Haduken
Archive for the 'Adventures' Category
Savannah — Van was right
This weekend RMSzero, fetzer and I traveled to Jacksonville by way of Savannah to see our Hokies lose yet again to a mediocre Florida State team. That’s the only thing I am going to say about football. The trip still rocked mostly because we elected to stay the night in Savannah (awesome) instead of Jacksonville (lame).
Grave robbers!
So havoc and I went on a crazy adventure to an abandoned cemetery. While there we found a crypt that had been broken into. The grave robbers smashed the old wooden coffins, and broke the marble lids of the newer coffins. It was insane.
To prove it, I saw a human skull:
More photos here:
Barack and the Justice League of Virginia
RMS and I attended the Tim Kaine rally this Sunday. Havoc attended too, but the unwashed masses prevented our meet up. He did however snap this great shot of the group on stage:
Let’s get this straight. Barack Obama is a celebrity. People — including me — love that guy. He just doesn’t feel like a politician when he speaks: nothing he says sounds contrived or forced. He was the crowd favorite on Sunday and received more applause than even Tim Kaine.
It was apparent to me after watching Obama speak and then watching Tim Kaine speak immediately after,
that Obama is a level 9 wizard of politics while Kaine is something like a level 2 n00b. Obama posses a certain something — I’m going to say “a personality” — that Kaine just doesn’t have. Whatever that certain something is, it is what gets Obama mentioned as a presidential candidate while Kaine is left to slug it out against Jerry Kilgore.
Obama mostly told stories from his own campaign for US Senator and then said things like “Democrats are good, and so is Tim Kaine!” I could take or leave some of the things he said. The Democrats are sometimes just directly opposed to small government / states rights, and yall know that’s how I roll. In my heart of hearts I want Barack Obama to become the John McCain of the Democrats and do things because they are the right thing to do, not because the Party says so. But hey, it is his freshman year, it takes time to become a maverick.
Tim Kaine’s speech was less than enthralling. He spent a good fifteen minutes talking about how bad Jerry Kilgore was for not promising to run a positive campaign. It felt internally inconsistent to me. But hey, what do I know?
I do know this, actually: some people are crazy about their political party affiliation. The only thing I can relate it to is college football. People there were intense about anything anyone said. It kind of blows my mind.
VA Political Bloggers Summit
RMSzero and I took a road trip to Hooville this weekend to weigh in on the state of political blogging in Virginia. I wore my VT regalia just in case anyone assumed I was a hoo loyalist. The experience was interesting, amazing and hilarious.
Meeting people from the i-net in meatspace always creeps me out, and this experience was no different. I met Waldo, Rick Sincere, Norman, John and a would-be delegate from Fairfax but who in fact had lost her race. We pointed out to her that NoVA sucks. Oops. I also saw some of the dudes from SicSemper but they peaced out after lunch and I didn’t get a chance to talk to them. Also, I think Waldo’s mom may be hot. Just a thought.
When RMS and I arrived we picked a table that soon became the kid’s table — a mostly college aged table. The whole event was kind of like a middle school dance in a way, with people acting polite and awkward. “Awesome” and “Amazing” would be two words I would use to describe it.
Things discussed:
What makes up a good government. Interesting to see what people thought — especially the libertarian-to-the-max guy and the (possible delegate?) guy from south west Virginia who’s every argument began with “When I talk to people in the Country Store…”
Campaign finance laws and regulations. A fellow by the name of Scott(or Chris?) Piper gave an interesting presentation on the laws that apply specifically to political bloggers. If you run a blog, pay more than 200$ for hosting, and encourage people to vote for or against a specific candidate then you are required by law to report your hosting fee as a campaign contribution. Learning is fun. I think in general the room was full of outrage — which was kind of silly. Luckily the gov’t only counts actual money as a contribution, not time. So fear not Haduken.com readers.
The Virginia Way. Then a guy talked about the Virginia Way™ what that means. I learned that Governor Byrd sux0rz’d.
Blogger code of ethics. A proposed universal — at least to Virginia — blogger code of ethics set off the best discussion of the day. I think the room was split down the middle between people who feel like self-regulation is one step down the road toward government regulation and people who thought self-regulation would add to blogger legitimacy. Given the huge spectrum of blogs — even within the political blogs genre — the specifics of a universal code of ethics would be difficult if not impossible to nail down. But I think I could get behind a graduated code of ethics, much like the creative commons copyright. As long as the least restrictive version was something like “When I use sources I will cite them” or something similar.
