Beth's Contradictory Brain

Good Trip

We had a really good trip to Colorado Springs. We got lucky with the weather every day.

We got up early and hit the road Friday morning. I had driven from Wichita, KS to Denver last year when Nerdstar was on her way home from Iraq, but Nerdstar had never driven thru this part of the country. It's certainly an easy drive, even if mostly boring. We always look out over all the empty parts of this country and wonder who owns all that land and what, if anything, it's being used for.

Friday night we got out the phonebook trying to find a decent place for dinner, and decided to just head over to downtown. Nerdstar booked our hotel online and it ended up being in a really convenient location for all the things we did. We found a great little pizza place. Colorado Springs has a nice little downtown and we were glad it wasn't one of those cities that rolls up the street early every night.

Saturday we drove out to the Royal Gorge Bridge. I know at some point growing up I have been there before, but I can't remember exactly when. Probably in high school. They've added a lot of stuff around it to try to justify charging outrageous amounts of money to see something nature made a man put a bridge over. It was cool to see it though. We got there when the sun was still shining, and by the time we left it was all cloudy.

We were going to go see some waterfalls, but it was raining up where they were so they weren't letting people in at that time. That was fine, I think the waterfalls outside of Portland are more beautiful - and free! So we ended up at the zoo instead. (Nerdstar loves zoos!) Unfortunately, we left the camera in the car. We didn't see more lion sex, but we saw giraffs kissing - french kissing. And with eight to ten inch black tongues, it was quite a sight to see! This other one was just standing there with his/her tongue hanging out, it was funny.

Sunday we headed over to Pike's Peak. There's a Cog Railway that makes the trip up to the top and back in about three hours. It was a neat trip. Again we got lucky with the weather. We were up there for the last of the sunshine and clear views from the peak. On our trip down it started to snow. It rained on us the rest of the day.

In all of our travels we read and hear about all of the structures built in the twenties and thirties, like Royal Gorge Bridge. It's just amazing what people achieved back then. I don't think we're doing anything nearly as remarkable as far as things like that.

Our last stop before heading home yesterday morning was to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and Museum. Nerdstar loves the rodeo almost as much as she loves the zoo! It was neat learning how the rodeo's got started around the early 1900s.

Photos here.

Road Trip Snacks

I realized this morning that our entire drive will be through nowhere! Nine hours of not even small towns. That means nowhere to stop and eat. Oh no!!! Nerdstar can't survive that long!!

So, road trip snacks it is.

1 leftover hamburger
1 bag doritoes
1 package of cherries
1 package of beef jerky
1 package of fried chicken
1 package of 6 mini snickers
1 package of 6 reeses
1 big box of hot tamalies
2 little bags of M&Ms
2 apples
1 pound cake
cokes and diet cokes

That should get us there!

Getting Away

Nerdstar and I are headed over to Colorado Springs for the long weekend. Thankfully, she's off tomorrow AND Monday! It's supposed to be a little cool and rainy, but that's ok with us, we prefer that to overly hot and sunny! We're going to see the Royal Gorge Bridge, which I saw back in high school about twenty years ago. And of course head to the top of Pike's Peak. We got a really cool twenty page or more magazine about all the attractions in the area. Nerdstar's never been to the Rockies so we're excited about the trip.

That said, we're not taking the laptop so we'll be offline for a few days. I do hope to take lots of pics.

Have a wonderful long weekend!!

Reporting from Iraq

Michael Yon is a freelance reporter embeded in Mosul, Iraq, where Nerdstar spent her time in Iraq.

He has the best post about how news from Iraq gets reported that I've ever read. Here's part of his longer post:

If US forces are killed or wounded, the SIGACT might start like this:

Blam, Blam, Blam!...explosions…followed by a roar of small arms. So many weapons firing from so many directions, tracers bouncing off roads, zinging off buildings, rooms exploding, dust and smoke, a soldier cries out, "I'm hit!" and his buddies run across a road to help him and another is shot, "I'm hit!"

