Rootski

While the news media was drowning in rhetoric the Virginia Tech shootings, a bomb went off in Baghdad and killed 85 civilians. Well over twice as many, dead in the street. The best they got was a ten second still-shot after the interview with the VT shooter's English teacher.

Their flesh and blood, their lifeless bodies, and their grieving families are equally real. Just because it's old news doesn't make them any less human.

Because I like to keep you all updated, I'd like to address a question here that has kept me up many a night myself, and that is, "what is the current state of air travel?" Well, after today, I can tell you that if you're really feeling the itch and just have to fly somewhere, skip it and walk. Honestly. It's much easier on your blood pressure, not to mention it doesn't completely destroy your faith in mankind.

You see, I arrived today at Colorado Springs airport with a surprising amount of time to spare, all of which was instantly eaten up by the process of "security." As always, there were but two lines open staffed by 4 disgruntled TSA workers and about 50 people needed to get through. But these were not normal people, oh no. Because once Joe Public steps through the doors of an airport, he instantly becomes the dumbest motherfucker on the planet besides people that are technically dead. They become travelers. Travelers, always afraid that their bags will be lost by the airline, wind up in Hong Kong, and have its contents sold on ebay, prefer to carry on their baggage. Fair enough. But apparently these people are in the process of being deported, as the seem to have brought along every last one of their possessions. And since everyone knows what danger a stroller can be to a flight crew, it ALL must be searched. Yet, despite the fact that every newspaper, news show, Comedy Central, and Bazooka Joe wrappers all report that you can't take fluids on the plane any more, there's always some bitch arguing with a TSA worker that she just HAS to have her 2-liter Diet Coke and extra-large Vagisil for the 45-minute flight. And, like today, there's always a family whose flight has just been called and will you please please please let them to the head of the line you don't mind do you thank you so much. I always say, hey listen, it's not my fault you suck at traveling. Just ten minutes before I had to leave school I had a pissed-off NCO rifling through all my shit (more on this later), and I still made it here with an hour to spare. If you left ten minutes earlier you could not be a pest to everyone.

After that, it's on to the boarding area, where idiocy manifests itself in rarer, yet bolder ways. I saw someone have to be escorted down the jetway because they didn't know where to go. It's ONE FUCKING HALLWAY! The fact that it ends in an airplane doesn't change much, just walk into it like you would a regular room. The only difference is this one eventually gets up and flies away, with you inside it... assuming, of course, that you can find it.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, today's big crisis at the Academy is that the squadron master key is missing. We were told we couldn't leave for spring break until it was found, and all our rooms were searched. Apparently the Sergeant thinks that whoever used the key last and forgot to return it accidently took it into their room, accidently put it into an envelope, accidently put the envelope into a zippered pouch, accidently put that into a box, and accidently stacked a bunch of shit on top of it. At least, thats what he figured I might have done, because that's exactly where he looked. But, that threat turned out to be hollow and here I am at home, while whoever has the key is busy stealing all my stuff. Speaking of thievery, I also failed an inspection because I failed to lock my security drawer, whose high-value contents include my passport, shoe polish, and a bag of Chips Ahoy, among other things.

Also, I had a chemistry exam today, which was a bit like one of those "Cadet X" letters where someone wakes up in a back alley with a sore asshole.

The other major news is of course Recognition, which I really don't feel like talking about. It wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be, but lord, I'm glad I never have to do it again. It's something to be proud of, at least.

The United States Air Force. To fly, fight, and win in air, space, and cyberspace. The cyberspace part is new, as the Air Force just discovered the internet, as evidenced by the truly horrible state of the USAFA network. As of today, the internet has been trimmed to exactly three sites that the network will let through. All other addresses get you the friendly “dns_server_error” message that is more common than air around here.
Which leads me to wonder… the Air Force is always touting that they’re the most technologically advanced branch, so why can’t they accomplish with computers what a 13-year-old anime geek can? That every other college in the nation can? No other college needs to block streaming media and download programs because their network can’t handle it. Instead we have disciplinary action brought against us and a minor scandal made out of “inappropriate network use” all because the 10th Comm Squadron can’t get off its overpaid, useless ass and make a decent network. But in all fairness, the USAFA network is not an “edu” network, it’s a government one that goes through Space Command. But I think that’s even worse. Here are some guys that, if they got the itch, could shuffle some satellites around and land a nuke through the Kremlin’s window. But don’t ask them to get Yahoo to load. They have yet to develop the means necessary to deal with that staggering technological feat.

