Well, 2.5 months after my last blog entry...I'm home! I arrived on 9 Oct, had about a week off from work, went to Florida to see Adam for a long weekend (I don't recommend booking a flight 4 hrs before it takes off...long horrible story...) picked up my new '03 Roush Stage 3 Mustang while down there, and now it's back to work.

Plenty more I could write about, but now's not the time.

I would like to continue blogging since I've got plenty to share between my family, the Navy, cigars, card games, Twitter and my new Mustang, but until Connie is recovered from her surgery I can't see any kind of schedule that will allow me any time on a regular basis to do updates. We'll see, but I'm definitely not promising anything soon.

Thanks to those who kept up with me while I was depolyed.

It's 120 degrees with a slight breeze.

Ok, so I have seen water for a few hours in the past 6 months, but not much!

The Marina 1/2 of the Marina Mall.

It's been confirmed...I suck at blogging!

Another month's gone by already? Well I guess it's a good thing that time at least feels like it's flying by.

It's pretty much a daily grind, comfortable in the 90's when I get up for a shower in the morning, 120 by 9 AM, 125+ by noon, 100 when it's time for a cigar at 8:30 PM. Luckily, our AC works fine and it's 70's inside.

So since my last update I've gone back into Kuwait City again, this time to the Kuwaiti Towers and the Marina Mall. The Towers were nothing more than an observation point, good for pics and that's it. The Mall was nice, what I would call 'upscale' with the decor and cleanliness and the Masaratis, Ferraris, Jags, Aston Martins etc parked out front. It was pretty much just window shopping for me especially after I saw the prices. A new PSP game that would cost $40 in the US was 19 KD (Kuwati Dinar) which was equivalent to about $75 US. A pair of regular Timberland boots was 48 KD or around $190. No thank you.

They did have 2 cigar stores though, so that's when the window shopping stopped and turned into REAL shopping! I escaped after spending only 20 KD. My wife should be proud! :-)

My buddy and I had lunch at an American Johnny Rockets and paid 11 KD for 2 burgers with fries and 2 shakes. Yup, $40!

Next week I'm scheduled for my R & R trip to Qatar where I'll have 4 days to relax, see the water (I'm in the Navy and haven't seen water in 6 months for crying out loud!) play on a jet ski, eat at a Chilis, and DRINK 3 REAL BEERS EACH DAY!!!!!

By the time I'm back from that, there will only be about 6 weeks between me and my family and that's broken up by the arrival of the first wave of the next det, departure of the first wave of my det, arrival of the second wave, and the pack up and move out of my wave. So with those little distractions I'm praying time will continue to fly by.

We'll see!

And this is what it looked like

I kind of suck at this blogging thing don't I?

So…it’s bee a while hasn’t it? Well sit back and get ready for story time.

Ever since my last post here, I’ve pretty much settled into a humdrum daily existence. Work like a rented mule all morning, walk ¼ mile to get lunch, walk back to my room, kick off my boots and blouse and cool the hell down. It’s funny I say that though, because up until about Apr 20 we had stayed below 100 F. And as with so many things, as soon as I heard on the radio that “Every day from here on out that is below 100 F is a gift”, it returned to 100+ daily. Back on the first day of spring it was 111 F, but then we got another month of tolerable weather. 4 days ago it was 122 F.

One nice thing happened in that time frame as well. The guys from Annapolis that are down in AJ had bought me a cigar as a congratulations after Joyce’s birth and just never had an opportunity to get it to me. So once we met up they gave it to me, a Gurkha Estate Churchill which is infused with Luis XIII cognac. Talk about YUMMY! So that re-sparked my interest in cigars, and since I didn’t have to worry about stinking up a house, I visited my favorite cigar web sites and started shopping! In a matter of 3 weeks or so, I’m set for cigars for the rest of my deployment. :-)

About 3 weeks ago, we had a thunder storm! With rain and everything! The first hour and a half or so there was only lightning, then we got the thunder and rain, then it went back to lightning only again. The whole thing lasted over 3 hrs and the storm had quite an audience. The bunch of us out watching it were like kids on the 4th of July.

“OOOOooooo!”

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

“Ohhhhhhhhh!”

As for fun, I had my first trip out into Kuwait City in the early part of April. The city was fine, nothing special. I ate Lebanesefood for lunch and it was ok. The Science Center that wewent to was more like an elementary school field trip destinationwith only a hand full of fish, reptiles and othercritters along with an IMAX show. Unfortunately theIMAX was sold out for all the morning showswith...school field trips! But it was nice seeing theGulf, the water, trees, grass... The second half of the tour was to a shopping place. It was a giant partially open partially notconglomerate of a shopping mall kind of place. Wefound out one interesting thing; over here there are no name brands. You want a yellow shirt, you get a yellow shirt, not aPolo or a Chaps or an Underarmor etc. Everything'sgeneric. The only things I got were a couple energy drinks(each sucked) and I tried an eclair and a weirdchocolate pudding....thing.... The eclair was reallygood!
On the ride back to base a cold/virus hit me like a truck. Two days later I felt crappy enough to get some drugs totry and dry me out and stop the coughing. I ended upin bed by lunch, didn't feel any better the next dayso ended up back in bed. I could manage tofunction some the following day, so since I only work 1/2 day onSat I stuck it out while I still felt like crap. In the mean time, partly due to the coughing that keptme awake and partly due to general stress I'm sure, Istarted back with my insomnia that weekend. I went3 nights with less than an hr of sleep each night,then asked for drugs to make me sleep. The docthat's here with me who was also with me way back whenI was in Bethesda doesn’t like using Ambien (thebestest go to sleep drug there is) because it canbe addictive. So she put me on Trazadone. Thefirst night I took it at 8PM and didn't fall asleepuntil 2AM. Next day I took it at 6PM and was asleepby midnight. The 3rd night I took it at 5PM butwe had a huge hicup here on our little piece of thisbase...a power line was cut accidentally and we lostpower to our barracks. No AC. So I started settingup my bunk in my office where we still had power, andby 1230, as I was sorta dozing/almost asleep, I waswoken up with news the power was restored. So, up andback to my cool comfy bed and asleep around 130. The next night I got to double my dose and hoped that I’d fall asleep twice as fast. So I planned for falling asleep in 3 hrs, but alas I was up until 2AM again. I didn’t take any the next 2 nights due to duty and my day in AJ. Check that story below!

