I started this blog up LONG AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...
Okay, not really, but this blog did start life as Mental Revolutions. It was supposed to be edgy and kewl and make people think. After re-reading it after many years of growing I realized that I had been writing a rather boring blog about my life. So, I made the change over in name and deleted all my banter from 3 years ago. Where before I was attempting to be edgy and kewl, I now will attempt to be boring and lame. Well, maybe not boring or lame, maybe mildly entertaining? Ah, who cares? I'm doing this for me! Its all about the ME from here on in.
So, who is attempting to bore you with the daily bullshit of their lives you might wonder? I am Brian. Born and raised in Kentucky. As with many angsty young idjits, I decided I wanted to get away from home and go out and see the world. I realized how much I loved Louisville fairly soon after leaving. Of course, my method of leaving Kentucky was the United States Air Force.
I can't really say what made me decide on the Air Force. Maybe it was that catchy slogan, "Aim High." Nah. I was originally intending to join the Navy but let the recruiter talk me out of it. Not really having any place to live and the roof over your head being a 1978 Chevy Cube Van mighth ave had something to do with it. Working for $5 an hour, even in 1990, just wasn't all that condusive to maintaining a place to live. So, the military seemed like the way to go. Of course, I was an idiot when I decided that I HAD to work on aircraft. Of all the hair-brained ideas I have ever had, that was the worst. IF I would have gotten into computers or civil engineering or just about ANYTHING else, I think I would have been happier than what I ended up with. Aircraft Fuel Systems Mechanic. This was as about as stupid a decision as when I decided to go to Lindsey Wilson College instead of Campbellsville College. Great art program at CC, I already knew people there, and lots of other great reasons to have gone there. Instead, I decided to take a full-ride scholarship based upon my SAT scores. CC would have ended up being MOSTLY free for me but the allure of not having to work on campus and not having to pay anything was just too much. Of course, when, at the end of first semester, I got the note to go see the finance office and was told that I owed them $2400 which was amazingly enough the EXACT amount I would qualify for with a Gauranteed Student Aid Loan, I decided that I had made a huge mistake. So, anyway, back to the Air Force....
So, Kunsan wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. During Basic the excursion to Kuwait had kicked off and it looked like a lot of fun but I was happy to be on the other side of the continent from all that crap. Of course, I didn't get to really enjoy being in Korea for several months until the riots outside the gates died down. Apparently, 4 pallets of rice departed the base every payday and OSI stepped in and brought that to a stop and it pissed off some people. You'd think that a country that grows MOSTLY rice wouldn't be that upset about the influx of imported rice but apparently American rice is better than Korean rice. Who knows? Once I did get downtown, though, I had a blast. I met up with college students going to Kunsan National University who were taking a conversational English class and would run around with them, seeing the sites, helping them to learn better English, teaching them the slang, and generally acting the part of the hooligan and thoroughly enjoying myself. But, its only a year tour there and then I was off to Dover, DE.
I was soon to learn that the Air Force could be better than I had thought in some ways but be in worse locations, even if I was stateside. Dover... what can I tell you? Not much good. Of course, as with most places I've been, once I got there and settled in some, I had a good time. Dover itself was fairly boring. It is fairly centrally located, though. Its is 1.5 hours to Philly, DC, Baltimore, and Ocean City. Mind you, that is driving distance and, since I didn't have a car for a long time, I didn't get there often. Eventually, I made some friends in the shop and we would go to these places and have some fun. This was, too, the part of the AF that was fun because, at that time, we had a shop chief that was ready to retire and was very easy going. The shop had about 30 military guys and about hte same number of ARTS. ARTS are Air Reserve Technicians. They wear civilian clothes during the work week and, once a month, work a weekend in uniform. During the week they HAVE to be at work or get charged leave so, on those days when we didn't have any work at the shop, they would stand out front and wave us off. We would return to the barracks and call and ask what was up. Sometimes, we wouldn't have an aircraft on station and none due in for the whole week and would just call in every day to see if we needed to come into work. Those were some good times. But all good things must come to an end. That boss retired and we got some gung-ho asshole who liked to not only micro-manage the work place but people's personal lives, as well. By that time, I was running around off-base with locals and enjoying things. I eventually moved off-base and had one of the coolest apartments that I have ever lived in. It was on the 3rd floor over a lawfirm. I was working grave shift at the time and would sleep during their hours of work and, when I woke up, I could crank my music up to a respectable volume and do whatever I wanted. It was just down the street from my favorite bar, JT Smithers, a few blocks from a comic shop and, later, a coffee shop where all my friends hung out. Pretty much, it was an idealic location. Dover was, also, where I was finally able to get involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).
