasn't harder. I was mad. So I expect my score to be all shitty, but I don't find out until the end of the day. The
test was quite a bit different than what the book and the internet told me it would be as well. Anyway, I still was the second one done. I
have always taken tests fast. The math stuff I usually do backwards, putting the answers into the equations, as opposed to working them all
out, but I still was the second one done. I thought I was moving pretty slow too, but finishing so fast didn't help my confidence with the
test results that much either.
The ASVAB out of the way, it was time to start the most "thorough physical" of my life. Which it was. I got some blood taken right
away, then I met my doctor. The guy that would be administering the physical on me. I was definitely nervous about this. He's be
checking out me completely, and the one that would tell me if I'm healthy, of if I have problems. I haven't had a physical since high
school, and I've had a large amount of things come up that could have prevented me from joining the military. So i figured I'd try to chat
with him a bit. Help him remember that we are people that they do tests on. You know, it's safe to assume the doctors get pretty distant from
parts of their work because they do so many physicals in a day. So I starting talking about some lame story how I always shiver after I give
blood because I used to donate so much plasma when I was in college. You know, they put saline in you that is room temperate (70 degrees) and your
body is 98, so it makes your whole body cold. This guy was pretty old, but starting talking about how he used to donate blood in college as
well, and always spent the money on poker games. So we got along ok. He did some basic stuff, and I checked out ok. Then he told me I was
flat footed, so I thought I was screwed. I told him that I don't have any pain in my feet when I walk or run (lie) so he said I was ok then.
Then he did the whole "turn the head and cough" thing, the he said "turn around, bend over and pull your cheeks apart with your hands. He had
to check for hemorrhoids, which you can get disqualified for. I've never had my ass checked out by anyone before, so this was a little awkward,
but I don't have any of those, so I was ok. Then I got to go into a big room to perform some exercises, but I had to wait for 4-5 other guys.
That took about an hour. Sitting in the room for the longest time, waiting for people to get done. I was alone for at least a half hour, then it
was better when a few other people came in, all of us in the boxers only, chatting about pointless stuff. I of course wanted to talk about my
asshole getting checked out by the doctor. After a little over an hour, we had enough guys. So another doctor besides mine came in to
watch us do this stuff. This doctor was cool as hell. He was this old black guy that was hilarious. He kept calling me scooby because I was
wearing some scooby-doo boxers that Jamie gave me for Valentine's Day a few years ago. But we'd have to do stuff like raise our leg, then
lower it as fast as we could. The black doctor would always make us hold it for a while, then to lower it, he'd say "Kill", in his most southern
accent possible. That was pretty fun though, and I passed that ok.
Now it was height and weight time. I knew I was over the weight limit. I have weighed 203 since I was a senior in high school. So what happens
when you are over the weight limit (i had to weight 197), is get a body fat check. I did this extensive body fat check on me when I was in
college for a class, so I knew I was ok. My head carried too much weight I think. Anyhow, they checked me out, and my fat was way higher than
I thought it would be. So that sucked. I didn't think I had that much fat on me, but they did the test different than I did it, so it's probably
off, and I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I still passed, which is all that really matters to me.
Now some hearing test. I hate hearing tests, You have to concentrate so hard, and I got a headache on that test, which took about a half hour
in this room with a few other guys at the same time. I passed that, and then vision, which of course, I have perfect vision. 20/20 all the way
around and then back again. I love having good vision. I couldn't begin to tell you how great my vision is. I think one of my distant relatives
is a hawk. So the only thing left that I had to pass was the blood pressure.
I hate blood pressure checks. Almost everytime they've checked my BP they said I was high, and if you are high, you can't get into the Army.
I was watching other guys do the tests, and saw a bunch of them had to stop and "relax", making me even more nervous. So I sat down, the lady
put the arm band on, and I laid back, completely relaxed my body. I remembered what it was like when I got hypnotized, and then I thought about
mowing lawn. Man was I relaxed. The lady checked me out, and I was 128/74, which is just about perfect blood pressure. I was pumped up about
that. Then I had to meet with a senior doctor. The guy who checks out everything and signs off on me, saying I'm good enough to go in. He looked
at it for about 10 seconds, told me I was in perfect health, and gave me a profile of 111111, which is as perfect as you can be. So physically,
I was able to do anything in the Armed Services. I was really happy about that. It's good to know that I'm in perfect health after not
seeing a doctor for so long. Granted, they didn't check for Tumors or anything like that, but it was pretty expansive. Back up to
floor six to negotiate a job.
I met with the senior Army guy, and he looked over my physical papers, and said that I was perfect, and gave me a guy to talk to about a job.
I met him, he gave me a form, asked me what I wanted to do. I told him Computers or Communications. So he told me to come back in a few minutes.
I got my picture taken for my ID, and that was a whole strange ordeal that left the guy who took my pic and myself pretty much rolling on the
ground with laughter, but I'm too lazy to type that all up. So I met with the guy, and he told me that I could have any job in the two fields that
i wanted to. I asked him what my ASVAB score was, and he said an 80, then I looked at how it broke down in skill levels, and I was over 120 in
all of them. He said I was the highest score of the day. Which amazed me. I did about 20% better than I had on any practice test even, and I
was really even with all my skills. So nothing was holding me back for what job I wanted. Perfect health and the highest ASVAB score of the day.
For all you bastards who think I'm a moron, you can go to hell. I'm pretty damned smart, and I can do pretty well on tests. Remember, I was the
second one done with the test, and the highest score, so I can think pretty quickly too. Yes, be amazed, and bow down to me when you get a chance
too.
So the guy mentioned a few jobs, but I wasn't really listening. I told him I wanted to be a computer tech, and he said that was the first thing
he thought of for me, but it was closed. I told him that the night before I looked up the class schedule and saw there were two openings on a
website I spent about 2 days searching for, so he said he'd look it up. He brought up the same site I did, but it showed closed. Damn, two people
already got the job from somewhere else. Then he mentioned a few other jobs he thought I might like, and I wasn't really interested in them
either. So he said that I really should consider the first one he said. That my scores were best for that one, and that it's not very easy
to get into, because you need perfect health and you need to be smart. So I asked him to explain it some more, and it was looking pretty good to me.
Drive big trucks, fix big trucks, operate a lot of big equipment, use computers to diagnose and fix problems, and the sign on bonus was really
good. I work with a crew of guys, and we always travel together. We decide where we want to go, based on performance. So I took it, that's the
Patriot missile systems operator. It's like a whole combination of a bunch of other jobs. The training is longer than most too, and I get
a secret clearance, which is big time marketable in the civilian world. I'm quite excited and glad I got that job. It's dangerous, which is
always fun, but I don't necessarily have to kill anyone. I'd be more of a target than I would be an offensive weapon, and that suits me just fine.
If I have to choose taking a chance that a bomb will fall on me, or having to shoot people with a gun, I'll take the bomb. If I die that way, it
can't be that bad anyhow. Much better than dying in a plane crash anyhow.
So I got sworn in that day. I'm army now. Because I got a high score on my ASVAB, I was promoted right away, I'm a Private instead of nothing that
most people are. Plus my college credits will get me a promotion as well. So I'll be going into the army as an E-3, Private First Class. Nice.
I was telling my pal Mike Farmer, who went Air Force in the early 80's. He said we'll all get treated like shit in Basic, but once were done, I"ll
be telling guys to shine my boots. Funny.
I leave July 1st for basic in Oklahoma (Fort Sill), that's 9 weeks. Then I go to Texas (Fort Bliss) for my AIT, training for my job, and that is
12 weeks. I've been checking out all the stuff and I'm really excited. Of course, this will all blow up in my face if something in the secret
clearance check comes up, and I'm nervous as hell about that. But I'm actually in the Army Inactive Reserves now, no longer a civilian really,
and if something comes up on the check, I could go to jail. So I'm just sitting on the fence now.
Enough about that... I've been doing my best to keep pretty busy. I've been running almost everyday now for three weeks. It actually didn't take
me too long to get into shape. I don't really like to measure by miles yet, I like to keep track of how long I run. Lately I've been going around
15 minutes of straight running the whole time. I'm at a good pace too. I'm sure I'm running at least 2 miles at that. I'd hope I am. I'd like to
get up to three miles in 20 minutes. That'll be my ideal place, then I'm going to try some different stuff to make sure I stay in good shape. I've
been swimming a lot as well, and the old pushups and situps. Stretching a lot as well, keeping myself pretty flexible, but it helps to keep me
from being to sore to run the next day. Let me tell you, when I first started running I was horribly out of shape. It's funny to look back at where
I had to quit when I started, because now that it absolutely nothing. Tucson is really good for running too. They have this path that spans just
about the whole city, and it has all these places where you can stretch, do situps, pullups, whatever. Its really cool actually, stuff they
actually made, not just like boards, but actually equipment. You would really like it.
My mom moved this weekend. From her place at Oracle and River to this new place that is about a 5 minute walk from her boyfriend's
place. It's actually quite nice. Pretty big, cool layout, and expensively built. It's all old people though, so Jenna won't be able
to walk around and find "friends" to play with like she did at my mom's old place. She goes to a much better school. Her old school was discontinuing
Art, music, phy.ed, and some other classes that are extremely important for kids her age to do. It sucks really, hopefully her new school
is better funded so that won't happen. Keep pushing the tax cut though Bush, we really want to have stupid kids. Goddamned moron our president.
Yeah, he's doing a find job making more money for himself with this war, but he can't put any money into the schools. We want to have dumb kids,
so that people who are old and have a lot of money can waste it more and then die, leaving the kids that didn't get adequate schooling with
any sense to know what to do with the world. Glad somebody is making money off of this war (see also our Vice President). What a hoax,
when you get intelligent and read books as opposed to listening to what they say on the news and forming your opinions based on one source, you
realize that the majority of these wars have made loads and loads of money for the politicians behind them. Seriously, look it up. I'd like to
actually make a source on stuff like that, so people can see how corrupt G.W. is.
I got into some heated arguments with people on some news groups about our president the other day. I was getting emails and messages like crazy,
from people ripping on me for my stance. It was such lame stuff though, the people who generally support the war. Some people who are ignorant
and think all we care about is disarming Iraq (and where are these weapons of mass destruction?) or that we are liberating Iraq. Yeah,
that's the only reason, right Bush?
I can't believe how important it is for people and other politicians to know that G.W. ran three separate businesses into bankruptcy. Why would you
push through a tax cut written by a president who has a proven track record of financial failure. People rip on Clinton for being a
"draft dodger". Is it any better that George W. had his father get him into the National Guard when there was a waiting list of over 500,000
people before him, ensuring that G.W. wouldn't go to Vietnam. Is that better. It's a joke, and I curse those that think us destroying Iraq is
only because we are freeing their people. It's a cover for the President and his associates to make more money, and if you can't realize this,
you have to realize how ignorant and close minded you really are. Disgusting really.
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April 21st, 2003
Finally back online after a one week hiatus. Man did that suck, not being online for one week. Yeah, it was about the most terrible
experience of my life, besides getting a shot of novacaine into the eyelid.
I'm getting old now, I mean, not really old, and most people would still say I'm young. However, I'm old to some people, and
to the people that think that, I'd like to pass on a bit of knowledge. Words of wisdom if you will. For the love of God, do not
download "super collapse II" from shockwave.com. It'll ruin your life. It's absolutely the stupidest little video game, actually, it's
video game perfection, forget I said that. Seriously, don't download it. As soon as you download it your personal hygiene will go to
hell, you'll lose friends, want to be locked in a room all day just so you can play it. It's like this tetris type thing that I just can't
stop playing. I have unbelievable high scores, probably some of the best in the world. It's disgusting really.
As you can tell this site is pretty graphics heavy. That's because it's an HTML version of a flash site I'm making. Sometime tonight I'm
going to finish my new flash intro. It's absolutely amazing. Get ready to put your jaw on the ground, because that's where it'll be. Actually,
I might be embellishing just a tad, but it is pretty cool. Quite simple, and very tasteful. I made it in a 3d rendering program, so it's
something that you really haven't seen on the web with so much raster graphics. This will be a vector graphic flash movie that will
soon introduce you to my site. Jenna is sort of locked to watching it. It's about 100 frames long, so it's not even that lengthy, but it's
still kind of cool to see. You should see it by tomorrow.