Just this past weekend, I was really in a bad mood. The previous Sunday I had had duty which means I got to spend my one day off a week in the clinic from 7 AM until 10 PM. Follow that with a full week of work followed by a Saturday duty (we normally have Sat afternoon off) lead to a long week. In the middle of the week I found out that my Sunday was again being taken away from me in that I had to attend a defensive driver course so I could drive normal cars/vans while here in Kuwait.

I was soooooooo overjoyed…. Not.

Luckily, I was going with 2 other people who are at least fun to hang out with. At least that was something. Once we got there, we got an overview of the day; 10 min video then 2+ hrs of driving on the obstacle course.

Well that didn’t sound so bad after all!

During the video, some Army guy was telling us what we were going to do and why we were learning how to negotiate each obstacle. In the background, there were 2 cars; some generic Pontiac looking car and…….a Mustang GT! Well the video wasn’t over by more than 1 second before I stood up and declared “The Mustang is mine!”

“Sorry sir, we don’t have any Mustangs here. Only mid sized 4 door sedans and SUVs.”

Damn. Oh well.

Well actually, SUVs? Well that could prove to be fun too. :-)

I got placed in a car with Jeorge the instructor and a Navy LT. Cool, no significant wait time between obstacles.

We started with the rapid lane change. It’s a slalom course that mimics weaving in and out of 5 cars in adjacent lanes. Jeorge would tell us how fast to do it, tell us when we were up to speed (I wasn’t wasting any time by looking down at the speedo so that was good) and it was our job to maintain that speed through the course. We were doing this in a Yukon by the way. So I got to go through about 4 times at faster and faster speeds each time with max speed being about 50 kph.

Next was…..drum roll please….backing up in a straight line! We had to go once while looking over our shoulder (easy), once while using one side mirror (also easy) all while accelerating in reverse. The last method was…different; backing up without looking at all! This didn’t seem like a very good idea to me. The technique is called ‘tactical backing’ and you’re supposed to line up some part of your dashboard with an object in the distance in front of you and just keep those points lined up as you go backward.

Well I didn’t exactly follow directions and lined up a point between two radio antenna. It was like lining up a gun site and I figured it’d work. Nope, too much room for error. I killed the last cone on the drivers side 3 times in a row. Poor cone……… Then I did it as instructed and lined up with just one of the antenna and did it just fine. Frankly, I ain’t never doing that again.

Next we had off roading. Get up to 50 kph, drive 2 wheels off the pavement onto the dirt (about a 4 inch drop), straighten out, check the mirrors then turn the wheel just right so that the tread of the tire hits the side of the pavement instead of the side wall. Apparently its easy to get a blow out when the side wall hits first. After the 2 wheels off scenario we did all 4 wheels off in the same way.

4th evolution was backing into a parking place in VERY tight quarters. We’d pull up next to the spot perpendicularly, cut the wheel hard to get as much of an angle as possible, aiming the back of the truck toward the space and pull up as far as you could without running into the ‘wall’ marked by cones. Then you crank the wheel in the opposite direction and pray you’re in position to only have to make minor adjustments to get into the spot. I did it first try and was glad we only had to do it once because quite frankly, that was boring and I saw a vehicle on the other side of the range with smoke coming off the tires so I wanted to get over to that one!

And sure enough, that’s where we went next! :-)

So how do you make smoke come from the tires? Well I figured we weren’t going to learn how to do brake stands, so the other option is locking up brakes. And that’s just what we did. Jorge would give us a target speed and when we got into the cone chute, which ended in a lane-ending cone wall with a right and left lane approx 1.5 to 2 car lengths from the end of the chute, at just the right point, he’d yell ‘brake right’ or ‘break left’ and it’d be our job to lock up the wheels and then let up just enough to regain steering control and drive through the lane he indicated. This was pretty fun, especially since it took the Yukon nearly all of our running start room to reach max speed which was very quickly followed by severe braking, so that made it even more fun.

The 6th event was the one I was looking forward to most, the regular slalom course. For this, we traded in the Yukon for a GM made Kuwaiti POS. And do make it even more fun, we did it forward AND backward AT SPEED! So we started out by doing about 40 kph, no big deal and only so-so fun. Once through the course we’d stop about 40 feet from the last cone so that the line of cones was about 3 feet away from the side of the car if you drew a line from the end of the cones toward the car. Now the challenge really began. We were supposed to keep our hands at 9 and 3 and just turn the wheel smoothly through the course while looking from side view mirror to side view mirror negotiating the cones. Try number one went perfectly except my hands didn’t stay put on the wheel very well…at all. No problem, I had quite a few more runs to make! So once we were through in reverse, it was onward in D once again…a little faster. :-O

Now the routine was this; forward through slalom, backward through slalom, forward through slalom then evasive steering. So once back at the end of the slalom it was over to the same course we did the brake locking drill on except there was no braking involved! Same speeds as with the braking drill (up to 75) only it was swerving into the lanes adjacent to the cone wall instead of braking and driving gently into the lanes.

First time through the evasive steering, no big deal, only doing about 50. The next round through the slalom was noticeably more fun and quite frankly it got more and more fun as the rounds proceeded. See, while you’re supposed to maintain the given speed, I kinda failed that part…my speed seeeeeeemed to increase. Was it just my imagination or was it the fact that by the end of the course the weight of the car was gaining sideways momentum with each turn and it just felt like I was going faster. We’ll see……. ;-)

Backward on try two went better as far as hands staying on the wheel went, but the final cone in the line failed to move out of my way and it died in a crumpled heap under my tires. Oops! I had my arms twisted around as far as they could go, but it wasn’t far enough and I never got turned far enough to see, and thus avoid, the final cone. Oh well.

Forward through the course again, faster and faster! By this point, Jeorge stopped telling me how fast to go and just told me to ‘keep it at this speed’ when he felt I was going fast enough. Silly Jeorge! :-D

I think I went through the whole series of slalom/backward/slalom/evasive steering once more before the REAL fun started.

The next to last lap, during the evasive maneuver part, I anticipated the lane just before he told me which lane to go into, and of course I anticipated WRONG! So what did I do? Well I did as I was told of course! Within the 1.5-2 car length gap we had to switch lanes, I swerved left just enough so that when I snapped it back right I went into a perfect fish tail! While Jorge and the LT in the back seat were thrown somewhat violently to the left I managed to still steer through into the right lane without even nudging one cone. Damn I’m good! Before Jeorge got ‘if you aim for the wrong lane, just keep going into that lane….that’ll be fine’ out of his mouth, through quite a large smile, a good solid “YEHA!” escaped mine! And luckily, LT was laughing his ass off in the back seat. J Good to know some people still like getting a little rowdy now and then.

