June 2003

June 1st, 2003

June already. Exactly one month from today I'll be off in Oklahoma getting my ass kicked in basic training. Funny...

Big news today. Got my computer fixed up. I've installed Windows XP professional, the full version. So I don't have to wait for dan to send those disks anymore. My computer is back up and running, so I'm feeling really good about that.

Got to jet, more later.


June 3rd, 2003

Ok then, so I had promised that I'd write more... You see, I have this new ISP now. And they block port 25, which is the port for sending e-mail. I can receive e-mail no problem, but I can't send it unless I use their service for sending e-mail. Which I can't and won't do. I hate webmail. Anyhow, a lot of ISP's block that port because they don't want people to send spam emails through their servers. It's the first time I've had an ISP that has blocked that, and I've been with a hell of a lot of ISP's. I'm going to try some things to see if I can get around it, but I doubt it. The reason that I mention this is because I wrote up this nice long story for an old friend's enjoyment (or maybe my enjoyment of writing up stories), and I didn't feel like re telling the story all over again. However, it's been a few days, and I really don't have an audience. It really sucks not being able to send e-mail.

So Sunday my mom has this huge house warming party. Full of her and her boyfriend's friends. A guy volunteered to be the chef. He's been a professional chef in the past. So he bought everything necessary to cook for about 40-50 people, and came to my ma's place at about 930 to start. Super talented guy. He started making these penguins out of hard boiled eggs, carrots, pepperoni, and a black olive. Real fancy stuff. Then he started making the omelettes. He only made three of them, but they were massive. Let me tell you, probably the best olive ever. I told him that my grandma could cook for 40 people as fast as he could, but she couldn't make it taste half as good. Super cool watching this guy work too. He flipped the omlette in the pan, without flipping the pan. You should have seen it. Then he flipped the entire omlette like a flapjack. Just whipped it into the air out of the pan, and then caught it on the other side, in the pan. Absolutely amazing. He had cooked a bunch of other breakfast stuff for all of us too.

The party started off pretty boring. I had met most of the people on a couple occasions already. Most were regulars at the bar, but they were averaging about 40 years old. So it was a crowd I couldn't relate with a whole lot. Plus they all knew each other so well having been a circle of friends for years and years. It's an interesting group. I hadn't really planned on drinking, because of my workout schedule, however, it was pretty boring for me, so after the omlette I started pounding the Sam Adams beer. It's a terrific beer, so you really can't hold it against me. Obviously, things started getting a lot more fun after that. I met a bunch of old war vets. Super cool guys. We had some good times. Of course, the insisted on giving me tons and tons of tips. But it was pretty welcome.

There is a guy in the group that works for Raytheon down here. He has the best job ever. He's a software analyst. Basically he tells his supervisors how a certain product could be made better, after he's reviewed it. I told him that if I had that job, it would be the same thing as if I was a kid working in a toy store, reviewing toys. He loves it. He went home in the afternoon to get his tablet PC to show me. That thing was way cool. We played around on that for a while. We were going to transfer some files, but I had taken out some of my PCI cards out of my computer to make room for other stuff I had, so we didn't. Before he left, I told him my problem with my computer, and he said he'd just bring over a copy of a full install. So that was cool. That's how I got WinXP Professional. Working for Raytheon he get's multi-licensed software, so that made everything easier too. My computer is sweet as hell now. Funny, I had my computer better than it was before, in about an hour and a half of him being here. It's nice because my computer is so clean now.

I did lose some stuff. I had almost all of my important files over on my secondary hard drive, almost all of my programs, so reinstalling them was just a matter of time. However, I forgot to move over all my old mail, my fonts, and my "favorite" web sites. So that's a big hassle. Sort of sucks because I have a lot of good old e-mail that's of sentimental value. But I can tolerate parting with that. However, all these webpages that I've made, I've always kept emails that stored passwords, login information, and other sensitive stuff that's really hard to come by. So I'm completely lost with all of that. I can't even get into a lot of my own stuff now. Really really sucks ass. I also had about 300 fonts that I've downloaded and have become quite accustomed to having around. Yeah, those are all gone. Man... it only takes about 30 seconds to download and install a font, but that adds up when you are doing 300. Granted, some of those I don't even think I used once, but when you have to make shit tons of graphics like I do, you never know which one just might fit perfect. It's better than not having my computer though. I have some really cool stuff on here, and it's just a total feeling of comfort knowing where everything is, and how all of my programs work.

I might have one of the most organized computers too. It's damned clean. Once you figure out the system, you can fly. I have it set up so I rarely have to wait for anything. Programs that I use a lot, I have them set up to load high priority, so even with my slow processor, the program flies, because I allocate my memory well. Now that I did a clean install of the OS, I really saved a lot of space on my hard drive. You see, before my computer crashed, I only had about 600MB of free space on my 10 gig primary hard drive. All I had on it was programs too. Everything else was on the secondary. That's a lot of space taken up. Now I have an extra 2 gigs to spare. Enough about that though.

Wednesday morning I'm going to Carlsbad Caverns with my grandma, mom, and Jenna. It's about halfway through New Mexico, so it's a drive. About 5-6 hours I think. It's a different path through New Mexico than what I took to get down here, so I'll get to see some more of the US before I leave for the army. When I agreed to go along I though we were going to some caves closer to Tombstone, which is only about an hour and a half away. If I knew I was going to the middle of New Mexico, I probably wouldn't have agreed to go. It'll be cool though, we'll be gone until Saturday. Should be interesting.

I've been volunteered to go and help Linda and Tracy with some of there landscaping work around there house. Two days it'll take, and I"ll end up spending the night at their place. That's the pastor family of the church my mom works at. So I'll get to hang out with a fellow ordained minister for a while. He's got Parkinson's Disease, so he's pretty limited into what he can do. Just about the coolest guy too. He was a chaplain in the military for a long time. So he's got great stories. He has to be the coolest pastor I've ever met. When he tells a story you are just hanging on the edge of your seat too. He tells it so well. You should meet him. He's super cool. However, that doesn't mean I'm looking forward to that weekend of getting up at 5 am to cut down branches.

It's getting quite hot outside. Really hot, nearly unbearable. I never go outside during the day anymore. It's just too hot. It feels like the sun is about 20 feet away from you. Funny, I talk to some WI folk, and they are all wanting it to be 70 outside, and I'm wishing for the same thing. It's been consistently 100-105 for the past two weeks, and I'm sort of getting sick of it. I was outside the other day walking, and I was in such a hurry to get home, that I did something so stupid. I feel right into a cactus. Damned every plant here has to have thorns. It wasn't really my fault though, I was wearing sandals and didn't have a proper footing on the stone shortcut I was taking. Just so you know, it sucks to fall into a cactus, but it's much worst to get out of one. The only place to put my hands for a spot to get out, was right on the cactus. Getting out hurt worse than falling in, because you know it's going to hurt. Made me think of that guy who cut off his arm to free himself from the rock. My story wasn't quite that bad, but pretty close. I was actually debating whether or not I should just stay laying on my side in the cactus. Rather than stuff my hand into a bunch of thorns.

So that's all for now. It's only 11am Tucson time right now, and I had wanted to work on some of the other pages of my site so it's done when I leave for Oklahoma, but I'm just too tired, and I think it's nap time. Hope Tuesday is a good day. Happy birthday to Jamie on Saturday too, I wasn't able to make a card, or even send an e-mail because of my damned computer and the ISP hassles, but you should tell her to have a good birthday. She's 23 now. I have her birthday forever etched into my long term memory banks because I spent about a week last year making a card for her. I'm just about a total expert on May 31st with the research that I did. One week of learning a new program and writing about her birthday day. Time well spent, as it sort of gave me the experience necessary to make the intro that you see on this site now. Anyhow, that's long enough. I'll write some another day. Maybe not until I get back though. I'll try to upload a few pictures from the trip too, so you can see that not all of New Mexico is desert boringness. That'll all, have a good day.


June 6th, 2003

What a great goddamned week I had. As you probably know, I've been in New Mexico since Wednesday. I drove there with my mom, grandma, and kid sister. I wasn't expecting much, but I was definitely impressed with the outcome. We went to Carlsbad caverns in Southwest New Mexico. New Mexico is just about the boring-est place ever, but it has some of the most beautiful scenery in some places. It's such a unique state, and this was my second trip through. The first was when I drove with my mom down here, and this is the second.

I'm trying to decide how much I should write now. We just got back, and we had about a 2 hour delay, which resulted in my being covered in diesel fuel. It was such an odd ending. I'm way, way overtired right now, you wouldn't believe it. I'll write some now until I get too tired. I've taken a whole bunch of photo's too, and I'm going to dedicate a page to the trip. So many cool things happened the whole time, I'll get into it.

