bkakabk's Xanga

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 15:56:53 GMT

Almost 5 months since my last entry, huh? Wow...I would like to start blogging again. I just need to find the inspiration and the time...

On this day almost 2000 years ago, Mary found an empty tomb where my Lord Jesus Christ had been buried three days earlier. By the same power that He raised Himself from the dead, He lived a perfect life on earth, died on the cross, and has taken the punishment for all my sins. Whoever believes in Him will not die, but have everlasting life. He is risen!

What else is there to say?

I praise God for His blessings, His power, and for my eternal life in Him.

He is risen indeed!

Monday, November 13, 2006

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:57:53 GMT

Poland = awesome.

I went this weekend with several friends. “Several” meaning 18. Actually, they all work on base, but I didn’t meet many of them until this weekend. But me and 4 of my closest friends here were together for the whole time and we had quite the adventure…

The trip started poorly. We left Thursday night, and on the way up there was a huge wreck like 5 cars in front of us on the Autobahn, so our 1 hour drive to the airport turned into a 3 hour drive and we missed our flight. Not the end of the world except that we were flying a discount airline (Jet Blue equivalent…kind of) and the next flight wasn’t until Sunday. So rather than give up and go home, we decided to take a train to Poland (which was actually more expensive than the plane! 107 euro one way as opposed to 75 euro round trip. We drove over to the other airport/train station and found out that the next train left at 4:30 am and took 15 hours to get to Krakow…It was after midnight by then, so obviously at that point we weren’t going to bed, so we wandered around downtown Frankfurt trying to find a club or something to do. Nothing happening at all, so we ended up in a Turkish fast food restaurant/bar and hung out there all night. Then it was off to the train station for a very long ride. The train ride ended up being pretty cool. It would have been nice to know in advance that we were going to take it so we could have brought food, drinks, cards, and reading material, but it wasn’t too bad. It was really interesting to travel through Eastern Germany and Poland and see the progression from the rolling green hills and cute German towns to the flat, barren, industrialized Eastern Bloc. Many of the towns in Poland looked like WWII was yesterday instead of 60 years ago.

So instead of getting to Poland on Thursday night, we arrived at 8 on Friday night and made it to the hostel by 9. We dropped off our stuff, took a much needed shower, and headed out to dinner since our 5 minute transfers at the train stations hadn’t allowed us to eat since 9 that morning. We could have bought food to take with us then, but didn’t realize that there wouldn’t be food available on the rest of the trains (there was a dining car on the first one we took). The food in Poland was pretty interesting. I liked it, but then again I like anything edible. A lot of the people weren’t a fan of the true Polish food, so we ate a lot of Turkish stuff instead. After dinner we (the 5 of us) went to a club that had been recommended by the girl at the front desk of the hostel. In fact she said that she would be there. It was fun, but pretty weird. It was like this Polish punk club with a very strange clientele. We would have left except that one of my friends decided that the girl from the hostel was really cute, so like good wingmen, we hung out and let him do his thing.

The next day we woke up early to tour the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Berkenau. What a sobering experience. I didn’t know a whole lot about them, but now that I know a little I feel guilty for not knowing much much more. The stuff that went on was just unreal. We walked through the gas chamber and you could see the fingernail marks on the wall and stuff. Unreal…There were moments when I just wanted to run as fast and far as I could and pretend that it never happened. That so many people (1.6 million between the two camps) hadn’t been treated in ways that we don’t even treat insects. I get shivers just thinking about it.

Anyways, that night we wandered around the city for a while, ate some more Polish stuff (Perogis for me!), and found another club. This one was much better. Much much better. About 15 of us went and I had such a great time. It was funny – after a while, everyone in the club started imitating us. As long as the Americans were doing it, the locals would too. This includes screaming “I like…High five” in your best Borat accent and giving high fives in the middle of the dance floor. Hilarious.

We didn’t get to bed until after 5, so the next day we slept in and then had time for a couple hours of shopping before catching the bus back to the airport. Unlike most European countries, Poland is way cheap. Coming back ended up being a little exciting too. There were some problems with the bus from Krakow to the airport in Katowice, and we barely made the plane. Then since we had caught the train out of Frankfurt and caught the return flight to Hahn (where were supposed to fly out of) we had to rent a car and drive to Frankfurt before we could even come home.