The last time through the evasive steering went fine at 75, but was nowhere near as fun as the slower 70 kph run a minute earlier. :-D

So the last times through the slalom were bound to be the grand finale of the day, right? Oh yeah! When I cleared the last cone damn near sideways, I looked down and was doing 60. 60 was fun! Backward one more time as fast as I could manage before the last slalom run. It wasn’t as fun as I was hoping, it was actually pretty hard at whatever speed I was going at (I’m guessing 30ish). But when it was time for the last forward run….well you’ve heard of ‘letting it all hang out’ right? :-)

Jeorge, by the way, had stopped telling me what speed to maintain. Apparently I wasn’t doing it anyway, so he gave in and let me fly.

I wish there was a video of my last run. ½ way through the course, I wasn’t ‘slaloming’ anymore and was straight up drifting through the cones getting very close to completely sideways through each cone, snapping it around the next cone in line only to traverse 170 or so degrees as I drifted through the next slot. And what did the speedo say before I applied the brake to end my day? Just shy of 70. :-D If only they had had the Mustang!

So we were done for the day, and not surprisingly, we were the first car done. I went up to the safety officer’s tower to watch my friends and struck up a conversation with him. He started it with “I almost radioed Jeroge twice to tell him to make you slow down, but it looked like you were under control even at those speeds, so I let you go.” My response?

“Good choice!”

So my lost day off turned out to be not so bad after all.

For the last of this forever long entry, I’ve got to tell you about my first full-on sand storm. I left my second job at quarter to 1 this afternoon for the 15 min drive back to VA. As we reached the end of the base road, off to our right was a visibly darkening roiling cloud of sand. It stretched for about 500 yds across and more than 150 yds high and it was moving toward us, in the direction of the road we were about to turn left onto. Not long after we were on the main road, the sand storm was next to us, on the driver’s side, about 400 yds away. It was moving faster than we were. Uh-oh.

As soon as I realized that, I told the guy driving he’d better punch it. I didn’t have any intention of getting trapped out on the road where who knows what damn fool Kuwaiti driver might be cruising along like it was nothing, only to end up imbedded in out vehicular arse.

We got up to speed and started getting past the lead edge of the storm. We weren’t going Mustang Cobra fast, but we were challenging all 4 cylinders to be sure.

We made it off the main road and onto the base road by turning left toward the storm. That’s the way the road goes don’t’cha know! But after 150 feet it turns back right so we are again along side the wall of billowing sand. We have to drive ridiculously slowly on this road because it’s full of potholes and rocks and dirt speed bumps. By the time we get to the gate, the lead edge is on us and everything goes orange as the sun is blotted out. We creep forward as visibility drops from about 50 feet to 30 to 20 to 15 and turn further left yet again to get onto base proper. So were does that put us? Why right in the middle of it all of course! By this time, the orange tint to the world is a dirt brown tint. And what do you have to do before getting onto base proper? Get out of the vehicle!!!! Before you get onto base you have to check your weapons. This was going to be fun. Yeah, fun like getting sand in your everywhere at the beach except it’s getting into your everywhere by 40-50 MPH wind. How’s that picture for you?

We get back into the vehicle coughing and sputtering and are allowed through. The road through this point is a winding one with Jersey barriers jumping out in front of you every 30 feet to ensure no one can get past the guards in any haste.

Well maybe they could if they went to the Scott drifting school, but I digress! ;-)

We had to stop twice because visibility dropped to ½ the hood of the car! We felt like we were in a Stephen King movie let me tell you! It was trying to eat us, I’m sure of it!

We made the 3 min drive back to the clinic in 12, arriving safe and sound.

I wonder what’s in store for me tomorrow?

And just because I know someone will like them

And here you see why you don't want to be too close to a helicopter landing or, as in this pic, taking off.

Kuwait from another angle

The top 2 are on a drive to another base. So how far do you think you can see? Don't ask me 'cause I don't know either! The posted 'suggested speed limit' is 40 kph. Average speed in reality: 140 kph. Really. Some day I'll capture a 10-20 second video clip of the fools driving and you'll seeeeeeee. The bottom picture is what you can see out the passenger side window. I just KNOW you wish you were here with me now don't you? ;-)

Remember back a few posts ago I said something about people live here on purpose? I just don't get it...

Pictures as promised

Top is the temp in the shade; 97 degrees fahrenheit (thank you dictionary.com).

Next 4 are my other office...in the double wide trailer. See? I told you my desk was a deep freeze!

Walking salt lick

So yesterday we had some more mandatory fun. Burgers, steaks, dogs and wings, horse shoes, volley ball and soccer. This was the first time I've been outside for any length of time in the middle of the day. With that, I got to get a small taste of just what the heat can be like over here. I'll have to go to work and use a good internet connection to upload pictures, but when I do you'll see just how comfy it was...in the shade.

Have you ever heard of playing horse shoes with 3 shoes instead of 2? I don't know where some of these people learned how to play, but I corrected them and we played a singles and a doubles game of which I won both. :-)

Volley ball actually was kinda uneventful, not enough people haning out at one time to make good teams.

So after living through the sun and wind and sand, I was almost as salty as my wife! (that's salty in a good way) See, even with all the activity, is 'seemed' like I wasn't really sweating. Since it was as hot as it was, sweat evaporates almost immediately leaving behind...salt.

If I were back in base housing in Annapolis, the whole herd woud've been visiting to get a taste. (there's a herd of deer on base)

Pictures to come.....

10 do's and don'ts

Before any of us are allowed to go on a tour of Kuwait City or go to Qatar on R&R, we have to attend a cultural awareness class. I attended what could have been a very informative 2 hr class that turned out to be a ranting lecture by someone who obviously felt that what he was saying ws falling on deaf ears. The gentleman teaching us, "Tom", maybe just wasn't in a good mood or it was that time of the month or whatever, but the class sucked. What I did get out of it was the 10 do's and don'ts: (we didn't get a real explanation for any of them, so we were left to just nod and consent)
1- Do not initiate cross gender conversations unless absolutely necesary
2- Do not stare at the opposite sex and avoid eye contact with veiled women
3- Do not take pictures of women, especially veiled women, even if they are in the back ground
4- Do not show affection in public
5- Do not wear tight or revealing clothing
6- Men do not shake hands with women unless they initiate it
7- Do not go into a Mosque unless with a Kuwaiti local official or tour guide
8- Do not lose your temper in public and do not publicly embarrass anyone
9- Do not use profanity; maintain a calm tone of voice and mannerisms in public
10-Do not cross your legs revealing the soles of your feet or shoes

Now, having met 1000's of indestructible young male Marines, Sailors and Soldiers, I can assure you than many would have the immediate response of "Yeah, right...I'm an American and I'll do what I want. Hell, these people owe us for saving their ass back in the 90's so I can do whatever I want."

