Random Thoughts

I've not really had a lot of interesting things to blog about in the past week, and I think it's partially due to the upcoming stress of the move and all that goes along with it, and partially due to the absolutely horrible weather we've been having for the past week straight, which has gone from grey and dreary to drizzly to downright thunderstormy downpours. It just gets old after awhile.

...

Our Internet has been up and down for the past two weeks, more down than up on some days, and I'd made an appointment for the nice Cox technician to come out and see us yesterday. Of course, the day I called that in, a Cox technician magically appeared at our doorstep to fix the same problem for our neighbors. We're in a duplex. Naturally, the problem, once fixed, was fixed for both of us, since our Internet comes from the same cable, so to speak.

I guess things would be more efficient for Cox if they had the ability to see whether neighbors living to the right and left of your address are experiencing the same issue and have tech support coming out to fix it. It certainly would save trips for the techs, and probably aggravation for the customers.

...

The Maligator, presently sprawled across the living room floor and snoring loudly, has somehow managed to cut her little left hind paw. The cut is perfectly horseshoe shaped and at the very edge of her big pad, in the crease between the big pad and her toes. Heaven only knows how she managed to do this. It was bleeding some, although not heavily, and since she was not showing any signs of having done anything to her paw, we didn't know until she was tracking bloody prints across the comforter on the bed. *sigh*

Surprisingly, she was very good about having it cleaned, treated with antibacterial ointment and wrapped up so it won't get dirty and yucky. For a dog who doesn't like having her paws handled or her nails trimmed, this was a pleasant surprise. It's now taped up in cloth camo tape, which is a heck of a lot sturdier than Vet Wrap and much cooler looking. Unfortunately, this was the last of our camo tape, so we'll have to go obtain either more camo tape or Vet Wrap tomorrow to rebandage it after this one gets soaked going out.

...

Slowly but surely, our moving date is approaching, and I am not looking forward to it.

There are some things that will be much better about this move than our last. First and foremost, we're actually eligible to receive various allowances and advances to pay for the move and all that it entails this time around. We get an allowance to pay for the UHaul trailer that we'll be using to haul our necessities, electronics, and pet items up, along with ourselves and our pets. We get a dislocation allowance. And we're eligible to receive up to three months advance pay.

Exactly how much we'll get and when we'll get it, we'll find out on the eighteenth when we go to finance, if finance chooses to actually work and not just be a complete and utter bunch of fucktards as they usually are. (Our finance office is staffed by lovely civilian employees who don't give a damn about fixing anyone's pay or getting anyone's money. They care about getting off at three and having two hour lunch breaks.)

Secondly, a large part of our moving effort will be taken over by the nice folks from Household Goods this time around, who'll be coming to our place to pack, take apart furniture, and load most of what we own. In the new location, they will unload, put together, and carry everything where it needs to go. That alone is a gigantic help.

...

In the middle of this month, we are looking to put our deposit down on the rental home we have decided on.

We have been considering several homes for rent that we found through Craig's List up there, and while we've not seen any of them in person, we've seen them in photos - one owner even sent us a nice video showing all rooms in the house and most of the property - and we've asked people we know who are stationed up there or have family up there to go and check out the neighborhoods and see the homes.

The one we are putting a deposit down on is on the side of a mountain, pretty far out in the sticks on a rural road. It is a three year old modern log home, with wood-panel walls and wood floors, and a two car garage. It is a three bedroom home, with all the rooms but one being upstairs, above the garage, and one being next to the garage. We're not sure yet what our plans will be for that room, but being that it's downstairs and we'd probably not use it for an office or anything, it may well become our storeroom with shelving or cabinets to stock up on bulk foods and the like.

The house comes with two acres which will be our yard. This means, unfortunately, we'll get to mow two acres, so we'll either need to buy a lawn mower, or pay someone to come and mow it. The landlord, who's lived in the home for the past three years while building his own new home next to the lake on another part of the property, used to pay someone to do the lawn. Maybe we can continue that, if it's affordable.