It all started calm enough. I took a nap at 6pm the night before we left. I woke up around 10, and stayed awake all night until we left at 6am to pick up my grandmother. I stayed awake until a little before El Paso, then I fell asleep for two hours, waking up after we had just left Texas and got into New Mexico. Our route was to go from Tucson, then into part of Southwestern New Mexico, south to El Paso, and through Texas a bit, then coming back up north into "white's city", which is the tiniest town (if it's even that). Talk about boring nothing land around those parts. Flat, desert, nothingness. You'd have to see it to believe it. White's City is a town that has a huge hotel, that is just shit (it's where we stayed), it has a few gift shops, a grocery store (that has almost nothing) and a gas station. Maybe 5 homes total, yeah, there is nothing there. On the way there we stopped to get a picture of Jenna and myself with the Guadeloupe Mts in the background. My mom turned on the hazards, then we couldn't get them off until we got to White's city. I didn't make any attempts, because of how my mom get's in those circumstances. We went to the gas station because my mom though borrowing a screwdriver to take out a screw would fix it, which it didn't. The attendant there finally did a little trick and turned it off. My suggestion was to just take out the fuse, we wouldn't have blinkers, but at least we would have those annoying lights off. But that was fixed. We got our room, which wasn't all that great. The hotel was supposedly cool. It had a water park that had two water slides and some other stuff for kids. A relatively nice pool, and a hot tub that I don't think was cleaned for the last 15 years. It was nasty. That night we had our first experience with Carlsbad Caverns. A background...

this is basically stuff I learned on the trip. I haven't researched it all yet, but I will for my official page. Anyhow, Carlsbad Caverns were once an ocean thing. Covered in water. There is oil and natural gas fields all over the place, and this created sulfuric acid, which combined with oxygen and water, carved massive holes into the earth. The water left, and left this big hole deep in the ground. Then water started dripping and made all sorts of Stalactites, Stalagmites, Draperies, Popcorn, and all sorts of other cave type things. This all took many many years. This cave system was first discovered by Native Americans, who never ventured into the caves because of ultimate fear. The "natural entrance" is about the most intimidating thing ever. Now it has a paved path, but years ago you would have needed a rope to get down there. The "white man" who discovered it was named Jim White. He was doing basic cowboy work when he saw what looked like a big smoke coming from the ground. He went to look, and saw that it was about 3 million bats coming out of this whole.

This was the first thing my family and I visited. Wednesday night we went at Dusk, and saw a short presentation. Followed by about 300,000 bats flying out of this whole in the ground. It was way cool. I didn't take a picture because it wouldn't have appeared right, but I got a postcard that will show it well. I've never seen so many bats in one place. It was seriously the strangest thing ever.

Jim White saw these bats over a hundred years ago, and decided to go into the cave. Making him the first person to go in. He had a small makeshift lantern out of kerosene and a piece of rope to go in. Where he exactly went the first time is unsure, but he probably went into the "bat cave" (as we call it today). He was walking on rock mostly, when all of sudden, he was walking on bat guano (bat shit). This was later mined out, and sent to California as fertilizer. A lot of money was made on this. The pictures of how much they mined out is amazing too. Like 8 feet down. It must have just reeked. This part of the cave is not part of the tour, but in the cave you can see where it is.

The cave is now completely lighted, with like 3000 lights, and a paved trail. Thursday we took a self guided tour down into the cave for the first time. We had a tape recorder that played a voice that told us more about the cave as we walked. I have a lot of pictures of this, and I'll show them later. We walked 1 mile down into the cavern, which put us 750 underground in a cave. Pretty strange to be 750 feet underground, let me tell you. It was absolutely huge too. Just this massive, massive cave. At that point, it was hard to imagine it without lights. Everything was set up by a theater lights guy, so it was real dramatic. there was huge rocks, and the coolest geological formations you'd ever see. Man, it was weird to be that far underground.

Once we got down to the bottom, we went into what is called the "big room". It's the biggest volume of space underground that has been discovered anywhere. This was another mile long self guided tour Jenna, my mom and me took. It was quite strenuous, and my grandma joined us later. Here you basically walk around the cavern, seeing how Jim White discovered things, how other stuff was discovered. There was this part that was 250 feet high. At the top of the "ceiling", was another cave. Obviously, we couldn't get up there, however, there was a rope. I learned through my recorder that some guys lifted a rope, with a lasso tied to it, with helium balloons. After a year of trying, they finally snagged something at the top suitable to support them, and "one very nervous explored" climbed the entire distance (250 feet) into the cave above. You wouldn't believe it even if you saw it. 250 feet on a regular rope. Straight up in a cave 750 feet underground. I will never know anyone with the balls to do that. It would make even the most crazy person shudder to see it. In the big room there was huge stalagmites, and all that other jazz. Really sweet as "drip pools", and a bottomless pit. It's all so well lit now, it really made me wonder what it would be like super dark. We spent a lot of time walking around down there, and there is way way to many unforgivable sites and experiences that I couldn't even begin to describe well enough. Seriously, you have to go there.

We got done with that, and met my grandma in the underground lunchroom. There is a restaurant 750 feet down. Bathrooms, a gift shop. What they did was blast down so they could build an elevator from the surface, right to the bottom there. That's how my grandma got down. (she went there with my mom in 1976). We ate down there, then took the elevator back to the top. The elevator absolutely sucked for me. First off, I hate elevators. I goddamned hate them. I would have rather walked all the way back up then take that damned elevator. I tolerated it initially, because I thought it was a regular elevator, which it was at first glance. However, there is windows in it. So when you are going up (or down) you see the rock wall outside of the elevator. I almost got sick right away. I hate goddamned elevators. I couldn't watch. So I kept my face down with my hands over my face, trying not to see the rock on the outside of the elevator. Jenna quickly noticed my doing this, and thought it would be funny to make fun of me the whole time. Every time we went up or down, she made sure everyone else in the elevator knew about my fears. This one lady, "daddy doesn't like elevators, does he?", I'm like, "no, brother doesn't like elevators". Jeez folks. If one more person confuses me for her father....

We got back at the top, and I figured it appropriate to "adopt a bat". Jenna thought this was the coolest thing ever. So I have a photo of my bat, a certificate of ownership, a bumper sticker, and some other cool stuff. I named it "Count Dougula", Obviously, a great name. Jenna just had a ball with this. I'll post that to a page in a few days too, so you can enjoy my bat.

Carlsbad Caverns has other tours as well, Ranger guided stuff. We signed up for one the next morning (Friday) and left for the day. Some of them you get to do actual spelunking. Wearing lighted helmets and stuff. That's what I wanted to do. Complete with all sorts of climbing and the like, but Jenna was too young for all of that. So we took a tour that would take us through a different part of the cave. I'll go back again, with someone more willing to do more physical stuff. Maybe some Army buds or a good friend, anyone willing to do it with me, they'd love it.

That night we drove about 30 minutes north to the city of Carlsbad. We saw some of the sites there, and it was a pretty cool town of 25,000. Then the rains came. New Mexico is in monsoon season, so the rains were heavy. We picked out this terrific BBQ place right before the rains came. Really unique food at this place, it was terrific. On the drive back to White's City, we could see the lightning miles in the distance, because the terrain is so flat. It was way cool.

So Friday morning, we got up and went to another part of the cave. Down the goddamned elevators again. This other part was absolutely incredibly. It was four rooms, and each room made you feel like you were on another planet. It was seriously hard to think you were on the earth. I told my mom I felt like I was on the moon. Man, it was awesome. They showed us places where early explored put marks on the wall with their lanterns to mark their way, so they knew how to get back. That was weird, looking at these markings that were so old, from people long dead who were some of the bravest people alive. Then they shut the lights off on us. I've been in some dark places before, but this was the first time I've ever experienced true absolute darkness. 800 feet underground now, and it's completely dark. Then the ranger light a candle to get an idea what it was like for the explorers. I couldn't image have came that far underground, with a lantern only. So dark, everything is so ominous too. Because you cant see anything very clearly. You'd have to experience that, I couldn't do it justice, but that was it for the caves for us.

Carlsbad Caverns was the coolest place I've ever been. Hands down. You would not believe it. I'll forever be amazed by it. You must go sometime in your life. It's way better than anything else I've seen or experienced, or been to in my life. It's the culmination of so much. It made me mad too, and I'll write more on that some other time. That wasn't the end of our trip however. I'm way tired now, and I'll write more later about it all.

Hope all is well with my faithful readership.


June 8th, 2003

So I pulled off my horoscope for the month today. I'm trying to make sure that every page is readable on my site. Then I can optimize the rest of the month. I should actually be done with that tonight. Quite exciting. Anyhow, I was reading my horoscope, and was amazed. It's so right on so far it's almost bizarre. I've read my horoscopes in the past and thought, "yeah, that's sort of right", but never thought it was spot on. This month so far it's been exactly right. It's not just a generic listing either like most are. It actually goes by days. You should read it, it's on my reading page in the information section. I'm still a little wierded out by it. Makes me sort of nervous for the things yet to come.

I'm going to try and add messed up news and other stuff to that page each time I write a diary entry. You'll have to check that page out too. In the past I've found some really interesting stuff, and I'll try not to get too political with what news I put up there. I promise I won't even add "my two cents" to each entry I add. Seriously.

Jenna is leaving on Tuesday. She's going to WI to spend the summer with her dad. So tomorrow will be my last full day to hang out with her. It's too bad that she is leaving. It's fun having her around most of the time. I won't see her again till Sept at the earliest. My mom is planning on driving to El Paso when I get stationed there for my AIT. But that's not until the middle of Sept till I'm there. She told me to make sure that I write letters, because she sent letters to a student's father when she was in school. Off to Iraq they sent them, and she is making sure that I write to her. I hope I can write a lot of letters, and get some back too. Even though I don't seem to be very accessible here in Tucson, it'll be hard knowing that I can't just talk to anyone that I want whenever I want.

Make sure that when you send me emails they are addressed to "doug@dougmalcore.com", and exactly like that. I'm having a little trouble with my webhost from my OS conversion, so I won't get any e-mail unless it's sent to that for a few days. That's just a heads up. Also, if any page on this site doesn't work, any image doesn't show up, any link is out of place, make sure you e-mail me. I should be done with the technical aspect of this site a little later tonight, so I won't be actively checking for errors, and I'll assume each page is ok.

I probably should continue my story a little bit, as to why I ended the trip covered in Diesel fuel. I'll get started...

