Seriously Amazon, WTF?

So, this morning I log in to my computer and, as usual, my Google start page loads. Among the apps on my page is a daily picture from National Geographic. This is a completely unedited screenshot of the picture and it’s associated Google ad.

Um… No thanks!

I was rather rudely awakened before sunrise by Jorik tossing a set of trainee gear at me… including boots and a, thankfully sheathed, knife. The rest of the initiates were due shortly after sunup and training was to begin immediately after. I expected some sort of military like regimen and that’s pretty much what we got. I’d initially been a worried about not fitting in. Hell, I had enough trouble fitting in back home, here I wasn’t even a fish out of water, more like a fish in the vacuum of space! Turns out I should have been far more worried about how out of shape I was.

We spent most of the day “getting our sorry butts in shape”. Unfortunately for me I had a lot farther to go. Most of the kids, and that’s what they were really, about 15 others all between the ages of 16 and 18, had spent their lives working on farms or doing construction, blue collar stuff. I’d spent most of my life sitting on my butt watching TV and surfing the Internet. I tried to keep up as best I could but, even though no one said anything, I could tell everyone was looking at me either in pity or wondering what I was even doing there. The worst part, today was just the warm up. Tomorrow we begin combat training.

Over the next few weeks we’re supposed to learn to fight unarmed, with daggers, and with throwing knives; along with a couple “trick of the trade” as Jorik calls them… special techniques we can use to really do some damage to our opponents. In a way I’m excited to learn as I’ve always wanted to know this kind of stuff. On the other hand, I’m just hoping I can make it through another day of training without vomiting.

Apparently even having a cot to sleep on was a luxury I’m going to be missing for the next few weeks. It seems, in this line of work, that we’ll be spending a lot of nights outdoors sleeping on the ground, so we’d “best get used to it now”. Once again I can’t help but hope I wake up from this nightmare soon. But if I’m going to be in this for the long haul then I’d best work as hard as I can because, if any of the bits of conversation I’ve heard the other recruits talking about (orcs, trolls, horde, etc), then my only other best option appears to be a quick but gruesome death.

It’s almost time for lights out and right now, I don’t even care I’m sleeping on the ground. I’m so exhausted I could sleep on a bed of nails and fire ants!

No… words…

So, this isn’t really relevant to anything, but I saw her in concert last night. All I can say is she was amazing! So much so that I’m actually bummed today knowing that it’ll be months, at the earliest, before she’s back in town. If you haven’t heard of her she’s an incredibly talented singer songwriter. Don’t believe me? Just watch this: