spectre_39

The day after tomorrow is my ship date. Going to head out for MEPS tomorrow.

I'm still nervous as hell but I figure that's natural.

My room is still cluttered with my personal effects, which was not the way I intended to leave it. I'm still procrastinating getting my duffel bag completely packed. I just figured that goofing off and hanging with my brother was the better way to spend my last days here, seeing as how I won't be able to do it again.

It's kind of a fucked up realization that I'll never live with my brother again. Or spend much more time with any of our pets before they die. I'm sure there are other things like that I'll come to understand, but I don't want these thoughts weighing on me while I'm there. I always figured myself to be so independent that homesickness wouldn't bother me. That has yet to be determined.

I've got most of the items I'm allowed to bring with me packed, but there's one addition I was hoping to make. I'm allowed to pack stationary and shit for the purpose of writing letters, but I wonder if I can't sneak in a discreetly small blank notebook. I really really doubt that I'll get a chance to journal often, but I'd like the opportunity to do so if given the chance.

Man, this is such a surreal feeling. Going into the unknown. I almost feel cheesy enough to play "Come Sail Away" (Fuck it. I'm doing it). But if there's one thing I can say with certainty is that my life is going to be better when this is over.

Two months. Hell, right now it feels like five years.

I've made another pilgrimage to the Atlanta MEPS Doubletree Hotel. I had to drive myself because the Coast Guard out here doesn't sponsor any shuttles. Although I was given the dates of my trip, I wasn't given the exact address. I had to call for it just before I left. My trust GPS guided me here without too much trouble. The trouble came when I was first trying to leave home. I accidently drained my battery. My brother had just gotten home from being rained out of Plant Scherer, so he was able to give me a boost. Lucky for me the bad weather sent him my way or I would have been two or three hours late leaving. Then there was the rage inducing traffic on the highway to Atlanta. 30mph speeds were a luxury, and I hate having to switch too often between gas and brakes.

I was able to arrive on time though, so that's good. My room is chilly and smells like tangerines, but in a fancy way. Oddly enough, the hotel staffer overseeing the MEPS guest check-ins was a familiar face but this time it was mutual! She said she remembered me!! I've been to this particular hotel twice before in May 2010 and August 2010. It's been over a year and she helps hundreds of applicants per week, yet I stand out? She told me she never remembers names, but she does remember faces. She said that I was so well mannered that I stand out in her mind. I was sure to tell her that I was impressed with her memory. I was not expecting someone to reinforce the notion that the MEPS experience and I are old friends. On my way out I shook the hand of an Army soldier that had arrived from the MEPS center, you know, just because.

This trip had been even more anti-social than the last. Driving by myself exempted me from meeting new people on the shuttle. So far I've passed the Texan looking guy on the elevator three times. I overheard a conversation in the lobby between two female Marine applicants about how their family is treating them now. And on my more recent trips on the elevator I met a guy in an orange shirt. He tells me that he too is processing with the Coast Guard and that he also had to drive himself here. My room was empty when I got here. After taking a walk and returning to my room there's now a pair of blue shorts on the empty bed. It looks like I will be having a roommate after all.

Dinner was awesome. They had some restaurant quality pasta. Penna noodles and shrimp with sauce. I brought my DS up here in hopes of getting to finally test my Wifi games out. While I have their password from the front desk, my DS is unable to find the signal. My laptop had no problem as you can see.

The unnecessary redundant MEPS briefing video is going to air in about an hour. I think I'll play some Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands until then. I'm still cautiously optimistic about my processing tomorrow. I've made it through once already sure, but they always try pin you down with something. If all goes according to plan, I'll be swearing in to the DEP at the Atlanta recruiting office tomorrow afternoon.

Ever since moving to Georgia my parents have often hung out with this old Vietnam War veteran named Leeroy. They share some common interests and get along well enough. While I've respected him for his past service, I've never really liked the guy. He's abrasive, really unrelatable, and kind of an annoying drunk. I've tolerated him being around, but kept my distance.