We left of with my leaving Carlsbad Caverns. Instead of retracing our steps and going south through Texas (the shorter way), we headed north to drive all the way across New Mexico. A route that I hadn't been on before except for the last 3 hours. So north, through Carlsbad, and then, nothingland. That's what our trip through that part of New Mexico started off as. For about 2.5 hours, there was nothing to look at, except distance. The only joy in driving through that was seeing what flat land looked like. You could see mountains way off in the distance, but other than that, there was only windmills to see. However, we came up on a mountain range, and that was pretty fun to drive through. These were pretty similar to the other mountains that I drove through in New Mexico. It was strange to see such a drastic change from desert to a national forest so quick though.

So we were constantly going up in altitude. My mom was reading, and Jenna was asleep. My grandma and I weren't talking too much, but it was still pretty fun to see the mountains from inside of them. We finally got to the highest point in our drive. There was a small town up there, named "cloudcroft". Pretty cool name, and appropriate now, considering it's at 9400 ft. above sea level. We stopped at a small park, and ate some lunch. I could hardly sit still in my seat, because I could see that there was an "edge" to the forest, and I was betting to myself the view was amazing. I wasn't wrong either. You could see way far from that point, all of Alamagordo NM was visible, as well as the White Sands, which was about 70-80 miles away. There was a bit of history about the train tracks that used to go down the mountain, and when we made our descent, you could see wooden bridges still standing that the trains used to cross the valleys. I don't know if you could get me on one of those trains.

In 26 miles, we dropped down almost 5000 ft. It was a steep descent. There was some amazing massive rock formations. You could see these layers of rocks, but they weren't level, they all seemed to be pointing up. Wait till you see my picture of that. It was cool as hell. We got down to Alamagordo and went to the IMAX theater there. I was the only one of us that have been to an IMAX before. My family was a little disappointed that the showing was of Lewis and Clarke, but I thought it was sort of appropriate, considering that Jenna and I were "exploring" areas of the US we haven't been to before. So that was pretty fun. By the time we got out of Alamagordo, the rains had started. It was disappointing, because we wanted to go to the White Sands. But we stopped anyhow.

The white sands is really just that, massive piles of white sand, as far as you can see. It's as white and white. And strange texture too, not like beach sand. I've got a few pictures of Jenna and I running around on the huge dunes while it was raining. We left there, and we thought that was the end of our excitement for the week. However...

We ate in Las Cruces New Mexico, and after about a half hour drive, we were back in Arizona. We still have about 2 hours left to drive. A van passed me and was going 80-85, so I decided to keep up with it. Only half a chance that I'd be the one picked to get a ticket instead of a full chance. I had been following them for only about 15 minutes, and there was mostly semi's on the road. It was about 10:20 on Friday night, and I had estimated being in Tucson around 12:15. Jenna was asleep on the floor in the back seat, and my mom was almost asleep on the seat. My grandma was getting tired, and we were listening to one of Jenna's stories on a tape. I pulled into the fast lane to pass a semi, we some shit went down, big time.

Everything following happened so fast, it's hard to piece it back together in my mind. I heard a noise, I think I saw a few sparks, then I felt something hit the front of the car. About a second later, I heard a very loud "POW", and I knew the tire was out, flat. As soon as that happened, the car became extremely hard to control. Extremely. I knew it was a big hole, because there couldn't be any air left in the tire. This was a massive blowout. I slowly hit the brakes, thinking it wouldn't be good to slam on them. I could have better control of the car then. The back end of the car felt like it was floating, and actually driving itself. So I let it a bit. So I was trying to slow down, slowly, control the car, and watch where other vehicles were around me, because I knew I would have to use both lanes to get this thing over to the side. The back passenger was the one gone. First off, I floated over to the left shoulder. The tire and I were both sort of driving the car. I didn't want to make any sharp turns, even though I knew I didn't have as much control over the vehicle as I would have wanted. I was going to drive in the ditch before I was going to turn sharply. I remained really calm, and positive that I would regain control. I slowly started to turn, but then, the car really pulled to the left. I pressed the brakes a little harder, and finally, just before the edge I was able to pull over to the left hand side and safely stop.

My mom was sort of freaking out now, so I got out quick before she had any opportunity to start yelling at me. I felt the tire, and there was a hole that I could stick my fist into. Plus, the smell of diesel. I know that diesel is non-combustible fuel, but my mom was still yelling to me to get back in the car. Stuff started flying all over the road. So I pulled off what I could, but two other vehicles were already in the same situation that I was.

What I first thought had happened was a retread came off the semi, and that's what I hit, but that didn't really explain the tire blowing, and I thought for sure that I heard metal. One of the pieces that I pulled off the road was a brace for the semi's fuel cell, so I knew something wasn't good. I pulled off a few pieces of semi tire tread too. I checked under the car, and everything seemed to be ok. We weren't leaking anything, so I got back in the car. My grandma and mom were both bitching because their cell phones were dead. Finally they got ahold of AAA, and 911. My mom was not friendly whatsoever. I would have hated to be either of the people she talked to.

In front of me, I saw a huge smoke cloud. and a vehicle in the ditch. There were two cars pulled over to the side, about 3/4 of a mile ahead, and about a mile ahead, was a semi. I wasn't sure what happened, but I knew there was a lot of diesel on the road. It was actually splashing up. I stunk, and was getting a headache the smell was so strong. A fire dept vehicle soon came to the vehicle in the ditch, and two ambulances came to that vehicle as well. The fire dept vehicle was joined by a few others, and went up to the semi. We had given wrong directions to the AAA, so they got there way late, and we had to call a different place to fix the tire. When the police finally came, my mom bitched at me not to trivialize anything. I really didn't think it was a big deal, all we had was a flat and an inconvenience. No need to get bitchy or bitch at anyone else. Esp, considering I was the one that had to bring our car to a halt, I knew how much worst it could have been. I talked to the cop for a while, and he was a pretty cool guy. We had to wait for some of his reports to get back with him, so we had some good chats about accidents he's seen.

The tow truck came to change out tire to the donut. I asked him if he could patch our tire, and of course, he had a pretty good laugh, followed by scowls from my mom. We had 150 miles to go yet, and a donut will only take 55mph. We had to get a tire. The guy told us there was a tire place at the next exit, and the only one open 24 hours from there until Tucson. We just had to hope they had a tire the right size to fit ours.

What I later found out about the vehicle in the ditch. It was van ahead of me. We were both doing 80mph plus, and my theory is that when the fuel cell went, it flooded out his vehicle, and he spun around a few times until he ended up in the ditch. A kid had an asthma attack, and that's why the ambulance was there. The highway was shut down, and the fire dept guy told me they were going to spray off the entire mile and a half of highway with hoses, then they have to sand it down with industrial grade highway sandpaper. Something like that. I think everyone was really pissed off, so he was glad to talk to me when I seemed to be pretty normal about everything. It could have been worse, and it was over now, so no sense in being sour about it all.

The cause of the accident. There was some brake drums on the highway, and that's what the semi hit. When I drove past the semi, I saw the entire passenger side was ripped apart. So the drums damaged his tractor pretty well, and ripped off his fuel cell, spilling about 60 gallons of diesel all over the highway.

We drove (slowly) into the tire place, and I asked him for a tire of our size. We looked through his inventory, and he didn't have anything. I said a used tire is fine, so he went to a pile of tires, not organized at all, and started pulling them apart. Finally, he found one. 20 bucks for the tire and 12 to put it on. I tried to get him to through in a balancing, but my grandma said not to worry about it. I was going to ask him to rotate the tires, change the oil, and clean the windshields too, but it was my grandma's car, and she didn't care for negotiation. i told her it was an "ok" deal for a 3/4 bald tire, so the guy put it on. I washed the car with a hose I borrowed from the tire guy, and drove home.

Every time I had to pass a semi, I was watching in front of the semi. Now I'm always going to have that on the back of my mind whenever I go to pass a semi. So that sucks. Not to mention the wobbly tire because it wasn't balanced. My grandma and I had some great conversations all the way back, and we finally got home about 230am. What a terrific trip that was.

So that's the end of my story. Hope that it was fun for you. Everyone was complimenting my terrific driving in the situation. The cop told me that stuff like that usually doesn't end up pretty. The fire dept guy asked me where I got my skills, and I told him "gran tourismo" (playstation game), he laughed, then I told him I grew up on a farm, and have driven most every type of vehicle. Fun fun, I'm such a terrific driver.

That's all for now. Feel free to send me any comments or questions on the story. It'll be more in depth when I make the page with pictures. Have a good week all.


June 12th, 2003

Long day today. I helped out Linda and Tracy, doing their landscape work. Tracy has Parkinson's remember, so he's not really able to do a lot of physical labor. They are totally nice people, and have the sweetest house. It's extremely cool. You should see it how they have it all painted up.

Anyway, I got over there at about 730, which was pretty rough, to start working out in the sun that early. It's been really nice here lately, today it was only 95, which wasn't too bad compared to the 100 plus we've been having lately. Linda told me that were "blessed". They are very religious, being a Pastor at a church and all. But they aren't pushy, and they aren't real strict like you would expect. Well, maybe, as I would expect, being raised a Catholic and having all that pushy shit to deal with. I like being around them. I have to be mindful to always prepare for "prayer" before I eat with them though. I forgot that once (I see them a lot), and, although no one really said anything, I felt pretty stupid. Anyhow, they couldn't be nicer to me at all with the whole thing. They keep me pretty stocked up on breaks, and food, and drinks. (Non-Alcoholic, Non-Caffeine of course).

