Storytime! Just a teeny one, though.

I’m at home, it’s the evening, and it is time for a treat.

Our tasty treat of choice? Ice cream. In Cassie’s case, a vanilla float. In mine, a little plain vanilla in a bowl.

Cassie has already scooped her ice cream up out of the family sized gallon tub, and waggles the scooper at me in an inquisitive way.

“Why, certainly, I’d be happy to have some ice cream!”

I take the scooper gently from her hand, snag a bowl from the cupboard, and proceed to dig into the frozen confection.

As I dig into the ice cream distractedly, I continue talking with Cassie about our upcoming raid schedule, and my recent attempts to set a consistent reliable schedule of raids so people can plan on things in advance. We’re also searching for a raid leader within the guild to supplement Cassie, Fal and I.

So I’m chatting, distracted, not paying attention to what my hands are doing, and so allow my superhuman strength free reign.

I dig the scoop into the ice cream, meet resistance, and apply so much force I snap the metal scoop in half, and rip the back of my knuckles open on the metal remains wedged firmly in the ice cream.

Whoops! That got my attention!

So I look at the ice cream tub. Yep, that’s one half of a scoop. Sure ’nuff.

I look at the handle in my hand. Yep, that’s the other half of the scoop. Congratulations Sherlock, you have discovered the murder weapon!

I gaze at the back of my hand. Yep, that there is raw skin and torn flesh, and there will be quite a bit of blood running in just a sec. Best get some cold water to slow the circulation and then get some direct pressure from a soft cloth.

I move to the sink. As I do so, Cassie begins laughing at me.

I broke the scoop. What kind of idiot breaks the scoop? And I hurt myself scooping ice cream into a bowl? Are you kidding me?

So, she’s laughing. It’s not like I’m crying or screaming or whatever people do when they freak out at the idea that their precious skin got mussed. I tore up my knuckles, better treat ‘em quick. Whatever.

And it’s not being macho, pain hurts me the same as anyone else, it’s just that what’s done is done, and once it’s over it’s not like yelling and screaming actually does any good… unless you’re slammed with adrenaline and have tons of nervous energy to burn off. I’m just looking at my hand and thinking, “Ah, crap. Not again.”

It was ice cream. I hurt myself getting ice cream? Who in the hell hurts themselves getting ice cream? Oh for the love of…

She’s amused at my idiocy, and then moves on about her business. I wash my hands, rinse off my knuckles, grab a paper towel, wet it, and go downstairs. As the blood begins to seep out, I mop it up. No worries. In my experience, air drying and mopping up the welling blood on a superficial wound like this helps encourage clotting.

So, I go downstairs, load up the game and start playing. As my fingers get too red I mop it up.

Cassie comes downstairs to say something, sees all the blood, and NOW she’s sorry for me.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were actually hurt for a change, you big crybaby.”

Sigh.

So, go to work the next day, no problem. And as luck would have it, there are far more equipment breakdowns than usual, two of my three maintenance team members are off this week, and it’s just me and my one remaining employee to handle everything. I assign him priority one, I take number two, and start cranking with the tools on the linkages of a rotary die swap out.

I have a lot of balls I juggle in the course of a day, and just because I’m fixing stuff on the floor doesn’t mean everybody else takes a break. I gotta keep on top of my contractors, meetings, follow ups on parts orders and status updates for the planning staff.

So I’m hustling back and forth through the plant quite a bit.

As I’m walking through the offices in the afternoon, our HR representative stops me and asks me if I know who is bleeding in the office.

Umm, what?

Yes, she tells me someone is bleeding, there are spatters of blood drying on the formica floor outside my office.

Ahhh, crap.

I lift my right hand, look at it, and sure enough I’m bleeding profusely. I hadn’t noticed it get all ripped open again.

So I look at her and tell her I found the culprit! It was a hard search, but no criminal can get away once bloodhound bear is on the trail!

I thank her kindly for letting me know, I go clean my hand up, get the bleeding stopped, and then grab a gallon of bleach from the shop and start cleaning up the floor.

As I’m cleaning the blood stains with bleach, our HR rep comes up to me and tells me I need to remember to fill out an accident report.

Oh, shit. This is gonna be a good one.

Umm… I tell her I don’t need to fill one out, because this didn’t happen in the plant. It happened at home.

