truncated harmony

Favorite song of all time: Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s00Kgm-Kjic ) It makes me nostalgic... for high school. Weird. Anyways, I'm gonna buy my tickets for Peru tomorrow! Woohoo! Flying into Lima on the 28th from JFK. Sweet. I plan on staying in NYC for the previous night hangin out with my bro Mary Kolars. She's cooler than you. Guaranteed. Sorry, that's just the way it is. (Don't feel bad... she's cooler than me too.) Hopefully Alaina will be going up to NYC too! Maybe I'll get to see her as well. So much coolness in one city at one time... it might just explode with awesomeness. So I guess the group I'm goin with is mostly 18-21 yr old Christian guys (a few older fellas too) lookin to help some people out and have an adventure while doing so... nice! I guess that's what this is about for myself as well. More musings... Wilderness EMT, NOLS Himalaya Mountaineering, Patagonia backpacking & sea kayaking... Pararescue. Jobs... outdoor hopefully, right? yeah... outdoor. So I guess I'm looking for something winter, outdoor, temporary, with potential for lots of hours... clearly this is pointing to a ski resort type job. Like a snow-cat operator, or even a liftie job? that would suck, but if it gets me to where I'm tryin to go (programs above), it works for me. Ideas? feel free to comment (don't worry, I'm not a cadet anymore...) some lines from a long-ish poem I wrote today waiting to get picked up from the bus station... pretty out of character for me to be writing something like this, but it was an experiement of sorts... just to see how it turned out. Bearskin rug our bale of hay my hands along your body play a dance of nerves ballet of touch the sensation is almost too much Peace

Harbinger of a Mercurial Malestrom

I'm out. Or maybe I'm in... Did I just take my chips off the table, or put them back on? I think back on, because I feel like I'm gambling now, taking a chance at something better for me... something that I'm supposed to do. I almost punched a guy when I was trying to finalize my separation papers today. Apparently you're supposed to swear into the IRR (individual ready reserve) in uniform, which is funny, cause the instructions on the paper I had said to report in civilian attire. And this yeoman told me to show up in civvies too... then he was like "oh, you have to be in uniform". I told him I was leaving in 30 minutes and had no uniforms. they were packed up and gone, so that was just too bad. He tried to argue and tell me that he told me to show up in uniform, but he was dead wrong. and then he went and checked and, oh yeah... you can swear in in civvies. Thanks for almost wasting 3 hours of both of our lives, ding dong. Oh well. In any event, I've solemnly sworn for the third or fourth time in my life to protect and defend the constitution of the USA. I'm sure I'll end up doing that one way or another. No doubt. I've told lots of people that I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to come back, and that's true. It's been an almost daily change since the process started... "Yes, of course I'll come back" or "No way Jose."... for the last few days it's been a "No way Jose" sorta day... but then Margaret Kratz pointed out that it was finals week and EVERYONE wants to leave and not come back by the end of the semester during finals week... touche. I suppose that seems obvious at this point, but it hadn't really occurred to me until she said that. Hmm. pense, pense As I was saying goodbye to one of my close friends, I told her, "You're one of the good ones." I knew what I meant, but later, while trying to quantify, or at least specifically qualify the components of "a good one" it became somewhat less obvious. The first thing that I was sure of that a "good one" is innately a good person. And whether or not that effects itself in ways they appreciate or not, they cannot escape that. Though it's actually much more convenient to be unjust and self-serving sometimes, these inherently good people cannot. It's like a conscience that's stronger than them. So whether or not they are actually noble people (on an id level), their actions are. And I can't figure out much beyond that. This quality that is beyond description... this "it" does not guarantee success. It does not guarantee that a person knows the right answers or makes the right decision... I am thinking of people at the Academy who I know (not terribly well necessarily... that doesn't seem to be necessary to determine if someone has "it") have it, but probably would be better off other places. Not that they wouldn't do well in the CG, just I think they would be better served and serve better in some other capacity. All I know is that people with "it" are just that much more alive and awake than others... they don't float through life on autopilot (autopilot can be a very predictable, successful path, don't get me wrong). In other news, I recently realized it bugs me when people write that they like to be spontaneous (oh? you don't like to be droll, banal, and unoriginal?). Mostly cause if they actually did, they wouldn't write that, cause then when they did something spontaneous, their friends would really be surprised. and that's sorta half the point of spontaneity. Plus the people who claim to "love to do spontaneous things" are often really boring and not spontaneous at all... about as exciting as Mr. Rogers. (OOh... what is he going to do today? wear a sweater and talk to a puppet that lives in a castle? oh that crazy old guy...). So I continue to change my plans for my sabbatical... feel free to throw out ideas that I might be interested in! Peace, all

