Man At Arms

Recruiter Part II
So I finally got down to the recruiter yesterday, the last day before they close for Christmas.

SFC Hartley seems like a good guy, though it's hard to understand his accent. He's supportive of my goal of 11X w/ the option 40, and willing to cart me back and forth from MEPS as many times as it takes for me to get that contract. That's a nice change from what I expected, which was to be fed a line of bullshit about how I don't need to get an option 40 contract and I can just get into RIP after airborne. Sure, it happens for like 1 in 100 people, but most people I've heard of that tried that got fucked.

I didn't expect to learn much from the visit, but he filled me in on the bonuses, GI bill, and the Army college fund. My basic enlistment bonus for a 4 year 11X commitment is 8000 dollars, or 4000 + 65K in the ACF in addition to the GI bill. I should get another 4000-6000 for additional bonuses, like college credit and airborne, and a promotion to E-2. I don't really care about bonuses--I'm not doing this for the money, obviously, since I'll be lucky to make 3 bucks an hour while I'm in--but it's certainly not going to turn me away. I could take the whole cash bonus but I figure when I get out, if I have over 100,000 dollars sitting there for me that can only be used on college, it'll be an excellent motivation to finish at least my BS. Oh, the Army is paying back my 2,500 dollar loan and all college while I'm in the Army is free (not that I'll have time, but it's a nice touch anyway). It's a good deal, enlisting.

SFC Hartley also believes I'll be shipping sooner than I'd wanted to, though the Opt40 might push my ship date back if the RIP classes are full. To avoid shipping in like March I might have to go back to college so they have a real reason to stick me in the DEP (Delayed Entry Program). That's something I'll deal with when I talk to the people at MEPS, I guess.

I took the practice ASVAB test. It was a condensed version with only 4 of the 7 or 8 sections. Easy stuff, though in the Math Knowledge section I had no idea how to do two of the problems, which were the only ones I got wrong on the test. I forgot how to do factorials (5 years ago in HS, and we never used it again) and I didn't remember how to do another problem but I also don't remember what kind of problem it was. The forecast for my real ASVAB score was 96th percentile, but I'll still probably do some ASVAB preparation; I don't believe in taking a good enough score if I can do better.

Oh, the last fun thing I did was take a urine test before filling out a lot of paperwork. Urine tests always make me nervous because even though I don't use drugs I'm worried that SOMEHOW something will have gotten into my body and I'll get screwed over.

I'm going back next tuesday or wednesday, whenever SFC Hartley gets back in, because I don't want to try my luck with the other recruiter. More tales of the recruiting office then.

Update: I realized something. Though the recruiter's name plate said SSG, he was wearing SFC insignia. So I've changed it to reflect his proper rank.

- posted by Dave @ Friday, December 24, 2004

Blogger...
...isn't updating my profile, at least not on this computer. It has maintained that I have 26 posts since November 3. That number never changes. I'm not keeping score but I'm interested in seeing how many posts I have, in fact, without counting them one by one. If anyone knows why Blogger is doing this, do me a favor and tell me.

- posted by Dave @ Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Damn Good Point
Something frequently forgotten today is the original purpose of the 2nd Amendment. It is frequently twisted to cover hunting rifles by the moderate left and self defense by the right. Remember one thing:

Our founding fathers wrote it with the intent that the weapons of the militia (If you're stupid enough to believe the militia is the National Guard, get the fuck out of here. If you're simply misguided, consider yourself reeducated.) could be used to KILL government officials, to instill fear of the people in the government. Don't misunderstand this; it does not give carte blanche to grab a rifle and start sniping senators. Just remember that We, the People are the final check on the government.

I do fear the government, and the government does not fear me. The balance is lost.

P.S. I really suck today. Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority made me think of this, but I read it earlier today on another blog. So if by some whim of fate you read this, unknown blogger, sorry I couldn't give you the credit for refreshing me.

- posted by Dave @ Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Some thoughts...
- I saw the followup story to [the soldier who complained about the lack of armor on his unit's HMMWVs to Rumsfeld after the reporter prodded him] on Fox. It struck me how slow the MSM is to catch up to the blogosphere; I read the exact same story some two days ago (I think) on a milblog (I can't remember which one... I'm tired, you see, and I'm too lazy to check). Maybe I just missed it yesterday on the news, but somehow I thought they'd give the same story again tonight. It's old news that the MSM sucks compared to blogs but this was one of the more striking examples in my own life. As you can tell by that statement, I don't watch the TV news very much.

