Last One Standing

Ok…I know, reality shows are destroying civilization and only brain dead people enjoy them.

Well…I can’t help it.  Sometimes I just get hooked.

My latest favorite is on the Discover Channel (you can get it On Demand if your cable has that feature) and it’s called Last One Standing.  It takes six British and American athletes of different disciplines (strongman, kickboxer, etc.) and takes them around the world to visit a number of tribal/indigenous groups and compete in their traditional sports.

Totally cool.

I have to admit, this reminds me of those conversations I’d have as a kid when we’d discuss which superhero or monster was stronger or would be better in a particular situation.  Will a rugby player or a BMX racer be better at African stick fighting?  Will the kickboxer or ‘fitness guru’ be better at Mongolian wrestling?

The good news is that they’re apparently working on a second season.  The bad news is that each season takes a year to shoot (12 locations around the world with at least a week in each place, travel, and hey…these guys have a life too) so you won’t get to see anything new until the end of 2008 but it’ll be worth it.

Check it out.

Flashback!

I was recently talking to someone about my tour in Afghanistan and how the death of my friend there affected me. As I was talking about it I got quite angry and upset. After thinking about it for a few days I figured out why…

I wanted to have a proper memorial for him and there was some discussion about dedicating part of the armory in his name as well as a few other schemes but, much to my dismay, interest waned quickly among the leadership in the unit. I lobbied as hard as I could but the best I could wrangle out of the command was a vague promise to ‘look into things’ when we got home. It seemed a bit ridiculous to me since I knew that when we got home the last thing on anyone’s mind was going to be how to memorialize him. People would be moving on, leaving the unit, new members would be coming in and everyone would be focused on getting back to civilian life. As soon as they said it I knew they were giving me the blow off. What they ended up doing was naming a conference room for him in a building in Afghanistan that has probably been torn down already and drove by the cemetery on our way home. As far as I know, that was the extent of the memorial for the first soldier of that unit to die in the line of duty since the Second World War.

I did however, make a contribution in his name at the Gettysburg Battlefield and town of Gettysburg. He was a huge Civil War buff and would always rave about the Gettysburg reenactments he took part in. I solicited everyone in the company three or four times to see in anyone wanted to contribute. To the best of my memory, four of us eventually did. I have to admit I was surprised by the lack of interest and participation from everyone. It was like they were in a whole different army then we were.

Oh, wait…it gets worse.

I was also reminded how only one person bothered to ask how I was doing after he passed away and that was a guy who had only been in our unit for a few months by that time and wasn’t much more than an acquaintance to me. No chaplain, no commander, nobody else (for whatever reason) spoke to me about him for the remaining seven months we were there.

Absolutely some of the worst senior leaders (Sergeant-Major and Field Grade officers anyway) that I’ve ever had the misfortune to serve with.  I should say that we did have some good leaders but my unit was so top heavy that any promising leader was quickly squashed.

Hmmm…I think I’m beginning to see the origins of my disillusionment with the Army now.

Fortunately, his reenactor companions did the right thing and created a great way to memorialize him.

 

Fred Thompson…Dynamo!!!

He apparently mustered up enough energy to quit.  This guy might be an even bigger slacker than me!

Sweden Photos

I’ve been playing around with Blurb which is a self publishing website.  I’ve taken tons of pictures but really struggled with how to best display them.  I’m not really satisfied with them just sitting on my laptop or in an old school photo album and I’ve only got so much wall space to hang them up so I thought that a photo book might be the answer.  The whole process is simple and pretty fun.  You download the free and (really) easy to use software program and go to town building a book.

Anyway, my first result is here:

A collection of photos from two trips to Sweden in 2005 and 2007.  The photos look wonderful in this format (if I say so myself) and I have to say I’ve drunk the kool-aid regarding Blurb.

I’m working on another one from my time in Afghanistan that will combine my best photos with my stories and observations from my time there (edited to remove those pesky spelling mistakes and garbled text you’ll find here!)

The one downside to Blurb (and all these other self publishing sites)?  They end up being a bit pricey.  But they do look damn good…

Finally…a day off!

My slacker nature was really pushed to the limit lately.  There should be some sort of law mandating a 14 hour work week for slackers but until then I’m the victim of this exploitive system.  Just like this guy…

But, all this work has allowed me to check out some podcasts on my way to and from work and here are two I give virtual thumbs up to.

