Dear Mr. Stewart

A letter I wrote several years ago and never got around to sending.

///

Dear Mr. Stewart,

            As a younger and more idealistic person, I wanted to make the world a better place.  Unfortunately, being young and idealistic, I made some serious errors in the attempt.  For the younger me, finding myself stuck neck deep in the various events that made up the War on Terror (among other things), the world was a very depressing place.  As a country, our attempts to alleviate one problem were creating many more.  I was not the only person to see this, but those of us who did were few and far between; the day to day was very lonely.

            For all of miserable 2005, I felt like I was the only one noticing things like Haditha and the slide of Iraq into chaos.  For my own mental well-being, I really needed to see someone speak to the problems we were facing with honesty and courage, without being a pompous bore about it.  And that was you.  (And later, Mr. Colbert.)

            You are doing a lot of good for those of us out here who are paying attention to the important things and feel like we are voices in the wilderness.  Please don't stop.

Sincerely,

Dave Witt

P.S.: Is Rob Riggle really a major in the Marines? That's awesome! I don't suppose you have any use for a burnt out Air Force captain?

Ukraine

http://www.theonion.com/articles/understanding-the-crisis-in-ukraine,35435/?
utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:1:De
fault&recirc=news

The Incredibles

Just caught part of Missions Impossible: Ghost Protocol the other day, the
beginning, and realized the same guy (Brad Bird) directed The Incredibles.
For a snarky moment, I thought, "Ah, and that was a much more realistic
film."

Seriously though, the characters in "The Incredibles" were both more
realistic and better executed.

Office sarcasm

Some office supplies a sarcastic friend of mine brought in the other day...

Password Strength (xkcd)

"Through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess."

http://xkcd.com/936/

20 Aug 11: Update:

Joel Stein on the difficulty of using safe passwords:  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089349,00.html

And, a link to gauging the difficulty of cracking your password using brute force:
http://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

Medicare

Somewhere in a computer, I am listed as turning 65 next month. (Erroneously.) So to all those writing and calling, no thank you, I do not need help learning about my medicare benefits.

Jon Stewart

Main stream press, catch a clue. Want to see a good interview? Watch Jim Cramer interviewed by Jon Stewart. A great interview period, possibly the best yet about the economic situation. It is a great credit to both Cramer and Stewart, and shames most mainstream news.

I get more out of 22 minutes of the Daily Show than maybe a day's worth of cable news.

The interview on Comedy Central.

Love stories

In honor of the day, a few 6 word love stories from a collection by Smith magazine. Some happy, some sad endings.

"will you marry me?" he texted.

No more psychos. Or Boy Scouts.

After three years, he chose cocaine.

Found prince, living happily ever after.

I always smile when he calls.

Too pretty? I got her anyway.

Sock drawer's hidden letter betrayed her.

Married too young. Now both sorry.

Let's get naked and wrestle. Ready?

I was sad. Then we met.

Where's the emoticon for "you suck?"

He had "man boobs". Strike three.

My history notwithstanding, hope springs eternal

What do you see in me?

He remembers wrongdoings but not birthdays.

Dumped through email with spelling mistakes.

Seeking Prince Charming, found Princess.Engaged!

Two captains. Haven't sunk ship. Yet.

Spellbound, I followed you to Arkansas!

Man, you still get to me.

shot my cat, stole my camera

This could be love. You in?

Found love when apartment caught fire.

You had me at "Ender's Game".

He'll always still matter to me.

Lost her. But she's happy now.

(Minor edit 15 Feb to make sure it's clear I took these from Smith mag...don't want to steal someone's stuff!)

(Minor edit 26 Dec 13 to make it easier to search.  Valentine's Day, six word stories, six word story)

Kudos

Welcome to the kudos list: people or events getting a thumbs up.

Craig Ferguson

The fiancial crisis...

...means I am getting a lot more calls from my mortgage company asking if I want to refinance. I've gotten at least 3 in the last 4 days.

Operation Golden Flow

I stayed late after work today to take care of some paperwork and try to get my deployment travel voucher paid (still no luck), and because I was there, I got tagged for random (semi-random?) urinalysis.

I was in the seat for 5 1/2 hours today, so the first thing I did when I got out of the seat was pee. They handed me the letter about 45 mins later...the Air Force has a knack for this kind of timing. Same sort of thing happened at the Academy once. So I started drinking.

I was trying to think of the last time I had to do a test...it's been 4 or 5 years at least.

