My first real concert

Well, I got back from the concert at the Graduation Ball less than half an hour ago and I have to say it was a blast. I had a bad case of stage fright, though it wasn't nearly as bad as when I had to appear in a wrestling singlet that was WAY too tight for some play, a few years back, and felt wholly inadequate before walking on.

Anyways, it didn't go too bad. For once my pipes were cooperative--no lost drone reed or impossibly hard chanter reed--and although my lips still can't cope with playing too many tunes in a row, it went fairly well. We played several tunes, including the Scotland the Brave set (Scotland the Brave, Wings, and Rowan Tree), Atholl Highlanders and Bonny Dundee, Highland Laddie and Blackbear, The Orange and the Blue, and... I don't think we played anything else. It was a quick appearance, with the dancers and drummers, and it went pretty well.

Now all I want is to: a) get what's left to pack to be packed; and b) to get drunk. After all, this is the end of my second year of university and I missed the Halfway party. Besides, I'm a sailor, (well, naval officer... but I get called a sailor more often than not) an RMC student AND a general university student, so getting drunk is something that's almost expected of people like me.

As I said a few posts ago, posting might be light from now on. I'm going to borrow the laptop from my dad and should keep posting while I'm on leave, but after June 2nd, I wouldn't expect as many posts as usual. I expect that I'll be travelling to Vancouver at least on a few weekends, and I'm fairly confident that even the hippies in Van have internet cafés; I'll post from there.

For those who are reading this out of interest in the Navy, I promise I'll post pictures of NETPO at the end of the summer at the very least, and I'll try to post a few before that.

Anyway, expect several more posts before the great silence. Until then, keep on rocking in the free world!

"I'm a badass."
(If you're in the RMC pipe band and you're reading this for whatever reason, you should have laughed at that.)

Thank you, random guy!

I was at a restaurant with a friend last night and for some reason the conversation went onto Ghostbusters, and my friend said he didn't remember all the names, so I started listing the "bad guys."

The über-bad guy was Gozer the Gozerian, also known as Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar... yeah, all that stuff the voice over the huge building says.
Dana Barett, played by Sigourney Weaver, was Zuul, the Gatekeeper of Gozer.
That Tully guy, played by Rick Moranis, was the Keymaster of Gozer... but I forgot his name.

Now, this guy, after his group was leaving, came over and said,

My friend, the name of the Keymaster of Gozer was Vinz Clortho.

So thank you, random guy, for reminding me of the important things in life.

An oversight

I realized I hadn't added Rogue Gunner to my blogroll. He's had me on his for a while and I was sure I had added him to mine. In any case, I'm sorry I didn't put the link up sooner.

He might be a bird gunner, but his blog is still good and, after all, he's one of those men who stood in front of the enemy and did what he had to do for his country.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Well, graduation is only one day away, and that means I can leave and go home for a bit. Oh, how I love the military! Anyway, I'm leaving either late tomorrow or, more likely, Friday morning. I'm going to borrow my dad's laptop (incidentally it's my old laptop that I gave him when I bought the current one--my dad used to be technology-literate but not anymore) for the pre-course leave so blogging should be more or less constant with my other leave-blogging, but as I said in a previous post, blogging while on course might be light. I'll try and write up mini-updates and maybe post them all at once. After all, the whole purpose of this blog is to show RMC and phase training, and I won't be doing that if I don't post while I'm on phase training, will I?

Other than that, I'm going to be piping on the parade tomorrow, so those of you coming to watch the Grad parade, you should see me, provided it doesn't rain. Just look for the guy in the kilt and the huge hat, over with the band. If it does rain, I'll be back in bed, sleeping, or doing some last-minute packing, whichever.

Anyway, for those who just read the post below... hope you enjoyed it!

ALAAAAAAAAAAAAAARM!!!

I seriously need to find a way to put my overactive imagination to rest... or maybe I just need to stop watching war movies before going to sleep.

That's twice, now, in less than twenty-four hours, that I wake up with something in reality slipping into the dream-world and making me flashback to a movie. It's annoying!

