Occam's Razor

Lessons in useless knowledge 101:

Occam's Razor is basically a principle of parsimony. It states that given a number of models for a situation, the simplest one should always be chosen as a basis to build from. The principle is mostly used in universal models for mathmatics and philosophy.

So what's the point you ask? I'm gunna try to use this idea to keep my posts shorter so that I can give you, the reader that only exists as a figment of my imagination, more subject matter to read in fewer words. And I thought it was neat.

In other news, the internet is finally back up at work and I have something to fill in the dull spots with again. This weekend was a bit mind numbing workwise because it was down. Man, I was bored. And unfortunately I have to work for New Year's Eve. Oh well. And my resolution this year is no resolutions at all. Because we all know you can bullshit yourself all you want, but you won't keep them. More to come later, including a pic from Toys for Tots.

Festivus For The Rest Of Us

That's little title is from a great Seinfeld episode, watch it you ever get a chance. The Costanzas replace the traditional Christmas tree with a plain aluminum pole and celebrate Festivus with accusations and wrestling. Hehe, Festivus came to mind because this really doesn't feel like Christmas here. The weather is in the mid 70's and I'm at work. Nothing says Christmas like sitting inside a 10 ft by 10 ft room all day. lol. All in all it's been pretty good though as far as Christmas away from home goes.

Yesterday we did our Toys For Tots. We raised more toys this year than many of the previous years. We had to enough to give one to all the kids at the orphanage and some extras for poor kids that came in off the streets.

Also, last night I had this strange recurring dream again. The dream involves me being underwater and at some point I discover that I can breathe the water. Some of the details of it change from time to time. Like sometimes I'll be holding my breath and panic when I realize I can't reach the surface in time and when I can't hold my breath any longer I discover I can breath the water. Or sometimes it's just the simple realization that I can and I start doing it. This time it was the latter and I was just chillin' out swimming around. It's the strangest dream to be having over and over, I wonder why.

And the tie it all up with a bit of good news...I found out tonight that I am getting promoted to Corporal on January 1st in excess of 113 points! That means I'll get to keep my 100 bonus points towards Sergeant! I can look forward to a faster than usual promotion to E5 in the year ahead now. =)

From Bad To Worse...(But Not Really)

Ok, that title might be a little deceptive, I'll explain a toward the end. Things are a lot better since Thursday at any rate. Friday evening Sgt Morgan and I left the house with Anna, Andrea, Gabby, and their friend Becker to go see what was happening in the night life of Brasilia. We tried Trends but it didn't look like too many people were there so we went to Swingers. The line there was out the door and around the block and even though we got the bouncers to let us go to the front of the line it was still going to be a long wait to get inside. So we went to Macedamias. There was a decent crowd there and it was open bar which is definitely a plus. The music was good when we got there too, it was advertised as all hip-hop/rap night...or at least we thought. After about 30 minutes some band setup and started playing, they weren't all that great. Nonetheless I had a good time just hanging out with those folk and unwinding, especially after the day prior. I was suppose to meet up with another girl, Amy, wherever we ended up. But I couldn't get a hold of her and it just fell through. I feel like a bit of a jerk because that's the second time it's happened and she left to go to the states yesterday. Hopefully I can make it up to her when she gets back.

And now for last night and the mini-fiasco that ensued. I stayed home because I had to work this morning and you can't stay out past midnight the day before you have this shift. But the rest of the guys went out, including the one that has a midnight curfew because he missed the 0300 curfew last time he went out (and got caught). And guess what happened last night? He got caught again. I'm playing a computer game around 0100 and I hear a knock on my patio door in my room. It's my det commander at the house to do an after hours check...uh-oh. So he sees that Mike's not home and the interrogations begin. This was a little stressful since I was the only one home but thankfully I didn't have to bear much of the brunt of it. The det commander was already pissed because the guys were covering for him and when Mike got home he let him have a piece of his mind about some stuff. Now we have two factions it seems: detachment and detachment commander. So much for unit cohesiveness. I hope it isn't really like that now because that kind of rift can cause things could get real tense around in a place like this. As long as I don't get dragged into this it won't be such a big deal. I'm trying to get promoted next month, dammit.

In other news, I gotta quit being so verbose in my posts. You'd think I was writing an effin' novel or something! But that is two days worth of posts in one. What do you think?

