Chris Chronicles, Continued

I have to pass on this story because it is SOOOOO my brother. Sorry Chris, but I’ll try to be as PC as I can but this story must be told.

My brother is single so when he makes his yearly trek down to Arizona for Mariner Spring Training, it is a well-deserved good time of drinking, partying, and general debauchery. Someone has to keep this flame alive and by God, Chris is doing his best year after year.

He was down there last week and like a good single man keeping the dream alive, he was at a bar with his friend, drinking to the loud music and looking for a female companion to share the general celebration of the night.

Kudos to my brother that he started talking to a fine young thing who seemed as interested in him as he was in her. After some time of getting to know each other (1/2 hour, tops) she makes HER move and invites HIM to HER hotel.

My brother, never passing an opportunity to … spend some quality time with a fine upstanding young lady, follows her to the front of the club and wonders how life could get any better.

Then the Grose blood makes its appearance.

Getting to the front of the club, she walks through a very ornate door which, as he described it, was a funky little affair with a weird design of different sized holes carved into the wood.

As he gets to the door, he sticks his hand out to push it open and somehow, his finger slides into one of the holes. When he tried to pull it out, it was like a Chinese finger puzzle; it wouldn’t let go. He claims it was something akin to his hand passing through a micro-blackhole and shrinking in size for the split second it took for his finger to pass through the hole. Just unexplainable.

So he’s standing there with his finger stuck in the door and he sees his young maiden walking out to the parking lot but two more things conspire against him.

First, the music was so loud that she could not hear him.

Second, it doesn’t matter because he had no idea what her name was.

So she walked out, oblivious that he was stuck in the door behind her.

It took the bouncers about 15 minutes to find a screwdriver and get him out of it and by that time, Chris ran out into the parking lot but she was gone.

She probably thought he ditched her and took off.

He returned to that bar every night he was there but she never showed up again.

And of course, she (in his words) looked like a Maxim model and you know what? I don’t doubt it.

See the blood that running through my veins, people?

Idiots

I got these nine examples in an email. You might have already seen them but they are worth revisiting.

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ONE
Recently, when I went to McDonald’s I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets. We don’t have half dozen nuggets,” said the teenager at the counter. “You don’t?” I replied. “We only have six, nine, or twelve,” was the reply. “So I can’t order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?” “That’s right.” So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets.

TWO
I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those ”dividers” that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn’t get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the “divider”, looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me, “Do you know how much this is?” I said to her “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think I’ll buy that today.” She said “OK,” and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.

THREE
A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM “thingy.”

FOUR
I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. “Do you need some help?” I asked. She replied, “I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can’t get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?” ”Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?” I asked. “No, just this remote thingy,” she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, “Why don’t you drive over there and check about the batteries. It’s a long walk.”

FIVE
Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, “I’m almost out of typing paper. What do I do?” “Just use copier machine paper,” the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five “blank” copies.

SIX
I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in “Twister.” I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the “cruise control” and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

SEVEN
My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: “I’ve got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?”

EIGHT
Police in Radnor, Pa., interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message ”He’s lying” was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn’t telling the truth. Believing the ”lie detector” was working, the suspect confessed.

NINE
A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid was eating ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and should be fine, the mother says, I just gave him some ant killer..... Dispatcher: Rush him to emergency!

Life is tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid.

Fellow Nerd

I had to post this part and parcel because it was so classic. Props go out to LCpl Dristy:

My family will be the first to tell you that I'm the ultimate nerd. I love everything about comptuer systems, programming, and the web.

Here's a new low, even for the likes of me:

I was bored tonight, so I started mucking around with Google. Here's what I've found.

For a little background real quick on what I'm about to show ya, go here. Once you're done reading that, go to Google and type in (without the quotes) "answer to life the universe and everything" and then search. You will be amazed by the result.

Type in "failure" and click "I'm Feeling Lucky!". (This is not a political statement by Google, it's done by linking the site with the word failure hundreds of times, this was probably set up by people who dislike him). These are known as Googlebombs.

Type in (again, without the quotes) "french military victories" and click I'm Feeling Lucky.

Type in elgoog and click I'm Feeling Lucky. (I like this one.)

You can view the Google page (ON the Google site) in many different languages/dialects. Try L33t, Klingon, Swedish Chef, Elmer Fudd, and Pig Latin.

Ok, I know I need a life. Don't judge me. :P

YOU GOTTA LOVE A DRUNK

Thanks to my cousin Sharon for sending this one to me:

A man and his wife are awakened, at 3 o'clock in the morning by a loud pounding on the door. The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.

"Not a chance," says the husband, "it is 3 o'clock in the morning! He slams the door and returns to bed.