- It occurs to me that in some ways, human intelligence is hastening mankind's destruction. I don't mean in terms of nuclear holocaust, either. Some or many of you may disagree with me, but I believe if something very significant doesn't change, our species will be gone or at least decimated within 500-1000 years. The dinosaurs successfully lived for 175 million years, vs about 100 to 120 thousand years for us so far. I believe a greater sense of self-awareness, such as being able to feel sorry for ourselves, and thus compassionate for others, is one of the key destructors here. I could go on, but this is just supposed to be a thought, not an essay.

- I've been contemplating the possible outcomes of robotic advancements in the future. While I do not believe machines will ever truly supplant humans, I believe if they become a great enough crutch for humans, they will destroy us nonetheless. Imagine this: humans develop robots enough that they can build themselves, program themselves, and go to work automatically. Robots handle farming, industry, power, pretty much all work that doesn't require a creative and abstract mind behind it. Most humans don't have to work, because money is no longer necessary; robots do all the really critical work, yielding enough food and other products that everything is effectively free. I know there are some big flaws in this, but since I've spent like an hour total thinking about it, it's about a 30 grit rough draft. Anyway, most people won't work unless they have to. Maybe half the population will screw around doing somewhat productive stuff and some people will pursue their passions in science and art and inventing (etc) because they love it. A large portion of the population does not work. The population booms (hey, more free time, more sex), and eventually either a disease will come along and pound the shit out of the world or the resources will be depleted. Either the entire population will die off (very unlikely) or the gene pool will be greatly refined and good things will happen. The end.

- This kind of corresponds to the above thought. I recently read somewhere (one of the blogs over there on the right) that for every 1 barrel of oil we consume, 1.77 barrels of oil are being found. So we're not going to run out in the immediate future. Cool. Unfortunately, a lot of people (not the blogger in question) will believe that that means we don't have to worry about oil running out at all. WRONG. So we were wrong about the planet's oil reserves. Big whoop. They WILL run out eventually, and we need to get working on it now. Hydrogen? It's a storage medium right now: we don't have a way to separate the hydrogen from water that uses less power than the hydrogen can produce. It ain't a power source, at least not yet. Methane? Hey, there's tons of it in the Atlantic. Let's get on that. Hydro/Wind/Solar/Geothermal = really cool, but really impossible to scale up. They are and always will be supplemental energy sources. Let's start building some nuclear power plants, and stop being fucking pussies. Boo hoo, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl go the cries. First off, Chernobyl is not even close to relevant in the USA, and go learn about Three Mile Island before you tell me nuclear power plants are dangerous. Fission is great, but fusion is better. Let's get on that too.

- I see my thoughts went from short and shallow to long and involved. Shit happens. I'm done for now, I'll try to think up something worth reading for tomorrow.

- Hey I thought of one more. I saw one of the most interesting shows I've seen in quite a while on the Discovery Channel the other night, Dive to Bermuda Triangle. How come there aren't more shows like that? Just a few years ago Discovery and TLC used to be rife with cool shows, and now they're all home improvement or car/bike shows. Lame. The History Channel is turning to shit too. While I would imagine those shows are being shown because they're more popular than edumacational shows that engage more than 0.01% of the brain, I can't help but think it's a ploy to make me subscribe to digital cable. All of the cools shows are on the premium Discovery channels; they even taunt me with commercials. I see one and I think "hey I really want to watch that!" Two seconds later: ...only on the National Geographic channel or Discovery Science channel. Bastards!

- posted by Dave @ Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Recruiter
I'm going to the recruiter in about 10 minutes, as soon as I tame my hair and shave. I'll talk about it when I get back.

Update: Ugh. Let's just say Stupidity: 1, Dave: 0. I forgot crucial items (I thought they were in my coat...) and didn't realize it until I got all the way there. Literally all of my money is put aside for my remaining Christmas shopping, so I can't get gas just yet; I had just enough gas to get there and back. Now I'll have to bum 10 bucks off a family member or siphon gas out of the truck or something so I can go tomorrow, bring the crucial items, and report then.

- posted by Dave @ Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Oh. My. God.
This is terrible. Thanks, parents, for moving to a school district that is good, so I'm not a total dumbass and I can answer those questions correctly. If you're a college student (most of you are), take the time to read that link. You might find it interesting.

And people wonder why I have little faith in my generation...? Jesus.

