Gotta keep up with the Joneses'

A Side:

Well, we've hit the big 6-0 mark. Yup, in country now for sixty days, two months. In a regular deployment, I'd be halfway done. Instead, I have ten more months to look forward too. But, the bright side is that my fifteen day R&R will take me almost a month to complete, and my two four day passes might take up to two weeks to complete. So in essence, I'm looking at only eight months of service time left. Anything to decrease my time here makes me smile.

It's been relatively quiet around here. Why? Well, our Lt hasn't been here, hehe! He came back from a trip for like a night, then was out again. To not have someone calling you every ten minutes wanting to know things you've told them fifteen times before is... liberating. I hate having to repeat myself, and that's all I've done with him concerning my job. I gave him all the pertinent info up front. This is what we have, this is what's working, this is what's not working and why. All he heard from me was the Charlie Brown teacher talk apparently.

Prime example: we have a few satellite phones in our possession. They're nice, they'd be useful for when we travel to other bases to help maintain comm with home base. Also it's another way to call back home. Only problem is, they don't work. The SIM cards in them don't work. SIM cards basically make any cell/ sat phone work. If you don't have a SIM card, you basically have a pretty paper weight. I've only told him about this since day two of us being here. Like I've said, I'm tired of repeating myself every other day with him.

B Side:

So our terps (slang for interpreters) are pissed. Apparently, the previous team just let them run wild, i.e. they weren't enforcing the rules with these guys (surprise surprise). We get here, find the rules and start enforcing them, and of course they're pissed. They were use to having free reign and just doing whatever the fuck they wanted to.

One of the rules is that they're not allowed to drive on base. We're still concerned about VBIEDs (Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device), and also the fact that none of the Iraqi's have any type of insurance. So if they get into an accident on base, or cause an accident on base... the legal troubles this entails is an apparent nightmare.

It doesn't help that they're some of the shittiest drivers on the face of the planet. This goes for just about the entire Mid East region. I can say with experience that Saudi Arabia, Kuwaiti and Iraqi drivers are some of the worst drivers I've ever encountered. Why is that? Well, I know for a fact that in Iraq there's no requirement for drivers licenses. Basically, you just hop in a car and go. You get training on the fly, on the road. Sounds fun and safe doesn't it?

Another reason for the terps irritation is that they think some of our policies aren't as good as some of their other counterparts. The terp community is a close knit one. Our terps talk with terps from other units and of course they compare benefits and such. So naturally this leads to things like... Well Abu from Unit B gets 10 days of jazza, but we only get 8 days. That's unfair!

Our response... That's great, but our policy is that you get 8 days. You work for us. If you want 1o days, go work for Unit B. (that's 8 days for each 30 they work. As in, they only work 22 days a month, but are still paid for a full month)

Honestly we don't care what any other unit does. If we went tit for tat with every other unit, these guys would be paid three times the amount for only five days of work, with the rest of the time being jazza. Oh and those five days of work? Yeah, that would be one hour of work per day, of their choosing.

The fact that they spend about 85% of their day IM'img, Skype'ing, surfing the net, chatting and just generally bullshitting around, while being paid an obscene amount (six figures a year US money), while enjoying all the Amercian post benefits (mainly gym, unlimited food and medical)... well, you're just barking up the wrong tree here.

Sigh, fun times. I'm off to the gym to work out stress.

*in his best Ron Burgundy voice* Stay sexy Internet!

-M

And can you hear the sounds of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America

Mini Art Fair

My wall is adorned with beautiful fall art designed by our son:

The use of color is interesting. The sunflower in the middle of the pumpkins and the green vines for the grapes add a complex contrast to the orange and yellow of a pumpkin and foliage.

Also in fall art style is the completed sock! I've actually started the matching companion too (not pictured):

Nerd Alert

Last night, several people with whom I once traveled the lands of Azeroth (World of Warcraft) gathered on Ventrilo to begin the epic process of character creation for a Dungeons and Dragons adventure.

I made two characters once before - just to get a feel for the process. During that attempt, I did not use the dice quite as extensively as we did last night.

