All right, it's been a while. Time to get everbody back up to speed...
Welcome Home!I got back from my latest deployment on July 31st. Jen was there to meet me at the fly-in with a huge banner (isn't that the sweetest thing ever? It's now hanging on the wall of our garage).
Cabo Cruise
We left a few days later for a Carnival cruise with a bunch of our friends. All my Marine Corps buddies thought I was insane to want to get back on a boat after having spent 7 months on one, but I figured this cruise would be a bit different and I was all for it. My reasoning was as follows:
We left a few days later for a Carnival cruise with a bunch of our friends. All my Marine Corps buddies thought I was insane to want to get back on a boat after having spent 7 months on one, but I figured this cruise would be a bit different and I was all for it. My reasoning was as follows:
- Food:
- Deployment: Galley produced gruel. A cup's worth of salt in every meal, and mystery meat on every menu.
- Cruise: All you can eat, 24 hours, and you'd actually like to eat it. To include ice cream. Booyah!
- Company:
- Deployment: Great guys, I mean some of the best coworkers you could ever ask to work with. Of course, you're working with them 24 hours a day. Every day. For 7 months.
- Cruise: Awesome friends. And the best part is that you can hang out as long as you want to, and when you don't want to hang out any more, you can go to your room!
- Scenery:
- Deployment: The coast of Somalia. (okay, so I can't really complain since I also saw Hawaii, Thailand, Jordan and the Philippines)
- Cruise: Beautiful Cabo San Lucas, and more importantly, my wife in a bikini!
The cruise, of course, was amazing. We met some new friends (who were extremely generous, and a great time to party with), and basically had the time of our lives. The itinerary was a day and a half at sea on the way to Cabo, then a full day in port, and another day and a half enroute back to San Diego. It was the most fun 5 days I'd had in a long time, but like everything that wonderful, before we knew it we were on our way back to San Diego.
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2600 Strange Ave
I'm not exactly sure why, but for some reason we guys had decided before the cruise that it would be hilarious to each make a pair of cut off jean shorts (think Daisy Duke more than Chuck Norris; we called them "jorts") and to hand make an "Ed Hardy" t-shirt. I'm not sure what the impetus behind the "jorts" was; I guess it just seemed hilarious to bare our white thighs to the world, peeking out from under the cover of frayed denim. The homespun "Ed Hardy" on the other hand, was a bit more premeditated...
The popularity of this gaudy, tasteless clothing line, and others like it, over the past few years is annoying at best, and depressing at worst. If you're unfamiliar with the brand, the shirts are almost always either black or dark gray and on them are printed skulls, skeletons, avenging angels, crosses, fire, swords, armor, and more, and all printed in flourescent colors, or even gold. If these shirts were sported by skinny little dudes playing World of Warcraft, or re-enacting medieval battles with styrofoam swords, that would be one thing; I could see why they'd want to have an intimidating angel of vengeance on their chest. Inevitably, however, the guys really wearing the shirts are the type who spend way too much time in the gym, put on way too much cologne before they go out to the bars on the weekends, slop way too much gel in their hair, and yes, spend way too much on their t-shirts. Over the course of the cruise we ran across about a dozen of these "Ed Hardy" guys, and by day two we were sporting our own "Ed Hardy" tees poolside, complete with flourescent swords, etc. (courtesy of yellow, orange, blue and pink highlighters Ryan had the foresight to bring along in his suitcase). By the time the boat arrived back in SD, Ryan, Alex and I had decided that we enjoyed making our Anti-Ed Hardy tee shirts so much that we wanted to do it professionally. And so 2600 Strange Ave was born. We've been working feverishly at our latest business venture for the last two months getting t-shirts designed, the web site set up, and ironing out the legal bits, but we're nearing completion. We should be ready to roll here in the next few weeks (we're hoping for early December). I'll keep you posted.
I'm not exactly sure why, but for some reason we guys had decided before the cruise that it would be hilarious to each make a pair of cut off jean shorts (think Daisy Duke more than Chuck Norris; we called them "jorts") and to hand make an "Ed Hardy" t-shirt. I'm not sure what the impetus behind the "jorts" was; I guess it just seemed hilarious to bare our white thighs to the world, peeking out from under the cover of frayed denim. The homespun "Ed Hardy" on the other hand, was a bit more premeditated...
The popularity of this gaudy, tasteless clothing line, and others like it, over the past few years is annoying at best, and depressing at worst. If you're unfamiliar with the brand, the shirts are almost always either black or dark gray and on them are printed skulls, skeletons, avenging angels, crosses, fire, swords, armor, and more, and all printed in flourescent colors, or even gold. If these shirts were sported by skinny little dudes playing World of Warcraft, or re-enacting medieval battles with styrofoam swords, that would be one thing; I could see why they'd want to have an intimidating angel of vengeance on their chest. Inevitably, however, the guys really wearing the shirts are the type who spend way too much time in the gym, put on way too much cologne before they go out to the bars on the weekends, slop way too much gel in their hair, and yes, spend way too much on their t-shirts. Over the course of the cruise we ran across about a dozen of these "Ed Hardy" guys, and by day two we were sporting our own "Ed Hardy" tees poolside, complete with flourescent swords, etc. (courtesy of yellow, orange, blue and pink highlighters Ryan had the foresight to bring along in his suitcase). By the time the boat arrived back in SD, Ryan, Alex and I had decided that we enjoyed making our Anti-Ed Hardy tee shirts so much that we wanted to do it professionally. And so 2600 Strange Ave was born. We've been working feverishly at our latest business venture for the last two months getting t-shirts designed, the web site set up, and ironing out the legal bits, but we're nearing completion. We should be ready to roll here in the next few weeks (we're hoping for early December). I'll keep you posted.