She seems… a little doubtful. Not that she’s saying she thinks I’m a liar, but… “yeah, right”.

“No really, I did this at home” I tell her.

“How did you do that?” she asks.

And of course, I have to tell her the whole story. Yes, I did it by getting ice cream. No, no I didn’t actually bleed IN the ice cream, but thank you for asking.

So, one stupid mistake, and now I’m embarassed twice. It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

I got to work this morning, looked at the blog page and figured… hey, why not go for the hat trick?

You all take care, see you later with the winning results! Cassie already read them all and tabulated her opinions, now it’s on me to finish!

Oh, and watch out for those ice cream tubs, those damn things are dangerous!

That’s right, it’s that time again!

Buckle up, buttercup, we’re going for a ride!

For those of you new to this game, Storytime is where I relate something true that happened in my life that popped to mind recently, because I’m an old fart living in the past. And since this is my blog, and I’m waxing nostalgic, I’m taking you all with me!

Oh, and I’m a huge Jethro Tull fan. I can’t use the phrase ‘living in the past’ in a sentence without hearing Ian Anderson actually proclaim in my head, “Living… in… The Past!” Just an FYI.

So, back in the glorious heyday of my youth, we return once more to Beaufort, South Carolina, scene of many of my previous escapades. Ah, the trouble you get into when you are young, single, Enlisted without being an NCO just yet, and have no bills and lots of disposable income.

Ah, youth. How the hell do we live through those years? Seriously?

At any rate…

I was stationed there in lovely Beaufort, SC, but my parent’s home was in far away Boca Raton, Florida.

I had some income, certainly… but not the kind of cash to dump on a plane ticket to go home to visit the folks and my old school friends whenever I got a three or four day pass.

So what I did, was I bought a motorcycle from a fellow Jarhead taht was having divorce issues and needed the money.

It was a Yamaha Maxim 550, used of course, with a whole heck of a lot of miles on it. It may have looked a little rough, but I loved that bike.

Here’s a photo so you can see the body style, this ain’t the actual bike, just the closest thing I could find to a pic of what my bike looked like.

Even the tank color is right.

So, I had never ridden a motorcycle before, and now I owned one. And anyone that lives on base can tell you, getting a bike registered, licensed, insured and getting your own MC DL are all required before you get to actually ride the damn thing around.

So for a month or so, I left it out at my friends’ place, and he would drive me out there weeknights or weekends, where I would hop on, crank it up, and go driving around the backroads of Beaufort, teaching myself to ride.

You gotta love the South. I mean, really.

The gas stations I would stop at had the usual pumps… but they also had one pump that would be listed as “Racing Fuel – 99 octane”.

Racing Fuel, of course, is designed to burn faster, so more of it’s energy is released before  going further than about 20° past Top Dead Center… and I just realized I have no intention of explaining that.

Ummm… Racing Fuel packs more of a kick. Corrodes normal engines, though. At least the old stuff used to. 

Anyway, yeah, the regular Unleaded was pretty expensive back then going for around .88¢ a gallon… but I always splurged and went with the Racing Fuel at $1.02, and to heck with the expense! Go crazy with that money! Get the GOOD stuff!

Ah, the joys of tearing around on your own motorcycle… I loved it. I truly did.

So, after a month or two, I went and took my test and got my license, yadda yadda, and started tooling around town. All the joys life off-base had for a single Marine were now open to me. Meaning, mostly, the movie theater, McDonalds, and video rentals.

A few months later, we had a 4 day weekend coming up. I called home and proudly let my mom and dad know that I was coming home to visit.

This being South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida,  the route wasn’t the most difficult in the world. You get on I-95 Southbound, and you stay there. When you need gas, you pull over. Repeat as needed.

On the day of the trip, I stuffed a seabag full of clothes, bungie-corded it onto the back of the bike (where it actually provided a comfy back rest to lean against) and headed on out.

I always wore a helmet, and on the ride down I had on jeans, combat boots and my field jacket.

Why?

Because it was a kind of rainy day. And rain or no rain, I said I was coming, so I was coming. 

I had never before ridden farther than Savannah, Georgia on the bike, and then it had been the summer. I had attended St Patricks’ Day at River Street (awesome, bigtime), and done a lot of tooling up and down the roads, but never before had I gone for a long, long run.

Looking at Mapquest, it’s about 480 miles, and they say it should take about 7 hours. I have no idea what speeds they are talking about, though.

