No Title in Afghanistan

  

    Just to clarify, the chunk of story on the last post wasn’t fiction, that is my story. It is the start of, or practice for, my book. But everything (so far) is real. I had a bunch of comments on the “idea” just wanted to be sure everyone understood that it was my story. 

  Damnit, I am sick. I knew as the words left my mouth…”I am glad, I haven’t been sick since we have been over here.”…I was screwed.  I could feel the evil mistress of Karma descending on me. I spent the day doing the only thing that I found myself capable of…. Beating the hell out of the computer players and some coworkers at Risk II…

(look closely at the # of troops)

 

   For lack of energy to create some delicious post, I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I would just post a bunch of random pictures from my “My Pictures” folder. I have acquired a strange cross-section of pictures. Enjoy. PS If you see a picture that I stole from your site…err…that you think I got from your site. You are wrong, I got that picture just a few days after you put it up and have been waiting to use it.

 

These ^ are part of the new plan for my vehicle when I get home. I am back on the Jeep.

 

 

 

(that one is for Kitty)

 

(I just like the way the guy is standing…is that a ciggarete in his mouth?)

 

 

 

 

 

(some days you are the dog, some days you are the monkey)

 

And now my favorite. I have a sick love for these signs of people getting hurt. Like the guy tipping the vending machine on himself of the girl diving into a hotub. I love em’, if you have any of these and send them to me will be on of my new heroes.

 

   Oh and one more thing, because of a weird set of circumstances I had to take a defensive driving course online today, it was terrible. But one thing did make me laugh, definitely the highlight of the course, maybe even my day. This reminds me of what I would normally be doing on a Saturday night rather then taking a defensive driving course online.

 

 

 

Hot Coffee, Expensive Toys, and Purple Hearts in Afghanistan

                                                                                        

   Well the last week has been full of excitement and surprises. Most of which I can not talk about. Needless to say that the excitement has left me short of the time necessary to post or comment back to anyone. When all was said and done one of my best friends was on an emergency flight to Germany with a purple heart dangling from his breast, and two others still wander the camp with the same ornament. But there are more Taliban not wandering at all, win some lose some. This is the first morning I was able to stack together a few consecutive hours of sleep since my last post, and motivated by 20oz coffee and a cigarette I thought I would pound something out…

    Something about a coffee and cigarette in the morning that wakes me from whatever stupor I am in, and for as long as the cigarette burns and the coffee is hot, I am in a different place. Alone the cigarette is just nasty, and the coffee is just too hot, but while they are together they offer a sanctuary from whatever reality is in front of me and remind of a better time.

    I would wake up after the first few wakeup calls in my hotel room, usually just before the sun came up. Still half asleep I would wander down to the breakfast area in Abercrombie sweat pants and hoody, sharing casual glances with the more high end patrons who were there on business or some family adventure. I could feel them staring at me trying to figure out how it came to be that we shared the same hotel as I scurried back onto the elevator with whatever bounty I discovered in the kitchen. I would catch the first part of Sportscenter while eating my breakfast in the living room area, then shower, quickly dress myself in front of the mirror, grabbing the paper and my portfolio on my way out the door. Usually I would share the elevator with a few of the same people that were confused by my presence in the kitchen, who were now more confused after noticing my leather portfolio, two hundred dollar shoes, and neatly arranged Nautica tie. They were visually perplexed, forced to accept the fact that I wasn’t there on some out of season family vacation with my parents, but had somehow afforded the lodging by the same means as they had. Outside I would sink into my car with my coffee, crank my house music, and light a cigarette just as I merged onto the highway. And that is where it happened, for a few high speed minutes I was the only person alive in Chicago. The world makes sense to me from the left side of the highway. The fact that I was was headed to work vanished as I weaved through the slower traffic. Keeping my eyes on the road I could sense other drivers peering in at me as I sped past, wishing for one day that it was their life in the fast lane, their turn to fly carefully by on the left side with a coffee cup to their lips, a cigarette in their hands and house music flowing from their car.

     The hotels were always different, and the path to the office was also always different up until the last few miles. Always new exits, new buildings, new signs, and new billboards. Along the unfamiliar path it felt like today anything could happen, and compared to the rest of the people on the road, I had no idea what it was. Even though we were all headed to work, unlike the masses I really didn’t have to go if I found the right Go-Kart track off of some exit, or caught eyes with the right girl at a stoplight, or was finally tempted by some exit headed west. I was a commission only salesman, and even if I went to the office, I wouldn’t be there long. Like yesterday, today while the rest of the world would be staring out of their office windows in between phone calls like dogs left in the house all day, I would be here. Searching for money, or adventure, or women, or whatever crossed the path of myself, and my new car. This was my office…the road. It was my life, I was a creature of my own design, the product of my own will, and I was convinced that the rest of the world were all suckers. It all seemed as optimistic and empowering as things can seem that early in the morning, and it stayed that way for as long as the slower cars faded into my rear view mirror, my cigarette still burned slowly, and the coffee stayed hot.

