RETIRED WARRANT

Idiots behind the wheel

Well I have been really busy today and am taking a brief time to write something before I go back to work. I have already worked through lunch getting a few things done and now it is time to take a breather for a little while.

The way to work this morning was interesting again today. I was following one of the people that lives up a few streets from me. He ran two stop signs and a red light and luckily I didn’t have to follow him past the red light.

I then got behind someone who was too busy talking on her cell phone to use her turn signals. So it was just a little frustrating watching these people on my way to work and knowing that there are a lot more of these folks on the roads here.

I got to work and had to light off the full OTCIXS/TADIXS for a demonstration and introductory lesson. I was glad everything worked great and everything went smoothly. I got through about half of the classroom work and will finish that up tomorrow. Then we will roll into the lab and that really goes fast.

I did take a little time trying to figure out something game related for a fed mate, but he won’t be happy with the answer. Laila and I have been playing around with the way we post op and we were trying to have him use the same method but with the ships he uses it will not work.

Anyway I am now being requested to look something up so let me check that out and get this one posted for the day. Work comes first and I guess I have taken enough of a break today.

This morning was not fun

This morning was one of those mornings where I got up when the clock went off and then just hit the snooze twice and stayed in bed. I still managed to get up and get a shower and all and got online before 6 AM but I was really not very motivated to get going this morning.

Anyway the first thing that happened when I logged on this morning is that I found out one of our members hit one of our allies. Then when I saw who he hit I got even angrier. Jedi’s fed carries the same banner as our fed so there can be no confusion about that one. Also this fed mate would have had to be pretty low in PR to attack that empire. Needless to say I am pretty angry that someone would hit a member of our training fed.

Also this person failed to post OP when he came in so I will be watching. He is never on when Joe, Sam or I are on so I usually don’t see him, but Laila is my eyes and ears when I am asleep and lets me know what is going on. If this guy has a problem with not hitting allies and not posting OP then he can do it someplace else, as I will have no time for him.

The way to work was a nightmare this morning. The guy 2 doors up either lent or sold something to a friend and the item was too big to fit in the guy’s trunk. So they kind of tied the trunk halfway shut and he drove really slow to get out of our little subdivision. Guess who was behind the guy?

Anyway, once I got out of the subdivision I was fine until I got to the freeway and then it was a parking lot. Because it was a parking lot everyone was using the off ramp lanes to get a jump on traffic meaning they could like pass a whole ten cars before forcing their way back into the freeway lanes and extending he backup further.

I don’t know why people have to do dumb stuff like that. When one person cuts another off on the freeway it starts a chain reaction for miles behind as people brake for the brake lights ahead.

If everyone would just follow the laws and be courteous the freeways would run smoothly. Of course this is California and everyone is too busy fixing their hair, talking on their cell phone, or reading the paper on their way to work so that is probably too much to ask.

Well time to get ready to go give the test and get going for the day.

Double Sign Alert

This morning getting to work was a mess. As I was getting ready to go this morning I had the news on and they were talking about a double sign alert on the I-5 south at 28th street. That is right in front of the base and also just south of the Coronado Bridge. I guess the first one was due to big rig roll over accident and the second was for a van that ran off the road and hit a light pole in the backup.

As a result, all the traffic switched over to the I-805 and that was backed up when I got on it, something that is rare for a Friday. I did get to work, in plenty of time, it was just interesting to see how all the traffic switched freeways.

On the way in listening to the radio they were talking about some black hole that has been discovered that is one billion light years across. That is pretty big. They didn’t talk much about it other than to say the have found it. I hope it is not headed our way.

Laila’s internet has been repaired. It again was another wiring problem. I guess it was possibly related to the typhoons and all the bad weather that have been having lately.

Anyway they have it fixed now so we are back up until the next typhoon I guess.

I now have the dates lined up for my next visit to the Philippines so I can use up this years vacation time. Laila will be happy with that. Now I just have to get off today so I can start making the plans.

So I guess that is it for this week here. I will try and get something posted over the weekend, but sometimes I get busy and forget all about it, so I’ll have to see.

Various things in the news

Today is the second Monday of the week and there is so much going on in the news and all so I actually have something to blog about.

First off Laila is back to having internet problems so we were not able to talk on Skype other than for the 20-30 seconds that I managed to get it up for before it dropped. She has already put in a trouble call to her provider and hopefully they will get it fixed by the time I get home today. Needless to say that kind of messed up the morning routine for us.