Tonight, after work I was on an errand for my brother when I bumped into him at the store. He helped me find what I was looking for and stuck around to chat a bit. He tells me his check up at the VA hospital turned up something. They diagnosed him with lung cancer. I didn't know how to react so I played dumb and said I didn't know much about cancer. I offered awkwardly that some people survive cancer and that it can be "cured" with enough medicine or treatment. He told me that he's known three people in his life to be diagnosed with cancer and they all died from it. The subject changed to less important matters until we parted ways. The most I could say about his condition was included in my usual programmed farewell response, "Take care of yourself."

Leeroy looks pretty old, but he's always partied hard like the rest of them. He smokes and drinks way too much, and I remember faint rumors about him having some health problems that were unlikely to be resolved. Life kills us all in the end, and Leeroy's death has always been a forgone conclusion in my mind. But when it's right there staring me in the face, I freeze. I just don't know how to respond to it. What the hell do you say to a person who knows their life is over? Should I have said sorry? Or worse, get well soon? Do I say that I will miss them, or try to assure them that they've lived a good life? Christians have it easy. All they have to say is "Later bro, I'll see ya in heaven!" but for a heathen such as myself, I know it will be the last time I ever see them.

I know I've got some more deaths on the horizon to contend with. My grandparents on my Dad's side are trying their best to live forever with heath foods and snake oil, but their days are numbered. My grandmother on my Mom's side has been trying to drink herself into the grave for years now. One of my uncles has a liver disease he's losing to. Our dog is getting lethargic and grey. And who knows when an accident could kill someone unexpectedly?

I just don't know how to deal with death. I feel sad for the deceased sure, but I'm not exactly broken up inside. Back when my Dad could have been killed in that motorcycle accident, I remember waiting in the hospital feeling nothing. I remember feeling the same way attending the funeral of my Aunt Melanie. It concerns me that I'm so numb in the face of mortality. Surely I'm supposed to feel something? What sort of monster can experience loss without grief? Perhaps when the time comes, I will feel something. But for now... it bothers me.

---

In other news, my Coast Guard processing is still underway. They accepted my background check last month, and they reserved for me a ship date on December 13th. They only needed me to travel to the MEPS center and get my fingerprints scanned for the third time, then I could proceed to the recruiting office and DEP in. DUN dun DUN! PAPERWORK FAIL! It turns out I'm ineligible to process my fingerprints without a valid physical. My recruiter assumed my old physical records would be still be usable, but they expired a few weeks ago. So they've scheduled a MEPS trip for me on the 6th. Oh MEPS trips, we're such old friends by now aren't we? How many times has it been now? I've been on the two-day MEPS trip three times before, and been there for testing on two other occasions. My history with MEPS should irritate me, but I think it's amusing how much experience I've had with the processing process. I feel like a college student who stays in school long past his expected graduation, becoming a "professional" student. Oh well. I'll go through the MEPS craziness and confirm my ship date on the 7th. Then all this processing I've been doing for the past three years will seem real again.

My apologies, dear reader. I seem to have neglected my LiveJournal for a whole season. Allow me to bring you up to speed.

I did in fact get in touch with the Coast Guard Recruiting Command in Atlanta. Things are going very well. I retested the ASVAB and scored a 93 this time. Right now I'm working on my background check. Once that's done I might be able to request a ship date. I expect to begin my military life around winter.

My Dad almost died in a motorcycle accident. Alcohol was involved, of course. He very narrowly missed a telephone pole and his bike took a few flips with him still on it. He spent the next 8 hours or so at a trauma center. He seems to have made a full recovery. I doubt he'll stop riding DUI, but at least he's invested in a breathalyzer to provide a more objective opinion on his intoxication.

I'm still working at Subway, but once again I've gotten sick of it. I want to look for a more interesting job, but I'm still stuck in a nearly nocturnal sleep cycle. I've tried breaking it, but so far no progress. I'm going to see what I can do about that with these next two days off I have.

I've stopped playing WoW. Just got sick of it, and the internet held me back once a gain. I was mostly tired of having my gaming sessions be a scheduled involuntary event rather than spontaneous fun times. Also being stuck with the same raiding content for seven months was really incompetent of Blizzard. I don't expect to have quit the game forever, but I figure this will be one of my longer hiatus.

