Vancouver Away

    On this coming Saturday, after a morning watching my daughter play in her U10 soccer game, and coaching my son's U7 team, my wife and I will jump into the car and begin our trip to Vancouver, British Columbia.  No kids,  no plans (other than supporting our Timbers as they win the Cascadia Cup), and no worries... unless you are one to worry about what things may keep you from getting across the Canadian border.  I've heard of crazy things.  That curfew violation from when I was 17 (the gun wasn't in MY hands mr. Mounty sir), the Minor in Possession of Alcohol charge when I was 18 (received while camping, of all things - thank you very much Jenny Rubish for telling the police where you were headed when you were caught on the way there), the underground porn (I watched and/or starred in), the impure thoughts I've had (see previous underground porn reference) and still have occassionally (pronounced "hourly"), or the way that I sometimes call Little People.... "midgets".  Any number of wierd things can keep you out of Canada, but reeeeaaaalllly.... it's not like I'm going to attack Canada or try to take it over.  No "Occupy Canada" here... They have nothing I want.  I don't understand why they would be scared, except they are, after all, halfway French.  Being gun-shy may just be in their blood.
     I must apologize to all of the other Timbers fans, my TA brethern, for I may be at fault for our loss in Shittle.  You see... I wasn't able to make it to the game.  I often refer to the Timbers as MY team, and they must've gotten the memo, because with a couple of own goals (bull SHIT if I give that one to the rapist - #nomeansno) the team, knowing that my wife and I were travelling to watch #Vancouveraway (without the kids), made sure that I could be present when we won the Cascadia Cup.  They WANT me to be able to help celebrate the victory in a foreign country.  I'm sorry fellas... but I will accept the responsibility for the Shittle loss.  I refuse to believe that the loss was an accident, but rather was fate.  It was my team making sure that I could be present to bask in the glory when we win it this year.  People that scoff or grumble that I dare to use the word "glory" when talking about winning the cup in a season like 2012... shut up.  This is my little world, and I can pay attention to, forget about, or ignore whatever the hell I want to.  Positive vibes people.  Til I die.
     We'll make it in time on Saturday to see some live bands singing some TA music, and we'll sing along with them as loud as we can.  What?  Carry a tune you ask?  no.  But we'll sing loud and proud damnit.  Why?  Because we're gonna win the league (next year)!  After we win on Sunday, there will be the costume party to attend.  If you only knew.  So with my wee little frame, at costume parties, I have been a chipendale dancer (the Chris Farley version - look it up if you don't know it), a nacho libre wrestler (El Hematoma), and Alan from the Hangover (in his t-shirt and jockstrap).  So for Vancouveraway... what to wear, what to wear.  It may be cold (no ladies, not a PRE-excuse... just sayin').  Somebody has suggested Queens and Kings of Cascadia... I'm not sure yet... but I will have to figure something out.  It IS a foreign country after all, I should make it good.  Will Canadians (or my beloved CASCADIANS for that matter) be too offended if I went as a dark cloud and dropped Acid Rain?  Would I offend my brothers if I went as an ELF (member), or ALF?  Would I be the recipient of secret handshakes all night long if I did... and "special" brownies and cookies?  I don't know... but I'll have to figure out something good.
     I fully intend to make this one of the best times in my wife's and my lives,  and I hope that some of my rowdy friends are down to help me make it so.  I'll see you all in Vancouver... Rose City Til I Die!!

