Boppin' around Camp Lejeune

Well, Pat took me over to New River Airbase and showed me some of the toys he gets to play with.  The truck pictured below is a P-19, its a Aircraft Rescue & Fire Fighting (ARFF) truck.  It holds 1000 gallons of water and 300 gallons of foam.  It weighs 24,600 lbs.  ... and  according to Pat, it's not fun to drive.  Apparently it's quite old.  This one was made in 1985.  I think it's pretty awesom looking!

We hit a couple cool gun shops in the area, visited the Marine Corps Exchange (MCX) and headed back home to grill up some burgers in the back yard.  Pat's quite the grill master, and he cooks with charcoal; what a purist.

Catching up

I made it down to my brother's place in a little under seven hours. I enjoyed the drive and the transition of the geography. There is quite a difference in topography between Maryland and North Carolina, it was interesting to watch it change from behind the wheel. I saw a lot of neat sites and wished I had the to stop and explore/take pictures. I did stop once to take a quick picture of an old, rusted out car, sinking into the ground, wrapped in the rays of the setting sun, but quickly hopped back in the truck when a van pulled over to watch me. Yikes.

It was great to finally see Pat and his lovely wife, Alyse again. It has been nearly two years, and we had a lot of catching up to do. Pat's buddy, Connor came over and it was a lot of fun listening to these two marines tell their stories and jokes. I brought down a couple cases of National Bohemian beer for Pat, and I think we nearly polished off a whole case last night. Good times. Today Pat's going to give me the nickle tour of Camp Lejeune and then we'll check out some tactical gun shops and hopefully get some mountain biking in. 

"Road Trip!"

This morning I'm driving down to Jacksonville, NC to visit my little brother.  Patrick is a Corporal in the Marine Corp stationed on Camp Lejeune at the New River Air Station.  I haven't seen him since he finished boot camp a couple years ago. This trip just, kind of, formulated out of thin air last night as I sat on the couch texting back and forth with him.  I'm off on Monday and so is he, so it works out perfectly.  I've just got to throw a mountain bike in the back of the Tacoma, fill up, and hit the road.  Can't wait to catch up with Pat, take a bunch of pictures of him and hopefully, get some riding in; just like we used to years ago.

Enough chitter chatter, time to hit the road.  Google Maps is telling me it'll take six and a half hours to get there!

Test

Just a test.  As you can see, I'm in the process of overhauling the template I use for my blog.  Bear with me! 
Mike

Photo bombing my blog today...

Day two of mobile blogging in DC

Like the title says, today is day two of my mobile blogging venture in northwest DC.  My company has sent me downtown for a couple days of training and as such I've packed my mobile set up with me: GX-1 camera, ipad & SD card reader.  It's a decent set up.  I use the photogene app to process my raw images and convert them to jpg.  Then I use my Blogger app to actually write my post, insert the images and publish the blog post.  However, I do loose a lot of creative control using the Blogger app.  The biggest drawback to using the app, in my opinion, is not being able to edit the HTML to resize and position my images in a pleasing way.   Typically, when I blog, I arrange the images much the way I would if they were on display in a gallery (Not that my images of bloody dead squirrels would be drawing the masses for a viewing - well, maybe?!).  But using the Blogger app limits you to stacking images on top of each other.  Although I must give the Blogger app developers a thumbs up for finally allowing more than one image to be inserted in a blog post.  As a photoblogger, that was very frustrating.

As I draft this post, it's 7:30am and I'm sitting on a 4000 series railcar, riding the green line from Greenbelt, down to the Gallery Place Metro station where I'll get off and walk about six blocks to my training center, down F Street in NW DC.  The subway ride is mostly underground so I'm saving this draft to publish when I get top-side.  I'm going to include just one photo in this post.  And let this post serve as a precursor to the photos I will post throughout the day.  The snapshots I'll take on the street on my walk to class.  The architectural photos I'll take during my lunch hour.  Perhaps the subway scenes I'll capture on the way back to the Greenbelt Metro Station.  Stay tuned for a tower of today's images in the following post.

National Museum of American History

During lunch break today I braved the cold and took a quick walk over to the National Museum of American History.  My training center is just a couple blocks away.  I sped through a couple of floors of extremely interesting exhibits, which was torture.  I didn't have time to enjoy any of it.  I really need to dedicate a weekend to coming down to DC and taking advantage of all the free Smithsonian Museums. 

Mobile blogging from DC

I will be spending today and tomorrow in downtown DC fow some work related training.  I brought my new micro four thirds camera (Panasonic GX-1) and my ipad for some street photography mobile blogging fun.  When I emerged from the subway this morning the temperature was a whopping 5 degrees Fahrenheit.  Yikes! Below are a few snapshots taken on F Street in NW DC.

Breakfast (Fast fail)

OK, so, I broke my fast a whopping day after starting it.  I'm not too happy about it.  I stopped eating Thursday night and fasted until Saturday afternoon.  I was doing fine until my fiance (Oh, I got engaged by the way) and I started going over menu options for our wedding reception.  I just completely broke down.  All that talk of spanikopita, brazed lamb chops and crab-stuffed mushrooms just put me over the edge.  I'm not going to let it get me down though.  I'll give it another shot soon.  Debbie will be out of town all next week so I may duct tape the fridge shut, and really try to get down to brass tacks with this fasting idea.  I will chalk this fast up to a learning experience and try to use this experience to my advantage.  Hell, I never thought I could make it through a single day without eating. 

I'm water fasting - Here goes!

Day 1, January 2, 2014 Weight:  216lbs

I'm water fasting.  After months of failed dieting and a lot of frustration, I've decided I'm going to fast and drink only water for the next several days.  I've read a lot of articles and watched many videos about water fasting and concluded that it's something I want to do for several reasons:  To loose weight, to cleanse myself of toxins, reestablish some healthy eating habits and to prove to myself that I have the will power and perseverance to tackle this personal challenge.  This will be a physical and mental battle.  I'll keep you posted with daily updates.  

Currently its 6:00pm.  I worked all day and, surprisingly, the hunger didn't bother me too badly.  I drank about a liter and a half of water while I worked away at my desk.  I first noticed that I was hungry around 9:30am.  By this time I typically break out a sandwich and mow down.  I did have a headache that came and went, off and on, most of the day.  But it never got too bad.  I didn't take any headache medicine for it.  I think that fasting didn't bother me too much today because I would often check online and read a little here and a little there about other people's experiences and success.  Here's a great website I am using as my information source and guidance through this journey:  allaboutfasting.com