More recent stuff:

I'm toying with the idea of getting in a relationship before I leave for basic training. I've got a profile half set up at OkCupid. I've taken a lot of surveys aimed at general personality, lifestyle, and relationship needs. They then compare these with other users and give you a match rating, but they ultimately let you browse these responses for yourself. So far the research has been very encouraging. I figured it would be nigh impossible to find someone willing to put up with my Athiest, drug-free, nerdy, Childfree, eccentric lifestyle, but it turns out it isn't that hard. I'm not looking to make any moves until I can correct my sleep cycle and get settled into a new job. I hope I don't make myself wait too long though. Getting into a relationship that probably won't last after I enlist is already a sketchy plan, and waiting much longer would make this worse.

Abbey contacted me on Facebook. She was curious about what I'm doing with my life, and she suggested I should try to join the Navy. I gave her a full disclosure about my situation, but still told her I appreciate the concern. It's very uplifting to know that she still cares about me and that I've not been forgotten. I sure hope I get to see her sometime in the next couple of years.

Cheeto's gotten himself into quite a mess. He's gotten engaged to an old acquaintance that he ran into when he was on leave. They only really "dated" about a week. Now he's fraught with the stresses of a near stranger badgering him over wedding plans. As for myself and most of my friends, we're staying supportive but secretly think he's making a huge mistake. We've taken bets on how long they'll last. Max thinks 6 months to a year, and my bet is on two years. The most hilarious part of this whole fiasco is that the bride to be, just happens to be Sam's first girlfriend. He's long since gotten over it, but that's still funny. The "lady killer" is engaged to the sloppy seconds of the "born loser". Oh well. If it works out for him, I wish him all the best.

I rented Portal 2 from Gamefly and have been playing that for the past week. I beat the single player mode and just as my brother and I were going to play the Coop version the damn dogs tripped a cord and knocked over the Xbox, breaking the disc with that tell-tale saw blade circular scratch. Not wanting to waste our rare mutual off day, I went out and bought the game as well as having to replace the copy that Gamefly sent me. In a single moment of misfortune those stupid dogs cost me $100. But that's ok, because Portal 2 was awesome. GLaDOS is still entertaining and Wheatley was a welcome companion. Even when [that spoiler thing happened] to [that character], I wanted to forgive [personal pronoun]. I regret that [character] [had something happen] and I wish I could have taken [personal pronoun] with me in the end. I had a similar reaction to [character's] demise than how I reacted to Wilson being lost at sea in Castaway, which is the saddest I've felt at a movie ever. I guess my Portal persona has been almost killed by so many insane AI that they no longer take it personally. Oh well. Coop was awesome as expected. My brother played the first Portal so he knew a few of the mechanics, but he was unfamiliar with most of the new stuff. He got me killed quite a few times. My favorite deaths being, "GLaDOS: Orange just taught blue a valuable lesson in trust. For that, orange receives 17 science collaboration points." and "I've been doing some reading. Did you know that the word orange is derived from the same Latin root as the word traitor?" At the end of the day we apparently saved science, so it ended well.

I think that's all for now. I'll try to stay more current.

I went on a run today. I finally dusted off my running shoes and used them. The Georgia sun was setting over the trees, painting the sky in a murky pale orange. I ran about, say three laps around the our neighborhood road. I had no pedometer or stopwatch so I don't know how far I actually made it. I would alternate between running to the end of my route and walking back. During my first lap I slowed down to a stroll with my heart beating through my neck. I spoke aloud,

"It doesn't have... *pant* to be right. *pant* *pant* It doesn't have to be... *pant* far. All I have *pant* *pant* to do is keep my heart beating... *pant* *pant* *pant* and the rest will... *pant* fall into place."

Ten minutes later I swallowed a bug.

I'm not naive enough to say I'm proud of myself. I can be proud of myself when I keep up the routine and actually improve my condition. That's all there is to it. I'm still massively out of shape, though. Despite that I'm of a healthy weight, my heart felt like I weighed 300 pounds. I felt sore and constricted in many places, and my back and chest felt bent out of shape. Now I'm rocking a puffy headache. But still, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. From now on, I'll have to earn my stories.

