In early May I actually had a childhood dream fulfilled. I got to meet Alice Cooper at the concert he put on in Kennewick, WA with Rob Zombie plus I got to go on stage.  I should have wrote this up right after the concert, when everything was a fresh memory, but I got distracted a lot.

I have been a fan of Alice Cooper since my dad gave me his greatest hits album to listen to when I was around six years old. I think it was School’s Out that got me hooked. And then my cousin gave me Raise Your Fist and Yell and I knew Alice was my favorite musician. Since that time, no matter how my musical tastes change, I still listen to Alice Cooper.

Originally I bought two tickets for the concert. One VIP ticket for me (which included a meet and greet with Alice Cooper) and another general admission ticket for my wife. After informing my wife that the tickets were for floor and not seated, she decided not to go. Trying to get a refund for the extra ticket (which I started before the order was completed and my credit card charged) took over a month.

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When I joined the Air Force, I was already 21 and able to smoke and drink without issue.  That is not the case for most when they sign up for military service.  The minimum age to join is 18 (17 with parental consent).  So you can join at 18, but can’t have a drink with your fellow service members.  This is where I have an issue.

At 18, you can sign up to defend your country, fight for your country, and die for your country.  You cannot drink though.  Old enough to die, but not old enough to get drunk.  This is one thing I would like to change as President of the Unites States.

I have always felt that active duty personnel (as well as Reserve and National Guard) are not your normal citizen once they sign up.  I am not saying they are better or anything like that.  I am saying that the state of the world and the decisions of government affect them differently. Read more »

About two weeks ago, I did something I never thought I would do.  I gave up not only caffeine, but soda all together.  The jury is still out on this decision.

The inital reason for this move was to see if it would help with some of my stomach issues because soda does typically include at least one acid (phophoric acid).  I also wanted to see if the lack of caffeine would help with my insomnia.

Previously, the removal of caffeine from my system had been my downfall.  For those of us that have experienced one before, a caffeine headache is one of the killer headaches you can get.  Because it is a withdrawl symptom, the only thing that really seems to help is caffeine, normally from soda.  This time I made use of Excedrin Migraine to help as it has caffeine in it.  This helped greatly in dealing with caffeine headaches.  Read more »

This past weekend (Mar 13-14) was a very busy one for me as well as life changing as it was teh weekend on the 8th Annual Emerald City Comicon (ECCC) and when I got married.

Wedding

It started with Brie and I getting up at 6am to meet Sekou and his family at ECCC around 7:30.  From there, Sekou would quickly marry Brie and I while we waited in line from the comicon to start.  The marriage didn’t happen then because it was already too crowded.  While it was better than last year, we were like a bunch of cattle waiting for the slaughter.  Thankfully, we only had to stand cramped in the middle of the crowd for two and a half hours.

Once they opened the doors, we split up.  Brie went the ECCC booth to get an exclusive ECCC Witchblade print, I went to the Steam Crow booth to get their exclusive, and Sekou and family got in line to get Stan Lee’s autograph.  I then met back up with Brie and we wondered around until about 11 for Sekou.

Brie with Jason Pearson

Taking a break from the con, we found a quite corner in the convention center so Sekou could perform mine and Brie’s marriage.  It wasn’t anything big.  It was more or less signing of the paperwork.  Sekou did do it like the Old Spice commercial where the guy says “Ladies, look at me.  Now look at your man.  Now look at me…” or however it goes.  I think Brie was more excited about getting the ring than the marriage.  We are planning on doing something big later when we can afford it.

After that it was back to the con to get more prints and meet more artists.  Brie and I got prints from Jason Pearson, artist of Deadpool, and Brie got a picture with him.  Actually, she asked to get a picture with him and he said something in the effect of “for the girl with awesome red hair, yes”  then he lokked at me and said “but not you”.

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I am waiting for some pictures to get tweaked in photoshop and then I will be making a long post to make up for this short one.  I had a very busy and fun couple days this past weekend.  They were also life altering.

I have been trying to figure out what to do with my site. I don’t post to it as much as I hoped I would. Not sure if I should keep it the way it is and just update as I find time or just scrap it for something static. I have also been playing with the idea of starting up a couple new sites. One being a resource for active and past military and their families and the other an art site were all the work is done by active and past military. Plus I am starting scholl in July and getting married in a few weeks. Sometimes life is jsut too busy.

A couple days ago, I went and got the tattoo along my spine touched up and the artist and I got to talking about a couple recent news stories about tattooing. 

The first was about a guy in California that held down his 7yr old son while another gang member tattooed a gang sign on the kid’s hip.  From my understanding, the guy could have faced a life sentence if the judge determined the tattoo was a permanent and painful disfigurement.  Instead he faces up to seven year in prison for cruel and inhumane treatment of a child.  The tattoo is now being removed.  Read more »