Time for the Friday Five

1. What was the last TV show you watched?
T.V.? as if I have time for that. more than likely it was CNN
2. What was the last thing you complained about and what was the problem?
I ordered some equipment from Altex Computers and they sent me the wrong items, so I sent them back and asked for the right stuff, they then wanted to charge me more for them, I wrestled with them and won, got some great gear for a steal.
3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?
My good buddy Douglas and Angela, They kick ass, went above and beyond to help me get my gear
4. What was the last thing you threw away?
a plastic spoon, I was mixing a dang fine cup of joe, which I am now drinking...mmmm caffeine
5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?
CollegeClub.com gotta check my email

And that's the end of another Friday Five, Today was a little better than most, though I'm still burnt out from the week and looking forward to the weekend, My good buddy Dave and Nicki are coming into town from Austin and were going to hang. So no more posting from me till next week. Have a great weekend all!!

These past few days have been burning me like wildfire, a proverbial candle at both ends, I exist in a state of perpetual caffeination (sp?). If I don't get some sleep soon I'm going to crash and hard, but I can't stop, got too much to do. Big mission coming up, heading down range for a few. There's lot's riding on my performance and I'm feeling the pain. These are the times that build a man's character they say. There's massive construction coming my way. gotta run, but I'll keep ya posted.

This-or-That Tuesday

What Is...

1. Yummier: Chocolate ice cream or strawberry cheesecake?
definitely strawberry cheesecake
2. Better to watch on TV: Movies or sports?
Movies
3. A better web browser: MSIE or Netscape (or tell us your own favorite!)
MSIE
4. A better way to travel: Automobile or bus/train?
Depends on where I'm going
5. Your preferred camera: Digital or film?
Film, there's nothing like the feel of a photo in your hand
6. A Cooler Vehicle: Motorcycle or sports car?
Truck or Jeep
7. More fun: Video games or board games?
Halo on my Xbox, but there's nothing like the competitive edge of Chess or Risk
8. Sexier: A perfect body or an intelligent mind?
intelligence will always win in the end
9. A stinkier smell: Skunk or gasoline (petrol)?
I think skunks are quite nice.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: What is more important to you: making a ton of money and being at the top of your field, or finding your soulmate and living a comfortable but not wealthy life?
I used to want to be rich and famous, but things in my life happened and my eyes opened to reality, now all I want to be is happy. If along the way I find my soulmate then that's all well and good.

Goodmorning, it's Monday and I have nothing more to add right now.

- update -
Today was rough beginning at 4 am and continuing nonstop throughout the bulk of the day, tons of things happening all at once, I was pulled in multiple different directions at work, but I handled it. I had to defend one of the soldiers in my squad, who's a knucklehead yet didn't deserve what was happening. It's hard to tell a soldier he's wrong, especially when that soldier's also two ranks higher than you and your platoon seargent. Let's just say that Monday was a rough day. I got home yet didn't want to stay, so I left and went to starbucks, didn't feel like staying there either. For some reason I was both tired and restless, wound up driving all over. landed at Bookstop where I proceeded to buy almost every other book I saw, at least it seemed so to me, lol. Went back to Starbucks a few hours later, but ran into my buddy mike along the way, we decided to hang out for awhile, went to kroger's bought some more stuff I didn't need, went to the gym, back to starbucks where we hung out for awhile, then helped close up. I needed to get home so I left as soon as possible. Arriving home I had to prepare for duty the next day, so I spent the next few hours Ironing my uniform and polishing my boots and didn't get back to bed till 1 in the morning and up again at 4 am to start all over again. I'll reiterate that caffeine is the only thing keeping me alive...

I wrote this yesterday while at starbucks, let me know what you think.

Trapped in a dream
Spiraling down a staircase
Of mentally streaming photographs
Stretched mind out into infinite existence
Frozen outcast lost
Standing tall in the crowd
Sensing danger
Terror drops
This state of mind
Dwelling in private tortures
Walking in circles
We walk away
Only to arrive where we began
What if I want to fly I cry
Like never before
This life as a shadow blooms
Passes into darkness petals
Falling
Upon the waters edge
In the desert
Of my loneliness
Holding a moment
Cupped in the palm of my hand
an angel births wings
spreads high in flight
departing with sweetness sorrowed
ambitions are ambiguous
ashes fall like tears from the heavens
innocence is burning
candy and poison are one and the same
forcing fragility in this life
weakness enters the mind
through it the body is afflicted
labeled fragile
caught in the moons embrace
In the way of silence
I am inhabited by a cry
Oh beloved silence
This madness
Memories like ghosts appear
Reflecting mythology in this white room
Reluctantly the sun also rises
Awakening in the garden of truth
The first time under a sheet
Trapped inside
Where I belong
In my dream

Last night I got in my car and everything was feeling good, I just wanted to keep driving and driving. I don’t know why or how, but I drove to places I rarely visit anymore and remembered things I thought I had buried, that I thought I had forgotten. Life is funny sometimes, it throws you curves when you least expect and even when you expect it. Life tends to hit you broadside like a Mac Truck on steroids flying downhill with no brakes and other times, life flows smoothly like a stream, shadowed only slightly by dappled sunlight.

