i’ve never watched “one tree hill” before

but i was flipping through the channels and saw the homage to “fast times at ridgemont high”. nice.

on music…

i don’t remember my dad ever really cranking the music to unlistenable levels. think he did as a kid? he always had some of the best speakers/stereo equipment around growing up. did he grow out of that at some point? is that something unique to the generations after him? sitting here at 11:30pm playing music so loud on earphones so that it’ll help turn the brain off, kill urges to go and do and and just help get to a mellow spot. it’s something i’ve done for the last couple years especially. and i don’t think i’m unique here. is it something we’ll outgrow? hard to imagine trying to crank a heavy bass line so you can feel it rather than hear it when i’m 70.

decisions, decisions

i can’t decide whether or not to mix my pepsi with ice cream or whisky

so remember how i was worried about my job a couple weeks ago?

so my boss resigned today. he’s still here for two weeks but he’s the sole reason why this job has been so excellent to date. not sure what it’s going to be like after he leaves. this isn’t to say it’s going to be awful but he’s protected me from so much political stuff and taught me a ton so far.

on mornings this rough…

i see the value in garanimals. why don’t they have an adult line?

It’s 7:00pm and I’m sobering up from one of the best/worst drunks in recent memory. All I want now is that perfect combination of beer and really loud, good music that will make me happy and make it impossible to think. And to wake up in the morning with a girl that loves me for who I am and sees through all the bullshit.

99 days out of a hundred I’m fucking bulletproof. Today’s just that hundreth day.

goodbye

i’ve spent 15 years in the army. i’ve seen and done alot in those years and with the passage of that time i’ve gotten increased leadership responsibilities. some of those increases have been official, granted with promotions or position. some of them i’ve taken, sick of watching people screw around or screw things up i’ve just taken charge to get shit done.

as a leader, military or otherwise, you’ve got to find the different things that make people tick and push those buttons. some people need to threatened, some cajoled. one of the things i’ve learned though is that you have to be right as much as possible, and bluff the rest of the times. on a rare occasion it’s important to admit you haven’t a clue what you’re doing and have a subordinate teach you some new system or some new way of doing things, but most of the time you have to be rock steady to inspire confidence.

one of the biggest problems with advancing in rank and responsibility is that the pool of people you can utilize as mentors decreases in proportion to your rise. all of a sudden YOU’RE the mentor, the one that’s supposed to have all the answers. so you fake it alot, and after you do that long enough, you start to believe it, and so do your troops. and actually i’m kidding. it’s not that bad. you train hard, you go into sponge mode when you’re young and listen and learn a lot and you trust your instincts. but it’s always nice to get that little nod that you’re doing things right. parents will know what i’m talking about. frequently you have to make hard decisions that your kids don’t appreciate at the moment. there isn’t a ton of gratitude and it’s hard to wait for gratification or affirmation.

this blog has been a great thing, especially when deployed. it’s kept me connected, it’s been an ego boost when i’m down, it’s been a wall i can bounce ideas off of… there’s a lot of great things about it. but one of the best parts was JL4. I hardly knew him, never met him in person, just a blog friend. But he was a retired army guy who’d been there and done that. smart, intensely loyal to his country, funny and a guy who’d already been through what i was going through. we never had those stay-up-all-night-drinking-mass-quantities-of-beer-and-solving-all-the-world’s-problems-before-dawn talks that friends in real life have, but just when i needed it, just when i was having doubts about my decisions he’d be there with a quiet comment on the blog to let me know i was doing it right and that things would be okay. if he were here right now in front of me i wouldn’t be able to find the words to express my gratitude. but you know what? i wouldn’t have to. he’d know. because he’d been in the same spots and someone was there for him.

that’s the magic of the military. it’s a secret i learned a couple years ago. it’s not about this war or the next. that’s secondary. it’s about the people and the tribal knowledge. identifying the good ones and taking them under your wing and pushing every bit of knowledge into their little brains that you can, so that when you’re gone they’ll carry on and do the same thing. so that’s how i’ll continue to honor JL4. next month i’ll roll out of bed on my reserve weekend, and bitch and complain about how early it is. and i’ll drive into the new unit and shake my head in amazement at what a bunch of useless shitbags they are. how they’re hiding from mobilizations and deployments and i’ll wish i was back at the old unit. and after my 2 minutes of mini-pity party is done i’ll take charge of the small group of people that fall into my sphere of influence and i’ll try to shield them from the negative effects of the rest of the unit. i’ll try to train them right and encourage them to go and do good things. and who knows, maybe in the down time we’ll get a little baseball talk in.