Visual cacophony

Aside: Thanks to Chandra Lewis for the following short story: "Ransom of Red Chief" http://fiction.eserver.org/short/ransom_of_red_chief.html . It's a pretty good read. In the spirit of adventure and seeking whatever it is that I'm called to do, I've got a trip lined up already... on 29 DEC 08, I'll be flying down to Lima, Peru. and staying there for 2 weeks with a program called "CREATIO" which can be summed up as a Christian civic environmentalist group. Here's a link to their site... it's pretty freakin sweet: http://www.creatioweb.org/about.htm. so after that I'll be comin back to the good ol' USA on 12 JAN, which is less exciting. To be completely transparent, I still don't know exactly what I'll be doing, but I do know that Kris Lopez said that if I worked at Starbucks or somewhere lame like that, he'd put a hit on me, so I guess I won't be working somewhere like that. On the other hand, I've been checkin out NOLS- National Outdoor Leadership School. It's an amazing bunch of programs- stuff like mountaineering, rock climbing, wilderness backpacking and survival, Wilderness first aid/EMT stuff... I'd really like to get involved in just about any of their programs. I guess I'm most interested in the month or semester in Patagonia- that is, the southern tip of South America- and the wilderness EMT cert. Suffice to say, these programs are fairly expensive, so I'd probably have to get a job in order to make enough $$ to pay for them. Since I would be loathe to spend much time in some random dead-end job, I'd probably get 2 or 3 jobs and work like 100 hour weeks (I'd have nothing else to do... just work out) and make the dough really fast, so that I could then go off into the wild blue yonder (wherever that is...) ASAP. I'm also pretty interested in the semester in the Himalayas program, and the month or semester in New Zealand. I guess Scandanavia or Baffin Island would be pretty legit too. Oh, and a semester to prepare you to be a professional outdoor/adventure educator guru... oh yes. Any votes? Patagonia, New Zealand, Himalayas, Wilderness EMT, Scandanavia, Baffin Island (Canada)? Thanks to all those who've been stoppin by to say "hi" or congratulate me on my decision ("Hey, congrats- you're about to jump off a cliff" "oh gee... thanks"), it really does mean a lot to me, so thanks. Word of the Day: Absquatulate. First one to figure out what it means gets... a high five.

The Beginning: An Inexorable Journey

I found out on December 3rd, 2008 that, yes, my sabbatical was approved . To all of my friends at the Academy: Yes, it was a hard decision and I will miss you all quite a bit. The simplest way I can explain why it is that I'm leaving is to say that I'm not a house-dog. All this sitting around has got me all riled up and restless. Why A better question- why not? For me, the default is to DO, not to NOT do. I bet I could write 20 pages about this. And I'm sure it would descend into some sort of cynical, indignant rant about how the academy sucks. And that wouldn't actually be why I've decided to leave. It's almost easier to say what are NOT the reasons that I'm leaving... like "I'm unhappy", "I hate it here", or my favorite, "This place sucks." Yeah, I feel those things like everybody else, but people stay here because of all the good qualities about the academy. Sure, I agree that it sucks being here 90% of the time. I am discontent, which is different from unhappy. You can be very unhappy but content. This is where I was from Swab summer thru part way of 2nd semester 3rd class yr. Also, I feel that the CG may not be the best application of my God-given talents. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the most content after a period of intense suffering- usually physical. I don't necessarily like to run a lot, but I like to have run. I love adventure... a lot. I love the sensation of going to new places, doing new things, meeting new people, doing things that most people don't do. Why... I also want to do some missionary-type work. I want to help people, which I think is self-evident by my being in the coast guard in the first place. Initially I wanted to fly dolphins, but somewhere along the way decided that I don't want to spend that long in the CG, or at least I don't want to commit to that long initially. After this, I decided I wanted to do Law Enforcement in the CG- you know, jump outta helos and shoot pirates. That would be some coooool beans. But then... there are no mountains on the ocean. There's no dirt, no rocks (if there are, you got big problems, man), trees, small woodland creatures, you can't just rely on yourself, your body, and your friends to take care of yourself. There's no running, no carrying heavy stuff, not a lot of cool training. I'm gonna investigate the Combat Rescue Officer/Pararesueman thing in the Air Force... think of it like an AST/SEAL/EMT three-for-one deal. When I'm not coming back to the Academy after Christmas leave, so the last day I think I'll be here is 17 DEC. Where First, goin up to Maine for Christmas with my family. Then Dec 26/27 to NY with Shea Quinn to see Mary Kolars, then flying to Peru on the 29th. I'll be doing some missions work down there with a Catholic ministry (it sounds like a freakin sweet ministry actually... a band of brothers, really). Comin back on January 12, I'll be seein if I got into schools, where I'm gonna go from there. If things with other schools don't work out for some reason, I'll be lookin at NOLS courses Who The group I'm hope to meet up with in Peru is Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, through CreaTio missionaries. How Note that this is the last category... I'm gonna do the footwork and what happens happens. As Esther said, "If I perish, I perish"