The Hawaiian breakfast

While I did not get to do nearly as much sightseeing and sampling of island cuisines, I did have the pleasure to have the supposedly very traditional Hawaiian breakfast, over at of all places, the Burger King located near the main gate of Schofield Barracks, Hi.

The ingredients for the breakfast are steamed white rice, scrambled eggs, and a few slices of Spam, lightly sauteed. They're incredibly simple to make and probably an almost perfect breakfast if you have one of these busy mornings that requires a lot of running around. For a lighter version of the same dish, try doing mostly eggwhites for scrambled eggs and turkey Spam.

Finish the meal with a cup of Kona coffee....and you'll be good to go!

I'm baaaack!

From my two weeks of reserves annual training, will get try to get over the jet lag and settle back to some kind of routine before I post again, and yes, I will include some pictures!

This annual training has been one of the best, worst, and the most challenging two weeks in my life in the reserves, and I will elaborate on that soon!

Hope everyone had a good past two weeks!

Yawn....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

Read this report on this reservist who is about to lose his job and house due to numerous (his fifth) deployments. This reservist and his wife have written to everyone under the sun who could possibly help in deferring his deployment or delay it, but so far to no avail.

Having only been been informed 2 days prior to my deployment and also being on deployment for more than a year, I understand where he's coming from. I got really lucky in getting my current job and not have to depend on active duty tours in order to get the bills paid. Also, for the first time in my life, I'm finally making more (not too much) than what I would had I stayed in active duty.

Some of the people that I knew from my deployment have already left military duty altogether, while others are on their second or third deployment overseas. I got myself involved with this new unit that pretty much doesn't have anything to do with deployments in the current theater of war.

So what do I have to complain about?

I've got a 6+ months long officer training that I've got to get out of the way or risk losing my security clearance and commission, to which, thanks to my employer, I got it delayed because my employer would like for me to, due to the recent transfer. I've also got the baby thing to do....so I have no idea what is going to happen. My employer is already not feeling too happy with the amount of time already spent away from my work (5 days in April...and possibly 11 days sometimes this month), even though legally they cannot fire me for performing reserve duties, promotions and other similar perks may be just that much more diffucult.

I never joined the military in the hopes of getting a retirement check every month when I turn 65, despite of all the bad things that I've experienced, I've also been very lucky at getting opportunities to be paid to use my native language, and to be able to be granted the clearance so that I could use that also in my day job. It's a hard call either way on whether or not to just resign my commission altogether. Now I've got as stable of a life as I could have with my GF and the pets, it's just so hard to pack up again and leave for months at a time. Yes, it's important to serve your country and most of all, fulfill your obligations, but there are also heavy prices to pay which cannot be ignored.

I know you

By Henry Rollins

I know you You were too short You had bad skin You couldn't talk to them very well Words didn't seem to work They lied when they came out of your mouth You tried so hard to understand them You wanted to be part of what was happening You saw them having fun And it seemed like such a mystery Almost magic Made you think that there was something wrong with you You'd look in the mirror and try to find it You thought that you were ugly And that everyone was looking at you

So you learned to be invisible To look down To avoid conversation The hours, days, weekends Ah, the weekend nights alone Where were you? In the basement? In the attic? In your room? Working some job - just to have something to do. Just to have a place to put yourself Just to have a way to get away from them A chance to get away from the ones that made you feel so strange and ill at ease inside yourself

Did you ever get invited to one of their parties? You sat and wondered if you would go or not For hours you imagined the scenarios that might transpire They would laugh at you If you would know what to do If you'd have the right things on If they would notice that you came from a different planet Did you get all brave in your thoughts? Like you going to be able to go in there and deal with it and have a great time. Did you think that you might be the life of the party? That all these people were gonna talk to you and you would find out that you were wrong? That you had a lot of friends and you weren't so strange after all? Did you end up going? Did they mess with you? Did they single you out? Did you find out that you were invited because they thought you were so weird?

Yeah, I think I know you You spent a lot of time full of hate A hate that was pure sunshine A hate that saw for miles A hate that kept you up at night A hate that filled your every waking moment A hate that carried you for a long time

Yes, I think I know you You couldn't figure out what they saw in the way they lived Home was not home Your room was home A corner was home The place they weren't, that was home

I know you You're sensitive and you hide it because you fear getting stepped on one more time It seems that when you show a part of yourself that is the least bit vulnerable someone takes advantage of you One of them steps on you They mistake kindliness for weakness But you know the difference You've been the brunt of their weakness for years And strength is something you know a bit about because you had to be strong to keep yourself alive You know yourself very well now And you don't trust people You know them too well

You try to find that special person Someone you can be with Someone you can touch Someone you can talk to Someone you don't feel so strange around And you find that they don't really exist You feel closer to people on movie screens

Yeah, I think I know you You spend a lot of time daydreaming And people have made comment to that effect Telling you that you're self involved, and self centered But they don't know, do they? About the long night shifts alone About the years of keeping yourself company All the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself so you could imagine someone holding you The hours of indecision, self doubt The intense depression The blinding hate The rage that made you stagger The devastation of rejection Well, maybe they do know But if they do, they sure do a good job of hiding it It astounds you how they can be so smooth How they seem to pass through life as if life itself was some divine gift And it infuriates you to watch yourself with your apparent skill at finding every way possible to screw it up

For you life is a long trip Terrifying and wonderful Birds sing to you at night The rain and the sun the changing seasons are true friends Solitude is a hard won ally, faithful and patient

Yeah, I think I know you

On this July 4th.

Between the BBQ's, the fireworks, and the keg parties, please don't forget that we've still got folks out there doing most of the work to keep us safe.....

The weekend......

Never underestimate the power of napping. It's got regenerative effects and that was what we did this weekend, with viewing of "Ratatouille" and an episode of "Prime Suspect" (That early 90's Helen Mirren/female detective t.v. show).

The rest of the time we spent on mindless net surfing, eating, and taking the dog to the dog park so he can socialize with other humans/dogs and get his pooping out of the way.

The GF is all sore and frustrated because of a possible chiropractic dilemma in her hip, and this co-worker of hers who's getting away with not what you would call model employee behaviors. I really hope that her situation will get better soon, there's nothing worse than being bugged to no end by stuff like that.

I'm going to take the day off to take a language test, as a possible future job possibility. I'm not sure how easy/diffucult the test is going to be, and I don't even know if it's going to be a real job possibility... You would think that I'm staying at my current job for good, after turning down a 85G job proposition (but a shady 85G)... but in all truthfulness, my current job doesn't pay too much.

But for now, I'm not going to think that much about that... the dog just told me that he needs to be walked.