Touching Base

     Well... It has been a really long time.  I want to fix that.  This is just one of those times when I write just for writing's sake, just to get myself going again. 
     I had several more blog posts but I lost them in the divorce.  Even though I ended up not getting divorced after all... I still lost the blog posts.  I don't think it's actually a terrible thing that they're gone, maybe good for my job (and marriage) for them not to be available anymore... but I kinda miss them a little... I think they were good.  There was one about the time my wife was pregnant and I was caught masturbating... the time I was thinking about going to work while I was still probably .10 BAC from the night before... the one about my friend's garage bar that we nicknamed "Frenchy's" (probably the same story as the thinking about going to work while probably still at a .10).
    My job is going really well right now... best gig ever, helping out the supersleuths at another agency...  My kids are in the middle of their fall soccer seasons.  We're loving the hell out of our season tickets for the Timbers, we don't even care about their win/loss record (RCTID!!), and even made it to the San Jose away game as a family.  Joselyn and I are going alone to the upcoming game in Vancouver B.C. ("Our house... in the middle of BC"), so I have one more place to share the experience that is "the kindergardner" (save for another blog).  Pay it forward fellas, pay it forward.  I've been officiating soccer again this year, feeling pretty good while doing so.  Playing another indoor soccer session again starting Sunday (started LAST Sunday, but c'mon... Timbers vs Flounders in Seattle was on TV... what was I supposed to do?).
     I intend for this to be a place for me to share stories, and not just this "journal" or "catching up" stuff... but I just had to get something written down to break the ice.  I promise to get a story put together soon.

Almost up to date

So the posts I've already put on here today were all older posts, some of them from a few years ago.  I suppose they may be in backward order?  whateva...  Now to actually get on with the rest of my day...

When I root I root for the Timbers!!

Sheepdogs

What I needed to learn about myself and the people I respect I learned from Lieutenant Colonal Grossman. 
LT. COL. Grossman is a propogandist that also worked at West Point.  Propoganda aside, he put a handle on something that made total sense when he broke it down.
There are three main catagories of people.  There are your wolves, your sheep, and your sheep dogs.  The sheep are important.  They eat the grass and keep the fire danger down.  They are the general population and make up most of the masses.
The wolves are the killers who live only to prey on the sheep.  They do not see it as wrong to prey on sheep, that is simply what they were born to do.
The sheepdogs on the other hand, have a bloodlust also....  But they live to PROTECT the sheep.  They love the violence that they need to unleash on the wolves, but will only unleash that violence on a wolf.
The sheep do not like to see the sheep dogs.  They sometimes look similar to the wolves.  They are a reminder that wolves are out there, and sheep would frankly rather just eat grass and pretend that there is no danger.
When a wolf comes out of the forest, the sheep huddle near the sheepdog and love the shit out of him, then when the wolf is gone, the sheep quickly try to forget about the sheepdog.  The sheepdog doesn't mind, because he just lives to protect the flock.
There are varying degrees of each of the three types of people.  A mother who may be a sheep almost all of the time, may quickly turn into a sheepdog when her children are threatened.  A police officer may choose not to take his sidearm with him when he goes to the grocery store, thereby displaying sheep-like thinking "nothing is probably going to happen today".....  When the police officer does that, he/she should look in the mirror and say "baaaaaah", because they are mentally in sheep mode.
A story is told about a police officer who is on a SWAT team in Texas who did not take his gun with him when he attended church with his family.  Why in the heck would somebody want to take a gun to church right?  A deranged man walked into the church during the service and began shooting people.  The police officer could do nothing but lay on top of his son and hope that they survived...knowing full well that he had the skills and knowledge to stop the killling, if only he had brought the proper tool.
Some people who think about the hijacked flight that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside say "man I'm glad I wasn't on that plane".  Others say "Man I wish I had been on the plane because I could've done something".
It's up to you to decide which of those people you are...and if you choose the wrong one...look in the mirror and say "BAAAAAHHHH"