Then someone makes the radio call:

"Deuce-Main, Apache-Six, Contact, over." [Deuce-Four headquarters, this is the Alpha Company Commander]
"Apache-Six, Deuce-Main, send it."
"This is Apache-Six. Heavy small-arms and RPGs vicinity 4-West. Three friendly casualties, one is litter-urgent. Still in contact. We are in pursuit trying not to lose contact. Estimate 25 AIF [insurgents], all dismounted. Request QRF, over."
"Apache-Six, Deuce-Main, QRF spinning up. Warmonger is en route and fast movers in vicinity. Bulldog Company has a platoon two kilometers west en route to you. They are under your control time now. Don’t let the AIF break contact. Over."
"Roger, at least four enemy KIA. All Apache elements remain in contact and we have them isolated in a four-block area, over."
"Apache-Six, Deuce-Main, keep up the good work, don't let them get away. More combat power is on the way to assist in isolation."
"Deuce-Main, Apache-Six, roger, out."

Within seconds, someone will be typing up a SIGACT that might look like this:

SECRET
TACREP: XXXX
Subject: Smalls Arms Engagement
Time/Date: 2120 L 24 May 05
Narrative: Alpha Company 1-24 INF reports small arms and RPG, vicinity…. Reports 3 friendly WIA (1 litter-urgent, 2 routine). 4 Enemy KIA...

When this SIGACT is translated by a PAO, this might come out: "3 US soldiers were wounded by small arms in Mosul, Iraq. The soldiers were assigned to Task Force Freedom." News agencies that call or request information will get some variation of this report.

Such reports flow from all over Iraq to a place in Baghdad called the CPIC (Combined Press Information Center). The CPIC is like the Uber-PAO for Iraq, serving all branches of the military, and other nations in the Coalition. The CPIC collects those reports and makes a release that might go like this:

"3 US soldiers were wounded in a small arms engagement in Mosul. 3 US soldiers from Task Force Baghdad were wounded by a car bomb in Baquba while conducting convoy operations in Diyala Province. 1 US soldier was slightly wounded by an IED while conducting combat operations in Baghdad. 2 US Marines were killed in a Humvee accident in Anbar Province. A Blackhawk helicopter made an emergency landing near Ramadi. No injuries were reported."

This will hit pages all over the world, but in a newsier voice:

"A US helicopter made an emergency landing near Ramadi under unknown circumstances. An insurgent website claiming affiliation to Al Qaeda in Iraq says they shot down the helicopter with a surface-to-air missile. A US military spokesman would not comment. Elsewhere, one US soldier and two Marines were killed and seven other service members were wounded in Iraq, along with at least 18 deaths from a suicide car-bomber near the Syrian border. This brings total Coalition deaths in Iraq to 1,800. In other news, photos of the former dictator of Iraq in his underwear have infuriated the Arab world and angered the Pentagon, which promised a full investigation…"

Something you don't hear about every day

Because of Nerdstar's new job, we both do a lot of looking around on the internet for information about China. I've got more time to surf around, so I follow links and try to find blogs and posts about what's going on over there. It's cool because it's broadened my perspective on the world.

This is a great article about China and the Middle East and oil. Something I've certainly never heard or read in American media.

One paragraph to get your interest:

Today, 58 percent of China's oil imports come from the Middle East. In order to mitigate the risks associated with such a high degree of dependency and to reduce exposure to sharp price hikes on the open market, China has adopted a global strategy of geographical diversification of supply and acquisition of equity stakes in foreign oil/gas fields. As a result, China's energy firms own such shares in 20 different countries. But diversification away from the Middle East has its limits. Two-thirds of proven oil reserves are located in the region, most in the Gulf. Meanwhile, reserve-to-production ratios show that the reserves of non-Middle Eastern producers are fast being depleted, as are China's own fields. The IEA expects Chinese oil imports from the Middle East to rise to at least 70 percent by 2015. The future of the Chinese economy is thus inextricably tied to the Middle East.

I found the link to the article on Simon World - I'd call him the Instapundit of info on the East.

Then there's this article on China's Iraq policy. Who even knew they had one?