Eventually, everyone settled on their characters. There was much excited debate throughout the process. I settled on a female dwarf fighter from the region of Turmish. She's packed relatively conservatively and spending her gold sparingly - though she did splurge on a decent rope. There are a few slight changes I'd like to make to her before we actually start our game (her description, her last name, and she is going to buy a gallon of ale).

The group was pretty excited about playing. Unfortuately, that probably won't happen until Tuesday because of various weekend plans for some of the adventurers. Maybe that will give me some time to look up information on fighter strategy.

It will give me some time to bone up on my ridiculous dwarven sayings too.

By King Ironfang's beard!

Satellite, dish in my yard...

A Side:

Sorry for the absence folks, we've been doing a little upgrading around here. What do I mean? Glad you asked! From the 19th to the 22nd, I supervised the switch over of our ISP to a new provider. It involved me teaching the tech guy they flew out here how to fucking read an angle finder and a compass to align our satellite dish correctly. Things that a satellite tech should already know... especially when coming to a job of this magnitude. (That was a two day affair. What's normally done in around an hour, maybe two, took two days. Sweet!)

Next up was watching this guy sit in front of his computer and IM his boss on what to do next. He'd run into problems, try to explain it and his boss would respond back with things like, "ALI (name changed to protect the retarded), THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME!!!". Direct quote btw. On Saturday, V and I pulled a 25 hour shift. We sat in the same hallway watching our switch room, watching him sit on the floor looking like this project was going to eat him alive, ate both lunch and dinner in the area, and basically didn't leave that area till he was absolutely done with the install. I was personally going to detain him until he brought our services back to previous levels.

It was four days that felt like a week. I can't wait to see what this companies customer service is like. =/

On to funnier news. Our Lt last Thursday tried to become a dentist and extract his front right tooth all by himself! How did he try? Glad you asked! (promise, last time I use it... in this post that is =P) The 240B 7.62mm machine gun is a crew served weapon of ours. Meaning, it goes on top of a HMMV, like this. Well, the day before we had some visitors to the base and our leadership, that includes the Lt, took them out to fire this weapon. It's a fun thing to do, they had some time, so why not. Well, the next day, you have to clean the weapon. Otherwise it won't fire properly the next time you go to use it. And the next time you go to use it, your life could depend on it. Not good!

So, our Lt comes in the next day and starts to try to clean the gun. He manages to take it apart without killing himself and begins to clean it. I, being the good guy that I am, offer to help. We sit there for about an hour and just give the gun a good once over, removing most of the major gunpowder residue buildup. It usually takes about two days to clean it properly. We put some Clean Lube and Protect (CLP) on it and were going to hit it again the next day. Next step, reassembly!

Well, I had gone back over to my desk to do some work and left the Lt to his own devices. First mistake! Never leave an Lt to their own devices! They're like 2 year olds! Anyways, he's reassembling the gun and he starts to put the buffer spring rod assembly (b.s.r.a.) back into place. This is the device that sends the bolt shooting to the rear of the gun so that another round can be placed into the chamber after you've pulled the trigger. The b.s.r.a. is approximately 16 inches long (just about the entire length of the black box the barrel/ stock and trigger are attached to. the second picture gives a better reference to how long it is next to a person). It's kept under tremendous pressure. There's only one safe way to put it in. Can you maybe see where this is going?

The Lt goes to put the b.s.r.a. back into the receiver. As he's trying to push this spring loaded rod back in, this thumb slips. He had just about put the entire rod back in. I turn my head just in time to see the spring launch from the receiver and hit him in the upper lip, right below his right nostril! POW! I can still see it in slow motion, the spring jumping from the receiver, him trying to turn, his face contorting as it hits him... funny shit.

Our medic sitting behind him hears this commotion, asks him... did that just hit you? Lt responds... yeah. All of us start laughing. That's the nature of our group. You ok? Yeah. LOL! Of course the cut is deep. He starts bleeding like a stuck pig. Our medic says he needs stitches, but he adamantly refuses. Instead, he makes the medic get this like medical grade super glue and glues his lip cut shut.

All the time he's sitting there getting his lip glued shut, he's rambling on how we should have stopped him from putting the gun back together, how he "wasn't trained" to do that. Whoa whoa whoa! First, we were all trained. This training took place at Riley, about three months ago. It's not MY fault that some Lt thought the training was worthless and decided to never touch the gun during the assembly/ disassembly portion just because he thought he was never going to due maintenance on it.