On my way to work this morning I was following a silver late model Nissan Frontier pickup truck up the onramp to the I 805. It is one of those metered onramps with two lanes to get on. The lights are staggered and this guy was in the left lane while I was in the right lane. He got to the light just as it turned red and then jumped lanes to catch the light in the right hand lane. All of that and almost causing a wreck to save maybe 15 seconds of time getting on to the freeway, where I immediately passed him. Some people here need to go back to driving school.

Oh and I almost forgot, after a week off, maybe for vacation or something I saw my favorite National City motorcycle police officer back on the beat on my route to work. He was there yesterday and again this morning and both times he had people pulled over. I can’t tell you how great that makes me feel as some people treat the streets through National City as a speedway. They also ignore traffic signals and signs, so I am happy when I see them pulled off the side of the road getting a ticket.

Yesterday I guess our local congressman Bob Filner made the national news by assaulting an airline employee in Washington DC. I guess he feels he has some kind of special privileges as a congressman and maybe now the people of this district will see the news reports and get rid of this guy. The guy is a jerk and this is not the first incident. Usually he convinces people to drop the charges, but this time charges were filed.

Also in the news Michael Vick went ahead and pled guilty to animal abuse over his dog fighting case. I figure he will get 1 to 1.5 years in prison, and I hope just because he is a famous football player he does not get a light sentence. There is no excuse for raising dogs just to fight in competition or killing the ones that don’t fight so well. I guess he was going to fight it until all his friends went ahead and told the truth to protect their own butts. He was then forced to go for a plea and I hope they hammer him.

Then I was watching the news reports of this illegal alien who has been all over the news while hiding out in a church in Chicago. She was caught and deported I guess about ten years ago, and then came back into the country with a fake SSN. She was working at Chicago’s O’Hare airport cleaning planes. That makes me really feel safe, is Osama Bin Laden also cleaning planes at O’Hare since they can’t seem to find him?

About a year or so ago she got caught and was supposed to go to a deportation hearing but instead started hiding out in a church and speaking out against the US Government policies on immigration. She is using the “I have to take care of my American born son (Anchor baby) as he has no father and is ill with attention deficit disorder” defense. Why not just say he has a common cold.

Anyway she went ahead and decided she was important enough to go to California to speak at one of these overthrow the US (no borders) rallies and got picked up and deported by the INS. Now everyone is screaming about how cruel the government is.

Well what about this woman. While I see all the news reports that seem to be sympathetic to her, where is the sympathy for the person whose identity she stole? Who’s SSN was she using to work here in this country illegally? Whose taxes are all screwed up now, and whose credit has been damaged? You don’t hear anything about that.

This morning I heard one of the more ignorant callers I have ever heard call into a radio show. I would have lost my patience and hung up on her, but Rick Roberts did a wonderful job great job getting this lady to say totally stupid stuff.

He asked her if we should have the same immigration policy as Mexico and she said yes. So that means they should have medical checkups and a means of support according to Mexican policy. Well she back pedaled on that. At one point she even went so far as to say that Mexico owned California, Arizona, New Mexico and all. Guess she forgot all about the Spanish American War and the fact that Mexico was given back the land they have now and paid for the land now owned by the United States.

Another news tidbit that didn’t get much play was that the Presidents of Mexico and the US met with the Prime Minister of Canada in Ottawa yesterday to discuss the SPP program. That is that program that will merge Canada, Mexico, and the US together sort of like the European Union. It is all being done under the table and the majority of Americans don’t know about it as it does not get much play in the news.

I guess one morning we will wake up and all of North America will be one country and then the average American will ask what the heck happened.

Also yesterday I caught another news item about another Chinese recall, of pajama’s this time. What is with all these Chinese imports? I guess Wal Mart is going to have to find another supplier of goods in the future.

Well I guess that is it for today. I have to get started on getting some work done.

Something I like seeing

Today I had to come in a bit early to open up the classroom and labs. I guess I should have thought about it a little more as I can’t start the labs anyway, until I get another instructor so that we have enough safety observers. The military guys all have PT today so I suppose I will have to put the class on a break until they get back.

The past two weeks I have seen something that has made me pretty happy. On my way to the freeway each morning I catch 16th street through National City for a few blocks. People use it as a speedway and never seem to follow the posted speed limit. The past two weeks every morning there has been a motorcycle policeman on the street, usually with someone pulled over, and I welcome it. Also since today is trash day with him being there I did not see any of the shopping cart bums rooting through people’s trash. All in all it is a win win situation, and I hope to see this policeman each morning.

This morning on the radio the subject was about Barry Bonds and his breaking Hank Aaron’s record for home runs.

