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Well, I've decided that some kind of blog-ish effort would be entertaining, so I am starting one of my very own. The opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. They should not be mistaken for the opinions of anyone else. If you want to comment on my opinions, feel free to shoot me an e-mail. If you want to flame me ... piss off, this is MY web site, therefore, I will say what I want to. I'm not doing this to make any statements or to ruffle any feathers. I'm just having some fun. If it happens to offend you because I made you think, at least you are using your brain for once.
Kevin Dodge says that he is bored and I need to update my web site, because he has read it all. So I decided to update a few things. Kevin, you'll have to search to find them. If you REALLY read everything, you'll find new stuff on most pages of the site. If you were just giving me shit ... well, here's some new stuff to read anyway! Oh the rants I could rant. The world is insane. People are nuts. Religion makes people even crazier than they were without it. It doesn't matter which religion ... they pretty much all make you crazy. Politics also makes people more nuts than they already were. People want to protect the country, but they don't want to offend the 9 billion illegal Mexicans living here by sending their illegal asses back to Mexico. People want the government to stop spending so much money, yet we keep how many people on Death Row for how long? Can you imagine how much money this country could save by executing all the people in prison with life sentences or death sentences? The great thing about it is that it would be really cost effective to get rid of them all ... all you need is one IV needle per prison. What does it matter that it is "contaminated" after it's used on the first guy? They are all going to die anyway. And you don't need any sort of drug to kill them ... a little air in a vein will go a long way to make someone dead! My last two days off I watched the AFN News Channel. It is the BEST news channel on the planet, because it has all the different networks on it ... you can watch a Fox News show, followed by an MSNBC show, followed by an ABC show, followed by CNN ... it's GREAT! I always though MSNBC was the more conservative between them and Fox News ... turns out I was wrong, and now Keith Olberman is my favourite news guy. He is very straight forward and witty and sarcastic and a bit cynical ... which is probably why I like him. Although, I do like Shepard Smith on Fox News as well ... The degrees of spin on the same story between the networks is really great. You get the same story from 18 different angles, all on one channel! Yah AFN! Ok, that was strange ... I said nice things about AFN! :) Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, all of the natural disasters, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc, are just Mother Nature's way of combating overpopulation? I think that. I also think that stupid people shouldn't be allowed to breed, but that's just my opinion! Sure, we all have our stupid moments, but sometime people are a little over quota on theirs! So I was amused by the start of the new Survivor season. They are in the Cook Islands this time, not too far from me, and they have the tribes separated by race. White people, black people, Asian people, and Latinos/Hispanics/whatever the proper term is. In the first episode, a white guy stole a chicken from an Asian guy. The chicken ended up getting inadvertently released, but that's beside the point. So there was a chicken thing between the whites and the Asians. The black tribe lost the challenge, but got to pick one person from the other three tribes to go to Exile Island (I like Exile Island, great idea!) ... despite the fact that they had no personal beef with the white guy that stole the chicken, the black tribe chose a guy from the white tribe to go to Exile Island. Why? What did the white guy do to the black tribe? Nothing. One of the black guys said it was Karmic retribution for the chicken stealing. SO the black tribe is now looking out for the Asian tribe? That's awfully nice of them, considering it is a game where everyone is out for themselves! The second episode was pretty great too, as the Hispanic tribe actually threw a challenge so they could go to tribal council and get rid of one of their people. Don't get me wrong, the guy deserved it, but still ... in a game where in the beginning there is still strength in numbers, was that really a great move? Does it really matter in the big scheme of things? I'm going to go ahead and say no, but it keeps me amused on a small island. :) Big event coming up in my life ... I turn 30 next month. Yup, the big 3-0. I am kind of excited about it, because I actually have two parties that night. One is a get together down at the beach for all ages ... I have several friends with kids out here ... and the other is at the Yuk Club. The band, Durty Rascals, will be playing ... what's cool about them is that it is mostly fire department guys in the band! The drummer is a cop, one of the bass players is a rocket scientist of one sort or another, and the other bass, the keyboardist, and the two guitar players are all firefighters! Who knew firemen had such talent?! They are really good ... not as good