 

    More and more during the last few days I have become excited by the idea of writing a novel. What I thought it took to do this has been drastically changed in the last few days after reading a few. Even the Great Gatsby, an awesome book is not nearly as intimidating to write as say the script to Saw, or other well written movies. I was not the homework type in school and literally the first thing that I ever wrote longer then a love letter, was on Xanga. I have virtually no writing experience and I have a long way to go both grammatically and in every other way but it is definitely an interesting proposition. NYCJOYCE would be the spark for this fire after the comment on his site to watch for me as the next Norman Mailer. Now even I am not so dense to consider his comment as anything more then extremely kind, and ridiculous all things being equal. But there isn’t another comparison I would rather have at the moment. If I ever write anything worthwhile, I will be sure to send you some royalties NYCJOYCE because it was your comment that sparked something that made me want to live up to that lofty comparison. And there are few people I would rather receive a comment like that from, because you strike as the type of person with about a half an ounce or less of bullshit in your entire body. So thanks again.

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    After almost a month of no Internet purchases I have proven to myself that I am in fact, not an addict. I thought that I would celebrate this revelation by ordering some high end electronics over the Internet. I justify it because the money I am saving is for my car (or truck) and I have a plan: This little contraption has a 40GB hard drive, it is a 7 devices in one, voice recorder, video recorder, video player, picture player, MP3 player, and a few others. I am going to make a little mount on the dash that I can drop this little bad boy in it and have it act like a screen for the dash. Second, 40gb of music makes it about like an IPOD, and via Bluetooth or wireless audio plugs, I am gonna make it so that you can hold it in your hand and play it through the stereo in the car. Ohh boy, how exciting huh? Plus I can keep all my better pictures on there and have them with me. In fact when I started this part of the post I was gonna just say that I was thinking about getting it, I saw it yesterday and I was waiting to see if I still wanted it, apparently I do. After typing this I am gonna order it as soon as I get done with the post.

 

 

 

Back Online in Afghanistan

                                                               

   The return….

  After noticing that I spelled “access” wrong in that last 8 word post, I have decided to leave it that way, imperfection is beautiful, yet somehow that doesn’t apply to spelling. Even still, it stays.

   And then the Internet was down, and it was good. There was time, and Emerstan read, alot. I have a problem with reading in general that makes it difficult. I have a very vivid and sometimes lucid imagination. When I read I often forget where I am and feel very much like waking up disoriented after sleeping when I put the book down. I am reading the Rum Diary by the late great Hunter S Thompson. (Origin of the Gonzo symbol that frequents my site), the book is about his experiences in Puerto Rico, in the late 50s as a young and on-point journalist with the world as he saw it by the balls. While I read about rum, and beaches, and the breeze that comes in off of the water early in the morning, before it gets so hot that you resent it’s effort… it makes my heart, or maybe my soul ache. An actual physical feeling that wears at me, and makes me feel very tiny and impotent out here. Not because I am in Afghanistan, at least not entirely, but because I used to be able to relate. I was in the same position, and so badly want to be there again. The essence of adventure. I am sure that many people would consider my current position an adventure, and they would be right. This is an amazing time and will produce many amazing memories. But the essence of adventure in my eyes is options and decisions, freedom set in action like the first prop in Rat Trap.

    Every so often I go on a creative kick, that lasts several days or weeks and the idea is to squeeze as many pure thoughts out of that process as possible. Like a surfer that floats 100 yards off of the shore and waits half the day for the right wave to ride in on, soaking up every second of it as he does. And then reliving the experience in his head while he paddles back out to catch another one. On the last wave I almost started a screenplay, I was 2 or 3 days away from starting to storyboard after riding the wave for over a month, waiting for and reading books, designing my story, spending every second on track with new thoughts and ideas, I was so close to turning it into something permanent when we were launched onto this last mission, the mission of course playing the part of the inevitable shore for this little painting. If you are looking for the moral of the last two paragraphs you’ll have to tune in again later, I don’t have one now. But it is always nice when your world spins, and things look different. And you never know if when you stop, and your eyes settle, if they will be different.