Let’s face it, a lot of stuff generated by us on the web is crap.  In fact, for some ‘glass is half empty‘ types it makes them think that the whole experiment is leading to the downfall of Western civilization.  Well, I think that is crap (so there!).  Of course most of what is produced is crap, that makes us appreciate the really good stuff.   If we listened to this sort of nonsense we’d miss out on those gems that might not ever see the light of day if we had to rely on the dinosaurs of publishing and recording acquisition and distribution.  So, with no further ado I give you…

Hall of Mirrors - Tales of Horror and the Grotesque  - Mike Bennett writes and narrates this creepy tales in a Twilight Zone/Night Gallery style.  The stories (at least the ones I’ve read so far) aren’t the sort of horror in vogue today in the theaters (that torture porn garbage) but rather more subtle and much more interesting.  The podcast also benefits from the fact that Bennett has a superb voice and is simply brilliant in giving voices to his many characters.  These are definitely ones that will stay in my collection to be replayed every fall as Halloween approaches.

12 Byzantine Rulers - Lars Brownworth has put together an impressive and fascinating history of the Byzantine empire by profiling 12 of its most important rulers.  He’s got a brilliant, clear style and are so good I feel a bit guilty not paying for them.  Even if you aren’t a history buff, check these out (they’re in relatively small bits - less than 30 minutes each) and use the knowledge you gain to bluff your way into a tenured professorship at your local university.

busy, busy, busy

I just started working with the military this week for what looks like a six month assignment and I just started a new class for my MA titled Foundations of Peace:

This course is a history, development, and future outlook for the approaches to peace, with particular emphasis on peace through coercive power, peace through nonviolence, peace through world order, and peace through personal and community transformation. The course will study the phenomenon of peace through examples and cases from the international/strategic level down to the local/tactical/community levels.

This means I’m likely to get a bit behind in my postings. But I really wanted to give some brief reviews of stuff I’ve just discovered to tide you over until I get more time to write…

My MP3 player crapped out this week and while it was an adequate player (not outstanding but it did the job) I had enough problems getting it to work with Microsoft Vista that I took it as a sign that I should get a newer model. So, I picked up a Zune and I have to admit I’m pretty impressed so far. It’s got some minor drawbacks, mostly in terms of managing my collection either from my player or the software but it’s a very simple interface and quite frankly I don’t find that I need to manipulate my collection as much as I did with my own player.

I particularly like how the Zune handles podcasts and have taken advantage of that by subscribing to a few.  After I’ve give a them a chance I’ll review them.

In the meanwhile,  I humbly recommend ‘His Majesty’s Dragon‘.  It had been sitting in my book shelf for awhile and I picked it up because I needed a book to keep in my cargo pocket for down time and I quickly got hooked.  It’s a story of Napoleonic wars with the added twist of having dragons flying around as well.

Photo of the day - Black Knight Edition

I’ve been going through my photos recently and was shocked to find out that I didn’t include this one (one of my favorites) in my Sweden set on my flickr account.  Well here it is…my nephew (well, my wife’s nephew…does that make him my nephew in law?) on the left meeting a knight during Medieval Week in Visby.  I really like everything about this picture and wish I could say I planned it this way but I really just lucked out.

Mad props to the dude playing the knight.  He just walked up to us while I was taking some pictures of the little guy and offered to have his picture taken.

Everybody do the causus!

Pretty good news last night all around. I’m not a huge fan of Huckabee but hopefully his win will make the Republican party move a little closer to figuring out if it wants to be a theocratic party or not.

I was also thrilled to see Hillary come in third place. She reminds me more and more of the last few years of the Soviet Union as a parade of old men staggered to the leadership for no other reason than because they had been patient and it was their turn. Hillary is essentially running on the same argument not realizing (or not caring?) that it was just that sort of thinking that has resulted in so many Democratic defeats. Hopefully this Obama momentum can keep going.

UPDATE:

I forgot to mention CNN’s gratuitous use of computer graphics in an attempt to reach the ‘gee-whiz’ demographic.  The highlight was this floating pie chart that Anderson Cooper called up from the infernal depths with some sort of magic paper.

On the other hand I became so enamored with CNN’s big computer screen that they could use to call up all sorts of facts and maps that now I want my own ‘big board’ to refer to in my conversations.  It would have to be portable, because I’d want to be able to bring it with me and use in all of my conversations.  I’d live for the opportunity to say “Well, that’s a real good question.  Let’s see what the big board says!”

Yet another reason to love YouTube

A good remix of a cool song from the 80s, chicks dancing in bikinis, kids playing hooky, in other words all the elements you need for a great music video. Some may call this sexist but I’m sure you’ll forgive me for channeling my inner 15 year old.

Happy New Year

I’m a few hours late but figured I’d share this New Year’s tradition.  Every year in many of the Germanic countries people watch a short movie that was filmed in 1963.  For some reason I haven’t been able to understand, even though the film is in English it’s found an incredible level of popularity in countries for which english isn’t the native tongue and is virtually unheard of in english speaking countries (I was first exposed to it in 1988 when I was stationed in Germany).

So…in the interest of spreading cultural awareness, here’s Dinner for One.  Enjoy!