I, eventually, grew tired of the constant intrusions into my personal life by my shop chief and put in for orders. Actually, I was putting in for orders every 4 months until I broke down and put in for orders to go back to Korea. Since I had jsut reenlisted, I got them. Kunsan the second time around was probably more fun than the last time because I knew what to expect, what to take with me, and I really tried hard to MAKE things perfect. I was fairly successful. I took a nice mountain bike with me (Gary Fisher Hoo-Koo-E-Koo) and was able to get into biking pretty heavily. I was buying lots of CDs and started DJing alternative music night at the hospital's hootch. I met a lot of great people, ate a lot of great food, travelled a bit more and generally enjoyed my time over there. After my year was up, I headed out to my follow on, Hill AFB, in Utah.
I had been to Hill before I went to Korea the first time for an airframe specific class for the fuel system on the F-16. I had really loved the mountains here and had been trying to get back here. I had started skiing while in college and had really fallen in love with it. I had always wanted to learn to ski and used to get magazines about it and dream of coming out to Colorado and Utah to ski. While I was here in 1990, I recall it was raining coming back from class one day. Having no wheels, I was soaked by the time I got to the barracks so I went to change, warm up and relax for a few hours before going to the show hall to eat. It was about 2 hours later that I opened the door and found that in the last 2 hours more than 2 inches of snow had fallen. It kept falling for several days and a bunch of us planned to go skiing at Snowbasin. We had rented a vehicle to go up, skis and all the gear we needed to go. Then, of course, while we were all together, we decided to go get some alcohol. The following morning, most of us were still up and drinking and never made it up to the mountain. While in Dover, I got back into skiing and was able to hit a few eastern area resorts and, during my last tour of Korea, I got into snowboarding. Korea was a lot like east coast skiing, wet, hard packed and icy. So, I was totally unprepared for the light, fluffy powder that welcomed me when I got stationed here.
So, the AF in Utah was pretty much what I had always expected. People were, for the most part, okay. The job was, pretty much, okay. The mountain biking was phenominal. The boarding was like nothing I have ever experienced before. I spent 4 months on a Temporary Duty Assignment (TDY) to Saudi Arabia. Got to go to Vegas for a little TDY, too. Fun place. I met a lady who I moved in with and ended up living with for about 3 years. Just when I was ready to ask her to marry me, she decided to leave. Bad break-up there. By then I was out of the Air Force, had worked for a contractor for 9 months and gotten picked up by civil service. I'm still doing that job. Same job as I did in the Air Force but no more trips to the desert or third world countries. Also, when I work weekends on civil service, I get paid overtime. The pay is better, as well. In the last several years, I made some startling discoveries about myself and life in general. Partly due to the women currently in my life, Holly.
So, here I am. I've always dreamed of doing things in my life and never really pursued them until recently. Getting out of the AF, I had $12,500 and blew that with a lot of help from the now ex-girlfriend. Of course, when you are dating a loser who will not pursue better for herself, it tends to drag you down. I was paying for everything but her lunches at work and her car payments, though I had made the down payment on her car. With Holly, though, its amazing. I mean, besides feeling like I am with an equal, she pays her own way. Hell, she makes more money than I do! WE get to experience a lot of the best things in life together. People say that money can not buy happiness and, I guess, for the most part, that's true. But, damn, when you DO have money, you do get to go and do a lot of fun stuff! The discoveries I have made are. in part, do to the fact that I am able to afford to do things I have always wanted. A few years back, I decided that punching lift ticekts at Powder Mountain Ski Area (my fun job) just wasn't enough any more. So, I took the classes, did the time and became a ski patroller. So, this kid from Kentucky had come full circle. I went from dreaming about skiing the big resorts to not just skiing them but working at one of them. It made me realize that no one was going to fulfill my dreams for me. So, this past summer, I got off my ass and started pursuing things on my own.
I realized in the Spring that the loan I took out against my retirement fund was going to be paid off and that I wanted to take out another one. I wanted to use that money to pursue some of my dreams. Well, that is exactly what I did. I used some of that money and bought a motorcycle. I did the research. I looked around. It took some time but I eventually tracked down the exact make, year and model of motorcycle that I wanted. I am now the proud owner of a 2003 BMW R1150GS Adventure. Along the same lines, I found out that they were offering scuba diving lessons on base. So, I fessed up the money, bought hte gear I needed and got certified. I did some other fun stuff with the money, as well, but, for the most part, that was the beginning of what I am trying to dedicate the rest of my life towards.
It feels like, to me, that I have spent most of my life getting by and trying to survive the world. I got to experience a lot of intersting things along the way but that was more incidental than it was intentional. So, that is what I want to do, now. I don't want to be a tourist or an unintentional guest in life's adventures. I want to make my own. I want to be focused and driven towards goals. I want to intentionally go out and experience all that I can of life. Maybe then my little blog can be a testament of a Not-S0-Boring life.
Until next time...
Brian
