Friday, November 28, 2008

My trip to the Riverwalk/Alamo

Well, I decided it was time to post again, today was my first chance to get out of Fort Sam for a few hours.. I went to the Alamo and the nearby riverwalk.. it was really crowded today because they were going to turn on a bunch of Christmas lights all along the riverwalk, but I had to leave too soon to see that.. I got a few pictures.. here are some of them.. I will keep trying to get more pictures out there.. I'm planning to get an iphone pretty soon, so hopefully I'll have a bit more reliable internet!! Anyway, here are some pictures of my mini-vacation, enjoy!
Unfortunately by the time I got to this little waterfall along the riverwalk it was completely dark out, and only the light of a little riverside restaurant lit it up.. and the flash ruined the beauty of it, so you'll just have to be happy with a slightly noisy and dark picture for now..

A cool plant in the park surrounding the old Alamo fort.

I've seen this building before in pictures, but I don't know what it is..

An interesting statue thingy..

This fountain was really sweet.. it had flames coming out the midle, and water all around it and through it.. ;P

This picture would have been better if it hadn't taken me so long to get my camera out and going.. there was a couple holding hands that was silhouetted down at the end of this breezeway thing.. it was kinda cool, but oh well...

There was this cool fountain in the middle section of an intersection, it was pretty neat :)

Yea.. it's a palm tree... hehe

Parts of the park felt like a mini jungle!! the palm trees in some places made a little tunnel where the path went, and blocked out most of the light, and it was really cool ;)

That's one BIG christmas tree!!!

Umm.. a cactus plant.. yea.. that's about all there is to say about it.. ;)

A neat little barrel cactus that was growing outside in the alamo park

I have no idea what this building is, but it looked cool :) pretty old too by the looks of it..

one of hundreds of pretty flowers through the park.

Here is a picture of one of the walls of the original Alamo fort that is very famous in history :) It was really neat to actually see this history-filled place with my own eyes..

The greenery all through the Alamo park was really beautiful!! I wish I had had more daylight for photography!!!

Here is another picture of some of the plants :) The place was like a tropical oasis!! I will for sure be back there again!! Of course, the thought that while it's in the mid 70s and sunny here, back home it's frigid only makes it nicer here.. :)

Hope you enjoyed your mini-tour of my little excursion into the amazing city of San Antonio!!
More to come eventually!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

My Home away from home

Hey everybody, I finally got some pictures to put up.. Not very many, but considering my internet situation I'm glad to get this!! I'm less than 2 weeks from taking my NREMT test, which is the hardest test I will be taking here. After that I will be nationally registered as an Emergency medical technician, which should be cool :) You never know, I might be on the ambulance you see whizzing past down the road, hopefully you won't ever need my services!! lol Anyway, here are some pix.. Eventually I might get some pix of the other people here, but it would take forever to try to explain who they are, so for right now I'll put that off for some other time.. Tomorrow I have wake-up at 2:45 in the morning, because we have a PT test, so.. it's pretty dumb, but I won't get phase 5 privileges if I fail it, so I'd better get some sleep tonight!!
Echo Company is next to us, and I thought their elephant was kinda cool :) so here it is :)

Practicing for the basketball season.. yes, we have company competition basketball games here.. well, we will in a couple weeks.. :)
My "home"

Combat medic lead the way!
"Soldier Medics... Warrior Spirit! Hooah!"
(as you can see the leaves are still green.. and they're some weird kind of tree..)

Well that's all I have for now.. I will post more some other day.. God Bless, hope you have an amazing day, week, month.. whatever ;P
Thanks for reading by the way, and feel more than welcome to drop me a comment, even just to say hi! :)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

stuff.. lol

Hi everybody, hope you're doing well, not too much new with me, unless pillow fights and artwork count...
Well, I've been keeping busy lately, class is getting more and more challenging, but I'm still surviving.. it takes a lot of caffeine to keep me awake in class though!!! here's a picture that's going to freak some peeps out.. oh well.. Well, a lot of people will ask questions.. and I'm just going to let you come to your own conclusions.. sorry.. ;P I'm mean like that..


this is how we have fun in the Army.. or something like that.. haha!! it's even more fun when half the participants are drunk.. haha.. anyway......... :p
I'm going to go play mario kart while I wait for this huge video to upload.. it's taking forever.. ok, it's done now, so here comes my post!! :)
Later!!
Matthew the weird ;P

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

hey a few new pix

Hey everybody, sorry I haven't posted recently, but the bluetooth modem on my razr is going out, so my internet is kinda spotty at times.. I'll get more pix soon, I have a ton already, but it takes too long to upload them all.. and not all of them are interesting or good, so I have to find time to sort through them, which is not to often.. lol anyway, I took my mod 5 test today, which marks almost 3/4 of the way to my EMT license. I'm kinda bummed because my class average so far is only 87%, which is better than a lot of people, but I'm not used to having such low grades!!! It's a really challenging course though.. Of course, after I get it I have to do 3 or 4 more months of combat medic training, but.. lol :P anyway it's only one month from tomorrow until I come home for Christmas leave! so that's cool too :)
anyway, here's my pix!!