I've delayed and delayed my trip to Atlanta. Sometimes I would just forget about it, others I would cite my backward sleep cycle as deal breaker. Something deep down inside me just wasn't ready yet to deal with my future or the military. Something held me back and made me complacent. That feeling is gone now. On the 14th I composed an e-mail to the Atlanta Coast Guard Recruiting Office. I gave a quick explanation of my qualifications and asked to be scheduled for an appointment to meet a recruiter. I promised to wait on their permission to show up at the office. It's been ten days since then and nobody has responded. So I'm through waiting on something as asinine as their inability to reply to an email or pick up the phone. The only language these recruiters understand is initiative. I don't begrudge them for it, I just know too well the nature of the beast.

I've made plans to step off at 0600. I've recently bought a GPS and input the address of the recruiting office. I'm not expecting much progress to be made at all today, I just want to get my foot in the door... literally if it comes to it. I've got a metric shitton of paperwork on my past military involvement but the most important documents I've got on hand are a copy of my enlistment contract with the Air Force, the official letter of discharge from the Air Force DEP, and my ASVAB scores. I doubt I'll get as far as scheduling a retest of the ASVAB. The only thing I'll likely get done is filling out a simple application. But the bottom line is that the ball is rolling and I'm very much in the game again.

It may be worth noting that I turn 21 today. It doesn't matter all that much to me. From what I've seen of drinking as a hobby I want to stay the hell away from it. Not entirely, but certainly not something to do more than once a month. As far as celebrating my existence, well I figure I do enough of that everyday. The only significance my birthday has for me is another year of inactivity since high school weighing on my shoulders. And only seven years left to make something of myself or be doomed to minimum wage purgatory for eternity.

Got an update.

I haven't been to Atlanta just yet. It's been an issue of finances. With gas prices the way they are I couldn't justify the expense until I got some more cash. But that's been resolved as of today. The owner at work got me the check I've been missing from January, plus I got paid for last week and they didn't cut any hours from me this time. Add that into what I already had and last week's check I got a chance to deposit that brought up my funds to $404. Which is pretty fantastic. Already spent $100 on a case of energy drinks and finally got to place my order for a Razer Naga mouse. Having enough cash to cover basic necessities is such a good feeling. Now I've got what I need to start my processing.

I've got to work tomorrow but I'm off for the next three days. I've made plans to sleep earlier in order to make me somewhat more diurnal. I know the recruiting office is closed on the weekend, so I have to wait until Monday at the earliest. Past experience has taught me that I need to call and set up an appointment before dropping in. So I'm currently shooting for a trip to Atlanta on Monday or Tuesday.

WoW things are going well. Got my Paladin into Outland. I'm really starting to like playing Bosgron. I've taken a break from running dungeons. Becoming addicted to instant queues can brun you out over time. Completing quests is much easier and less boring with retribution spec and of course... Roflcopter! Being able to fly through Outland is hella sweet.



That is all.

I've never been any good at summaries, cutting to the chase, "spark notes-ing it", or just getting to the damn point. Incoming futile attempt to be brief.

I've decided to pull the plug on moving away. I will not not be moving with my brother back to Alabama. I will not be living in my own apartment.

Basically, in the words of Bishop from Waiting, "So, when things in your life become stagnant - you know, you're no longer happy with what you're doing - then you figure out what's important to you. Then create your own penis-showing game."

Mostly this is because of the incredibly daunting task of raising the funds necessary to move. The construction company didn't hire me for their shutdown, and my current minimum wage job doesn't have near enough hours. My parents already charge me bills in the meantime, plus I would have had to pay my own rent, utilities, and food at the same time. It doesn't seem possible to balance those costs. And all for what? The chance to use proper broadband in the short intermissions between grueling shifts? That doesn't make any sense.

When we first conceived "Project Exodus", it was late August and we were planning to be gone by December. Well, here we are. It's almost March and I barely have $120 of the $2000 I needed to move. It's been six months of waiting around, doing nothing. My brother's recent calculations projected us to leave somewhere between July and September. That's simply way too long. If I were to stay on board with that idea I would be waiting until the October 2012 to get shipped off to Cape May. That is unacceptable. To think that six months have gone by with no progress is sickening. The Odyssey ends here.

