mightstone2k

Duolingo couldn't have come out with it a year earlier?! I might have to dive into this. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeee Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oops. Never realized I was tagged here. Darth, the videos didn't show on my phone, so I have nothing intelligent to say, other than "listen to@Machete and @The Most Loathed." Just posting to say that I wasn't ignoring the tag. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here again. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Love the wordplay on the Gnome and Clay Sure Tie. And the gloves! https://goo.gl/images/57m1Ml Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In my quest to be a better lawyer, I finally sat down and set up some Lexis alerts. A few searches related to military justice, criminal procedure, and the fundamental right to marry will be run every Saturday, and updates will come my way. The first two are for my job, and the last for an article idea. Woot. Last night's farewell dinner went well, although I ended up drinking more than I expected. We finished the night at a small bar, and my friend's Japanese girlfriend translated our drink orders. I ordered a double of bourbon (neat), and got two glasses. We all assumed that the bartender understood "double" to mean "two singles," which would not be the most bizarre lost in translation moment we've seen. Nope. Turns out he gave me two doubles. So I drank four shots of bourbon in about thirty minutes. I was slow and lethargic this morning, and my training session turned into a light day. It went pretty well, actually. Much better focus on power breathing and bracing in the shadow swings, and I felt better walking away from the gym. Hung over training: an integral part of every successful person's regimen.