So easter came yesterday. Of course, my mom cooked another terrific meal. It was Jenna, my ma, her boyfriend, and her boyfriends mom. Just the
five of us. The turkey that she made was the second best turkey I've eaten, and the stuffing was the best ever. That's saying a lot, considering
how good the best turkey I've ever eaten was. I made it when I worked at Boston Market, and I gave away samples to people that came in, of course,
all of them ended up eating the turkey I made. I turned the burners on the oven way down, and cooked it for twice as long as normal. The
pieces literally just melted in your mouth. You didn't even have to chew, it just evaporated into eating perfection once it touched your
tongue. Most people actually fell on the floor and passed out after tasting it. It was quite embarrassing, and I had to stop giving away free
samples after a while.
Anyhow, the Easter Bunny actually even came for me. Jenna was quick to point out that her basket was more than 4 times the size of mine, so I
told her the story of how I shot the Easter Bunny with a slingshot and ever since then I've been getting real small baskets. Either way, it
still is nice having a little sister around, because that means that I still get Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I've actually been trying
to pull out some of my teeth so that the tooth fairy can bring me some cash under my pillow.
I've started working out again. When I was a junior in high school, my dog and myself used to run 6-8 miles a day, every day too. We loved it,
I'd always come home during the winter, put on the wind pants, and we'd go run. We would run the farthest distances too. He'd have troubles
whenever we'd turn a corner, and sometimes we tripped over each other. Eventually, whenever we got to an intersection he'd stop running and
watch me in case I was going to turn. He was a good dog. Didn't even mind that he was on a leash next to me, but hated being tied up at night,
and would just bark like crazy.
Anyhow, when I was a senior in high school I lifted weights 4 times a week, every week. So it was pretty intense. I was damned strong though.
I sort of made up my own program and I had another guy that always lifted with me. When baseball came around in spring, we both made first
team all-conference. So I'd have to say that my program got pretty good results. But I've started working out again. I run about every
four-five days, then take a day off because that's just too much running. When I first started, I was so out of shape. It's absolutely
laughable how short of a distance I ran. I don't really measure by distance though, because that's pretty hard to do. I measure time. I've
been running about a half hour straight now. That's pretty good, considering where I've come from. I need to start running faster though. My goal
by the end of the week is to run the same distance that I ran in a half hour but only in 25 minutes. That should be good then. Then I'd just
try to continue to get my time lower and lower. I'd like to be able to run 3 miles in 20 minutes or so. That'll be pretty fast for me. Obviously,
i'm trying to get in really good shape for this Army thing that I'm doing.
Finally I'm done with Farmers Mortgage Group's website and Ace Funding Group's website. Not that it really took me that long, but I kept
having to wait to get approval from the main boss, and he's sort of absent minded. It's all cool now. I have one more to finish up, then I might
have one more site after that to finish before I go off to basic. Too much work, but it's cool.
That's it for now. I promise that I'll keep writing at least twice a week from here on out. I'm sort of in the mood for doing websites again.
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April 29th, 2003
Once again, sorry for not writing in the longest time. However, I have a pretty good excuse.
So I'm finally 100% done with www.farmersmortgagegroup.com. So I brought over the site on a CD to Mike's place, along with two
programs that I have, WS_FTP pro and X-Setup. WS_FTP is for transferring files from my computer over to my webhost, I have to upload
them onto my server that I pay for before you can see them. So the page could be completely different on my computer than what you see
online, but since I didn't upload it, the old one still rests there. The other program is for tweaking Windows to your own personal liking.
It's very cool, and I definitely recommend downloading it to see what you can do yourself. It's relatively easy to use, just be sure you don't
mess up your computer like I did the first time I used it.
Anyway, I bring this CD over to his place, and go ahead and start to install the program on his computer. That's when his anti-virus kicks
in and tells me the program is infected with a virus. Shit, so I come home, look up the virus name online, and then do a scan of my own computer.