Bumper sticker

Saw this yesterday:

I'm speeding because I have to poop!

dust two

I was walking around the other day in the dust, and I saw some folks wearing masks. I have one too, the disposable kind you might use working on drywall or somewhere there is a lot of sawdust.

The second day I was here, there was a dust storm and I had a cough for about six weeks. I would wear a mask for the dust storms after that, but at some point I got out of the habit. Now the dust doesn't even bother me. I wonder if I will have trouble breathing the air back in the States since it isn't as thick?

Liberty City Humor

Hmm...why so much humor lately? Not sure...tired of thinking hard after all day at work I think.

Why's this one funny? Again hyperbolic violence, and the Onion's standard deadpan delivery of the completely ridiculous.

The Onion

I'm blogging this.

A friend at the squadron here said there was some good stuff at thinkgeek.com. A piece of apparel that is sure to scare the insecure male:


~~~
original post by email:
~~~
thinkgeek.com

I'll update this post shortly.

email, links, humor

Humor

I highly recommend today's XKCD, gave me a great laugh!

XKCD

Respectful Dissent; humor

Thank you, Mr. Gates.

In the newly established spirit of respectful dissent, a few things I think are a waste of taxpayer money.

New uniforms. In the middle of a very costly war (the most expensive ever?), all the services are changing uniforms, and in the case of the Air Force, they are inventing new ones (the PT gear). Why are new uniforms necessary? Were the old* ones not working? I won't speak for the other services, but our DCUs used to work fine, and still better than the new ABU since they don't glow in white light after one wash, and catch on fire and melt to your skin when shot, as the ABU does. Here's a cost saving idea: Scrap every new uniform you have people not fighting the war working on, and keep the old ones. Put those people to work fighting the war. Further cost saving: Don't issue us all two uniforms (green and tan). Make tans general issue since most of the AF is going to see combat in the desert, not Germany or Japan.

The F-22. Yes, a cornerstone for U.S. defense spending for the next 5 years. And to pay for this item, we have (so far) decimated about 7 years worth of officer ranks, by making fewer officers and paying others to quit. (I don't have enough firsthand knowledge of what it's done to the enlisted ranks, but I have been briefed in the past that Force Shaping was supposed to affect all ranks.) People, most definitely not the AF's most valuable resource. There was a cartoon that made this point quite well a few years ago, I will try to link to it directly if I can find it. Check out the site below. Boyd, who I will return to again, would have said of priorities: "People, ideas, hardware. In that order."

The Dodo is (was?) a paper document that circulated at USAFA for many decades. It started underground, then eventually came under the purview of the establishment and was still circulated in censored form during my time there (graduated 2000). I've heard rumors it no longer circulates in any fashion. However, in 1998 a group of grads got together a formed a private website to host the comics that wouldn't be allowed at USAFA, and it is still going strong. A lot of the humor is directed at cadets and grads, but there is still plenty there you will find funny if you don't fall into those two groups. Incidentally, it is also often my best source of tactical level information on things going on at the Academy. eDodo

[edit 30 apr 08: changed new to old.* (Am I dyslexic?)]

reindeer, april fools

Some interesting excerpts from a running series of letters with Sharon:

Her:
I really like your new haircut! You look nice in a military style haircut. I used to get my hair cut on base but stopped going.

So tell me a story about your military experiences. Do you ever go crazy being around so many men?

~
I bought some reindeer from him and they pull me to class because there is so much snow and ice that I don't want to drive in the coldest months.

I have a fun idea. Since it is April 1st tomorrow why don't we change our relationship status on fb and pretend we are dating for one week as a joke? Todd will be so baffled, especially because we live so far apart. :) If he asks I can say that I am now pregnant as well. :)

Me:
I'm game on the prank, status changed my end. I'll change it back on 7 Apr. Yes, do tell him the pregnant part, the distance factor will boost my already considerable reputation for virility .

~
Hmmm, military experiences. I don't know about "go" crazy, we pretty much "are" crazy about women. I am working on a blog entry about it, but sometimes the best part of my whole day is hearing a woman's voice on the radio.

I had a female pilot friend deployed with me at one point. She was taxiing out one day and making a radio call to tower and in the background as the tower controller was talking to her you could hear someone in the background with a Russian accent say, "I love you!"
(We were in Kyrgystan, a former Soviet Republic, so the Russian accent made sense.)

