Kind of a sad day, I just watched a coworker of mine burn himself out of a job. He was a pretty good guy but he worried me at one point when we were chatting one day and he warned me in a fatherly tone that I need to always stand up to anyone who tries to put any additional responsibility or duty on my shoulders because then I’ll “be their bitch” for ever and ever.

In the end, his ego is what got him and it’s kind of hard for me to try to understand. He had a cushy job making well over $100,000 a year and he gave it all up to satisfy his inflated sense of personal justice. I guess it was a textbook example of “an haughty soul before a fall.” I can only imagine that he will have some serious regrets once he steps off of the plane back in the U.S. and realizes that the skills that he possessed that made him valuable here in a war zone aren’t really applicable to anything back home and that he’s on his own without a job.

I’ll chock this up as another lesson to be remembered. Sometimes it bothers me though, that my life’s experiences are so full of lessons of what not to do as opposed examples of a proper course of action. I think that I need some new role models haha. Ah well.

And I have a massive MP3 collection, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000 songs. My computer just plays random songs 24/7 in my room and yesterday evening as I stepped out of the shower I heard a Dave Matthews Band song that I’d never heard before. I am a huge guitar music fan and at first I just liked the sound of the song but as I listened to the words,it made me think a little bit and gave me weird dreams last night. Hardly a profound thought I know, but I think that it’s the cumulative effect of all the little reminders and warnings in life that end up having the greatest impact on our lives. And oddly enough, it makes me worry about having kids someday and being an inconsistent example to them. That’s what moms are for! Haha….ok nevermind.

Well today is finally the day! After nearly 2 weeks of delays and complications, I am finally getting back to Iraq. I leave here in a few hours and I can't wait to get back to work.

I finally got my pictures from my sister of our little shooting trip that I dragged my family on. My family rocks! They're down for just about anything. We spent a whole day out shooting old My Little Ponies and a mannequin that I picked up for $20 from Craigslist. My sister made the comment to me that "some families go for walks together" as we hiked over the parched prairie of the Pawnee Grasslands to inspect the damage caused by her shotgun to Steve, the unfortunate mannequin.

I'm lucky as hell to have the family that I do, my parents always took us out to see the most amazing things. We went to the tall ships festival in Bremerhaven, viking festivals in Denmark, toured the backwoods of Bavaria, and walked countless battlefields, both contemporary and ancient. I would hate to imagine what life would have been like if my parents raised us by plopping us down in front of the TV.

Oh and I watched that movie Twilight...it must be a girl thing because I found it pretty hard to stomach. To me it was an hour and a half of Dawson's creek with some goth Euro-trash hippies. When I got home from my date's house, I fell asleep watching Patton haha.

And some more on TV, I made up my mind that when I get married, I want to go the first year of marriage without a TV in the house. I read a very interesting article about it online, the girl who wrote it was absolutely amazed at how much more fun life was without it for awhile. It would seem like a good way to get a marriage off to a good start. Of course when that time comes around, I just have to sell that to the girl.

Ah well, enough of my rambling. Lemme go get on my plane for 27 butt-breakin' hours.

Funny Quote

I read this the other day and it cracked me up. I'm not necessarily a gun-nut, but I just don't like Al Gore.

"The facts are indisputable. There is more data supporting the benefits of Conceal Carry than there is supporting global warming. If you choose ignorance, in light of all the evidence, in order to bolster your irrational fear of guns, you are a greater threat to society than any gun owner."

Topper!

Days like today remind me to be grateful for a number of things. Among them, that I’m a guy, that I’m American, and that we have the 2nd Amendment.

I went to Denver’s St. Patrick’s Day parade this morning, it was pretty good. I’ve actually never been to one in my whole life. It wasn’t as crazy or exciting as Fasching back in Germany but it was a good time nonetheless. Only in America would we have a parade honoring a mythical Irish saint that features teams of hot dancers/cheerleaders, a giant Jimmy Buffet Fan Club volcano float that shot huge balls of fire and lava into the sky, motorcycle gangs, and off-road 4x4 jeeps driving on top of one another in the street.

All of that plus to top my day off, I’m going to a gun show! I sort of committed myself to a hot date before I realized that they were having the show today, but amazingly enough the girl actually wants to go with me. It saved me an agonizing decision.

In other news, I met someone who has quite the annoying personality. A book on personalities that I read described them as “One-Uppers”, while the Dilbert comic strip has a character named Topper. Everything I would say, whether good or bad, Topper would loudly tell everyone something much better or far worse. If I caught a fish, Topper caught a friggin shark. It made me glad that I recognized it though, because I could see that Topper wasn’t making a lot of friends out there and I have little doubt that Topper has no idea about the behavioral flaw being exhibited. It added another little item on my mental checklist of things to be conscious of….plus one point for Pete’s personality today!

Anyway, I’m off!

SNOW!!!!

Pete is a happy camper today! I left Iraq on R&R a couple of weeks ago hoping that I would catch the tail-end of the Colorado winter; I absolutely LOVE winter! However when I arrived I was somewhat disappointed to step out of the doors of the airport and see that it was a balmy 65 degrees. I really enjoyed myself though….yeah I know GET TO THE POINT, PETE! Haha, I guess I’m just easy to please when it comes to a lot of stuff, including the weather.

Then last night…da da daaaah! My mom and dad piled in the car with me to head down to the library and there was this chilly wet wind whipping west out of the Rockies, man it was awesome. And then I slept in real late today but I woke up and looked outside to see SNOW! It was only 3 or 4 inches and it’s rapidly melting but what a sight to see! I’m good for another year over in Disneyland Mid-East now. Ah well.

