Greece, Day One note - This map is copyrighted somebody, but I don't remember who. . . The Drive was long, but we were given entertainment in the form of Bruce Almighty, Two Brothers and View From the Top via the entertainment center on the Bus. And I had my feisty little iPod to keep me company. Unfortunately, all my plugs are American and every outlet was European. *grumbles* I brought a lot of electronics with me and learned that my digital camera chews up Double A's like they were going out of style. Good thing I brought a few. Anyway, back to Greece. We drove through F.Y.R.O.M. (Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia) which looks a lot like Kosovo and therefore wasn't very exciting. Then we got to the FYROM/Hellas Border. And I took a picture while we waited. Hellas is Greek for Greece. Though they don't mind if you call them Hellas or Greece. Besides, you drive within a mile of the border and you are greeted with this sign. Now, there is a bit of political strife in regards to names within the Balkans on what to call FYROM (because a lot of people think FYROM is a stupid name) because you can't just call it Macedonia on account of the fact that there is a region in Greece known as Macedonia. It's like, say for instance, that British Columbia decided to break off from Canada as an independent country and called itself Washington. Or maybe that's a bad analogy, as they would probably continue to call themselves British Columbia. Anyway, then we would have to call it the Former Canadian Province of Washington (FCPOW, hmm, that doesn't flow off the tongue). The point is, see the deal with the confusion of Names? Greece doesn't like that FYROM decided to call itself Macedonia once they broke off from Yugoslavia so in all its infinite wisdom, somebody in the UN came up with the idea of FYROM to appease both sides. From what I understand, its not working. Anyway, we moved out of FYROM and into Greece in the region of Macedonia. And I was formally introduced to the phrase 'its all Greek to me'. Fortunately, a lot of signs had a Latin alphabet as well as the Greek Alphabet to help those of us poor fools who can't tell Omega from an Upside down V. I just thought the signs looked cool. Ok, to make you a wee bit jealous, this is the view from my balcony. The splendid and glorious view, with a crystal blue pool just off the beach of the azure Aegean Sea. This is the view just by the pool up to the hotel. They had this private hotel for us, there is enough soldiers that every time we come we rent out the entire hotel to us, with our own private beach and everything. The only downside to the hotel is the European plumbing. You can't flush paper down the toilet, which means that you have to throw it away in a little trash can next to the toilet. Even if you have to do a number 2. Being trained in the part of the Western Hemisphere that is the United States, I almost flushed toilet paper down the toilet a couple of times. Apparently, it clogs the sewer system for the entire hotel. Lovely. Anyway, moving on from the Too Much Information Department. . . This is me on the beach. Look, my clothes aren't camouflaged and there isn't a weapon for miles! Yes, I know, I've gotten quite famous for being an advocate of boomsticks, but when you've been lugging one around for the last four months without firing one single shot out of it, you kind of get sick of it hanging off your shoulder serving no purpose otheer then to provide a vector for knocking other people around in the knee caps. Anyway, back to the beach. It's a private beach, the sand was pebbly and kind of hard to walk on, but it was really nice and relaxing. I would love to go back here in the heat of summer, and then I'll remember to have somebody send me a bathing suit! Well, if it was a little to chilly to swim in the Aegean, it was perfect weather for collecting Sea Shells! I wanted something to bring home right off the Aegean and though Sea Shells are pretty much everywhere, I thought, Hey, why not? They're SPECIAL SEA SHELLS! So I lined them up on a rock after finding them and took a picture. Nothing particularly exciting by any means, I just thought they were cool. I tried to get a few pictures of me on the beach. Yeah, after being forced to wear camouflage twenty four seven, I decided for my little outing in civilians, I would attempt to look like a girl. I even brought make-up. What did I do? I wore a hat and sunglasses most of the time. And I didn't touch my make up bag. Usually I wore the hat backwards. Nope, no Americans in this group! None what so ever! See, we were trained on trying to blend into the populace and appear sort of unamerican. The