outrageous -> outrageously sad -> just plain fun

saturday evening:

went to the dog's, dropped off my gear and played syndicate off the original cd. *MY* original cd! the bastard!

we bussed to the lincoln, played GREAT pool for an hour. that amazing waitress was being super-friendly. and she's STILL never been our waitress. i guess that's a good sign. i never find a good opportunity to hit on her though... after we played we sat down at the bar for a while, and i was exhausted. much silliness ensued, and then we farked off to the lizard.

sunday:

the party at the lizard was cool. the crowd was a bit young, but it was fun nonetheless. i was on the dancefloor most of the night. the mongoose has been promoted to manager, and now that he's responsible there're no more free drinks - but the owner did tell me to come to the post-yom kippur party, so he's obviously not phased that i never pay to get in (well, for myself, at least).

near the end of the party a guy who'd been drinking heavily (and generally stumbling around) fainted. what creeped us all out was that he fainted with his eyes open. the mongoose asked me for advice, and i explained that while i can deal with drug problems, i'm clueless as far as alcohol is concerned...

we got a ride to the dog's, where we spent a few hours drinking coffee / playing syndicate / reading / showering / getting ready for the trip, and then took a bus to the base. we made it *just* in time. i was wearing my overalls and a vest that showed off my tattoo - elicited some interesting comments, and our section commander was most suspicious of my getting inked during my service.

an incredulous "what?! you've never seen it before??" seemed to work.
the mongoose and i got sent off to fill huge containers with ice and water. we got caught having an ice fight next to the ice-machine, which was rather embarrassing. but the fight was fun ;)

got to the buses, only to discover that our systems had crashed - i then had to RUN back to our office to fix it. fortunately it didn't take too long, but it was frustrating.

the first leg of the trip was alright - read and slept. when i got off the bus my nose and throat were dry as hell, and it took a bit of spitting to return to "okay". i thought it was because of the airconditioner.

we then went on a long hike, with many amusing moments. i also got badly sunburned. including my tattoo. that was not a good demonstration of foresight. i got to carry an m16 for the first time since basics, which was actually quite nice.

a good lunch, a long bus ride, and we arrived at the jordan river for kayaking. my nose and throat were at it again, so i went to the bathroom to sort that out. i was busy making some disgusting noises, when i heard the dog call my name. when i answered, he screamed: "what the HELL are you doing in the women's bathroom?!"

whoops.

we were some of the last people to leave dry land. i was with the mongoose's section's new kid - freshmeat - and the dog was with the officer i keep rollerblading with (shorty) .

general: i was surprised at how well i coped with paddling. my arms are much stronger than i anticipated, and i paddled hard the entire extent of the course. and it was one hell of a long course. i also proved fairly skilled with manoeuvering :) throughout the course, we kept coming upon masses (5-10 rubber-dingy things / kayaks) engaged in combat - splashing each other (and passer's by) and bumping / blocking / attempting to overturn anyone in sight. a few times we just hung our feet over into the water, and relaxed, but that only ever lasted a half-minute or so... we simply stormed our way through the course!

first contact: we caught up to the dog and shorty quite quickly, bumped them into the side of the river and sped on. they were not amused.

betrayal: the dog and shorty snuck up on us from behind, and the dog launched himself into the water and attempted to get onto the kayak. we wrestled and fought for ages, and we were both commited - it was quite brutal. after a few minutes the dog went around and came up on freshmeat's side, at which point i took both our oars and jumped over to shorty's kayak. we fled, leaving them without a paddle, but weren't fast enough for the dog swimming, and he caught up. i went back to my kayak with our paddles - freshmeat was quite upset :D

rapids: we went over smoothly and easily, and so craved more. we saw the mongoose's crew walking their dingy-thing to do it again, and we wanted to as well! we successfully paddled upstream, but were blocked by an official and had to continue :(

boarded: one of the guys from our prefab was swimming around harrassing people, and we invited him to join us (his crew had long gone :P), which led to many amusing encounters. three people on a two-person kayak was fun!

sumo: the highlight of the trip. we passed a dingy-thing with the mathematician kid (sumo) who used to be in our team. so we paddled up, and i jumped over to throw him off. i'd just begun wrestling with him when another crew member jumped over from the other side to assist. for a while i held my own against the two of them, but it then became apparent that they were succeeding in throwing me off.

