Guitar Hero and ICARUS

So, I've been meaning to write a blog about what I've been spending some of my free time on lately. And by some, I mean a great deal.

So, a guy in my flight, Andy, brought a PS2 to ASBC. A good thing to bring. And he brought guitar hero I and II. I was like, that looks kinda cool. So, I asked him if I could play and he was like, yeah. So, we jammed HARD! Then, he went away for the weekend, and I stayed at the base. I asked Andy if I could borrow guitar hero and he let me. I pretty much wailed on that guitar so hard that a 1000 baby pirates heads asploded (homestar)!!!!! It was one of the crowning events in my life, for those 3 days. It was pure, unadulterated awesome. I really just wanted to share that with you all. So, here you go. Next time you visit me, we just might have to play some tunes, cuz you can bet your bottom dollar (Annie) that I will own a console and that game, and a TV...

As for the second part of the title of this blog, I just wanted to give a shout out to my awesome flight. We may argue and crap in class, but when it comes to ICARUS, we pretty much put aside all that crap and play HARD!!! (Real Ultimate Power). In fact, we played so hard we are 2 - 0 in regular season. You see, pre season we played 2 games. We lost 1 and won 1. But, now we are in regular season heading for the tournament, and post season. I think we have a shot at being this ASBC's ICARUS champions. We pretty much have spirit and heart. So, I will hope for the best and prepare for the worst (old, over used saying).

Flight T-shirts

I picked up our flight t-shirts today and they look TOTALLY SWEET!!! I designed them my self, so you can obviously see how proud I am of them. And how I'm begging for attention by posting this post about how I made them. I can't wait to sport them for our team challange tomorrow and for ICARUS on friday. =)

Who would win in a fight?

I'm not trying to steal Ben's thunder from his blog, but I did want to post this on my blog here. =)

Who would win in a fight? The Deathstar or a Borg Cube? 

Library computers

If there is one thing I hate about not being at home and having use of my own computer it's not having the use of my favorite computer here in the base library at Maxwell AFB.

The first couple of times I came here I used this computer in the back of the library. I chose it because it was out of the way and alone. I don't like being next to a bunch of people in the library. After those first few times, my favorite computer has been taken by some one else. =( I just want to take white hot railroad stakes and ram them through my eye sockets!!! Oh well =) I guess it's a lot of other people's favorite computer too.

Now where are those railroad stakes...

WTF!!

WTF, or the World Taekwondo Federation is one of my new pursuits here in SOCAL. Incase anyone wants to know or needs clarification, I started martial arts when I was 10 years old with Scott Hamilton at the Yi Gin Ching Self-Defense Academy. I attained a purple belt with him (3 before black) and then he had to stop teaching because of back and neck problems (He was an airborne ranger and had an accident with a jump). Then for a brief time I did Yi Gin Ching with one of the black belt students, Brianne Reed. I attained no futher rank with her. During my training with Brianne, I encountered Royal West Martial Arts in Springville. They were headed by Anne Tolley. They focused on Taekwondo. I attained my 1st dan black belt with them before my mission. After my mission I started back up with Royal West Martial Arts but decided I wanted to try something new. So, I did Gracie Brazilian Jui-jitsu for a month and decided that I loved it, but it was too expensive for my low to no income state during college (I'd like to do it again someday). Then I started watching the local full contact fighting matches on TV that took place in Salt Lake. I watched a Kick Boxer named Keith Semkin a couple of times and thought, I'd really like to do full contact kick boxing. I let that thought fade away until the fateful night of the 2003 midnight 5k at UVSC when I ran into, guess who?, Keith Semkin. I told him I had watched him fight and would like to learn. He invited me to train with him at Amy's Taekwondo in Orem. We trained for about a year and I fought in the local Full Contact on TV. I lost by decision in the 3rd round, which everyone thought was bunk. But, oh well, I learned a lot and had tons of fun (I'd like to do full contact again someday). Then Keith decided to go work in Arizona and I never saw him again. I then took 2 years off from training, this was due to the fact that I didn't have a trainer, but also I really needed to make sure I graduated from college. I graduated in '06 and moved to Edwards AFB where I started doing Taekwondo on base with a 4th Dan Master from Korea. She speaks Korean in class and her English isn't that good. It's great!! She's the real deal. The federation I am with now is the World Taekwondo Federation, the olympic peeps. So, this is really cool. Even though I have a black belt with Royal West (American Kiyuki-do Federation) they can't recognize it and give me one of theirs. So, I had to start from scratch with WTF. It's not so bad though, because most of the stuff they teach is the same from Royal West. Today, I tested for my green belt with WTF and passed. =D I look forward to getting my 2nd Black belt, and 1st with WTF so I can compete in Korea and other really cool places. =)

Urinalysis, more like weirdanalysis

So, today I was doing my thing at work and I get this call from the orderly room telling me to report ASAP!!!. I was like, what's it about? She was like, I can't discuss it over the phone. I was like, this is weird. So, I'm like driving over to the orderly room and I'm thinking, well, it's not my birthday and I haven't done anything really noteworthy. I was like, I hope I'm not in trouble. When I got there, she's like, you need to go do a golden flow, I'm like, what?! She's like, you have been randomly selected to do a urinalysis. I'm LOL, good thing I'm not in trouble, or doing drugs for that matter. So, I went to the drug testing center and like this big black woman asked me a few questions and had me sign some stuff, and then told me to carry my urine container above my shoulder so, you know, I couldn't like switch it out or something with a fake sample. Cuz, like, holding it above your shoulder has like magical properties that will make you not cheat on a urine exam. So then get this, she calls out, Male observer! and I'm like whoa, some dudes gonna watch me do this. I had heard about this before, but it didn't sink in until I was face to face with him and my...sample. So, we chatted in the bathroom for a bit and made some jokes, it was actually quite a nice experience considering he was watching me pee into a container. So, I gave the container to the Big black woman, who I like to call "Big Bertha." That's right, you know what I'm talking about. And walked out the door a different man, I don't know about better, but definitely different. I'm glad it's totally over and like I pray that I don't have to do that again for a long time.

Old mages don't die, they just fade away =)

Today I wrote a long over due adieu to World of Warcraft and my guildmates of Retribution. It was a good thing. I feel more free for some reason. I still keep in contact with a select few through MSN messenger and email, but the WoW chapter of my life is closed. Although, it has been a good tool to start a conversation with some of the branch peeps down here. I just wanted to give a shout out to Brobdingnagi and Plethora and Nikolau for showing me that you can quit the WoW addiction. Now my time is filled with work, working out, investing monies, more work and facebooking lol. Well, consider me a new man, that is until Blizz makes World of Starcraft =P.

Rich