After a little over a dozen years in the Corps, he was a victim of the post-war draw down. The Army was smart enough to snatch him up as a recruiter where he continued to turn sometimes wayward youths into successful citizen soldiers for the National Guard. Following his calling to teach, he took advantage of educational programs and went back to school which shows me you are never too old or set in your ways to improve yourself even if it means sacrifice of energy, time, and sometimes sanity.

He suffers from a mysterious disease he was unfortunate enough to contract while in the Gulf but presses forward in life. Likely eligible for almost 100% disability, he leaves the military after 23 years; a place he’s known since he was 17 and for all of this, a man of this caliber is sent away with a medal brought to him by his neighbor in a guard mail envelope. No reading aloud in front of his men, no ceremony. I find this utterly criminal. If this is the way the National Guard ushers people out the door, I have but one choice in the matter. They are going to get a taste of what one Marine can do and hopefully by example, they will see how you are SUPPOSED to honor a hero. Operation Red Dog has officially commenced.

It seems my food orgy this weekend in preparation for my diet got a little out of control to the tune of 199 pounds, thus marking the heaviest I’ve ever weighed in my life. I told my wife she can now start referring to me as “Fat Bastard.” But, that’s what diets are for and the run didn’t seem to suffer this morning. I think I’m mentally ready for the diet and am glad to get going. Just the knowledge of being this heavy makes me depressed.

Had bacon and eggs for breakfast (gotta love the Atkins Diet) and then promptly forgot my lunch. Oh well, I’ll get it when I get home but not an auspicious start to a diet that will soon cause pain and suffering. Good thing the first day is relatively easy.

My first class was software design and the only thing of note was the normal wailing and gnashing of teeth at the Friday class that the class attempted to move. They did the normal passing around of a blank schedule and had everyone X out the times they couldn’t make. I was the last one to get it and, as expected, there were more X’s on the sheet than you could swing a dead cat at (yes, a bad combination of sayings but the concept of swinging a dead cat just makes me laugh). So it looks like the Friday class stays which is OK with me. I’d just piss the day away otherwise.

My second class was a C++ programming class which is taught by a professor I had for my first hacking class. He is high energy, funny, knowledgeable, and accommodating. In other words, a freak professor here at NPS. The class looks to be one of those rare beasts that is a lot of work but thoroughly enjoyable and educational.

I also start the Atkins Diet. I have a weigh in in 11 days and I’m right at my max weight. But the bigger motivation is that I am going to begin training for my “triple threat” this summer. I do the Big Sur Marathon, the Lone Pine Marathon a week later, and a 50 miler two weeks after that (See MY MARATHONS).

So to start the training, I try to cut my weight down to 175 and train at that weight. So starting tomorrow, I start shedding 20 pounds to get ready for the process. I will lose about half of it within two weeks and then the training will take care of the rest. I know, sounds drastic but at 33, the battle of the bulge and a sedentary academic schedule calls for desperate measures. This weekend was my last food party for awhile before the dieting begins. Carbo-craving and mood swings, here I come!!!

I probably hosed up the details of what happened but that’s all I could gleen from the little metal info booths along the trails.

Maybe some of it was that the whole camping thing has become too commercialized. I mean there were all these rules and regulations and then you had these Nazi park rangers whose authority came from the fact that your were in their park. Anywhere else and I would have told them where to stick their Smokey. Pay $20 to get in and $30 a night to camp. No fires before 5:00 PM or after midnight. Quiet hours (shut the hell up) after 10:00. You can’t park your truck there, you must move it 5 feet that way. Put away that food in the steel container even if you are right there. No pets on any trail except the paved ones. We have a kennel but you must have all your dog’s records with you. Oh, and it will cost of course. And these are only a small example of the rule book they give you on the way in. And the final kicker on the way out was that we had to show our pass as we left. We, of course, threw ours away when we were making the campground as clean as the Pope’s toilet so what do we get when we pass the gate on the way out? “Next time put it in your glove box.” Like there’ll be a next time. Yosemite: kiss my ass.

The other thing that ruined it for me was the sheer volume of people. I want to go somewhere where not the average person can get to or it takes some work to get there. The concept of “roughing it” sort of falls apart like toilet paper in the rain when you see an old lady dressed up in dress clothes, hoop ear rings, high heels, and make-up walking around in a spot you spent an hour hiking to (there was a “bus” option, if you’re wondering). And many places, it looked like a street on New York. You know, the ones where you see all the people’s heads and it just looks like a sea of people? That is what it was like. Yeah, back to the wild.

Oh, and it rained on us. Nothing anyone could do, just bad luck but tends to put a damper on moods. No more dealing with dust, now it’s dampness and mud. Whoopee!!