What I do know is, I was excited. I was stoked. (Remember when it was okay to say stoked? Yeah, those were a happy 5 minutes.)

Screw the rain, I was going to know the freedom of the open road, the wind roaring around me, the pedal to the metal, blue sky and hard asphalt and the dreams of a free country everywhere around me.

Okay, no blue sky. But it can’t rain all the time!

Damn, was I excited.

Visions of Vanishing Point stuffed in my head, I WAS Kowalski, one man and the loneliness of the open road.

Yes, I know. You’re shocked. What can I say, I wasn’t BORN bitter, after all. :)

So I hit the road. Hard. I nailed 80 mph out the gate, and stuck it there as much as possible. I only left the road when gas got very, very low, and some of the stretches of Interstate highway left me feeling it might be a while until I saw another offramp.

And yes, it can in fact rain all the time. You’d think, after three states, at some point you would get out from under it.

Along the way, I learned many valuable lessons about riding a motorcycle on long journeys.

Some lessons I learned fast, and others took a while to sink in.

First and foremost, I learned that a lot of people in cars and trucks will actually swerve towards you, trying to force you off the road and off the shoulder, in the hopes of seeing you lose control, and die.

Yes, I’m serious. If you’re young and thinking about getting a bike, keep that in mind. Watch your ass, all the time. Check your mirrors, and maintain your spatial awareness. Do not give them a chance to block you, and keep an eye for escape routes, such as simply being ready to take the grassy median, or being prepared to accelerate or brake if you see an attempted swerve.

I don’t think it has to do with people in cars hating motorcyclists, either.

I think it has more to do with some people seeing someone else in a potentially dangerous, vulnerable situation, traveling at high speeds without a steel cocoon to protect them, and either they are on an open stretch of road, or in a heavy rain where visibility and identification are hindered, and they get the sudden urge to inflict hate and suffering on someone else just because they can. And I truly think they feel that they’ll easily get away with it, free and clear.

Kind of the road version of John Gabriels’ Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

I also learned that, to a motorcyclist, a large 18-wheeled tractor-trailer combo barrelling along at 75mph – 80mph sucks a massive windstorm in it’s wake and all around it, and it WILL cause you to concentrate all your energies just on control as it passes you, or you pass it, because you get the feeling your tires may very well lose traction on the slick roads, and you wonder if you’ll get sucked under the semi’s wheels if you’re not careful.

I learned that when they cordoroy, or roughen, the road with those lengthwise grooves when preparing for road work, it channels narrow bike tires and makes it difficult to safely control your bike during lane changes.

I learned that steel grate bridges like the ones in Jacksonville at the time are horrible.

I learned that a LOT of cars leak a LOT of oil, right down the middle of the road, which turns nice and slick in the rain. How slick? Why, much like an oil slick, I would say. And if you are on a motorcycle, the temptation is to ride down the center of the road where the bulk of the oil is.

And finally, I learned that bugs suck.

Especially clouds of those tiny little f’ing gnats. But I learned that lesson later.

For the moment, however, the sky was full of rain, the wind was a steady blur of icy needles in my exposed flesh, chilling and stinging me hour after hour, but the the roar of the road was in my veins, and I was free to ride.

I blasted on through, on the solo road trip of a lifetime.

It was awesome.

When I finally pulled on into the parent’s place in Boca Raton, I was bone tired.

But I was also exhilirated, and felt like I was riding a massive endorphin rush. NO energy, but no pain at all, and no stiffness either.

I was chilled bone deep, and soaking wet, but I was way past caring at this point. I was just exhilirated that the ride down was done, and in a thunderstorm from hell at the end of it. 

I stumbled on in, dumped my wet seabag on the floor, yelled “High Ma” as nonchalantly as I possibly could, as though I take three-state road trips all the time, no big deal, and then went back out to the bike.

You see, I had ridden that sucker hard for hours.

And when you run an engine that hard, you can’t just dump it on a driveway in the icy rain to sit, and instantly cool, and expect it to be fine.

You kind of need to ease it down gentle. Let the temperature cool gradually, let the oil circulate a little as it runs easy. Idle it a bit. A block or two is fine, maybe a mile if that, just puttering along. Don’t let a super hot, expanded-metal engine get chilled, it will only cause problems down the road.

So I went on out into the rain, hopped right back on the bike, backed it out and started her up again.

