Well, it’s been quite sometime since I’ve done a blog and I need to hit it up again.  A few notes however…

I’m doing a lot of changes all around, whether that is online or offline.  Work is going, to an extent.  Though now our working hours are on a day by day basis, deciding on what the workload is.  It’s been a little bit of a bummer to be a tad bit shorter on pay, but the weather overall has been pretty nice and has alleviated the fact that I get our somewhat early in the afternoon.  Of course, that can leave me with a somewhat hermit lifestyle just so I can keep better track of my money, but oh well…hopefully all of this is temporary.

Online…still keeping that low.  It’s been up a little since every now and then I miss “24″ and have to get the replay on Hulu.  I’d also began slowly moving over to Facebook…as far as how “active” my MySpace has been, that activity has about ceased and there isn’t too much of a point for me to sign on there daily.  I get e-mail alerts whenever someone calls me for whatever reason.  Even the group that I belong in there, which was a major reason I was there, has languished and the posts that have been put up there the past three months hasn’t been really inspiring.  I am gonna keep it though…I have always said I will stay in touch, and there are still a handful of friends there.  However, for some reason or other, a huge number of people moved over to Facebook…I don’t know why, but that’s what happened.  I guess MySpace didn’t get a favorable rap overseas, but now I have my cousins and other relatives and a rather large number of Cole/Navy friends on there, and it’s pretty active there.  I only have 24 hours a day to expend my time, right?

Right now, I don’t know if I will blog after this on MySpace.  I still blog at my own website…I’ve experimented a little with Twitter, I don’t feel for it the way others do, but I’ll hold on to it for a little bit more…  I don’t blog on Facebook either…they call it “Notes” and there is something about the format that I don’t really care for.  So I may just save myself a whole lot of time and just consolidate my blog on my own website.  It’s not interactive, but I get a good amount of traffic…which I apologize since I don’t really update it, so everybody pretty much sees the same damn thing from time to time…

I figured I’d hit this up now since March is over, and this has been quite a month.  The year has started off good…and FAST!  I’m gonna be 70 in a week if it just keeps getting faster and faster as it has been.

So while not a whole lot has gone on, there have been some big things.  First, in January, Tony had went off to do some workup training before his overseas deployment with the Reserves.  I’m watching this carefully.

March has come and gone…and the anticipation was pretty wild for me.  Better late than never, Sean eventually decided (after several years) to uncement his butt, quit making assumptions and actually planned to come down here to see things for himself.  It was kind of a last minute thing, but we got that to work out.  Also, Tony’s training had wrapped up and they were permitting his group a few days off before they made final preps and would head overseas.  As good luck would have it, they would have overlapping schedules.  Also, while it didn’t happen in March, I got to see Bobbie and her husband.  We’ve both been in Dallas for some time and, also better late than never, we finally met.

It really wasn’t the best time for a visit, but the window of opportunity on a near perfect visit had long passed and we made do with what was available.  Sean arrived on the first weekend of March, with where we met up with Christine until she got out of work and hit up Cafe Brazil.  The idea was brought up on a previous meeting with Bobbie and her husband the week beforehand.

Overall this entire week, sleep wasn’t really much of anything.  I was reeling and exhausted the following week but finally recuperated to make sure the following weekend wasn’t spent in bed!  We did plan beforehand to try to do some events, specifically the North Texas Irish Festival and the Greenville St. Pat’s parade.  It turned out that there was just simply too much to do, and those events took up at least half a day.

Part of the trip was planned to look for jobs…but the “fun” factor was kind of overwhelming and we deviated from that a little.  Still, we did a little bit of that and there were some returns…which was something that I guess Sean wasn’t used to.  I dunno.  Places to go, and mainly places to eat…those were the overlying bits of the trip.  He had a decent variety of food while he was here, including some good BBQ.  Places…Dallas isn’t really too much of a sightseeing bit.  We have a few things here and there, but it’s generally a live and work city for the most part.  One sight that we decided to see at the last minute, not really a sight…but by its nature, it is…is the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium.  Basically, everyone is encroaching on Area 51 looking for Roswell evidence.  The government needs a place to hide UFOs and they help give Mr. Jones some cash and arrangements and you have the gigantic obscenity that is the stadium.  Made so that an entire state’s population can watch a football game while government scientists continue to poke at galactic visitors underground!

Tony came in later in the week and that was good to see him.  We hit up a few favorites that we’ve enjoyed since he’s been here, but haven’t visited since he is now a fellow Dallas area resident.  Humperdink’s, Atheneos and Cheddar’s were our eating locations while Tony was here.  As well, we got a little shooting in.  This was good for all of us.  Christine and I were still working out shooting in our schedule and Christine hadn’t shot since Tony last shot before he left back in January.  Sean lives up in MA…enough said!  Tony has done some shooting, I’m sure…super advanced commando ninja stuff, like Navy quals and failure drills.  So this was his opportunity to touch up on what he personally felt he needed and in a more relaxed atmosphere.