Was yesterday such a day as a Mack Truck? No, the day was a good day and this night, this wondrous full moon filled night. I had a great dinner that followed a day jam packed full of activity. I spent the evening with friends both new and old discovering insights into both myself and them while enjoying a cup of my favorite blend of mint tea and honey at my home away from home, starbucks. The discussions turned from the future to the past, to wants and needs, base desires and dislikes. I questioned my own beliefs on a few topics and did not find myself wavering.

Pleasantly unexpected I received a phone call from someone that I thought I had lost touch with, but who remained constantly close to me in my mind. Things were said, while others went unsaid, some brought sadness, but hope shines eternal others were happy as is wont to happen. implied possibilities for the future contact and the regaining of a friendship imperiled by multiple constructs of the aforementioned mind. What will come of this conversation? Positives are my only hope for endeavors hereto come someday.

Where am I now that I can write to you in such a manner, I’m centered and at what seems peace, if only for the moment, chaos reigns with the dawns early light which is when I’ll get a chance to post this…perhaps. We’ll see with the dawn what arises.

So to end this semi lengthy post, I shall end with this request, soak up the dappled sunlight and wander by a stream, if not for your own sake, then for mine. These are the days which shall shine brightest for our young souls, but with brightest light comes deepest dark and too often we find ourselves giving pause in the shadows, lingering in the places not warmed by the sun. Soon enough our tale will be told ended and gone, then others shall walk by the stream, but for now, please enjoy the sliver of sky between the branches.

can the effect come before the cause?

A former undergraduate professor of mine who happens to have a side interest in physics once referred to a study that he had read of which concerned particle acceleration or something along those lines.

According to the study, the physicists (taking notes using a human temporal scale) recorded that the particles apparently reacted before the presumed physical causal factor of that reaction was introduced during the procedure. In other words the physical effect was observed before its assumed causal determinant was presented or included; it happened sooner than it should have on a human scale of time perception. Now if we boldly translate findings from the world of experimental physics to general human logic, is it not possible that an effect can precede or occur prior to the action of a causal force? Is it necessarily true that the chicken came before the egg? Maybe there have been times when you've witnessed a human or physical event and you have gotten the odd feeling that the results happened so quickly that you couldn't even tell what if anything lead up to it. I would like to hear your insights on this.

pardon the notion of peculiar motion
so cold that my veins are frozen
hittin you in the brain wit this lyrical potion
potent and full of emotion

solidarity and a search for my own personal security
have landed me back sitting with stability

pardon me if I was or am in ordinately not for you but them
give me time and I want to recommend
perhaps one day you might become you and not them,
just their friend

where does conscious acknowledgement begin?
somewhere in retrospective of all those that sin

pierce your heart with this lyrical retort
siphon love and give you an accurate report
what is left is all that exist from the resort
of giving myself and loving me for it

"We are what we repeatdly do; excellence then is not an act, but a condition of the mind." -Aristole-

Just like Eve-- "Concentrate on reality and believe what you want you can acheive even if you gotta leave you'll still belong to all of us just like Eve"

Is it arrogant to feel the pressure of an apologetic nature eating away at my soul telling me I made a mistake and urging me to tell you I am sorry for leaving and that my feeble attempts at return are run into the ground. Or is that the very fabric, the very fiber that must reworn to bring the remedied in our so discriminately destroyed existence. perhaps arrogance is a turn off, a turn away but enemies, devils they will be at my heels even if I don't join the show. In any way as I wait and fail to perform I am only putting myself at risk to fail the next time due to improper preparion of self. so to the BATMobile I will go and hate the dark night but still stay steady in my return to flight.

"Plain Thoughts And Common Sense"

As also is this too; while I await the great existence(and) I am seen as always it would seem in the eye of distant seeker of all that hidden knowledge that I speak

closer still look thee this I urge you upon your mind this idea I submerge you

deep within the blue-green earth of spaces unseen a season of creation attempts are in my mind

Are these the ideals perhaps the questions even if they may be solutions or just ways to defeat the execution of the misunderstandings and truth that I see to it receive their deserved life.

and it was my choice to make this decision

but...wait...look...

there...

words in a rhyming fashion no less but still chopped full of compassion

…defeat stress

Search right down to the last part of life that you know of to exist and realize that the meaning of all this…

It is deeper even than the ocean that sunk the Titanic but you, you will not fail nor drown I'll show you how to manage
panic cannot be surrounded by hate or cultivated by its destruction or have violence followed by no repentance

instead choose life in the midst of darkness
and you will begin your final process

putting together your own personal congress

make the laws but don't forget to abide by them
choose not to lie to yourself and hide behind them

but bring out the truth use it in your everyday life
enough thinking you know what's right
but what do you choose?

"Of judgemnt is destruction, Of security is determantion"
proverbs 19:11

Tuesday, Hot and Spicy... mmmm..good.