Afterwards we had a great conversation with John from Church Hill People’s News. He is an awesome dude and we are going to get beers sometime.
So there you have it. My thoughts on the first Virginia Political Bloggers Summit. Jim Bacon of Bacon’s Rebellion (best named blog ever) has news on a follow-up conference:
The Creative Change Center in Richmond has offered to host and organize a follow-up blogging conference if there is any interest in one. I see this conference as being very hands-on, digging into the nitty gritty of blogging operations. I’m very open to any suggestions of topics to be addressed, and would welcome the participation of anyone who would like to play an organizing role. Communicate through this blog or by e-mailing me at jabacon@baconsrebellion.com.
Gulu - The War Zone
If you don’t read anything else from the Uganda e-mail thread, you may at least be interested in this. This blew my mind.
Some of you may know that after the team arrived and settled in at Canaan, I then headed north to spend about a week in the Ugandan war zone. My main goal was to try to get a few orphans out of the war zone, and back down safely to Canaan.
An astounding e-mail of swashbuckling adventure follows . . .
Fear and Loathing at Gold Cup: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the Southern Dream
Van and his Texan sidekick, named, what else, Dustin the Texan, take a surreal and drug-riddled joy ride to the Horse Races of Northern Virginia, partly in tribute to the late Hunter S. Thompson, and partly in an effort to make political connections for fun and profit. For some reason, the son of the Prime Minister of Australia is there, wearing fancy boots. (Includes 1 picture of some random chicks wearing silly hats.)
So, I got it at the PX…part 2
Here we go again kids…
All that sucks…is in IRAQ!
Hey all, it’s an update…
Luray Caverns: Underground Romance
Our travel plans thwarted by forecasted snow in the state park midas and I were planning on visiting, we choose to live out a year’s long dream and celebrate our 2.0 underground.
Under the excellent guidemanship of Luray Caverns tour trainee, Chase, we navigated the tunnels of the several million year old cave with ease -and discovered the true meaning of friendship.
Here is our story in pictures and some words.
I got it at the PX…(Just in case you were wondering…)
No matter where you are in the Sandbox, you can almost always amuse yourself by going to the PX and browsing around. (The PX for those of you that don’t know is the POST EXCHANGE…it’s the Army/Airforce equivalent of Kmart except you don’t pay tax on any of your purchases.) Anyway, there’s an array of random useless items that you can find at just about any camp out here…each camp’s PX has it’s own cache of dumb stuff just waiting to be discovered!?! So, here are some finds…in no particular order…
The Amazing FLY GUN!
[Pictures fixed. Those flies are disgusting. -- Ed.]
Ok,
so we are running kinda thin on the adventures here at FOB Duke BUT I *do* have something that’s kinda gross and kinda interesting at the SAME TIME?!?!?! At least one of you guys know that there are a lot (and i mean A LOT) of FLIES here in Iraq… as demonstrated here…
A Moveable Drink
In this long-awaited episode, Van travels into the heart of the Deep South, arriving in Savannah, Georgia, where he ruminates in what might be described as an ethereal manner on the town. From what I’ve been able to gather, there was a lot of drinking going on down there (which is perhaps continuing to this moment), so if you find him waxing poetic, well, I’m sure you’ll forgive him. It’s hard to resist the charms of a Southern belle in her home territory. Home field advantage and all that.
cheers,
-midas
Oh good god…this is THE BORING.
so yeah,
this little Iraqi adventure that I’m on has gone from a steady roll to a dead stop pretty much. THE BORING has set in and has made itself quite comfortable. After exactly a month in the middle east things have become a lot less exciting here on the Duke…the only thing that even seems worthwhile during the day is cleaning my weapon, watching Carnivale, and playing the haggle game with the dudes at the Hagi-mart. (and sometimes THAT can be an adventure all in itself since some of them BARELY speak “the english.”) I haven’t been on a convoy since the “Iraqi Police Car Tragedy” and I’m working “Swing-shift” with my buddy Wat. *yawn* ok, I’m boring myself talking about this…
Tragedy strikes in the form of an Iraqi Police Car!
So yeah, we’re on a convoy on our way back to the middle of “the middle of nowhere,” travelling at a decent speed (which translates to tearing ass down the highway as far as convoys go) when we come to an intersection just outside of Taleo. Our Gun Trucks get into a block position so everyone can go through the intersection without the convoy getting torn apart when B A M! An Iraqi Police car SLAMS into our right side Gun Truck going about 70 MPH on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD. No one got hurt…but the dude sure as hell screwed up one of our Humvees. These people seriously need ROAD RULES.