December 2004

Yep, I'm still here

December 30, 2004: I know, I know, I wasn't too obvious about the fact that my deployment was cancelled. But it was, and in an alternate universe, some other Hobie is right now getting on a plane from Germany to Sarajevo, and I'm sure he's thrilled to be there. But in this universe, I've been cancelled and put on standby. Meaning that if someone somewhere needs me for some crazy reason, I may have to go. Or not. Isn't the military great? I actually found out I wasn't getting deployed at the very last possible day that someone could have told me, back last Thursday, Dec 23, which was the last duty day. As you can see below, I was pretty certain I was going, and on the 23rd, I actually woke up completely stressed out and wondering what in the hell I was going to do. About everything. So I got to work, had a quick breakfast with Schofield, and then I went and checked email. There were 2 emails. The oldest one said that my deployment was a definite GO, in big 16 pt letters. Thanks for the update, pal. There was another email from the same guy timestamped an hour later though, and I just figured it was a follow up that said GO GO GO!!! No. Actually, this one said, the deployment was definitely cancelled. Huh? My heart started racing, and after making a phone call, it was confirmed that I could stay in Vegas at a miserable job, but now I could tackle the job and not leave Jenn and Schofield in a bind, nor ditch my University of Phoenix studies (I'm almost done and I should graduate in March!), or have to sell my car, figure out what to do with my apartment, any of that....I was relieved!! Immensely. So don't get me wrong: I was thrilled to get out of this deployment, but only because of the timeframe I had to go. If I had gotten deployed at any time last year, or any time after this upcoming February, I wouldn't give a shit. But this could have been the worst possible time ever to send me, at least in my mind. And so here I am, still at work. The job still sucks, although there has been progress in things and I'm not getting as much flak as before, so that's good.

Anyways, this past weekend I went down and visited the friends and folks in Los Angeles, as is my usual custom for the Christmas holiday. I drove down in almost beautiful traffic, unlike last year's driving to LA fiasco, and got to Duarte around noon on Christmas Eve. Mom, Harv and I went down to where my Aunt Mary lives in Mission Viejo, and saw the whole crazy Sperske clan. There are certainly a lot of grandkids now out there. Apparently my cousins have been (getting) busy, so to speak. I really hope no one is looking towards me for the next one, because I can't foresee that happening.....EVER. It may be just me and my twisted mind, but I have absolutely no desire to have children. I am nowhere near mature enough for that kind of responsibility, and I kinda like spending my money on me. Damn, I AM a selfish bastard. I know I don't have the patience either. Just ask anyone who knows me. Anyways, it was of course great to see the family again, and after seeing them, we went back to Duarte and it was time to sleep so that Santa could bring all the presents during the night. That next morning, I was totally gipped, but I at least got a great homemade breakfast of waffles and eggs. Mmmm.....waffles....syrup......good. I ended up spending Christmas day at home with Mom and Harv, which may have been the first time I've done that ever, as I usually spend the time with the Barnes family. I had already told my Uncle Richard that I wasn't going down, so I felt it was too late to say I was going to come now. It was actually nice to just relax that day and not drive anywhere, I must admit. We went over to a neighbor's house (EB and Andrea), and EB made a fantastic prime rib. YUM. I ate good on Christmas, that's for sure. Then that evening, I drove finally down to Huntington Beach and hung out with Mila, Angie & Rena and we went dancing at some club down there. It was a lot of fun to get my groove on, especially with my rigorous DDR training under my belt. :-) After the club closed at 1:30 am, I then went over to Jason and Wendy's house where they along with Gendy were hanging out and we ended up playing more DDR (speak of the devil!) I ended up passing out down there, as it was about 4am by that time. Finally I drove back to Duarte, cleaned up, and proceeded to drive back to Las Vegas, which took only about SIX FUCKING HOURS. I'm not bitter. Everybody and their goddamned mother was out on the road, and apparently they were out for the outlet malls. People! Why the hell are you driving out to the middle of the desert (Primm and Barstow) to do your shopping and returns? Seriously! Unfuckingreal. At least there wasn't snow on Halloran mountain. Now I've been back at home, at work, and just trying to get stuff done at work without killing others or losing it. Fortunately I have a lot of cool people now to work with, with a few exceptions obviously. What's going to be interesting is this upcoming week: We have about 5 new people coming in, and it's not that they're replacing anyone, it's just that they're going to be here to work. 3 of them are temps until February, 1 is a permanent PCS, and 1 is a Comm captain who is allegedly going to be the deputy commander of the detachment I'm in. I will be curious to see if she decides to pull some kind of authority over me as the deputy commander although we're both captains and I am fairly sure I outrank her in terms of date of rank. I shall update with all the gory details next week.