To the disappointment of many, I'm sure, I haven't written in here much since June, and now suddenly it's finals week here at USAFA. For the last few days I've been staring at so many words I've turned cross-eyed and lost my PQ, and survived mainly off of those little "fun size" candy bars and the moisture I absorb from the air. Still, I'd much rather be in my position than my roommates, who for the past week has stayed up until 4am each night working on his POV-Ray program (you put in code and a picture comes out) for computer science. I'd estimate he's put over 100 hours into that thing, which translates to one hour for every point it's worth. Which isn't much, if you didn't know. Even when he found out that it wasn't some huge project after all, he remained obsessed with it. Now finals are tomorrow and he hasn't studied a damn thing. Yet he remains in bed, unphased by this fact. The dude has some jacked-up priorities and I'll be glad to get rid of him, with his car noises coming from both his mouth and his computer. It's set to play this ten-second sound clip of some car drag racing every time he gets an email, which at this place is upwards of 30 times a day. That's five solid minutes of some redlined four-banger raping my eardrums. Next semester I'll be rooming Adorno from Dirty Jersey, which is going to be a lot better. Of course he could clang pots and pans together every night at 3 and still be better, on average, than Pope.

It's taken me until this far into this entry to realize it doesn't really have a point, so it's probably not going to matter if I shift focus here. As many of you may know I'm a bit of a car nut, so I decided to include my latest rant, written for a forum, about my automotive pet peeves. Keep in mind that when I say "pet peeve" it'd probably be more accurate to say "psychotic fuckin' hatred."

Neon underbody lights. (shudder)

Steering that is so loose it feels like the pinion gear was actually carved from a donut.

Really, really, small wheels. Like 12".

Hummer H2's.

"Engine Start" buttons. Too good to turn the key? Pointless.

Car alarms that can only be silenced with a shotgun.

Honda CRX's and Del Sols. They look funny, they sound like my friends after taco bell, and they've got less power than the dust busters they resemble, yet every guy I've known with one is convinced he's driving nothing short of a Ferrari.

Guys in big trucks who think they're fast. Every time I run across some guy who thinks his Dodge Ram Daytona is a speed demon, gives a dirty look to me and my car, and speeds off like he's on a moonshine run. They turn 16's at the drag strip, give it up already.

Riced-out RX-8's. Well, any car really, but 8's in particular. This includes but is not limited to 8's with huge "GT" park-bench wings, "lambo" vertical doors, Veilside brand body kits (or any other kit that makes the car look like some kind of aquatic life), needless carbon fiber, and any lights in excess of the ones the car came with.

The Buschur Racing disciples in their Evo's, and their lesser bretheren in Tiburons and Civics, that flock to the car wash at 8:00 every summer night like moths to a porch lamp. They are the "Kool Kar Klub".

Nascar. Jesus, wake me up when it's over.

Mitsubishi's styling department and the small-dicked, sideways-hat, earring-wearing, popped-collar jerkoffs that, by designing and purchasing them respectively, ruined the Evo.

Guys that say "I don't need a computer to tell me how to drive!" Listen up, Neela, but unless you're the next Jackie Stewart, I'm sure that computer has saved your ass at least once, and keeps you from having to tune your carb with a paper clip and your tongue. Computers keep you and your car on the road in more ways than one, stop bitching already.

Buicks.

Toyota Priuses. Actually, all of Toyota. Their lineup puts me to sleep, and Lexus is just a passionless ripoff of BMW and are only driven by balding middle managers who like to golf and want to look important (well, thats not fair... the SC430 is a very popular car for the trophy wife). The only good thing Toyota makes is their trucks, except for the problem that most of the pickup truck demographic would rather fight a bull with just their forehead than buy anything but a lump of Detroit pig-iron. They do serve some purpose, though, because guidance counselors and nurses need something to drive too.