I've decided to join the Coast Guard from here in Georgia instead of from some hovel in Mobile, Alabama. That means I have to travel to Atlanta's recruiting office to make any progress. But that's okay. The fuel costs, time, and traffic stress involved are much more manageable expenses compared to trying to move. It's hardly even a significant issue.

It was about this time of year in 2009 when I began my processing with the Mobile office, and I barely missed my ship date opportunity by a few weeks. With much more experience in the way of processing, I can be DEP ready in much less time. The probability for success is promising.

With this change in agenda, I feel much more carefree to be honest. I feel at peace with my job and my finances. I actually enjoy what I do now. I don't freak out or rage these past few days. It's amazing having that burden of futilely struggling to raise that money lifted.

My finances are pretty cut and dry right now. My job is giving me a few more hours lately due to the loss of two co-workers. All I have to pay my parents under normal circumstances are about $90 a month. Easy. The rest I'll probably just hold onto, with a few treats bought along the way of course.

I'm still recovering from my recent car insurance payment, so I'm waiting on my next week's paycheck to boost my finances to the point where I won't have to worry about running out of gas money and still have enough to schedule a trip to the Atlanta office. I expect to introduce myself to my new recruiter sometime between February 28th and March 7th.

It's beginning to feel like 2009 again.

So I just spent the evening waiting around in a dark smokey bar while the band played old music. Most of it being country. It was appropriate for the average bar patron around here, but all I could think of while listening to it was the Squidbillies theme.



So it's been a while. There's not much to report on anything. Most of my life in the gap between updates has been a vicious cycle of dissatisfaction with my peon job at Subway. I still have only saved $200 for the exodus project, but I'm not too worried. I've got all my chips on a construction job working out for me in the coming months when the plant shuts down for annual maintenance and works people 84 hours a week if I recall correctly. The job shouldn't last long, but if it comes through for me I'll have money for escape and the enough to cover my needs for a while after that with or without a supplementary peasant income in Mobile. The catch is that I won't know if I've got the job until sometime between the middle of this month and the middle of next month. I'm cautiously optimistic about getting some position. My best case scenario would be getting back on with Teton as a firewatch for the shut down season. I may have an advantage because I worked there before and had no problems. I'll have to wait and see, but that's all the real life stuff I'll bore you with.

A brief word on the Holidays... Holidays were good, but not without some frustrations. The worst part of the season had to be spending it with a 9 year old selfish piggy fat girl, who was drug to our house's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities by parents who were either too neglectful or physically unable to watch her due to morbid obesity. Let's just say my Mom is very undiscerning when it comes to choosing friends. The highlight of the evening was when she shook up a two-liter of soda and aimed it at my computer, with an impish look of pure malice that made it abundantly clear that she was fishing for a reaction otherwise she would destroy my property if I ignored her, and then she might have done it anyway out of spite. So I locked her fat ass outside in the snow. There's more to that story, but suffice it to say when recalling the event later in the company of my family I remarked that she should have been put in a cage. I guess my childfree-dom is quite cemented at this stage of my life.