- posted by Dave @ Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Today...
...I've been relaxing. I did my pushup thing, got 605 in 3:30 doing sets of 15 reps, then 12 for five and 10 for the last five sets; I waited five minutes between each set. I think if I'd popped in another DVD I'd've hit 800 or so, but I was bored. It was kind of a mental challenge to get up and keep doing them around the two and a half hour mark. Not terribly physically challenging, I suppose--but I wasn't going for muscular failure at all. Instead, I would do the sets until it started getting tiring in the last two reps and then do less reps. The next time I do this I'll start with sets of 20 or 25, or maybe do the sets three or four minutes apart instead of five. Sets of 15 didn't start to get tiring until I'd already done 28 sets, so obviously I was being less than efficient in my time management.

It was enjoyable. Once I get my total up to a standard of 1200+ in four hours I'll be happy. I'm thinking of doing this once every week, and not necessarily just with pushups. If you have to ask why I'm doing it, don't bother, because you probably won't understand anyway. Why do I want to join the military and make it into a Ranger battalion where I'll get smoked 23/7 until I get tabbed (if by God's grace I make it that far)? Who the hell knows, I think running cross country and all that shit made me love pain.

- posted by Dave @ Sunday, December 19, 2004

11:40 AM
Last night I thought the day would end in disappointment after my plans fell through the first time, but luckily I have a friend willing to go to late movies with me. So I was happy. We saw Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I enjoyed, though I was left a little confused at the ending. Not to say I didn't understand it, but it seemed too quick and there was no real climax--at least not an obvious one.

That was the first time I went to see a movie since Erin left me. Might seem trivial, but movies were a big thing for us, both in and out of the theater, and like so much in my life the theater was rife with reminders of her. I also haven't rented or watched any movies since we broke up, except those on TV... I miss holding her, and talking to her in whispers during the movie, pausing it to get ice cream or some food if we're at home, and talking to her about the movie on the way home from the theater if that's where we were. I miss her in almost every sphere of my life, and it's really hard to handle sometimes.

I don't know if I'll post anything else today. I'm going to go to city hall to see about the fire department exam today if it's open: mostly for insurance in case I change my mind about enlisting or for some reason it falls through. Tomorrow I'm going to watch the first LOTR extended edition and see how many pushups I can do from start to finish. I'm betting on something like 500 or 600, with sets of around 15 every few minutes, but since most pushup days I only do around 400 in sets of 30-35, I have no idea how I'll handle this. Yes, this is what I do for fun.

- posted by Dave @ Saturday, December 18, 2004

Been a While
Yeah, I haven't been posting. I've been busy, and I just never know what to write about.

Today has been really hard so far. I haven't really done anything besides watch a little TV and do my morning load of pushups and other fun calisthenics, but emotionally I've been blasted.

I don't know what causes this, but sometimes I just get sucked into the pain of losing her... it's a real, physical pain I can feel in my chest, and all I wanted to do is die... I hate feeling like this. I would give anything to hear those three words from her mouth, 'I love you,' again, but the way things are going I don't think I ever will. I love Erin so much, I can't even begin to describe it; losing her was losing my best friend, and my true family. She became more my family than anyone related by blood ever was.

I'm trying to move on with my life: I'm throwing myself 100% into training and I'm set on the path to enlistment very firmly now. If things go as planned I'll be shipping sometime next fall. It's a long wait, and I'm kind of scared that once I sign that contract something will happen to make me regret it, and I'll be stuck in a really shitty place. Losing Erin has changed everything in my life, and while if I was still with her I'd sacrifice the military in a second to keep our relationship whole, now that I'm single nothing is holding me back.

For those of you that don't know, while I haven't technically signed my contract yet, I'll be getting an 11X/Airborne/Option 40 contract or I won't be signing shit. So that's the infantry enlistment option, airborne school, and then Ranger Indoctrination Program after airborne. That's where the real fun begins.

- posted by Dave @ Friday, December 17, 2004

Ah, Relief
So I went to the doctor about my heart issues yesterday. No conclusion has been drawn yet, really, because I have to track my BP over the next two months and get blood tests and all that fun stuff, but basically he thinks I'm fine. His reading of my BP was 120/80 or so, and while that's not as low as I'd like it's within the normal range. Verdict: the machines suck. It's possibly my thyroid is messing with my blood pressure, though. Whatever, I'm not about to die and that's the important thing.

- posted by Dave @ Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Health Worries
I'm getting very worried about my blood pressure. It's incredibly high, like I'm afraid I'm going to have a heart attack at any moment high. I just measured it at one of those machines scattered all over the place and it said it was 164/97. Holy shit! Three years ago my BP was consistently 110/65, attributed mostly to my running I'd imagine.