 

    I intended on making this site something that is alot less mainstream in the future. I have put alot of time into making it very literal and not dissimilar to a picture book to make it marketable. No more using 12 pictures as a crutch to tell a story, I am more interested at the moment in making is something for me, and for my memories and for any family (xanga or otherwise) that reads what I have to say. I constantly have beautiful “feelings” or “emotions” that I think about when I read or think about something that I would like to read. Not like the feeling of sadness or something typical, but the distinct emotions that spawn movies, and songs. That universal Zaaam that you know other people will relate to. Like the way your heart feels when you listen to Time of Your Life by Greenday. I want so badly to find a way to capsulate the thoughts that I want to share and put them in some form that others will have access to. So I can put that feeling you get when you watch the party sequence in  Dazed and Confused into someone else’s mind. I am not sure how, or when, but somewhere along the line I will find a way. I would love to write a song, but I know nothing about music, a novel seems like a great idea, but I have no idea where to start. (how to books on the way), and movies seem to be in the future, but I like the idea of having control of the whole process, and in movies noone ever has more then 25%. I really am searching for a way to use this site in part as a medium for that, I just can’t find the segway to get to it. I thought about just ranting about different topics, like a creative writing class or something like it, and I think that will be the ticket. But just a heads up to everyone that that is what is going on. Finding some way to spread the fire and passion around and share with everyone hopefully starting little wildfires everywhere. And now for the local news….

 

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      I can’t go into the details of the lack of Internet, other then just to hint at the fact that maybe the army didn’t pay it’s multi-million dollar phone bill. But for now we have it back. On the day that the Internet went off, all of my stuff from the other base got here via helicopter. Previously all I had was two uniforms, my laptop, my sleeping bag, and my equipment. Now that I had the basics back it was time to build a fort for myself. For those of you that remember the posts about my last living space, equipped with office and everything else, this should make you laugh. But considering the space and materials that I had, it is pretty homey I guess.

    It reminds me of the forts that my brother and I used to build for the weekend, except for the fact that I live here. But I have everything I need, I kinda like it better then the other place. I wish the wireless Internet was still up, but alas it is not.

    I finally got all my books in one place, I didn’t realize how many I really have. It is kinda intimidating considering that I came over here without a single one. Still quite the collection so far. Other then a few classics, most of the books are textbooks and how to books, which disappoints would-be borrowers.

 

    And the day before the Internet came back on, the long awaited mail showed up. When it rains it pours, but when the sun comes out the clouds disappear as quick as they came. Good new comes in flurries and then disappears here in the mountains.

    I finally got the packages from the Xangaans. I am sure that you are almost as excited to see your packages here on the site as I am. Jenga…Love it. Never would have thought to ask for that. Perfect. Right as the last supply of food and socks ran out, the resupply hit. Puzzles and Gushers and bubble makers. Awesome.

 

   Sorry for delay to all the faithful readers, almost 30 comments on a non-post, that was part of the decision to stop trying to appeal to the masses. Until next time….

 

 

 

 

Update Delay:

Lack of Internet Acces.

Sorry for the wait, I’ll comment everyone when I am back online.

-Emerstan

 

 

 

Homemade Lounges, Military Pets, and High Stakes Poker in Afghanistan

 

The target:  Canine A.K.A. “Kitty”

The mission: Intimidate and confuse the target, and amuse myself.

 

   I don’t think it is necessary to paint a dramatic story to explain how funny this was to anyone that was there to watch. (and there was many of us) It was a great showdown between beast and machine. In order to appreciate it fully, you have to understand the psychology of the target.

    “Kitty” is about 8 months old, still a little puppy. But noone has told him so, he grew into his paws faster then his body was ready for, and is now an awkward, mean little bastard. I have adopted him as my little buddy, he stays up and works the nightshift with me, waking up occasionally to start a war with my foot, or with me. He only knows one way to interact with something, to bite it. He knows nothing else. Well almost nothing else, I taught him how to shake, but he doesn’t do it like a trick, he uses it like sign languange to tell you to feed him something. He lives entirely off of food that he finds around the base. Including handouts (he is overfed).

        

     ”Kitty” is the most spoiled creature in Afghanistan. He is the “baby” for many full grown men that treat him with the same attitude. He attacks anything that interests him, when it is Americans he is playing. But when it is locals, sometimes he is not. He has put several people in the AID station and broken skin on several occasions. He is like a big bully, but noone minds because he keeps the locals on their toes.We bought him from locals, that cut his tail off, and his ears off so that he could “hear better”(??) Which is fun because he has no sense of direction with sound. I like to throw my voice and do a dog bark, and watch him spin around in circles and eventually take of in some direction after the other “dog”. He is a little ego maniac, I am the only person that he will come for when I call, if he knows you want to play with him he will walk away. Some days he will want food from other people, other days he will walk away from bacon. He is a snotty little brat sometimes, and we love him. But on this day, it was between him and the tank.