Even though he has not been positively caught using steroids and performance enhancing drugs, most people feel he has. He has made enough money in his career to pay for high priced lawyers and all to keep things quiet.

When he gets the record I think it should get the little asterisk like the one that Roger Maris has all those years after breaking Babe Ruth’s record. He had the asterisk for playing more games in a season than the Babe. He also had to put up with adverse pressure from the press and fans who wanted Mickey Mantle to break it.

Aaron had the same things going on as many people did not want a black man to break the records. He had death threats and all kinds of things going on. I remember when Aaron broke the Babe’s all time home run record and also remember that nobody really realized he was that close to it until the last couple of years. Aaron was just so consistent over the years. He quietly gained all those home runs having just about the same total runs each year throughout his career.

Bonds, McGwire, Canseco and others have been flashy hitting their home runs. They have also dwarfed others in size and strength. Canseco actually came out and admitted he used steroids and told about others that were using them. McGwire denies using them but it appears that he was and also it affected his being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in the first year of his eligibility. I have a feeling the same thing will happen to some to some of these other players that have been suspected of using steroids.

I think all records set by players suspected of using performance enhancing drugs should have an asterisk after their name in the record books. That is just my personal opinion. By allowing these guys to set records and have the records stand tarnishes the game.

Also another thing that was brought up is what is it with these sports hero’s and the troubles they have been having with the law? The latest sports guy to get in trouble is Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick over illegal dog fighting and animal abuse. Yeah, I know he has not been found guilty of anything yet but since it is a 40 page federal indictment and some of his friends have come out in the open and confirmed things with the press, I figure he will have some problems. But then he is a rich sports guy and can hire a few high priced lawyers to get him off.

The comments today on the radio were basically about if these guys did not have professional sports to turn to they would probably be in prison and would have been living a life of crime. The only problem is that they still have the gang banger mentality and with the income from sports they are nothing more than rich gang bangers. I guess that is why I have lost interest in watching professional sports. Yeah I watch the big games but they have all lost me as a fan.

Well time to get to work, so I guess I will get this saved. I have to earn my pay check.

HA HA HA HA HA

Today is Friday, hurray for that.

I got up on time and talked to Laila before taking off for work. I remembered to take my jury paperwork just in case they needed it and drove in. There was a lot more traffic this morning than there usually is on a Friday, but I made it to work wait plenty of time to spare.

Now I am just waiting to see what I will be doing for the day. I will be either teaching the Receive side of the Transceiver or helping work on the antenna system. It looks like it is more in the direction of working on the antenna.

Well I found out and it was teaching. It is now lunch time and I taught all morning and also go my quarterly evaluation done so it was a very good morning. After turning the class loose for the weekend, I went ahead and helped with maintenance for a while and now I am sitting down for a few minutes.

I have to stop off and get dog food on the way home and I am thinking on grabbing something already prepared for dinner so I don’t have to cook today. I am going to start out the weekend by being a little lazy.

I just saw the funniest thing. I was talking with one of the guys and we went outside to the break area where it is warm. Someone had hired a sky writer to start over NASSCO Shipyard and write HA HA HA HA HA over the area of the wreck yesterday. It was pretty funny.

Well I guess that is it for now. Looks like I might be needed again to assist with some more maintenance.

Early reset

Last night I was really happy to get reset early and I actually went to bed before 10:30 for some much needed sleep. I woke up at four this morning looked at the clock and went back to sleep until the alarm went off. That gave me some extra time to chat with Laila and check game stats and all.

Today the freeway was practically empty which was surprising. The neighborhood roads were a little congested as the guys with shopping carts were out rooting through people’s trash today. The recycling center still hasn’t opened, but there is already a bunch of activity in the neighborhood. I wonder if there is another one open somewhere close that I haven’t seen.

Today work should be really quiet as my class graduates and I won’t start teaching the new class until they get to receivers. I will be helping when they have labs and all. I am a little worried as they appear to be a bit behind right now and it is a big class. I guess I’ll see later today when I get a look at the schedule and see where they are at. It just seems to me they are a bit behind, but I could be wrong.

Yesterday since I aggravated my tooth and all I decided rather than to attempt to eat lunch I would use the lunch hour to gas up the car. I was traveling on fumes and figured I would catch shorter lines if I went at lunch. Anyway I got in the car and drove towards the 32nd Street gate, but when I got there it was secured to outbound traffic, because they had painted new crosswalks, speed limit and lines. I had to make a u-turn and head all the way to the back gate and then go back to 32nd Street to get to the gas station. My gauge was almost to 0 when I finally pulled in to the gas station and filled up. Then when I started to head back to the building they had opened the gate to outbound traffic and were getting ready to close it to inbound traffic. I guess it was just bad timing on my part. At least the car is full again and I probably won’t have to gas up again for a month.