thing is, Americans stand out like a Doberman in a pack of chihuahuas. But we were to avoid the military thing. That was sometimes a problem, I went with two Colonols and a Major in my unit, and I hung out with them quite a bit and often found myself reverting to calling them by rank. We eventually went by a first name basis, just for the purposes of Greece. Its an old habit. After settling down at the hotel, where I shared my room with one other girl, we got back in the busses and went down to Iraklitsa, which is where we ate dinner and spent the next three hours just walking around. Very relaxing, as soon as we got out of the bus, everyone started taking pictures. If we weren't mistaken for americans, we were definitely tourists. And you would pick up on the Americans as soon as they open their mouths. We're undeniable. We walked along the boardwalk for a while trying to decide between which restaurant to eat at when we settled into our environments. Most of the restaurant signs were in Greek, so we couldn't even phonetically pronounce them much less know what they served outside of the fact of the Octopus tentacles hanging outside drying outside some of the restaurants. When we finally found a restaurant, we looked at the menu and were a bit baffled by it. I couldn't make anything out on the menu, well, other then the price, which consisted of us going to the owner of the restaurant, pointing at what we wanted to eat, and grunting. They didn't know much English, we couldn't speak an ounce of greek. There was that language barrier thing going on. I eventually got gutsy and ordered the Kalimari and the Scampy. I have had Kalimari once before, there is a greek restaurant in Hohenfels that we escaped to every once in a while to get away from the D-Fac up where we were (which was nasty) and I didn't know what it was then. Now I know. Its kind of hard to not know what it is when they don't even bother to cut off the heads of the food. (I didn't even think about whether or not they bothered gutting the food) It was good though. The scampy still had the exosceleton on it and I just ate the first one on my plate whole, then noticed that it was a little crunchy. A little Too Crunchy. Hmm. . . I then started to strip them of their outershells, being a bit unnerved that my food was looking back at me. They didn't even chop the heads off the fish. I was a bit more leery of eating the Kalimari, though i have eaten Octopus before. The Kalimari was really good though! I cleaned my plate of that, delicious! Kind of rubbery texture, I'm not sure if the Squid Kalimari or the Octopus Kalimari was better. Then there was the other factor of Greece that I never knew about. Cats. Cats are everywhere in Greece. And this is a stray, probably not owned by anybody. Strays are usually finicky creatures that dart away from you if you try to touch them. Not in Greece. They sit at your feet and beg for food. They still won't let you pet them, but it won't stop them from rubbing against your legs. I was warned about feeding the cats. I went ahead nad started feeding her my scampy heads anyway. I also threw some of the legs at her as well. She seemed to enjoy them. But I couldn't get her to jump over the baring to fetch the food. For one, a giant dog was over there, and its universal that Dogs and Cats hate each other. Anyway, after the delicious dinner, we hung out and walked around the beach, trying to find something to do, as it was more of a place to eat and not so much a place to shop. But I found Ice Cream! You wouldn't know it was Ice Cream by the sign however. Unless you spoke Greek. Most Europeans sit down and eat when they get something. But not Americans. No, we walk and eat at the same time. We're always in a hurry to get some place (well, at least I am) so we kind of missed the atmosphere of being in Iraklitsa. To just sit down and enjoy the atmosphere. Instead, we started exploring the piers and such. I then handed off my camera nad had a picture taken. Ick, I'm going to do something that is totally being a girl and say that I can't stand how fat my face looks in this picture! Maybe I should have laid off the ice cream? Anyway, we walked all over Iraklitsa and enjoyed ourselves. Somebody even saw an octopus in the port. Dang, I missed it. But he took a picture and shared it with me. That was cool. After trying to find things to do, and buying a Mars Bar (yeah, I need to start laying off the chocolate), we headed back to the busses and prepared ourselves for a quiet and relaxing time at the hotel. I got my laptop out and proceeded to dump my pictures. Monday was a good day. Labels: Europe, Greece, instalaunched -Risawn: # 3:08 PM - |