On A Better Note

I did think of one thing that happened today that was good. I checked my composite score today and it was a 1721! Let me break it down so you'll know what I'm talking about.

In the Marines, to get promoted to Corporal you are given a score each quarter. At the beginning of each month a "cutting" score is released for your job. If your composite score meets or beats this cutting score you get promoted. For example, the score for my job for the month of November was a 1570. So if I had a 1721 last month I would have gotten promoted.

Anyways, there's a good chance the score won't go above 1621 in January. If it doesn't not only will I get promoted but I'll get to keep a 100 of my points to go towards Sergeant. The only thing that has me worried is that there are about 20 Lance Corporals that are over 1621, that's a lot of Marines to promote to Corporal. I'm afraid that might cause the cutting score to jump up above 1621. We'll see what happens a few days prior to the new year I guess!

*Update*
You may also notice on the right I have also added a link bar. More to come later. Enjoy.

It's Been One Of Those Days...

...You know the kind I'm talking about. Nothing seemed to go right today. Sometimes I wish I could just get away from all of mankind for a while. When the day comes that I make my fortune, I'm going to use part of it to buy one of those cheap islands you can get up in Canada somewhere and build a self-sufficient hideaway on it. And then I'm going to declare it my own country so I don't have to pay taxes or report what I'm doing to anyone. heh, yeah...right.

About an hour after I woke up I got a call to come into work this morning. Now I wasn't scheduled to stand duty until 10PM. But this kind of thing is normal during the week so I didn't mind so much. I wasn't sure what I was being summoned for. And what happens? When I get to the embassy my commander tells me I didn't need to come. WHAT?! You dragged my ass out of the house for nothing??

Ok, ok...no big deal, I needed to do some stuff for Toys for Tots anyways. Nope, not going to do that though, I can't get a hold of the people I need to to tie up some loose ends. But the commander took the vehicle for a doctor's appointment. Now I'm getting irritated. First of all, the vehicle is for the watchstanders so they can get around. Second of all, the detachment commander has his own vehicle! But he insists on using our van...I don't understand why. So I'm stuck at work for an extra 2 1/2 hours with jack squat to do.

I finally go home and grab a bite to eat and relax for about an hour. Then we load back up and come to the embassy for language class. We just started taking these classes to learn Portugese which is pretty cool. I'm somewhat frustrated at this point which makes dealing with a foreign language a little more difficult. During the class though, every time I had a question the jackass next to me would throw in his two cents at the same time the teacher was addressing my question. Having input coming from two directions was bad enough put together with the fact that he didn't know what he was talking about. He thinks he knows a lot of Portugese already because he knows Spanish, I just wish he would shut his cock sock sometimes. Irritation level has reached high.

We go home not to long after that and I'm glad, this should be a restful period before I come on duty. So I decide I'll unwind by playing a video game over the internet, that's pretty relaxing for me most of the time. So I load it up and I'm playing for a good hour or so and all the sudden the game cuts out. Huh, what's going on here? I notice that my wireless connection to my router is gone, hmmm. Well it's acted up before, but I better go check on it. Lo and behold, it's unplugged. Now I'm downright pissed. More than an hour of progress in my game was just wasted because one of the technological retards in my detachment decided to unplug it without asking about it first. There's a little more to than that but it'll make this post too long. At this point I'm ready to punch a hole in the wall.

So here I am at work, just short of fuming, actually I'm a little calmer now. I guess my patience tank was low when I woke up this morning or something. I don't know. But now that I've vented maybe by the morning I'll have settled down. I hope so because I'm suppose to go golfing tomorrow. Heh, golf, now that's a game that can build the stress factor sometimes. Alright, that's enough for now, I'll quit ranting.

The Life Of A Troop

Here I sit, late as hell at work with nothing to do as usual with the graveyard shift. It's all I can do to keep from falling out of my chair from drowiness. I'm on my second wind though so I thought I'd post a little somethin' for y'all. Lately I've felt a bit detached from reality, or zombified, from the weird/lack of sleep I've had over the past few days from this work schedule. BUT we got our new Marine in yesterday and thing will finally be back to normal in about a week once we break him in. And he seems alright, we'll see how things go.

I also got assigned the Toys for Tots gig this year so I'm in charge of putting all that together. I thought it was going to be a headache but it's turning out to be pretty easy actually. Still a day off would be much welcomed at this point.