as the SuperHeroes, but I'm biased there ... and they are playing for my birthday! Well, technically, they are playing at the club, but it just so happens to be my birthday, so hey, I have a live band for my birthday party! And then I am going to be old. I'm going to need to make sure I take several naps during the day, so I can stay up past 10pm! :) Well, that's about all I have to say for now. I can't really form cohesive thoughts at the moment, I just finished lunch. Perhaps I'll add more on Meck next week. Toodles ... Kevin, I hope you are happy ... :) Michelle's Vacation Tales No ranting in this one ... just thought I would give my faithful readers (all both of you) something to read! I got back from vacation 5 days ago and am settling back into the daily grind of island life again. It really is rough living out here, 602 miles north of the Equator, lounging in my Lazy Boy at work, updating my web site!! Ah well, things will return to normal very shortly, once the fall semester starts and I have 4 classes to tackle. Anyway, vacation ... vacation was awesome! I spent five and a half weeks off of Kwajalein, and really I think that was almost too much. Mostly because I spent an obscene amount of money (Just like I did last year) and almost spent too much time with the people I love, which made it that much harder for me to accept the fact that I am back on my little island again, but this time for who knows how long! Oh well ... I know, wah wah wah Michelle ... I haven't taken a vacation in 6 years!!! Sorry. I'll stop whining about my vacation that was almost 6 weeks long!! I started out in Hawaii for a few days and went to the wedding of two of my friends from out here. It was a very lovely ceremony and during the reception I ate Sashimi for the first time ever. Sashimi is straight up raw fish. None of the extra crap you get with sushi ... plain old raw fish ... it was DELICIOUS!! Very, very yummy and I can't wait to have more! Oh, the two evenings prior to Mike and Cristin's wedding, I ate dinner with another friend of mine from out here, one of the nurses, named Chris. The first night we went to a place called 3660 on the Rise ... very nice place, I felt snooty just sitting there! The food was amazing! The desserts were spectacular! If you ever get to Honolulu, and aren't afraid of a pricey meal, I HIGHLY recommend it. The next night we went to a Thai place across the road from our hotel. Singha I think it was called. Another really nice place. Anyway, had a great time in Honolulu, great food, great friends, in fact, it was the first time I had been to Honolulu and spent any time with Kwaj folks! Ok, it was the first time I was in Honolulu and knew anyone!! Did a bunch of shopping, mailed myself a bunch of stuff, and then headed to Las Vegas to see my mommy and daddy and my little sister and my niece. Mom, Stacy and Zoey were all waiting at the airport for me ... it was awesome to see them all, especially Zoey, as the last time I saw here, she was about 40 hours old and here she was ... 8 months old!! Spent several days with my family ... Zoey is AWESOME ... and she loves me! I had dinner with Jon and Darrin from Kwaj one night in Vegas and after a few days with family, headed off to New York City for a few days. I flew in to Newark, took the train into Penn Station, took the subway to my hotel, was told I couldn't check in for several more hours but I could leave my bags in their lock room, and then walked around the city for several hours. I walked over to the UN building ... nice building. Then I met my friend Angelo for lunch. Angelo was one of the cool things about a NYC trip ... After lunch I headed back to my hotel to be told I had to wait another hour, and as I was very tired by that point, I parked myself in a chair in the lobby and took a wee nap. By wee nap, I mean I was gone for the next hour! I finally got to check in and went upstairs and took another nap. I then went to dinner with Angelo and his girlfriend Coral, Mike and Stacy (friends of Angelos that I had met before), and their other friend Pat. We ate and then saw Superman Returns ... ok movie, Kevin Spacey was great, overall not very impressive. At this point I could launch into a fun story about subway mishaps, but there are more in the days that follow ... Tuesday was Fourth of July and I was invited to spend it with Angelo and his family in Brooklyn. Of course I took that offer and spent the day with several WONDERFUL people. We saw NYC fireworks from a bridge in Brooklyn (not the Brooklyn Bridge) and had a generally awesome day. Wednesday started my theatre time and I saw The Producers and Spamalot. The Producers, despite the lack of Nathen Lane and Matthew Broderick was hilarious. Very well done, great show. Spamalot is the BEST show I have EVER seen. Ever. Despite the lack of Tim Curry and David Hyde Pierce! Of course, it is hard to go wrong with anything Monty Python, but this was the best!! I highly recommend Spamalot. The next day I walked through Central Park ... hey why not ... it's there! Well, I walked as far at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ... that was the plan all along, but it is still a really long walk through Central Park!! I saw priceless works of art, some things I wouldn't necessarily call art, and a bunch of things that actually made sense and that I understood, thanks