Thanks

I've been going through all of my old emails on Netzero trying to get it all cleaned out so I can cancel my account with them.

It's weird and interesting and sometimes even heartening to read through emails from the past couple of years.

I don't know how many of you dear readers are still around, but I want to say a very heartfelt thanks to all the people who read along and emailed and supported Nerdstar and I during her deployment. If we used to email on a more regular basis and lost touch, let me say I'm sorry that happened. You'd think with all the time I've had on my hands the past two years, I'd be better at something like staying in touch. But it seems I let the stress of it all get the better of my too often.

I sometimes read an old email and think, hmmm... should I email them and say Hi? And I don't. Maybe I shouldn't be getting better at letting people go.

How to not be out?

I had another job interview today. I think it went well. It's a family owned business that's been in operation over 50 years. The dress code was definitely casual. I don't know what the pay would be yet, the boss man is still figuring out the exact project and stuff I think. The only problem I see is that it's just about an hour commute each way. And that's not twenty miles taking fifty minutes because of red lights. It's at least forty miles of almost all highway taking that long. I'm not sure what my price would be for two hours on the highway every day. So we'll see what happens next.

But here's what I'm really writing about. For the life of me I have yet to figure out how to not "out" myself in job interviews and such without either outright lying or being evasive to the point of weird. It's not that I mind being out. I always have been. But there's a timing to getting to know someone and "coming out" to them. A job interview isn't exactly ideal to me.

So... how do I answer "How did you end up in Platte City?" "Um, the military. Not that I'm in the military, but my girlfriend is." "Why did you quit your last job and why haven't you worked since then?" "Well, they were being assholes and I was stressed out about my girlfriend being sent to Iraq. I was too worried to look for a serious job and it was likely we'd be moving once she came home anyway?" Yeah, that's the answers I can use - HA!

It's not like the questions people ask are unreasonable, or even out of the ordinary. I'd ask someone who'd just moved here the same sorts of questions. It's just that all of the reasons I've done what I've done for the past couple of years pretty much involve my life with Nerdstar, and I don't know how to give any other answers without lying.

Even when I do try to give sort of vague answers, well, the lies just become implied information. You know, leaving out gender and pronouns and using the word "spouse". Besides, how can I have a spouse when I've marked Single on all of the paperwork? It's all so awkward. Not to mention once you start down that road, it's almost impossible to get off it.

Yet I'm just not comfortable enough here in the midwest to just be open and honest.

History

Because Nerdstar made me sick Friday, we had a quiet weekend full of snot. Yes, it was very exciting.

Sometime while Nerdstar was in Iraq, I read most of Stephen Ambrose's biography of Lewis and Clark. I don't think any other event in history (aside from the life of Christ) grabs my imagination the way their story does. I've always said if I could go back in time I'd give anything to be on that trip, to see all the things they saw. Nerdstar bought me the PBS documentary on dvd for Christmas and we finally got around to watching it last week. I had no idea Lewis killed himself after they returned home. And it took Clark five years after they came home to give York his freedom. I can't imagine how hard it would have been to have taken that amazing journey and then come home to try to live a normal life. Most of them couldn't and didn't. It's amazing that only one of the over forty people on the expedition died.

Watching it also made me wonder more about the Indians. I've got Indians as ancestors on both sides of my family, but have never really studied their history. Nerdstar and I got to talking during the show and I realized I didn't even know how long Indians were in this part of the contitent before the settlers came. I didn't know where they came here from. I had assumed they came up from Central America, she told me they came down thru Alaska and had been here since the time of the Mayans and such. Huh. I got to wondering why all the Indian nations didn't come together and become a dominant force in world like the settlers who came here ended up doing. There's always talk about the abundance of natural resources here, and the Indians had access to them for hundred of years.

I find history fascinating, but I constantly find there's so much I don't know. Even about American history. Part of that is because I so distrust history books. And biographies can be tedious to read.

There's a great PBS documantary about New York city I put in our Netflix que. I watched parts of it about eight years ago and Nerdstar hasn't seen it. It'll be cool to see it again. I think I also added a PBS documentary about The West.

