Community Service

Items 

• garbage
• soup
• clothes
• beds
• good deeds
• sense of community
• giving back

All great things, and I encourage people to give back. Unfortunately, personally I don't have a large heart to give up my time. 

Its not that I don't care. I do care, and i am deeply vested in Erie, and the surrounding communities. 

I think i have earned the right to say no. 

Let me explain before people get the wrong idea. On September 26, 2001, days after September 11th, I joined the Navy. Not because of problems in my own life but because I already felt a requirement to serve. As a high school student I talked about service in the military as something that every able bodied man should do. My patriotism is exceptional. I am proud of all the great things we have accomplished in our 200+ years of freedom, recently we have made some stupid decisions but thats not the point. 

Fast forward (a phrase that will soon have no relevance) to 2013, July 23 to be precise, my contract with the Navy ended much to my disappointment. After almost 12 years in the Navy learning what is is to be a sailor, man, husband, and father the end had come. The Navy in their wisdom decided that I was no longer needed (downsizing is everywhere). 

That greater than a decade of time spend defending peoples right to judge, loathe, believe, and do whatever they want was worth it. I have a sense of entitlement regarding my time. I am going to spend it in the manner in which i have been unable for so long. I know that I will be judged by some but I KNOW what I have contributed to this great nation. 

Stingy some may say, but I have my satisfaction and thats enough for me to know that I have served my community, and that box has been checked more then mosts.

Sven

Sven, tall gangly, ill-fit, crafter of ill phrased speech.

From the Swedish lake country on the earth colony of Marth, Sven is currently, as usual between employers. His unfortunate lack of employment is this time fortunately not his fault. His first few weeks at Olaf's Tacheon Drive Repair Shop were good. He was just starting his first accelerator cowling repair job, when Michael came by for lunch. Sometime during his sanctioned 20 minute, turned 3 hour, break the shop had been reduced to glass and ash. The officer at the barricades wouldn't even let Sven look for his favorite hat. He'd had that hat for 10 years it was his favorite, the rustic steel blast visor he had bought of that walking carpet had been with him what felt like a lifetime.



Todays creative writing exercise in my English Lit Class.

Beautiful Day

Today is beautiful. Forty's this morning, a crisp clear sky. 

Unfortunately more violence here at home this week. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/17/us/navy-yard-shooting-knowns-unknowns/index.html

My fear is that this is simply a distraction from the presidents failure with the Syria situation. I pray that these killing are not a political tool. 

While I do enjoy my classes I was extremely irritated today with my English Literature professor. On two separate occasions while discussing Angela Carter's "Snow Child" with the class, she incorrectly cited events in the two page story. This drove the dialogue down a different assumption path than the facts  were indicating. 

The story is Angela Carter's prose on the fairy tail of Snow White. Her thoughts seem to indicate that women are valued only as sexual tools and are devoid of any real substance. However, the hour we spent discussing the minuscule text seemed to lead us around the central point without actually discussing it.  

When the professor made her second incorrect statement I interjected that she had the details incorrect. She responded with, "that is what the text says."  I was more than happy to read directly from the text. 

The Count picked up the rose, bowed and handed it to his wife; when she touched it, she dropped it. 

'It bites!' She said. 

The professor was trying to insinuate that the countess refused to accept the rose. But clearly the text says the she takes possession of the rose even though the rose hurts her. The professor asked me what I thought Angela Carter was trying to indicate with my supposed difference without any sort of correction or acceptance of the information that I presented. My only real concern was accuracy to the original text, without any concern with the fine intricacies of this specific point.  We then spent five minutes discussing the countesses lack of or acceptance of the rose. I am so baffled as to the intentions of this class and its direction. Onward and upward. I'll pass this class regardless.