As quickly as it happened, it went.  Sean went back up to MA, fully appreciating what his home state has and what Texas lacks, lol!  Tony is overseas, starting up his deployment.  Christine and I continue to have our “Sales…” moment, complete with speed of darkness, super loud second hand wall clock and flicker flourescent bulbs.  This was the beginning of the month…it would now be until the end of the month before the next event showed up.

It was meant to be a birthday present…but identity theft happened, and now I wish I had an Audi Q5.  Just kidding…but yeah, someone decided to be “me” on Paypal…so I’m in the process of paying back Christine!  Basically, it was time to do some shooting under the eyes of those more skilled than we.  Nothing really new, though a few things are almost always inevitably learned.  I do stuff like this to see how I stack up, or refine…I actually like the small scale informal stuff, like what dotted my calendar last year.  That’s what it does, but I always have a bigger picture involved.  It’s basically a “Welcome to My World” experience!  Turns out, that experience went a lot deeper…and in the end, much more satisfying.

So the birthday present, that I owe, was basically Christine meeting Paul…a real American hero and a badass in the truest sense.  That was the basic nutshell…big deal, huh?  But everything that came with it was awesome…she got to meet and make a few friends, in turn she made a name for herself and has become…dare I say…far more conceited!  Me, I’m just my super awesome humble self.  The last shoot we had, I only had 100% accuracy…which sucks, I usually do 180%…I need to work on my slacking technique and attitude.

As all the luck in the world would have it, Christine’s car (which we rode out there) dumped and died…her transmission.  Not a good thing when you’re out of town.  Welcome to the real world…she thankfully now has a job that makes it relatively easier for her to deal with the finances for this.  I told her at first it will majorly suck, watching all that money just vaporize.  In the long run, it’ll be good…you dealt with the problem on your own.

Well, not really…the guys we were with did some banding to help make things right.  Paul got on the phone to his wife, who went to CTU Mode…I mean, CMMDU (Counter Man Made Disaster Unit - it was political news about a week or two ago, go search it if you’re still drawing a blank)…and vectored us to a transmission shop.  Paul go to the tower that he usually uses and they towed Christine’s car to the shop, where it would be almost a week to complete repairs.  Paul had his right-hand man grab one of his trucks and loan me the keys for the weekend.  He said anything else, let him know…but I did my hardest to make sure that Paul did no more favors for us, too much to ask of him…and I barely asked, he did it on his own.  One of our fellow shooters said he met another shooter that flew in to Dallas and immediately went to see if we could grab a ride.  The answer was no problem, and no our issues were seemingly under control.

I am somewhat used to this…how friends went the extra distance to cover and help their peers while in the Navy.  It was good to “be back”…and Christine was impressed with it all herself.

So yeah, Christine as usual made a name for herself…and some of the shooters were convinced that we were more than we were letting on.  Not really…I was the former Sailor and Christine is just my younger Sister…  But I guess that was really all that I said.  Every since Christine bought her gun last year, I tried to make sure that she knew how to use it and how to make good shots with it.  Last year paid off…despite being surrounded by pretty good shooters, Christine was comfortably intermixed with the varying skill levels.  She did well with either hand, and even with a Glock 19 that Paul loaned out for her to try.  There was a hostage round where Christine fired some accurate hits without striking the hostage, as far as anyone could see.  In this stage, she and I did really well…the active Army guys that were present didn’t do so well!

During our stay, we decided to hit up some unique places to eat…we were there for a handful of days, so it really wasn’t a big deal.  But we hit up a local seafood cafe as well as a fast food joint specializing in chicken fingers.  Both amazingly good…which is one of the good things about being out of the city.

As with all great things…it was time to close up the show.  It’s been fun and outstanding, Christine didn’t want to leave…but how many of us wanted to anyways?  A fellow shooter, Derek, had offered us a ride back on his rental car…a Prius.  Interesting!  Happy, yet exhausted, Christine conked herself out in the back and Derek and I made conversation that made the drive feel like half an hour.  Didn’t accept fuel or food…once again, these guys are tremendous in gratitude and feeble in cost.  Now back to civilian land, lol.  As Christine put it…it would be, yet again, a “Sales…” moment.  Well, we all keep in touch as usual!

So, amazingly fast, the year is now 1/4 over and April comes in.  There’s not a lot to do.  But Christine was finally in the presence of some true American Badasses…I mean, there is Tony, Sean and myself…but, well…

Lol!