hob's
online journal |
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September 2002Can I go on leave now?????Sept 30, 2002: The end of September....that must mean
that the Logistics group is no more (hence, I'm no longer an Executive
Officer) and Lajes is under USAFE and not ACC. That really doesn't impact
me all that much except for a patch change. Whoopty doo. But I do go on
leave this Thursday and fly off to jolly ol' England. I was looking online
at the various London Walks offered,
and I think I know what I'll be doing the entire week. There are so many
walks to go on - and so much to see. Next Tuesday, they offer a day trip
to Stonehenge and Salisbury which I'm definitely taking. One of the evening
walks is the Jack the Ripper walk. I think I'll do this, THEN see the
movie From Hell. No need to get too scared taking a tour. I won't be meeting
up with Alan until Monday, so I have a couple days to myself - I'm going
to knock out the double decker bus tour and other easy stuff while he's
gone, as he has been here already. But we're both up for seeing Les Miserables
on the West End! I can't believe I'm actually going on vacation - last
time was to Europe, right before I started all this Exec nonsense. Nothing much...just thank God it's the weekend!Sept 27, 2002: I only have one more day as the LG Exec,
on Monday. THEN, I picked up my plane ticket to London today, so I'm officially
going. That still seems crazy, considering very little planning went into
this trip - I guess not much is needed in comparison to the train trip
in May. After reading the travel books, there is going to be PLENTY for
me to see and do. I'm curious to see how the weather will be. I'm sure
I'll need to bring my rainjacket. I picked up the 9/11 DVD that was made
by those French documentary makers - that's quite an intense view of the
events that happened. Especially the view from inside tower 1 as tower
2 collapsed - equally intense was watching the vacant scared looks of
everyone in NYC. It's hard to believe both of those buildings, and the
thousands of people inside them, the Pentagon, and the planes are gone.
Geez, and I didn't have much to talk about either. You should've been
around me earlier....I was a mess of vengeance and rage. But no need to
go into that. I'm better now. Hell, I got to watch Survivor! 58 days or so and counting to the USA!Sept 25, 2002: Can you believe it? I can't. I will be
back in the states before I know it, just in time to see some cool movies
(Two Towers, Die Another Day, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)
and also finally able to see my family and friends. I can't wait. Well,
in the highly contested CGO of the Quarter contest, I was shut out. I
guess I really only had a 50/50 chance as it was, but still, I'm bummed
- especially after it seems I was able to talk my way out of the award
during the board. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to speak without stuttering
over myself when I get nervous. What else is going on? In addition to
the London trip, which I still can't believe I'm doing, I'm also finalizing
my PCS trip to Puerto Rico (to visit Dad), then to San Antonio (to visit
my good friends) and finally LA for family. So lots of travel plans in
my near future. It's all about the fish n' chips baby!Sept 23, 2002: Yep, I have made my reservations for
London - I'll be departing 3 October and return 11 October. Not too shabby
- a week will be just enough to make me happy to get off of this island.
I should be meeting up with my friend Alan who I met at AIA in San Antonio
at my last assignment. It should be fun! In other news, I survived my
board for CGO of the Quarter, group level. I think I did okay, but I guess
I won't know if I won till Wednesday the 25th. Too long! So to console
myself, I bought some stuff at Amazon.com. That always seems to do the
trick. I am not sure what I'll do when I get to Vegas - I may have to
just go play craps or something. This weekend was a blast, and I had a
chance to not only drink and watch a bullfight, but took some outstanding
pictures of the Azores that I'll put up shortly. It was an increasingly
rare beautiful sunny day on Sunday, and fortunately Byron stopped by and
invited me along for a drive. I was intending to study for the board,
but nah! It was more fun to drive around. My LG Exec duty is coming to
a close - it was fun, and will probably help in the long run for giving
me experience, but I really don't want to get stuck with it again. I miss
my real job. Let's just say Friday nights for me are accounted for.Sept 20, 2002: That's because Survivor has returned,
and so far, so good! Woo hoo! In other news, I played my first round of
18 holes of golf. Damn! I am so freaking tired from all the walking -
my feet were killing me. And afterwards, I was so exhausted - I got home
and pretty much passed out, almost missing Survivor!!!!!!!!!! Fortunately,
someone called me at 7:30 PM, and while I don't know who it was as I didn't
make it to the phone, I'm in deep gratitude, as it was enough time to
get over to Byron's to watch it. Oh, and as a public service announcement,
please get your credit report, from all three credit agencies. I am having
problems still from identity theft, and while I am able to get rid of
the bad stuff from my credit report, it just is such a pain in the ass.
Right now I couldn't get a loan to save my life, as there are multiple
bad entries made by some fellow in Anaheim. Lucky me. Humor me and get
your report, you just may find something you didn't know was on there.
Hopefully not. And off of that soapbox.....I watched 24 for the first
time this evening, after Survivor. Most excellent first hour - wasn't
expecting that whole plane thing and the actual bad person on it. Yikes!