Second, if you don't know what you're doing, fucking stop and ask for help!!!! We teach all of our young troops, if you don't know what you're doing, stop and ask for help. It's ingrained into us to ask for help if we need it. If he didn't know what he was doing, he needed to ask for help. Instead, he tried to act like Mr All Knowing (like he usually does) and as a result he now has a nice lip cut which will probably turn into a scar, from what our medic says for refusing stitches, and we have another nice story to add to the collection of dumb shit he's done.

B Side:

I finally broke down and bought some hajii movies. I bought the Gundam Seed complete series, Cowboy Beebop complete series, Stardust, Good Luck Chuck, Run Fatboy Run, Superbad, Elizabeth the Golden Age, Rendition and The Kingdom. Yes, that's a lot of movies/ entertainment.

Except, well... the quality of two of the movies is unbearably bad. I've talked about hajii movie before, a couple of posts back. They get someone to go into the theater and video tape the movie as it's playing. This results in... less than desirable video/ sound quality. I put up with it because 1) for $2, seriously, wtf do I expect? and 2) it's the only way I can see current movies. The military doesn't provide us movies, barely provides us with recreation at all.

But that's besides the point for this. I watched Stardust last night (saw it in the theaters before I left and really liked it) and about 45mins of the movie was watching the inside of the aspiring directors jacket. Oh, and apparently he didn't like the editing of the movie, because there's a 20 min gap during a pretty crucial part of the movie that he just left out. Well, he probably had to turn off the camcorder and hide it, but still, you get the point.

Another movie, Run Fatboy Run, was actually worse than that. The young Lucas sat on the far right hand side of the theater, got only about 1/3rd of the screen, most of the characters are blurry, it's barely audible... well, again, you get the point. It sucked.

So I'm heading back to the shop, getting two different movies and I'm going to tell him to fire his damn camera guy. Or to at least preview his shit. I foresee a lot of returns.

But I can report that Cowboy and Gundam have been flawless so far. I got the original Japanese with Gundam and they put in English subtitles. They did a pretty good job too. A few mistakes here and there, but nothing to detract. V has been watching Cowboy and he really likes it so far. Both titles for $50. Good deal.

That's it for me. I promise I'll start posting again. Even though I know nobody reads this junk but Heather, I'll keep posting. I'm thinking of setting up a Tues/ Thurs/ Sat schedule of posts. Leave me a note, tell me what you think.

-M

You're all that I've ever wanted, but I'm terrified of you...

Hotel Iraq: Vacancies NONE

A Side:

When was the last time that you had a roommate? No, I don't mean your significant other. I mean, an honest to goodness, roommate. The last time I had a roommate was in 1995 when I was a freshman in college. (I don't count the times that I slept in military tents with 7 other dudes because that was a tent, not a concrete building with rooms)

I currently have one, and will have one for another 300+ days. Even though I keep managing to make rank, it just doesn't seem to be enough to warrant any kind of beneficial treatment. Also, I don't have a job that will finagle me my own room.

So that leaves me having to share one. Now, my roomie is the other comm guy who's here. V is a nice guy, from the northwest, is pretty intelligent, good sense of humor and overall we get along pretty well. With the exception of... he's a bit of a space case. I mean that in the nicest way possible, for he really is a nice guy. Just sometimes the car is running, but no one is behind the wheel, if you catch my drift.

Example: everyday after four o'clock, we both go back to the room, kind of chill out for around forty five minutes, then we head over to the gym to go lift, run and after that we eat. It's been like this, everyday, since we've been here. The ritual has not changed. I'm very big on ritual. Ask Heather, me and ritual are like this! (fingers crossed irl)

Today for some reason, he decided to leave without me. He supposedly couldn't find me. He tried calling me on my cellphone, but my cellphone rang on my desk, not more than five feet away from his desk. Next to it, was my 9mm gun. Now, if he had put 2+2 together, he would've realized that I was still in the building (I was in the potty). Instead, he goes, oh, Mike isn't here so I'm just going to leave.

