Thursday, January 15, 2009
#221-230
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
#211-220
Sunday, April 27, 2008
#201-210
The Bermuda Triangle, also called the Devil's Triangle, is an imaginary
area that can be roughly outlined on a map by connecting Miami, Florida; San
Juan, Puerto Rico; and the Bahamas, an island chain off the coast of the United
States. Within that triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean have occurred a number
of unexplained disappearances of boats and planes. Additionally, readings on
directional devices do not operate normally inside the triangle.
Unusual events in that area date back in recorded history to 1493 and
the first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) to the New World. In his
log, Columbus noted that his compass readings were askew within the area now
called the Bermuda Triangle, and he and his crew were confused by shallow areas
of sea with no land nearby.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
#191-200
Doesn't this look straight out of a sub quality 80's action flick? Seedy indeed.
#192. Own a pocketwatch. This was my keepsake I got from the wedding. Hopefully, I can get something engraved on the back and I'll be able to pass this down to young whippersnappers ....but thats a LONG time from now.
#193. Visit a Caribbean Island. I've now been to a couple of them now, I think my favorite out of all of them is Aruba. I'd never get tired of 85 to 90 degrees on little underdeveloped islands geared totally to tourism....and rum is delicious.
This picture is actually a picture taken over looking Magen's Bay, St. Thomas. Here we drank rum and were attacked by the red sea monster that wouldn't stop splashing us. The water here was crystal clear, it was a perfect day out and the palm trees provided the optimal amount of shade while letting us get a nice tan in. The water was cool and refeshing, and now that I think about it, and would kill to get back there right now.
#194. Slash someone's tires. Youthful galavanting through suburbs at night can lead to some pretty pricey vandalism. Destroyed mailboxes and stolen booze from the garage comes as complimentary side dishes. I don't know what it is about boys and their love for destroying things. Bush...can you help me answer that one?
#195. Eat escargot. I had them baked in a dish with a simple butter, garlic, and other herbs sauce. They were actually very tasty. A little bit different texture, but not slimy at all.
#196. Go on a cruise. I went on a 7 day South Caribbean cruise aboard the Adventure of the Seas. We made ports at Oranjestad, Aruba...Willemstad, Curacao....Philipsburg, St. Maarten...and Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. It was definitely a blast, good relaxation time, and entirely too short. I would recommend a cruise to anyone, the only thing thats a slight draw back is you have to be back on the ship in the late afternoon, so you do miss the night life of the islands. The shopping was good, drinks...though expensive, were strong and the food was plentiful. I just noticed I used plentiful in a sentence and I feel like a pilgrim.
#197. Go snorkling. Right off the coast of Aruba, I went snorkeling after sailing out around the island for about 25 minutes. Our next stop was the Antilla, a sunken German ship. Here is your daily history lesson:
World War I (1914 -1918) and World War II (1939 -1945) propelled the sleepy island of Aruba into a significant factor of the war effort. During World War I, Aruba was a major supplier of calcium phosphate (Guano), which can be used to make fertilizer as well as explosive powder. During World War II, Aruba was an important strategic factor as Aruba supplied the Allied Forces with about 8 % of the entire motor fuel for the war effort against the Axis Powers. Because of the importance of Aruba as a fuel source, German U-boats and other naval ships patrolled the waters of Aruba in attempts to destroy Allied fuel tankers.
In early May 1940, the German freighter Antilla anchored in the Dutch waters of Aruba, while a chain of events is unfolding in Europe. May 10th, German paratroopers landed in Rotterdam and De Hague. Fieldmarshall von Rundstedt Army corps cuts thru Holland and Belgium, circumventing the Maginot line, into France. Queen Wilhelmina fled to England. The Dutch Army surrenders four days later. Holland is at war with Germany and thousands of miles across the Atlantic, the tranquil island of Aruba is soaked into it.
Unbeknown of the events taking place in Europe, the German freighter Antilla was caught in Dutch waters. A flotilla of the Dutch Navy warships surrounded the Antilla. The Dutch served a 24 boarding notice to the Antilla and in response, the commander of the Antilla, Captain Schmidt, gave the order to scuttle the ship. Captain Schmidt and 46 crewmembers disembarked in lifeboats as several explosions ripped holes in the hull of the Antilla, causing her to sink into the shallow waters. Several days after their capture, as they were transported to a prisoner of war camp on the island of Bonaire, Captain Schmidt and his crew saw the remnants of their once proud ship sticking out of the ocean.
#198. Ride the Ripcord. This ride took me some convincing to ride. Jessica had almost talked me into it when I saw a 6 & 7 year old pair of brothers hop in line excited as...well little boys. I said if they could do it, so could I!! So Jess and I tackled the mean monster, and it was amazing. I felt like I was going to hit the ground but we coasted out and up just in time. If you ever come across something like this, go for it!
#199. Complete the Green Belt MCMAP Course. It was only a couple weeks after my Gray Belt Course that Captain Andrious started up a Green Belt Course. It was pretty tough training, and the E-Course down in Quantico always is a good tromp through the forest. Hopefully soon, since the Captain has been giving the Adj office some lessons and grappling with other Marines, I'll have my Brown Belt and be only one step away from my Black Belt. For those of you who don't know what the E-Course is...it starts off with the Marine Corps Obstacle Course, then a 5 mile run up and down steep hills. You have to be careful of where you step, there are loose rocks and roots jutting out everywhere. We ran it with our flak jackets, kevlar, water source, and rifle. Oorah.