When I did get home I signed on and updated my posting on UC and then fell asleep at the keyboard off and on for a while. It is nice using the IRC for chat because if someone wants to get a hold of you it has an audible alarm, so that would wake me up and I could update and go back to my nap.

I did go over 10 million planets yesterday so that was a good achievement and I have been able to attack and win even with my defensive miner ships. Judy also had a good day picking up about 100K planets too.

Well I am back. I got my class graduated and then we took care of a few equipment problems that have been plaguing one of our labs. I don’t normally work there but sometimes a new set of eyes help.

We have been having compatibility problems with some new equipment we got and it has been driving the boys crazy. Anyway I went over this morning and we were looking at some stuff when I suggested that we switch ports on the master unit and that cleared up much of our problem. After that is was just reconfiguring some stuff and we had to repair one unit that had a bad circuit card.

We then also repaired a computer terminal, so all in all it was a great day. Now lunch time has rolled around and today is MWR pizza day, but since I can’t eat pizza I will go ahead and wait until I get home so I can eat something I don’t have to chew.

I guess that is about it for now. Time to see what the next item to fix is. Since we are on a roll, might as well keep going.

Busy weekend

I didn’t blog over the weekend as I just didn’t seem to get around to it, though I did get a whole ton of stuff done over the weekend. I guess we’re getting too busy with Unification Wars game, and I am sorry for lack of blogging.

Anyway over the weekend we made the commissary run, I ironed all my work clothes and we did a bunch of cleaning. It might not sound like much but with the ironing I was catching up on my own laziness. I have been doing laundry each weekend and then instead of ironing the clothes right away I have been hanging them upstairs in the closet.

I would pick out clothes that were not wrinkled from the ones there, but over time my available choices started getting smaller and smaller.

So this weekend when David did his laundry and threw my stuff in a laundry basket it was all terribly wrinkled so I broke out the iron and while pressing them I went ahead and got the stuff out of the closet and pressed it too. Now I think I can go about three maybe four weeks without doing laundry, but I don’t think that would be a very good idea.

This weekend something funny happened. On the way to the commissary I stopped off to pick up the mail and there was an express mail envelope in my post office box. The label was all faded out and unreadable, someone had removed the top copy. Anyway I opened it up to see what it was and it was a marriage license from Wisconsin. Since it obviously wasn’t for me I went back into the post office and talked to the lady at the counter. As we were talking it all of a sudden dawned on me, it was for one of my students.

Mail delivery to students is a little slow here on the base and so when someone is going to get something sent via express mail or a courier service we get it sent to one of the staff members houses. They get it quicker that was. Anyway I had forgotten that one of the students used my address for the express mail. This morning just to make sure I didn’t forget about it again I put it on the front seat of the car. He was happy to get it when he came in this morning.

Laila and family are going to see the new Harry Potter movie today while I am at work. It is evening over there and I guess they have really wanted to see it. I am not a big fan of the Harry Potter series, I guess I might be too old.

This morning getting to work was an adventure and I almost was late even though I left on time. There was a big wreck on Interstate 5 in the northbound lanes about two miles south of the naval station. Since everyone listens to the traffic report on the radio and TV they all took Interstate 805 causing it to backup.

It made the 805 a nightmare and also all the streets leading to it as everyone had the same idea on how to get to work. To make matters worse, somehow I wound up behind a cement truck when I got off the freeway and every stop sign and red light was a long wait as they are slow getting up to speed.

The gate was no problem and I zipped right through there, but then a ship’s crew was doing their Physical Readiness Test on the street we are located on, so I got stuck behind all the slow runners. I did make it on time but someone did take my normal parking spot.

Well it is time to get to work for the day.

Things are going to change

Today was a bit strange driving in to work. There was hardly any traffic at the gate and hardly anyone in the parking lot when I got there. That is really rare and it looks like some of the commands may have taken the day off.

Anyway I didn’t blog before class as I usually do because I had to get everything set up for the final two labs and the written test. The TDP lab is usually a headache to get set up, but it went really smooth today and ran well.

The class did an awesome job on the test with two people acing it and the rest of the class only missed 1 question each. It made the review go really fast and then we rolled right into the lab. These guys really showed a lot of interest and had many good questions. That always makes my day. I hate to see people just go through the steps on the job sheet. When they ask about what they are doing it makes my day because it shows that they are interested in learning.