Survivor Thursday, or, uh, Friday! Depends on where you are.Sept 18, 2002: Because for me, AFN has to delay it a
day. Oh well, it's at least being broadcast reasonably in line with the
states. As much as I appreciated Robbie and Dan videotaping Survivor 3
for me, watching it way after it aired left me without the option to go
on the web and read about it, which is almost half the fun for me! So
finding out Survivor Marquesas was being aired only a day after its run
in the states was happy news. Except for when Byron told me who won anyways
upon my return to the Azores after my European trip (and I hadn't seen
the final episode yet).....grrrrrr...... So in honor of Survivor's return,
my first 'quick link' on my website title page has become active. You
can also click here to be taken
to the first Survivor page. And as I state there, please email me with
your predictions, comments, and stuff and I'll make this a truly interactive
page. Vegas baby, Vegas!Sept 16, 2002: I don't really have much of a reason
to talk about Vegas yet except for the fact I can't wait to go home! Or
at least near home. I have quite a few travel plans for the next few months,
including a trip to London in October and then a whirlwind howyadoin'
tour in November and December, visiting Puerto Rico (Dad) and San Antonio
(my buddies Robbie, Dan, and JJ, to name a few, from my AIA days, which
you can read a little about in the 2001 stuff) before heading home to
Los Angeles to visit my family, whom I haven't seen in SOO long. It will
be great to see everyone and be home for Christmas. Best of luck to you, SrA Marcie FullerSept 15, 2002: Today one of the recent additions to
the Wing Information Assurance office went back to the states to go have
her baby, so good luck to her - I'm bummed I won't get to see her or the
baby though, because I'm leaving before she returns from the states. We
did have a good time at Pescador's restaurant on Friday - and I drank
plenty of vinho verde - a very wonderful Portuguese invention. Anyways.....I
have put up the beginning of the Europe pictures. Lisbon is up, with Madrid
on the way. I should have these all up soon enough, just in time before
I travel to London next month. Woo hoo! What a difference a day and a year makesSept 11, 2002: It's been a year to the day of the attacks
on the US. I can't believe how fast time really has gone...and for me
it really seems like it's far away. I guess that's because I haven't even
been in the US since it happened, as the last day I was there was something
like the 28th of August. I think it'll hit pretty hard when I actually
return this November. But even reading the news about what was happening
today to memorialize the day makes me sad though. My headline today refers
to both the weather the island has been experiencing and the year since
the attacks. The weather here is certifiable, I tell ya. I won't mind
if the weather stays nice for a little bit longer, that's for sure. What do you call a Capt-Select? A Lieutenant....Sept 9, 2002: Ha ha ahahahahahahahhahaha! A freaking hilarious joke. So what if it's true? But on to the point as to why I'd tell a horrible and untrue joke like that. I put up my first picture page on this version 2.0 of the website, and it contains pictures from when us captain-selects celebrated our notification that we made it (or better yet, that we breathed). Click here for the link to the pictures of the party. And other than that, this Monday pretty much SUCKED! Let's hope for a better Tuesday. Hopefully my lazy butt will make it to the gym in the morning. MUST GET OUT OF BED TO ACHIEVE THIS. Really, this website will be fully operational one daySept 8, 2002: Yes, it's been a little too long since
I've done this, but I figured if I'm going to get back on the wagon, why
not go all out? So, I've paid some money to a company (www.hostsave.com)
and they not only got me my own domain name (can you believe hobiebarnes.com
wasn't already taken?) but I also got about 100MB of storage space. Now
that ain't too shabby, is it? I've tried a new design and I think I like
it. I'm using Dreamweaver, which kicks Microsoft Frontpage's ass big time.
It's so easy and nice to use. Highly recommended. I welcome any and all
thoughts about what I'm doing with my webpage. Guess who made Captain? That's right, me!Sept 5, 2002: The list officially came out from the Air Force and it is confirmed: I managed to live for at least 3 years and not do anything too bad, so I got promoted, along with 9 others here at Lajes Air Base in the beautiful Azores. I managed to find out a little early, because with the power I have as LG exec, I read some stuff that accidentally fell in front of me. Oops! It was pretty cool though - the morning of the official release date, 6 Sept, a whole bunch of people came up to say congrats, including my much-missed WIAO shop (their names for record - Rich Redman, Shelly Garcia, James Dorrian, Marcie Fuller and Brian Kirkwood - departed members I worked with include John Armentrout, Christopher Joe, and for about an hour, Jim Lovell) and the SPTG front office (Dawne, Lt Col Hartford and the newest SPTG exec, Mike Miley). I won't get into what's happened in the past year or so, yet. That's for a later entry. But I was SPTG exec for a while. Anyways, on Friday all of us Capt-selects opened the club's bar and had a good ol' party. I got very buzzed and had a good time. Enough said. Shoot me an email if you have
any comments! |
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