In the meantime, I hope your New Years Eve celebrations are safe. I plan on staying home and closing the windows, opening up about two bottles of cabernet sauvignon and pouring them into a beer bong hat that I'll wear while stumbling through a marathon DDR session. Sad? Yes. But satisfying? I think so! I just have no desire to go out with all the crazy masses of loonies who converge on Vegas for New Years, pay exorbitant prices to do anything or go anywhere, and just deal with all that hassle. I did it once, back in 2002, and it was fun and it was enough. Amen.

BTW, you gotta check out Michancy's blog. I really need to get stationed with her again. Her sarcasm is perfectly suited to mine. We could cause so much damage in someone's organization! :-)

Well, here are the pictures from this past weekend. Enjoy! See you next year.

Christmas Eve with the Extended Sperske Family Dec 24, 2004, Mission Viejo, CA
My Christmas Tree	Lisa and Me	Again!	Lisa and Paul	Helen the Photographer	Erin and Finn
Lots o' family generations here	Harv, Helen and Me	Me, Erin and Finn	Finn and his cool Hobie T-shirt	Helen's Group	Once more
Me and Unhappy mom?	Me Mom and Harv	Redux	The Paparazzi	One more time for good measure	The Sperske Sisters 2004
Bob, Garrett, and Lisa	Erin, Finn and Eric	Julie & Scott's Group	Cindy and her new husband	Lori and Bill	Lori's Group
Mary's Group	Jason and Lisa	Mary & JC	Mary's home in Mission Viejo

That was Christmas Eve's pics; below are the pictures from hanging out with Mila on Christmas Day night.

Hangin' with Mila on Christmas Night Dec 25, 2004, Huntington Beach, CA
Very bright Mila and Rena	Aww, Mila and Rena	Naughty	and Nice	Mila and Rena	Me and Mila!
Good pic	What is wrong with me?	I look like I'm about to cry here	Rena, me and Angie

And that's that. So for reals, I'm out! Catch you in '05!

No Reprieve + So Long Sgt Jenny

December 22, 2004: Found out that a day really can suck out loud. It started off not so bad, with Lisa from Eglin coming out to do a Staff Assistance Visit, which is basically a pre-inspection before the Big Bad Inspection to let you know those things that you had better fix or else.... We're not too bad off, but there's plenty of work to do. Work that apparently I won't be part of, as news that I got today was that my deployment has not been delayed and the guy who is out there now gets to go home early. Now isn't that some bullshit. So now it has become crystal clear that I had better get my ass finalized and ready to go, and oh yeah, since Sgt Jenny is on leave tomorrow, this is my last day to work with Sgt Jenny, since I'll be leaving Monday morning from the airport to fly to Baltimore. Isn't this just all fucking wonderful? I wasn't expecting this to be my last day with her, so I had nothing ready to like give her or to properly say goodbye. Worst. Supervisor. Ever. Then my boss is like giving me shit for apparently doing nothing when I've been doing nothing but running around taking care of stuff, both workwise and deploymentwise. Then he just sort of stands there and I guess is wanting to see us work. It's like, "I can't work with you watching me. The pot will not boil when you watch it. That's a fact." It was just a very frustrating day. And then I get home and find out that the laptop I had ordered two weeks ago from Dell is going to be delayed. They send me this email the day it is supposed to be shipped to me. That's fucking great. I'm just so tired of this. I think the deployment will be the best thing now. Just get away from this nightmare job. Who knows, maybe things will be better come May 05? I guess we'll see. What I'm waiting for is a last minute phone call either tomorrow or Friday night saying the deployment is delayed -and then I'll have to scramble to try to cancel tickets and all that on Monday morning. But that's a wishful thinking scenario, as I'd be thrilled to have to do that. Anyways, it's just been a shitty day, except for the part where we drank some Jack Daniels and just started bullshitting for about an hour and a half. Our office was literally the only one who was fully manned today, because everybody else was minimal manned today, and even that's bullshit, as you could walk around the squadron today and not see anyone around. And WE'RE the ones getting shit on for apparently not doing enough while everyone else is at home jerking off. God I hate the Air Force. So I felt absolutely no guilt for having a relaxing afternoon shooting the shit. Fuck em. They're on break? So am I, for at least an hour or so. I think we deserved it.