When I was driving up from Austin to Ft. Lewis I saw some historical site marks for the Oregon Trail. Maybe I'll do some reading on that.

Then, just to round off the weekend, we caught part of an author's talk last night about daylight savings time. I had no idea how much time zones and daylight savings time has changed in the country, and world, and why. At first when I saw the title of the book on the screen I thought, how dorky, who would spend time writing about that. But it ended up being interesting enough I'll look for the book at the library.

Yep, evidently I'm a big nerd.

Knee Jerk Reactions

I find I'm always tempted to have them. Maybe it was living in hippy vegan liberal land Austin that sharpened my conservative side. Because now that I'm living in the Midwest and small town Midwest at that, I'm finding I'm tempted to be so much more gay than I'd usually be. I keep joking with Nerdstar about making out in some public venue and getting arrested. Hmmm...

Like wanting to have a vegetable garden, it's all part of the contradictory brain syndrome. Being able to effectively argue both sides of things makes me want to play devil's advocate more often that is good.

Goodbye Dr. Carter

Well, it wasn't the best sendoff in tv history, or even ER history for that matter. I still remember Doug and Carol's wedding. At least they didn't kill him like they did Dr. Green. But I'll be sad Dr. Carter isn't around next season.

Wow. Eleven years of ER. I've seen every episode. It started in 1994. I can't even remember that far back is seems. I know St. Elsewhere came before ER, but I never really watched it. And Chicago Hope started the same year, but didn't last nearly as long in spite of having a much better cast at the time. I didn't watch it either.

Nerdstar bought season one of ER on dvd while she was in Iraq (or before, I don't remember) but I've never watched any of them. I figured it would be cool to go back at watch the very first episode after watching Dr. Carter's last one.

How dark and tiny the original set was. I didn't remember Dr. Carter actually being in the pilot. Dr. Green, Dr. Ross, Nurse Hathaway, Benton, Dr. Lewis - all so young.

I'm not sure what I'll be watching come Fall. They cancelled American Dreams and Third Watch. I'll watch ER out of loyalty, but it's certainly not as good as it once was. I still enjoy Survivor and Amazing Race, but... I don't know. I miss Mad About You and Buffy. I'm about to make Nerdstar start with the very first episod of Buffy and watch all seven seasons - she will love it.

We just signed up for Netflix. I think it's so cool that old tv shows are now available, as well as new ones. I'm finally going to watch season one of Carnival and Deadwood.

It's the same old lament, nothing on tv is as good as it used to be. And movies - don't get me started. Is there anything coming out that isn't a remake?? Ugh.

The dropping costs of digital filming brought lots of talk about how more people would now have access to film making, and how this would lead to a revolution. I don't see it yet. Sigh.

This thing called job hunting

Other than my poor Nerdstar being sick, I think things are going a little better this week. We're slowly adjusting to - if not actually enjoying - life in the midwest.

I'm trying to motivate myself to try this thing called "looking for a job" and not having much luck.

I had an interview the other day for a job I'm probably overqualified for, and didn't get hired. That's ok. The best thing about it was that it was less than a five minute drive to the location. Part of what makes it hard to look for/find a job is that even after having all this time on my hands to figure it out, I still have no clue what I want to do. Well, there are a couple of things I want to do, but they're not really options at this time - poker and being a mom. So when I'm reading job discriptions there's a complete lack of enthusiasm for any of them.

I'm just not sure how to find a job in a small town. I keep checking the local little papers. No luck there so far. And honestly, I'd be scared to work with some of the people I've seen when filling out applications so far. I'm on Career Builder and Monster - but those jobs would be over in Kansas City, and probably at least a 45 minute commute, which doesn't thrill me.

If nothing comes up in the next couple of weeks, I'll look into volunteering at one of the local hospitals.

Wonderings

Something I've found curious since we've moved up here: In the all the years Nerdstar and I went out to eat in Austin, and that was a lot, we were never asked if we wanted seperate checks. Up here, we're asked nine times out of ten.