I'm afraid this is the ugly truth for many, and thus opportunities to see Kuwait are few and far between and are chaperoned by senior enlisted people who WILL "turn the bus around and go home" as soon as one idiot steps out of line.

Some explanation I did garner from the class was this: Kuwait is a fairly conservative country, and while there are plenty of people who are following a looser interpretation of Islam/The Koran, most adhere to a more traditional way. Family is very important and when it comes to male/female interaction it is very controlled insomuch as if a woman isn't your mom, sister, wife or daughter, you've got no business talking to her. It's a far cry from daily life in America, but guess what? This ISN'T America.

In addition to the 10 rules, if we were ever to find ourselves a guest of a Kuwaiti, showing hospitality will be a big part of the interaction. When offered a drink, accept graciously. Unless you're alergic to it or have a religious reason for not drinking (Mormon/caffiene), as Tom put it "You signed up to die for your country, so for the sake of keeping the American/Kuwaiti relationship, drink it even if you see something floating in it!"

And lastly, I didn't get any explanation about the feet thing.

With any luck, in mid April I'll get an opportunity to go out and see the city and then I'll be able to tell everyone what it's really like. :-)

Oops...too much at one time

Well, it looks like I went overboard. you'll have to go on to the next page to read all about Haji!

Taste of home

Honey, I can get a special price just for me on a new Harley! :-D

Not a cloud in the sky

Believe it or not, this is at about quarter to 5 PM. You can look directly at the sun most days and because of all the sand/dust in the air, this is what the sun looks like. A white ball.

Where I work and the RLB

I'm in the one with the airconditioner...um I mean the one with the stairs and the blocked up window...err the one with the rocks out front...oh never mind.

The immediate area around my RLB (relocatable barracks)

Top is our outdoor lounge area, middle is our crecent moon inn, except we can't put the crescent on the door because that would be like us changing the crescent our our out-houses to a crucifix (I bet you can see how well that'd go over eh?), and the bottom picture is meant to show a snow drift. Oops, I mean a SAND drift! Silly me......

All mine

And this is where I spend the majority of my off work time. What do you mean jail cells are bigger? How would you know? :-O

My office.....please try and contain yourself.

You wish you had a desk this cool....I know....don't be jealous!

And now, more pictures!!!!!

I just figured out how to make panoramic pictures. This is one of the areas for shopping on base.

And this is where the majority of the folks here live. In tents.

Have good connection....will type.

After many good intentions and a couple of trys even, I have a solid enough internet connection in my RLB to allow me to catch up 100%. (...and the crowd goes wild!!!!!)

The last of the items I previewed that I need to tell you about is Haji DVDs.

It seems that no matter where Americans are sent around the world, we always come up with a nickname for those whose country we're in. For Kuwait, the locals (and everyone else even if they aren't locals but are employed by whoever it is that employs the employees who do all the 'menial' jobs on the various bases...cause pretty much none of them are Kuwaiti, they're from India or Bangledesh. Go figure.) are referred to as Haji. Unlike some other eras, there is no malice or negative connotation with the title, and some are even propogating the rumor that calling someone Haji would be accurate if they've made the pilgrimage to Meca so even if they haven't done so yet referring to someone with that title is nice and respectful. Believe it if you will, I have no idea if it's true.

Anyway.....

We also use the term when referring to items that are ...questionable in authenticity. How many Rolexes have you seen for $30? Is an Ipod and an ipod and an I-pod all the same thing? Who's to know! I've spelled thiags rong evrey onece in awile....... maybe someone made a mistake at the factory and THAT'S why it's $45 instead of $250. Sounds plausible to me......... :-O

One other thing about shopping in general, especially from the people who are selling at a table outside the PX, is all prices are negotiable. If you've never haggled over the price of something WITH someone who wants to haggle back, it's very......interresting. All the vendors will try to catch your attention like a verbally challenged carnie. Imagine if you will a very heavy Indian (as in India not as in Native Americans) accent beckonning:

"Sir, come see. I have good price just for you."

Meeeeeee? Little o'l me? You're going to make a special deal for me? You mean I don't have to pay the price on the tag? WOW!!!! Today's my lucky day!!!! Where can I buy a scratch ticket before my luck runs out?!!!!! Show me what you've got to offer me Haji, if it's (fans of Gallager say it with me now) ON SALE how can I say no?!!!!

So maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe, it IS a real Rolex, and he's just giving it to me at the super-reduced-special-for-me-only price of $25! (you notice it got cheaper as I approached the table right? ;-) I do try to provide the sense that you're really there ya know!)

So now that you've got the idea, I told you all that to tell you about:

Haji DVD

Little did I know when I accepted this post in Kuwait, that I would learn what very few people around the Earth probably know; DVD's come out in Kuwait first! Sooooooooomehow, a movie that has it's premier on any given Friday is available on DVD in Kuwait on Sunday!!!! Isn't that amazing???!!!!??? Sometimes, we even get SPECIAL EDITIONS of very recent movies. Did you know that ORIGINALLY the latest installment of Rocky (we know it as 'Rocky Balboa') was printed with labels naming the movie Rocky VI? And I think we might even be a special test market too, because we can get full seasons of TV shows that I've never seen or heard of even being ON DVD and sometimes, like when writers go on strike, we miiiiiiiiiiiight even get the first 1/2 of a season on DVD before the second 1/2 of the season has aired!!!! Isn't that cool!?!

We're special.

I'm sure of it.

Now with all of this, you're probably thinking that we have to pay an arm and a leg for the privelege of being first in the world to get all of this good stuff. Well....you thought WRONG!!!!!!!

Not only do we get all of this special treatment, but we get any 6 movies we want for $20!!!!!!!!

There is a draw back though. (You knew it was comming didn't you? Nothing could be this good. Right?)