I didn't realize MSP had an MLS team. That was something I wish I'd done when I was in Oregon. Portland and Seattle right there and I never went. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You found me out. While I like to tell people I'm a military lawyer, I'm really part of the ultra-secret Jedi Strike Force, the pride of Special Operations Command. We're like the Seals, except way cooler Dream big, right? Okay, so now on to real things. Remember those three things I said I was going to do this week? Pffft... that didn't happen. Well, the trifecta didn't happen. I did get my friend's taxes fixed. But the other two? Nope. Work has been all manner of busy this week. Now that I'm basically done with taxes, I'm all in on my new job: adverse actions and foreign criminal jurisdiction. Plus working my three cases, one of which decided to get real this week (the other two are on a low simmer). I'm going to be deliberately vague about it, since it is still an investigation and not a court-martial. ... ... ... Dammit. I had a whole long post written out explaining the inside baseball about why this is ramping up. But prudence demands that I not post it. Internal office discussions play a large part in the tale, and it's all about deliberative process. Attorney work product, to use the term of art. There is a privilege that exists for attorney work product, but I waive that privilege if I disclose our deliberations to a third party. Like, say, an internet forum. I had links and everything, and a short dissertation on the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Let's see if I can put this into fuzzy enough terms. I am trying to suss out the elements of a crime under a federal statute so that I can convince people that it is the appropriate way to charge misconduct in this case. As trial counsel, I am the master of the facts. The other half of the art is applying the law to the facts. And I am fairly convinced I found the right law to apply that will make this nearly a slam dunk. My boss has told me that this is one of the ten most complex cases that will be tried in the Air Force this year. And I, with about eighteen months in the Corps, will be trying this case. And I am legitimately excited about this one. I will be honest. I do not like criminal law. International and constitutional law come naturally to me. Criminal law does not. But this one has its hooks in me, and I want to run it down. So I spent my morning practicing law, which is a rare feeling. Granted, I was doing it at Streamer over a mint mocha. But it was still practicing law. I'm researching things other than Air Force Instructions for once. Anyway... a lot of that is inside baseball, and I don't have the words to adequately express how I feel as a fairly new captain vis a vis a legal professional. That's a topic for a different day. The real point is that my week was spent going full throttle for ten to twelve hours a day. Thank God I established a habit of morning training sessions, or else I'd not be training much or well. Frankly, this was a good weekend to hike. It would have gotten me out of the house and into nature. But instead, I opted to go to the gym and into Tokyo. I just wasn't feeling like going out in 90-degree heat to tramp up and down a mountain. It would have taxed me to the point where tomorrow would be a rest day, and I didn't want to go three days in a row without my kettlebells (yesterday was an enforced rest day because I forgot my ID at work the night before). Life is getting fairly simple. I train because I love it. It's like being back in martial arts, mastering the art. Flipping the switch in my brain to training for virtuosity instead of chasing gainz and super-cool bodyweight tricks has made training much, much better. I expect that kettlebell and bodyweight training are going to become my deep passion throughout life. I'm thinking long term about it, focusing on making small corrections in the pursuit of perfection, and dialing in the movements. My next step is to add hollow holds and hard style planks throughout the day and focus on mastering those positions. The last third of the year looks to be fairly aggressive in terms of travel, so I expect I will jump into bodyweight training from at least late October through the end of the year. So I want to perfect those two positions before I begin moving in space in those positions. Food is my other passion. I love to cook. I don't know the secrets to being a master chef, but I like making things that taste good and fill me up. I'm getting better at ad-libbing when I need to, like this week (more on that below). And I like to read. I'm nearly done with the Civil War, and then I can start diving into other topics. Classic fiction, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton (I like my theology with a British gentleman undertone), maybe some more history. My brain is tired of history for now. More of Pavel's stuff. I need to discipline myself with the internet though. I have a bad habit of scrolling through things on my phone that I don't actually care about, but occupy my time (Pathfinder optimization guides when I have yet to actually play an RPG, for example). I could do better things with that. I have the Lexis Advance app on my phone, so I could read more law. I want to read the marriage line and the military law line of Supreme Court cases, and start digging through state marriage laws (for another article idea I have). And I need to set an alert for new military justice cases. That's the only way I can stay smart on new developments on my current field of practice. And time spent reading pointless internet things is time I could put toward my profession. So that's my betterment goal: instead of reading pointless internet things after I catch up on NF daily, get on Lexis and read cases. As an aside re: training. I found this article on a daily swing supplement. That's something to file away in the back of my mind for if/when I spend time focusing on bodyweight or other non-swing-centric training. It could keep my power and cardio (okay, my GPP) up whilst doing pure strength work with bodyweight. It's saved in my library of useful training articles. And now we get to the week in food. I ran out of the sweet potato protein bars, so I whipped up a double batch of Primal Fuel bars from Mark's Daily Apple. They are tasty, but I have no idea how he got 12 bars out of a single batch. Cutting mine into 24 made a bunch of bite-size bars. I suppose I'll just have two in a serving. I am not making any recipes this week. I just want to crank out some rib-sticking, veggie-heavy recipes. So I'm making oxtail curry and Italian pork stew. The stew is going to be basically the same as my garlic beef stew, except with Mrs. Dash's Italian seasoning (gotta use it up). I got a head of red cabbage, two onions, and some mushrooms to use in that one. I'll fill it with frozen veggies to capacity when I see how much room I have left. I'm excited about the curry. I believe I've expressed my deep and abiding love for oxtails before. So this evening, I'll start the oxtails in chicken broth, coconut water (left over from the coconut cream I needed for the Primal Fuel bars), yellow curry paste, garlic, and ginger. Tomorrow morning I'll strip the meat off the bone and add veggies. I have half a bag of dried split peas I'll toss in, plus I bought potatoes and bok choy. Again, I'll fill with frozen veggies to capacity when I see how much room I have left. Ad-libbing for fun and profit. This week will be busy. Our Chief of Justice is backfilling another legal office for three weeks starting Monday, so I'll be acting CoJ and Chief of Adverse Actions. That's the main focus of our office - boss's priority - so I will be a busy guy. Our newest lieutenant is coming in Monday, and I am her sponsor, so I will be running around base with her Monday afternoon to get her settled. And helping her out over the course of the week, naturally. Wednesday night we'll have a "welcome to Japan" dinner for her, and Friday night we're going to Shibuya to farewell one of our outgoing captains. Oh, and the cadets that are coming to Yokota arrive on Wednesday. I need to in-brief them, then turn them loose. But Monday/Tuesday will involve finalizing their schedule and tying up some loose ends for them. Expect many late nights this week. Again, thank God for early morning training sessions. Thankfully, next weekend is a four-day weekend. The other lieutenant and I will be going to Kanazawa to hike Hakusan (Mount Doom) over the weekend. That's the first of the three holy mountains. The goal is to hike Shayol Ghul (Fuji) on 11 August and Erebor (Tateyama) over Labor Day weekend. It's an aggressive hiking schedule, especially if I get picked up for the August course in Alabama (15-25 August), but so be it. The quest begins!

