24 April 2007    It's Snowing. Seriously. In April. (T-129)

And by tomorrow, it's supposed to be warm in the 60s again. Crazy!

Okay, so it's been a week and a half since I've last updated. Plenty has happened! I finished Transition Assistance Program last week - I am SOOO stoked about getting out of the military. There was lots of good info that I got, and the most important stuff that I did get was help on looking for jobs and how to craft a great resume, cover letter, and interviewing skills. But by far the best was meeting with some of the local job market recruiters and realizing that I have a really good shot at finding a good job locally. And that's the goal: stay in the Springs for a few more years and then see what can happen next. As some of you may know, I really am still wanting to do the Home Entertainment business (this does NOT mean in-home stripping, although I'll do what I have to do! ;-p ). But regardless, the next few months need to be done. Just over 4 months to go! Can you believe it?

Alright, then this weekend was mighty productive! Jeff and I went and rented an aerator which looks like a lawnmower but instead it digs little holes in your lawn and yanks out the dirt so that when you water the lawn, there's plenty of dirt entry points for better water absorption. Well, let me tell you, that is one hell of a chore. We did 3 lawns that day. And then we put fertilizer on the lawns, and I also started up my sprinklers again (just in time for one more snow fall - great...). Then that night, more Wii goodness ensued! The next day I then went weed-crazy with my new Rocket Weeder and literally filled a trash can with nothing but monstrous weeds. Scary. And after that I began my first hike on my quest to eventually hike Pikes Peak. That endeavor is scheduled for sometime in August, so I do have plenty of hiking to do in order to get myself ready. The one on Sunday was a pretty fun one and after that I am pretty sure that all the trails in the Front Range area of Colorado are going to be beautiful. And of course, you know that if there's beautiful scenery, then there's going to be PICTURES! Right now I'm going to put them amongst the journal photos, but eventually I want to create a separate photo portal for my hikes.

Anyways, today I sent out my resume for the first time to the two recruiters I met at TAP and it feels good to get them out. Now I need to continue sending them out, studying for my interview questions, and continue my classes (I've enrolled at O'Reilly School of Technology - my first class is horribly basic in HTML yet I think the CSS portion will be educational) and studying for the CISSP (which I may or may not take in September - apparently this has a pass rate of about 30% the first time...wonderful....and it costs ~$500 to take the test).

Okay, I'm done blathering on. It's time for some pictures!

8 April 2007 - Easter Sunday Dinner at Susan's
Jeff tries to open the wine, with no opener	Eric lends support	Susan shows off her ham	KD is ready to be fed	Everybody awaits dessert	All 4 dogs together = fun fun fun	Happy Schnauzers

We had a great time at Susan's during this impromptu Easter Sunday dinner. It was nice to be able to all get together and have a nice dinner.

18 April 2007 - Susan's Birthday at On the Border
Do I take the best pics or what?	KD and Eric....aww, so cute...

Other pictures I took were not allowed because the participants involved said my life would be forfeit if they showed up on the Internet. So you get to see the typical hilarial pics of me and KD. Lucky you.

21 April 2007 - Aerating the Lawn
Aeration sucks	Really, it does.

Can I say that I truly enjoy the fact that my hairline is the bane of my existence. I know it's a petty thing to dwell on, but I would kill to have decent hair. If I thought I would look decent with a shaved head I'd do it because the current hair situation is unacceptable. But when I've dared to cut my hair super short, people tell me I resemble a prisoner. Wonderful.

22 April 2007 - Hiking Helen Hunt Falls in Cheyenne Canyon
#1 of my Trail Hikes - Helen Hunt Falls	Me at the base	Jeremy too	That's Helen Hunt Falls from the base	Looking down from the top of the Falls	Here's the stream that feeds the Helen Hunt Falls	Me at the stream	Jeremy liked the stream as well
Looking towards Spoon Falls (aka Death Trap falls)	These seemingly smooth falls have caused numerous deaths	Looking towards the Springs	Another shot of the Spoon Falls	Me...scared.	Higher vantage point looking towards the city	Me and the city view	Jeremy and the city view
And yet another view of Spoon-Death Falls	A good shot of Jeremy in front of the cliff bluffs	Again	And me too	Higher up the stream as it goes underneath Gold Camp Road	Me at the stream as it goes higher than Gold Camp Road	Jeremy - Don't Jump!	Just a pic of the stream
The closed St. Mary's Tunnel - it was a mining road tunnel	It's a pretty huge cave opening when you get up to it	Danger!	Me	Scared again.	The traditional Hobie point	Look up top! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Jeremy!	Close up - it shows that he's pretty damn high up
			AVI file (~4 MB) of us at Spoon Falls (aka the Death Falls!)
Give some perspective to the tunnel mouth and the cliff face	A panoramic view of Cheyenne Canyon - the road up is nestled at the base of the valley.

I really am looking forward to knocking more and more of these trails out - Pikes Peak or Bust!!!!

24 April 2007 - Still snowing (and it's April)!
			AVI file (~3 MB) of the snow craziness from my house.
My camera focused on the screen door - cool!	Here's one through the glass door	More snow view

And that's that for the pictures.

Coming up this weekend? Mom and Harv are coming into town! That should be a good time and it'll be good to see them. Hopefully the weather cooperates and stays warm as of Wednesday. We don't need it to be like it was the last time they visited when Colorado Springs decided to have its one and only fog days while they were here. Bizarre.