Super BadAss Bug

What in the HELL is going on?  Everybody is sick and it isn't cool at all.  It went through our family (just kinda sideswiped me so far) and is kicking our asses!!
.......It went through the kids' daycare...
.....through their school....
....through Emma's mouth....
...through Alex's diaper....
....through my work.....
....through the news....
....AAARRRRRGGGHH!!
ok...that's done.  Played my first indoor soccer game in about a year and a half last night, it was a blast.  The good news is that it's basically coed beer league, as opposed to some of the competitive leagues that I've played in before.  I think it was good to transition my way back into it like this....because even this kicked my ass (did I mention that I just had a piece of a badass superbug at the end of last week/weekend?).  The fat belly doesn't help me either.
I had a few assists and one (or two?) goals.  I get almost more satisfaction out of setting up the goal and assisting then I do out of putting the ball in the net.  I don't think that's cowardly....I'd say unselfish...but I really do like that.  There are some good players on my team, which is a nice bonus.  It REALLY is about the fun anyway.
Emma asked me to win for her, and I told her that it was all about having fun....but it sure was nice to win the first game.  Most of the other team were "pick-up" players though, as most of the other team didn't show.
I'm sore today, and feeling like a sissy for it.  Doing a new activity that you haven't done in awhile (read "exercising") really makes fat complain.  I need to keep it up to make it hurt less...but it's just getting there that's the hard part (I seem to remember that I never really got "there"...that I was always "getting there".  Hmmmm, something to think about I guess, but not for too long or I'll never exercise again).  Did I mention that I'm sore?
I know that I need to get back into better shape.  Someone I work with was slashed with a razor across his ear, arm, back, and chest yesterday.  The person who did it was a "ding", no rhyme or reason, just came out of the blue with it.  It's a good reminder for me I suppose, and a wake-up call to exercise.  I want to come home from work to my wife and kids.  And to top it off, I have the high profile job, which doesn't exactly make the best friends.  Those "best friends" may possibly look me up when they get the opportunity, or may just see me by chance on the street. 
Goes back to either being a sheep or a sheep dog....I just have to keep cognizant and ready...while walking the fine line of not being paranoid and stressed about it at all times...or making my family stress out about it.
I haven't been in a real fight in a long time...which is good.  I had my ass handed to me once (made a good accounting of myself before I was knocked out - they remember me), but the point was that I was knocked the hell out.  Kinda like this superbug is doing to my family....-did I mention that?