      At first he attacked the tank like he would anything else, (truckbumpers, locals, trash, shoes, towels, anything that moves) but he was more then a little surprised when he ran a couple steps away, turned around to charge back in, and turret spun around and hit him in the side with a pellet. One of the funniest things I have ever seen, at first he spun around thinking it came from behind him, and then slowly figured out that it was the tank. It was about that time he realized that the fight was fair, or the tank even had the advantage. (and also why everyone was watching) He would run in circles and bark at it, but the closer he got, the easier it was to hit him. He learned that right away. But he has gotten the best of every other thing on base and he wasn’t about to give up easily. When the tank started charging him back and following him he decided that he was outmatched finally. Poor little guy learned his first life lesson, he is not the meanest thing around. Now he is friends with the tank, he doesn’t run, and it is one of the few things that he will not try to attack. Wherever the tank goes, “kitty” follows. All he has known his whole life is war, so it is not surprising that he would know when to fight and when to make an alliance. He would be good at Risk.

 

    Playing with Kitty makes me miss my puppy…

   

   They actually look alot alike, They both have the white spot on their chest, are the exact same age, and have almost the same build. Of course my dog has ears and a tail but there are also other differences. Kitty is like the Afghanistan version of Emmy. Emmy is clean and pretty, she smells nice (and is female). She licks instead of bites, she plays instead of fights. Kitty is just like Afhanistan, the darkworld Emmi. Not pretty, gray, he smells like dust and is always dirty. He is mean and and just like everything else here, he is male. But he is still my little buddy.

             

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   This is the kind of project that really needs before and after pictures, but somehow I deleted the before ones. (Damn). What started as one man’s dream, was quickly turned into some sort of safe haven for an entire family of men. Like a mirage on the sand, it sits it the middle of a distinctly Afghanistan base, and is distinctly American. It draws men in like flies, while we sit around and drink waters together in silence in front of the fire.  I present:

 

The Evil Monkey Lounge

   Where this fabulous little mental lagoon sits, was once the site of nothing. Just a 9 inch drop outside the door onto rocks. Never underestimate the will of bored men to entertain themselves. When you look around the pictures of our new moral center. Notice all the detail and craftsmanship put into the design and construction. Keep in mind that this was done with no tape measure, handsaws, and hammers.

   Things to notice, the box labeled “wood box”, dart board and dart holder, Internet access behind the bar in case we ever get Internet football games to work, built in speakers, sandbag bar, brick fireplace, nonfunctional but cool roof, handmade benches, handstenciled designs for the walls, brick wall inclosure, mini fridge behind the bar, and the list of details gets longer everyday.

 

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     Poker…I love it. If I am near the computer I am playing online, if I am awake I am at the computer, unless I am in the chow hall, playing live poker in a tournament. I stopped using the program I was using, after watching it for several days I learned enough about the %s that I know what the computer would do, and what I should do. Online poker for play money got to be too easy (see below), so I have started playing in small money tournaments instead.

(Notice my chips (711,508), compared to the rest of table. And see if you can spot the Xanga shout out)

    So far I have made a few bucks at the online tournaments but I have only played in two, I hope to make more next week. But in the live tournaments, I have been cleaning house. We normally play with 6 to 8 guys, and either 10$ or 20$ buyins. The winner usually gets anywhere from 50$ to 100$ per game. And second gets half that. Somehow I started accumulating cash from the day we first got here, (nothing illegal) and now gambling has been paying off. Between football and poker I am up about 500$. The only problem is noone here has a way to get more cash, so I have about 1000$ cash, and 700$ worth of IOUs on paper. (no interest, big mistake). The strange thing about cash here, is that it isn’t worth anything unless you are gambling with it. I can spend my Rice Crispy Treats as currency easier then I can American money. But that is even better, because I am saving my paychecks for the car, and all this will be my play money when I get home.

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   Sorry to the faithful readers for the delay since my last post. I got kinda burnt on Xanga after 5 posts last week and felt like I was spending my entire life responding to comments. If popularity has a price, that is to high. I initially started this a as journal for myself, and I got carried away with the comments/hits. I will try to comment back to everyone but I can make no promises. If I know you, then I will comment you back. If you say something that proves you actually read the post or had something interesting to comment about, then I will comment you back. But otherwise, thank you so much for reading, and I will try to get back to everyone.