Speaking of the Prius, there's all the eco-bullshit too. Hybrids aren't cost effective (you spend way more on the technology than you'll ever save on gas), ethanol is pointless because it gets less mileage, pollutes more, and costs the same compared to gasoline, and yet everyone runs around worshipping these technologies simply because running a car off of electricity or plants is an appealing idea when the answer is right in front of our faces: DIESEL. In a car it can get 80 miles to the gallon easy, it can run off of freakin' vegetable oil with barely any refining, and the technology exists. So why hasn't it caught on? People don't like waiting 10 seconds before they start their car. And what else, the factory that makes the batteries for the Prius is one of the worst polluters in North America, which has killed off all vegetation around it for miles. <url="http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=417227&in_page_id=1770"> So Cameron Diaz can wail all she wants about how her Prius gets 65 miles to the gallon (which it doesn't), but she might as well be sponsoring strip mining.

How the Mercury Cougar used to be a car with a pair, then they made it softer until my grandma eventually bought one, then around 2000 or so came a half-assed return to sportiness that made it look like a big sex toy, and then it was finally discontinued, and then Mercury was reduced to nothing but a vestigial offshoot of Ford and basically lingering around like a wounded horse waiting to be shot while making no valuable contribution to the automotive industry in any way.

Oldsmobiles.

The Dodge Caliber. It's just pathetic, and it'll be even more pathetic when the long-hyped new SRT-4 comes out so I can watch ricebois torque-steer into the wall at the Raceway, assuming that they can spin the turbo up enough to move.

I find it strange that, as a country, in terms of rated-R movies, we deal with gory serial-killer voilence far better than we deal with sex. Take the movie Hostel, for example. Ask any who's seen that movie about it, and universally what are the first words out of their mouth? "That movie was like soft-core porn." Yeah, okay, nevermind the fact that a guy gets his head torn off in a stairwell railing, there are people doing it and that's far more shocking. Unless Jesus is reading this, I'm pretty sure sex had something to do with your own birth... that is to say, it's fairly common. Decapitations are a bit harder to come by.

You can actually find, on IMDB's page for Saw III, a comment from a Dad asking if it has any nudity because he wants to take his kids. It's a movie about people eating each others bowels while suspended from nooses made of razor wire, but if little Mason or Mackalya sees some tit then they'll really be traumatized.

Europeans lack this kind of inhibition. Some of them go naked whenever they feel like it, or on Sundays. However, most of them are scared of everything but certain kinds of chalk.
Obviously we need to strike a balance, we're getting as bad as the Arabs at it.

So there I was, propped up against a wall after our Financial Responsibility breifing (because we can't be trusted with $100 per month). In my hand was "checkpoints," sheet of paper full of useless shit I have to be prepared to recite at my lunch table every day this week, because sitting with the training officer is just that kind of sweet. One guy, who happens to be on the football team, asked me what I was doing. "studying checkpoints for lunch" I replied, "because you bitch-ass IC's don't have to."

Now, I don't know what it is, because you have to be smart to get in here... and, in a way, our IC's (intercollegiates) are pretty smart. But most of them (except for Ford, who is mildly famous for his deep wisdom beyond his years) are also their own special brand of stupid. I say this because, in response to my above comment, which was said with playfulness rather than hostility, was taken as the former, prompting the response: "Well... maybe if I had 5 extra hours a day like you do I could memorize them!"

Cry me a fucking river, dude. Yeah, that would suck to be gone at practice all day, missing every training event and hanging out in a locker room that's decked out like something from Cribs. And I'd hate to eat at my team's lunch table with chill people every day.Damn, you got it bad.

I honestly have absolutely no sympathy for any IC here. They get to play the sport they love at the division one collegiate levek, for free, and they get out of 90% of the shit the rest of us have to put up with. And yet, with precious few exceptions, they're whiniest, laziest, and most stuck-up people you'll find here. I'll trade my extra 5 hours a day to be in their position in a heartbeat.

I expected so much more from this place.


What a disappointment.

