Comments by "Thump Er the Sweaty Fat Guy" (@SweatyFatGuy) on "Life In Europe Vs America - What’s The Difference?" video.

  1. Living overseas I learned that most people only know about where they grow up. Like a 200 mile radius, and they rarely leave that circle. The most often asked question I got when I was in Dubai 32 years ago was "Are you from LA or NYC?" I would reply I am from almost exactly between them. The paradigm for Emirates is much smaller, Abu Dhabi is quite close to the other Emirates and Saudi Arabia. They could not imagine where Nebraska is. People in Europe don't grasp the size of the US either. It is 1000 miles from my home near Marquette Michigan, to the farm where I grew up near Lincoln Nebraska. That is a 14 hour drive at 75mph. I have no problem driving that in a day, but Europeans will take two or three days to travel that far, or they will simply fly. The funniest question I got was after they asked me where I was from and I said Nebraska, they'd ask "what state is that in? That was people from the US (urban people) and from overseas. I usually know more about the country I am visiting/deployed to than the people who live there, as far as geography. I kinda study that sort of thing so I find out before I go. I know far more about the US than most of the urban people I meet, but I have been all over this country. I definitely got a different mindset than most Americans. I spent just under ten years (total with a gap in service) in the USAF, travelling the world, meeting people from other cultures, learning bits of their language, and expanding my horizons so to speak. I can tell where some people are from based on their facial characteristics, Japanese look different to me than Koreans, Laotians, Vietnamese, etc. They all look different from each other to me. Same with Russians, Spanish, Germans, Italians, and English. The Baltics look similar to me, and I didn't spend as much time with them, but often I know they are from that area. When it comes to work, I heavily value my time off. Before I retired my time off was precious to me, because in the US military you can end up working 14 hours a day for several months without a day off. I went from 10 August 1990 to some time in January or February of 1991 without a day off, I was on the flightline, working the planes every night, minimum 12 hours, sometimes 14 to 16 hours working. The result was I hoarded my leave, and once that uniform came off I tried to be unreachable. I also learned to sleep anywhere, anytime, I had the chance to get some zzz's. From June 2003 to August 2005 I worked 12s, with varied work schedules, often 4 days on, one day off. Out of my entire time in the USAF maybe 3 years were spent on 8 hour shifts. When I was an NCO there was even less time off to myself, always had to handle things for my Airmen, and since I worked nights it meant missing out on sleep during the day. I do not miss being an NCO at all. Lots of work and responsibility for nowhere near enough pay. I just passed 6600 straight days of Saturday this week. That is 570,412,800 seconds, 9,506,880 minutes. In two months I will have spent more time disabled/retired than I spent working since I graduated high school in 1987. Two separate lifetimes is how that feels. I don't miss Europe or Asia, but I want to go back to them sometime. I'd also like to go to South America for a while, maybe Columbia, Brazil, and some of the centrals like Panama. Where I live I avoid the big cities, Green Bay is the closest and its a 3 hour drive to get there. I like living rural, and having food for several years stored up, and shopping for the entire week is my norm. Can't afford to drive 25 miles into the grocery store every day. These days I am not very social, I can go weeks without speaking to another human, or even seeing them in the winter. Most people repel me, they are not good people to be around. Trust is huge for me, and if I can't depend on someone I can't trust them. If I say I will be there, then I will damn well be there unless something larger prevents me from following through. Most people aren't like that. Doesn't mean I don't like or appreciate them, just that I will limit my time around them.
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