#200. Accomplish 200 goals. 801 more to go.
Monday, February 25, 2008
#181-190
#188. Have a newspaper article written about me. If you really feel like reading it, just click the picture.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
#171-180
#172. Read the Bible. I did this in my righteous days. Before I found the wondrous things of booze and fornication. I've got my own view on how things might be working above us or all around us or whatever, but this blog isn't about that.
#173. Meditate. Every night, during boot camp, when all the recruits were lined up getting ready to hit the rack we would be reciting things we had learned throughout the day. Firewatch would be posted by the lights, ready to begin their tour of duty. Right before we laid down we would thrust our right hand out and say "God", next our left hand, and yelled, "Country" and then we could clasp our hands together and yell out, "Corps!" Separation of Church and state, indeed. Most of the time, I closed my eyes and envisioned women naked, dancing around me. Or what it will be like when I can leave this God forsaken place.
#174. Have a 2 dollar bill. This wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be. Not as cool as this.
#175. Blow out all my tires and keep driving. I was sent to an Anti-Terrorism Evasive Driving Course out at Bill Scott Raceway. It was a four day long course of speeding around a race track, vehicle ramming, PIT manuevers, power sliding, and forward and reverse 180s. Fucking awesome. I got paid for it too. God bless government spending.
#176. Learn a new form of origami. I read this book in 4th grade about paper cranes, so I can make a crane from memory pretty lickidy split quick. I did a little paper folding research and came across a "Medium" difficulty piece, The Butterfly.
#177. Battle a fire. Mindigo and I used to go out and tromp around the back woods of Delaware County in Ohio back in the day. We'd pack up some food, drink and smokables and we took off. Among the many hi jinx that took place out there, I'll remember two most vividly. We were clearing out a place in the woods to hold a big ass woods party. We'd invite people out, get high, get drunk, and dance tribal dances around a fire.....naked. Or that's what I had in mind. Anyways, we brought an axe out there, a shovel, a few other garden tools, lots of bud and packs full of food. After working long a hard, we tromped back out, but we were not familiar with the woods yet so we came back out to an unknown road. We were trudging along it, very vagabond like and a car comes around the corner. It comes by, passes, and it turns out its Chitty and Frausto, a couple long time friends who were out on a bake route. They gave us a couple looks at the shovel, like we had just buried a body, and told us to hop in and lit up.
Speaking of lighting up, this brings me to my main story. I thought it would be a grand idea to bring a couple gallons of gasoline out to our "Eden" retreat. We fiddled around, and I suspended the gas over a stream to get it out of the way. We'll the can had a leak in it and was leaking gas into the stream. Aside from probably killing the little frogs that were around the area, I thought it would be amusing to light to creek on fire. It caught alright, well it burned a lot longer than I thought it would and slowly the heat began to melt the gasoline container hanging over the creek. The fire had moved downstream and I was in big trouble. Grabbing a huge branch I was going to try and hook the handle and save the gas, and pull it ashore. Well the plastic had taken a goopy consistency and it plummeted into the fire and so, being in the stoned state I was in, grabbed a large rock to force the container under water. The malleable plastic betrayed me again and FLOOSH!! There was an inferno consuming all the immediate woods around me and Mindigo.
We tried frantically to put it out, we started with water, but that obviously didn't work. We turned to mud and sand from the bank of the stream and smothered out the fire. For a brief few moments we almost turned and took off, to save our own hides and leave the forest for ruin. But we battled and persevered and snuffed the fire out. To our dismay, we had burnt our woods retreat, to the ground.
#178. Spend my whole paycheck in one day. I do this every 15th of the month.....fucking DC rental rates.
#179. Get a band's autograph. Alrosa Villa, 2002, Benson and myself havin' a ball back in the wood.
#180. Mail in something to PostSecret. No, I'm not secretly killing people. But, I can't tell you. That's the whole point, buy the book and guess which is mine.
#161-170
#162. Visit the Statue of Liberty. So I didn't go up in it...saw it, its big, wasn't impressed. I think it held more awe when tons of Europeans were arriving to Ellis Island. Then again, thats when we were accepting immigrants. The Melting Pot of the World. Well they showed up to be degraded and thrown into the Union army. Sad.
#163. Kiss someone under the mistletoe. I'll refrain from commenting about attaching mistletoe to my belt buckle.
#164. Play Othello. I pwn bitches.
#165. Be in a foursome. Motel 6 parties always seem to end in some kind of debauchery. Our entourage would always get two rooms. One was the party room and the other..well, I guess thats the real PARTY room. I really would like to apologize to the traveling blue collar man who slept in those beds after the deed was done.
#166. Buy a video camera. I don't use this thing as nearly as much as I should.
#167. Carve a penis into a pumpkin. Don't hate on my huge balls.
#168. Watch all six Rocky movies. Rocky movies always seem to follow some kind of larger battle and victory. Illiteracy, Poverty, and my favorite Communism.
#169. Beat Dr. Mario on Medium. Well onto bigger and better things. Dr. Mario is the shit. Almost better than Guitar Hero.
#170. Drink Absinthe. So Aaron Titus wanted to get hooked up with Recon School. No one was really helping him out so I stretched my admin powers of the Marine Corps and got him into a slot this coming Janurary (2008). He just took a trip to Prague and brought me back a little slice of heaven. Well, Hungarian Heaven. Unfortunately, I did not see any green people, elephants, or any other living being. Just got drunk as a skunk.