For a genuinely crazy story, try this one out. I had never heard of this before getting here, but apparently there is a serious problem with male-male rape in the US army over here. Not that surprising when you compare this place to prison, bunch of dudes all crammed together for 15 months, isolated from the rest of the world they knew, with the added pressure of being shot at quite often.

Her:
Todd has now changed his status update-look at the one before.

Please don't tell anyone we both know that this is a joke until a week from now. ...for one, is sure to be surprised if he notices.

So are you also being shot at all the time? :( I wouldn't be able to sleep if that was me.

~
Just to keep you updated this was the message I just sent Todd:

Yep, Dave and I have kept our illicit relations a secret for a while. We don't see each other very often and sometimes we can't talk that regularly because of his schedule and the time zone differences. So we tried being friends but we are just too attracted to each other when we meet up. The pregnancy wasn't planned...I am normally very careful about these things...it was one of those I drank too much New Years surprises. I always wanted to be married first...oh well. We are talking about setting a date soon.

~
Oh my gosh! My doctor friend just cooked up this ultrasound picture with our twins! Completely wild! It even has my name on it. I even fooled a bunch of other people without meaning to.

In case you are wondering, I haven't lost my marbles. But I think we have taken April Fools to another level!

~
I find the thought of you being shot at quite upsetting and I find it hard to believe that you get used to it. But I will try to believe you...

Me:
It's interesting that you say that about getting shot at. There's a Chili's down the street from my house that I eat at a lot, so I've gotten to know a few of the waitresses. I was walking out a couple days before I left and I mentioned it would probably be awhile before I saw her again because I was going to Iraq, and I think I ruined her day. She got all sad looking...I felt bad, but I was really surprised because we didn't even know each other that well.

Well, you do get used to it. Most of the time I sleep through it now.

Her:
Sure, I will send you a postcard. It might have to wait until after final exams in May though. What is your address? Will you send me a postcard too? I have never gotten one from that part of the world.

My undergrad degree was in Psych and I learned how there is a stronger connection between couples who meet when they are young. The divorce rate goes up by 20-30% I think if you marry a person you meet after you are 25. I read about this a long time ago so my figures might be off. There is some kind of connection that forms when people are young which cannot be replicated later in life.

Me:
Interesting info on relationships. I was considering doing psych for my masters. I wonder if the reason for that is physiological (i.e., the brain is younger so the connections are more enduring), or learned (i.e., when you are older, you've met more people so each relationship is less unique.)

Her:
About your hypothesizing-the first reason is correct.

Jeez, your address looks like it is on the moon or something. There isn't even a country!

And when we call it quits don't try any funny stuff. :) You only get one kid and half the reindeer.

xkcd, quotes

The XKCD comic today was outstanding, and included a cameo by another favorite comic of mine, Calvin and Hobbes.

Some recent quotes from the rote:

"I'm gonna throw a half-way-done-with-the-rote-party. Something small, some balloons, streamers...a couple of strippers, maybe a keg..."-BDA

"Anyone who doesn't want to see a naked man better not come in here. I'll leave it cracked for BDA." - Cokane. (He was changing to run on the treadmill. Oh, and this is unrelated to the quote up above. And finally, BDA is a man.)

mIRC

We use a chat program here called mIRC that allows to talk to all manner of folks for all manner of reasons. I obviously can't talk much about operations, but needless to say, chat rooms allow for all for all kinds of miscommunications, both amusing and rage inducing. Some of the most proficient chat typers in the world are probably the average high school age cell phone owner and a whole bunch of military folks over here. See mirc.com.

Some relevant chat abbreviations, far from a complete list:

c: copy; this means, "I understand what you just said."

ty: thank you

yw: you're welcome

tyvm: thank you very much

rog: roger; means the same as copy

sb: stand by; I heard you but stop talking for now, I will get back to you when I'm done with a more pressing matter.

.: people will often use a period to check if they are still connected to a room and see what their nick name is. Sometimes in moments of boredom, these will become running jokes such as...

~
redhead_42:.
killer-mc:..
oddjob_mcc:...
~

We generally run things in rooms, where multiple people can read and write things to the whole room, but you can also talk one on one via a method called whisper which looks the same as a normal room, but only you can the other person can see what is typed (unless the chat is logged, which it often is). You can also give the room you are in a title, which provides an additional way to communicate. This can be for relevant business, or just a joke, more often the latter on nightshift. A recent room title: Bear Blasting, the sport you'll invent because you'll be too energetic for normal sports! (See entry on Powerthirst.)


[originally started this entry 29 mar 08, added to it 30mar08, 10 apr08, 12apr08.]