 

 

River Crossings, Bad Pictures, and 4 Wheeler Patrols in Afghanistan

(Warning: Picture post)

    Phase two of the manual gunnery exercise was to go out to where the round was supposed to land, and confirm the actual location with GPS. There is something really cool  about shooting something a few miles away, and then just driving out there to “check it out”. And even cooler when you realize that the vehicle of choice to get out there, is a 4-wheeler. I love 4 wheelers more then I do Eprops, tacos, and the Cubs combined. And that is really saying alot. After waiting around for the briefing and an official SP time, finally the 4 wheelers were gassed up, our stuff was packed, and it was time for the SP brief and roll-out

 

 

    Notice how clean I was when this picture was taken, because this will come into play later. At the time I was exited to go and ride a 4 wheeler, but I was pretty sure that this was going to be a typical army, 4 mph cruise through the town and up the mountain. I could not have been more wrong. This was one of the best 4 wheeler runs I have ever been on. We roared away from the base and through a twisting, turning, up and down and over and across trail that you could charge people to ride in America. We went over bridges, jumps, rocks, hills, through towns, and up mountain sides, you name it. It was was of the best times I have ever had in the army. There was only six 4 wheelers, and 11 people, so of course a few people didn’t get to make quite the same run.

 

 

    The patrol route was broken into three parts, well 3 parts as far as a four wheeling enthusiast is concerned. The first part was a flat, high speed run along the bottom of a small “mountain” here behind the base. No big rocks major terrain to slow our speed, it was all full throttle and fish tails for about a mile and a half. Every 1000 meters or so we would run across a small river to cross, luckily up here at 7000 feet+ the rivers don’t get to big.

 

 

   The next phase was a twisting, winding road that ran right through the middle of “town”, not really a town, more like the afghan version of the suburbs. There was people everywhere, and I was a little to busy enjoying the run, and scanning for threats to take any serious pictures. Most of the ones that I got are complete crap because I took them with one hand whole roaring by on a 4 wheeler. But I got a few that were worth the space on my computer. The town was awesome, theme parks should sell rides like the one I went on today. There were kids everywhere, who knows what they were doing before we showed up? There were little houses, and tents, and other people that seemed to move with their herd of sheep and just seemed to camp wherever they were for the night. The entire sight was so interesting it was hard to pay attention to more important things. Like staying on the road during a S turn with a cloud of dust in your face.

        I had only a few awkward situations of mistrust. Which I what I have taken to calling it when something happens like the kid with the gas can on the last patrol. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I would do if someone jumped out at me with an AK or something, there would be no way I could get my weapon up in time to help the situation, and trying to gas it and drive through would be a bad option so I eventually decided that if that happened, I would gun the 4 wheeler right towards him, and hope it was scary enough to effect his shot and then try and run him down with it. That way if he did get me, at least he wouldn’t get the next guy. After a while of replaying this scenario in my head I started thinking about it around every corner, and every bush. I started almost hoping that someone would jump out so I could react in my well prepared fashion.

       Now I am sure that sounds unbelievably crude to alot of people, and I would love to explain the psychology of the situation in detail, but instead I will just say this. At home when I ride 4 wheelers, I do not think about running people over (very often). And it is not the army…”brainwashing” me into being a killer. There is something that happens when you are faced with the very real thought of someone wanting to kill you for a long time, that justifies the thought of “killing them back” to your brain, and makes it very acceptable. Call it a defense mechanism or whatever, but try to understand.

      But I will say this much editorially, I don’t know about Iraq, or other parts of the world. And I am not implying that everyone here loves us because that is not the case. But anything you might have heard about how people throw stuff at us and jeer us because we are so unliked is complete bullshit. The adults here act about neutral, it would appear that they are more refrained in reacting to us. But the kids and a few of the adults literally stood on the side of the road and cheered us and waved at us almost the entire time. The kids would come running from the fields laughing and waving there arms and screaming. I am sure at least part of this is because they were bored, and part of it was because we sometime pass out powerbars and water, but a good piece of it was because they are excited to see us. I think that they feel safer knowing that we are buzzing around looking for bad guys. Also the section we went through today has notoriously bad relations with the Taliban so I am sure that has something to do with it also. But it made me feel cool, whatever the reason was.

 

  (Check out the kid on the bottom right, he is so cool. I wanted to kidnap him)

 

    The next part of the run was out through a bunch of farms, past a bunch of different animals, and up to the base of the mountain that we shot at. And then a long, hard, uphill climb to the impact point. This was a fun part of the run also even though the speed was slower because you had to really pick your path up the hill to be efficient. There was huge rocks and other terrain features to navigate around and you had to keep your eyes peeled for IEDs in the mix. Once we got to the top we found the impact point of our rounds, plotted the grip on the GPS, and figured out that we were right on last night.

 

 

   After that we all cruised around on the hill picking up pieces of shrapnel to show off, and taking pictures ect. Also we had to let the 4 wheelers cool down for awhile before we started home. A half hour run uphill will beat the crap out of anything with a motor.

