All Things Rowdy

List + Article = Listicle. Or basically the easiest blog post ever, just writing a list. Things Rowdy Is Going To Do Today -Return RedBox movie -Lift weights -Mail taxes and other stuff -Garbage day -Water outside plants -Practice shooting -Play with my camera stuff -Lunch w SuperD -Watch the Oregon bowl game! -Figure out the rest of the week.....

I saw a commercial tonight from Johnson&Johnson with the main tagline of "nurses heal". Which is funny, because if you're a clinician the saying is, "Nurses comfort, physicians cure." Which aligns with my professional opinion of nurses in general. Glorified errand girls/boys, doing what others tell them. Did the nurse in the commercial place that venous access? Did they choose the medication given and the amount? Did they diagnose the disease? Nope. Not saying that nurses aren't good people and great professionals, but I think they believe a little bit too much of their own press and have a tendency to overstate their role. But then again, I'm the one who failed two years in a row to get into Physician Assistant programs, so what do I know?

Ok, in my life I've owned a few cars from brand new, but not many. A Ford Escort, Toyota Tacoma #1, Acura RSX and now Toyota Tacoma #2. The Escort was sold, Taco #1 was stolen and died in a fire, the RSX was sold for some inexplicable reason and I wish I still had it! But Taco #2 had lasted longer than almost any car I've owned and definitely longer than any other car I've had since new. Both in years and mileage. My truck hit the lottery just a while ago, 77777. Yeah, I took this pic at 77mph at 707pm as well. This truck has taken me everywhere! Deserts, snow, mountains, mud, streams. CA, NV, AZ, UT, CO, WY, ID, OR. Bikes, motorcycles, guns and anything else you'd like to haul Tommy. Here is TacoTruck and I having some fun.

I'd just gotten back from Strasbourg France, Vienna Austria and Buda-Pest Hungary. An amazing winter wonderland tour of music, markets, history, food and sights. Wow. This year? I look like I belong in eastern Europe as I'm sitting on the couch in Adidas warm-ups, unshowered drinking a quart of egg nog non stop. Oh how the mighty have fallen. But my hair and beard look better than they did then, so there's that. Right?

I've used a saying in the past, "Successful people do daily what other people do occasionally," and have found another I like to add, "Winners train while losers complain." With that in mind I actually have already started my New Year's goals a few days after I first wrote them down here. I am motivated by just wanting to do better at the things I care about. My mind, my body, my spirit, my talents. Learning a new language, working out and swimming, reading and my shooting hit each of those respectively. Yeah for me, right? Well at the same time there are also things I wish I'd never done. The opposite of doing something good all the time, especially as it seems one bad action can undo 12 good actions. So in all fairness, to present a more true and nuanced version of me, here are some things I wish I'd never done, let alone occasionally. Here you are, regrets I still feel............ Things I Wish I Had Never Done -Drink alcohol or smoke ci...

I'm not sure if I'm ready for this, but I'm moving forward on it anyways! Because it really is something I want, just need to work through my doubts. Mind gym!! What is it? A business in San Diego made an initial approach to me about sponsorship for a shooting team. WOOT! Yesterday I spent a few hours writing up a sponsorship proposal targeted for their company and I sent it off to my point of contact person this morning. Getting closer to my goal of having my shooting sports become a job. With all the attending rewards and pressures. Guess who will be practicing much much more now????????

So I just finished my recent term at Mesa College, a community college here in San Diego. I originally graduated with my BS in Radiologic Science in June of 2002. I've been to college before, I worked full time for three of the five years I went to school and I graduated with a 3.3 cumulative grade point average. In 5 years of full time class work I only ever earned 4 C grades and actually finished one term in the hospital recovering from surgery. That I had no health insurance for. And with $37,000 in student loan debt that I used solely to pay my child support while in college. I think I understand what it means to be a struggling college student. Having spent the last 10 weeks watching numerous people flail at being successful in college and listening to, to me very obvious, poor thought processes I thought I would share some characteristics of the successful college student. From my own experiences and from those struggling whom I just witnessed up close. Stop being your own ...

Per the US Census 33,808 people died in the US in 2009 from fatal motor vehicle accidents. Per the CDC There were over 500,000 deaths in a year due to heart disease in 2010. And 11,708 homicides by firearm in 2010. Cars kill three times as many people per yer as guns and heart disease kills almost 50 times as many. If you wanted to save human lives, where do you think the most benefit would come from? Not a political agenda, not a reaction to tragedy but a reasonable cost-benefit analysis. You really want to save people's lives from deaths too soon? Look somewhere else before firearms as the reasoning rings hollow.