I'm going to have to cut caffeine and sodium out of my diet as much as I can, and I've been exercising a hell of a lot for several months now. I'm certainly not obese, with about 13% BFI, so I figure I can ignore that as a possible cause. My pulse doesn't worry me, though it's a little erratic; resting it hovers around 60 bpm, but little things can spike it to over 120. I'd go see a doctor but I don't have any health insurance! Agh.

So if I stop blogging randomly and you don't hear from me for several weeks, I'm probably dead. Just a heads up.

- posted by Dave @ Monday, December 06, 2004

Night Driving
I drive around at night a lot, usually around 2-3 AM for an hour or two in the F-150. It's relaxing: I can drive around and think about stuff without worrying about traffic but still be occupied enough that I'm not bored.

Last night I had an interesting time driving--by last night, I really mean Saturday night, but my sleep schedule is royally screwed up. It was about 3 AM when I almost hit a hitch hiker on 31: he was standing almost in the right lane, and I didn't see him because of the glare from the traffic light 50 feet down the road until he was about 20 feet in front of me. I swerved and barely missed the moron. That's the second time I came within a foot or two of hitting someone at 50 mph at night on 31, because they were too stupid to stay the fuck out of the road in less than optimal visibility. 31 is the highest traffic volume road in the area other than the highway.

One of the neat things about driving around at 3 AM is all the wildlife you see. I usually see about a dozen deer and sundry smaller critters, but last night I also saw three foxes. That was a treat, because they're pretty rare around here, and they're one of my favorite animals.

- posted by Dave @ Monday, December 06, 2004

Incredible.
Read this. What a fucking bastard.

Hat tip to Acidman.

- posted by Dave @ Monday, December 06, 2004

The Real Rift
The real rift between the left and the right is rooted in basic psychology. I spoke briefly about the pack mentality of city dwellers vs the individialism of the rest of the country, but now I'd like to speak of another difference: the lack of self respect the left wing exhibits vs. the right.

Left wingers modify reality; they live their lives by the perceptions and beliefs of others, not what really is. That's why they support a lot of social programs that rip money away from those who earned it and give it to those who didn't. They say that because those who didn't earn it deserve it, they must have it. Guess what? You don't deserve a damn thing more than you earned. Another example is cheating in polls; they get gratification from the fact that people believe they won, not that they did so in truth.

Liberals disregard the truth and focus only on the end result; as long as they have their power, they don't care how they got it. As long as their constituents vote for them, they don't care if it's because they bribed them by stealing from the rich and lied their asses off. As long as people believe they're war heroes, it doesn't matter that it's totally false and they wounded themselves outside a combat zone or fled like cowards before lying on after action writeups. Liberals have no self respect; they have to get all their respect, earned or not, from others.

Don't take this as a blanket statement, but more a general classification. There are exceptions, of course; Max Cleland didn't start lying about his wounds until a few years ago, and before that I could have respected him. Kerry I will never respect.

A lot of people might say the exact same thing about the right wing, except that it's not true. The right does have moral values, and I've never known a conservative who lied about his own worth for the respect of others. Conservatives believe that you deserve what you earn; you reap what you sow, so to speak. The conservatives I know respect themselves, and they don't need others to heap praise on them to feel good about themselves. Did Bush make indignant statements about his 'patriotism' every time some left wing nutjob called him a pussy for joining the TANG? No, because he knew it wasn't true--flying Delta Daggers is not a job for the faint of heart, or the stupid. Kerry's insecurity showed through when he had to respond to every allegation--some true, some false--about his service.

Okay, that was barely coherent, but I'm tired. If I feel like cleaning it up later I will.

Update: Oh, I thought of another example of the left wing lunacy: Celebrities. On the whole, the left wing celebrities believe in their own great intelligence, phenomenal insight, and earth shaking influence on society. Right wing celebrities often have a much clearer view on their true place in society, as entertainers.

Update 2: Just for the record, I'm suggesting that some basic psychological characteristics of an individual have a great impact on his political alignment, not that his political alignment affects his psychology. Maybe that's obvious but I felt I needed to clarify.

- posted by Dave @ Sunday, December 05, 2004

How Pathetic...
You know, I've read about this several times in the past few days but I assumed it was a joke. It was just too funny and unbelieveable to be true; I'd expect it from Frank J, maybe. My unfortunate conclusion--based on testimony from a local resident--is that it's true. If you're too lazy to read the article, the gist is that a bunch of Kerry supporters in FL are suffering from 'Post Election Stress Trauma' and undergoing real therapy for it.

All I have to say is grow the fuck up. Fucking babies.