I get out of the potty not more than five mintues later, come, check my phone, see that he called me, I try calling him back and I hear his phone ring on his desk. Grrrrrr. He doesn't like to carry his phone, even though the Lt today said for all of us to have our phones on us at all times. But this is typical him. He doesn't remember people at all. He doesn't remember events. We'll meet someone later in the day that we had met earlier, and it's like meeting them all over again. I swear it's like Allen Covets character, Ten Second Tom, out of the movie 50 First Dates. His brain recycles information every ten seconds.

At times it irritates the shit out of me because we're talking about stuff, my brain is firing on twelve cylinders and then his two banger comes in and... we'll it's frustrating. Other times it's hilarious, seeing the look of dawning pop over his face as he puts 2+2 together. This is why I couldn't be a regular school teacher. I don't have the patience it requires. I'd want to scream at the kids for not getting it right away. It's not their fault they don't get it right away, but it would still irritate the fuck out of me.

My current job back in the states is teaching, which is totally funny after reading that last paragraph. But see, I teach for the military, specifically I teach my job to incoming recruits. They made it through basic, then through advanced electronics course (which has been so watered down, even from when I went through, that it's just a fucking joke now), then they come to me. I take pride in my job. I want only the best to get through. I like my career field and don't want my time at the school house to be known as "When anyone could get through".

Teaching for the military vs teaching in public schools is two totally separate worlds. My dad was a public school teacher for almost thirty years. He retired a few years ago. But before he retired, I was at my current job and when we would get together, we'd go over teaching styles, kids behaviors, punishments, things we could and couldn't do. Let me just say, he was amazed and got a total kick out of the shit that we could do and he couldn't. Just lots of the stupid little mind games we'd play with the tech school students. Punishments for when they made stupid mistakes. I expect all my students to use their brains. When they didn't, usually public embarrassment did/ does the trick. Nobody likes being singled out, especially in an environment like that.

Anyways, I'm straying off topic. V is a cool dude, just reminds me of a '60s hippy. :)

B Side:

We're finally getting a vehicle of our own! V and I that is. We kind of have more people than vehicles, but after almost three weeks of shuttling us around non-stop, every hour us calling and saying, Hey, you need to take us here now, now take us here, now take us here, now take us here, (see a pattern?) our leaders finally figured... hey, they might need a vehicle.

Their first thought was, Bah, comm doesn't need a vehicle! How wrong they were, muwahahahaha!!! It was specifically two guys who were doling out the vehicles, who have no clue about our job duties, but in the end were made aware by the other guys, Hey, I'm not a fucking taxi, please get these guys their own vehicle.

And now we do. Well, tomorrow we will. We have to go get it from the maintenance shop, but still, we got a vehicle! Yah!

-M

I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightning

I vant to pump... you up!

A Side:

This morning we went out to the range and fired our weapons again for the first time in a month. It was a nice little bit of training. We rezero'd our M4s and fired our
M9s. As always, it was a lot of fun. The part that sucked, as usual, was we had to don our full IBA (Individual Battle Armor). The picture doesn't include the side armor plates or the pouches in front that carry all of our ammo. Total weight is around 75lbs for a full combat load.

What I did notice though was it wasn't as tight around the waist! Also, I was able to pick it up and wear it much easier. This is mainly due to the fact that I've transitioned to two a day work outs. I run about 20-25 mins, then lift weights for the rest of the hour. I've done this now for about two weeks, and the prior week I just went once a day.

I like the improvements that I'm feeling so this is going to help keep me motivated. Also, the fact that I'm not raiding, or farming, for World of Warcraft helps tremendously. I sat on my ass for at least 4 hours, Mon- Thurs, playing that game. (Not even going to mention the weekends, ACK!) I loved it, loved the friends that I was playing with, loved the game but I realize that's something that I can't do anymore. I can still play, but I can't dedicate such large chunks of my time to something like that anymore. I just don't see myself doing that anymore. It takes away from my family, it takes away from my health, I can't not play for large periods of time because I'll always want to be near the top in competition. I will still play video games, just I'm going to have to tone it down. By like a factor of ten!