I don't use anti-virus because it takes up so much system resources, so that's why I never found it. I usually have a checklist that I run
through when I get strange things happening on my computer. Since I've been doing so much file transferring recently, I sort of ignored the
warning signs that normally I would have stopped using my comp and scanned it. Anyhow, turns out about 680 files of my 100000 files on my
computer are infected. Shit, that's a big infection. The virus only attaches itself to .exe files, so the majority of my programs were
screwed up. However, I was still able to use my computer 100 percent. So I clean my computer, and some of the files won't get clean. Then
I got McAfee to clean the rest. However, after I did that, most of my programs on my computer were rendered useless. So I go ahead and get
ready to re-install all my programs. However, ikernel.exe, which is the program that installshield uses to install and uninstall programs on a
computer, is way messed up. So I have to find a new ikernel.exe to overwrite my existing one. Try to find this file online, it's nearly impossible.
So I will just try to fix it from my windows XP disk. Which is no where to be found. I tear apart nearly everything that I brought to Tucson,
and I can't find it. So I thought I left it in WI, and I'm pissed. I remember holding the disk in my hand, telling myself to make sure I brought
the CD, but I don't remember where I put it. I'm just pissed.
Finally, after two days of searching online, I find a fix, I download it, and I'm good to go. Ikernel.exe works, and I can fix my programs.
However, re-installing them requires that many of them need to be re-registered before I can use them. Remember, I have about 5K worth of programs
on my computer, so in order to use them I need to provide proof that I owe them. So the problem now, is that my programs won't recognize my
internet connection anymore. I've tried deleting all of my TCP/IP connections and my winstock program, then resetting them, that didn't work. i've tried
to delete all of my host files on my computer, and that didn't work. So I'm stuck. So right now I can only use the files associated with WinXP,
IE, Outlook, etc, and I've fixed my FTP program and two of my HTML editors. Paint Shop Pro works, but I mainly use Photoshop now for graphic design,
so that doesn't do me a whole lot of good. I'm at a point where I can work on sites again, but not as how I used to. That's why i'm in a sour mood
lately, and why I haven't written. Good enough for you?
Don't worry about me sending you the virus, or anything like that. It only attaches itself to programs, and I rarely if ever send programs
via email. I'm sure I infected some people with peer-to-peer sharing, but they deserve it anyhow. So don't worry about that, and you can't
get the virus reading my website. It doesn't run it's own scripts, and won't attach to html files or images. If I have a program available for
download on my site, you might get it that way, but I don't. Nothing to worry about.
On lighter notes... I got my haircut. It's pretty short now, probably the shortest it's been in a few years. I like it though, makes me feel like
I can run farther or faster. However that works. Maybe my head is just lighter. I don't know. Anyway I can shave some pounds off my head is good
for me.
I've been reading a lot about basic training and AIT. It's pretty exciting. I was looking through my Army contract the other night, and here some
interesting dates. I leave July 1st to go to basic, but it doesn't start until July 7. I finish basic around Sept 2nd, assuming I don't get
recycled or anything. But I'm in good shape now, plenty good enough to survive the start of basic, and I'll get in shape during training to survive
the rest of it. I'm tough mentally, I've gone though similar experiences in football when I was in school. I've had a coach that was
basically like a drill instructor, and I'm sure it can't be much harder than that was. I can look at BCT objectively, so I'm not worried about the
mental part of the whole thing. So anyhow, that's a long time to be in basic. I didn't really realize it until I looked up the exact dates of how
long I'll be there. However, it doesn't finish there.
After I'm done with basic, I go to El Paso TX for my AIT. Sept 15th I ship for that, and that lasts until Dec 15th. Can you believe that? That's
a long time to be in training. After July 1st the rest of the year basically I will be learning how to be a soldier. Half of a year I'll be in training.
Wow, that hit me pretty hard when I first thought about it. I mean, I'm sure it'll go fast, and some parts could be fun, but it's hard to imagine
going into that sort of lifestyle for so long. I just want to get out there and do it. I don't like sitting in training all the time. I'll put
my four years in though, try to get a degree while I'm doing it, and see if I can continue with it, which is a great deal, or if I want to try to
make a go in the civilian world again.