I'm still not sure if I believe it, because it's hard to imagine grown human beings acting like children and throwing temper tantrums over Bush's victory. It takes all kinds, I guess. Just a thought: PEST is appropriately named, perhaps too much so. Pests? Got that right.

- posted by Dave @ Sunday, December 05, 2004

This 9mm Thing
Okay, I know people are using this to slam the 9mm and say it's not fit for combat but I think there needs to be a slight reality check. For those of you too lazy to go to the link and read the slides, basically a soldier got shot in the face at point blank range with a 9mm pistol and the bullet was stopped by his front tooth. He's fine with a hole in his upper lip and he's missing his tooth now.

This is not typical behavior of the 9mm Parabellum. If I had to offer a solution I'd say it was a almost-dud round. It's pure fantasy to imagine that the 9mm is so underpowered that it could be stopped by a tooth. If that was true it would certainly be stopped by the stronger cranial bones, but that doesn't happen; I'd wager a great deal that at least 95% of headshot victims by 9mm pistols are functionally dead. Especially the ones shot in the frontal bone of the cranium, which is incredibly strong, strong enough that it's an accepted fighting technique to block jabs with it in order to break your opponent's hand with no significant damage to yourself.

I don't like the 9mm in the military either (bring back the 1911... now), but this is a moronic argument. Some people are joking but some are also serious, and it's counterproductive to come out with statements like this. If anyone seriously believes this is a valid argument we can always run some scientific tests at point blank range with my Ruger P95 and see what happens.

For the record, depending on the angle of the shot there's a good chance that the soldier would have survived anyway.

- posted by Dave @ Friday, December 03, 2004

Election Stuff
I was moved by a conversation with a skeptical friend to analyze New York City's impact on our state's voting in the 2004 Presidential Election. I'm sure this has been done elsewhere and more expertly, but whatever. The problem? New York City is dragging the rest of the state along with it by voting consistently 70% liberal. My solution is simple: separate NYC's EC votes from the rest of the state and give Upstate NY a chance at actually, you know, mattering in an election.

Basically what I wanted to see was how the rest of the state voted without including NYC's voting population; interesting results, for sure. Kerry won upstate NY over Bush by a mere 60,737 votes, a margin smaller than that in OH, PA, or FL, much touted battleground states. OH went to Bush by about 136,000, PA went to Kerry by about 129,000, and FL turned out to be a rout: Bush won by 421,000. The point is that Kerry won upstate NY by a relatively thin margin with barely any Bush campaigning (Did he campaign at all here? No idea.). I understand that some of both blue and red voters probably stayed home believing it to be a foregone conclusion, so I can't factor in would-have voters, but it is my belief that had upstate NY been treated as a swing area and Bush had campaigned here with the mind to win it, there's a good chance it would have gone red. That cuts both ways of course, since Kerry hardly worried about losing NY and neglected it as well. It's all speculation but what I'm looking for here is the chance to not be carried along with NYC.

Consider it this way: a mere 18.5% of the red voters in NY voted in NYC; in contrast, 40% of the blue voters in the state are in the Big Apple. That means that in the rest of the state's population--and it is an entirely separate population, believe me--each conservative voter is worth 0.72 to each liberal voter's 1. So unless upstate NY can scrape up 39% more red voters than blue, it IS a foregone conclusion. The suburban and rural populations have lost their autonomy.

If we're going to insist on using the electoral college by popular vote, why are we clinging to the state divisions anyway? Once upon a time states could be seen as relatively united internally and state populations on the whole had at least closely unified goals and positions, but with the shift from state vs state to urban vs suburban/rural, maybe we should think about reorganizing the electoral college. The net result of lumping together the populations of NYC and Upstate NY is the liberals get an extra 18-20 EC votes at no charge for this state alone. PA is another example of one city dragging the rest of the state with it: Philadelphia went to Kerry by 400,000 votes, while Kerry's margin in the state was a mere 129,000. Separate Philly from the rest of the state and you have a more realistic representation of the population on the whole.

I realize this can be seen as an undesireable step toward direct democracy but in reality I simply want to reorder the system in the interest of fairness and realism. I would be saying the same thing if cities went red; this is a perversion of the system that should not be tolerated, no matter who benefits.

For those of you that think urban dwellers have any idea what life is like in even the suburbs, much less a rural area, get a fucking grip on reality. There's a marked rift between the psychology of a city and the country: city dwellers are the ultimate specialists. In the country, and the suburbs to a lesser extent, people are more self reliant and responsible. That's the principle difference, in my opinion.

- posted by Dave @ Thursday, December 02, 2004