So many more stories from the trip, but I’m pretty much tired of typing. What an awesome city/country, though. I’m going back sometime. Soon hopefully. Our next trip is the famous Christmas Market in Nurnberg sometime in December and then Amsterdam for New Years. I can’t wait!

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:47:17 GMT

These are bad pictures of Aimee and I but they're pretty much all I have. We're officially "dating" as of about 2 weeks ago, although we've know each other for over 3 months and have been close ever since the first day. I waited this long to say anything because for the first couple months I had no clue what was going on or what I wanted and and I didn't feel like answering a bunch of questions :) Some of you know that I was quite opposed to the idea of trying another long distance relationship (hence me having no clue what was going on or what I wanted), but she surprised me. If anyone wants more details of how we met or why I'm willing to date someone in Colorado I'm more than happy to give them. I just don't really feel like putting them on the internet...

Friday, September 29, 2006

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:05:39 GMT

Bleah...I forgot how long 13 hour work days are and how stressful my job is! And how hard it is to come home to a super energetic dog when all you want to do is crash on the couch. I'm still really happy to be back home, though :) With any luck I'll have time tomorrow or Sunday to write another post during work. Weekends aren't usually too busy, but I still have to be there.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:58:28 GMT

Yet again, I've fallen off the face of the xanga planet...It's one of those downhill spiral things. After I go a couple weeks without updating, it's like "well, what's one more week?" But I'm back now! We'll see how long it lasts ;) I'm back from the states now after 3 1/2 months. I got my dog this morning which is way way exciting! I was so happy to see him and he seemed equally thrilled to see me, so that was fun :) The lady at the kennel couldn't stop telling me how great he was. She was impressed that he knew me since I was gone for so long. She said usually when people are gone that long it takes a while for the dog to warm back up to them. She was like "I see so many dogs that I don't immediately fall in love with them very often. But the first time I looked into Rocky's eyes I fell in love." And then she rambled on for like 5 more minutes about how sweet he was. It made me really happy to hear that he was so well behaved and had such a good time! She said her son doesn't usually play with the dogs, but was out playing frisbee with Rocky almost every day. And I guess he made a bunch of doggy friends too :) Enough about my dog, but I'm so relieved that leaving him for so long didn't permanently scar him or anything!!

I got in yesterday and last night was a going away party for 3 people of the office, 2 of who I knew really well. I thought about skipping it because I was really tired when I got home. I went straight from the airport to work to pick up my car. I stopped in, said hi to my new boss, cleared the 10000 e-mails out of my "deleted items" folder, did a couple other little errands like checking my mail, and got home about 1. At that point I knew I would be sleeping and then at the party, so I decided to let Rocky spend one more night in the kennel since I wouldn't be around anyways. I went to bed about 2:30, woke up at 5 and was really really tired and grumpy. But I decided to go anyways, and I'm so glad I did!!! It was great. I sat with 2 of the 3 people who were going away (the 2 I knew) and a couple other people, including my new boss. We had a great time and it was really nice to get to know Major Reburn in a social setting first. We had chatted for like 3 minutes earlier that day, but it was all work stuff. He's so cool! Super super chill, really nice, really easy to get along with, and hilarious. We got along great :) It was really cool, too - Capt Gladden was one of the ones leaving. He trained me in my current job and in the 2 months I spent with him, I learned so much! I really look up to him as a professional role model in every sense of the word. Anyway, as everyone was leaving and saying goodbye and stuff, Capt Gladden pulled me aside. He basically said that he wanted to tell me personally how impressed he was with me. He had a bunch of really nice compliments for me and wanted to make sure I wasn't thinking about getting out of the Air Force any time soon (the Air Force has way too many young officers in my career field, so it'd be really easy to leave). I respect him and his opinion a ton, so it was nice to hear that he appreciates the way I work too!

