New Ride, etc.

I picked up a new car last weekend, a 2002 Toyota Rav4. It's nice, I like it...smooth drive and good room. Comfy too. I miss the old Blazer, but it was time for it to retire. The process of buying a new car is a bit annoying, however...they forget stuff, there are some things you can't do in one day if it is a weekend, and registering it out of state (military can do that) is a bit annoying because no one usually knows the other states rules, so you end up having to go back a few times...annoying if you live an hour away from the dealership. But hey, they need to protect their investment I guess, and there is a lot to do so something will almost always get forgotten the first time around. I needed a new ride before going to Baltimore though, so it was a necessary evil. I have it narrowed down to two possible names for this one, but I can't discuss it because the M-Tron doesn't like the fact that I name my vehicles. Or talk to animals and inanimate objects as if they were people, for that matter. I do that alot...possibly a product of being an only child who's friends moved away often as a kid. Oh well. I'm a crazy one I guess.

I kinda miss Vanadiel, but I am afraid my character in FFXI has almost definately been deleted by now and I don't want to start over. The game itself wasn't very much up my alley, but I miss running around in an MMORPG world, and that one was a beautifully rendered one, characters and all. Now if only they would put out World of Warcraft or Matrix Online for a console, I'd be happy...I don't feel like upgrading my PC to run those quite yet. Too costly when I just bought a new car.

Other than that, I've mostly been taking care of all the arrangements for my move to Baltimore, planning my trip to Seattle in a couple months before my move, and dealing with some family stuff again. I'm probably going to see Sin City this weekend, which should be very cool...I've always been a big fan of the comics and the movie looks like it will be very faithful to them, always a plus.

Can't think of anything else worthy of print right now, I'll try to do more stuff that I can talk about for next time.

Search, Rescue, and why to avoid Atlanta Airport

Ok, back from 3 weeks of attending National Search and Rescue School in Virginia, and it was good. I now know a bit about search patterns, drifting the search objects, Coast Guard policies on salvage and such, etc. Interesting stuff to me...hopefully I can actually retain some of it for the next 3 months until I actually go to a SAR unit.

Here's why to avoid Atlanta Airport being on your itinerary if you at all possibly can. On the way up to Virginia, I was stuck in New Orleans due to massive delays at Atlanta. You see, they built the runway east to west, so any little headwind can completely screw up a flight. On perfectly clear days they sometimes have to order a complete ground stop, meaning no flights can take off or land there, just due to the headwinds. Anyways, I had to take a later flight connecting through Cincinatti because of this. On the way back, same thing happened...ground stop in Atlanta due to headwinds (they only tell you 'weather', unless you ask.). People were bitching up a storm, because checking the internet and cell phones they got weather reports of perfectly clear weather...as before, not a good indicator of flights being on time if Atlanta is involved. Then I was delayed multiple times while finally in Atlanta while waiting to board my connection flight, and again while waiting to leave the terminal once on said flight.

AVOID FLYING THROUGH ATLANTA AT ALL COSTS. Thats all I'm trying to tell you.

AtomicFreak entry complete, signing off.