Killing Babies

It was 1994 and I had been patrolling nightly in downtown Port-Au-Prince.  By patrolling I mean walking up and down hills, smelling shit in the air, avoiding dead bodies that were mutilated and lying in heaps of garbage, carrying more weight than I should have had to, and being glad that I was walking all night instead of all day.  I kept telling myself "good friends, guns, some occasional Black Sabbath when we were hitching a ride in a hummer, nighttime in the Caribbean…how could it be any better".
So on the 25th straight night of patrolling…the "new" Sgt Major walked with us to see what we do.  Because of this…we had done MANY more hills than normal and moved much faster.  I was smoked…but the Sgt Major was even more smoked, and we played it off as if this was what we always did.  Sweat rolled off of my brow as he asked me if this was "normal", and I actually kept a straight face when I said "what do you mean Sgt Major?  This isn't "normal", but this is what we do every night.  I'm just glad we're taking it easy since you're with us.  I wish you'd patrol with us every night so we'd get to keep taking the easy routes."
It was daylight and we were moving to the extraction point.  Along the way, a citizen waved us down and told us about a very large cache of grenades, weapons, and ammo.  He told us that they belonged to an anti-US militia group, but were presently only being guarded by a couple of guys.  He says he will show us where they are.  My LT was salivating so much that we had to re-hydrate him with an IV, and after conferring with the Sgt Major and our Platoon Sgt, we moved out to take the cache.  I want to believe that my Platoon Sgt advised against it, saying that the intel should be passed up first, but the Sgt Major and LT said "no…this is "hot" intelligence, this is a "willing" informant, and we need to capitalize and go NOW."  So we went.
We get to a hillside maze of buildings, you could almost think of as apartments, but if you've seen the beginning of Blackhawk Down where the SF guys are in the marketplace, with the stone buildings with hanging cloths for doors, winding alleys that are about 6 feet wide, and stairways leading into other portions of the maze, you have an idea of what it looked like.  We were at the top of it and the "villa" area was down the hillside into a kind of ravine.  The guide explained which doorway it was, but refused to go any further. 
My two partners and I were assigned to find a way down to the bottom of the ravine and wait there, in case anybody tried to escape out the back.  So we're conducting some building clearing down the villa and trying to get to the bottom without getting ambushed.  Did I mention how windy the alleys were??  Think of them as hallways with no roof, open to the air.  Fairly steep downhill with stairs intermixed.  We make people face the wall and place their hands up, palms to the wall as we pass them.  One lady is glancing VERY nervously at a doorway where the standard issue blanket is acting as a door…and I notice that the blanket is moving as if somebody has just been peeking out at us.  I alert my partners and we make entry.  Safety is off of my m16/203 and I am mentally already killing the Haitian inside that is preparing to kill me.  I am first through the door and am pointing my rifle at two Haitian kids, one about three years old and the other in a crib, probably 8 months old.  There is nobody else in the room, not even another doorway out.  I almost killed those babies and am only glad that I made entry and looked instead of just squeezing the trigger and sending rounds into the doorway and room.
We come back out and finish clearing to the bottom of the ravine.  At the bottom of the ravine I am standing in ankle deep water, and about 30 feet away is a 400 pound pig on a rope that is trying everything it can do to tear itself loose and get to me and my partners.  I can't tell if it wants to eat me or make me "squeal like a pig" like in the movie Deliverance.  Whichever it is, I'm thankful for whoever tied the knot to whatever the anchor is, because if it wasn't a good knot, or a good anchor, I'd be in big trouble.  The other side of the ravine is about a 15 foot cliff straight up, and people keep poking their heads over to look down at us.  I simply wait for the grenade to drop.  I contemplate (several times) just shooting the pig, because it's scaring the hell out of me, and using it as cover in case grenades start dropping on us.  There is nowhere to hide.
After we stand in the water for about a half hour, we are recalled up the exact same route that we came down.  I pass the fateful doorway and think again how close I came to killing those babies.  When we get back to base and debrief, I find out that the "informant" had made the story up.  His girlfriend had just left him for another man, and he wanted that man to get killed, so had sicked us on him.  My LT  (and all of us) bit when he put out the line.  We later were given a class about how intelligence and information works, and why it is soooooo important that you get confirmation before you do a DAMN thing.  We had just learned that point without the class, but I think they wanted to rub it in on our LT. 
I think about what I would've done had I killed those babies on a bogus mission.  Would I have gone AWOL, tracked down the guy who sicked us on his girlfriend stealer/enemy, or would I have gone after the LT, who accepted the mission without real intelligence.  I would've been killing somebody for that, the babies would've needed a sitter, and I would've felt obliged to provide it.

It's Just a BAD DREAM Pile!!

