You may be asking what changed so much in our life… or you might not care at all, but I’ll tell ya anyways. For those who haven’t really followed this blog at all, I was a member of the U.S. Army for the past 13 years. Note the “was“. Almost 3 years ago now, I started having pain in my hip. I went to the doctor and found out after a long, drawn out evaluation that I had what is known as a labral tear. Several months later, I had major hip surgery. The doctors successfully repaired the problem, I don’t have the pain levels that I did before surgery… but I was not able to do things I used to. After 2 years of going to various physical therapies and realizing that I just couldn’t do the running, jumping or carrying heavy loads, I got sent to a medical board. They decided I was unfit for duty, and as of September 9, 2009 – I am now a civilian.

It’s been a little strange, going through the transition – all I’ve known is the Army, since I was 17. I’ve traveled to many places and seen many things I never imagined seeing as a kid, and I appreciate the things the Army did for me, but honestly – I’m rather glad to be out. It’s not the same Army that I remember. But that’s another subject entirely.

Nowadays, I am working as a contractor for the U.S. Army, doing the same secret squirrel stuff that I was doing while in the military. I’m making LOTS more money, and enjoying the fact that I managed to get a job back in our hometown, where both of our families live. I work a bit of a weird schedule, but the pay easily makes up for that – we’re living a lot better than we ever were in the Army.

Anyways, I should be back to blogging hopefully a lot more… feel free to comment anytime!

The Army today is not the same Army I joined back then. I see things happen today that would have never (or very rarely) happened when I was a private. I also believe the Army’s current promotion system is broken. I have seen people that are promoted to NCO’s at 2 years – most times, others have to pick up their slack due to their lack of experience, or worse…  lack of care. I get evaluated yearly… and because I have struggled with my weight after having major hip surgery, my evaluations are never rated “excellent”. My last evaluation was written by a rather inept senior NCO. These evaluations mean I won’t see promotion for some time – nevermind the fact that my performance is rated above average.

My hip surgery has now lead to a medical board finding me “Unfit for Duty”, two years later. I have to admit I am pleased by this. The Army has just lost it’s appeal that it once held for me. Yesterday was when I found out the results, which left me ecstatic that finally I would be moving on to a new life, outside of the Army.

Earlier this week I also went to North Carolina, where I interviewed for a job doing the same thing I do in the Army. This job is almost perfect for me – same job field (which I love), at home, great pay. The only downside is possibility of deployments. Deploying as a civilian though – that I can look forward to. No pulling guard duty. No carrying a weapon (unless I want to). No going to the range. No mandatory Physical Training (though I hope to, but at my own pace).

They called me back today…     and I got the job! Things just really seem to finally be falling in place for me.

As for gaming, I have pretty much decided to give up on Eve Online. While I do enjoy the game and the “sandbox” play does appeal to me – it doesn’t appeal to my wife. Since our first year of marriage, we’ve been playing games pretty much together – Ultima Online, Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Conan (we’ve played quite a few). It was always great playing with her, sharing my addictions with her, being able to discuss the game with her. Eve was just not for her, so as I got more and more into it, the more we seemed to be doing less together.

I got to discussing Ultima Online with a co-worker last week and it made me feel nostalgic for all the great times we had together in it. We were part of a large roleplaying community there. Memories of those times still linger after a 4-year break. Many of the other MMO’s never seem to manage this. Sure, we had good times in them…  but I can’t remember those times as well as our times in UO. So, last weekend we reactivated our accounts. We found quite a bit of our stuff is gone…  but it did not take long before old friends had helped us out on that front. I’m already addicted to it again, and playing side by side with my soulmate makes it that much better. To those in Eve or those reading this blog because of Eve, I apologize for leaving…  but I must follow my heart. I hope you will continue reading, as I tend to talk about many different things. If you do have any interest in Ultima Online, feel free to look me up on Atlantic shard.

Participating in the Ustream was a lot of fun, being able to field questions and have a celebrity answer them was just really awesome. I asked what it was like to be a celebrity and was there anything unexpected that happened due to being a celebrity. Their response was definitely interesting. Felicia mentioned that she really wasn’t that big of celebrity since it was really only based off the web and she hadn’t really made it “big”. She’s auditioned for quite a few different shows and many of those auditioning recognized her but the directors running the auditions did not. I guess being a “celWEBrity” isn’t seen as a real celebrity compared to the hollywood stars.

It got me to thinking though…  what really makes you into a celebrity these days? Tons of people know about The Guild, even many people that don’t play MMO’s. The comedy in The Guild can really be amusing to anyone that can relate to the stuff portrayed in it. Sure it’s likely more amusing to someone who’s played World of Warcraft and it is geared more towards those who play MMO’s, but I’d imagine anyone that spends a lot of time on the internet today would laugh at their antics. Anyways, my point is I’d definitely consider Felicia Day and her fellow Guildies celebrities by my standards. What do you think?

Take for example this new blog. I used a theme I found online and modified the header with an image I created and changed a few background colors. Try hovering over the title of this post. See how it disappears? The text is set to white (#ffffff) when you hover over it. I had to do this so that the top link bar could be seen, otherwise the text was next to impossible to see. But now how the heck do I fix it to where hovering over the title of posts doesn’t change to white too?? I’ll figure it out at some point I’m sure but that takes time…  which I’d rather spend blogging or twittering!

I also need to figure out how the heck to change the text size for the posts here. It’s small even for me, so I can only imagine how bad it is for someone that does not have great vision. Anyone know which specific part of the CSS changes the text size of your posts?

The other issue is Wordpress plugins. I love them and really enjoy what they can add to my little neck of the internet. But on the Wordpress website, it is horrible trying to find stuff. They do not have it very well organized whatsoever and I can literally spend hours upon hours looking through them to find ones I like. Then I have to figure out how to install it once I do find one. Did I mention that I’ve already got lost on that a few times? Next comes where to fit it on the blog itself. Do I just keep adding more and more to the right side bar or do I put it on the bottom, where people might not even see it? Arghh! So many decisions, so little time.

I am happy to have my new blog with it’s cool name though. Full credit goes to my wife for the name, now if only I could help her more with hers. More to come later!

Anyways, yep, here’s my new blog. I’ve done a few in the past that I never kept up with, mainly because I made them for a niche market. World of Warcraft, talking to/with my wife while I was deployed overseas…  things that always ended up kinda falling by the wayside whenever I stopped doing what I made the blog about (yes, I still talk with my great wife…  I’m just not away from her now). So this one I decided to change things a bit..  make it more generalized. Yes, for those who play Eve Online I will be talking about Eve…  probably a lot. But don’t be surprised if you see non-Eve posts. Hope you enjoy those too.

This blog will mostly be me… uncut and uncensored. Some things may offend ya…  hopefully not. Feel free to comment and argue back, I really enjoy a good debate. Just don’t use the internet as your “source”. The internet is a big fat liar most times.