to my Western Humanities I class last spring! The Met is cool! After the Met it was off to see Wicked. Tip for musical lovers: don't read the book and listen to the soundtrack before you see the show. I had already read Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and listened to the Wicked soundtrack, so I had my own idea of what it should be like. Stupid, stupid Michelle!! Objectively, it was a great show ... but I had my own expectations, that didn't necessarily work out. Although, I LOVED the ending. So of the three shows I saw I would rank them: Spamalot, the Producers, and then Wicked ... but they were all great! Friday the 7th I spent about 12 hours either in train stations, on trains, in airports, or on planes. I took the train from NYC to Philadelphia ... mostly just so I could take the train. I love trains. Then flew to Atlanta to get to Tallahassee. Yah Florida! I picked up my free couple of category upgrade rental car and headed off to see Stu and Donna and we went out for dinner, where I got Stu to try Sashimi, which she enjoyed ... then it was off to bed because we were all very tired and Donna had to get up at really early o'clock to go to work. Saturday I went down and visited my house ... it is doing fine ... there are a couple of rather large banana spiders that have taken up residence on the outside of my house, but as long as they stay outside, they will be allowed to live! I went and said hi to my old crew up at fire station #1 and then went and bought a couch for my house! I bought the couch so my bed wouldn't be lonely! Sunday was off to camp ... yah camp!! Sunday the 9th through Saturday the 15th was spent at Billy Jo Rish State Park on Cape San Blas with 31 of the coolest kids in the world ... the campers of Camp Amigo. On my links page there is a link to Camp Amigo, if you want to know more. Suffice to say, camp was awesome, I hated missing it the past two year, which is why I went this year! Saturday the 15th was the end of camp and Sarah and I drove over to Panama City to hang out with her boyfriend, Waylon. Waylon is a cool guy responsible for building 17 miles of beach in Panama City. Yah Waylon!! We spent the night on his boat (stupid big fishing boats) and very early Sunday morning motored back to his slip at the marina and continued sleeping because the big fishing boats were going out and we were rocking WAAAAY too much! Sunday we diving off of Panama City ... any diving is good diving, therefore, this was good diving. Unfortunately for me, since I learned to dive and have done most of my diving 602 miles north of the equator, not all diving is really that great. I am spoiled, I know. Of course, there was the seasickness factor and that didn't help much. We said goodbye to Waylon and headed back to Tallahassee to pick up my rental car for the week, which ended up being a many category free upgrade ... from a compact to a convertible ... Monday morning I headed down to see the nice folks at the Sopchoppy (yes that is a real town name) City Hall so I could get my water turned on by that afternoon, then hauled butt back up to Tally for some good fire station food! By the time I got back from Tallahassee to my house (after a rather expensive shopping trip to Wally World) it was about 20 til 7 and I discovered that I still had no water. SO back up to Tallahassee to stay the night at Sarah's and in the morning I spoke to the nice folks at Sopchoppy City Hall who apologized profusely and assured me that they were sending someone over to my house right away to get the water on for me. So I got back to my house Tuesday morning and YAH I had water!! So I got to use my toilet and shower and sink and dishwasher! Woohoo! Then I took a nap in my house. That was surprisingly very nice. Just knowing that I owned this space. It was mine. Then I woke up and waited for the couch delivery guys to come. They did and my living room became the 2nd room in the house to have furniture! It is a big comfy couch that reclines on both ends! Yah!! The next couple of days were spent in my house just being there. It was cool! Thursday was another lunch with the crew day and then Thursday night was SuperHeroes night! Yah SuperHeroes! Friday morning I headed down to Orlando, stopping in Gainesville to see Micheal. Driving around Florida in a convertible with the top down has both advantages and disadvantages. Before you start chuckling, no I did not get caught in the rain. But I did have knots in my hair the size of small wooly mammoths. But it was fun! I wore sunscreen ... :) Friday night I hung out with my good friend Scott in Orlando after I picked him up from the airport ... Saturday we went to the movies, saw Clerks II ... it was GREAT! Saturday evening was spent with Micheal and some friends of his ... we went to Outback for dinner ... mmmm ... Outback .... and then went to the drag show at the Parliament House. Good times were had by all! Sunday it was lunch with a Kwaj friend and his niece ... I know her brother out here ... then out and about until it was time to go to the airport for my flight back to Nevada. An uneventful flight that got in a bit late and sucked because it took an hour for the bags to come out. Seriously ... an hour!! Monday and Tuesday were wonderful days, because I got to take a nap with Zoey each morning. She slept on me and I just snuggled