Recently, I learned that I was refferred to as a "nuiscance" via Alicia's Weblog but that was only because I had spent an enjoyable evening with her and her good friend Whitney, when in fact I was mistaken, I was actually refferred to as a "lame interruption" lol. Apparantly. at least according to Alicia, I am not nor have I ever been a nuisance, or a lame interruption. The persons referenced were not myself. regardless I believed I had a valid point and enjoyed keeping it up. Though Alicia did apologize for the mistake and I appreciated that.

Back to today, Tuesday, I woke up late for duty, called in and then hauled my late !@#$ in as fast as possible and have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off all day. There is so much to do around here it isn't funny, though I went for lunch today and had some extremely spicy food and that's going to keep me going at least the rest of the day. Tonight I will be at my favorite coffee shop, Alas this war is getting to me and I need to take a break, before I get sent down range again. Uncle Sam needs to be more forthcoming with the greenbacks, this working for free sucks, especially when I'm looking to buy a car. By the way let's take a quick poll: What kind of car/truck/suv do you see me in? I have my own ideas, but I'm interested in hearing yours.

In other news my friends at Bad Samaritan finally updated their site... go and read the word.

Plans are being made for Friday, details will be forthcoming.

Monday, Monday... The weekend was excellent, so much so that details of certain actions and reactions will be withheld to protect the not so innocent, namely me. haha.

"Everything you can imagine is real" - Pablo Picasso. Did you ever stop to think, and then forget to start again? what to put here? hmm... how about the fact that probably nobody, including myself, has any idea of what's going to come out of my mouth next, or what I'm going to type next let alone, do in public.

life is about living, hence the reason it's called life. "Life's a journey, not a destination, and I just can't tell just what tomorrow brings." -Steven Tyler

"I think we all go through heaven and hell every day, just accept that. To feel is to live. Life is made up of feeling all sorts of things. Every day's the same: there's some heaven and some hell. There's no complete joyful day.

There's better days, worse days, and I think every day contains both. It's like the Yin and the Yang or whatever you want to call it. It's both." - John Lennon.

what do you think? I'd like to know.

Friday, another week burnt out of existence. where have you been? There and back again. The remnants of this week are filled with the scents of caffeine, boot polish and sweat. the sights are many with a green, black and brown patterned splashed by sunspots. The temperature is rising, though the nights remain cool and windy. I'm reminded of Austin,

Of all I've left behind in the pursuit of duty. I have regrets and longings of which I will not take up your time and go into. I do miss the sun scattered patterns of a certain creek, where I could lay with friendly company in the water and forget the day away. I miss those crowded student filled streets, coffee houses and easy access books. swimming in Barton Springs. Riding the bike trails, breathing in that clean, dry hill-country air. The future seemed impossibly reachable there. I miss Austin fiercely.

Yet I digress, where have I been, Classified, that's where I've been. Though some of you see me around, here mostly. I'm thankful for internet cafe's, USO's and coffee houses. A little piece of home on the road. I believe If I did own stock in Starbucks, I would be able to fund my own empire based on the amount of caffeine I myself have consumed.

Caffeine, that wonderful stimulant. This brown, crushed, boiled bean is the only thing that's keeping me alive. I barely eat, sleep isn't an option, overworked, overstressed. I'm burning from the inside out, a bright blaze fueled only by this little bean turned liquid into so many wondrous forms, whether it's tea, coffee, hot chocolate or some frozen caffeine concoction, though lately it's been in the straight black variety, sometimes with a little sugar and cream. I like my coffee like I like my women: Hot, light, sweet, with a bitter aftertaste that lingers in my mouth... yes, Caffeine is a wonderful stimulant, though it's a harsh mistress... it gives you what you want and deserts you in your time of greatest need, making you hunger for it even more. I spend what little free time I have in an almost catatonic state when it leaves me. oh damn, my cup's empty again. Time to brew another pot... until next cup.

I'm not one to get angry, to raise my voice in frustration, I hold myself in check constantly attempting to retain a calm in the storm I feel inside. Though these times are trying and vaguely I'm attempting to describe what I cannot, but it doesn't seem to be working. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? I'm a good guy at heart though as all of us are I'm woefully unprepared, despite my preparations, to conduct business in this life. growing up I had excellent educational opportunities in my scholastic endeavors, the boy scouts, athletics, and life experiences. In thinking on this subject I must take some time, perhaps I am more prepared than I think I am. I shall think on this. I know that once I make a friend, I make a friend for life, almost regardless of how you feel towards me. See, the truth is, you could slit my throat and with one last gasping breath i'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt.

To begin again where I paused for a moment, this life is precious we only have a short time to explore the world in earnest, so explore I say. begin your beginning today, right now this very moment.

Today has been rough, I've had to deal harshly with fellow co-workers, subordinates, but I had to do it. I was left with no choice in the matter. now I have this sick feeling in my stomach, I dislike being mean, it makes me physically ill, but that doesn't mean I won't do it when the the time comes and I have.

When a job needs to be done, you should do it right then and not wait.

"How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been:how gloriously different the saints." -- C.S. Lewis

Am I to be the Tyrant? I'm not a Saint, this is well known, I simply try to do the best I can and yet they fail again and again to understand. The rules and regulations are pre-set there is nothing to question, but they fail me time and again so the Tyrant may come to the fore and business will be handled.