So I had to do a lot of pruning today. I'm filling up 50 gallon garbage bags, because that's just the easiest way to do it. Today I almost filled up nine. That's a lot if you know anything about pruning. Which I don't. I read a chapter in a book about it once, and saw a television show on pruning, but I don't really remember much. I'm more of a lawn guy. They have a lawn, that's really struggling. So I offered up some tips, and they seemed really receptive. I know quite a bit about all those sorts of things now. Landscaping and agriculture stuff that is. Growing up on a farm, I was really exposed to a lot of stuff, and a few of my tips today were just great.

My brother Dan did some of their pruning last summer, and they thought he was just the best worker. Funny... Today, they got to see me in action. Needless to say, they thought I was just about the best worker ever. I'm like, talk to my brother Matt or my Dad, and you'll hear different. That, and since moving in with my mom, I've started to get quite lazy. She's such a good cook, so I depend on her for that. I'm terrible at ironing, so my clothes are always wrinkled. Most people who come here and see me find me at my computer most of the day, so one would think I'm lazy and irresponsible, and I'm sure that's what Linda and Tracy thought. However, when it comes to work, I do a really good job. Esp compared to most people not in Northeastern Wisconsin. They thought Dan was a good worker. Well, one has to understand something. Dan and I had two different roles on the farm. Actually, both of my brothers and myself each had their own little role. Dan's role was simply, "the baby of the family". He got all the perks associated with that. Easy jobs, preferential treatment, and the like. The hardest thing he had to endure was the tormenting of his two older brothers. Which came often, and swift.

Matt's role was to fix machinery. A lot of stuff that I broke mainly, but other things too. He liked doing it, and was good at it. This role also comprised of driving tractors the most. Which is the easiest job of everything. He is the best worker of the three of us, and seems to become "one" with whatever task he is trying to accomplish, or whatever machine he is operating/fixing. Naturally, this brought constant complains to my father, from me.

My role was manual labor. The toughest jobs. The most physically demanding tasks, were almost always done by me. Of course, I had to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. How to do things more efficiently, faster, better, quicker. I didn't realize it until now, but this has helped me to the nth degree in my "other life". I definitely am a good thinker at how to do things better now, and it consumes my thoughts now. Simply because when I was younger I didn't want to spend my entire night home from school stuck in the barn working. I can honestly say that every employer I've ever had would probably say that I'm a fast learner, and I do things extremely efficient. No employer has ever really complained about my work on the whole. And I'm positive that I'd get a good response from any former.

This is hard for someone who sees me in every day life to realize. Which is what happened to Linda and Tracy. Tracy gave me a few tasks in the morning, and told me that it would probably take me until mid-afternoon. I was done by 930. Which didn't leave me much else to do. Waiting for Tracy to get back from church, I raked the entire backyard free of leaves and other junk that had gotten there in the past year. Pruned whatever else I thought necessary, and received loads of praise from the two homeowners once they saw what a good job I did, and so quickly. I ended up pulling out this huge brush plant. It was horrible. The only root structure that could have been harder to dig out would have been a tree. It's not that hard to dig here, being that it's mostly sand, but a lot of rocks too. My way of pulling things out when I grew up was one of two. Yank them out by pulling as hard as you can (I did that with a big tree and three massive agave cactuses in my mom's backyard) or get a skid steer. This was the first time I ever had to dig. Ugh. Tracy's like, "You really know how to handle a shovel". Yep, I've been doing it ever since I can remember.

A lot of times I get a lot of ridicule for my upbringing. Redneck, Farm Boy, poor, whatever. But even though I don't actively think about it, it's helped me so much in my life. Everything is easy to me that would normally be difficult for another person to do. I do a lot of things with no complaint, and I always finish a job that I start. No one else is going to do it, and my dad is going to kick my ass if I don't. Those two things are the driving force in my subconscious mind when I'm doing something difficult. Extreme heat doesn't bother me, and extreme cold bothers me even less. I've had to bust ass in some blue collar job working in either of the two. It was hard for Linda to understand that working in the sun all day didn't bother me. I've been dehydrated on a roof before, and I've gotten mild sun strokes from working too hard in high humidity heat before. The 10-20 percent humidity and 100 degree temperatures of Tucson are actually a welcome change to me compared to some of the conditions I've had to work in before.

So this job for me today, which would have been extraordinarily difficult for most people, was extremely easy for me. And it made me sort of glad that I dealt with what I did when I grew up. Because it's hard for non-NE WI people to grasp, I don't like to tell employers that I grew up on a farm. When I applied at Choice One, I met a boss who grew up under the same circumstances that I did, and I'm positive that's why she took a chance on me. It's wasn't my cup of tea, but she understood what a "farm boy" can do. It was enlightening for me, and I hope those that read this in NE Wisconsin realize that all the hardships you endured as a kid growing up on a farm, can really really make you successful in other parts of the country.

Living in Tucson has definitely been a learning experience for me. I don't think I've gained as much here as I have in all the other places I've claimed residency, but I don't regret moving here at all. I probably won't come back after the Army though. Maybe when I'm old, or if the town changes some. But I'm glad that my mom lives here, because it's one of the most amazing parts of the country I've ever seen. And my mom has taken me to many places I would have never experienced if she hadn't moved here. I would have never known about Carlsbad Caverns, or met some of the nicest people I've ever met. It's sort of my eulogy about Tucson, since I won't be around here that much more.

I'm getting sort of nervous about leaving now. I only have about 2 weeks left to be the person that I am right now. I'll never be able to go back, and I'm sure the Army will turn me into something I'm not really prepared for, I'm not expecting, and I'm definitely unsure about. We'll see though. I'm still excited to go though. It would be nice to see some people before I leave. I'm sort of just going with no goodbye's or anything. Into the extreme unknown. I don't know, it would be nice to see folks before I leave for four years. You see, My training will keep me occupied for the next six months. I'm done on Dec. 15th. At that point, I'll probably get some leave, but I'm not going to take it. I don't want to go to Luxemburg, because I really don't care to see those family that I haven't known well since I was in middle school. And I know what it's going to be like in Tucson, and I've been here for Christmas already. So I'll just go off and get stationed right away. Get comfortable as soon as possible would be my goal. Where I'm going to get stationed you ask? Korea, Germany, the Middle East (turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia) or El Paso. Most likely overseas, which is huge for me. So I'll be gone for a long long time. Really the next two weeks is the last opportunity to see the people I know. If I see them later in life, we'll all be nearly unrecognizable, and have changed too much to really know each other anymore. Sort of depressing perhaps, but I made that decision in early April. So my life is in the Army now. I don't have a chance to hang out with friends "one last time", or any of that stuff. I'm just going. My mom will drop me off at the recruiter's station, and that'll be it. Every mile out of Tucson will be another mile out of my old life. Until I'm in Oklahoma, when it's gone for good.

So Jenna left on Tuesday. She's by her dad's for the summer. I wanted to go with her to the airport, but I had been joking around the night before that I wasn't going. So Tuesday came, and they left without me, leaving me asleep. That was quite depressing. I'll see Jenna four years from now, and won't even recognize her. She'll come to El Paso though when I'm training there, so it's cool. We've became quite good pals lately though. It's hard to think about her gone, because I'm so used to her being around. Us being able to do stuff all the time, her constant desire to watch me play video games. I asked her if she would wait until after I left until she left, but she said it wasn't in her control. She is going to write me though, "I promise" she said, but "only if you write too, and you have to write" "you can write letters on paper and mail them to me". Since I'm so computer, she thinks I don't really understand a world without it, because when I don't have a computer, I'm depressed, ornery, and lethargic. Funny how she always picks up on stuff and interprets it.

So anyway, tomorrow I'm going by Linda and Tracy again. This time earlier. 7 am, and it's almost midnight right now. I hate getting up so early in the morning. Granted, that's old 9am for me in Wisconsin, but those days are long gone. Hard to grasp most of you being well asleep right now. Even when I was in Wisconsin, I was asleep by now. Midnight is usually my bedtime when I have to wake up early, so this is going be it for tonight.

Hopefully all is well tonight with you all. You are all tucked safely in your sleeping quarters, dreaming good dreams. I'm quite tired too, and hoping that I too, can have the same good dreams.


June 13th, 2003

Another long day today. Went to go and do some stuff by Linda and Tracy's again. I trimmed the trees in front of their house, and then raked their backyard lawn three times (because I didn't have anything better to do until they got back home). That didn't take very long though, and I didn't have much else to do. I sat down, watching the birds, and then fell asleep. What a good sleep too, I was sweating big time when I woke up 45 minutes later. Linda woke me up, and we prayed, then we ate. They had gone to the doctors office, and I guess it wasn't really good news. I guess that when you have Parkinson's, you never really get good news going to the doctors office. It's such a goddamned tragedy, his having Parkinson's. He only has about 40 percent hearing now. And his wife Linda, is starting to go blind. They joked around about being each other's eyes and ears when they get older. They get bad news, and they still seem to say so positive about it all. They are really really opening up to me a lot too. I'm learning way too much about the two of them. Linda is so easy to talk to, that sometimes when we are chatting, I just dig into myself, telling her things I really don't tell anyone. I just get caught in a trap, and then I still keep talking about stuff. It's fun though, and we all get along really well.

Unfortunately, what turned into a pruning job, is turning into much more. They are way taking advantage of me. Linda scheduled me to help her paint some stuff at her house on Monday. So that sort of sucks. I don't mind helping out, but I don't want to have a regular job. Then on Friday Tracy and I are going to put up ceiling fans in a few places. Two days a week won't be bad, which means I'll be there 4 more times before I'm gone.