We get the DVD's so early in they're production, that the boxes haven't even been made yet, so we have to settle for a proof of what will become the cover of the box when you poor sots FINALLY get to buy what I already had the chance to buy 3-6 months earlier. And it comes in a recloseable baggie too. And the baggie hardly ever rips the first 3-4 times you open and close it.

You're jealous aren't you? I knew you would be! (So this is what it's like when one of 'those people' say "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!")

I wonder if the guy at customs knows about the special circumstances surrounding our special-ness when it comes time to bring our special DVDs home?

HMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........................

How many of you know who Paul Harvey is?

Because it's now time for....

The rest of the story.

So here I am in lovely VA, making the best of things. I've got 1000's of hours (litterally) of recorded TV and movies to entertain myslef with, I've read 3 books, been to the gym once (just found it Monday), have played bingo twice (every Tuesday at 1900, try to win $25 (or $50 for the cover all) in AFES gift cards. And with about 30 people playing and 7 games a night, I figure it's just a matter of time until I get mine! :-) ), will get around to Texas Hold'em on Fridays if I can get back from my second work locale in a timely manner...ever..., have played lots and lots of The Spoils with my friend (note this isn't plural) Jason the Army guy, watched a chinese Jet Li movie with both English and Arabic subtitles at the same time and have thus far avoided the temptation of eating Pizza Inn or Mickey D's or Subway (free food is the way to go and a few of the deserts are really really good), found the library and have discovered there's a third phone I can call home on!

Not too shabby eh? :-)

So let me tell you about my second work locale:

The double wide

The second clinic I cover is Ali (that's the short version of the name anyway). The clinic there is attached to the fire house and is really nothing more than a military version of a relocatable double wide trailer. There isn't a physical therapy space, but there are 2 scary looking tables that I can put patients on (as long as they're no more than 250), and a perfectly good deep freeze I can use as a desk. You know thet kind that's basically a GIANT cooler...the floor model that opens just like a cooler? Yup, that's my desk. The area is also storage for immunizations and various wraps and splints and orthotics, which I might actually use so I can see why those got dumped...I mean placed there, and the sterilizer and it's instruments in various conditions depending on whether or not they've been cleaned.

This is where I work 2 days as week.

Not only are the conditions as I've described, they haven't really kept me very busy, so I sorta feel like I'm wasting at least some time whenever I'm there. Of course I make the best of it as I do with most everything, and have out done myself almost every time I'm there at each of the 3 different size boards on Minesweeper. Have you ever played Minesweeper on a lap top with the touch pad mouse that can't have the "tap = click" function turned off? Well let me tell you....every time I'm about to set a new world record time for finishing a board the stupid mouse pad mistakes a touch for a tap and instead of flagging a bomb I set the damn bomb off!!!!! It's so damn frustrating!!!! Then I remember that I could be working instead and reset the board to try again. ;-) Oh, and I've discovered Sudoku!!!! There was a book of them in the "take it if you want it" bucket at the front desk of the double wide, so I did. And now I'm hooked!

So that's pretty much Ali. I'm working on getting my hrs changed so I'm only there for 2 half days instead of 2 whole days, so I can use my time more efficiently and maybe get out of working Saturday afternoons by increasing the number of patients I see during the week. :-)

Well that's all the time I have at the moment, but I intend on getting the last bits caught up later today after I go to the gym again.

That is if I can find it in a dust storm and the current dust storm doesn't become a sand storm.

Ciao!

By popular demand

Well by heavy innuendo at least....from my wife......

Baby by phone

Star date 2/22/08, a day like no other.

By 1230 my time, the day was just starting. Back at home, my beautiful wife was headed to the hospital to have our second baby, that which would be Joyce Marie Rohrer. Unless you've been through it, you can only imagine how slow time can move when you're 1/2 way around the world and your wife is having a baby without you. But let me not start this blog entry on a downer, just leave it at, "oiy! what a day!"

So the plan is set, friend on board ready to take pictures and do video for me, hourly updates by phone, and sometime around 1700-1800 my time, Joyce would be here.

Call #1 was from me to Connie. Time to leave for the hospital and get it all started.

Call #2 was from the hospital. All checked in, ready to go, pit via venous puncture entering an upper extremity through a plastic tube. (she was being induced)

Call #3-it'a around 1530 my time, and nothing's happening yet.

Call #4-an hour or so later and we have contractions. Not big ones, not too close together, well at least not close enough or big enough for...well...you know...

Call #5- another hour gone by and things are progressing. Connie's on the birthing ball focusing through the pain, concentrating on the job at hand, probably wishing things would move a little faster. Not me though, I was fine...really....no worries from here.... :-)

Call #6-it's somewhere after 1800, the contractions are coming hard and fast. Connie's not really talking to her helper, our friend (and my special person!...another story...) Mikelle. After seeing the video, Mikelle is helping as much as she can, not that anyone can do more than try and say the right things and just be there.

Call #7-It's time!!!!!!

"Scott, she feels like she needs to push! Oh my god, she's crowning!"

The next few minutes are pretty much a blur.

I'm in my room, alone. I'm listening to quite a commotion in a hospital room where my wife is about to give birth. There's a momentary break from grunting and Connie gets the phone and says my name.

"I'm here honey, you're doing fine. We've done this before and you know what to do."

"AAAAAAHhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" This is the sound my wife makes when she's pushing and it also sounds strangely like me when I'm in the epiphany booth thinking or reading. (if you don't get it, I'm not explaining it)

Lots more commotion....lots of voices....everyone's saying Connie this or Connie that.....you're doing fine.....good job....things of that nature.

The gruntingyellingpushing noise from my wife subsides and I think I probably said something encouraging and that Joyce was almost here and she could do it or something like that.

"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A distant female voice is heard to say "that was the shoulders...one more push and she's out"

Hunh? Wait a minute..... She just crowned 3 minutes ago, she's pushed twice and the head and shoulders are out??? Did I miss something??? It doesn't work like that! You have to push for a while, grunt more, you know?

"AAAAAAAAAaaarrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"

"It's a girl!!!!!!"

From there Joyce was placed on Connie's belly, she's in tears and so am I. In the next few moments Connie cuts the cord herself and Joyce is officially on her own.

After all is settled down and the refs go to the instant replay (ok so there were no refs and it was Connie viewing the video of the birth) it was figured that from the urge to push to Joyce's entry into the world only 5 minutes and 18 seconds elapsed.

Even though the hospital doesn't allow video of the birth, things happened so fast that no one bothered to worry about a video camera running off to the side! :-D So we've got it all for posterity and I got to see the whole thing in living color via DVD about 10 days later.