The Cadet Wing email system: bringing you proof, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, that the academy admissions process is in no way watertight. I love nothing more than getting emails from random idiots addressed to every freshman in the wing. These make my life so much more complete. Thanks, C4C Retard, for informing me and the rest of the 4-degrees that you got in trouble for your uniform. Then again, you didn't so much get dressed as dive through your fucking hamper and stumble into the hall with whatever stuck. "Omg i went out wearing random clothes and they yelled at me!" Wow, couldn't have told you that was going to happen. I feel wiser having shared your experience with you. I haven't even mentioned the barrage of emails in reply to it. "Don't go out naked either!" Wow. What a knee slapper. Truly, the Doolies of USAFA are the protectors of all comedy in this world, played out on the digital stage that is the school intranet. I'm glad this isn't happening on government networks, or someone in power might get pissed.

It's come to my attention that many of you have the comfort of going to a normal college. These are colleges where people wake up after 6am, and at that time no one goes into the hall and screams what time it is. In fact, I'm willing to bet some cold hard cash that if you tried this at a normal college, some dude with a popped collar and a hangover would skull-fuck you with a fire extinguisher. But no, not here, not at the United States Air Force Academy. Here, that behavior is not only normal, but encouraged. This is an institute of higher learning where occasionally you'll see a dude stroll by with an assualt rifle on his back, and no one is alarmed. In fact, all they check for is too see if he's wearing a hat. The president of the university is actually a General, whose goal is to change everything before he's reassigned so that the next one can do the same. This is a place where freshmen have to run around at 90-degree angles like Pac-man, but there is no fruit on the Terrazo, just the colored ghosts that are upperclassmen, and this level has no power pellets. Sure, you're paid to go here, but a migrant gardener still rakes it in better than you (no pun intended).

So in case you haven't caught on yet through my awkward use of second-person, the last six and a half weeks have sucked jollies, and it doesn't look like things will improve any time soon. The purpose of this entry was really just to let you all know that this thing will keep going until someone with rank finds out about it. Stick around.

"I've often said, if there were only some dudes with rank here this would be a really good time." ~1st. Lt. TJ Root

For those of you who wish to write me during Beast, here's the address you can use:

Basic Cadet Travis Root
PO Box 1643
US Air Force Academy, CO 80841

All major credit cards accepted.

( Come see The Boss.... )

It was a slow day at work, so instead of concerning myself with a few (possibly drowning) children, I cracked the spine of my brother's Esquire, which is inexplicably delivered to my house despite that he has not lived there for close to seven years. This issue went beyond overpriced watches and scotch ads to bring me a series of articles called The State of the American Man, a collection of surveys, panoramas, and insights on what exactly a man is. In the philosophical sense, that is. Not just having a pecker.

After the curious table listing the average number of suits owned by men who've seen Brokeback Mountain, and then after the article on how fathers are the root of their sons' failure (I knew I had an excuse!), Esquire wrote a section where they asked 50 guys, one from each state, what it means to them to be a man. Every one of them was 25 years old. Twenty-five, the article argued, just isn't what it used to be. Charles Darwin, after all, wrote his famous book at 25. Martin Luther King became a pastor, and Orson Welles made Citizen Kane (two long black-and-white boobless hours of silver screen immortality).Twenty-five year olds now, well, the really successful ones make websites. Twenty-five year-olds in the fifities started families and wore suits and worked at the bank. Twenty-five year-olds now work at Dominoes and wear FuBu.

That's what Esquire claims, anyway. And I must say, I found it hard to disagree. Of their 50 guys, I found four at most who, from appearance alone, I would consider full-grown men. The most noteworthy was a guy named David, who wore an Army uniform. He stood out among the guys throwing up lame gang signs, or the ones with more tattoos than skin, or the ones with so much hair they make Howard Stern look like Curly Howard.

Perhaps Esquire is right. 25 ain't what it used to be. But then, guys are living a lot longer now, too. I don't have the answer of what makes a man. As much as I'd like to be the 51st on the page, representing Puerto Rico or some shit, I can't. I can't even buy liquor yet, who would believe I have anything to tell the world about being a man? I also don't have the answer to whether or not it's even a bad thing if the majority 25 year-old guys are no more mature than your average 8th grader, or in extreme cases, Yorkshire terrier. With a longer life, after all, why not a longer childhood? Most women that age are going through guys like Kleenex anyway. Might as well let those be 25 year-old boys. Me, I'll be the one in the uniform.