Now in the midst of my late night surfing that I do to keep occupied, I ran across this post on my friend's blog. Take a moment to link over to it and read it. Welcome back. Let me say a couple of things about what it's like for a Marine on deployment overseas to a place like Iraq, Korea, etc. For starters, the military dictates what you are required to bring. It's usually enough to get by for a few months. Anything else is up to you and if you have enough room left in your seabag or MOLLE pack after you pack the requisite gear. But once you stay somewhere an extended amount of time like Iraq undershirts tear, razors dull, socks get lost.

And the military doesn't do much as far as logistics to get those kind of things to troops because they have a different priority on hand and that's winning the war. Anything else are resources being wasted, so commodities are minimally supplied by the military if at all. Under just about any circumstance the only thing the military is required to provide you is an initial issue of uniforms, a montly sustenance allowance, a place to live, and basic pay. All other expenses are incured by the soldier. So out in a place like Iraq they have no where to turn for supplies, that's why the support that people have shown for our troops overseas has been such a great thing. Another thing is, if the military had to supply those things to deployed troops the extra cost would be HUGE. It would definitely hit the taxpayers in some way. However Justin, you're "necessities" are more than welcome too. :)

My biggest problem with this war has been our exit strategy or lack thereof. We've really dug ourselves in a hole because if we pull out now we leave it worse than when we went in, the interim government can't handle the current situation. And if we stay it's just going to cause more dissent. I hope someone in the chain of command comes up with something soon cause this is starting to drag on.

Ok, well I've ranted on long enough. Post your comments if I missed something or you have a question. I'm pretty tired, I prolly left something out that I meant to say.

Hold Your Breath, Here Comes A Long One...

For starters I'm having one hell of a time posting and it's frustrating. Blogger.com won't let me pull up the page to add an entry so in the mean time I'll write this in notepad and copy and paste it later. Where do I start...

About a week ago...yeah I know, I need to do more frequent updates...I volunteered to help out at a local school here and teach the kids how to play American football. That went really well and it was actually fun. It was a group of fourth grade guys. I need to find some other activities to fill up my free time here. I was suppose to join a local Rugby team but the guy who contacted me didn't know they were about to play the last game of the season. Go figure. He said they would start playing again in January so we'll see if I can't get onboard then.

The Chirstmas season is upon us and quickly closing. I got "volun-told", as happens so often in the military, to head up Toys for Tots and organize that. It's not as much work as I thought it would be. I think it'll go over well, we have about 110 kids at an orphanage that we're collecting for. The hardest part will be wrapping the toys...it will take everything I have to not use brown paper bags. hehehe. Brazil is great and all, but I wish I could home for the holidays. This would make the third consecutive time I've missed Christmas at home. The first time was in bootcamp so that wasn't so bad since I was pretty much preoccupied with training, and the second in Japan was ok cause I was with all my buds with my old unit. But this year...this year is going to be a lot more lonely I think. I haven't really been here long enough to make any real friends yet, the detachment here is an ok bunch of guys but not as friendly as I would have liked. Makes me want to start counting down the days until I'm out of the Corps and back home with friends and family. That's the thing I hate the most about the military I think, the constant moving and having to make new friends all over again. At least in the mean time I've got it made being here, otherwise I'd be in Iraq right now.

And lately I've been reading a lot of online news sources cause I have a lot of free time. I read a lot of different articles about how some schools can't represent Christmas in any fashion, people getting their panties in a bunch over God being referenced in historical government documents, and even some other non-religious stuff, and so forth...FOR PETE'S SAKE PEOPLE! It just kills be how politically correct American has gotten to be. Some of things that we've changed/instituted are just ridiculous. People need to learn to grow some thick skin and be a little more tolerant. If you take God out of the constituion who grants us the unalienable right of freedom? The government? And if the government giveth, the government can taketh as well. I hope you see my point. I could rant on forever about this but I'll leave it at that for now.

There really isn't much going on here right now that's newsworthy and that's good I guess. The guys at the US Embassy in Jeddah got attacked yesterday, I hope they made it through that ok. So at least nothing crazy like that is happening here. Later today, maybe if I have some spare time at work, I'm going to try to add some links to the bar on the right. I'm gunna try to enlist the help of my old pal, Justin, to help me out when he wakes up. He has a link section similiar to want I want to make. Ok, well this post is starting to get out of hand. I'll start doing more frequent updates to avoid this. Peace out.