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New blog

I’ve installed the WordPress blog software… my own attempt at creating a blog wasn’t too successful, unfortunately.

Here’s the posts from my old blog:

Date: 09 Nov 2004

I was just minding my own business, putting the final checkmarks in the checklist to spin up the Control Center for the MARE (Major Accident Response Exercise) we were having in prep for this weekend’s air show (the scenario was basically Ramstein, 1988, when a team of Italian stunt pilots collided in midair, and one of the planes went into the crowd below)… when the crash phone rings.

“In-Flight Emergency, Wildcat 4. F-18. Single engine failure. Landing Runway 21-Left, will take barrier. ETA 5 minutes.”

OK, fine. We get a couple dozen IFE’s a day. No biggie. I finished writing down the info and hung up the crash phone.

BOOM! I swear, I even felt the friggin’ ground shake.

Ninety seconds later, the crash phone goes off again.

“Ground Emergency, Wildcat 4.” Oh, $#!+. “F-18. Pilot ejected 10 miles NE of field.” That’s less than five miles from my office. I looked out the window. I could even see the pillar of black smoke rising into the air.

It was then I knew this was going to be a bad day…

Date: 23 Oct 2004It’s been a while since I posted something here…

The site was down for a while earlier this month, because the domain name registration expired and I didn’t realize it was even due. That’s been taken care of, obviously, and it’s good for another two years.

I, ah, “acquired” a copy of the first episode of the new Battlestar Galactica series, which has begun airing in England, but won’t premiere here in the US until January. It’s excellent, and I sincerely hope it gets picked up for a second season if they continue to produce more episodes like we’ve seen so far from the mini and this premiere.

Date: 13 Sep 2004Well, it’s been a wild couple of weeks. My brother’s finally home from the Gulf… right when my unit is in the middle of (yet another) major exercise… I’ve been working LOOONG hours, including weekends (it’s Sunday night, and I just got home from putting in another 14+ hour day).

Fortunately, he’ll be in California at my dad’s house for about another week after the exercise ends, so even though I can’t get leave to go visit there, we’re planning on having him and my dad come out here for a day or two.

The car’s running a lot better now. The water pump died on it right around the same time as I bought it, so the dealer replaced it at no charge (despite the “as-is” sale). There’s still a couple other problems, but at least it’s not red-lining the temperature gauge after a couple blocks’ driving…

And on another note, I’ve been hard at work on my latest Star Trek fanfiction story, “Tomed.” It has a (mostly) original cast, set on a timeship under the joint control of Starfleet and the Department of Temporal Investigations. It begins in 2382, about three years after Star Trek: Nemesis, albeit in my “Version 2.0” timeline. The thrust of the story involves a faction in the Romulan Civil War (which broke out after Shinzon’s coup in Nemesis) traveling back in time to the Tomed Incident in 2311, and the crew of the Timeship Hawking are sent back to stop them from changing history. I’m about 8620 words and 50-odd pages into it, and it’s about 3/4 to 2/3 completed.

If you want a sneak peek, check it out: tomed.rtf.
Date: 02 Sep 2004

Whew…!

Finally got the car today. It’s 9:30 (nighttime, folks), and I’m only JUST getting home…

It’s not a bad car, overall. It starts, it moves, and it’ll get me to and from work and school every day. That’s what I wanted – no, what I NEEDED. There’s a few problems, but that’s to be expected for a sub-$5000 car. Damaged windshield, rough idle that eventually sputters and dies if idling too long… it’s gonna need a tune-up, and soon. But it starts, which is better than my old car.

Date: 01 Sep 2004

Well, I had the first session of my Math 97 class today… I went in knowing it wasn’t going to be an easy class, so that was no surprise. It’s two math classes (95 & 96) merged into one; six credits crammed into a five-credit class. Math has never been my strong suit, but I need to push myself on this. I’m only taking two classes, so I think I can handle it. I’ve got a good four hours of homework that’s due on Thursday, though, so we’ll see how that goes. At least I grasped the review concepts that we went over today easily enough, even if it has been a good three years since the last time I took a math class (albeit unsuccessfully, due to my lack of attendance at the time…)

On another note, I should be able to get my new car tomorrow. It’s payday, and I’ll be able to get the paperwork for my insurance taken care of during the day (probably around lunch), then pick up the car in the afternoon. Once I’ve got those, I can get it registered on base and I’ll be good to go. Instead of hiring a tow truck, though, I’m hoping I can get a friend of mine to help out there… we used a tow rope to get it from Area II down to main base, where it’s at right now; hopefully we can do the same to get it from there to the dealership, which is right outside the gate. It’s a fairly straight shot if we go down Vegas and turn onto Nellis from there. We’ll see… depends on whether my friend would be willing to tow it or not.

Date: 30 Aug 2004

Very cool news this morning… I’m getting dressed for work and listening to my MP3s on shuffle right now, but I just got home from PT this morning… I knocked off another minute from my run time!

Back in April when I first took my PT test, it took me 21:13 to run the 1-1/2 mile course, far longer than it should. I only got 3 points for that time out of 50, and another 17 seconds and I would’ve gotten 0 points. I retook the test in July and ran it in 18:30, a significant improvement worth 15 points. I ran it this morning at PT in 17:30! Last week was the first time I’d been able to finish the run without stopping to walk, and today I knocked a full minute off my time, which hadn’t changed when I ran it last week.

All in all, not a bad way to start the day.

Date: 29 Aug 2004

Woohoo! I fixed the two biggest problems with the blog: the single quote problem and the paragraph problem! There’s still a few other bugs but they’re not as big an issue for the moment.

I’m finally going back to school again. I’m registered in two classes this semester at the Community College of Southern Nevada: MATH 97 and COM 101. I’m going back for an English degree, and this time the Air Force is paying 100% of my tuition. Classes start on Tuesday… the same day as my squadron’s got Prime BEEF Day… ugh.

Date: 29 Aug 2004

OK… I’ve fixed one problem… the script would, for whatever reason, return a \ in front of every ‘ I’d type in, resulting in some pretty mangled looking text…

Now, it’s still having trouble every time I try to have more than one paragraph… LOL. Let’s see if I can fix that, too…

Date: 29 Aug 2004

OK, I think I’ve fixed at least some of the problems with the script running the blog… We’ll see if I was right if this goes through properly.

A bit of other news… On Thursday, I finally got another vehicle at a used car dealership down the street from my apartment. Between the trade-in on my old car, which isn’t running right now, and my down payment, I was able to put down nearly half of what they wanted for the car up front. Now I’m just waiting until payday so I can actually give them the cash for the down payment and take possession of the car.

Date: 29 Aug 2004

I’ve been typing away madly for what seems like the last 48 hours updating both this site and FedNet. Mostly on this one, though, as evidenced by the new interface, the completion of the Email & Guestbook scripts, finally getting the Links section up and running, and the addition of this Blog…

The Blog still needs some work… the basics of it work fine, but it’s still got some bugs I need to work out that I haven’t yet figured out how to eliminate. I’m sure I’ll figure ’em out eventually.

Date: 29 Aug 2004I’ve got a blog now. I resisted the trend for a LONG time, but I’ve finally broken down and started one of my own. Rather than just use some Blog service out there, however, I programmed my own with a little PHP know-how. Let’s see where this goes…

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