In other news, Pete beheld that the Ides of March were fast approaching….I don’t have a soothsayer on my porch yelling at me to do my taxes, or warning of my pending assassination but I do have that ominous feeling when I wake up that there is something that I have to do…but it goes away when I roll over and go back to sleep. Today is the day though, I’m gonna claim my $1300 refund. Whenever I find myself with a few extra dollars in my pocket, I always warn my Catholic friends that someday when I go to Mass with them I’m gonna jump up during their Holy Communion and shout “The drinks are on me!” as I slam dunk my cash into the collection plate.

Ah well, it’s almost noon. I’ve gotta get up and do something productive today.

I was a Boy Scout once...

It has been quite an interesting weekend for me and I felt that I had a few things happen that might do some good to someone to share.

I happened upon a pretty nasty accident last night a minute or two after it occurred; a hotel shuttle bus with a few passengers flipped over after broad-siding a car full of teenage girls on an isolated road quite a ways from anything but a few hotels and restaurants. Sparing all the gritty details; after everything was all over and everyone was taken away to the hospital I was driving home and the entire episode started re-running through my mind and I realized that I need to be much more consciously prepared for the unexpected. I narrowed my list down to five things to either do or always have with me.

1. Medical training, get it. It has been quite a while since I’ve had any sort of emergency training, not just CPR, but actual dynamic lifesaving techniques. I was extremely grateful for the experience and training that I do have though. If you haven’t had any, get it. You don’t want to be the person sitting by the side of the road bawling your eyes out because you don’t know what to do or the person who does the wrong thing and injures somebody further.
2. A good LED flashlight, never leave home without it. Amazon sells nice little 9 LED ones for $2.95. There will be times where you would pay $200 for it if you could get it.
3. Always have blankets in the trunk of your car, always. They could mean the difference between you freezing to death if your car breaks down, or it could make the difference to somebody who is going into shock lying on the side of a frozen road.
4. Always have a gallon jug of potable water in your trunk. You’ll need it someday.
5. Get out of your comfort zone and put yourself in a few situations where you’ll be really stressed, this is practice for the real thing. In an emergency, you cannot afford to freeze up when your mind shuts down, and it will shut down. You have to have the experience to be able to function even when the situation is chaotic and crazy all around you.

Thankfully I had in my trunk or head everything that I needed; it would’ve sucked even worse without it all. The Boy Scouts really are onto something with their motto “Be Prepared”.

The other interesting part of my weekend was playing host to a good friend of mine from another state who unfortunately has a much more difficult life than mine. I don’t normally climb too high on the puritanical soapbox but if you’re a girl, do not even fool with the chance of getting pregnant unless you’re happily married. Kids are so incredibly amazing but the responsibility that comes with having one can destroy someone if they’re not ready.

It is so heartbreaking to me to have to watch my friend struggle every single day with the depressing odds that threaten to overwhelm her and the young life entrusted to her. For five years she has been alone in a ways that I cannot even begin to understand. Some things are worth waiting for if for no other reason than it makes sense on so many different levels. My own personal perspective is that I am dependent on and indebted enough already to my Creator that I want to do things in a way that will ease both his workload on my behalf as well as my own….haha I guess that’s the logistics guy in me talking.

I’ve been on vacation for a bit here and I really didn’t feel like writing anything but now that the novelty of being home has started wearing off I find myself looking for ways to entertain myself. Some funny stuff has actually happened so far on this vacation…I saw a grown man wear a bra and panties….haha ah well. I’m ready to get back to the grind next week! I just wish the flight to get back to work wasn’t so long!

Tomorrow promises to be a good day; my dad and I are going to my all time favorite store in the whole world HOME-DEPOT!! The bathroom in the basement needs to be redone so we’re gonna try to knock that out.

Pete, on Cheesecake

Well once again I made an idiot out of myself. On a whim, I flew to Los Angeles to go see a friend. At her church, they were having their own version of the Golden Globe awards for home movies made by the people attending, it was so much fun. The videos were absolutely hilarious and everyone was all decked out in formal wear; they even had a red carpet!

When it comes to big events, I seem to have a propensity for organization. I’m a man of action! They obviously recognized this the moment they met me…and they put me in charge of the food and drink table haha. So there I sat, minding the chocolate fondue fountain and punchbowl when an absolutely gorgeous Latina in a very elegant nightgown came up and started talking to me. We talked about the funny videos and she told me about the part that she had played in one of them, the conversation was going right along. But then I asked her where she worked and she told me it was a cheesecake factory. Or at least that’s what I heard; she actually said the cheesecake factory.

Never having heard of a cheesecake factory, much less met anyone who worked at one, I was intrigued. In my head I imagined lines of workers busily building cheesecakes, a regular assembly line. I asked a few more questions about her work and at first she just laughed a little and then she started giving me puzzled looks. It turns out that there is a chain of restaurants called The Cheesecake Factory and she was a waitress there.

I generally don’t have a lot of blonde moments, but lemme tell ya that was a doozy. Ah well, all I could do was laugh about it today when I saw her again.

In other news; currently reading “The 4-Hour workweek” by Timothy Ferriss. Very interesting so far, this man has it in him to become my idol. Who wouldn’t want to win a world championship ballroom dance competition and be a national Chinese kickboxing champion? And write books, and make buttloads of money, and be a Chinese movie star? AND be under 30? Me! Who’s down for an adventure? Anybody? C'mon you student schmucks lol