"In our society, kids are much more sophisticated at an earlier age and much less emotionally capable at a later age. Those two things are sort of moving against each other." ~David Fincher

As my graduation approaches, I've been thinking more and more about it. I found myself contemplating my grandpa's diploma. He almost burned it in the trash pile, but my mom rescued it. Then she hung it in the bathroom. I haven't decided yet it if that's really an improvement.

It's just a piece of paper. But then, it's more. It took the first 18 years of his life to get it. A varsity letter for the 1945 football season is recorded on it, the only proof of days spent sparring on dead grass with a leather helmet he could fold up and put in his pocket. There'd be no way to go back and get another.

I guess it is an improvement. But it's still hanging over the john.

Yesterday, after Sara's graduation party, she and Mallory and I drove around Huron to visit some other parties. On the way back, early because Mal had to get home and sleep for her graveyard shift at the pool, the conversation lulled a moment. Mal broke the silence by saying, "everything is going to change."

And I hope she's giving a speech at her commencement today, because she discovered the single universal truth of all graduating seniors. It could be that one single line, and still deserve a standing ovation.

They say graduation is a beginning, but it's mostly an end. It's not the end of your life by any means, but it is the end of about everything you've known up until this point. You can't hold onto it. Those that try end up delivering pizzas until they flunk out of Firelands, or become a teacher right at age 23, marry at 24, and do the same thing every day for 30 years until they get a pension and take up golf.

As my two friends walk across their respective stages today, I'll be thinking of my own fast approaching walk, first for my diploma, then for my first day of BCT. I'll mourn the change, but I'll also embrace it, because it has to happen. We can't go on like this. If we did, we all would be nothing.

In every good way, and every sad way, nothing will ever be the same again.

Guess who has free tickets to Mid-Ohio Raceway's big Mazda event, complete with amneties and track time!

Also, guess who had to turn them down because he'll be in Connecticut that weekend. Son of a bitch.

( Come join the party... )

Yesterday I saw the Air Force Academy up close for the first time. It was a bit like buying a house before ever seeing it, and I can assure you, it is every bit as unwise as it sounds.

Actually we went late afternoon Sunday. I can admit outright that the place is every bit as beautiful as I was told, and we quickly celebrated this fact by making proper consumer whores out of ourselves, scarfing up just about any synthetic material that had "Air Force" written on it.

We returned the next day for the orientation proper, starting with dad defrauding the incredibly lax base security (yet, an APB for a blue rental Impala remains in effect). I don't know what I was expecting, but 8 solid hours of slideshow presentations wasn't it. Basically they laid out, in no uncertain terms complete with visual aids and pretty transitions, the wide and piquant variety of ways in which I am completely fucked.

After that split up, us appointees (a USAFA term for "tool") were herded off to the fieldhouse to be paired up with our cadet hosts. My "Norwalk, Ohio" nametag grabbed the attention of a 3rd-Degree (sophomore) named Tim Gaydosh, a man just short of 9 feet tall that hails from one of my all-time favorite little burgs: Avon Lake. Turns out we have a mutual acquaintance or two. Small world. Anyway, he and his roommate Taylor Roach (sadly does not answer to "Papa") snatched me up and immediately tried to kill me via weightroom. Actually, the workout was fine, and they both turned out to be cynical and jaded. I liked them immediately.

Should those two ever run into this pathetic little slice of syndication I have: you guys were cool.

The whole 24-hour experience of cadet life reminded me all a bit of the movie Waiting, with me as the new guy (Mitch) who never says a word. Because, honestly, with all the acronyms and shit I don't know yet, it's almost like a language barrier. And if I'm that guy, Tim is Monty, Taylor was Dean, and Spence from down the hall is Naomi, who screams about how much the place sucks, quits, and punches you in the face on the way out. Oh yeah, and the "water trick" at lunch is the penis game.

Going to class was about as much fun as you can imagine school during spring break would be. Actually I was relieved to find that nothing looks extraordinarily difficult... there's just a large workload. Eh... not as bad as I expected.

All that, and they give me a gun too.

I'm not sure If I'm gonna like it here. But I guess I'll have to find out.

A few points of interest about Colorado Springs:

It's HUGE. Here I was expecting a little college town, the way Highland Falls leeches of off West Point. Nope. Turns out it's almost as big as Cleveland. And yet, you don't even realize how big it is. It just doesn't have a typical metropolitan feel to it. Even the low-rent areas seem fairly nice, and I have yet to see a bum yet (though there are plenty of ricers around, which are like bums that use petrol).