As far as the monetary side of Chrimbus, it was certainly better than last year. I gave my Mom a Yankee brand Candle for springtime. I gave my Dad a "trapper hat" for kicks, and a dvd of Public Enemies. For my Secret Santa assignment I bought (for the black girl who works day shift that I barely know) a set of leather gloves. And my brother got the best haul with a Razer Kabuto laptop mouse pad, a Halo novel, and Wrath of the Lich King in preparation for coming back to the game early summer of '11. Most of what I got wasn't noteworthy except for my new laptop. See, my Dad knows a computer wizard from work who likes to tinker with laptops. He buys them used and run down for cheap and fixes them up. Now Dad had already bought a laptop from this man a months ago and the quality of the computer was very good for the price he paid. The laptop I was using was a $650 Toshiba that could barely pull 17fps in Howling Fjord and less than 5 fps in a 10 man raid with all the settings down! While this new laptop only cost $350 in parts and is capable of playing Starcraft 2 with most of the average settings and good framerate. Part of the difference here must be the graphics cards. Toshiba had an integrated card which meant complete suck for video memory, while this laptop was built with an Nvidia "PureVideo HD" graphics card. Now, ever since my brother crippled my Toshiba by playing way too much Starcraft 2 on it until the fan broke, it's been useless at gaming. So when I heard that Dad was going to get his computer wizard to build my brother and I each a laptop just like Dad's, I was stoked. It was only later that I was informed that this deal was not exactly a gift, and it would be another farce in which Dad does his best to swindle money from us kids. And boy did he ever! When I got all the details, I learned that I would be paying a portion of the cost myself... you know, for my own gift? Now I would understand if this were a HUGE expense, but considering Dad's financial situation... nay. The arrangement would be that we would pay for $150 and Dad would pay for $200. I guess it's still technically a gift if the sender covers the majority of the cost, however slim that may be. Oh well, it's not like I'm any closer to being debt free, so I just figured it would be added to my tab and then set aside, though never forgotten that much has always been clear. But noooo. Before my I even opened my laptop I was given my stocking to loot through. In the stocking was a dark green envelope from my Grandma just like every Christmas. It's always a Benjamin each and every year. Sure she could never give us the time of day growing up, but bribes are nice. I was quite happy to see it, as I've had my eye on a number of items in that price range but haven't had enough money to justify dropping large amounts of money of single items. These items being... Razer Naga, J!NX Horde Hoodie, or a Razer Messenger Bag. The thought of buying any of these things filled me up with festive savory anticipation. But just as these ideas began to form Dad immediately claimed them for his own as a down payment for our laptops. We had no say in the matter, and we never saw a dime of that money. Here's the kicker though. After all that BS that I had to go through to get my laptop, I discover something strange on the screen. Five tiny scratches on the LCD display that make it a dead give away. Dad never got me a "refurbished" laptop straight from the computer wizard. He just gave me his old laptop that he bought months ago. I mean, seriously what the hell?!

Let's talk about WoW things! Cataclysm is out and it looks like a glorious revival of what made TBC awesome. I've been keeping up with most of the news surrounding the new expansion with great anticipation that I may actually get in on the action this time. It's been a year since I've been logged in and I've missed the game terribly. Well, when Christmas finally delivered my new laptop I was eager to test its framerate potential and explore the new content. There was quite a major setback from my triumphant return to Azeroth in the form of a huge patch to get started. Unfortunately this meant that I was forced to hang out for hours on end at Panera Bread downloading the patch at about 100kb/s. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to log in in time to claim my limited edition Mini-Zep, but at last I got lucky and had most of the bandwidth to myself and made enough progress to enter the game! Oh maaaaaaaan. It was such a good feeling logging back in after a year's absence of only dreaming about the opportunity to play again. I claimed my prize and thanks to Real ID, I got to catch up a bit with Sam.


Meant to read "Back from the dead assholes!" as in reference to the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special when Boba Fett comes back from the dead shooting ewoks, but you know... language filter due to first log in.




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It was sweet doing a bit of sight seeing tonight. The new laptop seems to be holding up much better than my old one, and will serve as well as a hold over until I can "pimp out" my old desktop with soon to be acquired "leet computer building skills". I've got some more solid plans for my WoW experience by the way. I'm going to be leveling a "throw away" Worgen Druid sometime on Alleria. I'll play until 58 and then shelf the werewolf. I figured I would see what the worgen starting zone buzz was all about, go see all the new Alliance quests, and gain some insight into resto druids along the way. More importantly, I've decided on my Horde plans. I'm going to be transferring my Draenei Shaman from the suckfest of Steamwheedle Cartel (RP) to Sen'jin (PvE) and faction changing him to Troll. Later on, once I get set up semi-permanently in Mobile I'll be transferring my favorite, yet under-appreciated Blood Elf Mage, Vulkayn to Sen'jin and renaming him Serafen. My brother has been talking about returning to the game, and will be leveling a new Horde character with me on Sen'jin. I've decided to create a Tauren Paladin for the occasion and level exclusively with my brother until we get to cap level. Yes, I'm making him Tauren instead of Blood Elf. My bad, I just feel uncomfortable rolling characters with the same race. Now as to how I'm going to balance these three 85's will go as such. My Resto Shaman will remain my main character. No amount of QQ on the forums is going scare me into abandoning the healer ship. If I ever feel the need to dps, or if I have the time to raid on both characters I will be making my Mage the "Vice-Main". Not exactly an alt, but not as much playtime as my Shaman. And last in line will be my Tauren Paladin who I will only occasionally use to experiment with tanking, just to have some options waiting in the wings. And that's about it. Oh yeah, remember that guild I went a little overboard scheming about creating last summer? If my lifestyle ever allows for at least a solid year of WoW availability, I'll make it. And best of all, I've settled on a name, (Comfort Eagle). It's a Cake song. The name has a bit of a hidden meaning as the song seems to take a withered look at American materialism. It even says in the song "We are building a religion, We are building it bigger..." which seems appropriate for a guild with a mission. With a "mature" message, but an easy going name it captures the feeling of a Horde raiding guild to me. It avoids sounding too intimidating or serious: (Precedence), (Immortality), (Chaos), or too immature: (Shadows of the past), (rage of the powerdragons), (DOESN AFRAID OF ANYTHING). And let's not forget about Kilzone'Jaden's policy on guild names. Best of all it's barely used on the armory. A handful of guilds have taken it, and none of them exceed 6 people. So if I pull this off, I will be the most famous guild master in all of World of Warcraft. Woot! Oh, and if the name gets used between now and then somebody is getting stabbed as I claim this idea patented and am only sharing it out of good faith. /WoW Talk

Good news, I'm going on vacation. Going to spend a week living in Max's dorm room in Troy. I've already got a massive hoard of canned soup and will be buying a lot of water bottles to survive on the cheap while I'm there. Expecting to get in on some college parties, general shenanigans, and lots of WoW. I'll be leaving on the fourth.

And finally, a brief note about the New Year. 2010 sucked out loud for me. It started with a broken foot and consisted of incarceration in rural hell punctuated with broken dreams and daily depression. So screw it, that year can fade from memory for all I care. But 2011 is going to be effing sweet. Because I believe that the odd numbered years are always superior to the even ones. Plus I'll be living on my by the end of the year, one way or another. So I expect everything to work out fine this year.

And that concludes my report. As you were.

Tags: blue collar hell, childfree, colton, dad, finale, georgia sucks, guild, injustice, lust for fast internet, moving out, project exodus, work, wow

"Good to see you, Master Chief. Things aren't going well. Cortana did her best, but we never really had a chance."

I don't want to be seen as a complainer, but I've had little to celebrate lately.

To review, I dropped out of the Air Force recruiting process about two months ago. I no longer felt that the branch fit my needs. Specifically, I felt forced into what was essentially a "random job". The unofficial word from Air Force personnel from a popular forum told me that if I didn't like the job I was assigned to simply wait out my entire enlistment then ask to retrain in another field. A request that can easily be denied. That virtual black hole of choice really didn't sit well with me, so I bowed out to join the Coast Guard where the job process is more flexible. Of course it would have strengthened my case considerably if I had waited long enough to actually prove that I wouldn't get the job I wanted. But I made my decision and I intend to go through with it. In order to join the Coast Guard however, I need to move out. Well, not just because of that. This damn place is driving me nuts, or rather is keeping me nuts. What I learned from my attempts in Thomasville and Virginia, is that moving away during the recruiting process ruins everything. So I need a stable base of operations to oversee the process. Mobile is the current destination. It's a city I'm somewhat familiar with and I will have access to my old recruiting office. My brother is making the trip with me. He needs someone to make his living space less of a rave party, and I need his hobo survival skills and job network. I've got the "Where" "Who" and the "Why" figured out. I just need to work on the "How?" and the "When?".