So... I'll need a healthier outlet for my competitiveness in the future. I still play soccer, one of the few God given talents I haven't squandered, and I still like to do stuff outdoors. I hope we do more stuff as a family outdoors when I get back. It's going to have to be a priority of ours.

B Side:

Not much else going on today. It's still early for me and we're about to head to the gym. Gym, dinner, shower and then just chill till bedtime. I think I'm going to watch some of these X-Files discs that I found. It seems like a little mini story of theirs, X-Files: Colonization. Spans a few episodes and it deals with "the alien take over" of the planet. Seems interesting, so I'll give it a spin.

-M

Have you been to the carnival?
I would like to see you
There's a whole lot of people there
who would like to meet you

1.21 Gigawatts!?!?!?!?!

A Side:

Sorry I didn't post this week, but it's been super crazy on my side. When the old team left, we thought they had taken care of business, taken care of the books... well just friggin' done something other than sit on their collective butts for 365 days. Oh how wrong we were.

As we continue to dig deeper, we find that they had abismal record keeping. When you're doing the work that we do here, advising an Army division and trying to keep them afloat, you have to document things. Basically, everything. Everything that you do, you should document. Everything from ordering paperclips to issuing out cellphones, you need to document. Organized people, and people who want to make life easier for the incoming transition team, know this and practice it. It keeps things simple. When you want to know what's happening on this job or that job, you can go to the appropriate folder/ database/ record keeping device and find out what the hell is going on.

One thing they did document and keep around for us to find was the fact that they ordered new gym equipment for the downstairs rec room. When we went through the inventory sheet of what they ordered, we were kind of excited. They ordered a new treadmill, elliptical machine, bike machine, incline/ flat bench, a free weight rack, a plate tree, new barbell and a whole new set of free weights ranging from 5lbs to 150lbs. Yes, that's correct, up to 150lbs, each in 5lbs increments.

Your thoughts are probably the same as mine when I first read that. 150lbs!?!?!?! Who the fuck is going to use that??? We shook our heads, then went back to work. Fast forward a week and a half later, yesterday, when all this stuff arrives.

You should've seen the faces of the poor workers who had to unload this stuff from the back of the delivery truck! They took a look at the 100- 150lbs weights and you could see them trying to work out in their heads how the hell they were going to get these from the back of the truck to just inside the door, not more than maybe a twenty foot walk. From the way they were looking at it, it might as well have been from here to the moon!

We helped them move the stuff, but it was still funny watching their eyes bug out just looking at the weights. We kept everything up to 80lbs, but we're going to store the 85- 150lbs dumbbells over in one our warehouses.

This is where the title of todays post comes in. I vividly remember Doc Brown just freaking out when Marty showed him the video of himself explaining how the flux capacitor needed 1.21gigawatts to operate. It's the same reaction we got from these guys. Priceless!

B Side:

Heather and I continue to look at homes back in the area where we'll be stationed once I leave here. One of the homes we've seen is this Victorian home that we both like. We remember the home from almost five years ago. We both liked it then, we both still like it. I don't think it was on the market at the time, but now it is.

Which lead me to thinking about, well what if we did buy this home? Is it up to code? What work needs to be done on it? Can I do this? Can we afford to do this? Neither one of us minds a fixer upper, but at the same time, neither one of us wants a money pit or a home we can't get rid of if we should have to move again after say three years due to a new assignment. If we have to move again, we want to be able to sell the place (for a profit of course :) and carry on.

But the thought of owning a Victorian home and making it into a really nice place is really attractive to me. Part of it is the fact that I grew up in Charleston admiring all the plantation homes that they have their, plus all the great houses that they have in downtown Charleston. I've always wanted to live there, right there in the downtown area. That area is just alive with people. They have all the shops, nightlife, culture, entertainment you could ever need right outside of their doors.

Also, I grew up around my dad always doing upkeep/ remodeling on both of their homes, plus they had friends who either a) built their own homes and we helped them do it or b) remodeled parts of their homes and we helped them do it. So building and remodeling is nothing new to me. Hell, up until a few months ago I was still helping them remodel homes.

