bittersweet symphony

It's hard to tell but I have some measure of respect for anyone that puts on a uniform and goes to work. Whether it's a firefighter, corrections officer or a soldier. The pay sucks, the hours are even worse but there's something that drives them to show up day after day. Yeah, there's a draw to a salary pay instead of hourly, the benefits are pretty good, and steady work. I don't know one soldier that joined up to 'defend the Constitution' or any of that crap. Sure they might say it but that's because it sounds less selfish than 'for the college money.' Or that 'I was in a crappy situation and needed to get out of it so...' excuse. For whatever their reasons, they're brought together to form the US fighting force.

When I enlisted almost 7 years ago (whoa, that's a long time) I took an oath. It went something like this:

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Even me, the troublemaker, took this oath seriously. In my military career I have never disobeyed a lawful order. I admit that I stretched the boundaries of some orders, made my own interpretations of others, but I always, always accomplished the task. In doing so, I exercised my First Amendment right to bitch about it, before, during and after the task was completed.

So what's spurring me to write about all of this? Well, I read this article about Lt. Watada, the first Army officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. Now, I don't agree with war and I certainly don't want to go back to Iraq with a huge bullseye painted on my chest, but if I receive orders to go again, I will. And I'll bitch about it too. Loudly, but I'd go. Why? Not because I believe I'm defending the Constitution. One of the reasons I do is because it is an order given from the Commander-in-Chief. I may think that it's an unlawful order (which I don't) but that's not for me to decide. There is a system in place to determine that and so far it hasn't said anything to the contrary. So I go because if I don't, someone else will have to in my place. My friends are my family, if (God forbid) one were to be injured or killed I'd second-guess my decision to stay behind. I'll keep wondering if there was something that I could've done. If things would've been different if I was there. Maybe not, but it's that uncertainity that'll gnaw at me for the rest of my life.

After our first up-close encounter with an IED in September 2003, three friends were wounded. One was my platoon sergeant that had taken my position in the convoy at the last minute. I was supposed to be driving the trail vehicle, but instead I was driving the middle one with another company commander. He was a combat arms officer, used to the discipline of a line unit whereas we were a bunch of REMFs (rear echelon motherf***ers). I could laugh at my first sergeant and call him a doofus to his face, and he laughed but in a line unit I probably would've gotten my ass kicked to the point where I'd need a full face transplant. So riding around with him for the next ten hours was not going to be fun. Anyway, my point was that after that I volunteered for convoy duty, along that same route, travelling one of the most heavily populated IED routes twice a day three or four times each week. Sounds like suicide right? Or at least a feeble attempt at suicide made to look like a homicide. I don't know, I have sort of a biased point of view. What I can tell is that I did it because I didn't want one of my friends out there instead to leave me back at camp to worry and that maybe, just maybe, if I was out there that I could make a difference. Save a life. I'm a chronic worrier though, and I started to wonder if the person that I replaced would make better decisions than me. It was a vicious cycle.
I remember joking with my platoon sergeant, I don't think I showed too much of what I was really feeling (FREAKED OUT!) while it was going on. After the wounded were evac'd, our brigade chaplain was out there and I walked up to him and just brokedown, crying for a few minutes. Afterwards I sucked it back up for the duration we were out there. Then on the drive back I was so panicked and I kept thinking "Holy crap! I'm driving too fast, I can't tell if there's any more IEDs out there." And I looked down at my speedometer, it read 10mph, and I noticed that my knuckles were white and my hands were visibly shaking. When were outside awaiting news about our wounded, some of us were smoking, and I couldn't keep my cigarette lit because I kept shaking the cherry free. I think it took me like 20 minutes to smoke one.

I've gotten a little off-topic. The point is, I'd rather be Iraq where I might be able to make a difference than back here where I know I can't make one. I have a legitimate reason to get out of deployments with no consequences. Yet I choose to be deployable, just like I chose to join the Army. Maybe it's not the smartest idea, but I'm not known for smart ideas.

hands clean

Like Christy I'm just now doing a review of 2006. Whereas she cited a preoccupation the thought of a substanial posting, I'm going to go ahead with the classic. "Fuck it, I ain't gonna lie. I'm just lazy."