First, yesterday afternoon I took a nap (I hang out with too many Air Force types...). When I woke up, the Sandhurst team was practicing their helicopter rapelling for the Sunset ceremony, and the Griffon (I think?) was flying just across from Yeo Hall--I have a few nice pictures of it. I'd just watched part of Apocalypse Now and... well, you can probably guess the rest, but for those who don't get it, I'll explain. I woke up and blinked, saw the white ceiling (granted, it's about 3 feet above me, but it's still white and plain) and heard the helicopter, and for an instant I had a flashback to that good old opening sequence...

Saigon. Shit... I'm still only in Saigon.

And then I just got out of bed like usual.

The second incident was more startling and, in a way, incredibly cooler.

I set up my alarm for 0650, so I'd get up at 0700 or, at worse, at 0730, as I have a tendency to hit the snooze button a few times too many. Anyway, I hit snooze at 0650 and laid back down (I have to, at the very least, sit up to hit my alarm, as it's at the foot of my bed) and drifted between sleep and wakefulness. At 0659, when my alarm sounded again, I just sat up straight and almost shouted "ALAAAAAAAAAARM!" And I almost jumped out of bed. Almost. And then I realized I was in a bunk bed at RMC and NOT in a certain movie. If you don't know what movie I'm refering to, you're certainly missing a great piece of cinematography.*

Anyway, it was rather funny. I hope it happens to other people and I'm not just going insane. Hey, at least I could blame RMC for making me crazy!

*For those who know what movie I'm refering to, I was watching the Original Uncut Version, which lasts for five hours or so.

How do women do it?

As I've mentionned a few times already, I'm a piper. That means I wear a kilt, if only when piping.

Anyway, since this morning I've been wondering how women deal with skirts. Seriously. While walking around in a kilt isn't that bad, sitting is atrocious, especially in confined spaces while encumbered by various pieces of kit... like, say, in a schoolbus while carrying a set of bagpipes and the box for a feather bonnet, although it's pretty hard at a dining table, too.

Now, as much as I'd like to watch girls in plaid skirts (...hmmm, schoolgirls...) to figure out how the hell they can sit properly, it might appear a little... inappropriate.

I'll always love plaid skirts... just not on me.

I hate packing

In case you haven't gotten that much from my posts, I'm about to leave RMC for the summer. Another thing you should've gotten if you've read much of my blog is that I procrastinate intensely. I mean, I'm the king of procrastination.

Anyway, I have to pack. Not only do I have to grab all that crap I need for the course (which isn't all that much, really, just a few uniforms, some footwear, that kinda crap) but I need to bring back my civvie clothes, a bunch of books, magazines, computer games, my electronics, and other assorted crap I've collected this past year. I don't have that much of anything, but if you put everything together, it's a lot.

Packing is really what bugs me about RMC. I love being away all summer, but I have to move most of my crap twice a year, which turns into a lot of moving. We can store some stuff here, but I don't trust the storage space. Cadets are around all summer, and last year my buddy had a bunch of his stuff stolen, and it was obvious the cadets had been creeping through everyone's stuff. Not cool.

So, in addition to cleaning up my room (which I've been needing to do for about a month, now...) I need to actually figure out what I'm bringing back, what I'm throwing away, and what I'm going to try and stuff into my two barrack boxes. I think I'll have to turn to minimalism at some point. After all, if I'm going to try and go for submarines, I better get used to not having much stuff with me at least part of the time. Heck, even on surface ships the space is limited. It's not like I have a lot of GOOD civvie clothes, and most of my uniforms are just extras because I tend to be lazy and not do the wash until I run out of clean clothes... more clothes means I don't have to do the wash as often. I guess I'll just have to stop being lazy.

Anyway, as far as NETPO goes, I doubt I'll have a computer by then, so chances are updates will be few and far between. I'll try and get online through internet cafés or any kind of base... service place thingie where they have computers, but I don't expect to be able to post nearly as often as I do now, and updates might end up being a lot shorter than they are now, as well.

Oh well, back to procras... I mean... packing.