Linda was a head nurse a while back. So she's really smart medically. She eats really healthy, and always makes sure I'm drinking water, that I have stuff to eat, and so on. When I got there yesterday morning, she had a glass of OJ waiting for me. This morning I had stopped and got a bottle for myself, then we I got there she told me there was a glass in the fridge for me. I told her I already had some, and she said, "the glass is poured for you in the fridge". Ok, guess I'm having another. Then, before she left..."there are 'balance' bars in the cupboard, when we get beck, I expect at least two of those gone". I really don't like them. They are so filling, it feels like I just ate a mean a few minutes after I finish. Needless to say, I ate one. That's all I could muster, hoping that I wouldn't feel the wrath of Linda when I they got back.

When we were eating, Tracy gets a glass of "buttermilk". It's in a carton, just like milk, so I start asking questions. I love buttermilk pancakes, and just about anything that has buttermilk in it. So i decide to try a glass. When I try something new, my tendency is to usually go for it. Like, Jenna, will just sip something, or take the smallest bite. I figure when you are trying something new, you should taste it like you have eaten it 100 times before. So I pour a glass of about one "gulpful", and take it down. OOOOooo was that some nasty, nasty stuff. They didn't see me drink it, but they saw my face after, and really started laughing hard. I'm like, it taste's like rotten, sour milk of the worst kind". They told me that was what it is... Curdled milk. So, if you ever have the opportunity, don't try buttermilk in a glass. Seriously, you'll regret it. I think I still have that taste in my mouth. Ugh...nasty nasty nasty. Odd that it's still so good in pancakes though.

I'll have to make sure I call my recruiter next week. I haven't talked to him in months, and, since he's taking me to Phoenix on the 1st, it'd be best to get in touch with him. He only has my cell phone number, and I've already cancelled that a while ago, so I'll have to call and see what's going on with the whole thing.

I'm going to try and finish the rest of this site this weekend. I have a few good ideas for new stuff to put up before I leave, so I want to get cracking at that too. I have to make my template for Dan to upload my Basic Training journal entries too, so you'll all be able to read those on a weekly basis at least. I wanted to write up a few articles on some stuff I've been researching lately, but I'm quite tired now, so we'll have to see when I can get to all of that.

Oh yeah, nice job on getting and spreading the "monkey pox" virus Wisconsin people. I guess only you guys can contract a disease from a Prairie Dog. Quite funny, I saw that in the news site I read this morning. Man was I rolling on the ground. Monkey pox. As long as you all don't start passing around a "cowpox" virus, I think we'll be ok. I can stereotype you all know since I'm officially a Tucsonian. Damned funny.

And don't litter anymore either. Any of you. If you see garbage on the ground, pick it up. Don't kill bugs and insects anymore, esp earthworms. Don't cut down trees, and build your houses higher instead of wider. You don't need to carve into a mountain to build a new home either. You can declare all your riches some other way, but now with a gas burning polluting car either. Seriously, everyone needs to start thinking of things other than money, and themselves for a change. The earth isn't going to be here forever, and a lot of scientists think our carrying compacity will be reached in less than 10 years. This means there won't be enough places on the planet to grow the food required to feed everyone on the planet. We are seriously screwing up the earth, and it really, really pisses me off. Just start by not killing other living things, and making sure you recycle, and keep the emissions on your cars up to date. Please. If you've only seen half of what I've seen on this earth, you'd agree with me that making drastic changes in your life, in order to help the planet survive longer is important. There will come a day, soon, when a plants life is more important than a humans. At that point the money you make, the car that you drive, the land that you destroyed to build you nice big home, won't be important anymore. How successful you are in your job, how much you are mad at that other driver for cutting you off. That won't be important. Driving around a parking lot for 5 minutes so you can get a closer parking spot, or driving 5 minutes to a gas station so you can pick up a soda... That's all bullshit. You don't need to go on a diet, you need to start walking more, riding a bike, instead of using your planet killing car.

I could go on for hours, and I will, as soon as I'm in the mood, but I want to make sure that you all realize what a big deal it is to walk, recycle, and not kill animals. Think of all the tiny things you can do, that if everyone did it, how it can help this planet last longer. Our motivation shouldn't be "because we want our grandkids to see it" or anything cliche like that. It's because the earth is absolutely gorgeous, and we don't have any right to take advantage of it, strip it of everything good, and eventually, kill the planet, so that we all can be more comfortable. Just try to change one thing right now. One thing that you think will help keep the earth alive.

Here's some of my things that I'm doing...
    Park at the farthest point in the parking lot, so I don't put Carbon Dioxide in the air looking for a spot, and someone who is too lazy to walk and extra 20 feet, can have my spot.

    Buy foods with the least amount of packaging as possible, sacrificing food quality if need be.

    Never, ever, ever litter. Never throw things into the trash just because I want my 'area' to look clean. If something is recycle-able, put it in the necessary area. Limit stuff going into a "dump" as much as possible.

    Give money to every environmental agency that asks for it. Support their clause, and listen to everything they say.

    Support the removal of most of the members of the Dept of the Interior. That fucking agency is a goddamned farce right now. Putting key lobbyist for large oil, gas companies in charge of federal lands, federal parks, and protected areas. There past decisions are a hoax. Support the removal of our president, who cares more about war, or being popular, or being a successful president, than anything else. Some things are more important than money, selling contracts for rebuilding Iraq before the war is even over. but that's a whole other story.

    Never cut down a plant in order to build something in it's place. If you've ever seen Oro Valley here in Arizona, every new city should follow their example. You don't build into a landscape, you build around it.
Just think about this shit, please. Take a lot at photo's online of our state parks, and imagine what they look like in person, if you've been there before, or if you never have. Go to a state for national park within the next month, and imagine it with oil drills, or natural gas tanks. With roads and big semi's all over the park. That's not too far off in our future if we don't do something about it. I'm serious too, this is a huge deal to me. It should be to everyone. I realize most of you will just scoff at all of this. But seriously, try to take in some part of this earth that blows you away. Leaves you speechless, and then you'll realize my points, and why we can't let it all go to waste. You should feel guilty for your environmental life to this point so far, but if you are still alive, there is something to be done about it.


June 14th, 2003

So I finished my survey finally. That was some major work, you'll never know how much. I've been planning it for some time now, but I finally attacked it the last two nights. I would say I spent about 5 hours creating it. Not like it's a big survey or anything, but there is so much HTML to a form page like that. So I'm quite glad it's done. Hopefully a few people will attack it before I leave, I'd like to think it was worth the effort. I actually went and took it myself too. Didn't take too long either, so you should try it. If you aren't sure where it's at on the site, you can click this link.

survey

You can check out my responses too, if you so desire. I just finished it, that's why there isn't anything else up yet. I made it a lot faster for posting to, so you'll see the responses that you so desire up too. If you don't read the "readme" file at the top, then you should know you don't have to answer all the questions. Just stuff you feel comfortable sharing. And I won't post it either if you don't want. Just uncheck the "post it..." checkbox at the bottom.

Ok, good to be done with that. Every page is up on my site now, except for one. So I'm glad for that. I'll write a little on that page too, but I'm sure it won't be much interest for anyone, that's why it's last. Then, by next week, I hope to have a lot more content for each page. Some of the pages I haven't added anything to since I was in Milwaukee. Using my old webhost and my old format. Those pages have been through 3 aesthetic changes, no content changes. If only I spent equal time adding to each page, instead of trying to come up with new pages and writing in this diary.

Nothing new and exciting happened today. I talked to Jenna on the phone for a while. When she left I was downloading a bunch of ROMs for Nintendo, SNES, and Genesis off of KaZaa. So she had a bunch of questions about that. Her favorite game was Castlevania, on NES, so I told her I got Castlevania 2, and 3 for NES, and 4 for SNES, and another one for Genesis. She made me play the songs from each one over the phone. Jenna always wanted me to play video games so she could watch. She'd put on my headphones, and just sit watching me play all the time. So funny. She told me when her class was writing to a soldier in Iraq, that she asked him if he ever heard of Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah, she got a little obsessed. Odd though, she honestly would rather watch me play than play herself. When I try to get her to play, she just get's frustrated real quick and yells at me to "get past this part", which soon ends up in my playing the game myself.

So that's it. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on a big entry, because I think I'm going to associate my Bulletin Board with each section of my site, so all you visitors can talk to each other about all my topics I have on here. They'll be on this page too. You better start giving back too. I might post more in a few hours tonight.

Ok, it's been a few hours. I finished up my Bulletin Board. It's of YaBB design, but I changed it up pretty good to make it more of a personal feel. I don't mind the colors they had as default, even thought a lot of other sites have them. Maybe I'll turn every single image into greyscale, but that's a lot of work. Either way, it looks decent, and it has everything I wanted. I added all the boards that I think I'll need, and a few others that will probably never get a post. Either way, go to the page, register yourself, and post in some board. It'll be fun, I promise. Here's the page if you haven't found it already.

www.dougmalcore.com bulletin board


June 17th, 2003

Well HELLO! I feel like I should be making some grand entry or something. Maybe because I'm blessing you with yet another entertaining journal entry to read. Actually, I'm sort of in a good mood about this page in particular. I just found out my stats for yesterday. (they usually become available around 2-3 am) and I noticed that 4 new people found this page via a search engine (ask.com, or aj.com, or askjeeves.com) and they all bookmarked it. Yeah that's pretty cool for me. That's about the only way I'm getting any feedback on this stuff, so I'll take it. Pretty cool though, making people I don't know like that bookmark my site just based on the content of this site.

