Monthly Archive for June, 2006

Upcoming Weekend Fun

Tonight, everyone in the youth group went miniature golfing…in Williamsburg (30 minutes away), at 9:30 PM. I vehemently declined to go and I even napped for a bit upon coming home, but here I find myself awake again talking to Aftan and pondering what to do and where to go tomorrow.

Jon, Kevin and I are heading up to Washington D.C. tomorrow to run around for a bit, visit my uncle Johnny and just chill out on the Metro trains. We’re heading to the Lakeside Church men’s breakfast tomorrow morning, then immediately afterward we’re heading out. Should take us about 2 1/2 hours to get to the Franconia-Springfield Metro station, and from there our foray into the interesting world of Washington begins.

I’ve been there a ton of times, but I have to find ways to make it sound interesting. I just look forward to getting away from Newport News and seeing my uncle Johnny with a couple friends, if nothing else.

Sunday I’m gonna chill out at my dorm all day and ponder the meaning of life. That’s about it!!!

Al-Zarqawi Killed In Iraq Airstrike

From CNN.com:

Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the coalition’s most wanted man in Iraq, was killed in an airstrike near Baquba, jubilant U.S. and Iraqi authorities announced Thursday.

Good thing they got him, but I’m also kinda leery because now U.S. forces will have to find another name to identify with the insurgency in Iraq.

I just wish we could bomb Iraq and get out of there.

Coverage from various news networks: CNN - FOX - MSNBC - BBC - Drudge
Document: Multi-National Force Iraq Official Press Release (Courtesy MNF-Iraq Website)
Document: Slides From MG Caldwell Press Conference (Adobe Reader required)
Video: Airstrike That Killed Al-Zarqawi (Courtesy MNF-Iraq Website)

Thanks For Serving. Your Identity’s Been Stolen.

Let us all give thanks for the Veteran’s Administration, who now faces a class-action lawsuit from several veterans’ groups after learning that 26.5 million veterans’ personal records had been stolen off a external hard drive that a VA employee took home.

As if the news that millions of people who served their country in wartime and peacetime have been thanked by their government mishandling their social security numbers and other data is bad, then it has just become that much worse. Now, as it turns out, the 26.5 million people whose info has been compromised includes 80% of the active duty force. Now I have reason to be worried…ain’t nothin’ like a good ole “welcome back to the States” present from an idiot government employee who couldn’t simply abide by the rules of his workplace.

I’m now closely monitoring all my personal accounts (i.e. bank accounts, military pay statements, health records, etc.) and making sure nothing corny pops up on them. If you’re an active-duty troop, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start doing that now as well (although I must admit, I should have been checking my financial info more often anyway). The VA has said there is no reason to believe anyone’s information has been stolen yet, and as a result they won’t check individual names against a list to see if they’ve been compromised. Psssshhht.

Let’s not even mention a possible national security breach because of the carelessness of one person.

Oh well. I hope VA officials get fried for this. We don’t serve our country to have our identities stolen. Let’s pray nothing bad comes out of this dilemma.

Unbelievable

Ah yes. My first game back on the softball field since way back yonder in 2004 was a smashing success, for the most part. ACC Public Affairs, the team I play for, has been known to field some pretty terrible teams over the years, but last night we came tantalizingly close to victory against one of the better teams in the Langley softball league.

After the first inning, the score was 8-3 in favor of the 480th Intelligence Wing, and we were pretty sure we were gonna get blown out of the water. But we strung together some good hits in the 2nd and narrowed the margin, and our defense got three quick outs to send our offense back to the plate….but not before Maj Honchul, our catcher, collided with our pitcher MSgt Murphy and lost three teeth. No kidding…we were wondering why there wasn’t blood everywhere, then it dawned on us that it completely busted half the three teeth off. That had to hurt worse than actually losing the complete tooth.

So they called me up to go in and replace Maj Honchul. We put together an awesome rally in the third to tie it up, in which I got a hit and scored a run. We found ourselves down again in the 4th after they scored a couple runs, but it wasn’t too bad because MSgt Winslow rifled a throw from center field to me at home, and we nailed the runner coming in to end the inning and keep it close. We rallied to tie it again, and the ump made a crap call on Chief Sims’ grounder to short in which she beat out the throw by half a step, but he still called her out. That was pivotal because the score was 11-11 and we had a runner on 3rd who would have scored, but nay, we went to the bottom of the inning tied.

With two outs, there was another play at the plate…Maj Johnson caught a popout just beyond first base, and the runner at third tagged up and came home. I caught it and applied the tag, but the ump called him safe. Another crap call, and everyone else on the team said it was too. Oh well. We got out of the inning, but time expired before the 6th could start and we lost 12-11.

Even though we lost, it was a fun game because it was competitive…and it was just good fun to be back out there on the softball field. Even though the only two hits I got were singles, I batted 2-for-2 on the night so I feel great about that. Everyone on our team played out of their mind and it almost got us a win. We came close and it’ll be nice to see what we can do next game.

Peace.

Podcast #2: Pentecost Celebration & Church Podcasting

Tonight, I give a 10-minute blurb about the Pentecost Celebration we attended last night and also talk about a couple other things. Thanks for hanging around, I told everyone the podcast would come back soon…

Still searching for a better microphone. At least there’s not an annoying buzz in this one.

Remember that you can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes by searching for me in the iTunes Music Store and clicking “Subscribe” when The World According to Chris Brewer pops up. As an alternative, you can click the Podcasts category in the sidebar to review all of them and stream them straight from my blog.

Peace, love, and Athens, Greece.