Thanks to Mikelle for all the pics, video and all the commentary I was hoping for. I knew I picked the right special person! ;-)

To my wife, whom has been called a 'pioneer woman' (that's a compliment by the way) and who was viewed as a 'good German girl' by my late Nana, who once again went completely natural, no drugs of any kind, induced (that makes the contractions hurt more by the way) and pushed out an 8 pound 11.6 oz beautiful baby girl in holycraprecord time, thank you for doing all that work without me and doing it so damn well! Good job honey. Bravo Zulu! :-D

Lets not do this again. OK? ;-)

And there you have it, my daughter's birth via phone.

The good news is....time IS flying by

Two weeks since my last entry??? Not possible....someone must've messed with my calendar.....

No?

Hmmm....guess it's been 2 weeks then! :-O

So back a few weeks ago there was discussion about me leaving the upscale living (didn't know it was that upscale at the time though) of AJ (that's the base I was at) and taking up a new post as the sole PT provider at camp VA. It was eventually decided that it would happen, it was just a matter of when.

So the happy day to move out of the tents and into a real building came, Sunday 17 Feb. What had been planned as a precision military movement was dashed for the "first come first served" method of military movement. I went from being scheduled to be the first to move in to who knows where in the mass of movement. Yeah. Eventually I get to my new digs, but only after the people in charge of the building find out that I'm only going to be staying there for a night or two then leaving for VA. They didn't like that idea at all...

After a few "high level conversations" it was decided that since I was there with all my stuff, I could stay. So stay I did. I moved into a nice sized little slice of the open bay barracks having been assigned as the guy in charge of the open bay. The perk with that assignment was I got my own slice of the room instead of a bunk mate to share the slice with. :-) Not much to work with mind you, but it was twice as much to work with as anyone else in the room with me. It's good to be the king baby!

Knowing it was short lived, I didn't bother unpacking more than the things I'd be using day to day. So while I was there I made the best use of my ammenities:

3 big screen/flat screen TV's to chose from.
30-40 phones to call home with (for free).
High speed wireless internet.
Movie theatre across the street.
Hot showers 15 feet down the hall and INSIDE the building.
Bathrooms right there too! INSIDE!!!

Good stuff all.

Well, come Monday night I get the word: "How long will it take you to pack up?"

"An hour or so" I say.

"OK, good."

And that was that. No time was set, but the inevidible was closer.

Next morning at 0710, "Hey, did you hear we're leaving at 0730?"

"Um, no."

"You might want to check on it then...."

See there's this other person who was supposedly going to VA as well and we had been sharing info as we got it in an effort to thwart the unbelievably poor communication we were surrounded by.

Moments later I actually got the official word, we're leaving momentarily.

I laughed.

"Um, no, I'm not going anywhere yet. A) I said I'd need an hour to pack up. B) The person who's going to be sliding into my job needed to be trained how to work the computer at the very least, and that was going to take an hour or two as well."

"Oh. Well can you be ready by 0930?"

"No. Maybe 1030 it we're lucky."

"Oh. Ok. Let us know when you're ready."

"Deal."

Come 1010, I was packing my pillow into a sea bag and was 10 seconds away from being done.

Any guesses what happened next?

"Hey doc, never mind, we'll leave tomorrow instead."

Pick any string of 4 letter words having a minimum of 12 words and you've paled in comparison to that which I chose to spout off at that moment. My parents raised me right but sometimes I can get a liiiiiiiiiiiiiitle bit foul mouthed when pushed. I mean really....finish this phrase:

"He swears like a ________"

See what I mean?

Come to find out, it was no one's fault at all and if you're one of those people who believe things happen for a reason, you'll be with me on this next part-

A sand storm was rolling in and the roads had been closed.

If I had answered with "yes sir" and just done my best to get ready and leave instead of doing the right thing by my replacement, we'd've been out on the road when the sand storm rolled in. Thanks, but I think I'll skip a trip in a sand storm and wait until the roads are clear.

Anyway, I decided the rest of the morning was going to be devoted to email and checking to see if the PX had any new games for my PSP. (they didn't)

I finished the afternoon giving more direction to my relpacement, better preparing him for his new job. At least that was a plus. (my cup is 1/2 full my cup is 1/2 full my cup is 1/2 full.....)

So the plan now is to depart at 0730 the next morning.

0715 rolls around and my neighbor (in the next bunk) says through the privacy curtain "hey doc, we're going to push it back to 0800." Cool. I'll get breakfast after all! :-) 0800 rolls around, and me and my moving cohort are standing by with about 300-400 pounds of gear....waiting.

I say "any bets we don't leave until 0930?"

"No way, he's just talking to ******* and will be here in a minute."

"You think so eh?"

"It might be a few minutes, but we'll be outta here by 0830 I'm sure."

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(How'd you like my blog representation of time slowly passing? :-) )

0950 and the vehicle is here and ready to load up us and our gear.

"Ok guys, just one stop and we're off."

Unbefreakingleavable.

So we practice (what am I saying...practice? I've been doing this for nearly 14 years....I'm an expert at...) hurry up and wait.

1030 arrives and we're actually pulling off base and heading toward VA.

yeah

So I get my first sights of Kuwait.

I can't believe people live here on purpose.

Flat, brown, dirty, windy, dusty, littered, construction everywhere, sheep/camels/goats and ferral cats roaming about.

Add to that the drivers who make a concerted effort to top the stupidest drivers in the world and you've got Kuwait. (at least the part I saw)

These drivers are straight up ignorant. We were told that the greatest risk we'll have while here is driving. More people are killed in car accidents than in convoys to Iraq. Speed limits are merely suggestions. Lane markers are for wusses. Breakdown lane/shoulder/ditches are for driving in the wrong direction. Crossing the median and 3 lanes of traffic going 140 kph (about 90 mph) so you don't have to wait for an exit is common. And don't forget the camels/goats/sheep and cats. Christ, this place doesn't have wild or loose animals wandering about, they have road kill in waiting. Add to that passing way too close to oncoming traffic to the point that said oncomming traffic has to pull into the breakdown lane/shoulder/ditch, and this is irregardless of hills or curves mind you, and you've got thousands and thousands of people just biding their time waiting to smash into something/someone. They're not bad drivers. Bad drivers turn without using a signal. Bad drivers make lane changes without checking their blind spot. Bad drivers talk on cell phones (without hands free features) when they should be paying attention to the road. These guys are straight up ignorant.