Before I came out here, everyone kept telling me how beautiful the place is. Whenever I mentioned where I was going to school, inevitably the scenic setting was the next topic. Now that I'm here, I have to agree with the popular opinion. Don't believe me? Here:


I didn't drive 17 miles into the wilderness or anything to get that shot. That was taken from a city park. Yeah, you read that right. In sharp contrast to the parks in Norwalk that feature concrete turtles and rusted charcoal grills, Colorado Springs has a park called "Garden of the Gods" (there were no actual gods there until I showed up- trust me, I checked) which is like a little slice of Arizona, with huge rock formations, red dirt, and horse turds for all.

The mountain in the picture is Pike's Peak, which we drove up today to the very top, and I can proudly say I will never do that again. The vistas were amazing, but you know that dizzy feeling you get when you stand up too fast? At the 14,000 ft summit, you feel like that all the time. The only thing that would get me back up there is the annual car race they have to the top. Imagine flying around hairpin step-grade switchbacks on wet unpaved roads next to thousand-foot drops with no guardrails in a mad dash to the top for donuts and bragging rights. I think I speak for all guys when I say that kind of reckless stupidity would be totally fucking awesome as hell with a bowl of tits on the side.

That's not to say Colorado Springs is without flaws. Such as a definite lack of oxygen, but moreover a place called Seven Falls. That place was lamer than Helen Keller on morphine. Basically you pay eight bucks a head for the privilege to walk up about nine thousand stairs to look at a bunch of falling water. Actually, it's a series of seven waterfalls that would be pretty were they not dressed up like a mall fountain with loose change and spotlights. Mexicans love it. Go figure.

And they got a Hooters, too. I think I'm gonna like it here.

Outside the window, there's nothing but golden-brown patchwork farmland as far as the eye can see, crisscrossed with a grid of narrow-ribbon country roads straight as dragstrips. When I strain my eyes westward, the front range of the Rockies appears out of the haze like they had just grown there, wearing their wispy clouds like a wide-brimmed hat against the sun setting behind them.

We're at 10,000 feet, on approach to Colorado Springs, the city where I've agreed to spend the next 4 years of my life. And I must say, so far, there's not much here to make me regret the decision. Except that our luggage is still in Chicago. But I won't hold that against it.

I think I'm gonna like it here.

The journal has been reinstated to its former glory.

United States District Court,
W.D. Pennsylvania.
Jack FLAHERTY, Jr., Jack Flaherty, Sr. and Carol Flaherty, parents and natural guardians on their own behalf and their son, Jack, Jr., Plaintiffs,
v.
KEYSTONE OAKS SCHOOL DISTRICT, Dr. Carl DeJulio, Superintendent of Keystone Oaks School District, Scott Hagy, Principal of Keystone Oaks High School, Alex Covi, Assistant Principal of Keystone Oaks High School, Joseph Perry, Athletic Director of Keystone Oaks High School and Jeff Sieg, Athletic Coach of Keystone Oaks High School, Defendants.\

Civil Action No. 01-586.

Feb. 26, 2003.

Synopsis: Parents brought action against school district on behalf of their son, alleging that certain policies in school's student handbook were unconstitutionally vague and overbroad in violation of First and Fourteenth Amendments as well as state constitution. Parents moved for summary judgment. The District Court, Ambrose, Chief Judge, held that: (1) breadth of handbook policies relating to discipline, student responsibility, and technology were overreaching in violation of students' free speech rights; (2) even if handbook policies were not overbroad, they were unconstitutionally vague in definition and as applied; (3) handbook policies which did not geographically limit school official's authority to discipline expressions that occurred on school premises or at school-related activities were overbroad and vague in violation of students' First Amendment free speech rights.

Motion granted.


Ladies and gentleman, we have been censored. You'll notice several of my entries which were previously visible no longer are. Be patient, they'll be back. The fact of the matter is, my journal has too much widespread appeal. In light of certain events, and the newspaper contacting me about it, I feel it in my best interest to conceal certain things I've said. This whole ordeal is outrageous.