Camping with Pete and Jen
In early September our good friends Pete and Jen invited us to head up to Mt. San Jacinto State Park (Google Map)with them for a weekend of camping, s'mores, hiking and guitar around the ol' camp fire (sans camp fire, of course since we're smack dab in the middle of fire season). It was an absolute blast and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for some soft-core camping (hot showers, toilets, and running water you can drink). We stayed at the Idyllwild campground right outside the town of Idyllwild, which is a neat little artsy, eclectic mountain town with organic restaurants and an art academy. Even up at 6,500 feet it was nice and warm during the day, but cool enough to break out the sweatshirts when the sun went down. We had a great day hike, some great food cooked over our camping stoves, and even broke out the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" book from elementary school (thanks, Pete!). They seemed a lot scarier when I was 8, but I thought it was funny that they all ended with, "(now turn to someone sitting beside you and scream, 'Ahhh!')". We inevitably read that part out loud, completely disregarding the parentheses. Hilarious.
In early September our good friends Pete and Jen invited us to head up to Mt. San Jacinto State Park (Google Map)with them for a weekend of camping, s'mores, hiking and guitar around the ol' camp fire (sans camp fire, of course since we're smack dab in the middle of fire season). It was an absolute blast and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for some soft-core camping (hot showers, toilets, and running water you can drink). We stayed at the Idyllwild campground right outside the town of Idyllwild, which is a neat little artsy, eclectic mountain town with organic restaurants and an art academy. Even up at 6,500 feet it was nice and warm during the day, but cool enough to break out the sweatshirts when the sun went down. We had a great day hike, some great food cooked over our camping stoves, and even broke out the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" book from elementary school (thanks, Pete!). They seemed a lot scarier when I was 8, but I thought it was funny that they all ended with, "(now turn to someone sitting beside you and scream, 'Ahhh!')". We inevitably read that part out loud, completely disregarding the parentheses. Hilarious.
 We're serious about hiking |  Oh, how cute! His pink waterbottle matches her shirt! |  Pete and Jen ready to crush Mt. San Jacinto! |
 I hope you understand your responsibility... |  Success! |  Pete got lost and Jen was trying to show him the way home. |
Brian's 10-year Reunion
As frightening as it is for me to admit, this year was my 10 year high school reunion up in Marysville. The reunion itself was a pretty good time. It was held at the Tulalip Casino, which wasn't as nice as we had expected, but the only casinos we've visited are on The Strip in Vegas. Pretty hard to live up to that expectation, I guess. It was great to catch up with everyone from high school, though. I thought the funniest part was that everyone seemed to have stayed just the way I'd remembered them. I expected people to have changed somehow; 10 years is a long time, a third of our lives at this point. Overall, I was glad that people hadn't changed, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with people, even if it was just for the night. Besides, everyone seemed to know what everyone else was up to anyway, since we all have Facebook. God bless the 21st century!
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Visiting Family
Jen and I decided to make a trip of it and see most of our family while we were up in Washington (sorry Dad, Wendy and Aaron, we love you guys too, we promise! See you in Vegas for NFR). It's always great to see family, and trips like this make us wish we lived closer so we could do it more often.
 Jen forced us to get ice cream |  We ate it against our will. Especially the whipped cream. |  The Schlosser girls |
Work Updates
Jen's working her way through her Master's of Science in Nursing through a great distance learning program at Gonzaga. She's been pushing hard now for almost a year, and she should be done in another year and a half. Once she's finished she'll be a Nurse Practitioner, and at that point she'll be able to open her own clinic, see her own patients, and even prescribe medicine (in most states). Right now she's splitting her time at work (on top of being a full time student, she's still a full time nurse; how does that work? She's amazing.) between the cardiac floor and the cardiovascular lab treating patients who have just had coronary artery stents placed. She's toying with the idea of moving to the ICU in the spring.
Jen's working her way through her Master's of Science in Nursing through a great distance learning program at Gonzaga. She's been pushing hard now for almost a year, and she should be done in another year and a half. Once she's finished she'll be a Nurse Practitioner, and at that point she'll be able to open her own clinic, see her own patients, and even prescribe medicine (in most states). Right now she's splitting her time at work (on top of being a full time student, she's still a full time nurse; how does that work? She's amazing.) between the cardiac floor and the cardiovascular lab treating patients who have just had coronary artery stents placed. She's toying with the idea of moving to the ICU in the spring.
I just moved to a new squadron. It's got a really macho sounding name (the Marine Aircraft Group 39 Tactical Training Unit), a colorful patch, and it's non-deploying (sort-of) so I'm happy. I'm getting to fly a lot and instruct on my new helicopter, so I'm having fun.
So that's pretty much it. We've done some home remodeling, which I'll update in later posts, but that about sums up the past two months. If you've made it this far, I applaud your dedication. Thanks for reading. It's good to be home...
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