The whole property is seventy four acres. Yes, 74. Most of that is wooded and part of the mountain - Trueman considers it to be more of a big hill - behind the house. There are trails running through it where one could ride a 4x4 or a horse, or walk the dogs, and the landlord already said we are more than welcome to make use of it for hiking with the dogs, or hunting during hunting season, just as long as our dogs "don't chase the deer." Our landlord, an avid hunter, already warned, "The ticks aren't too bad around here, unless you're cleaning a deer."

Aside from trail-crossed woods, there's a pond, which is next to the landlords new home, and a barn with horsestables and a riding paddock. The landlord and his girlfriend (wife? fiance?) own two horses, a Quarterhorse and a Paint horse, and happened to mention to Trueman on the phone that "Unfortunately, they don't have the time to ride most days." Maybe I will be able to continue riding in return for help with barn chores, like I've been doing on HorseLady's pony farm down here.

At any rate, I am hoping that everything will go smoothly and we'll move into that house with no issues. I expect to be without Internet for a bit while we do the move, and I know that I'll likely be stuck with either dial-up or DSL, but I think living out where the pups and I can play in the woods will make up for that.

...

I am jealous of Christina LMT who now wears a skinny little size eight.

I weighed in at my last doctor's appointment at 174lbs, which means that there are still some twenty pounds somewhere in the region of my ass and thighs that need to just disappear, but they're stubbornly refusing to come off. Maybe I need to join a gym.

...

I am also jealous of Xavier who got a great deal on a Nikon D200 at a pawn shop a while back and has been posting great photos to his blog ever since. I'm jealous because I want a D200, but Nikon does not longer produce them - they now make the Nikon D300 - and even if they were still producing them, they would be out of my price range at this point in time. If I ever do get one, at least the leanses I have for my D40 would be compatible, though.

Then again, maybe I don't need a D200. I mean, there's only so much reason in having a nice camera like that, and in general, maybe cameras like that belong in the hands of people who know what they're doing. While I try to learn more and try to use the different options on my Nikon D40, I feel that I know about as much about good photography as a cricket. I still manage to get nice shots, but sometimes I wonder if that's more the camera than the photographer.

Speaking of nice shots, I got this one at NATO Fest on Sunday, before we were soaked to the skin in the torrential downpour that followed about twenty minutes later. I don't generally like posed shots and prefer taking photos of people who are not aware they're being photographed, but this one came out nicely, freckles and all.


NATO Fest, incidentally, was a lot of fun.

Each country had a little ten-by-ten booth with a table in the front, and the tables featured brochures and maps of the country or well-known cities within the country, regional food specialties to sample, and bunches of freebies such as pens, pins, and flags.

I was disappointed to find that none of the countries one traditionally associates with chocolates, such as Germany and Belgium, had any chocolate to sample. The Belgians had individually-wrapped Belgian waffles and the Germans had packs of gummi bears. The Germans also had free pens (nice ones), which is a good thing, because it made up a little for the fact that all of them were very rude and acted like they couldn't be bothered making a good impression or representing their country. Everyone else was very nice, though, and eager to share their culture with spectators.

...

On the militaria forum I belong to, there's currently a big discussion about reproduction jump wings and whether or not it's ethical (or not) to reproduce original wings without marking them as copies or reproductions in any way.

One of the people on the board makes reproduction Sterling silver wings. They are cast from originals and include the original maker's hallmarks and no stamp or other marking identifying them as reproductions or copies. A lot of the time, these wings tend to end up in the hands of disreputable (or unknowledgeable) dealers who end up selling them on eBay or at militaria shows as "originals". So the debate has been whether it is moral or ethical not to mark reproductions, knowing full and well that they will be sold as originals, if not now, then down the line.

This particular dealer's stance is that, since it is not illegal to produce them as exact copies and he's not required by law to stamp them as reproductions, he won't. In other words, he just doesn't give a damn that people are selling them as originals because he's making money selling to those people.

I don't see why any reputable dealer would not mark their stuff. It doesn't take away from a set of wings to stamp them "copy" on the back. The reenactors who wear them and the veterans who pin them to their hats for reunions would still buy them, whether they are marked or not.

...

Speaking of wings, Trueman found these at one of the antiques shops outside of Fort Monroe the other day. World War II vintage - real, not reproduced - and in the original box.