I'm stepping off my soap box now. Thank you for your attention. ;-)

So I make it to VA in one piece only having been shocked by the traffic about 4 times.

OH! Wait!!! I forgot something!!!!

Before we left AJ, I had my first opportunity to carry a side arm! :-D It's the rule here. Leave base only with a gun. AND bullets! :-D But you can't put the bullets into the gun.... :-(
So knowing that, you KNOW what I was thinking on that drive......now don't you? :-D :-D

2 magazines
15 bullets in each magazine
30 less ignorant bastards endangering my life on the road! :-D Sounds like a plan to me!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately I didn't fill out the right paperwork so I only got to imagine it. Yes I'm kidding....there's no such paperwork. And no, that doesn't mean ther is no paperwork to fill out to get permission to whack ingoramouses (that can't be spelled right! ig-nor-aim-us-es), that means we're not allowed to whack....them....at all. If I were in charge....... :-D :-O

Ok, back to the story------

I make it to my destination. See, I had heard nothing but great things about VA. I knew the 3 officers that were here and really like each of them. One I was stationed with at my very first duty station 14 years ago, one I work with back in MD, and the other one I had some dealings with while we were in Pendleton so I got to know her some and she's really cool! With that and the fact that I got a real room to stay in instead of an open bay barracks which I ohly had to share with one person (normally the room housed 4 with it's 2 bunk beds) and I was really looking forward to getting here and getting settled in.

I bet y'all are laughing right now aren't you? I can hear you. "You believed what?" "When are you going to learn?" "Ha ha! Got you again didn't they?" "Sucker!"

U-huh...I hear you....

My room? I'm the third in the room.
Amenities? Um, no.
High speed wireless internet? Well, compared to the connection I had on base in Annapolis it's high speed....
Movie theatre? 20 chairs and TV. They do show new release DVD's though. Invincible was playing...
Gym? Yup...it's....right....um....over there....oops no...that's not it....it's around here somewhere.
Chow hall? Take a right out of the building, walk past the fire station, when you get to the 72nd pile of sand take a right and watch for the cement Jersey barrier that has the dirt on it. The chow hall's (hehehe..I just accidentally typed chow hell! LOL!) a quarter mile on the other side of it.
Showers? Instead of walking on the chow hall side of he fire station, walk on the other side and look for a box with a set of stairs leading to it. If you get there before the Army, you even get warm water!
Toilet? 3 to choose from including one with lights and all with in 150 feet.
Phones? 2.
TV? 1.

Now on to the good stuff.

Now that I'm done with that, lets compare work.

AJ: 0730-1130 (lunch) 1300-1530. Sat 0730-1130.
VA: 0730-1130 (lunch) 1300-1700. Sat 0730-1130 (lunch) 1300-1600.

Duty in AJ: once a month.
Duty in VA: once a week plus semi-regular chow hall watch counting the number of people who come through one of the 2 doors.

So now you can see my upside. :-)

Thank the gods that I've found someone to play The Spoils with.

I'm not quite done yet, but I'm done for now.

For those of you who pray....hit me with a few ok? ;-) Thanks! :-)

Tune in next time (not sure when that'll be but....) for:

The clinic that looks like a double wide trailer
Estim machine made by Zenith
The Haji DVD store
and best of all:

Baby by phone

This one could be called "Sand Fog" or "Watching footprints dissappear". Which do you like better?

Either way, both titles are referring to the dust storm we've got going on now. Visibility is somewhere around 400 feet and it pretty much resembles fog. But, it's sand.

Around 8:30 this morning I went over to the next building to excrete my first bottle of water, and noticed that instead of being able to see for what might be miles over the flat terrain over here, I could only see about 2 blocks away, then it looked like a haze was swallowing up the further buildings. Hmm. So this is a dust storm.

About 3o minutes later, looking out my window I noticed that the building that's about 150 feet away was only partially visble. Damn. Everything on the other side of the building is swallowed by the sand.

By 10:00 the dust/sand was finding its way into our building. We could taste and smell it. Oh joy. It's outside...inside, and I'm gettin a headache.

Then lunch time rolled around. Well there's no way I'm not eating, so off I go. Things had changed a bit out there; wind. Holding onto my cover, squinting to the point of closing my eyes completely (open for 1 second, walk 10 feet, open again, repeat) I made it to the 1/2 way point of reaching the chow hall. Here I'm between 2 rows of buildings that run parrallel to the wind. What does this create? A huge wind tunnel. I'm talking lean forward, point your face straight at the ground, open your eyes and look up long enough to make sure you weren't going to run into anyone/thing, and drive on.

Now since everywhere you walk here you're walking on sand (95% at least), everyone leaves foot prints. But today, in the wind tunnel, there were no foot prints to be seen. When someone walked past me and I looked up to ensure I wasn't going to run into someone behind them, I noticed it, no foot prints. I really wanted to turn around and see if my foot prints were dissappearing behind me, but I thought better of it as my stomach was telling me to hurry up.

So, that's a dust storm.

Yes, a DUST storm. Not a SAND storm. I hear sand storms are rare here so I'll keep my fingers crossed that we miss out on seeing one first hand. I've seen video of them though and if you're of the mind to, I'm sure you can google a video of one. The one I saw showed an orange/brown cloud coming closer and closer until everything turned brown like a sepia picture, darker and darker, until it turned into night. So much sand that it blocks out the sun.

Sound like fun to you?

I think I'll leave the fast pass for someone else...

Some paint and chip paint, some strip and wax (the floor you perv!) I get to sweep the desert

Yes sports fans, it's true. Monday mornings everyone gets together for a FOD walk and general clean up around camp. This includes, much to my surprise and astonishment, sweeping the ground. Not that the 10-50mph winds don't do that enough, or the rotor wash from the helos for that matter, so us lucky folk get to man the brooms and shovels to put that nasty sand back in the desert where it belongs, away from our....tents.

Can you imagin the look on 30 people's faces when we were told to start sweeping sand in the desert? Or a collective "What did she say? She didn't say.....did she?" Yup, she did.

Well that was monday, and a great start to the week it was!

Now remember back when I mentioned surf-n-turf Wednesdays? Well it's already here again and this time I visited the galley that had lobster tails instead of crab legs. Now, being from New England I've had lobster more times than any 50 people you know who aren't from New England. I've cooked it...bake stuffed it...boiled it. I've had lobster pie, lobster rolls, lobster newburg and lobster in various mixed seafood dishes as well. Lobster, no matter how you slice it, is yuuuuuuuuummy and something to look forward to.