musical disappointments

so, the title sums it up. who are your musical disappointments? and this can be for any reason, including ones that are no fault at all of the band’s. disappointed that elvis died before he could put out more music? that’s cool.

some of mine? in no particular order of importance:

g’n'r if you grew up during the same period i did, it didn’t matter if you liked them or not, they were still part of the soundtrack of your life. from “appetite for destruction” through “use your illusion II” something was sure to play at a bar or house party. then they imploded.

harry connick jr. i loved the “songs from when harry met sally” and listened to it over and over. “we are in love” was great. then he kind of wandered down a different path of musical growth and didn’t take me with him.

the cars. one of the first CDs i ever bought was their greatest hits. literally. i bought a used discman from josh and that night went to circuit city and only had money for 4 discs. that was one of them. i’ve owned multiple copies over the years because people keep stealing them from me, but i wish we could’ve gotten another album or two out of them before they broke up. ric ocasek did some solo stuff but nothing that hit me the same was as the group as a whole did.

garth brooks. funny, change out some album names and it’d be similar to g’n'r. couldn’t go anywhere in tucson, arizona in 1991-93 without hearing one of his songs on the radio. then it seemed like he fell out of love with the music and the audience.

living colour. i loved vivid. almost every song on it. and then… hmmm. not so much.

hootie and the blowfish. i never really liked their music so why are they on this list? well, my sister met all of them her freshman year of college and was a friend. from my understanding she did photography for most of their early CD covers before they hit it big and might’ve even had a hand in managing or booking them. so it’s more nostalgia.

the gin blossoms. home town band for me. “Tell me Ms. Rita, what’s it say in my tarot?” i’ve driven past that palm reader shop a hundred times on my way to class. a couple great albums from them, some singles on soundtracks and then nothing for years…

snap! they gave us “the power”, “oops up” and “rhythm is a dancer” and then turbo b left. and then nothing… not my typical music but even as overplayed as “the power” was it’s still in my rotation. sometimes it just picks me up.

dramarama. “anything, anything” and “last cigarette” have been in regular play rotation on my stereo for the last 20 years it seems.

michael penn. nothing else he’s done has hit me like “no myth”

so chime in. who’s on your list?

okay, the video cracks me up to begin with…

i must confess, i like taylor swift. she intrigues me. she writes some songs i can relate to but she’s a baby. so where’d she get her experience from? anyways, not important. i like some of her stuff. so what cracked me up was when she did this video for the country music awards. you would think that anyone who watches this could tell it was joke, but apparently not. which makes the video even funnier. it’s a parody of her song “love story” called “thug story”

http://www.cmt.com/videos/shows/cmt-music-awards-2009/401599/thug-story.jhtml

there are all sorts of people who took it seriously and left comments both on CMT and on the internet.

how can you not love “you don’t want to fight me, in my extra small white tee”

this makes me happy…

so i’m sure you’ve all seen this already, i’m a little behind the times.  but if you haven’t:

pretty self explanatory.  the guy who wrote/sings the song was traveling, united broke his guitar and then refused to pay for repairs.  he paid $1200 bucks to get it fixed but says it’s not the same.  he fought with them for a year and warned them that he was going to write 3 songs, make videos and distribute them.  this is the first of the 3.

i love this.  i used to work customer service lines and customers would frequently threaten to take out full page ads when we wouldn’t give them a free product or something.  usually they were wrong, hadn’t read their instructions or were at fault and wanted something free and wanted to vent.  it wasn’t like this situation where the company was at fault.  what’s great about this though is maybe it scares the hell out of companies.  shows them not to mess with the little guy or take their customers for granted.  over 200000 views in less than five days, news articles.  the little man has a voice today.

it doesn’t work for everyone.  i ranted and raved about apple’s terrible customer service and selling products to their customers with known defects and then refusing to make things right, or making the process to get satisfaction so difficult that customers can’t or won’t jump through all the hoops.  that did nothing, i couldn’t even keep some of you from buying new apple products.  but on the flipside i wrote a recommendation to buy from http://www.bestskinsever.com instead of http://www.zagg.com because the products were very similar but half the price.  within 24 hours i had a post from a zagg representative and the owner of  best skins ever wrote me an email (and as a sidebar, the best skins ever shield is still on my g1 and still working well.  both the zagg and the bse product have some issues when i put them in my pocket (anyone wants to talk about htis, i’d be happy to).  i took a razor and cut the shield down so that only the screen is protected because it started to peel off at the corners but the same thing has happened with the zagg brand on my mp3 players).  but the threat’s there.  and if it brings back a higher level of service and responsibility it’s a good thing.

any ways, this makes me happy.  power to the people!