"Who was that?" asked his wife.

"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.

"Did you help him?" she asks.

"No, I did not, it is 3 o'clock in the morning and it is pouring out there!"

"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember, about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"

The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain. He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"

"Yes"comes back the answer.

"Do you still need a push?" calls out the husband.

"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.

"Where are you?" asks the husband.

"Over here on the swing!" replies the drunk

Get Human

I could have used this with Dell.

http://www.gethuman.com/us/

It's how to get in touch with a breathing entity when you call a company.

This Makes My Eagle, Globe, and Anchor Glow

The Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant in the picture is Michael Burghard, part of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team that is supporting 2nd Brigade 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania Army National Guard).

Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as "Iron Mike" or just "Gunny". He is on his third tour in Iraq. He had become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze Star for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second tour.

Then, on September 19, he got blown up.

He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. "You can't react to any sniper fire and you get tunnel-vision," he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term "the longest walk", stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide crater.

The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7in knife to probe the ground. "I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs," he says. "That's when I knew I was screwed."

Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, GySgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the Gunnery Sergeant's feet.

"A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded," he recalls. "As I was in the air I remember thinking, 'I don't believe they got me.' I was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel anything from the waist down."

His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there.

"My dad's a Vietnam vet who's paralyzed from the waist down," says GySgt Burghardt. "I was lying there thinking I didn't want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, 'Good, I'm in business.' As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. "I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn't going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher."

He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute.

"I flipped them one. It was like, 'OK, I lost that round but I'll be back next week'."

Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior spirit.

GySgt Burghardt's injuries - burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks - kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father - who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam - he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans.

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Just two quick comments:

1. Are you proud to be blissfully ignorant of THIS, George Clooney? You and your Hollywood assbags don't rate to be in the same airspace as this Gunny.

2. Even after being wounded (especially, in fact), I would have loved to see this Gunny go hand to hand with the insurgent who pushed the button.

Missed Tributes

(Ben Stein is probably best remembered for his role as the teacher on Ferris Bueller's Day Off but is much more prolific as aHollywood critic and all-around uber-smart guy.)




By Ben Stein

Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.

I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.

Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.

The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies are evil -- this is nonsense. All of these are mainstream ideas in Hollywood, always have been, always will be. For the people who made movies denouncing Big Oil, worshiping gays, mocking the rich to think of themselves as brave -- this is pathetic, childish narcissism.

The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.

No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to attack America -- which has made it all possible for them. They are not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they sad that, so they never will.

Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and basic, but let's not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on national TV .

Must Have Missed This On CNN

Brad Kasal, 39, grew up near Afton, in Union County. Kasal has been a Marine for 20 years, including two tours in Iraq. Kasal was wounded Nov. 13, 2004, during a multiple-day military assault on insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq.During the battle, Kasal learned that three fellow Marines were wounded inside an enemy-controlled house. Kasal was shot seven times after leading his men into the house in an attempt to rescue the wounded Marines.He also suffered more than 40 shrapnel wounds when he used his body to shield a wounded Marine from a grenade explosion.



Receiving honors: Marine 1st Sgt. Brad Kasal, who grew up near Afton, gets a bit choked up after thanking the Legislature for approving resolutions in his honor. His father, Gerald, and mother, Myrna, watch their son at the Statehouse in Des Moines State lawmakers approve resolutions honoring Iowa native severely hurt rescuing fellow troops in Iraq

WILLIAM PETROSKI REGISTER STAFF WRITER
February 14, 2006

Brad Kasal, an Iowa native regarded as a hero for rescuing fellow Marines in Iraq, was choked with emotion Monday as he was honored by the Iowa Legislature.

"A lot of people ask why I did what I did. I'm a Marine. That's what I'm expected to do," Kasal told lawmakers.

Marine 1st Sgt. Kasal, 39, who grew up on a farm near Afton in southern Iowa, stood in his dress blues as resolutions were approved in the Iowa House and Senate that cited him for courage in combat and patriotic service. Watching proudly as lawmakers stood and applauded were about 20 friends and relatives, including his father, Gerald, and mother, Myrna.

Kasal, who joined the Marines after graduating from East Union High School in 1984, was shot seven times on Nov. 13, 2004, while leading a mission to rescue three wounded Marines in an insurgent-held house in Fallujah, Iraq. Also, he suffered more than 40 shrapnel wounds after he bear-hugged a fellow Marine to protect him from a grenade explosion. He killed one enemy fighter in an exchange of fire at point-blank range.