1.01.2005

The Quintessential New Year's Post A year ago, like every year, I put up a list of New Year Resolutions. Let's see how I did. 1- Get Website back online Well, at the time, I had completely deleted my website. It was part of my way of coaping with the fact that the army was toying with me at the time, the whole "you're deploying to Iraq, Wait, we changed our minds." I was a bit frustrated, and I took it out on my website. It was zapped from the face of the internet. I actually put it back on shortly after New Years, however, it was deleted again sometime in September, but that wasn't quite my fault. a) get it functional and half way interesting That is up to debate. 2- Find a decent paying job. I work at a slighly above minimum wage job, which actually pays pretty well considering Washington minimum Wage is at $7.10, however, this was not accomplished do to the fact that the army was, well, toying with me and their decision on whether or not they were going to Mob me. I was slated to go somewhere a half dozen times and I didn't feel it necessary to find another job. THis was accomplished sometime in November, when the Army said 'we got a job for you' and now I'm on Active Duty. Much better pay. 3 - Get at least CUSA and CAP1 paid off. Done. Then my Sister Used the CUSA and I added more to CAP1. But they were both paid off at one time this year. 4- Run Bloomsday this year. No, I mean it! Ran the bloody whole thing. Was hurting for a week. 5- Move out on my own, one way or another. Eh, army killed a lot of my motivation to do this, because I didn't know what was going on. Hence, never moved out, well, until about November. 6- Jump a snowboard. I'm getting into intermediate/Expert area, but the snow isn't the greatest here, usually it get's icy. When you fall on ice, it hurts, so I don't really focus on dare devil tactics. I can't afford to get hurt. HOwever, toward the end of last season, I had successfully gone Airborne many times without falling, but I have yet to catch serious air. The snow hasn't been great this year so far either. I'll be missing the rest of the season. 7- Read one new book a month. Did really well for about, oh, four months, then I got distracted. 8- Sign up for Martial Arts (I've always wanted to take a class) I still vow to do this one day. I wish I could have when I was younger. 9- BNCOC Army terminology, tried to sign up, the Training NCO wasn't very cooperative however. I think he had more on his mind. 10- Speak acronymics less. HAH! 11- Rekindle friendships with Suzanne, Andrea and Marnie, Carla, etc. . . Attempted to with Suzanne, however she moved and I never got her phone number, mission accomplished with Andrea and Marnie, lost Carla's information. Damn. 12- Date at least once a month (I mean, I really just need to take a chance on the opposite sex!) This is really quite a lost cause on me. 13- Break some bad habits of mine. I'm trying to remember what those bad habits were. 14- And of course, it wouldn't be a new years resolution if I didn't include Lose Five Pounds. a) Then Tone Up Body b) And Run more. A lot more. c) And work out more in general. My weight has continually fluctuated by a margin of five pounds. And its right after the holidays, so I'm on the upper end of that scale. As for working out, well, that's a lost cause as well. So how did I do? About fifty/fifty. And what do I have for this year? 1) Get out of debt - (piece of cake!) 2) Drive on the Autobahn in a Porsche. 3) Max APFT. a) this will require me to work out regularly. I hear Bondsteel has some good gyms available. 4) Upkeep webspace from Kosovo 5) Learn how to edit videos. 6) See Prague, Budapest, Norschwanstein, etc. . . 7) Don't get Shot. 8) Make a decision on what I want to do when I come home. Hmm, simple, let's see how I do? (of course, Resolutions are always up to change) Labels: instalaunched, New Years -Risawn: # 1:05 PM - |

12.30.2004

Corrupting Newbies Ok, if you haven't noticed, I'm a snowboarder. It is one of my passions and the main thing that has me looking forward to winter. Today, I went snowboarding, and I dragged a newbie who has never been with me. I tend to do that a lot. See, my reasoning is if I can corrupt them into snowboarding with me once, they become a future snowboarding partner when I really feel like getting crazy. There are three ways I snowboard. By myself, with people worse then myself, and with people better then myself. I prefer to go in that order reversed. Unfortunately, most people I know are worse then myself or have never been, which are almost the same thing. So whenever i get the chance, I talk people into hitting mountains with me. Though I've had instances where they came off with the lame excuse of taking the hamster to the vet (yes, somebody brushed me off with that very line). So anyway, today, I corrupted one of my troopies. See, she is a soldier who recently joined the military yet was still in high school, and her unit was on the other side of the mountains, so we kind of babysat her for a while until she went to basic. That was fun. She has turned into a pretty good troop. That, and she went to the same exact basic training company I did. I got a kick out of that. I could have done so many mean things to her on account of that but I didn't. *kicks self* Anyway, the story of Lisa, as that is all you shall know her as. Lisa has lived in this town all of her life and though there are five ski resorts within a two hour drive, she had never been. I felt the need to remedy that. She picked it up pretty damn fast. We finally pulled the camera out at the end. Lisa is riding here, this was the last run we did, for reasons which I will go into momentarily. Conditions were interesting. It snowed about three or four inches. The snow covered Ice. Falling was not fun, especially in certain spots where the snow had been worn away, leaving nothing but ice. Lisa fell right on a patch of ice and banged her knee. She called it quits about this time. She was still on the mountain, but had to get down, so she converted the snowboard into a sled. I call this, Board Sledding! Lisa got going pretty fast for a moment, but lost control of her direction. She fell off, and the board kept going. I saw this coming from a mile away and kept yelling "get it! Get it!" Damn I wish I got a picture of her chasing after it. This is the board, in the ditch. This is Lisa, going after the snowboard. This is Lisa and the board trying to get out of the ditch. About this time I was thinking "you know, I should have gone after it, considering Lisa banged her knee on the ice!" This is Lisa, laid out exhausted after getting the snowboard. Well, then there was me. See, I let Lisa use my board and because she is taller then me, I let her use my boarding pants, so I kind of mix and matched my gear. *warning, boarding terminology in use* I've actually got four snowboards (I carry extras for newbies to get them hooked), three are strap ins and one is a switch step in bindings. Because all of the support is in the boot on my Switch Gear, the boot is a bit big. I usually use my other pants to cover over the boots, but unfortunately, Lisa was wearing them. So I reverted back to my other pants. They have suspenders that I often forget to strap. And I'm wearing Camouflage with a bright blue knit cap. The result? I think I'm going for a fashion statement here. And it ain't workin'. Oh well, who cares? I had fun. Labels: instalaunched, Snowboarding -Risawn: # 4:29 PM - |