In completely random news, I bought a 1 GB compactflash memory card for my digital camera. It was so cheap at Office Max yesterday, and get this, the camera now can hold a whopping 491 pictures at super fine resolution, large image size. AWESOME. I've been using a 128 MB one that could only handle 60 or so pictures at that resolution, and now I don't know if I'll ever need to delete pictures. That will be great for this deployment, as I am so taking lots of pictures there. I hope I get the opportunity to post them on the page, but I don't know how that's all going to work. Guess we'll see.

Amazing Race is Amazing

December 21, 2004: I just had to chime in and mention that Adam and Rebecca are possibly the funniest contestants on this show. Rebecca's constant jabs at her wussy boyfriend Adam are so freaking funny. Adam is just a freak, and it's humorous to see how Rebecca mocks him next. Most annoying is Jonathan and Victoria. Talk about a messed up couple!

Just in time for the holidays!

December 20, 2004: Okay, so the wait is over. I'm back! And I have absolutely nothing of importance to say. Except I may or may not be going to Bosnia in a week, it's almost Christmastime, DDRMAX rules, and I won the most I've ever won gambling this past weekend when my Mom came up and visited. I guess I'll recap a little because I have been away from the website for a bit. First off, I went to Puerto Rico shortly after my last entry. It wasn't the most 'exciting' time I've ever had, but it was great spending time with Dad and Pat. I mostly putzed around the yacht club, and because I had brought my laptop with me, I played a bunch of Rise of Nations. I also ended up buying/ordering my next laptop from Dell, which is a gaming powerhouse that I'll be taking with me to my deployment, whenever or wherever that shall be. Anyways, here are some pics for your perusal:

Roosevelt Roads NAS, Puerto Rico Dec 1 - 9, 2004
Roosevelt Roads Marina	What a dork	For sure	There's my stateroom	Nancy, Pat, me and Dad at the Brass Cactus for Pat's birthday	A pretty Puerto Rican sunset
A tad more clear of a pic	Chilli	Ellie, Pat, Chilli	Ellie (Ellis Nellis)	The girls have their couch	Ellie running along the beach
Grassy grass and Vieques in the distance	More grass goodness	Lots of grass goodness	Vieques and pretty clouds	Me and my shadow	The water of the harbor
Crashing surf by the El Conquistador	El Conquis' Winter wonderland	The El Conqui view toward Isleta	Palomino and Culebra in the distance	Me by a giant poinsettia tree	Isleta and Vieques in the distance
Chilli loves the attention	Must be chow time

That was Puerto Rico! Since then, I've been working pretty damn hard at work. It hasn't left much time for my sanity at home, hence, when I get home, the last thing I really want to do is look at a computer and try to be clever (although being clever for me really isn't that hard, but you know what I mean) for my website. But I know I want and need to get this stuff done and out there. Perhaps I'll finally stop being so sporadic. NOT. Anyways, below are some pictures from December that I didn't make it into the Daily Pics section for December (mainly because there is no daily pics page for December - I have been way too slack in taking pictures this month). You'll see some onesies and twosies, but primarily below are pictures from the Christmas gettogether our small group of (work)friends had - notice that not everyone from work is there, because otherwise it would have turned into let's stick someone's head in the oven. But I digress.