Here I was kinda bored so I decided to take pix of some people playing a netless version of volleyball :)

The mini mall/shoppette.. it's not very big, but it's got gas station style food items, writing/class materials, and some clothes.. most of what we need. the real PX is awesome! It's like 2 times the size of wal-mart, plus a little strip mall out front, and there's no tax! unfortunately there's not any groceries to speak of at either stores, but then, they feed us, so we don't have to get our own food.. and there's several restaurants at each of them, so...

Haha of course they've got this.. :P

My pizza from supper the other night.. yummy!!

Ok, so this is just me trying out my camera, this is the REALLY fine kind of carpet like they have at stores, and it still got right up close and made it look huge!! this picture would not have even shown a whole penny, that's how small it is for real :)

Here's some of my friends. We all are still phase 4 so we can't go off post because either they didn't pass their tests, or like me, they weren't able to complete the pt test in time to phase.. I get to take it on the 25th, so it's not too bad.. only difference is that on the weekends they get to go off post and wear civilian clothes all day, so..

Monday, November 10, 2008

An update..

Here's a few pix.. I've gotta get a real camera.. the camera on my cell phone does not do good in the kind of lighting we've got here.. besides the lens is scratched, so it's hard to get clear pix.. anyway, here's some sorta kinda pix ;)

Hehe I decided to make a sad face... convincing huh??

Sweet haircut huh? I think I'm going to keep it like this ( a little longer on top) after I get home.. It's soo easy to wash!! lol ;) plus it hides all the gray hairs that for some strange reason popped up during basic training and now I've got stray gray hairs around my ears ;) hey- the bible says grey hairs are the mark of wisdom, so maybe it will make me smart!! I'm tired of being dumb!! LOL!!!!

Sigh... ok I'll try to smile.. lol I never can smile good for a picture.. idk why.. lol

Anyway, I'm doing pretty good, I got a data plan for my cell phone, so now I can get online anywhere, it's sorta slow, but you can't really tell unless you're uploading pictures or things like that.. I'm in the middle of my 4th mod of the course to get my EMT-B license. It's supposed to be one of the hardest parts.. I just want to get done with this part and get on to the combat half of training.. I get to give myself an IV!! I tried to the first time, but they wouldn't let me, so I had to do it to another guy.. I was sad :( lol anyway...
My 18th b-day is the day after tomorrow.. YAY!! not that it matters here, but it will be cool to be considered an official "Adult" they tell us that graduating basic turns everybody into an adult, which is pretty true, but the government still calls me a minor until my b-day :)
anyway, hopefully now I'll start hearing from people, because it seems every time I call somebody either they are busy or they don't answer the phone.. ugg.. but the internet always works :) Anyways... I've got to get back to homework now..
I'll put up a few questions I have to answer for homework for fun :) I like showing peeps my homework :)

Normal electrical impulses originate in the sinus node, just above the:
A. Atria
B. Ventricles
C. AV Junction
D. Bundle of HIS

Characteristics of epiphrine include:
A. Dilating Passages in the lungs.
B. Constricting blood vessels.
C. Increasing the heart rate.
D. All of the above.

Anticholinergic medications have properties that block the____nerves
A. Parasympathetic
B. Sympathetic
C. Adrenergic
D. Parasympatholytic

as you can probably see it's pretty complicated stuff.. lol and that's just a TINY glimpse!!! so yea, I'd better get back to it.. we have a 4 day weekend because of veterens day, so we have a ton of homework assigned since we won't be in class..
so yup, God Bless, have a great day, and remember, it could always be worse.. lol like you could be doing EMT homework!!!! lol jk ;)

L8R.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Hey!

Hi guys.. Sorry I have not been able to update my blog, but my training has kept me very busy, and I can't really get online much.. When I get my iphone in a couple weeks or so I will be able to get on a lot more, but until then I'm pretty much limited to cell phone.. I don't really have any pix to share yet.. my camera is still at home and I'm waiting for it to get mailed to me.. but eventually I'll get to work on that too :) The course here is pretty tough, but fun and challenging at the same time :) IN a few weeks I'll have finished my National Registry Emergency Medical Technician Basic level course (EMT-B) and then I'll be moving on to the combat side.. giving care under fire.. advanced life support.. all that fun stuff that the legal system won't let me do in the civilian world.. I've already successfully given an IV, but it would take nearly a year of extra school to be "certified" to do an IV on a patient in the civilian world.. it's kinda stupid, but whatever.. if somebody really needed one in a life-threatening situation I would probably break the rules rather than watch them die like technically I should, but.. anyway.. I'm learning a LOT here!! I just passed my test on patient assessment/diagnostics but that's only the intro to those subjects, and I thought it was going to drown me in information!!! LOL anyway.. If I were a bit more intelligent it would be nice.. but anyway... We'll see how the rest goes..
I'm looking forward to coming home for Christmas! I'm a lot more grown-up than when I left, but otherwise I'll be the same for anyone who wonders.. and yes, I will still do stuff like ply tag with the kids and stuff.. it's just that I've learned that I don't know everything, and how to be more disciplined and stuff like that.. otherwise I'm still the same goofy me that I used to be :p me all "grown-up" would be like Tigger with no bouncing!! so nope, I'm not boringified ;) lol but anyway, I'd better get to bed! Wake-up at 4:15.. and that's sleeping in too!! :) so God-bless! and I'll be back hopefully soon whenever I get my iphone or next time I get the chance to get on otherwise ;)