So 2006. Work-wise I started the year as a furniture mover but ended as a researcher at a public relations company. How the two fields are related is strange, but believe it or not I took a huge pay cut to do this job because I feel that there's a good future in this sort of work. I got to reconnect with old college friends through some of the weirdest coincidences (yes, there's a story to be told). Starting seriously blogging. By seriously I mean like on a daily basis, not the content of said blogs. This in turn has reducing my use of profanity probably to a normal level. I was up to a 70% profanity content since 2003. Plus, it's almost been therapeutic to rant about things that were bugging me. Once that was complete I kept my spirits up by doing the news like my own Daily Show.
I made a few new friends, which is hard for me. I'm sort of like Randall from Clerks and Clerks II, minus the Jersey skeez. I only lost 6 friends in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, low compared to previous years. My personal life is getting more organized, all of my DVDs are organized (online) and I picked up one of my favorite hobbies; Legos.

So what do I want to accomplish in 2007...
As always, setting the bar low. Or, baby steps.

1. Get a bed. - Yeah, that's right. No bed. Back is hurting.

2. Complete the most recent game I've purchased, Final Fantasy XII. - This sounds like an easy task right? Look, I haven't completed a Playstation FF game since Final Fantasy Tactics. Yeah, that's right, I haven't finished a game since 1999. So what? In fact, I don't think I've past any game since that point.

3. Continue organizing my life. - Then throw it back into chaos by getting a 3rd shift job.

4. At least consider going back to school.

5. Lose weight. - Yeah, I've been parting it to the side. I may have to start running to accomplish that goal.



That's it so far. I pretty much like my life. I've got cable, internet and food. Take those things away and Daniel go crazy. Yeah, Daniel will start to talk about himself in the third person...

nothing left to do

I wonder how many twins can actually say that they were born in different years? Although they were born 2 months premature, it's still sort of cool. I know there's got to be some cases where twins are born on different days, but different years is just cool. How about different months? And what's next? Different states? It's going to be a competition! Different countries! (i.e. giving birth to one in Canada, drive south to give birth in US.) Ha. That'd just be cool. One kid is a Canadian, the other American.

See? This is the news I like.

FYI, if you didn't know, posting a blog like this is not private. *gasp* Really? You mean other people have access to this fancy-doohicky called the inter-net? And they can read this? You mean other people can read letters, put them together to form words and those words form sentences and thoughts? You mean to tell me my personal MySpace page isn't private? Oh no! What am I to do? Oh yeah, not care. I know posting things on the Internet can actually be viewed by the public. Uh, that's why I do it. It's not like I'm doing this anonymously.

Updating adoption news. The Madonna controversy. Yes, she did not adhere to established laws. The cool thing is that this controversy has stirred up some free publicity for Malawi orphans. Which was the purpose of Madonna's original trip. Well played! OK what erks me (surprised?) is the nun that sent the dad $788 (approximately) and was quoted as saying that the boy would be better off staying Malawi. No one can make a comment like that and actually mean it can they? Not unless they're psychic and predict the future. Yeah, there's nothing that can substitute a loving parent, but love just isn't enough. Love doesn't make the hunger go away, love doesn't cure AIDS, love can't keep you warm at night. Love is great, but there's so much things he'd have access to. Medicine. Education. What if little David grew up to cure AIDS? Or at least made a difference in that field. Can you then say that he would've been better off in Malawi? Yeah it sounds more like the "wait and see" theory but I can't travel into the future (yet) nor can I observe two parallel universes simultaneously (yet).
From personal experience, I can tell you that my life would be drasatically different had I not been adopted. I wouldn't have had access to many of the things I did. Plus, I certainly wouldn't have had the same experiences. But even then, I can't say for certain that I'm better off because I'm adopted. I like who I am now and that's all that matters to me. Can't change the past (yet) but maybe I can do something about the future. Probably not, because I assume that's going to take some effort and that sounds like that'd cut into my TV viewing time.

Speaking of TV viewing. The Sarah Silverman Program. I've been waiting for this for like a year. I love her, she's hot for a Jew. The stuff that spews from this comedienne's mouth is just outrageous and her delivery is what sets her apart from others. Just think of my racist comments, beliefs and jokes, and put them in the body of a hot Jew. That's her! I laughed my ass off when I watched "Jesus is Magic." Although I'm predicting that this will be another one of Comedy Central's short lived shows, I plan to enjoy it. Oh, and in the movie "The Way of the Gun" her rant (7th from the top, 'Raving Bitch') is just classic.