I was 3rd in line waiting outside the door when they opened the place. The 2 in front of me didn't seem to care that much that lobster and porterhouse steaks were waiting for me. They were chitt-chatting and casually picked up their tray and silverware as I exercised self control to not tell them (they outranked me) to get a move on damn it, I'm hungry and lobster and porterhouses are waiting for me.

A very long 6 or 7 seconds later I was withing nose shot of supper. MMMMMMMMMmmmmmm!!!!

Then I could see the steak, somthered in onions and mushrooms, grilled just a bit longer than it needed to be, but looked pretty not bad compared to last week's T-bone. And what was right next to the steaks? A pan about 12" x 24" rounded up with lobster tails. The shells were split so the slightly seasoned meet was jumping right out at me practically calling my name.

"One of each please."

And the nice middle eastern man put one of each on a plate for me.

The steak actually fell apart a little bit and revealed a juicy interior that actually had small parts with color one shade closer to pink than brown! OMG!!!! Not quite medium (freaking well done by my grilling standards quite frankly, but I digress) but not the cooked to death steak I had last week. Oh happy day!

I added some seasoned green beans (seasoned with....bacon...don't ask, I didn't) to my plate and scurried off to one of the hundred or so unoccupied tables.

Without hesitation I forked my lobster and whacked off a chunk. Put the scrumptions morsel into my mouth and found out that you actually can #^()*&^ up a lobster!

What the hell did these no-brained (bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep) SOB's do to my lobster?!?!

I was crushed.

I will not forgive them.

I think I need to learn some of the local dilect so I can...ehem...properly express myself next time. What do you think? :-O

I ate it of course, because hey, I'm in the middle of a freaking desert ya know.

The steak was passible.

What do you mean salsa night has nothing to do with food?

Well as I suspected, I've settled into a boring routine. Go to work, eat a so-so lunch (of the 3 galleys that are available the one near work is regarded as the least appetizing..yeah) work some more, call home, eat a so-so supper (this allows time for digestion so I can hit the gym on a non-full stomach) work out, shower, go to bed/watch something I've got recorded on the lap top or PSP.

All was going according to plan last night (Friday) until I got out of the shower and back to my luxury tent (at near 9PM) ready for bed.

"Get dressed we're going to zone 1 for salsa night" one of my tent mates says.

"No thanks I'm going to bed."

Blah blah blah...peer pressure...blah blah blah..."c'mon team player"...

Crap, looks like I'm not going to bed IAW my SOP.

Once we get there, there are 200-250 people (mostly watching) crammed into a room the size of an average basement. After realizing that this is no fut, we make our way to the pool tables in another part of the building. In 3 games I end up comming in second repeatedly. ;-)

On our way out we check in on the crowd and it has swolen to an even larger amount and the dance flor is PACKED with sweaty people who look like they just got out of the gym. With that, the temp in the room was probably 15-20 degrees higher than the rest of the building. Not my cup of tea!

Luckily outside it was nice and cool, just right for jeans and a t-shirt.

The only other thing to report is that I may be moving to one of the outlying bases since we're short in my specialty and one of the areas is completely without my type of service. But since it's only in the talking phase (something I brought up the day after we arrived...pointing out that we were short a tech and had a spare here filling another billet so it all made sense to me, but did anyone care at that time? Of course not. Silly me, you think I'd know better by now. :-O) who knows.

Tomorrow is my first official day off in 4 weeks, so maybe I'll have something fun to talk about after that.

Stay tuned!

Wednesday = surf-n-turff

I had heard about it months before I got here. Wednesday is the day everyone has supper at the galley. Well, tonight I got to see just what it was all about.

Grilled T-bone steak, fried shrimp the size of cocktail shrimp, Alaskan king crab legs and New England clam chowder.

The crab legs were surprisingly good. Since there's no way that they weren't frozen I thought they'd be lousy. Wrong! Not bad at all! :-) Didn't go with the shrimp since I'm avoiding fried foods thanks to my last cholesterol check being just under 250.

The T-bone on the other hand...poor defenseles T-bone...got the crap cooked out of it. The flavor was really good and it was as tender as a tenderloin but the only way they're cooked is well and dry. Poor steak never had a chance.

As far a work goes, I had my first full day today and got to see just how things have been run. Let's just say that I'm fairly confident that I'm going to look really really good to those that matter once the change over is complete. Since I can'at know who's reading this, I'll refrain from talking bad about anyone.

It also looks like I'm the most senior person in the directorate (under the Chief that is) so I'm probably looking at a greater leadership position than I bargained for. And if my oppinions of some pan out, I'll have yet another great opportunity to show those that matter that I've got all my stuff in one sock...if ya know what I mean!

Lastly, I've even got 2 straight days in the gym so far and yoga to try tomorrow! With all this food around, and good food at that, I might have to start 2-a-days. :-O

TTFN

Finding my way around

So far, so good. I'm done my indoctrination and have started to get acquainted with my new work space. It's small but adequate. I'll have one other tech with me and one therapist. It appears that they see about 2 patients every hour which is more than manageable by just one person so it looks like I'll either have plenty of time for one-on-one with my patients or time to tackle other things.

Up near where I'll be residing I've found there is a movie theatre that shows movies that are about 2-3 months old, so no worse than the good old Strand back home. And we don't have to pay either! :-)

Not only that, but twice a week I can get back into yoga (try not to be too jealous dear!). I'm not sure what kind it is yet, but if it's anything like I did in Oki, I'm there.

So until I get to move into the new diggs some time next week, I probably won't have much to report. But of course if anything note worthy does happen I'll be sure to let y'all know.

bbdt bbdt bbdt, that's all folks!

My final destination...sort of. The base isn't in this picture but this is Kuwait City at least.

Assuming my camera was pointing in the right direction, that's Bagdahd down there.

100's of triple bunks in what used to be a baggage claim area.

What did you notice first about this sign??????????

Guess I forgot to take any pictures of our stop in Ireland, but this is the holding area in Germany.

Standing by to stand by before we leave California.

I know this is a lousy picture, but hey...it was 0300...no light! If you can't make it out, this is 500+ sea bags waiting for the 18 wheeler.

I have a gun and it's loaded! Look out cardboard, your days are numbered!

Plastic weight loss suit be damned! Try one of these for a while. But hey, if it keeps me from dying a horrible death by means of chemical/biological/radiological warfare, I'll suffer!