 

(View of some of the valley. There was a better view, but it showed the base)

 

   After a while on top of the mountain, it was time for the best part of the day, the run back downhill. Most of the way back to the base was generally downhill also. I would need two hands for this kind of driving, especially because the bad guys would have known our route back home now, so the idea was to get through there as fast as possible. That would mean less pictures…but more fun.

 

(the downhill run)

 

      The route home was about the same as it was there, except for much faster, and dustier because the truck was in front this time. I was flinging water bottles to kids whenever the convoy slowed down enough so that I could one of my hands. I had the perfect opportunity to splash into a puddle and drench these kids with water, and I am proud of myself for passing it up. Those opportunities only come around once in a while. We took a little bit different route home towards the end, it was very slow but very cool. Most of it was along this creek.

 

 

   Soon enough we were back inside the wire with a another shining success in the realm of manual gunnery to be proud of. I on the other hand, didn’t care about that all, I was still pumped up from the 4 wheeler run….and I needed a shower.

 

THINGS I LEARNED TODAY:

1. Afghan kids can not catch…at all.
2. Sometimes when you reach for a bottle of water, they think you are reaching for a gun, and start to run away.
3. You can only go so fast on 4 wheeler before little rocks, become big rocks.
4. You can only inhale so much dust, before it will be all you taste for 8 hours afterwards.
5. You CAN fishtail a 6 wheeler if you are going fast enough.
6. It could be considered arrogant, to hand out water on Ramadan when people are supposed to be fasting.(oops)

 

Online Gambling, Manual Gunnery, and Vanity in Afghanistan

 

     When I joined the army, I was under the impression that my job was one of the hardest in the Army. We calculate the flight of an artillery round in the air over a distance of up to 12 miles. We factor in distance, altitude, spin of the round, weather, air pressure, even the spin of the earth. We figure in everything that could matter, and some things that don’t like the score of any ongoing Cubs games, and the price of tea in China. (??). Some of the rounds we shoot fly in the air for over a minute before landing. I had always enjoyed math and physics, and I liked a challenge so I took the job. I thought that I would be a highly trained “uber-professional” with a  masters in fire direction. I caught on very quickly in basic and had a pretty good understanding of what was going on, but they only taught me the basics. Turns out that what I learned in basic training was useless, when I got to Ft Bragg I learned that now we use this…

 

 

     This thing takes manual computation, and turns it into about the same thing as doing simple algebra on your TI-80 calculator in math class. Most of the people in my MOS don’t even know how to do manual gunnery anymore because you can basically shoot a mission with just the target grid with one of these things. Obviously there is a lot more to it in order to be as accurate as WE are, but any high school kid could shoot with one of these and still be able to at least get data that would scare somebody. Remember in math class when you would ask the teacher….”if we have calculators now, why do we even have to learn this stuff?” Well in my class, the teacher could never really give a good answer, other then proposing the situation that the world came crashing down and all the calculators were destroyed. Well I am posting late today, because I have spent the night, and the morning figuring out the answer to that question. This is what happens when good computers go bad….

 

 

     For those of you that know something about artillery, and may be thinking manual gunnery is not as hard as I am making it sound, you would be right, but wrong because if you look above you do not see any of the manual gunnery equipment. We didn’t bring it…because we had computers. (I think this was the point the teacher was never able to make) The process of doing manual computation without manual gunnery equipment is lovingly referred to as “black magic” A process filled with equations, manuals, rulers, range scales, hand drawn maps, and lots of chicken scratch math. It is similar to this math problem. Solve for X……   {x = ??}. I hope that illustrates the point well.

 

 

     Without the man that owns the sexy legs in the background, it would have been impossible. But the difference between knowing how to do it and doing it is a very large one. Even with 17 years of artillery experience, and alot of that time before computers were used, figuring out the “black magic” brought a smile even to his face.

 

 

   I thought after posting about such a mission failure on the last post, this time I would show a giant shining success. I think I aged about another year in the last 6 hours of hysteria that took place, but it felt good to finally have then numbers on the paper match with the numbers they were supposed to. So for all the readers that are still in school, tell your math teacher this story, they will thank you for it. Plus, then they will have something to tell kids in the future as an example of why you should also learn how to do it…”the hard way”

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    I started gambling on online poker early on in the deployment. I will not go into all the things I have learned in the process. Lets just say that I have learned alot and that I am alot better now then I was then. But for some reason the better I get the harder it gets to make money online. So I had a plan to write a computer program that makes all the decisions for you, computes all the odds on the spot, and plays without emotion. Factoring in pot odds, pot commitment, hand ranking, and everything else before making a decision. Then I would program it to interact with the online poker window, read the cards and make the right decision. That way I could just turn it on, and leave it there running (and making money), while I do something more entertaining then sitting online waiting for the next hand after I just folded.