Sarah Silverman (on religion and kids): "Who cares? Different religions. I guess the only time it's an issue I suppose would be if you're having a baby, you have to figure out how you want to raise your baby or whatever, which still would not be an issue for us. Because you know, we'd just be honest, and say "Mommy is one of the chosen people, and Daddy believes that Jesus is magic."

cry me a river

Oh no! You mean judges don't get paid the big bucks? It's a constitutional crisis! Huh. I didn't realize that $165,000 (yearly) was minimum wage. Frak. I'm only making like 1/4 of minimum wage then. I guess I romanticize what the judicary system was about... justice. So I was wrong and (then) Puff Daddy was right, it's all about the benjamins. In the last 6 years 38 judges have left the bench. I'm guessing for private sector jobs that offered more money right? Well good, I don't want judges that are swayed by money on the bench. They, at least, had the integrity to walk away. Well, if judges are getting paid crap, then so are cops, firefighters, oh heck all civil servants. Everyone from President to the government supply clerk should get paid 7-digit salaries, that'll solve the problem right?

And this is a must for travellers down under. Me, I prefer the universal method of TALKING LOUDER AND SLOWER!

While keeping in mind that I was just stunned about this football game, what drew me to the article was the girlfriend's name: Chrissy Popadics. Popadics? Really? A cheerleader with that name, must be hard to live up too.

Some might say that this was offered 26 (almost 27) years too late for me. OK, so just mainly me. It'd be nice to blame my retardedness on something else.

Kid found wandering I-465 in Superman t-shirt. Takes a whole new meaning to "go play in traffic" which is one of my favorite replies to a stupid comment.



"Can I ask you question?"

"What is it?"

"It's an interogative form of sentence used to test knowledge, but that's not important right now."

the sound of silence

Ah, the new year. So what's different now from last year? Nothing so far, unless you count the fact that my iPod crapped out on me. That and my service warranty for it expired three months ago. I can't afford a new one for awhile too. Now I'm going to have to listen to the radio or CDs. And what am I going to listen to at work? Silence? 8 hours of silence? Argh! On the flip side, maybe I'll be more productive and, you know, get work done. Ha!

So my buddy Wes finally gave me the pictures from our big '06 project. Yup, the heater core. So without further ado.


Here is what we accomplished in an hour. It really didn't take that long but we had to clean out the other crap in my car before starting.


This is me and the dash. Yeah, I'm propping it up with my knees to make it look like that. The rumor was that taking out the dash is the hardest part of changing out a heater core. So when we got to this part in three hours we thought that we'd be done by dinner.


What you're looking at is a switch located on the driver's side, under the center console, and behind all the electronics. It's the alarm kill switch. Now what purpose do I have showing you this? Well, this is a story within a story I guess. In Februrary '06 Bill was helping me install my CB radio, powered directly from the car battery. Just as I told him to be careful because the car alarm would go off and it would be difficult to deactivate, he uncoupled the battery connectors and the alarm went off. Suffice the say the car alarm couldn't be deactivated and I couldn't drive it, so it cost me $200 to tow it from Greencastle to Indianapolis and another $20 to have some guy at H.H. Gregg to work on it for five minutes to fix this whole thing. There's more which I'll tell later.


Behind the dash. When we realized that we'd have to replace the weatherstripping too. Oh well, not a bad deal. That thing on the left side, that's the heater core assembly. Only a few centimeters of plastic separated us from the heater core. Again, we thought that we'd be done in a few hours.


So with the dash disassembled, I began working in the engine compartment. The instructions said to drain radiator fluids and disconnect the hoses to the heater core. Yeah, they didn't anything about taking out the air filter and hoses, we also had to unbolt the fuel pump (not shown here) just to disconnect the hoses. By disconnect, I mean slice open and rip out.


It's hard to tell from this photo but it's dark outside at this point. To get the heater core assembly out we also had to take out the fan assembly to give us some wiggle room against the AC unit to literally rip out the heater core. I'm not kidding. The copper pipes had fused with the insulation around them, and there was a bolt holding the whole unit in that you couldn't get to. I mean seriously, I don't know how you're supposed to get to it and we had it all taken apart looking at it. So it's about 10pm, I've only been working on the car for 12 hours and this was the result of those first 12 hours of work. We took some of the pieces inside. We needed to JB weld the broken pieces of the heater core case (from where we removed it from the bolt) and also, the fan was in need of a good cleaning.


That's the pain in the ass.


The proud owner. I'm on my way to disassemble the damn thing because the eight clips around it are deceiving, the vent controllers span both halves.

And of course we reassembled it, with parts to spare! That's not a good thing huh? Well, it was a good learning experience. Next up! The master brake cylinder! Only this time, we're going to do it when it's warmer and more daylight. Like this summer!