Kasal has spent the past months recuperating from his injuries, including bullet wounds that nearly required the amputation of his leg. He walked with a cane Monday afternoon at the Statehouse, and he admitted to still being in pain. But he added he's made progress toward recovery and recently ran about 50 feet for the first time since his injury. He exercises for six or seven hours a day, including physical therapy, 14-mile bicycle rides, stretching exercises and workouts with weights.

He is still on active duty with the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and has been selected for promotion to sergeant major. He said he hopes to remain in the Marines for several more years before retiring in Iowa.

Kasal's bravery in Iraq and gritty determination to recover from his wounds had already received national attention. A photo of the bloodied Kasal, still clutching his 9 mm handgun as he was helped by two fellow Marines from the Fallujah house, has been displayed on dozens of Internet sites. There has been repeated speculation that he is a candidate for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, but Marine Corps officials have declined to comment.
Kasal's recognition on Monday was arranged by state Sen. Charles Larson Jr., a Cedar Rapids Republican who served a one-year tour in Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserve. Larson is the founder of an organization known as Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission. He called Kasal one of Iowa's greatest heroes in the war on terrorism.

"This is a very humbling experience," Kasal said after Monday's honors. "I'm not used to standing ovations."


Thank you: Rep. Ro Foege, D-Mount Vernon, shakes hands with Kasal after the passing of a resolution in his honor. Kasal was wounded in Iraq while helping to rescue fellow Marines inside an insurgent-controlled house.

Gummy Bears

I found this email in the depths of my computer:
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Capt. Grose,

I am currently a student at TBS (A Co. BOC 1-05). I stumbled across your website a few months ago looking for a pub online and came across your TBS page. I read your quotes and the one about the lieutenants and the gummy bears just cracked me up. I'm sure you remember how downtrodden one can get at TBS at certain times (especially in Arctic Alpha). One cold day we had some down time and I decided to lighten up the mood by sharing the gummy bear story and all the lt's got a big kick out of it. In fact, "gummy bears" has become kind of the metaphor for the keystone cops-type leadership that sometimes goes on in the student billets at TBS. Our running password on orders has become gummy bears and "you've got gummy bears!?!" is quite often heard shouted out during humps and other activities. It's become quite a phenmoenon among the whole company, actually.

The reason I'm emailing you is this: everyone wants to see your website and the other quotes but it doesn't seem to be up anymore. I was curious if it is coming back online.

Thanks for the great stories and quotes. You made a bunch of lieutenants' days, sir.

This Is SOOO Marine Corps

This struck me of so typical of the Marine Corps mindset. This Staff Sergeant is reenlisting in Iraq... on top of an LVS!

(Thanks, Akinoluna.)



Ohhh- FREAKIN'-Rah!!!!

Maybe The Joke Of The Century

Thanks, Fong.

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A man staggers into an emergency room with a concussion, multiple bruises, two black eyes and a five iron wrapped tightly around his throat. Naturally, the doctor asks him what happened.

"Well, it was like this," said the man. "I was having a quiet round of golf with my wife, when at a difficult hole, we both sliced our balls into a pasture of cows. We went to look for them, and while I was rooting around, noticed one of the cows had something white at its rear end. I walked over and lifted up the tail, and sure enough, there was a golf ball with my wife's monogram on it-- stuck right in the middle of the cow's butt."

"That's when I made my big mistake."

"What did you do?" asks the doctor.

"Well, I lifted the cow's tail again and yelled to my wife, 'Hey, this looks like yours!'

"I don't remember much after that!"

Buster does, in fact, live in a round house.

I have these on my website for awhile.

What I did was to take a big long list of "facts" making fun of Chuck Norris's badassedness and changed "Chuck" to my dog's name. The result: pure hilarity.

(Hit refresh to get a new fact. I had to change my homepage to a .php file to make this work but don't worry about it, the index.html file forwards to it. If you are confused, nevermind, it's seamless so just go to my page.)

Now It's Getting Ridiculous

First, it was getting Dellzilla. Then it was setting up the dual monitors. But now I've completely lost it.



Actually, I'm trying to set up my daughter's new computer so I brought it down.

Note the three screens, the extra mouse, and the open computer on the floor.

I'm outta control.

Oh, and I forgot, I'm home sick so these things are getting done between serious bouts of unconciousness. I get about 15 minutes of this done and I have to stumble upstairs in a fit of racked pain and sheer exhaustion. There is something wrong with me and it's more than just my medical woes as of late.

I’M CIVILIZED NOW

Is this what I have to look forward to?