So I've gotten two comments in this past week about my "storytelling" ability. My mom said I should try to do some creative writing, that I'm really good at telling a story. I sort of have about 50 times more practice than anyone else though. I don't think I have any real talent, I just sort of get lost when I start telling someone something they haven't heard from me before. I'm way melodramatic and always over analyzing too, which always makes it a bit interesting. Plus, I definitely like to exaggerate just a little. It adds a little spice, and we are usually going more for entertainment's purposes than truthfulness anyone. Regardless, I like doing it.

So when I was in WI, I started a little story. I got about 35-40 pages done I think, just sort of a thing about my life, trying to be as non-fiction and as factious as possible. Because I like to emphasize the dramatic points in life. Those are just a little more interesting than everything else, don't you think. Anyhow, I lost the book when I formatted the drive. Not a big deal, I wasn't too impressed with it anyhow. It was just sort of a lame thing that I'd always get sick of because I had written so much about it before on this very site. But I was thinking, when I have some free time, which is going to be like never pretty soon, that I should start a new book. Not for commercial's sake mind you, but just because it's always fun for me to write up stories. So I started a title, and a few paragraph's of my new book about myself, this one's a little bit different though. If I really ever feel like tackling it, I'll post a PDF on this site sometime. (after the army stuff of course).

Unfortunately, I only noticed one person has been to my bulletin boards besides my little brother. That sort of sucks, I spent a lot of time on that. Really, you should just go there and post a bunch. You don't have to be way honest about everything, just make sure that you are submitting a valid e-mail address, that's really all that's important. That way you can get sent your password and I can send you out some emails that I'm cooking up for my "members only" part of the site that will be here eventually. Assuming you are still coming to this site around the turn of the year.

I still have a lot that I want to do though. Tonight I've been downloading PDF's of some books that I want to read quick. Not anything really long, just interesting, useful non-fiction stuff that will make me a smarter person, that way I can post better diary entires to this page, right? I want to start writing up some articles too on this site, about a bunch of stuff I feel passionate about. Which is pretty much everything that can have a side taken on it.

Tonight I drove my mom to the airport. She was surprising her boyfriend on his return from Louisiana. I'm trying to be such a cautious driver. If I get a ticket for anything right now, I can't join the army. So it's terrible driving. I hate doing it. It's like I'm constantly being followed by a cop. I'm always going exactly the speed limit. I use the blinker always. Never really take any chances. Thank God I don't' have to drive that much anymore. It's goddamned horrible. If you come down here in the next two weeks, you can make sure that you are driving.

I also have to get some of the pictures of this city. I have some already, but there are some really good views around my mom's place that are just crying for a camera's eye to capture them. You see, she's at almost the most northern point of the city. Where the road ends is where the mountain range begins. Basically, when you look outside to the north, all you see is mountains towering over you. It's ominous at time, but I'm getting used to it.

Today, I went by Linda and Tracy's place for a while. I was going to wash their windows (shitty, horrible job), but I had a pretty bad headache from staring at my screen all last night reading newsgroup postings. (I subscribe to way way too many of those). Either way, it resulted in a pretty bad headache. Linda, being ex-head nurse, immediately had about 10 different diagnosis for me. Giving me all sorts of odd pills and such, which cleared me up pretty well, but resulted in other problems that caused me to have to leave after only washing about a quarter of the windows.

Interesting there though. They have a dog visiting. It's the tiniest little poodle. Absolutely well behaved though. Responds to basically everything that Linda told it to do. Which, if you know Linda, is a lot. I was hanging out in their kitchen, trying to take all the pills that I had to, shoving this nasal spray into my nose that was a horrifying experience. She gives me this saline stuff, and she says to tilt my head back and put it in the the nose. This is about as awkward as a thing for me as ever. So I tilt the head back, and squeeze the bottle, then the stuff goes up into my nose, which is a terrible feeling. However, it didn't just stop there. It kept going all the way up the nose, then back down around, and into the throat. Ugh, what a terrible, terrible experience. I could actually feel the stuff make the entire trip around, finally resting it's horrible taste right on my tongue, so I could savor it. Man...

Anyhow, back to the story at hand. The dog is barking, right, and I let it go outside, and it takes off after the birds, which is funny to me of course. Then, it starts going after this turtle. A huge turtle too, bigger than my head (which is big, but we don't need to talk about that ever). That sort of freaked me out. I don't think I've ever really seen a turtle like that. Odd thing. Man that was weird. I got close enough to examine it a little, and LInda had me pick it up and move it so she could feed it. Ever time the dog would go near it, it would back it's head into it's shell, then start chasing after the dog. Quite funny really. I thought that was worth sharing. Being as I've never been too personal with a turtle. Such a cool animal though. I want to get a turtle definitely. Actually, I want to have a zoo in my backyard, that way I can hang out with animals whenever I want to.

I was organizing all the pictures on my computer just before. I renamed about 90% of them so it's easier to navigate. Then I gave them all directories and such. It was a daunting task. Considering I have about 700 pictures or so on the hard drive. Anyhow, i was looking through all my ones of the cats that I used to have, and it made me pretty sad. Two of those cats went to a really good home, and then three of them I kept for about 7 months. Then I gave another one away, and then one of mine died, so when I left, I only had one cat. Those cats were perfect too. Man, I really really miss having those guys around. We were such great pals, you wouldn't even understand. We knew each other so well. See, they only stayed in my room, one room in the entire house. They never tried to get out either. Even when there was three of them. Granted, it was a big ass room, but still. Pretty nice of them to do that for me. We hung out all the time, because I never did anything when I was in Casco. I also had a pet baby raccoon for 3 days too. I couldn't get him/her to eat ever though. I tried giving it babyfood, but it wouldn't take. It was actually horrible treatment I had with that animal, but I didn't really have any other options other than shooting it. Which I eventually did as well. That thing and my cats really didn't get along either. My cats were pretty afraid of it.

So before I left Linda and Tracy's this morning, the doorbell rang. Linda said it was Jehovah's Witness's, so she grabbed something off the counter, and went to great them. (remember, Tracy is a pastor). I knew this had to be pretty interesting, because I know the type of person Linda is, and I've talked with quite a few "witnesses" in the the past. So I ventured over to observe. The two guys start talking about stuff right away, and Linda cuts them off, and says, "I'll read yours if you read mine". The guys got pretty flabbergasted by this. They aren't allowed to take anything religious like that, so that was pretty much it. Linda knew the trick already. She said they don't even care that Tracy is a pastor, they still try to convert anyhow. That doesn't make sense to me. Who would make up a religion where you have to go and recruit new members, but you aren't allowed to let other people try and recruit you. Do they think they are superior to everyone else? There religion is the best, that they have to remain closed minded to everything else? Or do they just have too many insecurities about their religion to take any other offerings. If only I still knew my Jehovah Witness friend from school. I knew this gorgeous girl that was a witness, and I'd always always ask her questions about stuff. She was cool about it too, and I made sure that she would be coming to visit my house someday. Of course, that never happened, but still. I actually really like it when they come, because they are so used to being treated like ass all the time, that I can really be open religiously and ask them questions about stuff. My first experience was when i was in 7th grade...

I was at home with my brother's and one of my friends when the station wagon came down the lane. I was nervous at first, because I knew how my dad reacted all scared like and afraid to tell them to go away. I didn't really know how to handle myself. They came to the door, and I answered. Really nice people, right off the bat, so we chatted for a while. I told them a bunch of stuff to, stuff I wasn't really realizing until that point. I was unsure about the catholic religion, I knew I needed to make a change, and then, some stuff to really lead them on. Not that they really felt they could make a conversion on a 13 year old, but at least it got them feeling well. So the mom asks here son to start reading some passages. This bored me big time, esp because the kid wasn't a very good reader. He was mumbling, talking right into his little witness bible, and I didn't understand anything anything. Then the mom slapped him in the back of the head, and told him to read right. Ha, now this got my attention. However, the slap didn't do anything to improve the kids reading, and we all waited patiently for him to stop. Well, I did, the parents were both looking deeply at me, nodding their head's whenever the kid mentions something "profound" from the bible. Like I was being taught by them the true religion of God. (Is religion just a competition?) They got done, and I muttered out something that one of the kids said that could give me inspiration in my bike racing. And they said that the witness bible can give me more than just inspiration in bike racing, but inspiration in life. I'm like, "WOW", and all that bullshit. So they left with that, and I never saw them again. Too bad really. Seriously, I was actually hoping that they would visit again. The last time I got to hang out with a witness was when I was in Whitefish Bay (Milwaukee). They knocked on the door at 9am, and I had been awake all night. I was slow getting to the door though, because I didn't hear it at first. They were just leaving when I answered. I asked them to come it, but they opted against it. I was happy to see them, and maybe I appeared too happy, because they sort of took off right away. Maybe it's because I was wearing boxer shorts and no shirt. Either way, that was disappointing. I'm sure I won't see too many to those guys overseas on an army base though. Too bad.

Ok, it's early now. Seriously folks, start posting in the bulletin boards. It's not too big of deal. Like I said, you can remain virtually anonymous in your posts, so don't feel too weird about that. Just post a lot of stuff, whatever comes to mind. You aren't necessarily talking to me either, you are talking with everyone that comes to this site. I figure it's a good way to drive more visitors to the site, if I can get a lot posts. Think of how many times bulletin board listings come up in your google searches. That's why I have so many boards, so we can get a lot of topics, with a lot of keywords. You guys will help to make my site better.

Oh yeah, and take the survey too if you feel like it. You can remain anonymous in that too. Don't send me your name if you don't want to, or don't have me post it. I'll post anonymous results too, whatever. Not meaning to sound desperate, but I think it'll all be fun if you get it a try. It's harder to get stuff like that filled out when I don't have the access to so many people I did in high school and college on my old old page. Either way, have a great day, I'll write more soon.