In simpler terms, it's the thought of reshaping a living enviroment into the image that I/ we want it to be. We've lived in either base housing or an apartment for all of my/ our military career. That's spanning tech school, my first assignment and my current assignment. We've lived in places where the terms of our living arrangments have been dictated to us. We've been told what we can and can't place in the walls, floors and ceilings. What colors we can/ can't use on the walls. What we can/ can't plant in the yard. To finally have a place of our own to shape into what we want is literally intoxicating and bringing back parts of my childhood that I love and cherish.

Now did I love and cherish it then? Hell no I didn't. Part of it might be nostalgia for simpler times, but at the same time it really is the thought of having a place of our own and turning into the living space of our dreams. I'm not afraid of knocking down walls, removing cabinets and counters, or laying down hardwood floors. It's all things that I've done before.

Just now... it'll be for us. It'll be for the new kitchen we've always dreamed about, or the ultimate game center that we keep envisioning. It'll be the yard where the boy and I can fart around and play games like soccer or football, and where he'll learn how to care for a yard like it should be cared for. It'll be the craftroom that Heather wants. It'll be the library that we desperately need to house our insane, and ever expanding, collection of literature. It'll be the spare guest room where my parents can stay, or our friends from out of town when they come to visit.

Will this house be everything that we want it to be? Probably not. But the right house will provide the correct starting template for all of these possibilities. Man this year cannot pass fast enough!

Oh, in my Victorian home search I came across this awesome blog. Greg is restoring his Victorian home in Eureka California. He's a pretty darn good writer, his taste in music (Portishead, Massive Attack) rocks and overall the site is pretty nice. Lots of pictures, which is a good thing. Enjoy!

-M


Lonely the life, that once I lead
strange the paths on which we tread

Father! The sleeper has awaken!

A Side:

Ok, so I meant to post this yesterday, but got wrapped up in work. Yesterday morning, Vinny and I came out of the gym at around 0630. That's about the time we usually finish up working out. We like to go early in the morning because 1) it wakes us up and gets us ready for the rest of the day, and 2) if we go any later, there's about 500 Army guys in there at once, so the workout becomes non productive.

Anywho, we step outside, and as soon as we get outside we see a flash of light to our right. We both kind of turn, then we both say... was that lightening? I look up, and above us, off to the right some, was this big dark cloud. It stretched to the horizon, looking dark and ominous. (generic description, but in this case it really did look that way!) We walked for another hundred feet or so, then the unexpected happened.

It started to rain. Not just one or two drops, but a nice steady stream. And it was cold as a witches tit! Personally, I was shocked because... well it's the frigging desert! It rarely rains here! Ah, but this is Iraq. Apparently it does rain here. They even have a "rainy season". This is later in the March time frame, when the sky opens up and turns the talcum powder ground into this liquid glue that adheres to every surface and refuses to release its grip to whatever it clings to. People have been known to lose shoes in this stuff, four wheel drive trucks (think of the HMMVs) get bogged down refusing to move and generally life around here becomes a pain in the ass.

But, as the rain came down all I could think of was David Lynch's version of Dune, where Paul Muad'dib was standing atop Arrakeen Keep addressing the Fremen and then it starts to rain. The same type of expression on their faces, the one of shock/ bewilderment/ awe all wrapped in one, I wore. For a small fleeting moment, I was home again.

B Side:

Heather made me take this book, The Road by Cormack McCarthy. She was very insistent on this, You gotta take it, you gotta take it. She's been telling me for a while that I'd really enjoy this book. So I relented and took it with me. I finally picked it up the other day and started reading it and I was hooked pretty fast.

Simply put, it's a story about a dad and his son trying to reach safety in a post apocalyptic America. Everything is dead, there's little food, but they're trying to get south to where it'll be warmer and they won't freeze to death. Within the first fifteen pages, I was pretty involved with the characters. Meaning, I was invested emotionally with them. Every writer tries to do that, get you to connect, and this guy is doing it very well.

Of course I also project my son and myself onto those characters. What would I be doing in that situation? Would I react the same way? Would I have the strength/ courage/ patience/ knowledge to keep going? I would like to say yes. I would like to say that some of my military and Boy Scout training would kick in and that we would survive. That's what I'd like to say.