Anyway after all of that I went out to the break area to warm up. The air conditioning inside the building makes it feel like an ice box. While I was out there warming up I saw a rarity. Between the wet side (piers) and the dry side (schools, dispensary, MWR stuff, and barracks) there are some train tracks for both the trolley and the regular trains. As I was out there a train with 8 locomotives went by. I have seen as many as five locomotives before but never 8 on a single train.

So now we are just taking care of some little things and waiting for Senior Chief to tell us to abandon ship for the holiday. I still have a few little paperwork things to take care of and then I will be ready for the other half of the class and starting OTCIXS all over on Thursday with them.

I have been thinking of posting something on the fed page but I think I will wait until I cool down a bit. We have a great federation in Unification Wars with a good core of very dedicated players. Some of us are there every day for anywhere from 5 to 12 hours and some even longer. Then we have another group that shows up sometimes or pops on for a little bit of time to just go out and reset. They then post static outpost and leave.

I have had heartburn with unattended empires for a long time now and have tried to approach it in a way as to be non offensive. I hate taking people to task but there are a few folks that don’t seem to be getting the message when I put things nicely.

The problem with unattended empires is that a lot of time they also have outpost posted. Say their empire and fleet has a PR of 2 billion and they are posting 500 million in outpost. Their empire will come out at a PR of 2.5 billion instead of 2 billion. That gives the attacker a 500 million fleet advantage when they are attacked and breaks their posted stacks. They then start falling like a rock and it is extremely difficult to protect against because you never know how far they will fall.

When they come out during prime time they tie up everyone’s time, turns, and credits as we post outpost ships and then disband them as they drop lower and lower. It also keeps us from posting for someone who has been patiently sitting there posting for others as everyone has to wait while this empire is out getting thrashed.

We sit there waiting for empires just like that to come out. How many times do we see in out chat or in FV’s chat that, so in so, is coming out carrying this much op and will be unattended. What do we do when that happens? We feast on them of course. Everyone gets a lot of planets and goes in happy. Well guess what? Do you think we are the only ones smart enough to do that? Most likely not, and that is why I am getting angry.

People have sometimes made a few remarks about some members of this fed, playing things too cautious. I guess I am a bit guilty of that, but then I always thought that the object of the game is to have the greatest empire. Well the secret of doing that is to not attack unless you are sure you will win or to make up planets by not hitting mains but hitting juicy outers. I always try to break even or come back with a few more that I left with. I can do that by putting people in and by not blindly attacking people I can’t possibly beat.

I am getting off track. When I joined Stargate Warriors I was a noob and did not know what to expect. I learned to post op, what allies in the game were, how to stack and I made a lot of good friends. As I grew I saw others grow and others fail. I learned a few strategies that work for me and have been using them.

Also when I joined I made a commitment to help make this federation go all the way to the top. Sparty was glad to see that attitude and also had a belief that we can go to the top, but currently we are being held back by a few members that show up just to go out or disappear when they could be posting OP. We have members who do not attend to their accounts, yet they can still maintain their daily and hourly accounts.

Going to the top means that every one of us, and that is everyone, has to show up to post outpost, keep that outpost refreshed, work on your empire while posting outpost, share your wealth and knowledge with others, and spend some time logged on at least for a little while every day.

I am not saying you have to spend as much time on as Laila, me or others that are always here. When you know your empire is coming out of damage protection, be there for it. Post op before and after you are out. If there is a huge backup of players waiting to reset do a quick reset and if you want to go out and fight make arrangements to go out later and have some folks from your level post for you.

On a typical night during the week we will have four or five low empires and about six or seven of the higher empires coming out to reset. I hang with the higher group and what we do is, say I go and stay a long time tonight, then I will do a quick reset and Joe will stay out long the next night.

There are 20 members in this federation, and there are only 24 hours in the day. Almost everyone has the desire to be out attacking and at the same time wants to make sure they have protection when they were out. Well that takes people to post and right now we are having some problems with posters either not showing up or just showing up long enough to go out and come in.

I want to go to the top. Many of us want to go to the top. Going to the top takes dedication, and if you are not dedicated enough to spend some time in the game each day then you are in the wrong federation.

I don’t care who you are, who your friends are, or how long you have been playing for. If you don’t have the dedication to play this game and strive for excellence then you do not deserve to be here. There are many people chomping at the bit for a chance to get into our federation. It is getting about time to start making room for them to arrive so we can go to that next level. I will start eliminating members that are not attempting to carry their share of the load.

See you in the game.