I'm sort of tired of typing again. More later perhaps. When I don't write every day, I always skip stuff I want to write, and only write about the
very biggest stuff going on in my life. I think the little stuff is more interesting though. Signing off...
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April 29th, 2003
Did you know that this month marks the one year anniversary of this site. Not dougmalcore.com, but of the whole site itself. I was
disappointed when I was looking through my archives to see that I forget to write on the first day I made an entry. I was thinking how
far this site came from those days long ago. Howe different I was when I started. How most of my entries centered around Jamie, and
now there isn't anything nearly as interesting or as fun for me to write about. I really can't write about Jamie anymore because I never talk to
her, and that is makes me feel pretty bad that I don't know her anymore. I'd like to keep the depressing things that i regret out of my
life if that's possible. I'll stop there before I say to much and get myself in trouble.
Goddamned computers. Seriously, this problem I'm having only gets worse, just pissed me off to no end. Actually emailing Microsoft
to ask them how to fix. I've tried too many things, the advice they are giving me is bullshit though. Seriously, Microsoft has
the shittiest tech support. Maybe because they are just massive, or they assume that most people emailing them don't have
any idea how to fix stuff at all. I'm sure most of the work they do is just cake, so I being pretty stern when I email them.
Telling them exactly my problem, exactly what I've tried to do to fix, and exactly the result that I need to have. Can't be
that hard people. Turn it over to your supervisor if you can't goddamned help me. Christ.
Ok, enough of that. You know I've been running a lot lately. I usually run for at least a half hour, usually longer. That's
pretty cool to think about though, that I don't stop running one bit for over a half hour. One time I ran 50 minutes even. Jesus thats
a long time. I'm in pretty good shape breathing wise. You know, I never really feel out of breath, but my legs need to get
stronger. After about 3.5 miles or so they are pretty jelly. Sort of sucks. Then I do pushups and situps. Pushups are pretty tough,
but I'm getting a lot stronger everytime I do them. I only do pushups every other day. When I do them, I do 15 reps, and do them in sets
until I can't push myself up anymore. Then I wait a little longer for the next set, and then I try to get out a few more. Seriously, the
day after I can't even push myself out of bed. My arms won't even move, when I drink a glass of water right now it's nearly impossible to
lift it. That's the sort of shape I want to be in. My goal is to be able to do 100 pushups no problem, in one set, by the time I leave. I have
to really concentrate on my form too, because the Drill Sergeants will be tough on that. So even when I can barely push myself up, I'm trying
to make sure my back is perfectly flat and that I go down far enough. I'm not very good at pushing myself to work harder when I'm alone though.
It's hard to pace myself running and all that stuff. I still haven't been to get a membership to start lifting weights. Actually, I'm
sort of contemplating whether or not I should go back to my dad's and work on the farm until the end of June, then fly to Tucson, the go
to Phoenix, then fly to Oklahoma. Wait a minute, that might just be way way too much flying. Christ do I hate flying.
Speaking of which, there is this large Air Force base here in Tucson. It's really cool actually. They have an aircraft "graveyard" that is
sweet as hell to drive past. There will be like 50 engines in one pile, maybe 100 landing gears in another. Then there are all these planes
that aren't currently in use. So the glass is all protected and they are all lined up perfectly. It's a cool site to see. That, and they
have this incredibly cool Airplane museum that I took Jenna to go see one time. We had a good time, she was complaining about how cold it
was though. And she was telling me she didn't need a jacket. She's just lazy, doesn't like walking around. She was fine when we went to
the space building, but when we were looking at old war planes and stuff, she didn't like that. But I was a big fan. I really like
airplanes, a lot, I love looking at them, I love the history of them, but I hate not having control when I'm in the air. Like I hate
riding a bus, because I'd rather be driving. I hate being a passenger because they aren't many people that I feel exactly safe with when
I'm not behind the wheel. Probably because my mom is such a terrible driver.
Anyhow, lately there has been a lot of planes flying around in the air. You should see these things move. Sometimes they are in formation,
and other times it might just be one or two. I esp like the F16's. Those are cool. You should see them take off. Phsweeew! I love it.
