First Rock For Life

This week my battalion is being re-flagged in conjunction with a change of command. Being "re-flagged" means that we are changing names. We will no long be the 1st Battalion 503D Infantry Regiment.; the battalion will now be known as 1 Battalion 9th Infantry Regiment. No more will our motto be "First Rock!" - the "Rock" is now the "Manchu". I am a little sad and a little perturbed about losing our name and identity to some battalion in the 101st Airborne Div.
The 1-503D has a storied history stretching back to World War II when the battalion was one of the original formations of the fledgling Army Airborne force. The battalion took on the name "The Rock" and the motto "First Rock" from a daring airborne assault of the rock of Corregidor in the Philippine islands. (I have always found it strange that my battalion took so much pride in the airborne portion of the assault when 1-503D actually assaulted by boat and 2-503d actually assaulted from their parachutes.) The battalion went on to fight in Vietnam as part of the 173D Airborne Brigade and was among the first US forces on the ground and among the last to leave. The 1-503D spent the years after Vietnam as part of the storied 101st Airborne Division until 1984 when the unit was deactivated. In 1986 the unit was reactivated and assigned to 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division. In 2004 the unit deployed to Ar-Ramadi, Al Anbar province in Iraq, an area reputed to be the most dangerous place in the world at the time.
What angers me most is having to learn a new unit history. I thought I had taken my last history class in college. Time to learn about the Manchu...

Back on the Information Super Highway, also why I hate Paypal

I finally have internet in my room. Getting high speed internet in my room has been a long time coming and I can't tell you how much I have missed it. I might even save money since I have been burning precious fuel driving to the library to get internet access or renting expensive hotel rooms so that I could log on. Really...
The other thing I wanted to do is voice my displeasure with Paypal. I don't just hate them - I detest them. I loathe the very air the employees of Paypal breathe. I dislike the company with the intensity of a million suns. I want to find their physical address so I can burn down their buildings and dance in the ashes.
You ask me if I've had a negative experience with Paypal? How did you guess? I won't go into the shocking, gruesome details, but my beef lies with Paypal's verification process. Forgetful users like me are prone to tying up their financial information with multiple Paypal accounts among other complaints.

Christmas Shopping

I was Christmas Shopping in the mall when I noticed something interesting. The store employees at Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch look like they could be extras on the The OC. Not just the clothes, but the hair styles and the attitudes, and well everything.
I immediately tried to extend the comparison to other stores. Banana Republic often looks like it was the costume department for the movie Mr. and Mrs Smith; Express employees look like extras for the TV show Las Vegas, with all the glittering flashy clothes they wear, and Pac Sun could have supplied the wardrobe for every surf movie made in the last ten years although it would be a skimpy wardrobe indeed.
So my idea didn't work out so well.