Dorthy Mantooth is a saint!

On a lighter note, this picture is a blast from the past. It was taken my first year at UWGB when I was still swimming, and at one of the apex's of personal fitness (as you can tell, maybe). We were in Sarasota, Florida on the annual winter training trip. The guy in the picture with me is Dan, the self-proclaimed "meaniest person in the world." A little side-bar, I doubt I have ran into a more natural fit, well rounded, disciplined, athlete as him. Brad from high school is also on this list, but that is another story for a different time. Anyways, I think he threw wet sand at me, and I tried to chase him down the beach, but he eluded me. The picture was my reaction of how I felt. It was edited by a Seymour club swimmer, and thought it was cute/funny enough to post.

The title is the post is a reference to the mini-war going on between my current roommate. There is a dry-erase board outside of our room in the barracks, and we have a runny competition of who can make the best insults. The other day he said something about my mother, and that was my rebuttal. For those of you who do not know who "Dorthy Mantooth" is, she is the mother of Vince Vaughn's character in the movie "Anchor Man." At the end of the story, the picture and post title is a nod at 3 or 4 people.

Jeepers, the motherland is falling apart! My boy Aaron asked me to call him for something urgent. When I did, he told me his brother was busted big time (again) for drug-related issues. I think he was selling or something. Either way he was pretty tore up about it. Brokeback is a traditionalist like myself and very family oriented. We both share the desire to get our little brothers out of the "slump" they're in, but feel helpless to do so since the predictament they're in rest solely on their own shoulders. I think my own brother is on the way back up. He is living back home, got his haircut, shaved his beard, and has job interviews. Whether he likes it or not, acting like a responsible adult should lead him in the right direction of maturing.

The other depressing news I heard is my other friend, Joel. Now Joel holds a special place in my heart since he is labeled as my first "drinking partner." LOL, there were some nights at GB we got into some real mischief. For example we called one of our professor's office at 3am asking him some stupid question about some random paper that was due months down the road. Well, we ended up calling the wrong professor, in fact the department head of my intended major. The next day I'm in class (hung-over), and my professor asks me if I had a good night. It was awkward, but funny. Back to Joel, I shot him my first email since being over here. I've recenty been thinking about him, and felt guilty I haven't kept in better touch. He wrote back telling me that he broke up with his fiance last night, but the plot thickens. There was a domestic dispute, and story ends with her placed under arrest and spending the night in Brown County Jail. I'm the first person to admit I suck at empathy. After hearing all this bad news I just don't know what to say except to play Devil's advocate and arguing with them and saying something to the affect of they're a girl.

No lie, this post is taking way too long to complete, but I'm so easily side-tracked. I have friends skyping me, I drift away in facebookland, or I have to do this that or the other. I started this post at 1:00pm and it is not 9:10pm. UGH.

As most people know, I'm a planner, a traditionalist, a loyalist, a hopeless romantic, the list goes on. One thing I like is the ability to fall into a routine. Sundays have pretty much been the same since coming to Japan. A couple things have to happen. First, I get a haircut. Second I post a blog. Third is I wash my sheets. Fourth, I always think I'm going to get a chance to do some writing (but traditionally never really do). I clean the barracks with my roommate, and I always shower at night because of my clean sheets. I never shave on the weekends. I like to polish my shoes and/or my boots, and get an iron on the uniform. This is every Sunday. That brings comfort to me. Last of all, throughout the whole day I'm mentally scheduling my week especially what I'm doing out of working hours. Rarely do I write things down, except if I'm making a list of things to buy. It's a nasty habit of mine to forget to buy things, but I'm pretty good at not buying things that were never on the list. Excuse that double negative.

Moving on to more interesting issues. This past Thursday I was on duty. My leading chief petty officer (LCPO) was the chief of the day (COD) strangely enough. My leading petty officer (LPO, remember how the military is all about following a chain of command) had to talk to LCPO (Chief Bennett) about some stuff, and volunteered to ask him a favor for me since she was going to already be talking to him. My issue had to do with being excused to go to the navy college office and sit on a presentation regarding financial aid and the new GI Bill. The point is in this story the chain of command is directly to the COD, and not an issue to the LCPO. Tracking so far? So I had to go up to his office and talk to my chief behind a closed door. Chief petty officers are the coolest, most badass job in the navy I think, and I'm easiliy intimidated by the anchor (their insigna). I'll call an officer by their first name if I can, but a chief will ALWAYS be addressed as chief. So I'm up there asking for this simple favor and I'm visibly nervous. He asked my why I was nervous and I told him because I respected his rank so much, and yada yada. What we talked about next is the real reason why I'm telling this story.

