My Crappy Blog

Luckily, the Mythbusters was a rerun so I could type and watch at the same time.

I was just sitting here thinking about this blog to date. The conclusion I came to was "what a bunch of crap". I originally set this up to be a rant space where I could go off on stuff. So far, all I have on here is a bunch of masturbatory drivel.

I suspect that this is, partly, a result of my new schedule. When I started it, I was staying at home and had a lot of time on my hands. That is never a good thing for me. When I have time, I begin to think. when I think, I start having ideas. When that meets with my bizarre need to create, I start new projects. Of course, it is very seldom that I ever complete any single project (that is not blacksmithing related.)

I’m beginning to wonder if this is one of those projects. Frankly, if it is, it has some good company. Right now I have the following projects pending completion:

1. Two short stories
2. Five (yes, five) different lines of jewelry I’m trying to explore
3. A stained glass chandelier
4. A stainless steel and chainmail lamp
5. A Twitter story that has stalled out
6. A 17th century stone bow (crossbow that shoots balls instead of bolts.)
7. Two different websites
8. A small D&D based strategy video game

Oh well. I’ll get to them someday. Maybe after I win the lottery and retire.

Curse you Mythbusters!

Yet again, my plans for updating this blog have been foiled by Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage.

Minä puhun suomea! (I speak Finnish)

I have just finished my second week of Intensive Finnish Language classes and it is a bitch.

There are a total of 5 modules of 25 days each. It is Monday through Friday 9:15 - 4:00 with a 45 minute lunch break. I am finding it interesting, intense, and traumatic.

To start with, the instructor speaks almost no English, so it is a total immersion course for me. I’m not having trouble with vocabulary; I’ve always been good at that, but grammar and conjugation will be the end of me. For some reason, I’m just not getting it and my instructor doesn’t seem able to help me out much. I’m confident that I will eventually learn the proper tenses and grammar, but it will be bumpy and unpleasant.

Another difficulty I’m having is in dealing with my aversion to speaking in class. Throughout high school and college, I was able to avoid speaking in class, for the most part. I’m not consciously afraid, but it stresses me out on an unconscious level. I end up being exhausted at the end of the day, even though I’ve sat on my butt all day. We all have to speak quite a lot and work in groups together. If one could design a course that plays on my worst fears and anxieties, it would be exactly like this.

There are some interesting bits, however. Out of 20 students, I am only one of six other speakers of English. The class is comprised of people from Russia, India, Germany, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Estonia, Burma, Iran, Iraq, China, and America. I am the only American currently in the entire school of 200 students. I think it is pretty cool that there are so many different cultures represented. It also presents all of us with greater motivation to learn Suomi (Finnish).

I’ve started my third week and my enthusiasm is waning. The new car smell is gone and all that is left is the musty odor of hard work ahead. On the brighter side, I am actually starting to learn a little Finnish. I just have to keep my nose to the grindstone and it will pay off in the end… I hope.

Just for fun, here is a paragraph from a friend of mine’s Finnish blacksmith shop website.

Seppä Timo Miettinen suunnittelee ja valmistaa tuotteet asiakkaan toivomusten ja näkemysten mukaan "raudanlujalla" ammattitaidolla. Tuotevalikoimaan kuuluvat niin perinteiset sepäntyöt kuin monipuoliset sisustusartikkelitkin.

(Feel free to check out his work at Viikin Paja .)

As you can see, this is not very much like English. I have quite a job on my hands. I’m sure I will have more on this later.

About Me: The Last One

Well, this is going to be my last post of the "About Me" type. Of course, everything here is about me, in one sense or another. But I digress.

I basically lived the normal life for the next several years. You know the kind:

10 Get up
20 Go to work
30 Go home
40 If Not Saturday or Sunday: GoTo 10
50 Have a bar-b-que
60 Watch the game
70 GoTo 10

I have already covered most of my blacksmithing and traveling over at my other site. Feel free to check them out at Dobbs Blacksmithing and Dobbs Family Blog.

I also have a site for my jewelry at Metal Mischief.

I think that this will be the last time I speak about those two subjects. I will try to keep my various streams from crossing. This one is for rants and gripes, not blacksmithing or family goings on.

About Me: Following my heart

Eventually, as with most groups of friends, we gradually moved off to other lives. In my case, my new girlfriend transferred to a Dallas college and I decided to follow. I was told by many friends and family members that moving to follow a girl as pretty bone headed. Luckily, it turned out ok and we eventually got married. Jennifer gave me the motivation to get into school and work towards getting a real job.

Due to her support, I finally graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Information Systems. I had to work full time days, so I went to school at night. That was quite a challenge. For the next five years, Jen and I only saw each other for a few minutes in the morning and on the weekends. Going back to school was a good idea, but if I had to do it over again, I would choose a different field. I went into computer programming because the dotcom bubble was growing and I had an affinity for computers. It seemed like the perfect choice. Little did I know that I would grow to loath working in I.T. and that art can be, with difficulty, a viable path.

