Thank you Matt for this video, absolutely incredible music




Prospects are looking up. Got offered a job in Miami, started my paper work and began ironing out the wrinkles to get let go from my contract early. Fingers are crossed and anxiety is through the the roof. I hope this works out, I need it to work out. This is an opportunity that I can not miss out on.

Just finished this up the other day. If you are looking for something that puts insight in the what makes people become a certain way and then the experiences that change that path for the better or worse this is a great read. A true look into a life of chaos.

This guys life re-defines insane, today he is a speaker for the Anti Defamation League and an AHL hockey coach for the Flyers minor league team.

I picked this up on a whim last weekend and it was totally worth the buy.

Next on my list is:

"No Throwing Stones At You Anymore"

I had a little trip down memory lane today. I was en route to the mall and selecting something to listen to by album title on the trusty iPod. Well I without realizing it picked Glassjaw Worship and Tribute. I have not listened to this about roughly god, maybe 5 or 6 years but some how still knew the words and still got into it the same way I did when I was 21 years old and it came out in early 2002. I remember the times I saw Glassjaw in a club crammed with 4 to 500 kids just going bonkers getting more into the music than you would normally see. Oh what a time in life.

I feel like I need to be some distraught heart broken teenager to enjoy Glassjaw, but in truth I am none of that. Its just really well put together music with honest lyrics of some crazy years in life, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence and Worship and Tribute are stellar albums.

Anyway, not to get all sorts of nostalgic (but I am anyway) it reminded me of living in the Florida Keys, I used to open all the windows on my car and just cruise along the ocean on US1 bobbing my head in the humid South Florida air, Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other. It reminded me of a lot that year, of my move to Key West from Albany to live with my father earlier in the year, dropping out of college, going back to NY for Hell Fest in in that damn dirt pit pavilion, joining the Coast Guard, boot camp, moving to Boston and really setting the pace for where I am today.

I can say listening to it now takes me back to a feeling of something different, a feeling of someone who was in their early 20's just beginning life, it reminds me of all the uncertainty that was ahead of me.

Now I am in Northern Cali in the Coast Guard, looking to move back to Florida after 8 years of not. I am more settled in life, content with everything that I have going on. I have overcome a lot recently and am happy with everything I have going for me. Life is a little more settled now, with the exception of the job market as we all have felt, but I have what seems to be some pretty promising prospects ahead of me.

and the jam

Well, took a trip this past week to KC, it was a place I never had thought I would venture too, but as usual work led me there. I had to go to Ft. Leaven Worth for some training for work. I got to admit though the Army has some nice installations...As for KC, I found nothing interesting about it.

Books I have read lately that I suggest to people are My Lobotomy, it is a memoir of a man who had you guessed it a lobotomy in the late 50's, Blink which is about snap judgment decisions and the ways they affect our lives. I promise you this is a solid read and I now think Malcolm Gladwell is a genius. Then there is Too Fat to Fish, the autobiography of Artie Lang, if you havent you must, this mans life was, is and has been insane. He is the modern day Belushi. For anyone into medical things, Hot Lights, Cold Steel is a great one I finished yesterday, it is about a Surgeons trip through residency at the Mayo clinic.

I just picked up The Working Poor which is about the people who work to get buy, about how one financial inconvenience will alter the course of their lives. Its about the burger flippers, the cart pushers and the car washers. I am really looking forward to this, also I grabbed Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead the Frank Meeink Story. This is supposed to be a real good one.

Just some suggestions for the readers left out there in the world.

Today is one of those days where I feel a bit nostalgic, I wish I could be kicked back at home in some shit hole bar with a few good friends having a good laugh over a few good drinks, listening to some good music. While I am slowly accepting the fact that those days for the most part have passed me by at this point I hope to have a few here and there still.


Oh and this song, this entire album still makes a daily rotation for the most part

The grass is always greener and prospects are always brighter

Well, I took a stroll through the Redwoods yesterday and along the coast, this is what I came up with. Every time I take an adventure I find something neat. It was a good day for it, it was 65-70 degrees and sunny. April is right around the corner and fast approaching is the one year mark since I headed out west.

This has kind of been my kick lately,

Glory glory. Its been a bit, but not much is different. Went to Virginia last week for work, had a good time. I ran into some people I was stationed with in the past so it was catch up time. In a few weeks I am going to Ft. Leavenworth for work for a day or two, should be interesting to say the least. I have always been curious about that place.

School is school, life is life and that is that.



Miss my babes on the eastern seaboard.


Read this book if you get the chance. It is worth every page.

1.4% ???

Well the president proposed his annual raise for the military at 1.4% that is the lowest in nearly 4 decades. Why? Sure times are tight and we are lucky to be employed. But 1.4%, thats not much and when you look at our paychecks the basic salary is not much.

What people give up and do is worth 10 thousand times that.

What makes this proposal so insulting is that it is the minimum required raise for a person serving and welfare recipients get more than that in yearly increases. With that said that makes me feel a little low on the pole.

Congress will of course get a nice raise in comparison. Its a little raise for a lot of work. We dont get over time, we work longer days than most and travel often.

Some military funding is already being cut. This year in the Coast Guard our budget was $75 million less than the previous. Now tough decisions need to be made in a service with a steadily growing demand from the public must choose between slashing active duty jobs and getting rid of units, both of which adversely effect the over all outcome negatively.

Thank you very much

"the US Army dropped some peace on the Middle East, a crowd of people just turned away, but I just had to look"

Something about that song. For it being a Ramallah song, most of which are more or less anger filled lyrics or realistic you can say, this is so truthful. Or so I think





This video is a reason why this place is awesome. The coastline has something to offer at every turn

A little history lesson

This is something new to me that I never knew about, something pretty neat about Albany and the people that came from it.