One of the nice thing about having your friends for the most part having professional careers are that their specialties can help you out. Break some toes, good thing I know a podiatrist. Computer issues? I call my man G-ride. Under medical restrictions where I can't leave the house? My hair stylist comes to the house. Develop sleep issues? Boom, I'm friends with a Stanford trained sleep specialist. Bust out your sister's teeth with a surfboard? Call up my orthodontic surgery friend who went to Harvard. You get the idea. The old adage being it's not what you know, but who you know. Kinda like you don't have to know the information, you just have to know where to find it. Well I know perfectly I hate my teeth. Their shape, their crowding, their color, their seeming fragility. If I was offered an extra two inches (take that both ways cheeky monkeys) or perfect teeth requiring nothing but brushing and flossing for the rest of my life........... Man, that'd be a...

Argh! I hate waiting for things to be delivered. And I have a handful of things out there, in the ether. Stuff I really would prefer to have right now. I have little patience for things that take weeks, if not months to get here..... -riding suit -projectiles -powder -holster -other gun stuff grrrrr, and the fastest of this stuff is still weeks out!

With the bit of self reflection about my competitive attitudes and actions still in mind I had lunch recently with one of my friends, CQ, who is pursuing a MBA degree. As usual our topics ranged from guns to jiu jitsu to corporate espionage to girls to food to school. Listening to his comments about what he is learning in his MBA and my own self analysis I have decided upon my New Year's Resolutions (NYR). Early. But they aren't really resolutions in the traditional sense, nor will I set about accomplishing them as I have in the past when I've successfully met my NYR goals. This comes from honest self reflection because the last couple of years I haven't made my NYR. At all. Let's look at why this is, come let us reason together. A goal should be Measurable, Achievable/Realistic and have a Time component. The past couple years I think I ignored this sage advice in planning my goals. I also didn't take into account who I am as a person currently. My drives,...

My shooting coach and I had an After Action Report (AAR) about my shooting for the past couple tournaments and practice sessions. The main point of it was something like this: Coach, "So do you realize what you need to work on?" Me, "Yes, I know where I am weak technically and the drills I know I need to do to improve. I also need to properly deal with my finger injury. I also have my major matches planned out for 2014 and my goals within each one." Coach, "Do you know what else I think you need to do?" Me, "No, what? Not hurt my finger?" (laughs) C, "Well why did you hurt your finger?" M, "Showing off. Trying to alpha male the other dudes around me. Make a statement. Kinda like physical trash talking." C,"And how did that work out for you? Or the times you talk trash? Or that time we went to Alabama and you were sure you were going to win and you got smoked? You realize you can't do that, that sort of thin...

I love my cat.

Yesterday on my lunch break I ate at Mitsuwa, a Japanese market here in San Diego that also has a small cafe inside it. After my meal of shrimp and rice I went and bought a bag of small fortune cookies. Not Japanese I know, but I like them as a snack. Eating them like it was my last meal I only stopped to look at one of the fortunes, which read "You will prosper today." Hmmmmm, so I go to school and on the way to class I find $700 dollars on the ground. Well, someones uncashed paycheck for that amount. Stub still attached and with a recent date. Then in Algebra/Geometry the teacher passes out a take home test and what test hits my desk? The one that is her answer key! Wow, in one hour I got a free check and all the answers to a test! But not really. I called the business on the check and they called their employee who came to school and got his paycheck from me. He was dumbstruck as to how he lost it and it got there. But I'm glad he got it back. If you're o...

As you know, I've been taking a match and art class at community college here in San Diego to help fill some of my free time and for personal development. College Algebra and Digital Imaging, in which I am currently getting A's in both classes with just finals left next week. My A in algebra is a 92, so if I get a B on the final I might get a B in that class, but oh well. I've enjoyed it, even on long homework nights and I've gotten soooo much better at photoshop and definitely back to speed on algebra. A good mix of left and right brain things. This has been so much fun that I decided to register for classes in the spring as well. Some people I know shake their heads in dismay at this, going to school when you don't have to. But I actually enjoy learning and improving myself. But to what extent? This next semester will test that as the two classes I enrolled in are previous difficult areas in my life. Russian and swimming. I've dropped out of a private Ru...

Some good motorcycle news! 1. Check out this amazing footage from a guy on the 163. Next time you get irritated at a motorcycle who is lane splitting LEGALLY and you decide to be an utter A-hole and squeeze them with your car, think again after you watch this video. I can't count how many times people have actively tried to harm me while I was riding my motorcycle. If you saw a rider who had crashed would you do what this guy has done? 2. Adding a piece of quality gear finally! I know it's not really that big of deal living in San Diego, but it does get cold and rainy here sometimes and this will just make it soo much better to ride year round. What is it? A nice RoadCrafter 1 piece riding suit from Aerostich. For a cool $1,000 you know I'm gonna wear the hell outta this thing! Mine is gray with silver accents. Whereas the picture is gray with black. 3. In my quest to find something as a gap filler, I'm entering the process to teach motorcycle riding for the ...