I can remember the day that I began to wonder about my choice of careers. While at an arts festival, in Grapevine, Texas, Jen and I happened across a blacksmith doing demonstrations. I was transfixed and Jennifer had to, almost forcibly, remove from the shop. Before I left, though, I noticed that the smith had a brochure advertising classes so I grabbed one on the way out. After much cajoling, Jen agreed to let me sign up for one of his classes. Money was tight, so I had to make sure she was on-board.

As it turned out, things conspired against me and I was not able to take that class. For the next couple of years, life was too hectic for me to think about it much, but it stayed in the dark recesses of my head. Going to college at night, working during the day, buying a house, and having a child can really keep such thoughts out of mind.

Things had settled down a bit when I found a book about knife making at a local bookstore. In this book, the basics of forging steel are outlined. It showed me that I could build my own forge and use pretty much anything as an anvil. Within the month, I had built a primitive forge and mashed my first piece of steel.

About Me: The Hazy Years

After the military, I moved back to Texas. I stayed with my folks for a few months until I got my “civvy legs” back then moved to College Station. The next three years or so were spent in a bit of a haze. This is when I really started to explore myself. For those that know me as a solid, level headed chap that maintains a fairly conventional life, you may want to skip ahead a bit (I’m looking at you, Mom.)

All of my life, I have always maintained separate groups of friends. You might say I led multiple lives. I think this might be because I get bored easily. While in high school, during the day, I hung out with the nerds. My breaks would often be spent chatting with the science teacher or reading in the library. During the weekends, I would be found running the roads with the “bad kids” trying to buy beer and smoking. In the military, most of my friends broke down into two categories: redneck bikers and closet gays. Some weekends, I would ride my Harley with my redneck friends, the Texas Bunch, and get into fights. Other weekends, I would go down to “The Boom”, let gay men mistakenly buy me beer, discuss philosophy or art, and attend gallery showings.

During the hazy years, back in College Station, I continued to run with different packs. Interestingly, my packs were much more integrated during this time. College Station is a very conservative town so all of the “weirdos” seem to group together. Soon after arriving, I became involved with the SCA and Amtgard, medieval reenactment and live action role playing respectively. Through those groups, I met other people that like to do unconventional things. There is too much to cover about this period to do it in one post so here are the highlights:

• Drank a lot of beer and smoked a lot of weed
  
• Played a lot of role playing games
  
• Helped some friends start up an alternative coffeehouse
  
• Learned how to build leather armor and sew costumes
  
• Met my future wife and mother of my child who thought I was gay for the first year we knew each other. That is a long story I will tell someday.
  
• Made friends with people who I only knew as “Wolf”, “Wombat”, and “PBob”
  
• Lived in a two bedroom apartment with 7 other people and none of us were actually on the lease.
  
• A bunch of other stuff that is only vague memories now.
  

It was a glorious and illuminating time of my life. It is because of that time, and people I shared it with, I discovered that life is full of weird and wonderful things.

About Me: The Military Years

With few options open, to the military I went. My ASVAB and SAT scores were pretty high, so I was recruited to be a “Nuke” by the U.S. Navy. The plan was for me to become an Electronics Technician on the nuclear submarines. Boot camp was a snap, for me. Thanks to my dad, again, I was more than prepared for it. The summer before I was to report, my dad worked me hard out in the hay fields of our ranch. My dad was a Navy Veteran of Vietnam, so he “trained” me for the experience that he had when he went through. I think they were a lot tougher back then, because I sailed through boot camp with barely a hitch. Thank you, Dad!

After boot camp, I went to Nuclear Power School. I may have had good grades back in high school, but I was not ready for this. When I had first joined, the recruiter had told me that the school was “challenging”. That is military speak for “damned hard!” My high school was just a small country school and the highest math I ever took as Algebra II. By week 5, we were way past that in Nuke school. I’m a smart guy but, unfortunately, not smart enough in the right ways. I was failed out around week 12 or so. At the time, I was devastated. I had never failed at anything that was really important to me before. I was also scared. To fail out meant that I would be going to the fleet with no school. That usually meant I would be scraping paint for the next four years. Two things go me through that rough time, my dad and the other “drops”. When I called my family to let them know I had been dropped out of the course, my dad gave me some of the best advice I have ever received. “No matter what happens, just remember: They can’t eat you.” Seventeen years later, I still remember that conversation and it still helps me through when thing get tough. The other thing that helped, which I found out later, was that only five students, out of 32, actually made it to graduation. In fact, two of the other drops attempted suicide, so that made me feel better about my own failure.

After being dropped by the Nuke school, I was sent to a holding company to await reassignment. Drops were sent to an administrator to determine what would happen next. If your commanding officer felt that your failure was not due to negligence, he could recommend a chance at another “A” school. “A” schools were where recruits were trained for a specific job; which, in my case, had been the Nuke school. My commander recommended that I have that opportunity. The administrator told me to choose three other jobs that I thought I would like. If there were any openings available, then I would be reassigned to that school. I chose Journalist Mate, Photographers Mate, and Yeoman (i.e. secretary). These three jobs seemed, to me, to be within my capability or interest. Upon being advised that I would not be able to attend any of the schools, my gut fell out. I thought I was going to the fleet undesignated and would be painting ships for the next four years. As it happened though, the yeoman, on a hunch, found another school that did have an opening. He asked me “How would you like to be a Religious Program Specialist?” What!? But I’m an atheist; I can’t be a Religious Program Specialist. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you don’t have to be religious to be an “RP”. It seemed to beat chipping paint, so off I went.