good thing i looked before jumping back to the kayak, because the two bastards had paddled away and were watching with great amusement from a distance. so i did the only thing that came to mind. i grabbed sumo by his life-jacket, and as i fell overboard i THREW him clear over my head into the water. now, i've seen shit like that in the movies, and always wondered what it would feel like to actually do it. and let me tell you, with authority, that it feels frikkin' AWESOME. it's like the whole world is tilting in slow-motion, and my momentum assisted me in the throw. he just sailed over my head, and i heard the splash before i hit the water.

that's a memory that'll last a lifetime ^#^

in retrospect, it was rather dangerous - i had no idea the depth of the water, and there could have been rocks. so i'm REALLY grateful that all that happened was the two of us getting soaked. i didn't realize sumo couldn't swim (:$), so i gave him a lift back to his dingy-thing, boosted him up, and then returned to our kayak.

we finished the course, and returned to some great munchies, then changed into dry clothes and hopped on the bus, on our way to the soldier's hostel.

it's a nice hostel. why did WE get the mouldy shower? that really sucked. spent a couple of hours amusing ourselves playing pool, eating dinner, and running around the mall being silly. i'll publish all photos as i get them, and there are some BRILLIANT ones.

i got to carry the shortened m16 for a bit, and it was a PLEASURE. i checked it out, it's not actually the m4a1, it's an israeli modification to the m16a1 that looks almost identical. i repeat, such a pleasure :)

we all showered (not a great shower) and went to the party. really nice venue, but the dj sucked ASS. he was horrible. but we WERE at a party for OUR branch, so we couldn't not try, and most of the party was actually a lot of fun. danced a lot (got hit on a bit), but then started feeling totally shite - the dry nose and throat was a precursor to a serious sinus infection, which i'm still struggling with.

today:

i left the party around 12 - 12:30, had a quick cold shower and put myself to bed before fainting. i slept REALLY badly, and waking up was hell. disturbed the others getting up, too. had a real shower, dressed and packed, and went down to the buses.

breakfast was served before the first hike, which i declined to join on the grounds that it was wading hip-deep in water, and my sinuses, nose and throat were KILLING me. so i stayed behind and caught up on some sleep. did me good.

we then went off to a beach near tiberius, which was super chilled. relaxed on beach chairs talking the whole time. our section commander joined us at one stage, and we had a long (and for him, unpleasant) discussion, before becoming civilized and talking like human beings. it turned out quite pleasant, actually.

calculated risk: another highlight. i saw freshmeat and the mongoose sitting on chairs in the water, throwing pebbles. so i snuck up behind the mongoose - freshmeat didn't hint that he'd seen me - and saw from close that they were sitting about a metre into the water. so i pulled up a way-too-convenient chair, quietly place it in the water behind the mongoose's, made sure it was secure, and stood on it to tip his forward. i would have taken off my shoes and socks, but my window of opportunity was closing.

i wish i'd had a video camera.

standing on the chair, i leaned forward and pushed his chair up, but without enough force. his chair moved, he turned around, and said "what are you doing?? leave me alone!". he turned back, and i then made a serious effort.

unfortunately, my chair slowly tipped forward, which resulted in me standing knee-high in the water on the back of the chair. "DAMMIT!"

i convinced one of the guys from our branch to give me a piggy-back ride (i'd taken off my shoes and socks, OBVIOUSLY) to the buses when we left, which caused much amusement. i'm still amazed that he managed - i weigh about 10kg's more than him!

the bus ride home was hysterical. plenty of raucous singing and bad jokes, and we really were unruly. unfortunately, i picked on the other south african, and he took it seriously - a bit of a downer. and i didn't leave myself a way out that would seem sincere, so i'm gonna have to go apologize to him tomorrow morning.

after getting dropped off at the base, i went with the dog for coffee near his place. cute waitress, seemed interested in me so i left a hint when signing the bill for her to use my phone number...

bussed back, the laundry has just finished, and then i'm going to shower and crash. it was a long, long weekend - but absolutely terrific! and made me take an hour to type this all in!

-- addition --

there was a problem during posting, and i only JUST discovered (20 minutes later) that the full post was saved. when i clicked back and recovered the post, i only got the first bit, so here's how i resumed:

we then went on a long hike, with FUCKING HELL I JUST LOST THE REST OF THIS POST AND IT TOOK ME A BLOODY HOUR TO WRITE THE REST OF IT AND I FORGOT TO FUCKING SAVE IT BEFORE PRESSING PUBLISH me demonstrating incredible lack of foresight...