Chief Bennett heard through the grapevine that I'm lacking focus at my job. That I seemingly want to do everything except excel as a pharmacy technician. How my goals are to make sailor of the year, go back to college, concentrate on coaching, etc. He told me to work on being a better pharmacy tech and the rest will take care of itself. That is the thing though. At my career development board later this week or early next week I'm going to tell them that not only is the NEC of pharmacy tech isn't for me, but I'm having doubts that being a corpsmen at all is in question. The medical field is something I have decided is something I will not pursue once I separate from the navy. This said, I see my life as put on hold while I'm serving my time in the navy. It kills me, I wish that wasn't the case, how I could embrace what I'm doing and just roll with the punches. The time spent in the navy is precious, and I want to be able to say I've done things I'll never able get to do ever again. At my board I will tell them at the earliest convience I'm interested in joining navy special warfare. Right now I'm looking at EOD and diving. The officer I PT with, Dr. Margraf, a former army ranger, has his jump school air wings. I asked him what jumping out of airplanes is like, and he told me go find out for myself. That was so badass. As long as I've been in the navy I've been captivated by special warfare, and it has always interested me except I never felt able because of the physical demands. With morning PT going so well, and I am noticing changes, the doors of opportunity are opening real wide for me again. I need to add about 10 more pull-ups to my count already, and knock off about 1:30 in my mile and a half time, and I'm at qualifying scores. I have the intelligence to do it. The only things holding me back is my contract obligation to serve as a pharmacy tech since the navy paid for my 'c' school to learn the job. I'm thinking about getting PT about 20 minutes earlier to workout just that much more.

Went and saw Pubic Enemies tonight. It's that new Johnny Depp movie about John Dillinger. Pretty good, but I didn't like the cinematography. I also watched the Legend of Bagger Vance last night. Not my favorite sports movie, but I do like Robert Redford directed movies. It's essentially about a golfer with PTSD. I also rented Bobby, and I'll watch it when I'm done here shining my boots.

This week I'll be going to navy PRIDE class. It's an alcohol awareness class and course to help instill pride in serving with the navy. Whatever, I need it to obtain my overnight liberty card.

We had a swim meet on Friday. Within the last 36 hours before the meet started, we had 4 kids drop-out of the meet for one reason or another. That really jagged the line-up. Kris and I were pulling our hair out and a little embarrassed at the turn-out, but that's just the way she goes. He and I are starting to think we put more stock into this than is really necessary. It's hard to be motivated when those above us seemingly aren't on the same page. At least in Seymour we had an athletic director who was gung-ho supportive. We were told that the swim team from a neighboring base wants to come down and compete in September. The thing is they swim year round. We currently just swim 2 days a week for 1 1/2 hours a day. This isn't enough time in the pool to be competitive. We a) need to be swimming at least 4 days a week for 2 hours a day and b) have to send out invitations to join this special team for the meet because frankly, a lot of my kids aren't ready to swim at the needed level to be that competitive. I refuse to be embarrassed in front of another base team with kids who should still be in swim lessons.

Speaking of Kris, things are going great. He has never seen the new Terminator movie, so I went with him. Afterwards we sat outside in the parking lot for an extra hour just talking about this and that. It was pretty cool. And to think at one time I was hesitant about having another coach assigned to me who I never met before. Did I mention before I was in the same boot camp class with his younger brother? Small navy. Kris is a huge assest to the team, and a liasion to meeting new people. I look forward to getting my overnight liberty card so I can go out and party with him without worrying about being back on base before midnight. We also frequently talk on MSN Messenger too talking about this and that. We get along great, and he reminds me a lot of people who I like to be with, primarily John in VA. Someone who I can just shoot the shit with and neither one of us running out of stories. It's awesome.

I'm on a tight budget, but things are going well and according to plan. Morale is high and I like the way things are going. One of the best parts of my week is being able to catch my mother on her way to work. I used to that in VA, and it's our little time together. Wish they were on skype more when I'm around, but that's just the way she goes. Oh, if you are planning on changing your address, please let me know. A letter takes 10 days to get to the midwest, and the worst thing is to find out you've moved on facebook the day after I sent you a letter. This only chaps my ass and suggests that you never wanted me to know you were moving in the first place. Then again, I'm not a mind reader.