Miscellaneous Pictures from December 2004
My soon-to-be-sold Jetta?	I don't know....maybe not yet	Chris at the Venetian cafe	Forks!	Me and my Mom this past weekend

Somewhat random, eh? But the last one was nice because it was of when me and Mom just hung out. She came up in anticipation of the fact that I will be leaving shortly after Christmas. It was great to have her up, and she even stayed at my apartment, and we didn't kill each other! She came up this last Friday night, and we met up at Sams Town. The next morning I had to go to school (well, if you call meeting the learning team and instructor at Palace Station for breakfast school), but afterwards, we went back to Sams Town, so I could go see National Treasure (a pretty okay flick) and she could gamble some more. After doing that, we got some Outback and then made it to a casino that my Mom hadn't been to before, so I chose Sunset Station, one of the nicer Station casinos, especially compared to Boulder Station. Anyways, it was at Sunset Station where I won some big money while playing, of all things, video poker. I really didn't want to play either, as I typically lose my $20 instantly. This was turning out to be no exception, as I was down to playing my last $1.25 in the quarter machine when I got 4 7s, getting me a quick 250 quarters. Not too shabby. I kept playing, newly reenergized, and after a little bit longer, I got 4 Queens dealt to me, and after holding those and asking for one more card, I got an Ace. On this particular machine, if you get a facecard 4-of-a-kind plus an A-10 kicker, that's 800 quarters (or $200). Sweet! That was awesome enough, but like 5 minutes later, I held 2 Kings and got dealt 2 more Kings plus a Queen kicker, getting me another $200. Unreal. That was some good video poker. The hands started to die after that, but I ended up walking away with $400. And that is my best win in Vegas so far, and it wasn't even on games I profess to be good at. Finally both Mom and I got tired though, and after a good night's rest, Mom and I had breakfast at IHOP, and then she got on the road back to Los Angeles while I did some quick Christmas shopping before the crowds flooded Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. It was doubly nice because I got to spend Sunset Station's money for Christmas gifts. Excellent. After shopping, it was then time to go over to Schofield's house for the holiday party. Now that was some fun times, at least what I remember. It's because I allowed myself to drink an entire bottle of red wine, Cabernet Sauvignon to be exact, which is my favorite. Good times. After a great, delayed dinner (the turkey wasn't quite done, but I'll leave the details out in this forum), we brought out the DDRMAX fun. I had brought my dance pad, so now we could play versus and also the new mode which turned out to be a lot of fun: Double. I danced the alcohol literally out of my body, and ended up passing out not from drunkenness but from exhaustion. But that ensured I didn't get the vicious red wine hangover, and that was a plus for this Monday morning. Unfortunately, this Monday didn't end well for the squadron, but I am not allowed to go into that just yet. I'm sure it'll be on the news soon enough though. Anyways, below are the pictures from Schofield's great holiday party. Good times!

The Cool People of the AP Vault Christmas Party Dec 19, 2004, Schofield's House
Miss Porsche	Jenn's fist of Death to Jason	An ENGAGEMENT fist of death?	Cheryl & Gracie	Gracie looks back at Cheryl	The cat decides it's easier to just lay on your back
Loren and Amber	John & Cheryl	Gracie gets a piggyback ride	Amber and Shadow	Porsche and crazy Me!!!	The almost-cooked turkey
Bashful Jenn and Jason	The turkey is being served	Now it is time to cut	Shadow and Gracie do dancies for food	A somewhat not good pic of the group	Much better pic
DDR fun	Again	The Stylin' Schofields

Oh, and for those who may still be interested, I actually worked and finished my Berlin and SOS pictures. Man, when I update, I UPDATE. So hopefully all this new material will keep you busy for a while. I don't know if I'll get to update this site while out in Bosnia. But I guess we'll get to that bridge when and if we get to it. But I'll be sure to let everyone know my mailing address so you can send all the porn you can afford to mail. I'm exceedingly tired right now, so I'm going to sleep now. Enjoy!
What's New? Berlin pictures, SOS pictures, DVDs, the pictures above. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Shoot me an email if you want to. I may respond. (okay, you know I will - what else have I got to do?)