I'm a little more than half way through the book and eager to finish it. What I'm not eager for is to find out if the kid gets killed. Or hurt. Or something happens to them that tears them apart. I'm a firm believer that children shouldn't be hurt in stories. I know, it's not real. I also know that you're suppose to put your characters in danger, children included. That you shouldn't be afraid of killing off your characters, children included, if that's the way the story unfolds.

But I also know that if I want to see children hurting, all I have to do is listen to Heather describe a day at her work place. Turn on the news. Read the paper, or the internet news sites. Or just go outside my front door and look at some of the barely teenage kids that are already working for a living doing menial jobs around the base here, who have nothing else to look forward to for the rest of their lives.

I get enough of children suffering in real life. I don't need it in my down time. I don't want it in my recreational material. Even in print, children are sacred and should never be hurt. But that's just me. I seem to be in an increasing minority, but I plan to stay there till the end.


-M

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire!

He's a gentleman, look at his boots!

Last night, a coworker and I went downtown to the local theater to see a production of My Fair Lady. The doctor I write transcription for had a part in the play.

While most of the theater were aptly watching the play, J and I were giggling uncontrollably at various points in the play due to seeing this other side of our doctor, as he sang and danced.

Watching them made me long for days of old when I was involved in such things. There was the dinner theater play back in Sumter. Even further back was Dracula in college during the early days of my relationship with M. We still throw out the mixed up line "Hammer! The Harker!" at random moments.

Listening to the orchestra also made me long for my saxophone, sitting patiently in its hard plastic box in a dark corner of my closet.

You've got mail!

A Side:

One of the things a serviceman really looks forward to is care packages. These can be little boxes filled with just a few things like candy bars, a deck of cards, or simply letters. Then you get boxes that Heather sent me on the 24th of September and I received today. Yup, it got here one week later. I was totally shocked and surprised. I had been told that it would be at least three weeks before I saw a package, so when I was told that I had a package, I was obviously happy.

This was the best care package evah! Let me detail out what it contained:

- both sets of my silkweight undergarments (these are like long johns, just real thin. it's going to get a bit colder here, so I need just a little something to help me)

- my tactical card deck (they're heavier than regular cards, plus you can see them with night vision goggles!)

- my new Star Wars book, Inferno

- a sudoku puzzle book

- the new Game Pro magazine

- the new Mens Health magazine

- a bag of beef jerky (always good)

- the largest friggin' bag of Skittles I have ever seen in my life, weighing in at a hefty 41 ounces!

- my sons secret suprise, a vinyl/ plush Darth Vader (frigging sweet!)

- a new mix CD of electronic music, mixed specifically by DJ J-Dog

What's really nice about the CD is the fact that Heather doesn't really like electronic music at all. She describes as "wanting to go and shoot people, because it makes me super angry". Fair enough, there's some songs of hers that make me want to drink Drain-o. But, she went and made this collection, carefully selecting songs, buying lots of new stuff and arranging it all.

I gotta tell you, she's a really good producer. She knows how to keep the mix running smoothly, the songs all flow together well and overall I usually enjoy her playlists. This one was no different. It included a few songs we already own, no biggie, but the new stuff she bought was really good. Groups included Portishead, Emilie Simon, Bitter Sweet, Massive Attack and Koop.

So if you get a chance to have her mix you a playlist, consider yourself blessed/ lucky and just enjoy it. I also got a nice card from my parents. Overall, it was a pretty good day.

B Side:

It's hard to believe it, but we've already been here a month! We've only been at our base here a bit over a week, but our time counts since we touched down in the AO (Area of Operation). It really does seem like only two weeks ago we got off the plane. I really hope the time keeps moving like this.

Has anyone seen the new Call of Duty? In the Game Pro that Heather sent, they showed screenshots of it and I have to say... AMAZING! It looks really really good. The fact that you can select a few different types of soldiers is cool, along with the unlocking different rewards, is pretty neat. I know I would be in first person shooter heaven with that and Team Fortress 2. I think part of my two weeks of R&R will be trying to play those two as much as I can. Gah, there are so many really good games coming out in the next few months and I'm here... *Charlie Brown cry* AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

That's it for me folks. Off to devour the rest of that GamePro and continue to listen to my new music!

-M

Where is the sea ?
I don't know why I was just looking for the sea,
But the only thing I found was the desert,
A desert around me...