     Before spending the next three months designing a program for this purpose (one I thought was unique) I thought that I would check online to see if there was already a program like it. I found about 7 or 8 programs with generally the same purpose that I had in mind. They were all selling for about 30.00 to 80.00 with about the same principle as mind, except for that they wouldn’t play for you. It does however have a voice that says…”check”….”fold”….ect. Still a drawback, but at least I didn’t have to spend three months writing it. I tried a bunch of them on demo and found this one to be the best. It has more detail then I ever would have put into mine, including profiles on other players that remembers how they bet, and bluff ect. This is what my computer screen has looked like for the last 2 nights.

 

 

     Notice all the pot odds and info on the right. Also notice that when this was taken, I had the high strait on the bottom and had just check raised the other players for a huge pot…(good computer), and I had just folded three of a kind on the top…(bad computer) The only thing wrong with the program is that it is really conservative about betting pre-flop. Really it is the right thing to do, and is why it is making 2x what I was making. But I hate to see it fold Q – 9  like it did on the top game, and then see two 9′s on the flop. It makes me want to shoot myself. But the computer never loses a big hand because it made it’s Q, but someone else has a better kicker, very conservative.

      So far the computer is doing about a 318% return nightly….not to bad. The only problem is I have to stay at the little tables and fleece amateurs that are not playing good, statistical poker. I can’t move up to the big money where people play just like the computer anyway. If the computer keeps this up for a few more nights then I will buy the program, drop it down in the real money tournament games, and share my winnings with all my subscribers and people who leave 2 comments. So wish me all the luck and good karma that you can, it will make us all rich. (Is it bad karma to lie about sharing winnings to trick people into giving you good karma? I hope not)

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The goal, 1000 hits in 1 week….sounded impossible a long time ago. But then I figured out the keys to popularity on xanga…something I will explain in a coming article….

Understanding the Sociology of the Xanga Community (in Afghanistan)

Soon a thousand hits was an every week thing, so I had the crazy idea to make a run at 2000 hits, in one week. That is like the attendance at a shitty concert, or county fair. At this point in my life I would take having the same appeal as a shitty concert, or county fair. Luckily it was a busy week, and I had alot to write about….and the result was:

  2,457….!! Just shy of 2500. Crazy thanks to everyone that stopped by, and left 2 comments to help keep me featured almost all week. I appreciate and read every one, and will try to respond to them all also. I am having a banner made to look like a real ad for my site, I am not sure what I am going to do with it other then put it up top to look like a real xanga ad. When I get it made, if I put the HTML on here would any of you guys actually put it in a post, like an ad? I realize how vain this makes me sound, but in truth it is only a fraction of how vain I really am. Thanks for reading!

  

 Note: I should be good for a great post tomorrow, so stop back by

 

******Update tommorow..same bat channel

 

Faster Cars, Secret Tanks, and General Lunacy in Afghanistan

 

    A top secret mission to observe, monitor and possibly destroy the enemy. I laid there in the rocks, sweat pouring off my brow, my stomach wretched with nerves, as I considered the risks. I was outnumbered, and outgunned. The stakes were as high as they get inside of the walls of this base, and at this altitude. We needed intel, and on this morning, I would be the man to gather it, and destroy any potential spies if necessary.

 

   My equipment was top notch, brand new! A lightweight battle system capable of striking terror in the hearts of terrorists. And courage in the brave men, that fight the good fight. An amazing fighting system that tramples huge rocks, has incredible range, and can deliver an airsoft pellet on target at 60 yards.

 

 

   THE MISSION: Establish an observation position on the “workers” here on post, observe their actions, and analyze any threats. Report to higher about anything suspicious. Find a location to set up an ambush point, and standby for the order to attack if necessary.

   SPECIAL OBJECTIVE: Maintain high ground, and make sure the enemy is unaware of your presence.

 

  I moved into position as stealthy as possible. Ready for anything I could feel the lump in my throat swell as I approached the objective. I tried to keep as low a profile as possible in the direct sunlight, secrecy was paramount.

      

    I crept out into sight, gaining the firing advantage in case of attack. I spun the turret preparing them for a barrage of bright yellow, high velocity airsoft pellets in case they tried to charged my position. After gaining the tactical advantage, I moved myself into the observation position. At this point, I had a distinct advantage because the “bad guys” were busy working on the building, and going about there life. They had no idea I was hiding in the rocks around the corner, planning a top secret assault with  my remote control tank.

 

 

   As the workers went about their business, I analyzed the situation for threats, and other then oncoming traffic on the road, I found none. I hastily moved to the second objective: Establish observation point.

