Vince's Viewpoint

http://www.airborneranger.com/files/RIThemeSong.wma

This is from Ranger School, but basically the same idea...

Mens collegiate rowing in the United States has a time honored, and currently slightly illegal, tradition of racing shirts. In a duel race, after both crews have crossed the finish line and recovered themselves enough to start moving again, the two crews will pull together, shake hands, and then the losers will peel the sweaty shirts off their back and hand them across to the victors. Every duel you win you have a trophy. If you win at a championship (IRAs, Eastern Sprints) you receive the shirts of everyone who was in your event. Nothing quite like have a wall full of logos from every single other D1 rowing school too remind you of a good season.

Now, I don't have 25 shirts, but I have collected a few in my time. And yesterday, I just added another.

BU down, Brown on Saturday.

My last season is officially in full swing.

On a forum I frequent, I was directed to Adopt-A-Marine www.ryanrust.com a very cool program that links up donors with junior Marines stationed in Afghanistan or Iraq, as pen pals and to send gift packages, just to show them some support. I signed up and linked with a young gentleman from West Virginia. You can tell he's a Marine because the only two things he requested were liquor and energy drinks! (Can't help him on the first part though) I'm going to hook him up with all kinds of random things, magazines, DVD's, flypaper etc. Jut from my experience of being isolated for 6 weeks has shown me a great appreciation for care packages and just having someone other then squadmates to talk to. Anyway, long story short, if you have the time and want to help out a young person stationed far from home, sign up.

So, on digg I saw this watch, and I can only say that it has utterly intrigued me for the last few days. As a reviewer put it "Every time i look down, I'll be like 'Its 3:45! I should be climbing Mt Everest right now!'"

http://www.mrjoneswatches.com/html/accurate-oe.html

Also the wonders of wikipedia have led me deep in the story of Memento Mori which has some beautiful artwork. Might make a good tattoo as well.. hmmm

Hello all, sorry I disappeared for a while. Guess theres a lot to catch up on eh.

Rowing: In the beginning of March went to Cocoa Beach, Florida where we proceeded to row far too much, get a nice amount of sun, play some volleyball and generally have a good time. I did spend the first part of the week in the pair, remembering how a boat feels. Second half got boated, which was nice. It was beautiful down there, 70's, sunny, went swimming in the ocean every day. Good times. Since then, we've been going pretty hard, double practices probably 4 days a week. Our squad is sending one boat to San Diego next weekend, and then April 12th is our first duel of the season against BU. My backs feeling pretty good.

Classes: Had a formal debate in my International Organizations class, in which I had to defend the UN Security Council. I had to scramble a bit and ended up with what i like to call the "Strangelove Approach" wherein I argue that because we haven't had nuclear war since the UN's creation, its doing a good job. I used a lot of statistics on how all conflicts since WW2 have been minor (WW2 had 72 million deaths... Vietnam only 6 million! Its a marginal number!) And may have accidentally called Rwanda a "minor event" which resulted in some death stares from my class, but at least they were engaged. Other then that, classes are OK.. not a huge fan of Spanish but surviving. My computer class is a total waste of space, and poverty is just a crazy amount of statistics.

Other: Signed up for a class the first half of the summer, and then heading back to OCS on July 6th. Scared/Excited. Just got my motorcycle back from the shop, for its spring tuneup. We didn't properly winterize it this year, so to get it running to get it to the shop had to pop start it on a big hill.. that was an adventure. But now its all clean and charged and awesome, and I'm planning on riding up to ME tomorrow to hang out with Clara. Hoping it doesn't snow! Also signed the lease for my place again.. we have it until August 2009 so depending on my circumstances (graduating in April '09) may have to sublet it at some point. Also like to give a shoutout to my lovely girlfriend, Candy, with whom I just passed the 2 years mark. Props, Candy!

And finally, I'll leave you with a funny song.

Heh I hate puns,
Anyways, couple days ago had my first time back in a boat since thanksgiving. Feeling much better, and its great to be back in the groove, on a team, working out and whatnot. Other then that, got a couple midterms coming up this next week, and the week after (1st week in March) is spring break. I'll be down in FL, at Cocoa Beach training and getting sunburnt. Will be a nice break from the snow we've been getting (5 inches yesterday).

Read a really interesting article today, what do you guys think?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.html

well no, actually it was a pretty small needle. Anyway, had the epidural, feeling marginally better so far.

Other'n that, just the usual. Playing far too much Call of Duty 4.

Ah, and a pretty interesting blog I discovered: http://mdfay1.blogspot.com/

Fire and Ice, the personal blog of a combat artist in the Marine Corps. The Corps actually has a handful of personell who go to the front lines and paint, sketch, sculpt etc. Not photograph, but actually interpret into art. Its got some really cool pictures and an interesting look at the role art plays in a cultures self-identity.

So I have 6 more classes I have to take to get my Political Science and Economics degrees done with. Right now I have summer 1, which will be two classes. Then off too OCS I go till mid august, then I... do what.

I was thinking of doing another coop, but I'm not sure if thats what I want to do. Plus because its only 4 months, the coop office here can't help me find one so I'd have to find some interesting employer who would want to hire someone for a brief period of time.

Other options are: take classes in the fall and graduate in December. Again, I kind of want to stay in Boston until the end of next spring for a couple reasons:friends, I enjoy Boston and this will be the first time I can enjoy it without rowing, get to walk, might play rugby, find all the cool extracurricular clubs i've missed out on.

I could stay in school. Take a couple fun courses, or just go easy and take less courses then normal in the spring.

Graduate in December but stay in Boston until the end of spring semester anyways.. it'd be like doing coop AFTER my last semester instead of before. Not sure what the Marines would feel about that one though.

So yeah, a lot of thinking to do. Any suggestions?

moar funny pictures

some of these are pretty damn funny