Zach Vargo

Hearing on the news about North Korea launching these missiles is really bothering me. I honestly think we should be doing a little bit more than saying that the United States is ready to fight North Korea if necessary.  I sure hope so, we are the greatest military in the world and we should be ready to take on any country that threatens us.  There are much better alternatives than stating the obvious.

I’m sure President Obama is a very busy person, especially with Iran making its own claims and the economic situation.  However, he has people who know how to deal with it.  As a concerned citizen of this proud nation, I am offering my personal opinion, although they that they probably thought of this idea already, but shot it down for a better alternative that I have yet to learn of.

This is what we should do.  Our intelligence obviously knows that there is more activity that is suggestion more launches, so that is a start.  Since we know that they are launching it, we put Patriot missiles along the DMZ and place a couple of warships off the coast (I think they have done this already once before).  When North Korea launches their missile, we launch one of our own to shoot it down.  The advantages of this plan are: North Korea has one less nuclear ballistic missile; we are reinforcing that we think Kim Jong Il’s  actions are unacceptable; and we provide some live fire training for our military.

Am I just rambling senselessly or does anyone else feel the same way?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/29/says-north-korea-plan-long-range-missle-test/

Here are my results from my first test.  This is my score before I started wearing Q-link.

Attention: 85%

Motor Speed Accuracy: 2%

Global Performance:  44%

Reaction Time: 618 ms

I thought of myself as a pretty focused person.  Let’s see how focused I am after 30 days.

Yesterday, I got a brand new Iphone since my family finally changed service providers.  I am probably more excited by the fact that we finally dropped T-Mobile and switched to AT&T.  We have had T-Mobile for about 7 years and only until about 2 years ago they were pretty good.  However, when you drop calls and cannot get signal in your own house, it is time to move on.  The only thing that has kept us on T-Mobile for so long was my mother’s contract, and since hers ended recently, we were free from that horrible contract.  I can finally receive important calls at home and  school and do not have to worry about walking around my own house trying to find a signal, only to find one and then lose it within 5 seconds.  I felt like the Verizon guy walking around, except instead of saying,”Can you hear me now?”, it was more along the lines of yelling some profanity, getting excited about finding a signal, get dissapointed when I lost it and then yell some more.  For a while I believed I carried a portable alarm clock, since that was the only thing that seemed to work on the phone.

Anyways, I love the Iphone.  I still have yet to understand why people hate it so much.  I guess since I have a Mac and despise using a PC after getting my MacBook, I love anything that Apple makes.  If you are comtemplating between an Iphone or a Blackberry, go with an Iphone. You will be glad you did.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to volunteer at the 2009 Jacksonville Jazz Festival selling beverages.  We did it as a way to support the Mayport Navy League (a non-profit organization that supports the Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard) by putting the word out about them and make some money.  I am not a big Jazz fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed the local artists who came out and performed.

I spent Friday evening setting up the booths in the pouring rain with another person.  We spent about 3 hours gathering 50 lb bags of ice, soda, beer, and wine to get the booth ready to go when the festivities begin.  Since it was raining, the festival committee decided to close one of our booths for the night, which was good for us.  Setting up one booth was exhausting enough, I could not even imagine doing it again for the other booth.

Sunday, my father and I volunteered to work the afternoon.  We had both booths open, but we had 10 people working between the two.  The booth I worked at was right across one of the main stages, so we had a real good spot to see and hear various jazz performers.  Also, we had a representative from the Bold City Brewery, a local brewer, selling some of their beers in our booth as a way to get their name out as well.

All in all, working the booths was a success and I had a blast.  Next year, the Mayport Navy League is going to work all 7 available booths instead of 2, as a way to get even more involvement and money.  I am definitely looking forward to working the festival again in 2010.

perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim 
Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.

It is a perfect description of what life is like at the Citadel.

Since we have gotten Czarina, she has been knocked into the pool twice when fighting with Samara. The first time, we were out there with them so it was a big deal, but on Sunday, Czarina was knocked into the pool while we were inside.  Luckily, my father heard her before she ended up drowning.  She knows how to swim, but she is panicky and does not know where the steps are to get out.  So on Monday, so I took her in the pool and tried to teach her where to swim just in case she falls in again.  So far it is not working out, but eventually I am sure she will be swimming whenever she gets the chance, just like Samara does.

This rain has really got to stop, its really cramping my style.  Hopefully the forecasters are wrong and the weather won’t be like this for the rest of the week.

Yesterday, my father and I drove down to Deltona and picked up our new  puppy.  After about a year of my father always joking about getting another dog, it was finally nice to actually get one.  Our family chose the name, Czarina, for the pup; however, I am not particularly fond of the name.  My mother, on the other hand, is the one that ultimately decides on the name, and if she likes, then it sticks. I’ll just call her “Puppy” since Samara, our other dog, is referred to as “Doggy” most of the time.

Czarina, like all puppies, is rambunctious and we were looking forward to letting her play out in the yard until it wore itself out. Within 15 minutes or so of bringing her home, the expected afternoon showers decided to “bless” us with its presence and we had to move indoors. Since it was indoors for most of the night, it got exposure to the three cats we have.  They are less than thrilled to have to deal with two dogs now, let alone a puppy. 

So for most of today, I have spent trying to teach the Czarina some manners and tiring it out so it will sleep tonight.  Samara has been slowly getting used to the fact that while she may still be queen of the house, most of our attention is being directed at Czarina.  Hopefully, the pup will be easy to train and there will only be a few restless nights trying to keep it from howling and the rain will stop so we can start taking it out on walks.