11.20.2004

The Goodbyes Start Today is my last day of work at my civilian job. We had a store meeting at 6:30 this morning, which was difficult for me because I'm not a big morning person and I stayed up really late the night before. First of all, let me explain something about my work. I work with a bunch of people that lean to the left of the political spectrum. Now, don't get me wrong, their are some really cool people I work with that will give you the shirt off their back if you need it, and they are all really kind to me despite the fact that they know I voted for Bush, their enemy number One. This is probably due to the fact that I live by an important rule while at work. Don't talk about Politics. Still, it's kind of hard to ignore where they stand some times. Everyone knows its my last day, and they are all wishing me goodbye and good luck, and a few 'see you in 18 months' and handed me a card. Everyone scrawled their thoughts and well wishes in it, and of course, the usual sentiment. And then there was a simple message. "Good Luck in Bush's Invasion!" I thought everyone knew I was heading to Kosovo. Strange, in this day and age when you say you're in the military, most people immediately place their sympathy with you and hope you don't go anywhere (despite the fact that I DO want to go somewhere). When they hear your deploying, their first thought is Iraq. Then Afgahnistan. Not a lot of people think about Kosovo, its apparently pretty quiet. Which I find in this scrawled statement a bit of irony. Kosovo has nothing to do with Bush, other then that we were in the middle of this issue when he took the presidency. Kosovo spawns from Clinton's era. And what's more, its a NATO mission. The US has approximately 2500 troops over there right now. A small number. Otherwise, Kosovo is a huge multinational task force, I think they said about 30 nations are involved, with the US of course having the largest force there. I guess the guy jumped to conclusions, thats all. But still, what a thing to write on somebody's going away card, don't you think? Labels: instalaunched, Kosovo, Work -Risawn: # 3:29 PM - |

11.12.2004

merchandising? I've had several people come to my site asking for my Poster. I don't have a poster. Somebody mentioned that I should make one. Besides, the air hose attached to the M203 needs to come off, I'd have to get on photoshop and do something about that. Otherwise, well, hmm. . . maybe I should look into that? UPDATE Ok, so I'm trying to work out this poster idea, but I've run into two problems. First, I took a picture with an M203 that is specifically used for similation purposes and has a big fat hose hanging off of it. You can't ignore that. So I photoshopped it off. Ok, that works alright. But secondly, well, the photo is taken in a middle of a classroom! There's a table and some chairs in the background (well, the grenade display is pretty hoorah), but still, when you're thinking of army and bad ass rifles with grenade launchers attached to them, you're thinking of wide open spaces and charlie in the distance, not a bloody classroom! That left the options fairly open. How about smack dab in the middle of the desert? Or plant myself in the middle of a Washington Rainforest? (well, fort lewis really does kind of look like this) Or maybe post in front of one of my beloved Hummers. Or, perhaps at a Gun Show? HOw about a field of poppies? or I could be cliche' and superimpose myself in front of a flag. Eh, the options are a bit endless. I guess I could go about trying to perfect my photo shopping skills and make one that is pretty high-speed, but I'm not sure if I'm up to it. I guess my best option is to just blanket the background and post obscene messages. Hehe, requests are open! The following are rather tame. And of course. ***the quote, "Good, Bad, I'm the Guy with the gun," is off of Army of Darkness, in case you were wondering, I slightly altered it becuase I'm not a guy.*** Eh, maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead and the idea is still fresh? Last thing I wanna do is grind it into everybody's head. I personally like my LJ icon. Meanwhile, more chicks in uniform (being me) and weapons. . . Private E in the middle of Basic Training. I was a color guard, and therefore, I had a 'rifle'. This picture is kind of funny. Same place as aboves only in Class A's. Color Guard, during the brief period I was a ROTC Nazi. On the Range, still a private. Still in Uniform, different kind of projectile. Full Battle Rattle Itz a hummer, but I was a private so I didn't know better. Anti Tank, much different in projectile. And this picture was taken at the same time as my now infamous one. I'm making roughly the same 'face', but at a different angle and I look on the verge of cracking into a laugh. I still like the SAW. The SAW in Simulation was very very fun. Whoops. No weapons, but rather funny regardless. There you go. Enjoy. Update - More superimposing ideas from my brother. This should be fun. Me in front of a Mushroom Cloud. Me on a swiftboat! Me playing Halo! (if I don't watch it, I'll run this into the ground!) Update Some of my Readers are doing their own photoshopping. Courtesy of Aaron Labels: instalaunched, Not Sorry, Photomanipulation -Risawn: # 10:12 PM - |