I puttered gently down the half a block to the corner, and eased into the left hand turn.

And as I turned left, the engine roared instantly into life, accelerating to the max the gear ratio could handle, and slamming me full tilt into the stop sign on the corner.

….

I was pinned under the bike, and I could tell my ankle was not doing very well. I shifted a bit, got under and hefted the bike up off me, and using it to lift myself off the grass, I gently propped it on it’s kickstand. I say gently, when what I really wanted to do was kick the hell out of it.

I had jumped the curb before I nailed the stop sign, and came to rest on the grass, so I didn’t have any road rash. The bike frame still looked straight, and the only visible damage was the right front turn signal was dangling by the wiring.

And yes, my right ankle was at least sprained.

Son of a…

Well, first thing I did was ruefully acknowledge that God has a fine sense of humor.

On the one hand, if you’re going to have an accident, it sure is nice to be able to walk away from it in one piece, and be able to hop a half a block home.

On the other hand, I was 480 miles from my duty station, my only mode of transport just tried to kill me out of the blue, and my right foot, my braking foot, was all messed up. If my foot didn’t get better fast, I was going to be relying strictly on the front wheel hand brake, which is a terribly unsafe, stupid thing to attempt. 

And I had three days to fix it all before I had to make the journey home. During a holiday weekend.

I pushed the bike the half block back to the house in the rain, limped on inside, and acknowledged that yes, it was mildly amusing that I drove 480 miles just to have an accident a half a block from the house. Thank you very much. Yes, I thought so too.

Now, I could say that the rest of the weekend was spent staying off my foot in the hopes it would heal, packing it with ice.

And I could relate the fun of finding a mechanic willing to do a rush repair on a motorcycle over a holiday weekend so I could ride back on Sunday. Eventually my dad found a Porsche mechanic friend willing to do a personal favor for me.

I could tell you of my annoyance at finding out the reason I crashed was not my own stupidity, but was instead that the accelerator cable got pinched in the sleeve, and as I turned the corner, it pulled the cable hard and fast, just as though I had redlined the engine intentionally. A simple problem that probably would have happened anyway, from prior abuse of the bike, but might have been prevented had I used a graphite lubricant in the sleeves of the cables as some preventive maintenance.

I could tell you how, nursing a tightly wrapped and unusable right foot, I made the return trip on my repaired bike, and this time the sun was high in the sky, the birds were singing, the wind was warm and delightful, and I had a picture-perfect, gorgeous ride back, wearing helmet, jeans and a tank top on the entire run, basking in the sun and the wind. And how the experience was severely lessened by my stress at not being able to use the foot brake.

Seriously, only having the front wheel hand brake is a horribly dangerous  way to ride.

I could tell you of the triumph of making it back to base just in time late on a Sunday night, using only the hand brake, fighting a fogged-over faceshield in the delightful late evening fog and humidity of South Carolina for the last hour in the dark along the coastal roads.

I could even tell you of my joy at discovering, the very next day, that when you ride with a tank top in the sun in 80mph winds for 6 to 7 hours straight, the combination of sunburn and windburn feel simply delightful. I highly recommend it.

Oh yeah, and pure Aloe gel is awesome.

But I think I’ll simply end with this thought, for all my friends;

Clouds of small bugs really suck. I am totally not kidding.

I was chatting with the Sidhe Devils a bit last night, and somehow the subject got on me being really damn old (but not the oldest one in our guild, thankfully), and that I can clearly remember a time from before the internet.

You know, that ancient time when, if we were bored, we had to find something OUTSIDE the house to do.

And with one thing or another, I was reminded of an episode that I had gratefully almost forgotten.

And the stars aligned, and suddenly I both had a story on the tip of my tongue, and also felt in the mood to share.

Thus, we bring you… Storytime!

If you don’t like it, blame Wulfa and Dammy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Back in the earliest days of my time in our beloved Corps, I was stationed at the Marine Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina. It’s just a hop, skip and jump away from Parris Island (where real Marines, not those effeminate Hollywood Marines, are made), and a fast drive North from Savannah, Georgia and the endless joys of River Street.

Okay, one of the joys of River Street? Irish Pubs. More? Great nightclubs. My favorite? A bar that professed to carry 101 beers from all around the world… and if you drank one of each, you got a shirt showing you’d ‘Been around the world’. Thankfully, you were not expected to drink them all in one night, they gave you a punch card. Although some Jarheads tried. Oh yes, they tried.