Hmm, here's a random story about my favorite quote from my time in Mississippi (I was reminded of it today somehow, which is why I'm thinking about it). I'm not sure how many people will appreciate it - it might be one of those things that you had to be there, but I thought it was good :) So my class is on a break, all standing around watching Fox News. A story comes on about Bill Clinton and a kid in my class says "didn't I hear that he was recently diagnosed with mental problems? Isn't he going crazy now?" I, being in a room full of military who are vastly conservative, blurt out "hasn't he always been?" It wasn't terribly funny or clever, but it drew a pretty impressive reaction from a couple girls in my class who got upset and stormed out of the room. I felt kind of bad and apologized for offending them. Lesson learned about making assumptions. Just because someone is in the military doesn't mean that they dislike the former President as much as I do. Anyways, fast forward a couple days when somehow the story has gotten around class. Everyone knew about my comment and their reaction. We're sitting there in class wondering why the mascot for the school is the Mad Ducks. Our teacher starts telling the story of how someone put it on the ballot as a joke and enough people voted for it as a joke that it won and now they're stuck with it. She finishes the story and without missing a beat a guy in the class says "well, isn't that how President Clinton was elected too?" Everyone laughed and immediately turned to look at the two girls who were, of course, fuming. Everyone then turned back to look at the guy who said it and he's staring right at the girls too, with this ridiculous grin on his face. He's about 40 years old, and just doesn't care what other people think. Anyways, his quote was great, but the fact that he said it solely to get a rise out of the girls made it a classic ECOT moment :)

And thus ends my random story and this blog...

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 14:34:12 GMT

I had a great time dancing in Pensacola last night! I went with a friend I met in Alabama (who's now here with me), his friend, and 2 girls I met here. A couple people dropped out at the last minute, but that's fine. My friend from AL has done swing before, but he's a ballroom dancer, so it's that weird kind ;)

Anyways, we got there a little early, so I went downstairs for the intermediate lesson. The room was packed, the average age was about 12 or 13, and they announced that they were going teach us how to do a tuck turn. Right. Also, I had seen the instructors dancing earlier and the guy was not very good at all. So I went upstairs and joined the beginner class for a while just to kill time until the dance started. After 30 minutes of “step, step, rock step” (no exaggeration), I excused myself.

Things were better after that, though! The scene reminded me a lot of Cincinnati. The floor was 90% brand new beginners doing east coast, so the music selection was all uptempo classic swing songs. There were, however, 3 very good follows and several other above average ones, so I got some fun dances in :)

The best part was that everyone was so accommodating and so friendly! There were well over 120 people there, but every single one of the people in charge of the scene came up to me to chat, thank me for coming, etc. I was really impressed. It was also funny because every time I dance I could see everyone staring and hear them commenting. It reminded me of dancing with Kate at Purdue! My style isn’t that weird is it? Almost everyone there who knew lindy did Savoy style and my favorite follow of the night was very much Hollywood style, so I guess we did look pretty out of place, but still…

All in all a great night. I’m definitely hoping to go back again while I’m here…

Today my brother and sister-in-law are driving down from Alabama to visit. Yay!!

Friday, August 25, 2006

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 11:10:34 GMT

I’m tired of reading and crossword puzzles, so I’m typing this from the air somewhere over Mississippi on my way to Keesler Air Force Base, in Biloxi, MS. Yay for ECOT (Expeditionary Communications Officer Training). I’m a communications officer, and it’s our basic tech school (it used to be BCOT, for “Basic,” but the Air Force loves to change buzz words every couple years or so. Right now everything is “Expeditionary!”). The school is highly useful for those people without a technical degree, but not so much for someone with a Masters in Computer Science. Whatever. I’m sure it’ll be at least somewhat interesting…Plus I have at least one friend who I know will be there, which always makes these things more fun. I’m sure I’ll meet people there, but I always hate those first couple days where I know no one!