But I was running the other night. I usually run at night because it's more relaxing, I seem to perform better, and they aren't as many cars
around. I heard this strange squealing noise coming from the air, and I looked up and saw the lights of some plane, and this thing was moving,
I don't think I've ever seen anything going that fast in my life. I looked up and saw it, and I'm at the north end of the city, and within
a few seconds it was out of sight in the southeastern part of the city. You should have seen it. I nearly fell on the floor. I was
pretty cool anyway, for me at least. You'll have to pardon my enthusiasm with a few things.
So when I was high school, a senior, I'm at football practice. On like the third day my knee starts hurting something fierce. So we
are doing this conditioning thing, and I don't want to be a candyass quitting running, so I try to have a go at it. I can barely walk for
a while. My knee just would not bend. So the coach kicks me out of conditioning, and a few hours later I went to see the acupuncturist.
That guy performed miracles on my knee. I was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. No pain really, at least not anything that
lasted for more than a few milliseconds. Sometimes the massive needles he had sticking out of my knee got pretty sore. I mean, those
bastards were long and thick as hell. But then he'd start poking around with this tiny little needle. Poking my foot, my wrist, behind my
ear. I'm like, "buddy, my knee hurts, not my wrist", and he said that the entire body was composed of pressure points, and that spots
on your wrist, pressure in your wrist can be affected your knee. So he's poking all these spots, waiting for something to happen. So he's
behind my ear know, and I'm thinking what a moron this guy is, when I have this ultra intense pain shoot through my body. If you've ever been
shocked by an electric fence, imagine the pain about double that, and probably only a quarter of the time. It's like nothing I've ever felt
before. So I'm pissed at this doctor know, when all of sudden, I feel better than I've just about ever felt. My knee was 100% ok. Just
like that. Stick some needles in me and my knee bends. I saw him maybe 5-6 more times. It was expensive as hell to go there, and the
insurance wouldn't bill directly for that, so it had to come out of my ma's or my pocket every time, then we have to wait about two months
to get reimbursed by the insurance company. I wore a knee brace the remainder of the season, then I was catcher all season for baseball.
At the end of the summer right before I went to college I had knee surgery, and then at Halloween I had surgery on the other. Since then, I've
had zero (0) problems with my knee.
Anyhow, since I've started running, I've been good. No knee pain at all, so I didn't even think about. Not that I've thought about
it at all since I was a freshman after my surgery. I ran really really far on Monday. And I was doing my one mile cool down walk, and
I'm feeling a burning sensation in my knee. Right above the kneecap. The pain is back now. It's not debilitating like when I was
in football, but it's always there now. Always bothering me. So I'm concerned about this for a number of reasons that I don't
really feel comfortable talking about on this page. I can't wear a knee brace in the army, but I can't explain why, for the same reason.
I'm just really concerned that this knee thing will haunt me through basic training, and I desperately need it to be healthy. i'm debating
performing a little acupuncture on myself. Can't be all that hard, there is just a few spots I might have to get someone else to poke around
because I won't be able to reach them. Should be interesting if I can do it. I'll go to Barnes and Noble sometime to read a little book
on it and see if I can do it.
Someone on this site is using centurytel as their ISP. I assume they are in denmark, or the dialup they use is in denmark. Normally, I
don't really worry about my stats for my site too much. I usually look up what people type into search engines to get to my site, I'll check
which pages most people go to, what people are searching for on my site. (that's mostly George Bush and 1964 Nova), I look for what
sites are linking to mine, and I look at the direction that most visitors take on their tour through my site. Anyhow, this centurytel thing
has been bothering me lately. To me, I'm forced to assume that someone using centurytel is coming here, every single day, and usually looks
around at the same things for a while. Even when I haven't updated stuff in a month, the centurytel thing was still here. Now, I know
that it isn't a search engine, because, well, I just know it's not a search engine. So it has to be some person who looks at my site
every day. While this is flattering, I'm still completely bothered. Most of the people that I know, I know what domain they are looking
at my site from. Nobody comes to my site every day. The most a person comes is maybe every third day. But this centurytel is here
almost every day. I don't mean to call anyone out, or embarrass anyone. I'm just completely curious to find out if someone is really coming
to my site close to every day. If you could, centurytel person, please email me and talk to me. I won't be harsh or talk about it
on the site, I would just like to know, so I can stop tossing and turning when I try to fall asleep (if I fall asleep). Anyhow, drop me
an email centurytel person and reveal your identity. If you don't know that you are using centurytel, or whatever, here's how you can
figure out if I'm talking about you. If you come to my site 5 or more times per week, email me. Nobody really talks to me about my site
anymore anyhow, so it'd be nice.