One of the other local pleasures was Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, storied locale of hot beaches, hotter women, and drink shacks right on the water’s edge.

All in all, if you are mobile, life in Beaufort ain’t too bad at all. For being in a swamp, anyway. And PT in Beaufort is fun… I love running in the rain, and it rains in Beaufort ALL THE DAMN TIME. Screw Seattle. I was always partial to throwing my headphones on and going for a run in the rain around the flight line, a trip on pavement that tended to always be deserted.

One of the lesser known conveniences of living at the Marine Air Station, was that they actually had access to the waterway… and the base has a marina. I say has, I am assuming that, like much else in the military, nothing has changed. I could be wrong.

But there was a marina. And while it was, technically, funded so that the legendary gods of the officer ranks had a place to stash their yachts, (insert Kelly’s Heroes joke here), it was not actually off limits to the enlisted population. Just… not advertised. Or mentioned. Or encouraged for young Marines to go make themselves a nuisance there.

But, being the curious sort that I am, I took a jog down that way one day and saw the sign saying marina, and ducked into the quiant wood hut that stood at the waters’ edge to see what there was to see.

And behold, there was a window with a counter and a sign out log, and a Marine that attended said counter. And upon questioning, it was discovered that, if one were to take a written test on water safety and traversing intra-coastal waterways, and navigating channel traffic markings, then simply by presenting one’s ID card, one could check out… a boat.

A real life, kick ass sailboat. They’d actually GIVE you the damn thing! And trust you to bring it back!

Well, considering that you have to give them your ID, yeah, I guess they figured what the heck. But considering how controlled so many other facets of a young Marines’ life are, where you go, when you go, HOW you go… the fact someone would just trust you with a sailboat was pretty extraordinary.

So, having grown up in South Florida, and having spent one summer working a deep sea fishing boat as crew for my uncle, who owned and ran the boat as his livelihood, I knew my way around boats to a certain extent. the motored kind, anyway. Powered. Churning the waves, blasting through the sea. Fun!

Right then and there, I hatched Operation: Island Invasion.

I launched phase 1 the next day. I mentioned, casually, how it was possible to check out a Sunfish sailboat at the base Marina for fun and games.. and that it sounded like a neat way to spend a weekend… some brews, some sailing, some sun and maybe even some fishing.

And one of my compatriots in the unit allowed that it sounded mighty fun, indeed.

So off we went, that week after the duty schedule, to take the tests and get some maps of the waterways in the area.

It should be said, that neither of us had any previous experience piloting a sailboat. Ever. BUT, I was a Marine… how hard can it be?

My buddy for this task was a rather skinny little runt (as Marines go, anyway) that I shall call Corporal Henderson. He had been in the unit for about a year, and after another year, he would be able to change duty stations. He was single, lived in the barracks, and as far as I could ascertain had zero hobbies at all. Still, a pretty nice guy. And single, which was key to my plan.

I had hit upon my master plan at the very beginning of summer. Each weekend, we would jog on down to the marina with backpacks of drinks, check out a Sunfish, and head on out into the water. We learned to tack back and forth to sail into the wind, to maneuver and generally have ourselves a blast. Sailing, just for the sake of being out on the water, is a hell of a lot of fun.

Now, I say we, but the fact is that I was the captain of the vessel, and Corporal Henderson, sadly, was just along for the ride. He really did show an appalling lack of initiative and imagination for a Marine. Very content to just put his brain into neutral and do what he was told. So, I took the lead in learning, training, and getting the sailing of this little sailboat down pat.

Finally, the day came where I felt we were ready to discuss the second stage of my master plan.

I mentioned to Corporal Henderson how I felt that we were doing quite well in small boat handling skills. He allowed as to how he felt the same.

And then I painted for him a picture with my words. I said to him, “Imagine this… here they are, these beautiful ladies, lounging in the summer sun on Hilton Head Island… drinking foofy little drinks with fruit stuck on sticks and little umbrellas in ‘em. And from out of the ocean comes this agile little vessel, crewed by two buff and rugged young Marines such as ourselves, who pull our little boat up on shore and join them in drinks on the sand. And think how impressed these fine young ladies are sure to be when they hear of the length of our voyage and our travails across the seas. Frolicking, I dare say, may then commence in the surf and the sand. How does that sound to you, young Mr. Henderson?”