The job of an “RP” is basically to be the chaplain’s assistant and secretary. I spent the next few weeks learning to type and how to set up the services for the major religions. The job is pretty non-denominational since you could be called upon to support any sort of chaplain. I was taught how to set up for Protestant Communion, Catholic Mass, and a host of other services. We also covered how to provide support for the troops that had no chaplain available. It turned out to be quite an interesting job for someone like me. Being an atheist was actually a boon as I didn’t have any hang ups working with different religions. Most of the RPs I went to school with were quite devout and had trouble supporting chaplains that did not accord with their own beliefs. One Southern Baptist RP, I recall, really had problems setting up for a Catholic Mass.

The school ended with the class receiving their orders. Each student’s names would be read aloud and then their new post. Most of the announcements were along the lines of “Seaman Jones, U.S.S. Forrestal. Seaman Smith, U.S.S. Kittyhawk…” But when they called my name, “Seaman Dobbs, 1st Mar Div, FMF”, I had to stop him. “1st Mar Div, FMF…That is a weird sounding ship” said I. The instructor laughed at that and replied, “That ain’t no ship, son. You’re going to the Marine Corps.” Oh crap!
For those that don’t know, the USMC uses Navy personnel, instead of Marines, for some of their jobs. The most well known jobs are Navy doctors and corpsmen, but less well known is that they also use Navy chaplains and RPs. My next stop was Camp Pendleton, California, home of the 1st Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force.

Because I would, ultimately, be stationed with a Marine infantry unit, I had to attend the U.S.M.C. School of Infantry in California. It is at this school that grunts are trained, above and beyond what they receive in boot camp, how to be an infantryman. RPs are sent to this school in order to learn how to integrate into an infantry unit. It is not something that we squids are ready for after coming out of Navy boot camp. Navy boot camp does not teach squids how to shoot or clean an M-16A2 rifle. It does not prepare them for hiking 20 miles with a 50 lb pack on their back. Nor does it get them ready to live with Marines on their turf. Myself and five other RPs from my class reported for SOI completely unprepared for the experience. We didn’t even know how to properly wear our recently issued camouflaged uniforms, which the Jarheads take very seriously.

RPs, when they first show up to SOI, have a choice to make. They are either going to be squids or they are going to go “Jarhead”. My other classmates chose to go squid and for the rest of their time at SOI, they maintained and reinforced the idea that they were NOT Marines. If they couldn’t complete a long hike and had to ride in the truck, well, “they’re just squids”. If they couldn’t shoot worth a damn, well, “they’re just squids.” If their hair got too long, well they were still within Navy regulations for haircuts. As a result of this attitude, my classmates never really integrate with their units. They tended to hang out with the corpsmen that shared that idea. I don’t ever recall consciously making a decision, but I knew that whatever a “Jarhead” could do, so could I. I never fell out of a hike, no matter how much my feet bled. I already knew how to shoot from hunting as a kid. My hair was kept at a Marine friendly length. I never used the fact that I was Navy as an excuse for not doing something that the Marines were doing. I guess that is why I ended up bonding with my unit and was subsequently labeled a devil squid. I, of course, could never be a devil dog because I had not joined the Marine Corps, but I was as close you get.

One night, in particular, still makes me smile. I was out on the town in Oceanside, California with the other RPs I had attended school with. We were still pretty new to the base and hadn’t made many friends yet, so we tended to hang together at this point. As any military person would now, there is often quite a bit of animosity between the base personnel and the “townies”. On that night, there was myself and three of my RP friends. We found ourselves being confronted by a large group of young men that seemed to have a beef with the military. We all felt sure that we were in for some major trouble so we dispersed a bit in order to split the “gang” up. I was focused on what the group was doing and was not paying a lot of attention to what was happening behind me. Surprisingly, the gang looked behind me and then ran off down an alley. I felt sure that I would turn around and find a cop or something behind me. Imagine my surprise when I found about 15 Marines behind me ready to jump in, if needed. As it turned out, they were with a different company at SOI, but had recognized me and were ready to fight with me. The thing to know about this situation was that the 15 Marines were grouped up behind ME, not the other RPs. That was the night that I really knew what “Esprit de corps” meant and forever sealed my fate as a “devil squid”.

After SOI, I was transferred to the 5th Marine Regiment. There is simply too much to tell about my years with the 5th to cover here. Perhaps, I will post other entries covering this period of my life. Suffice to say that I travelled to 15 different countries, fought in a war, pushed my body past its limit more times than I can count, learned how to survive in almost any environment, and made friends that I may never see again but continue to hold a bond with that few can understand.