So, randomness…I was watching the Colbert Report the other night and he’s absolutely hilarious. I love Jon Stewart too, but Colbert is even better. My favorite quote of the night was “The White House cafeteria has returned to calling 'freedom fries' 'french fries.' I don't get it! Changing the name to 'freedom fries' was arguably this Republican congress' greatest accomplishment! Of course, if it was a Democrat congress they'd be called 'surrender fries.'” I love it! I’ve said this before, but I really appreciate anyone who can make fun of everyone, just for the sake of being funny. Both Stewart and Colbert obviously have very different political viewpoints than I do (i.e. they’re super-liberal and I’m super-not), but I love the fact that they are willing to recognize the idiocy of their own party as well as that of the Republicans. I am much more willing to laugh at people like them than at some people who choose to attack one side over and over again *coughLettermancough.*

Colbert also had a piece about how AOL accidentally leaked records of what their users had searched for. It was hilarious (as usual) and offered many tips for how to disguise your online identity. The best suggestion was to include fake searches among your real searches so no one knew which was which. His example list of searches included stuff like “’male prostitutes’, ‘whales,’ ‘Brittney Spears sex,’ ‘politics,’ etc.” I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like that. He said that some were things he really wanted to know about and the others he already knew everything about.

WARNING: COMPUTER SCIENCE GEEK MOMENT IN 5…4…3…2…1…

Anyways, I thought it was interesting that one of his suggestions was to type with your non-dominant hand. It got a big laugh from the audience and it was funny, but it’s not quite as ridiculous as it sounds. Did you know that you have a typing fingerprint? It’s fairly easy to write a program that will recognize a person based on their typing. Everyone has a different way they type – different lengths between certain key combinations, etc. It only takes a couple samples to be able to get a pretty good fingerprint for them. It’s like handwriting I guess…You can tell a forged signature not only from the way the letters are shaped, but also by the width of the line at each point in the letter (corresponding to the speed the pen was moving at the time). The typing fingerprint is currently used as an additional form of authentication in some systems – you can’t just type a password, you have to type it in your own unique way. Cool, huh?

So now it’s a couple weeks after I started typing this entry. Class is going well. It’s kind of dry, but not too bad. I have great classmates again, which always helps, and our teacher is a lot of fun. And there’s another swing dancer in the class! He and I are going to Pensacola tonight and have managed to recruit at least 5 others to come with us :) Including at least 3 follows, so maybe we can have a dance party here some night too! I miss dancing…

Finally, a random link. Some people really do think that the Apollo 11 moon landing was a big government conspiracy. This parody page cracks me up.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:03:58 GMT

I just won $183 playing Texas Hold 'Em at the Imperial Palace Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi! Yay! Not bad for my first time in a casino ;) Real update coming soon, I promise. It's already partially written, but I've been busy...

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 22:31:48 GMT

Short and boring, but check out these lyrics!

"I am a hostage to my own humanity
Self detained and forced to live in this mess I've made
And all I'm asking is for You to do what You can with me
But I can't ask You to give what You already gave...

... And this life sentence that Im serving
I admit that Im every bit deserving
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair "

Amazing...

Friday, August 11, 2006

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:28:52 GMT

Not a whole lot to update on, but I'm up late and not tired, so I figured I'd do something (semi-) productive :) I had an absolutely fantastic night dancing on Wednesday! I can't even express how much fun last it was. I can only think of a couple nights of dancing ever that even came close...One at ASSLX and one or two in Dayton where it just felt like everything clicked and I could just relax, dance, and hang out.

First of all, I got to see and dance with many of my favorite people ever. Almost everyone I wanted to see was there (including a couple I didn't expect!) and it seemed like I had never left. It's so sad to think that next Wednesday they'll all be there dancing and I'll be in Biloxi, Mississippi :( Second of all, I got to talk to a couple of people I met either that night or very recently and I just had a great time. Christine, who I had met earlier that week, comes to mind (I had a great time trading insults with her :) ), as does another new follow, but I can't for the life of me remember her name! I am relatively smart in some areas, and so freaking stupid in others (like remembering names)! Grrr...And finally, I received many wonderful comments! It sounds shallow (and it probably is), but I was incredibly flattered by some of the things people told me last night...Just simple things that probably weren't even supposed to be complements. Like "you really are as good as everyone says you are." Or "I don't know you, but we're dancing because you're really good." And many others....Whether they're true or not, it was still nice to hear :)

Tonight was also fun, but not in the same way. I went dancing in Cincy and there were very few competent dancers....Joy, of course, and a couple instructors, and a couple other regulars, but the majority were very new and very bad dancers. Since when did I care about how good a dancer they are?!?! I don't know, but good dancers are definitely more fun!

Ahh - I all of a sudden got tired so bedtime for me! Good night :)