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I’M CIVILIZED NOW
By MSgt Andy Bufalo USMC (Ret)

A terrible thing happened. I woke up this morning and came to the realization that I have become civilized. It has been a slow evolution to be sure, but a steady one nonetheless. During the twenty-five years I wore the uniform of a United States Marine I learned to accept hardship and discomfort as the norm, and in a perverse way even came to relish it. But that is no longer the case. How do I know? Well, just consider the evidence.

“Back in the day” I drank that nasty, brownish paste which passes for coffee on the “mid-watch” aboard dozens of Navy ships, and occasionally brewed a cup of “C-Rat” coffee in my canteen cup while out in the boonies – and was glad for it. Now I find myself sipping lattes at Starbucks, or drinking home-brewed Columbian coffee lightened with Coffee Mate vanilla half & half. Nothing else will do!

And speaking of ships…I once sailed the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean and Caribbean aboard a succession of big, gray Navy “amphib” ships while crammed into a living space the size of a coffin, and spent hours standing in the chow line just to get a hot dog or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. To this day I can hear the sound of boatswain’s whistles and “Sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms…” echoing in the back of my mind whenever I think about the experience. Now, I sail on the big white ships of the cruise lines, where I live in a comfortable stateroom and dine on gourmet meals twenty-four hours a day (while becoming a “fat body” in the process…).

In the Corps the “head” was often a communal one where you could hold a conversation with the man sitting next to you while doing nature’s business, and we all used government-issued “John Wayne” toilet paper (it’s rough, it’s tough, and it doesn’t take crap off of anyone!) when we were finished to, well, you get the picture. Now, I use “Charmin Ultra with Aloe” in the privacy of a bathroom that’s bigger than my old berthing area, and the only conversations I have while I’m in there are on the cordless phone.

And then there’s the air conditioning. I live in Florida now, and the notion of a summer without it is just unthinkable. We all scurry from the comfort of a climate controlled home, to an air conditioned car, to a cool and comfortable office - and back again. It’s hard to believe I once lay on my rack in a condemned barracks on Onslow Beach (it once housed POWs, and has since been demolished) and hoped for just one cool breeze to blow in through the open window, or that I spent weeks operating in the Mojave Desert during the dog days of August without giving the heat much thought.

Now I live in a comfortable house instead of an open squadbay, have a walk-in-closet instead of a wall locker, pack a set of matched suitcases instead of a seabag, and drink bottles of cold Corona beer (with a lime) instead of those cans of warm, rationed (two to a man!) “near beers” we once yearned for.

Instead of reveille at zero-dark-thirty, I now sleep-in until seven AM on most days. I wear 100% cotton Dockers, tailored suits and silk ties instead of camouflage and combat boots. I mindlessly surf through hundreds of cable TV channels instead of tuning in to the Armed Forces Network. And, worst of all, I am surrounded day in and day out by a horde of civilian whiners who don’t know how good they have it, when once I kept company with the finest men this nation has to offer. You know, now that I think of it, the conditions we endured were far worse than anything the detainees at Gitmo have been subjected to – so I don’t know what the heck Senator Durbin has been whining about. I’m betting that if those incarcerated terrorists were transferred to Parris Island for a few days, they’d be begging to go back to the relative comfort of Guantanamo Bay!

As I said, I’ve become civilized - and I don’t much like it. The good news is, I don’t think it’s irreversible. If I had the opportunity to trade in my suits, silk ties and 100% cotton Dockers for a set of desert cammies and an M-16, I would jump on it in a heartbeat. Deep down in the place the fictional Colonel Nathan Jessup once pointed out “we don’t talk about at parties,” I will always remember that I was “born on Parris Island in the land that God forgot” – and will forever be one of Gunny Highway’s “life-takers and heartbreakers.” That’s because I believe the “hard corps” persona that my drill instructors literally pounded into me is, and will always remain, deep inside, and if my nation should call on this old jarhead to once again “strap it on,” I will gladly go. Something tells me that I am far from alone in this sentiment.

I know what I have just written is true because not a day passes that I don’t yearn to stuff my 782 gear into a seabag, board one of those big gray warships, and have a cup of that nasty mid-watch coffee with my brothers-in-arms as we sail into harm’s way in some distant corner of the world. I just hope they have some of that vanilla half & half on board…

Semper Fi!

Andy Bufalo is a retired Marine Corps Master Sergeant who served five tours of duty with Reconnaissance and Force Reconnaissance units and commanded the Marine Security Guard detachments at our embassies in Brazzaville, Congo and Canberra, Australia. He is now an author and speaker who has become known as “The Storyteller of the Corps.” His work includes “The Older We Get, The Better We Were,” “Not As Lean, Not As Mean, Still A Marine!” and “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday,” which can be found online at www.usmcstories.com