It's okay. I have a lightsaber. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Funny story, but they didn't make us qualify on anything. The commandant at COT said there was no time in the course schedule to carve out for that. I know, it's going to sound bizarre. But it's a true story. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not according to the internet. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Where is Yakushima? My big goal is to knock out all three holy mountains this year (Fuji, Haku, and Tateyama). Hakusan is on tap for Fourth of July weekend.

And after posting about how I struggle with feeling like I'm accomplishing anything, I had a day where I: 1. Started garlic beef stew in the crockpot; 2. Had a five hour (!!) conversation with my brother, mostly about movies and Magic: the Gathering (got some good ideas for my tribal cat deck); 3. Did S&S; 4. Started prepping ingredients for tomorrow's crockpot bonanza; 5. Read the Air Force Instruction on marriage in overseas commands (law review article idea; has potential, must actually research (that's the hard part)); and 6. Finished the amended taxes (longhand, nonetheless) Still must go to church, cube chicken, and eat stew. And will probably read more Civil War. Atlanta fell last night, and General Grant is still trying to crack the nut that is Petersburg.

Sorry, Tank. I didn't mean to give the impression I was critiquing your (plural you, for your organization) approach. I just used your post as a jumping-off point to talk about my organization's issues. Without clearly delineating that leap, naturally, because it made perfect sense to me in my head, which is no good to readers.