I know that Frank Harris is going to be viewing my account... waiting to read this blog...because I told him the story already and he confirmed that I really ought to write this....
Once again Emma has been sick.  She'd been running a fever that sometimes reached over 104` and it really sucked.  She was wimpering alot and wouldn't eat much of anything.  I think we did ok keeping fluids in her, but she was just plain OUT of commission for a minute (pronounced "5 days"). 
On the second night, she spent the night with her Grandma Maggie...and vomitted in the bed - all over Grandma, her clothes, the blankets...probably the walls and ceiling too.
Because of that, on the third night Joselyn told Emma that she would sleep with her to be there for her if she "threw up" again.  Jo didn't last 20 minutes before she left the room because Emma snores...no wait....SSSSNNNNOOOOOORRRRREEEEESSSSS so loud.  I was called in to sleep with her instead.  There is a reason for this...
All my life I have snored like Emma.  When I was a kid, my mom and dad used to joke about my snoring rattling the door to my bedroom at night (I think they were joking...).  When I went to basic training for the Army, I lived in a dorm that housed 54 of us.  It only took a couple of sideways looks at me and one comment made (something like "somebody back there in that corner (now the sideways looks at me from people) snores WWWAAAY to loud and needs to learn how to shut the fuck up at night") to teach me how to not snore while I'm sleeping.  I just sleep on my side or on my stomach and that keeps/kept me from snoring.  If I started to snore...I heard it and woke myself up...lets just say that I was a light sleeper at that time out of necessity...I definately did not want a blanket party.  I knew that I could probably do ok against one or two of them at a time...but that's not how a blanket part works.  You are totally asleep when the beating starts, and don't have much time to protect yourself.  Whoever has seen the movie "Full Metal Jacket" raise your hand now.  Ok...put it down.
So Joselyn figures that it's my job to lay with her, because I'm sure that I've kept Jo up nights with my loud snoring.  Ya see...the fear of a blanket party has faded and I tend to roll onto my back when I sleep now, which means that I snore.  I know this because (not only has Jo told me ALL about it, but) I snore so damn loud that sometimes I wake myself up.  Did I already mention that?  So IF I go sleep with Emma, and in so doing get a taste of my own medicine, then Joselyn will actually get a decent nights sleep without the doors and windows rattling around her from my snoring. 
When I lie down with Emma, I thought there would be no way in HELL that I was going to get to sleep.  It sounded like she had a curtain of raw steaks hanging down across her throat and she was trying to breath by forcing air through them.  The meaty gurgle of air going into her tiny body was enough to give me the willies and probably gave me nightmares.  I was even scared that she may not be able to continue breathing all night, because I knew there must be some tremendous effort going into making her lungs work, pulling the air in through those steaks like that, and she was sick and weak at the time.  It sucked.  However it happened though, I fell asleep.
Now is another part of poor Emma's sleeping.  She rolls and flails like you would not believe.  If it was very cold in our house...if we relied on blankets to keep us warm throughout the night, she would probably freeze.  Blankets do not stay on her for very long at all because she flails so much.  When you sleep with her, you pretty much need a "redman" suit, which is protective padding worn by the recipient in hand to hand combat training.  One time, she delivered an axe kick to me in her sleep that made me see stars.  Her little heal is small and hard enough to focus all of the energy from her downward swing, straight into my belly.  Joselyn caught one right after me, and we thought she may have cracked a couple of Jo's ribs.  Because of this, I considered bringing home cell extraction gear to wear to bed, but then figured that there wasn't any of that which hadn't weathered some feces before...and I didn't want to add Hep C to Emma's problems.  I thought about borrowing some football gear, but then I figured...she's little...I can take it.  Apparently there's something built into our systems so that we don't really remember the PAIN being as bad as it was.  That's why families have more than one child.  If the mom remembered how bad the pain was, she probably wouldn't have any others.  So I went to bed in Emma's bed without protective gear.
Come about 3:00 AM, I am awakened by Emma's backhanded blow with a closed fists.  She does it again, the knuckles making indentions in my rib cage, under the arm at just above elbow height (you know, the sensitive area where all of the nerve endings are).  She hits me about three times like that while I'm coming out of my coma, before I move over and push her away.  Her eyes are still closed and I wonder what in the HELL she is dreaming about, but I am also privately happy because whoever is in her dream is being handled by a real sheepdog.  She's obviously not buckling under and trying to run away...my little girl is handling her business and kicking some wolf ass.  I manage to go back to sleep while nursing my ribs.
The next morning, Emma has the nerve to tell Joselyn that I kept her awake all night with my snoring.  I can't believe it.  I KNOW she slept because HER snoring sucked.
On my way to work, it struck me.  The person who she had been pummelling (in her supposed dream) was me.  She was not asleep at all when she was hitting me, she just had her eyes closed because she was exhausted.  I had just been given a damn blanket party by my own daughter because I was snoring.  I survived boot camp and my regular duty station in the military without being beaten in my sleep....but I hadn't survived Emma.  I could just see her kneeling beside me, pinning my arms to my side with my sheet, hitting me repeatedly and yelling "It's just a bad dream PILE, just a bad dream!!  Quite snoring or you'll have more bad dreams just like this!"  God Help Me....