From what we've discussed, $2000 is the perfect pioneer fund. $1000 will do, but the extra grand helps stave off worry and starvation. The first hitch in this plan is how exactly would we get that money. I did some basic job crusading after I backed out of the Air Force, and I was rewarded with a callback from Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Not bad. Colton told me not to shy away from minimum wage jobs, because you can easily survive if you get enough hours. Things went up in smoke on my first day. After stopping to get get gas, quickly speeding home to retrieve my forgotten work shoes, and taking the wrong exit to the restaurant I was ten minutes late. The manager was very old fashioned and fired me on the spot. I was devastated for days. Though not to be defeated, I turned to subway for employment. I worked for that franchise before, and the application was easy to make copies of. Only a few hours and three returned applications later, the local Subway offered me a job. I was back in the game, and as penance for my past misdeeds I arrived at every shift twenty five minutes early. A fruitless gesture, as the payroll is calculated by how many hours you were scheduled to work, excluding showing up early or staying late. Probably an illegal practice, but I've come to accept dirty deals in the service industry as commonplace. Punctual arrivals are further useless as the evening shifts have no authoritative supervision at the store. It's just other co-workers on duty. This usually screws over their work ethic because no "boss" figure is there to shove a boot up their ass to motivate them to perform their fair share of work. Two co-workers in particular are downright notorious for staying in the camera's blind spot and texting all shift. The hours are pretty dismal for my savings goals. I average only 15 hours a week which translates into not even $100 a week. What's worse is what prompted me to post my current grievances this evening, as the new weekly schedule has me down to 12 hours this week.

Now this wouldn't be such a dismal state of affairs if my parents weren't sadistic bastards. In a true Nixon move they're kicking me while I'm down. Since I'm allegedly rolling in dough they decided now would be the best time to inform me that they've been keeping track of how I've cost them since moving back in February and have printed out an invoice. I looked over the spreadsheet and gloomily asked Dad if this was an FYI or an IOU. Without any sympathy in his voice he replied "IOU". Great. By this Monday the figure will have reached $877 with an extra $127 added each month. I should be thankful they're not charging me rent, food, or utilities but this is a bit too much to stomach on my income. Upon further review, my Dad is charging me for Health Insurance. Something we cannot even use. Vision and Dental aren't covered, and doctor's visits aren't in the package either. Even if you have the audacity to be in an accident, you have to shill out a $3000 co-pay as well as 20% of the medical bills. And he has the audacity to pass the buck to us? It sure helped out my brother who had his wisdom teeth removed this month. The operation ran him $1500 which was added to the poor bastard's tab. It's quite a kick in the teeth to start out trying to save up for something and being ambushed by debt. Once again, my parents are bleeding me dry in the most shameless cheapskate manner. It would seem that my misgivings about getting a job under their roof were by no means unfounded. To date, every job I've had they ripped out some "expense" from my meager earnings. Sending the plain message that work only equals a lifetime of enslavement to a pyramid scheme. Isn't capitalism grand?

The only solution is to increase my employment. More hours at Subway won't cut it because we're overstaffed and the hours have to stolen from someone else. I phoned my old construction company for employment earlier this week, acting on a tip from a foreman I bumped into after cashing my weak paycheck. I couldn't reach a human being, so I had to leave a message on an answering machine. Past experience has taught me not to depend on unclear prospects, so I'm moving on to other ideas. The only other lead I've got right now is to try and get in on season holiday help. I don't know if I should bother with my local Wal-Mart, as our small town population isn't going to be any more dependent on the retail giant then they already are. Since I'm *twitch* off until Saturday the next few days are open to job hunting. I guess I should hit both River Crossing and the Macon Mall. Hopefully I can get on somewhere.

The shining hope in my bleak existence is January's shut-down season at the plant I worked at during the summer. What was back then 5 days 10 hours each will then be 7 days 12 hours. As soul crushing as that may sound, the pay is enough to make up for it and then some. My brother estimated that our earning potential would be around $6,000 a month. If we both get hired we'll be set to move out sometime in the spring. It wouldn't have been in the timely manner I was planning on when I first turned down the Air Force, and I'll have missed out on Cataclysm for a while by then. But hey, money speaks. Let's hope we don't get killed before we collect our pay.

So that's about the size of it. I can't spin this into a positive light, because I feel pretty rotten about it. But what's worse is that I've gotten used to it. I'm hovering just above suicidal thoughts and soul crushing depression brought on by an impoverished miserable existence. Just the right level to keep my head down and not cause a scene. Like a good proletariat.