I'm not sure what to make of that. I've had thoughts on the "presumption of straight". It's not made in Austin, but we find it's made here. But I'm aware there could be other, simplier, explanations for the difference.

Go Figure

This is a shot of my little cherry tomato plant. I can't tell you how much I enjoy watching those little green things grow. I also have a pot of spearmint and peppermint growing. Nerdstar uses them in her ice tea.

We find it quite amusing that someone who doesn't eat any vegetables would love to have a vegetable garden!

Wild Kingdom Porn

After a week of rain, we've had a beautiful weekend weather wise. Yesterday we got Nerdstar a bike rack and rode around the post for a while. Then we grabbed an early dinner and came home and watched movies.

Today we headed over to the Kansas City Zoo. It's a big zoo, really pretty, has a great train and tram to get around. It just doesn't have very many animals.

Fortunately, I think, the lions certainly made it worth the trip and the price of admission! I had just told Nerdstar that we should have come earlier in the spring for mating season. A few minutes later, we rounded the path and came up to the area to see the lions. There were two females lying on one rock, and one on the other. The male was out in the grass looking bored. Then he got up and walked over to the rock where the single female was. When he licked her butt I thought, oh my. The next thing we knew it was sex time! It was funny because there were about twelve adults and fifteen kids in the area watching.

It lasted maybe twenty seconds. Then they both looked bored again. He kept standing there, then they did it again!

I think I'm traumatized! But, of course, I took pics :-) (You have to scroll down for the ones of the lions.)

Where in the World?

Last night over dinner, Nerdstar asked me if I could go anywhere in the world, what country would I go to for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner.

She wasn't thrilled when I told her I didn't see any need to leave the US! Even for ethnic foods. Further, for breakfast I said that I've yet to find a restaurant that can make french toast I like better than my mom's, and that I can make pancakes and biscuts better than most places. So for breakfast, well, I could just stay home. Then we came back to the fact that really, Austin has all the best places we've been to eat even with our extensive traveling. (We know there are higher class places to eat and such, but for what we like to eat, Austin's the best.)

(updated) Ok, so I'd make my own breakfast - buttermilk biscuts, scrambled eggs and bacon. Let's see. Lunch. I'd go with CoCo's, a little Twainese cafe for their fried chicken with rice and onion pie. Then dinner would still be Saltgrass Steakhouse for steak and shrimps and their yummy Shiner Bock beer bread. And desert - well, again, I'd make my own. Homemade vanilla ice cream over my from scratch chocolate cake!

Nerdstar said she'd go to China for breakfast - but the food she described didn't sound like breakfast to me! She'd come back to the US for a burger for lunch. Off to Iraq/Turkey for a midafternoon snack. And probably back to China for dinner.

Other than Austin, if she had to pick a city for all her eating, it'd be NYC.

So, where would you go? And if you know, what specifically would you eat for each meal?

Comments

Evidently, there's something wrong with the way my comments are set up - sorry about that!! If you've tried to post one and it wasn't allowed, it's on this end, not yours. I'll see if I can figure out what's up.

Always feel free to email me instead.

?

What's up with kids being killed by men who should still be in jail?? The frustrating thing with news cycles today is there's never any context. Is this really the year of murdered kids, or is this just what the msm has decided to focus on?

Bleh

We had a pretty quiet weekend. We thought it would be fun to go watch UT men's baseball play KU. Tickets were only $6 each, and it was just about an hour drive. It was fun. Something to do. And there was funnel cake involved.

I think it's safe to say that Nerdstar and I really aren't enjoying living here. We both feel like aliens or we're in the Twilight Zone. And it's just hard to express and explain why, because there's not necessarily anything concrete behind the feelings.

And we're having problems between us. Sometimes I'd like to write more about them here, but it just seems like it'd be too hard to really write about all the intricate details. There's just no way to explain it all. But moving up here hasn't turned out to be the great new beginning we were looking forward to. Was it a mistake to take the job up here? I don't think so. We just couldn't have imagined how weird we'd feel living up here. Unfortunately, that and other things are making us feel further apart instead of closer together. Is it just a long rough patch to get thru? Maybe. Hopefully.