Actually, my good friend Alex emailed me after Kelly told him I was going to the Army, based on information on this site. So that's good.
My mom's boyfriend had good laughs about this site, so that's cool, and I have a few guestbook entries. This site is not nearly as successful
as I would like it to be. I make it quite easy for people to contact me, and I don't get half of the comments that I got on my old
site at geocities. I guess I've lost touch with most of my pals. I would just like a few more comments about the site, maybe your thoughts
about my going into the military. (no comments whatsoever). I should put a poll up, so at least it's easy. Anyhow, be anonymous, but be a
leader and write me about your thoughts on my life. If you come here more than once a week, and most of you do, then you really owe it
to me. No, I'm just kidding. I don't want to get down on my knees, but I will if I have to.
When I'm in basic training, I'm going to keep a journal. I'll try to write it every night. Then I'll send the letters to my kid
brother dan, and he'll post them to this site. We already worked out the details on this, so it's going to happen for sure. I'm not sure
if it's worth the effort if people aren't talking to me back. I hate to be the one doing all the work.
That's my guilt trip sort of thing. I hate writing about that, but it really bothers me that no one talks to me about my site. All the work
I've put into it. I know people are looking at it, and at least like reading it a little because I see some people coming on a regular
basis. That's not very cheerful though.
So I was walking to Blockbuster today. I rent at least 3 movies a week, most of the time I average 6 movies a week, but sometimes I slip
up because I don't want to pay the late fee that I inevitably receive on occasion. Anyhow, I'm walking there, because it's quite
close, and this lady is walking towards me. I'm on the wrong side of the street because I'm going up a hill and I don't want some
oncoming car to run me over because they don't see me, and I don't want to walk all the way over in the shoulder like I'm some candyass who
is scared of cars, so I walk on the wrong side up hills. So this lady is walking towards me right? She looks to me to be about 30-35, and
when she is about 20 feet away she tells me, "i love those pants you are wearing", so I say thanks, then she get's closer, "they are really
cute", and I say thanks again, then as she walks past me, she says, "it's nice to see a man with style". Ok! So I've got style, at least
a lady walking on the right side of the street told me. She was average attractiveness, but a little old. I told her that I appreciated her
comments, and we continued walking. That all just seemed interesting to me. and I'm not sure why. I figured I'd let you in on the story
regardless, because I promised I'd write more about the little messed up things that happen in any given day.
That's all for now, I think I'm getting a little sick. Running just hasn't been as good as it has in the past, and I'm not sleeping very well.
I usually try to get a good quality 6.5 hours a night, but lately I've been only about to sleep 4-5. At least the past three days. I
rarely, if ever, get sick like most people do. I can count the times I've had a cold on one hand (5), I had pneumonia once, and then
chicken pox. That's it for debilitating sicknesses for me. I'm sure if SARS came around to me I wouldn't get infected. One time my
ladyfriend had Mono, (the kissing disease), and she was pretty out of it. Of course, unless she was way sick it didn't really bother
our regular schedule of things high school relationships bring on. I however, did not get Mono, two of her closest friends got Mono,
I did not get Mono, and I can assure that her closest friends were not with her the way I was. I'm quite proud of that. I'm actually
sort of confident that I could beat AIDS. There was a point (shortly after I "beat" Mono) that I contemplated infected myself with AIDS
just to see if I could beat it.
I'll end with that. Hope all is well, and that you send an email pretty soon. I haven't really gotten any fun emails from pals in a
while, so I'm sort of lonely for the old WI times. Have a terrific day, and I'll talk to you soon.
don't forget centurytel person...doug@dougmalcore.com
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