Pentecost Celebration Report

The Pentecost Celebration at the World Outreach Worship Center in Newport News was amazing. Great worship, great word from Bro. Wilson, and great prayer time. It was awesome to see hundreds of people from different Pentecostal churches around the area pack that place and worship the Lord.

The worship portion of the service was unlike anything I’ve ever been to. People were dancing in the aisles and in the open area in front of the stage, a group of Messianic Jews gathered together and danced while someone next to them blew a shofar, and others just stood and basked in the Lord’s presence.

I will admit that I went not expecting to take anything away from the service, and to merely be an observer. Stupid me, I should have realized that when I go to church with that mindset, God does a good job of ensuring I don’t go home the same way I came. And tonight was no different…we each were ministered to by various pastors in the prayer line after the sermon, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit was so strong on everyone that I honestly couldn’t help but wonder what it must have been like on the original Day of Pentecost.

It was a different service from anything I’ve ever attended, but God is all about shattering what we all see as normal and replacing it with a new viewpoint, a higher calling and a greater relationship with Him. It was great to be a part of the service tonight.

Of particular note is me being able to meet Bro. Keith Lambert, the pastor of the Va. Beach COGOP. A few months ago when I was in Iraq, Bro. H.E. Cardin had been showing the Tomlinson Center Board of Directors the capabilities of Skype (a Voice-over-IP Internet phone service), and I had the opportunity to meet Bro. Lambert via Bro. Cardin inviting me into their conference call (he did it to show Skype’s global capability). Don’t know if you read this, Bro Lambert, but it was wonderful to meet you in person tonight and I hope we can meet again before I move away in November. God bless you!

Whew…what a great evening. It’s time for me to hit the hay, gotta be up in four short hours. God bless, everyone.

Living For The Weekend

So I had a somewhat productive couple of days at work. My supervisor asked me to come in an hour early Friday to shoot some footage of a best-ball golf tournament at Eaglewood, and I couldn’t say no. What an awesome shoot. Brad, one of the maintainers, and I went to the golf course and had a blast. I mean seriously, how often do you get to use the Sony XDCAM for the first time while zipping through the course on a golf cart??? Seriously, I think I have the best job in the Air Force.

Since it’s Sunday, I might as well mention that tonight the World Outreach Worship Center in Newport News is hosting a Pentecost celebration with none other than Billy Wilson from COGOP headquarters. I don’t care for these types of gatherings that much, but I figure I’ll go with an open heart and see what good I can take home from it. After all, it IS a service to commemorate the Day of Pentecost and I hope it is one to enjoy. I’ll report on what it’s like when it’s over.

Update on the loud music and stupid suitemate situation: He seems to have taken heed to my warning, and things have been relatively quiet recently. Let’s hope it stays this way.

Sorry Guys, I’ve Been Out Of It

The past couple days have been really rough on me. Work doesn’t suck, no one that I love is dead, my friends haven’t bailed on me, and gas prices aren’t too terribly high. But life has been rough.

So why have the last couple of days been so bad, you ask? My idiot suitemate’s antics has officially made my life in Olsavsky Hall here at Langley Air Force Base a nightmare, vision of hell and pure torture all in one. You may remember me having blogged about the stunts he has pulled in the past, but this was the breaking point.

I arrived back from Springfield, MO early Wednesday morning and only slept eight hours. I had to go back to work the next day, so I figured I might as well iron my uniform, polish my boots, and get everything ready to go after church and I’d be in bed by midnight. So I called Aftan and got ready to go to sleep, turned out the lights, and just as if Mr. Buttcrack had heard me plop into bed, there comes this THUD, THUD, THUD and some whiny R&B lyric wafting through the wall. I drifted in and out of sleep until 3 AM, when the music finally stopped. I figured I’d be able to salvage three and a half hours of sleep and I’d be somewhat content.

I was so wrong.

My clock read 4:04 and my walls were vibrating from a steady pulsating THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD from an 808 bass drum, blaring from none other than my suitemate’s stereo (no, I don’t think he is worth the time of me getting to know his name, so from here on out, his name will be a string of symbols such as #$@#%).

Needless to say, I came unglued. Half asleep, I yelled through the walls for him to SHUT THE MUSIC OFF (I think the person above me might have heard me), and I threw on a pair of shorts so I could walk over to his room and scream at him in person. Though I didn’t scream, thankfully…I did discover that he had three friends over (at 4:04 AM, mind you!) and they were all laughing and drinking pop.

I spoke in a hushed tone and told $(^))_#@)% that I didn’t appreciate his disrespect for the dorm quiet hour policy and for me in general by blaring his music. With cell phone in hand, I commanded the people to get out of his room before I called the police…and they left, surprisingly, without ONE WORD. Then I confronted #(%$)@)@! and told him he was lucky it was a cell phone instead of a baseball bat I was holding in my hand, because it took every shred of Christian decency I had inside of me to not come in and destroy every piece of stereo equipment he had.

His response? “Mah, whah you go’ be like dat, mah.”

My response: “Because you’re a selfish idiot who doesn’t think of others and consider the fact that it might be 4 AM and others trying to sleep.” I closed out the conversation by telling him that if he played his music loudly once more at night, I would call the base police.

I got back to sleep around 5 AM and woke up promptly at 6:30 to go to work. Needless to say, I don’t remember much about yesterday. All I know is that I slept from 6 PM to 6 AM this morning. Now I feel a bit better, but I’m a bit sick so I’m gonna try to nap it off again.

So yeah, there you have it….the reason I’ve been so out of it. I’m just waiting to have to call the cops tonight.