 

 

    From this partially hidden position, I could monitor the enemy with ease. They had no idea I was watching them. It was like they didn’t care. I didn’t see any suspicious activity, but I was insulted by there lack of concern for my presence…so I fired a warning shot. They appeared confused, but the “round” sailed over their head and “ticked” off the building. I am not sure that they knew what happened. But I like to think I had their attention. That was when I was spotted, the heat came from the roof. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he was clearing laughing while he pointed. Insulted by his lack of respect for the tank, I fired another shot, a little lower. This one was on the mark, now I had their attention. They knew that they had been made, and had been being watched. But my position was revealed, the risk was to high. I fired 5 or 6 more times for some suppression, and while they ducked for cover, I romped over the rocks and back to “base”. This mission was clearly over. But now they know I am on to them.

 

 

   In the end the mission was a complete failure, turns out that not only were all the enemy actually just workers, the tank had no way of actually observing them. Also it appears that the entire mission was a boredom induced hallucination, that the tank was fake, the bullets were plastic, and the mission wasn’t real. I can’t explain my disappointment when I discovered that not only did I waste an hour of my morning, but it appeared to onlookers that I had completely lost my mind. Which is still the subject of hot debate.

 

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   Alright after a barrage of comments about the fuel efficiency of Jeeps, I can see that gas prices have become much more of an issue then they were when I left home. So I started looking around on the Internet for alternatives. I found a new car, the jeep is gone. Car meet Xanga…Xanga, car.

2003 Saab 93 Sedan

  The car is beautiful, ironically not a ton better on gas then the jeep, but much more beautiful. 6 speed manual transmission, four cylinders (210 hp), lovin it. But what sold me was the interior of the Saabs. I like things in Saabs and VWs and Euro cars, because they are really simple, and flat, and clean. Then there is the leather, this is why I am settling on a 2003, it is the only model year that I can find with cream interior and leather. I am in love with the interior on this car. Now I just have to go on a hunt for one just like it when I come home.

 

   I am trying for 2000 hits this week, which is why I am putting up more posts then usual. I am going to try and keep it up, I am thinking about a few “editorial” posts that I have wanted to do for a while. Thanks to everyone for leaving comments and helping to keep me featured. Remember when commenting, the only thing better then a comment, is two comments…just hit the button twice if you have to…haha. I am such a whore for the featured content, it has me by the balls.

(new profile pic?)

(For Xanga users who read, but do not comment, please leave something, if you don’t have anything to say, just leave a comment saying …. “arck” …. that would be cool I guess)

 

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EDIT:

  In the interest of maintaining a certain level of drama on this site I thought I would include this last exchange. I discovered this post  while dilengently trying to respond to every one of my polite and otherwise worthwhile commenters. I never noticed it before so it caught my attention…

 

Interesting how you label people who disagree with you as “stupid” or “assholes”. Posted 9/30/2005 at 11:23 AM by SeaJaySmiles – delete – block user

I responded immediately attempting to be polite and clear up any miscommunications.

 

Hey I was just going through my old comments and I saw one from you saying it was interesting how I label people I disagree with as stupid or assholes? I was just curious when I EVER did that. It isn’t in any posts, or comments even. I hope that you would take the same time to explain that you did to accuse. Posted 10/1/2005 at 9:04 PM by Emerstan        After I left this comment I started wondering why in the hell I got this inflammatory comment from someone so I started looking around. You may remember NotLinky, the kind gentleman that for some reason acted like a dickhead on 9/28 when he left a post comparing my website to his son’s phone calls and made a terrible misunderstanding out of what I thought was a relatively clear post. (see below) Well of course Mrs Smiles was a lackey of his and was coming to his aid since he never saw fit to respond to the comment I posted on my last post. It was then I found my foot in my mouth because I did make a few comments about his intelligence, and propensity for “asshole-ness”. So I tried immediately to clear the air.

I am assuming that you are coming to the defense of NotLinky, I suppose in retrospect that I did call him an asshole, but I only implied he was stupid. He read half of my post and took literally that I really thought I should be able to say whatever I want(yeah right), and then compared my right to have a website, to his son’s right to divulge classified info on the phone.(Stupid) And then went out of his way to be rude in the way he phrased his comment to me after not even reading the entire post in the first place (Asshole). I didn’t call him that because I disagreed with him. I called him that because he acted like a stupid asshole…at the time. I am sure that he is a great guy normally. I still would hope that you would respond to your accusations that I am an ignorant and unfair labeler, and maybe apologize in light of the fact that I have proven that he was in fact, a stupid asshole. Posted 10/1/2005 at 9:13 PM by Emerstan

That made me laugh so I thought that I would share it with all of you. I hope it made you smile as well. Hopefully we can all enjoy a good response…I doubt it.