He seemed particularly delighted by this idea. Operation: Island Invasion was a go!

I had planned out our course most carefully. Making our way from the base marina to the waters of the ocean would be a long and interesting navigation, considering that there would actually be very heavy traffic. We were planning to take our adventurous voyage over the course of a 4 day weekend, and there were sure to be many other ships plying the waves at the same time. Plus, the Sunfush has a very shallow draft, making it an interesting challenge in heavy waves. We were going to need plenty of practise in choppier waters than the calm millpond crap you see in an intracoastal to complete our mission successfully.

So we stepped up our weekend excursions with longer and longer trips, lasting many hours of sailing time, to get closer out into the actual ocean. Much of the route actually passes right offshore of Parris Island, which was kind of spooky at the time. Kinda the same feeling I’d imagine I’d have sailing past Alcatraz… knowing that you were passing a land of pain and suffering beyond human ken. But I digress.

The point was, we’d need to get really comfortable with sailing in all environments.

I took to watching the weather reports VERY closely. It’s a serious shock how the smallest changes in wind velocity and direction, things that have little impact to traveling over the road, make traveling at sea on a wind-powered ship VERY different. There were more than a few hairy incidents, but we handled them all with calm and style.

Finally, the week had come, where that very next weekend we would be taking a little sailing trip. We were going to be taking the waters, leaving Marine Air Station Beaufort, SC, sailing through Beaufort itself to access Port Royal Sound, cutting across to the south side and then skirting the coast as we made our way to the beaches of Hilton Head Island… and we were going to take our sleeping bags in waterproof bags with us and sleep right on the damn boat on the beach. We’d spend the night there, and then sail on back. Perhaps we’d even be sleeping somewhere other than on the boat? 

The thought of who would be watching the damn boat once we got there and had no place to lock it never crossed my mind.

A truly magnificent adventure!

But first, we had to get through the week.

That week, we had an event that all Marines must do at some point. You have to requalify in many different things over the course of your time in the service, to ensure you are still prepared to do your basic job as an amphibious infantryman. Land, Sea, and Air. Gotta be prepared.

And while you obviously expect Marines to requalify on the shooting range, or the land navigation course with map and compass, or in moutaineering, or cold weather training… this week, we had our swimming requalification test to complete.

Among these tests include holding one’s breath while swimming a set distance underwater, treading water while in full uniform and loaded pack and gear (and mock rifle for the dead weight) for a certain time, that kind of thing. It was done at the on-base swimming pool.

And my unit formed up, and the instructors looked us over, and then, before we got started, said, “Okay, everyone that has had no problems with swimming in the past, over to that side of the pool. Those of you that can’t swim, over here.”

And as we all got ourselves sorted out, I see to my laughter that Corporal Henderson has gotten into the non-swim, or ‘brick’, lineup.

And as I laugh, because that’s a pretty funny joke, I tell him to get back over in our line.

And he informs me that, no, in fact he cannot swim.

He can’t swim.

He. Can. Not. Swim.

HE CAN’T WHAT?!?!

For three months we’ve been sailing over the waters for endless hours in a little freaking boat that could flip at any moment, without the faintest idea what we were doing, we were planning on sailing the damn thing into the ocean for a trip of about 30 miles, we have never, EVER worn our damn life vests the entire time, although we DID have to take them on the boat, I used mine for a cushion to sit on, and he doesn’t know how to WHAT?!?!

Just shoot me now, oh Lord, just shoot me now. 

And my fellow Jarheads, seeing my poleaxed look and dazed countenance, ask me what the hells got my panties all twisted up in a bunch.

And, more fool me, I told them.

Now, in my unit we all had GI Joe nicknames for fun. You earned your nickname the hard way.

We had one guy that had a pitbull, a dog he dearly loved, he was married and lived off base and god did he love that dog. And the base commander had gotten calls from the cops about his damn dog barking all the time. So, of course, he was “The K-9 Kid”.

I usually pulled the early watch, and I would jog into work early for my PT, get dressed there, get the coffee going, and drink about a pot of it with plenty of non-dairy creamer and sugar. All before 3 AM. By the time the rest of my team would come rolling on in, I’d have early radio checks done, radar would be turning and burning and ready for flight ops, and I’d be buzzing from caffeine like a livewire. My nickname was “Johnny Storm”. Flame on! Bouncy bouncy bouncy, ferret shock, ooh shiny!