OK, as you can tell, I was a putz on the second half of the trip after all this really started getting to me. It started when we couldn’t get the fire started well enough to cook the burgers. We created a lot of smoke so if you need a smoke maker, I’m your man. I’m surprised the rangers didn’t come and comment. So I was dirty, tired, and moody for the last half. My poor wife.

This Blog thing: well, it's kind of neat but I can't help but think there's an easier way since it's simply posting thought to a web. What advantage does it have over just updating an HTML file and then FTPing it like I do all my other pages? It seems to me that it's just a novelty to use this but it puts access of my files and the ability to post to my page in the hands of people I don't know. Plus, there's no spell checker (I'm a horrible speller) unless you upgrade to the version you have to pay for. But it's free and I guess I can update my posts via the web anywhere I want. I'll see how it goes.

I've seen some blogs that have feedback forms for particular posts. Again, the easier way seems to just expect people to email me with anything they want to say about what I write (notice I'm assuming someone is going to be interested enough to read and reply ). If no one reads this, it's as good way to throw my thought down.

Oh, and what happens if something goes haywire and Blogger goes under? I guess I do archive to my own server so I wouldn't lose it but again, it seems that if I controlled the updating and posting via a simple HTML page, I wouldn't have to worry about it. The only thing I see is the ability to post from anywhere on the net and for now, that's enough to continue this experiment.

As far as the spelling, I will probably cut and paste this into Word, spell check it, fix it, and cut/paste back into this window (the drawbacks of perfectionism!)

It occurs to me that this is much like writing email to no one. But not too personal since it's a public forum. Maybe I can get my thoughts down here and then use it to cut and paste portions into email. Have you ever written a long email and then start another to someone else just to realize you are writing the same thing? Or worse yet, you kill the second email because you don't want to go through that again. Sometimes I just go to the "sent mail" and copy and paste, changing the obvious personal references. Does that make me a bad person? There have even been times that I thought about how the two people I'm writing know each other and if I could get caught if they somehow compare. I don't know how that could happen unless they forward it to the other person and then they realize (extremely unlikely but potentially embarrassing).

Well, that's my ramble section.

What about sections to my Blog? Maybe the following:

Ramble: like above and includes the day's events
Rant: just me bitching about something
Funny: humor is everywhere in life
Interesting thing I learned today: hopefully I can come up with something each day
Motivation or feel good: counterbalances the Rant section.
What's Up tomorrow: not much to explain for that one

Ok let me try and then I'll go to bed:

Ramble: already did

Rant: My kids’ school cut out PE teachers, librarians, teachers’ aides, music teachers, art teachers, computer lab administrators, playground attendants, lunchroom attendants and others. Basically, everyone but the actual teachers who are now expected to pick up the load and do all those roles along with their normal duties. Before, the teacher’s used the times like PE to catch up on their lessons, grade papers, prepare activities, etc. Now, they are lucky to find time to go to the bathroom and if they don’t know how to do something, they either don’t do it or do it poorly without proper training. Things like PE: when I volunteered, it was basically a bunch of old ladies trying to do the best they could with calisthenics, running in place, etc. It was sad but I was glad I could help out. Problem is, my schedule for next quarter prohibits me from doing it. It broke my heart to tell the kids but I’ll try to work something out.

But that is a band aid on a gaping wound. Why would they cut all of these things? It’s not the teachers’ fault, their victimized by it just like the kids. I need to pitch a fit about it but where to start. I guess the best I can do for now is to spend more time with my own kids and make sure they are not getting short changed and try to volunteer to help out.

Funny: My wife called up the tire place where we dropped off our rim to have a tire put on. I had blown it out and it was shredded and since we are going camping this weekend in Yosemite, she wanted it fixed as a spare. She had dropped it off yesterday and they promised her they would have it in the next day (today). When she called, they started giving her the runaround noting that they never order anything without payment and she sternly explained to them how they had told her that she wouldn’t have to pay until it got in. The conversation got rather heated because they were busy trying to explain their business processes while all she wanted was our freakin’ tire. This went on until she finally exclaimed that she was coming down, getting our rim, and taking it elsewhere where we would get better service. It was at this point that the discovery was made that she had called the wrong tire place.

Her response: oh, sorry.
Their likely response: dumb bitch.

Interesting thing I learned today: A polyglot is a person who knows many languages. I know English and not all that well.

Motivation or feel good: The kids and my daughter’s school really dig me running their PE sessions one day a week since the school cut many of the periphery teachers. (See rant above) I go to my son’s 5th grade once a week and my daughter’s 3rd grade once a week. As I’m told by the teachers and many of the kids, it’s the highlight of their week. If anyone asks me how I find the time, my explanation is summed up by the hugs I get when I show up.

What's Up tomorrow: Getting up, running, and getting on the road to Yosimite. Looks like I will not be Blogging for a couple of days.