15 April 2007    Hungover today (T-138)

It took me till about 5pm to feel human again, so today wasn't exactly Productivity Day.

Yes, I drank a lot last night. I didn't end up puking, but the sheer amount of liquor and beer I did drink made it impossible for me to hope to feel good today. But it was all worth it. We all went out last night to this Japanese Steakhouse place (much like a Benihana's) in town, and of course I have to have warm sake. Actually, I had to have two warm sakes. I love that stuff. The food was excellent and of course entertaining to watch being cooked. And again, there is no better thing that fresh fried rice. YUM. But anyways, that was just the start. After dinner, most people went home (lame) but Jeremy and I continued on, going over to Old Chicago's by our neck of the woods. Many beers and lots of conversations later (I honestly couldn't recall most of them after a certain point), we were done and closed the bar down around 2:30 in the morning. Oy. So needless to say, I was drunk. But it's great being able to hang out with a best friend and just shoot the shit.

It wasn't good though that my productivity was nill today. I had lots more I wanted to do, but just couldn't stomach it. I wanted to clean my house. Didn't. I wanted to work on Beers' OPR. Didn't. I wanted to work on my Europe pictures. DID! Here's a link to Day 1 of the trip, as we journeyed to jolly ol' England and toured around London. Lots of pictures to be sure. 7 more days to go though till I'm done. Here's hoping I get these up and going on a faster timeline than my last European trip.

Day 1 Pictures of Europe Link | My Cool Europe 07 Portal Page

The links are not all active yet, especially those for Days 2-8. But be patient!

Also back up on the website is the illustrious Shooting Gallery. Those of you who perused the site in the 04-05 time period may remember this. I have no idea if it'll catch on, but I think I'll be using it to post random thoughts of stuff. Go check it out when you get the chance and join up so you can post stuff too. I'm sure you get tired of reading my same ol' same ol' over and over again. Let's see if you can do better.

And I have to also say that I found out last week that most, if not all, of my 'old' flight (I say it that way because I'm no longer flight commander) knows about this website. No one will confess to who actually spread it around, but I think it's funny regardless. So welcome to the site, SCB! Hope you enjoy your stay.

Alright, time to watch tonight's Amazing Race and then it's off to bed for me. This week I go to Transition Assistance Program. That's for those of us who are separating or retiring. Should be good, and by good, I mean not at work. Yee haw.

13 April 2007    Might be a snow day today...(T-140)

I'm totally gambling on that possibility too, as I am WAY up past my bedtime.

When I got home today, I took a nap. I haven't done that in forever. But doing absolutely nothing at work is actually exhausting. I kid you not. And since we all left a little early today as it was freakin' SNOWING in the middle of April, I was like, it's early and I won't take too long of a nap. Now you'd probably think that I ended up taking a 4-hour nap - well, you'd be wrong. I set my alarm like a responsible person and actually managed to get up when it went off. It probably helped that I was laying on top of the covers with only my sleeping pants on, so it was a little cold and I had to pee. But it was awesome to sleep...until it reached 11PM and I'm WIDE awake. Still. Even at 1:30 in the morning now.

So anyways, I got my Twin Peaks Season 2! And I couldn't stop watching Disc 2 - it has Episodes 11-14, which are pretty much the best part of Season 2, as it's when you get all the Harold Smith drama with Donna and Maddy as well as one of the scariest episodes of TV...ever. Episode 14's reveal of who Laura Palmer's killer is just as scary as it was back when I watched it the first time in 1990. 1990!!!! That was 17 years ago. This show is that old?????WTFO? Then after watching 4 episodes of that, I HAD to watch my Survivor, which was very entertaining. Then of course I watched the Ugly Betty special that was on, and after that, Scrubs (still can't believe they killed off Nurse Laverne!!!!!). Was I tired at that point? Uh, no. So I cracked open the laptop and continued working on the two major projects I have in store for the site. Last night I was working on getting an old website feature back up and running again - and it is. I am not going to link to it just yet, but if any of you are serious fans of the website, you'll remember a feature that was quite entertaining for a while. And yes, it's exactly what you're thinking it is. The initials were S.G., if that helps. And the other major project I'm working on is getting all these damn Europe pictures up! So of course I wanted to create an interesting front page for that picture section. Here's what I've got so far - you can't click through yet to see each Days' events, and Days 5-8 aren't even shown yet, but consider this a tease.

In other news, I finally got my resume mostly done. I'm awaiting a few more updates from objective eyes, and then it'll be time to ship that baby out.

Well, keep your fingers crossed that by the time you're reading this, I was notified of a snow day. Otherwise I'm in for a very cranky Friday. Bah!

8 April 2007    back in the states (T-145)

I have been since Wednesday, but I'm still suffering from jet lag, so gimme a break.

There are nearly 1000 pictures to go through, including not only my own 700 from Europe, but also Jeff's. So like my last European Vacation photoset, it may take me a while to get these all up. Or it may not. I don't have too much of a job anymore, so between finding myself a NEW job and getting my resume written and studying for the CISSP, I will endeavor to get these all up. But to sum up the trip, it was awesome. London and Paris are awesome cities, the friends we met up with out there were very cool, and every day was entertaining yet exhausting. I was very happy to come home when all was said and done. The trip wasn't done too early and I was plenty ready to come back. Also, my bank account appreciates me being back.

So stay tuned for many pictures to get posted, and by the way, Happy Easter!