Well I finally finished reading Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley and let me just say wow right now… This book is definitely a must read for everyone, no questions asked. The book is basically the story of the six men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, in particular, John Bradley (the author’s father). The book chronicles the lives of those men and why they fought. It is interesting to me that the most unanimous response given by soldiers as to why they were fighting was not “For country” or “freedom” but instead “for the guy sitting next to me”. The thought of fighting for the freedom of the United States went out the door as soon as they hit those beaches on February 19, 1945 (49 yrs. ago yesterday). As soon as they were on the beach they were fighting to protect their buddies and the guy next to them. It was about survival.

John Bradley was a Navy corpsman (basically he was a medic for the Marines) and during the battle received the Navy Cross which is second only to the Medal of Honor. It is interesting to note that more Medal of Honor’s were awarded because of action on Iwo Jima than any other battle during the war. 6,825 Americans gave their lives to take a 7.5 square mile island.

For years, John Bradley did not talk about the war, the flag raising, or the men he fought with. When he finally granted an interview, he was asked if he thought he was a hero, humbly he replied “No, the heroes are the ones who didn’t come home”. He’s right in his mind but to everyone who wasn’t there, he is just as much of hero. There are those who paid the ultimate price for the freedom of this country that we take for granted everyday.

I should note the point of the Iwo Jima invasion. The island was a stepping stone to the main objective, the Japanese homeland. It also had two airbases on it where bombers and fighters that had been damaged or had malfunctioned could land and be repaired. The island saved 2,400 B-29 crews (approximately 27,000 men).

So check the book out, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I am going to post a quote later today that is from the book that I pretty much brought a tear to my eye.

The predicted weather for today is high clouds with wind speeds in the 40mph range with gusts in the 60mph range… It’s going to be a dusty one today.

Good news though, I don’t have to stay for my marketing class today because our professor is in Bentonville, Arkansas talking to Wal-Mart people. Good for me, bad for him. 😉

Well I get to school and find out that my teacher had decided to postpone the due date for our project until next Wednesday. It’s actually good news because I have time to add new stuff to my project to make it work even better than it already does. So I have 1 week to get more functionality added to my program. The test for that class wasn’t too hard at all, but we’ll see how the grade comes out.

Well tomorrow (January 17) I will get my grade for my first Managerial Accounting test… I am nervous, but I know I shouldn’t be because I felt I did fairly well on the test. The hardest of that class is yet to come as we are just now getting into the statistical data involved when doing accounting, for some reason I doubt this is going to be interesting.

My Java class is going fairly well. We have a test on Wednesday as well as an assignment due, so I’ll post the source for the assignment as soon as it’s completely done (I am at about 90% right now).

Defensive driving online, this can’t be fun…

That’s right, the Simpson’s are coming to the big screen! You can read more about it here.

Well it has now been snowing for 2 straight days (a rarity in these parts) and there is probably about 5-6″ on the ground. It is supposed to warm up tomorrow but I am starting to doubt it. Watching the snow at night is a pretty cool thing, especially when it is thick enough to reflect the light of the moon. I could seriously get used to this kind of weather, though, I would need some heavier clothing to be out in it everyday… The funny thing is that Lubbock actually looks pretty nice in the snow (rather than dust). I know it is my eyes just playing tricks on me, but it’s cool nonetheless.

This is beautiful. Adam Polselli uses it for his photography and the pictures are stunning (probably after a little touch up work on his part. Still, the camera is probably one of the best for its price.

Well over the next few days I will be redesigning the database that controls this site… The code that controls the database will be done in all OOP. I am not making any guarantees as to when this will all be finished because of my time frame on a Java project for school.

I am going to plug Mozilla Firefox as an alternate browser to Internet Explorer. Like I said before, the Firefox name is somewhat stupid but the browser itself is getting closer to my idea of perfect. It is small, fast, and not packed full of bloatware. As soon as the incorporate the extensions manager into it, Firefox will probably be unstoppable.

Well it is snowing right now (11:30pm) and we are supposed to get something like 3-5″, so hopefully they’ll cancel classes. I could definitely use a break from my Tuesday/Thursday classes, but we’ll see.

Well my interview with Segars Communications went pretty well. They are a 2 yr. old company that seems to have a fairly stable head on its shoulders. All in all I thought my interview went very well and I think that Tim (the owner) and I were on the same page. So, we’ll see how this all pans out (hopefully for the best).