So of course, right then and there, Corporal Henderson gets a brand new nickname, and “Aqualad” was born.

Needless to say, I never did make my trip to Hilton Head Island by sea. A failing I shall never forget.

Back when I drove a truck cross-country for Dick Simon Trucking (the skunk trucks!), we had no nationwide cell phones, no satellite uplink computers to browse the internet, none of the new stuff you damn kids take for granted. Get off my lawn, damn you!

That’s a damn good thing, now that I think about it. I was single, I was making pretty awesome money, I lived in the truck so I had zero personal expenses except food and clothes…. the only reason I stopped driving was because I was lonely out there with no one to talk with or share things with. If I had a computer in the truck that I could connect to the internet with via satellite to play WoW on during federally mandated rest periods?

Yeah, I never would have quit trucking… I can admit that. It’s a fact.

Point is, I used to listen to audiobooks on cassette all the time, and comedy albums on tape.

Jeff Foxworthy, before he transformed his career into a family friendly persona, did some good old fashioned raunchy humor back in the day.

I was on the road listening to this show he recorded before a live audience, and he’s telling a story of how he was doing a stand up act near a local military base, and when in the course of the show he happened to mention the nearby military base with some 5000 Airmen (or whatever it was), he said that a cranky female voice piped up from the back of the audience to loudly announce “And every one of them is a bad lay.”

And he said he stopped, totally surprised, and said, “Excuse me, ma’am?” And she called out again “You heard me. Every one of them is lousy in bed.”

And his reply just floored me, I was laughing so hard… he said, “You know, ma’am… after a while, did you ever stop to think…. maybe it’s ME?”

:)

I have carried that bit in my head as a universal truth ever since. Years pass, but I’ll never forget the lesson in there.

If you’re doing something over and over, and you are bitching and complaining constantly about how everyone else is screwed up… take a step back. Maybe it’s not everyone else… maybe it’s you?

Used to be a funny little office sign you’d see in cubes… “If you are calm and collected while everyone about you is losing their heads… maybe you’ve failed to grasp just how deep in the shit you really are.”

Where am I going with this?

Well, as I’ve said before, Cassie and I have been PvPing in battelgrounds to earn the Honor for our Season 2 Merciless weapons. She has more than enough for her main hand, but she wants to have all the Honor she needs so she can buy them both at once. She even already has mats for both Mongoose enchants.

Her favorite BG? Eye of the Storm. She LOVES the fast paced action and sudden changes in fortune that can occur in the blink of an eye.

Me? I love me some Alterac Valley. I can’t help it, I love the large scale coordination it takes to make it all work.

Last night I popped into an AV, pretty late, just before bed. And it was one of those awesome battles, where everyone seems to know just where they should go.

I charged into the offense, as I am prone to do, and for the first time, instead of stopping to help down Galv, I decided to push on to help secure the first tower and hold it.

And I promptly found out what happens to those leading the pack past Galv… they die. And rez in the damn northernmost graveyard, with the entire Horde between you and the offensive team.

Okay, well, I remember from my pre-BC days that the easiest way to get through the cut when the Horde is inbound is to run down and under your own bridge, cut down through the valley on the west and kinda sneak up on the high road and wait for a gap in the Horde flow.

Funny how the Horde NEVER seems to decide to charge the graveyard by leaving the main high road, taking the dive down to the west into the deep canyon and coming up from that route under the bridge… no one ever defends it. I used to play defense on turtles and keep an eye on that avenue of approach worriedly… and never once have I seen a Horde mass attack through there to take a turtle defense from behind. Only lone rogue type folks take it, it seems.

Anyway, I take the valley approach to flank teh road from below where there is some cover, wait for a large pack of horde to flow past, then charge up onto the high road and hop/skip past the straggling Horde into which I appeared and made it safely past to rejoin the offense.

I passed each tower and GY, each was defended and held, got to the Relief Hut, and the timers for capture countdowns were nearing the end, got there just as the call went out “ALL IN”, charged in and identiifed the tank and spent the rest of the fight casting Flash Heal… boom. Alliance victory, 15 minutes into the fight.

Flawless Victory.

So what the hey… 15 minutes? if I rejoin immediately, maybe I’ll get most of the same team!

Went into AV number two… and as we charge south towards our usual offensive targets, it becomes apparent the Horde on this AV are playing a VERY different strategy.

They are staying in the southern half of the map, in groups of 8 to 12, and camping all the towers, every graveyard, and the relief hut. All of the Horde, not just a handful of griefers. I tried taking and holding a tower, and 8+ Horde actually assaulted the tower and all of them came all the way to the flag room at the top. Not the usual one or two to make sure it’s retaken, the WHOLE BUNCH in a coordinated move swarmed into the top room.

As I rezzed and rejoined the battle, and worked my way south, I saw that it was true everywhere. The Horde had turned turtle. Pure turtle. Zero offense, in favor of holding all the Alliance target points.

Alliance chat started to have the usual “Can’t you worthless noobs hold a Tower? We’re never going to win if you don’t hold the tower after you take it” comments.

I actually responded to that one, something I rarely do, announcing to the people who are bitching in chat, the same ones that ran straight to the Relief Hut and are now standing there bored waiting for the rest of the raid to do the work of capping and holding the towers and GYs while they sit and wait to rush in, ”A mage and I were holding Tower Point, and 8+ Hordes bum rushed it. I’m heading south now and the Horde are camping, in force, every tower and GY south of Galv. Come back north and help retake them.”

I got taken out again trying to take a graveyard, and rezzed all the way north again. And as I watched the BG chat, the rest of the Alliance realised it was not just A turtle, it was THE turtle to end all turtles. Alliance BG chat exploded into hate and blame.

And I looked at the battle map… and I remembered I had all those AV quests you get by physically going to Alterac Valley north of Southshore, quests to get your Alliance trinket, cap a graveyard, burn a banner, take a mine.. those quests.

Well, I’m gonna be here for a while anyway, right?

So off I went, and I personally took a graveyard (FWGY, if you please), and I assaulted a tower (and died, but got credit for the Banner burning first), and I fought my way into the harpy den and got the banner for the Alliance trinket quest… and then I soloed my way deep into Coldtooth Mine, and made me way near to the Horde mine master… and waited in a side passage for the rogue I was certain was there to get bored and leave. I stood behind a pillar and moved my camera to watch, while I hid behind one of the mine supports, kinda sneaky like.

And sure enough, after a few minutes… off runs a rogue breaking their own stealth, secure in the knowledge that the Mine was theirs.

And 30 seconds later I burn down the Horde mine boss to recapture the mine, just as the whistle sounds to signal the Horde have wiped out the Alliance reinforcements.

I had a great time. I kept running around doing stuff, I nailed a few Horde, my only complaint being that EVERYONE resists my Psychic Scream, or is able to click out of it in 1 second it seems. Everyone. I thought that damn trinket was supposed to have a 5 minute cooldown, so I’m pretty sure everyone isn’t blowing their cooldown every time I happen to fire off Psychic Scream. Maybe it’s a Resilience thing, but I didn’t think Resilience had ANYTHING to do with resisting Fear effects.

Anyway, I had a great time. I didn’t get a win, or more than 100 bonus Honor, but I completed all the quests, got my Trinket, got 36 gold (those AV quests are worth 12 gold apiece. Cha-ching!) and that is my first time on Windburn capturing the mine solo. It was just… fun.

And the whole time I’m doing that… the Alliance BG chat channel is just going batshit INSANE with rage and hate and anger at being in a turtle. People are leaving the Alliance side, deserting in a FLOOD. The chat was full of epic hate and bannable language, it was just amazing. I haven’t seen that kind of wild abandon in spewing forth hate in ages. Maybe it’s the effect of being in a BG with people who are mostly from other servers in your battlegroup, that makes you feel even more anonymous than normal, like there are truly no consequences for being an utter douchebag on chat.

Just, the amount of blame being assigned to everyone, all the many reasons we would just WIN if all the REST of you would have done what you were supposed to , you’re all noobs, retards, stupid, etc etc etc. And all the hot replies, oh yeah. Feeding the flames. I’m surprised, totally surprised, it didn’t Godwin out towards the end.

And as always when I see that kind of finger pointing, that assumption that everyone else in the entire raid sucks because of a wipe, or a bad pull, or a failed BG, that line floats up in the back of my memory…

“You ever stop to think…. maybe it’s you?”