with her. It was really, really awesome. Wednesday we went into Vegas to get family pictures done ... I think the Barnett family scared the poor portrait lady. We had fun! The rest of the time I just chilled out with my sister and the baby until Friday, when it was time for me to fly to Honolulu for the weekend before heading back to Kwaj. The cool part about going back to Honolulu was the fact that I was taking my mom ... and she didn't know it. My mom and dad took me in to the airport to drop me off and when my dad took my bags out of the truck, he grabbed my moms as well (they were going to San Diego for the weekend ... or so she thought) and my mom said "hey that's my bag" and my dad said "I know" and I grinned and looked at her and said "Oh, did we forget to tell you, you're coming with me"! She was shocked and we flew to Honolulu and had a great weekend. Then Monday I got on a plane to come back to Kwaj and my mom got on a plane to head back home. My last real meal was steak and chicken at Benihana with my mom and my last Starbucks was a Mocha Light Frappacino. So here I am ... back at work ... making up for all the money I spent on vacation! We are at the tail end of our ORI (operational readiness inspection) that occurs in person every three years and hopefully after that, they will decide who they are going to promote to Lieutenant. Of course, my fingers are crossed for me, but hey, you never know! No, I have no idea how much longer I am going to be out here. We'll see what happens! At the moment I am still quite happy out here and things are going well. I have plenty to keep me occupied and I have some good friends to hang out with. Oh, and I am making huge progress on the whole college degree thing!! One more class and I'll have my AS in Fire Science ... unfortunately it is a speech class I can't necessarily do online ... I could if I had a high-speed internet connection, but alas, I am on painfully slow dial-up. Really loved the whole WiFi thing while i was home!! Well, that's it for now ... I'll update pictures at a later date ... probably Meck next week when I can have a slightly faster connection and LOADS of free time! I'm out! Michelle's rant: Immigration Edition Ok, so tomorrow in the States, all the Mexicans are supposed to rally and boycott and protest their unfair treatment and the talk of immigration reform. Their goal is allegedly to shut down cities. Here's my thought on the matter: shut the hell up. Are you here illegally? Then go back home and see what you can get from your own frickin' government. You're getting quite a bit from mine! Did you come here legally? Then learn the language, don't expect EVERYONE to bend over backwards to understand you. You are in AMERICA now, our official language is ENGLISH! I don't go to Mexico and expect everyone to bend over backwards to understand me in English, don't expect me to bend over backwards to understand you in Spanish in my country. And pick one: Mexican or American. You are not a Mexican-American. Ok, you were born in Mexico. I was born in New Zealand. I am not a Kiwi-American. I'm an AMERICAN! And damn it I am proud of that. I recognize my ancestry. I am a registered member of the Ngai Tahu back in New Zealand. But I am a US citizen. When my mom was naturalized, the judge that performed the ceremony said to everyone in the room, "You are no longer Mexican-Americans or Canadian-Americans or Chinese-Americans. You are Americans." I believe so strongly in that! It's great to remember where you came from. I think everyone should know where they came from. But if you demand the services of the US government and you demand that they give you whatever you want, you damn well better call yourself an American. Maybe we should deport all the illegals. Maybe we should post armed guards at the borders with orders to shoot to kill. WE don't want to wound people, because then they would want our medical care. Oh wait, they are already getting that for free! Go ahead and have your rallies and our protests. When you get arrested for breaking the laws of the United States and whatever city you happen to be in, don't bitch about it. You want fairness? You got it. Tomorrow should be an entertaining news day. I'll probably write more because I'll be pissed off about something! Ok, I'm done ... for now. You can read previous entries by scrolling down. No need to read them in order, they are mostly unconnected! So it is the holiday season, or maybe I can't say that, as it may offend people that don't celebrate any holiday during this time of year. Seriously, all that crap really chaps my ass. That whole First Amendment thing means I can say MERRY CHRISTMAS to anyone I want to. If you don't celebrate "Christmas", then bully for you. I'm not sorry for saying MERRY CHRISTMAS. In fact, let me say it again ... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Good grief it annoys me that people get all freaked out about little things like that. Is it wrong to want to kill people for being stupid? I don't really want to kill anyone, calm down. We have a higher than normal number of dumb people on this island. Fortunately, none of them have yelled at me for saying MERRY CHRISTMAS. Of course, a number of them have still ridden their bikes out in front of my ambulance when I am driving down the road with emergency devices in operation. Why do people do that? Have they changed the rules in the States? Ok, I should get off of that topic, it makes me mad! Entertaining fire department drama going on these days. One of our new people is a bit of a psycho. A couple of them don't know how to do the job. I'm not saying they are bad people, but this isn't the place to get experience. We don't do nearly enough for these people to learn the job on the fly. Couple of people here now that I wouldn't trust on a line backing me up. Good thing nothing ever happens out here. (Knock on wood!) Ok, not a whole lot to say tonight, just thought I'd say hello and MERRY CHRISTMAS! My niece is the most wonderful 2-month old in the universe, she gets cuter and cuter by the second! I am going to be off of work on New Year's Eve ... should be quite the good time! One of my very rare drinking nights! Lovely evening to you all ... til next time! SO I was reading a bunch of random editorials on Yahoo today. It seems the Parents Television Council have strong armed a bunch of advertisers from buying ad time during the TV show Nip/Tuck. It's an adult show, it's shown after the impressionable youth should be in bed, and there is an off button on the TV. The people that watch the show are the ones that would be buying the products. Who the hell are the Parental Television Council to strong arm anyone about anything? It's called Personal Responsibility. Get some. I'm not a parent, so I have no first-hand knowledge on how difficult it is to raise a child in today's world. I have, however, lots of first-hand knowledge regarding people that don't take responsibility for their actions or the actions of their children. There are a lot of parents that need to get a grip and realize their child is NOT a "perfect little angel". Your child is a little shit and has no respect for authority, no respect for things are not his, and not even any respect for the things that are his. Your child drinks, your child huffs, and your child does not pull over for emergency vehicles. It's not the school's job to teach them about these things ... it is yours!! So if you don't want your kid watching Nip/Tuck, don't let them. I can't possibly be that hard to change the channel or *gasp* turn off the TV altogether! Another entertaining one I read said that Pat Robertson has decided that a town in New Hampshire, or Vermont, or somewhere up in that part of the country, can't ask God for anything anymore because they voted down the "Intelligent Design" theory of creation. They didn't say it was wrong, they just said it couldn't be taught in schools. Not really sure what that's all about. Is Pat Robertson actually get this stuff from God? If so, why would anyone want to be associated with Pat Robertson? He is basically deciding for people that they are wrong. I saw a bumper sticker once that said "He's YOUR god, they are YOUR rules ... YOU go to Hell". I think that applies to Pat Robertson, and well pretty much any "religious" person that tells someone they are wrong, solely because they don't believe the exact same thing. Although, I do believe that different creation ideas should be discussed in schools. Why not expose kids to bigger ideas? But, you can't just limit it to the "Christian" creation mythos. You have to include lots of different theories. I mean, really ... isn't it the whole purpose of school to teach kids how to think and consider different arguments before making decisions? Oh wait ... my bad ... it's about passing standardized tests that are standard for about 1% of the population. Never mind. In other entertaining news ... I bought a house!! I have been accused of now officially being an adult. I thought that was rather mean to say! But even better than that, my little sister Stacy gave birth to a beautiful little girl named Zoey! She was born on October 28th, which coincidentally, is the same date that I closed on my house! So when I bought my house, I had to do most of it via mail/e-mail/fax, because it is very hard to do things in Florida when you live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! My real estate guy, and great Friend, Dale Shumate, helped me through every step of the process. Even now that I actually bought the house, he is still doing awesome things for me! Dale took so much time with me and my house buying process that I find it hard to believe that he didn't run away screaming 2 weeks into it! He helped me find a house I liked, found me financing, seriously, he helped me A LOT! So, if you ever need to do anything real estate related in the Tallahassee, Florida area, call Dale. Or e-mail me and I'll get you his contact info! Yah Dale!! Ok, I'm done for now. I'm sure I have more to say, but I just don't feel like typing all that much! My first entry. How exciting! I am currently working on Meck Island, which, I suppose, is the reason I have some time to kill to play with my web site! Hmmm ... now that I am writing, I find that I have very little to say today. Those of you that know me know that that is a bit unusual! Me with nothing to say! hehehehe Oh, here's something ... I'm currently ranked #1 in my football pick 'em game! Yah me! Wow ... that's pretty boring. Oh well ... more to come, I'm sure! |
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michelle@firefightermichelle.com |
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