June 21st, 2003

The Day Draws Near. It feels like the time from when I left MEPS till now has gone so fast. I can't really believe I'm leaving in less than 10 days nows. It's going to be interesting. I'm pretty nervous. I've read so much about everything, to make sure I'm prepared and all that, and I know what to expect, but still, I don't really know what it's going to be like. I think I'm actually nervous because I'm sort of afraid of getting disqualified for something stupid, which just seems too likely right now. I'm really staring to worry about shit too, stuff that's ok of my control now that could potentially send me packing. I'm not afraid of the physical hardships, or the mental hardships, any of that. I'm just worried about stupid stuff. I really can't afford to get kicked out either. It'll be too humiliating for me, and I don't know what I'll do if it happens. Oh well, I keep telling myself not to worry, and if I get kicked out, I get kicked out, and I'll bounce back, because I always do, but I'm having a hard time making myself believe that. I just want to not worry and know that the only thing that won't let me become full time army (get through basic and AIT) is myself. That is completely not true though. Certian things and standards that the army has in place could take me out of the mix, and I don't want that to happen. I've set my goals now with the army, and I need to army to help me go back to school, take me away from real life for a while, whatever. I just hope that I'm good for nine weeks, and that my security clearnce comes back ok, and everything else that can go wrong, just won't.

I've been trying to work on the site more lately. I think I'm just so stressed out lately though, that I have a hard time maintaining a level focus. I can't seem to concentrate on things for very long. I'm not sleeping either. Seriously, at all. I don't know what's the problem, I'm just not getting tired. I sleep for about 4 hours for two nights in a row, then I can't fall asleep on the third day, and ending up staying awake 30+ hours. The other day I was awake for 36 hours, then I finally fell asleep, for five minutes, when a disturbance woke me up. Then, I was wide awake. This was at 11pm at night, and I had to get up at 630 the next morning. So I went online, and did really nothing, because I couldn't concetrate, and I wasn't feeling tired. I ending up finally falling asleep at 3am, and then getting up at 630 to go help Linda and Tracy put up celing fans. Then, i didn't fall asleep until 3 am, and woke up at nine. I'm still awake from that too, and not tired at all. I've stopped drinking caffeine a week ago, because maybe that'll help me sleep, but it hasn't at all. Honestly, I don't mind it that much, I'd prefer to be awake, but the problem is my eyes are about as bloodshot as hell. Sometimes it's just pain to keep them open, and then sometimes, always when I can't fall asleep, I feel so tired I could sleep standing up. Man, it's messed up. Then I'll get these hot flashes, and just feel sort of terrible, wishing I was in a place I could sleep, then when I'm there, nothing, wide awake. So as much as I've tried to condition myself to only getting 4 hours of sleep a night, it actually sucks because my body doesn't operate right. If I could be normal and only sleep that little, I'd be fine, but I'm not. That, coupled with the fact that I'm rarely eating too. I eat so little. One meal a day, maybe. If my mom cooks something. Otherwise, my day consists of one bowl of cereal, and maybe a sandwhich or ramen noodles, either of which I never finish. I'm down to 198 lbs or so, the first time I've been under 200 since I was a junior in high school. I feel absolutely terrible, I can barely run very far, and I'm always sore. Something is seriously wrong with me, but I'm thinking it's just mental, got to be stress, and I'll be fine once I'm in Oklahoma.

Ft. Sill, a couple days into July I'll be there, but I report July 1 to Phoenix for some final processing. I haven't worked out all the details with my recruiter yet, but I'll let you know what's going on when I find shit out. You can write me there too, or email me stuff, because dan will be running the site, so if you email him, he'll forward the mail onto me, because I won't have email, or any personal pocessions really. I'll have to part with my bracelet, which I have never done since I got it more than three years ago. It's come off less than 10 times only, and now I'll be without for a long time. That's going to be wierd.

Everyone is sort of saying thier goodbye's and goodluck's to me too. All the people here in Tucson, offering up there final advice and words of encouragement. It's strange, sometimes I forget how many people I actually do know here. Nice though, everyone is a big Doug fan, and it makes leaving easier and harder, but at least it's not like I have to feel all alone when I'm leaving, like I felt last week. Too bad I can't see some Wisconsin people again. I actually would really like that, which surprises me. I feel like I'm just going off all alone in life, and really leaving everything behind, because I'm going to be so out of touch with everything except my family. Right now, I have this website, which sometimes I take for granted. I think the fact that I'm so obsessed with writing in this journal is because I miss so many people, and I know that this is a good opportunity for everyone to know what's going on in my life. I don't know anything about anyone else though. Kelly's good about everything though. He sends me emails on stuff, posts regularitly, and always comments on stuff. He was always a good friend of mine, but he's the only one that really makes and active effort at keeping in touch. That's why I'm thinking about giving everyone that I used to know a call this next week. Just to talk, because it'll be good for me. I think the hardest thing for me to part with right now, is writing on this page. It's sort of like having a conversation with everyone that I know at one time. I can write up my daily stuff, and everyone that I know usually reads up on it, maybe once a week, or once a month, but it's still good. When I'm gone, I'm not going to have contact with shit, and I've never had that in my life. I've been far away from people many times, but my computer has always kept things close. Now, I'm not going to have a computer for 6 months, and then I'm going to get stationed overseas. I'll meet army people though, so I think I'll be alright. The people in my past are so unforgetable, it's hard for me to let everything really go. It's not a similar feeling to when i left for Tucson, or left for Milwaukee, or left for Oshkosh, because each move sort of gave me more freedom, while this army thing is giving me less freedom. I feel like I'm sacrificing my past for my future now, and that's pretty hard.

Linda and Tracy have been really cool. I get to know them better since I spend some time at their house. There tasks for me just keep increasing too. It went from a little pruning, some window washing, and putting up a ceiling fan, to a lot of all that, plus a lot of other stuff. I don't mind it though. It's a pretty nice change of pace. Linda is an excellent person to know. Although she never hesitates to tell you exactly what's on her mind at any given point, she's got to be the easiest person to open up to ever. Last night, Linda, Tracy, my grandma, my mom and myself went to my grandma's house for dinner. Could you imagine yourself eating an informal dinner with a pastor and his wife? Well, we are sitting down, eating, when Linda starts talking about Tracy getting up early in the morning to do aerobics with the lady on television. Linda really starts making fun of Tracy, and and asks him where she sweats. Tracy's response, "usually between her breasts". Ha, a pastor saying this, right after we said a grace to God for the meal. Man is it strange. And I'm at there house for 3 days, hanging out with them. The only time they really said anything religious was when they were trying to find out a bible verse. Sometimes I forget how religious they really are. Linda is totally liberal too. She's always bashing Republican's. And I love it. She's well read and really intelligent, so she always makes good points. I've never really met a hardcore Democrat, so I like listening to her talk politically. That, and we have a lot in common. We always talk about old movies, and by my grandma's they brought over one that I had already seen, but it was fun. Linda is impresses that I have such a fascination with history and everything in the past like that, so we always have a lot to talk about. We teach each other a lot, talking about WWII the other day. I'm glad I know the things I do, and it's probably why I've always been able to get along with such a diverse group of people.

So that's all I'm going to type for now. I'm really trying to write more on my high school page, but I'm been in such a strange state of mind lately it's hard to be interesting. When that happens I usually try to work on something else. I have a Carlsbad Caverns page I want to write up yet, I have a page on my life at UW-Oshkosh yet, I have templates for beak to use for when he takes over the site. And I just can't seem to get started, like I have writers block about it all. I haven't written in the diary lately either, even though I've opened it up to edit about 20 times since my last entry. I just can't seem to be interesting. Everything is just goodamned terrible. I don't want to sleep either, because I have so much to do, but I know that sleeping will help me feel better. I just want to find something good to do for a little while. I think I'm going to go shopping tomorrow actually, take my mind off of things, interact with some people I don't know, because I haven't done that in ages. I'm playing guitar at the church next weekend, so that should be interesting. All the people who have been "praying" for me, will get there last chance to say goodbye. I'm sure my neighbor will stop by and offer his two cents on my future life too. It's just hard to think about anything except the army right now. I just want to go and be ok. I don't know, everything is so fucked up right now. I've talked to a few people I've never expected to talk to again ever, and there's so much drama in my life right now it's overwhelming. I couldn't even being to write about how fucked up things are right now, and I'm not going to try, even though I sort of want to. All I want is smething stable, for 2 hours, before I leave. Something conrete, that'll make me feel good, and not nervous, for just a little while. Everyone is so obssessed with comments like, "well, in one week things will be different for you... in one week you won't be able to do that... in one week la la la." Christ, just let me relax for a second and be cool about it. I'm nervous as hell about leaving, and I sort of don't want to talk to people who don't really know me about it.


June 25th, 2003

Done decent work on the webpage so far. Made up part of the Carlsbad Caverns page, and finished the template for little beaker on the army page. That'll be fun, having that thing up and people reading about my daily life at boot camp. You know, I been visiting on this other site for a while. It's about Army Basic training, and I posted in the forums there that I'd be doing that journal thing. Well, my stats the next day... Man, I had about 200 new hits. All these crazy IP's that I didn't recognize at all. So that's pretty exciting to think about. So many people are going to read that page. It'll really bring in a lot of traffic to this site, so that's cool as hell.

So it's getting pretty close to me leaving too. One week from today. I was wondering if I should start going to sleep at 7pm and waking up at 230. That's what I'm going to have to do in the army. Because I'll be in central time zone, and we get up at 430, so in order to make my body get used to it, that's what I'd have to do. Man, that's going to be tough. Probably the first two days I'll be dead ass tired, then after that I'll be good to go.