Hey, a post entirely without spoilers. It's time for the weekly roundup, starting with whether I accomplished my Rule of 3 1 last week. Which I did. I was almost tempted to say f*** it and wear my mess dress (the brides wouldn't mind), but common sense got the better of me. There is no way I want to pack that ensemble for an international flight unless I am required to do so. The week itself was fine. Training was solid all week. I flipped the crazy switch yesterday and cranked out 65 nonstop two-handed swings with the 24 kg bell. That's an improvement of eight reps over two weeks ago. I took today off to go work some grills. The Special Olympics is held on base, and the Knights of Columbus volunteer as the grillmasters. We cooked an unholy amount of hot dogs and hamburgers for the volunteers in only two short hours. I was there from 0730 to 1100 setting up, waiting while the three monster grills heated up - charcoal, of course - and then went back and forth loading the grills and tending dogs and all of that. By the time I left, I think I was done medium well, between the grills and the June sun (both directly and off the asphalt). Yikes. After that, I went to the office to work on a friend's taxes. He didn't claim his wife's self-employment income because it was all foreign earned income (and thus would be excluded), but the IRS found out. About this year AND last year. Oops. This year was an easy fix because we did his return at the tax center, so it was in the system. 2015 is not in the system, so I have two choices: create a 2015 return in the system, then amend it, or do it "longhand" (that is, on paper). I think I'm going to do it longhand. It shouldn't be too hard. I just fill out a Schedule C, Schedule SE, and Form 2555, then import the necessary numbers to a 1040X. Easy peasy. Rule of 3 for 18-24 June Complete my quarterly awards package. Awards and recognition are a big part of military life. It's a way of boosting morale by recognizing achievement. The next quarterly awards package is due to our deputy SJA by 30 June, but I want to get it done earlier. Between the tax center, helping my friend out with this $30K+ tax liability, and the adverse actions numbers, I have a plausible shot at being looked at favorably. Really, my goal is more to show my boss that I'm putting forth a good-faith effort. Winning a quarterly award is neither high on my list of goals nor something I think I'll do. I'd rather be a good lawyer than an award-winner, if that makes any sense. But I'm going to put in a package and let other people make decisions about it. Finalize my research for Fourth of July weekend's Hakusan hike. The Lt and I are taking advantage of the long weekend to go to Kanazawa and hike the first of the Three Holy Mountains. I decided that the mountains are a higher priority than the soccer tour. This long weekend I will tackle Hakusan, 11 August is a morale hike of Fujisan, and Labor Day weekend I'm going to complete the tour with Tateyama. We are going out Saturday, hiking Sunday, and returning Monday. We already have an Airbnb, and figuring out the train is not hard at all. What I need to look into is (1) the weather, (2) transportation to the trailhead, and (3) things to do in Kanazawa. That should be sufficient knowledge. I'm comfortable with playing the rest by ear. Complete my friend's amended 2015 tax return. This should be an easy kill, but I'm making it a goal so I make it a priority. It's easy for me to let work get away from me because it doesn't seem urgent. This is something I can't let get away. Speaking of work, I volunteered to be the PTL. I'm required to plan something every other week for group PT, and that's about it. Fairly sure I need to be CPR-certified too, but they will send me to that. My first planned event is a 5K on 30 June. My SJA's goal is to get everyone doing something as a group to decompress and try something new. So I'll keep my eye out for runs and such, plan some sporting events, and such. I don't intend to turn this into a StrongFirst-style group training class. Not by a long shot. I know how limited my experience is, and I don't want to break anyone (and if they aren't interested, I will be hated in the office). Some of my ideas are: (1) do a session of nothing but crawls; (2) get the CrossFit instructor that I always see in the mornings to do a one-off on-ramp class; (3) ... if anyone has any ideas, I'd be much obliged. Jumping tracks on the train of thought to food. I have noticed - and been disappointed to notice - that I have a snacking problem. I snack and don't write it down, because I train hard enough that a couple fun size Crunch bars won't matter (or so I tell myself). This is a bad trend and needs to stop. Now for good food thoughts. The no bake nut butter bars have been good for preworkout, but I want to mix it up a bit. So I baked these sweet potato protein bars today. The batter is delicious, so I have high hopes for the bars themselves. This recipe makes 8, not 12, so I get less yield out of them. But they have some vegetable matter in them and more protein powder. Probably more overall, but I don't crunch the numbers to know. Anyway, the batter tasted like pumpkin pie. As for meals, I'm doubling up on crockpot recipes. Tomorrow I had planned to make chili using ground beef, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, butternut squash, and the extra mashed sweet potato from the protein bars. Then I was digging through my cabinet and found jarred banana pepper rings and Mrs. Dash garlic & herb seasoning. So instead of adding liberal amounts of chili powder, I'm going to use liberal amounts of Mrs. Dash. Slightly different jam and entirely off the cuff, but we'll see how it turns out. Garlic is always a good choice. Monday I'm going to make Brazilian curry chicken. Double recipe, and served over my favorite of all vegetables, the mighty spaghetti squash. High volume, low calorie vegetation. Go team. And tonight is going to be a Civil War night. I can't decide whether I'll continue reading or watch Free State of Jones. Either way, I feel like it's a waste of my time to just loll about at home all night. I dunno. Been having some angst recently about whether I'm living to the full or just going to the gym -> work -> eat -> laze. Living to work, train, and eat, in other words. I haven't been out on a mountain since Cassie was here, nor have I really gone out into Japan to do anything. Just slummed around Fussa. I have a hankering to create a life plan, but that means carving out a weekend to sit and think deep thoughts about my life, where I want it to go, and how I plan to get there. That's a discomfiting proposition, and I admit that I'm shying away from it so I can avoid direct self-assessment. It's easy to just slide through life for a while, and it feels like that's what I'm doing. I'm making a lot of "when I'm back in the US" plans, which is a sign of kicking the can further down the road. When I get there, will I really act on those plans? That's rhetorical, really. I either will or I won't. But putting conditions on when I'm going to do something has always been a sign that I'm making excuses to avoid actually doing. Here are some of the "when XX happens" or "in the future" plans I've made: Write a law review article Take up handgun shooting (this, at least, absolutely cannot happen in Japan) Get SFB/SFG certified Go camping or multiday backpacking Learn to hunt (also cannot happen in Japan, due to the weapon laws) Learn more about Catholicism Get involved with the Knights of Columbus That's too long a list of "when I get there" plans. I'm here. Life is going on around me. I need to live it. But I'm probably still going to watch a movie tonight.

The first half of your post is 100% true. The problem I've noticed is that it's very hard to have a policy conversation about the second half. It's not about blaming the victim (saying "you should have done X and Y and Z, but didn't, so you deserved it"). It's about discussing prudent actions to take in order to reduce vulnerability. But on a policy level, even trying to start that discussion turns immediately into "you're blaming the victim!" And yet, educating people on those prudent preventative measures would be tremendously helpful. It would be lovely if we could focus entirely on the offender and solve the problem that way. But bad people will do bad things no matter how much we preach about how bad those things are. We need to combine the offender-focused approach with the preventive-measure approach. In sum, in an ideal world, a young lady could walk down the street at midnight, drunk as a skunk and naked as the day she was born, and be totally safe. We don't live in a perfect world, and human beings are fallen creatures. So, let's talk prevention, or let's get used to the status quo.