Ouch

I just got my ass handed to me at the poker table. I knew I'd have a losing day eventually, but man, today was rough. It took just about 35 minutes to lose $200. Normally I have to be playing craps to do that badly!

I had ace/ten of hearts, two hearts came on the flop, and one guy went all in for $88. I had about $205, so it was an easy call, I figured he had two hearts and I had him beat. I was right, I did have him beat. Unfortunately, the guy acting after me already had two pair, so he went in for another $67, leaving me with $50 if I lost. Yep, I lost. A couple of hands later I had 8/9 hearts, two hearts on the flop, and the flop was also Q K A, so I had a flush and a straight draw. I went all in and didn't catch shit. So that was it for me for the day.

Oh well. Easy come easy go, right?

For the record

I really think it's time for Rachel Ray to choke and die.

More Poker

I wasn't going to play again until Friday, but, I was too bored. Nerdstar wants to go bike riding with the group in Leavenworth Friday after work, so I figured I'd go play poker then. I know that at some time I'm going to have a losing session. All I can do when that happens is try to limit the losses as much as possible. I figured, well, I'll probably lose today, but oh well, maybe then I'll do better Friday.

I took $200 to buy in with, although I was hoping the $100 table would be operating. It wasn't. They opened a table where you could buy in for anywhere between $100 and $300. Fine. There were only about seven of us, a full table has ten players. The more players the better because you post blinds less often.

I didn't catch many cards. Meaning the two cards you start with usually sucked for me and in addition, the cards that the players shared didn't match the sucky cards in my hand. I was never down very much, I think I got as low as $150 and was content to come home with about $100 of my original $200. I did catch a couple of hands finally, got up to $270 or so. I let the dealer button go around the table again and kept getting hands like 7/3 and 6/10 - nothing!

So I took my $55 winnings and cashed out. On Wednesdays and Sundays they're also giving away a free movie rental from Blockbuster and a 12 pack of Coke.

I think I've said before that poker seems to be the only thing in life I'm patient at. And it's a good thing. And I'm not greedy when I play. I don't try to take out other players, or take all their chips. I'm happy with a $50 pot or a $200 pot. I'd love to be winning more $$, but I'm content to win any at all for now. If I can maintain this level of consistency in playing, I'll move up to bigger stakes eventually.

Heh

What did one lesbian frog say to the other? "Hey, we really do taste like chicken."

ha ha ha

I heard that on tv somewhere in the past few days, don't remember where.

Weekend Highlights

It wasn't a particularly exciting weekend. We're really, really missing our favorite eateries in Austin, almost to the point of tears!! We're trying to find places we like around here, but a lot of places we've seen ads for that might be decent are a minimum of a 45 minute drive.

The upside is that we're still cooking a lot more. If we can just get quality to match quantity, we'll be set.

I think we're both still having trouble adjusting to being here. I know for me it feels like I've been shipped to the middle of the twilight zone. Nerdstar and I keep joking that even I'm not white enough to fit in around this part of the country. I'm applying for jobs but not hearing anything back. I'm missing my poker buddies, people to just hang with a couple of times a week to chat.

My highlight of the weekend was playing poker yesterday afternoon. I bought in for $180 at a no-limit table with $2/$5 blinds. Just over two hours later I cashed out $407. At one point I had just under $500, held to $450 for a while, but was down to $407 when convinced my luck had truly run out. That $180 was from what I won in the tournament last week, so really, I've turned $50 into $407. Not bad. I'm erring on the cautious side and not playing very often. I'm trying to build up a "bank" to play with so when I do have a losing day, I'll still have money I've previously won to play with.

Nerdstar's highlight of the weekend was heading about an hour or so down the road to go see a bike race. I really wanted to go with her, but was having tummy troubles. Nerdstar's not thinking she's competitive enough to really get into racing, but I think she might eventually enter some. Me, well, I'm behind her in riding time, and contrary to reports of Kansas being flat, the entire area we live in is nothing but hills, which makes it hard for a beginning, terribly out of shape rider to get started.