Other than that, haven't really been doing much worth writing, that's why you haven's seen any journal entries as of late. I'm just spending my time finishing up a few pages, and getting my computer ready to go to Spokane. If you think of any pages you want to see done, email me or post in the forums. I'd like to know what people want to see before I take off for 4 years. We'll see what happens with this site after AIT, if I'll even be able to continue it.


June 26th, 2003

I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing right now, if you promise to stay in your seat. At this very, exact moment, I'm putting a chunck of, what my mom now aptly calls, Doug's "pork chop perfection". Really, there isn't another appropriate title for it. It's exactly that, pork chops, cooked perfectly. If I could mail all of you reading a piece of this pork chop on my plate. You'd all go crazy. My inbox would be flooded with recipe requests. My site would crash because of too much traffic of people looking for the recipe. But I won't do that. No, I get all three of these pork chops to myself. I'm not in the sharing mood either.

My mom is sort of doing this whole, 'last meals' type thing. Actually, since I've moved to Tucson, I've become a bigger fan of her cooking, and I would have never even thought that was possible. See, I was probably the closest son with my mom out of my brothers, so I spent the most time with here. Of course, doing this, honed in her cooking abilities to exactly what I like. Seriously, what I say goes with her cooking too, I'm her biggest fan, and her biggest critic. There really is only one bad meal that I can think of. Cornish Game Hens. She took the juice and added it to the gravy. Man, that was nasty stuff. If you eat like me and my brothers, then you like to have gravy all over everything. Well, my brothers and myself sort of take for granted that mom's gravy will always be ok. It's always been a constant taste. So when I take my first bite of the potatoes, I'm like, "man mom, something is wrong with these pototaoes." So I try to eat some turkey. "mom, this turkey is messed up." Then, the cornish game hen. After tasting that my plate goes down the garbage disposal.

Anyhow, my mom is doing all these last big meals for me. I've had the mexican meatloaf that I love, some roast beef, the pork chop perfection. Tomorrow she is bringing me to a "mystery restaurant". I'm really hoping it's Joe's Crab Shack. Love that place. Then I get sirlion tips and noodles, then it's off to the military. Tonight, she had came home for a while from the bar. Then she cooked my pork chops for Doug and I, while I made the potatoes. And now, she just left to go back to a different bar. I told her that I feel pretty used, she comes home from a bar, cooks an entire meal for me, and then leaves? What the hell is that? What happened to good conversations? I'm kidding of course. But, she's not an alcoholic and she's not a 'whore who uses men", so if you think that, I've never spoken about her on this website.

I finally talked to my recruiter last night. I called him at home, and he actually remembered my name. I was pretty surprised about that. We haven't spoken since I left MEPS. Anyhow, he was gone today, but still told me to stop by the recruiter's office. So I went there, and really didn't find out anything too exciting. They did weigh me however. I weighed in at 195. Can you believe that? I almost feel on my face. I would have never thought I lost that much weight. I haven't gone on a diet or anything, just didn't eat fast food, because it's just too much work to go to the fast food place. So there's a lesson for you kiddo's. Don't do anything different in your lifestyle, except don't eat fast food, and you'll lose weight. Granted, i run a lot, and push-ups, sit-ups, but I was doing that before MEPS. I don't eat a lot of fast food, or I didn't. Maybe once a week. And that's all I did to lose my weight. So, quite eating fast food for four times a month, and you'll lose 4 lbs a month. Really, that's like saying that eat fast food meal will cost you 1 .lb of body weight. Yeesh, that's enough to make me stop right there.

Either way, I've been really really healthy lately. I feel pretty good. My mom is on a weight watcher's diet, which sort of puts me on one now. So I get all the food groups, and no junk food. I excercise, don't smoke, don't drink. Maybe I'm pretty boring then? At least I feel pretty good too, and I really think I look better too. I actually now spend 4 hours of the day in front of the mirror, as opposed to only 3 a few months ago. Seriously though, I do look pretty good. It's odd after being so out of shape for so long, or in shape, but eat really poorly. Not as bad as my near diabetic father, but bad enough.

Anyhow, I have a headache (too much sun today, damned hot with all the smokey haze from the Aspen fire, which is absolutely incredible), and I'm getting up early tomorrow. I have a long as day, then chill out for two days, then on Monday, I'm going up to Phoenix, because I have to be back at MEPS for shipping out at 6am. I'll be gone all day tomorrow until late. Hopefully its to Joe's Crab Shack. I'm a big fan of crabs. Well, of seafood in general. So, I'll probably post one or two more diary entries, then there won't be anything in this diary for 6 months. I won't have one single opportunity to post myself until Dec. 15th. That's kinda weird to think about, being gone that long in training. It's cool though.


June 28th, 2003

Soon, soon, soon. I'll be gone. Strange to think about. Everyone is starting to say their goodbye's. I went to church tonight, I was going to play guitar but then decided against it. Anyhow, talked to Linda and Tracy for probably the last time for the next six months. They are so cool with me. Tracy and I put up the US flag outside the fellowship hall, and neither of us knew how to hang it. He is former army, for a long time. And I'm going into the army. It was pretty funny. During his sermon, he mentioned to everyone there that I was leaving, then broke off into this whole speech, about where I was going, what I was doing, that I helped them with their yard. Stuff like that. I've really actually grown pretty close with the two of them, and I'm definitely going to miss them. Strange to think huh? That I'm going to miss a pastor and his wife. Yeah, it's almost oxy-moronic in nature. They seriously treat me like a child of theirs. Always ultra nice to me, yell at me when I do things wrong, all that stuff. I really like them a lot. Seriously, it's an absolute tragedy that Tracy has Parkinson's disease. Someone like him should live in perfect health his whole life, and then never die. If you ever come to Arizona, you have to go and meet him. He's an unforgetable person.

So I'm doing a lot of "my last" things. My mom, grandma, and I went to Joe's Crab Shack last night. My guess was correct. They both won a bunch of money at a Casino on their last road trip, so they blew it on this huge fancy meal. It was about 120 bucks for the three of us. I love that place. I've been there 4 times now, and I look through the menu and want everything, but then I always get the crab feast. Which is three different kinds of crab legs. Then I get them garlic steamed. Man, it's so good. It's just frustrating to crack all the shells to eat. I finished everything though, and I'm not a big eater remember. I was thinking that I'd rather have crab legs, fish, shrimp, or most any other type of seafood than any other kind of dinner. And that's pretty good. Steak and other meats can be so bad for you in excess. I'm naturally a pretty big guy, and I think there is some risk of me becoming fat when I get older, so it's good that my taste preferences always lean towards things that are more healthy.

It's sort of amazing all the people I've met here. I mean, it doesn't feel like I know a lot of people. But with the church, and Doug B.'s friends, I actually know quite a bit. It's really cool too. Everyone is super supportive of my joining the military, even though everyone is basically liberal in nature like me. When I go to church, or meet people from the church when I'm hanging out with Tracy, everyone tells me, "I've been praying for you so much". I don't really know what to say to that usually, it's like, "ugh... thanks". But it's cool to know, that so many people I don't know that well treat me like family. I guess that's why I like it here so much. Everyone is ultra cool to me, and I have this huge family of people that seem to genuinely care about me. Versus Luxemburg, where I have this massive blood related family, where no one knows me that well, and most people in Wisconsin aren't always that nice to people they know. Even church stuff. People here aren't nearly as religious as people in Wisconsin, yet people here really practice the true meaning of religion. This church service that I go to once in a while, I mean, it's completely informal. Everyone laughs all the time, we clap for good performances, we clap for ourselves when we think we deserve it. We all pray together, but it's like a big religious party, where everyone merely uses religion as a reason to meet people and have fun. I mean, it's all real religious in nature, and we talk about God and all that stuff, but it's not so serious as it is in Wisconsin. I think I would be such a religious person if I grew up here, and I wouldn't resent myself for it. I wouldn't be proud to be religious in Wisconsin, but I sure would be here. You'd have to experience it for a while to see what I mean.

So I have Dan all set up for running my website when I'm gone. I was getting sort of nervous about it, but now he seems pretty excited to do it. So you can all have a good time reading my journal that I post for you. I got him squared away on some HTML basics, got him an editor and FTP program, and made the template, which you might have already seen. I showed him how to be the admin on my site too, so there really shouldn't be any problems, if you were concerned about that.

So I'm not really sure when I'm leaving yet. I went to the recruiting office on Friday, and they told me to call on Monday. I'll find out then if they are going to put me on a greyhound to Phoenix, or if they will be driving me up there at 3am Tuesday morning. Talk about stressful. I've found almost everything that I need now, so that should be good. I still have about 3 more items that I need. You would be surprised at how little we can take with us. Basically, Dental stuff, washing stuff, deodorant, disposable razor, 1 change of civilian clothes, and some paper and pencils. I'm bringing a lot of that with me so I'll have some material to write to everyone with. The church, and for my journal, stuff like that. I plan to maintain a pretty regular writing hobby when I'm there, since I like talking so much about stuff as it is, and I'll have loads of material then.

I'm still a bit nervous about things, only things I can't control. I'll be fine with the mental and physical games, I always am, but if I get kicked out, it'll be for something other than those two. We'll see. Either way, if you want me to write to you at all, email me your snail mail address and I'll send some letters when I get the chance. Hopefully some people do, because it's always nice to have an audience and people who support you.

Have a good sunday, you can probably plan on one or two more entries before I leave.






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