Limited release?

There has been this movie I’ve been waiting to come out for 5 months or so called Pan’s Labyrinth. It has a 99 percent with the critics and 97 with the users at RottenTomatoes.com (which is unheard of high), I saw the previews right after I returned from my past Iraqi adventure and my wife and I both said, yup, we have to see that movie.So the movie comes out yesterday and living in a fairly

Dog Beach!

What a cool idea, a beach where you can take your dog and let him or her run free. San Diego has it’s own Dog Beach at the end of Ocean Beach. We did a trip down there today and let Gatsby run free.Of course you know how I am with new mediums, here’s the video and here are the pictures.

I’m a Big Dork

For the first time in years, I’ve decided to spend this Christmas at my home and not drive to the ends of the universe to visit family (I must be getting old) so I gathered some of my local buddies and invited them over for some free grub on Christmas day. Last week I went out and bought a ham and some fixings and Josh got a turkey he was going to fry (yes, we’re going to have leftovers for weeks

Okay one more post before Christmas

My wife is coming home tonight from a trip to north California and I've been posting videos on YouTube all day (and unpacking). I made this video when I our helicopter broke down in 2004 and we were forced to sleep in the aircraft, just letting everyone back home have a taste of what life was like in Iraq (plus it will give you, my readers a face and a voice to go with the blog).I've also

Dodger Dog

My wife’s best friend passed away this past fall and this is a video clip I took of him last Christmas when we had Christmas dinner with her family, great dog even though he didn’t get along with trains or me kissing his girl.Still unpacking boxes into our new place, Christmas tree was the first thing to go up and internet put in. There are many many books that are looking for homes, eventually

Took the dog to the beach

for the first time, I love this picture of my wife, she calls it her viking picture.Moving into our new place and still unloading boxes, I didn’t realize that I had 10 thousand pounds of stuff. Books, tool box, fridge and washer and dryer do add up, sheesh, I need to trade some books in.

300?

I know where I'll be this night

Moving (physically!)

My wife, Gatsby and myself are about to move into off-base military housing, not because we don’t like our current house or our roommate but because we would like a place where we can have a dog. We’ve actually been planning it for a while and our number has finally arrived.The best thing about moving into the new civilian managed housing in San Diego from a rental? They move you! Yes, they will

UFC at Miramar Today

And I can’t go because I’m covering the rifle range. This is the first-ever live UFC event to take place on a military installation. Wandering around base over the last few weeks, you would run these fighters at the gyms, clubs and individual units. It’s a great show of the support these athletes are putting up for us and we do appreciate it much.Watch it on Spike TV right now.

Long ago in a galaxy far far away

I was about to depart MCAS El Toro and head up to NWS China Lake and the guys I worked with wanted one final chance to get back at the jokes I’ve pulled on all of them over the years. Back in the day, we were a bunch of party animals (I’m too old to hang these days) and on this final night of me being in Irvine we started playing a bunch of drinking games. Someone came up with this idea of doing

Corpsman at the bottom of the barral

This info came from Corpsman.com, thanks Chief CroneDid you know that HM advancement rates were in the bottom 6 of all rates this last cycle? Here is the gouge on why:The issue is the POM 08 EPA (Enlisted Program Authorization). Each new EPA has 5 Fys in it. That EPA was approved just before we did the advancement numbers. In the new EPA was a reduction of 840 HM billets.(stay with me, this can

A Doc and a group of Marines sneak out to see a girl in Iraq

This story has it all, a young sailor who breaks laundry list of rules, he talks his Marine buddies into providing cover for the endeavor. Each week, wearing night-vision goggles, him and a dozen other Marines would drive over to this young girls neighborhood, park a mile away and take a different route to her house. The Marines would provide cover while this young Corpsman, an HM2 Chris Walsh,

New family member

My wife and I woke this morning and drove up to the PetSmart store up in Lake Elsinore to take a look at a wire hair fox terrier mix mutt who we saw online and once we met him the rest was history. We’ve spent most of the day inviting Gatsby into our family and seeing how he would handle life in general.Stats, he’s a ear and a half old, right at 25 pounds, looks like the dragon from the movie the

Red2Alpha is back

I don’t know why you are even here reading my blog, Red2Alpha is back. He stopped blogging a while back due to OPSEC concerns. I admit that I’m just a hack, most of my blog is made up words I just throw up, every once in while I do a post that might touch someone but most days my words are just place settings letting everyone know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth.On the other hand,

Ack, 3000 miles in 2 weeks

Pictures are here of the second half of the trip. I feel like that family in that Chase bank commercial, it's very good to be home in my own bed. We had a great time but both of us are getting too old for these endless road trips. It's time to buy stock in Southwest.Other news, we're getting ready to move into our new house and soon thereafter become the parents of a new dog.Below is a picture of

Gear Adrift

There’s a new website poking fun at the Navy from the inside called GearAdrift. I guess you could say this is our version of the Air Forces Chairforce only most of the stuff isn’t written by a cranky Airman called Joe the Fat.Check them out, I think the site has some good potential.Plus check out their plans on refurbishing our carrier fleet!

Hitting P-town

I’m just about to finish off my Prescott leg of my trip. A bunch of really old friends from high school had a get together at one of the bars here Coyote Joe’s. Being the smarter older versions of ourselves, not as prone to making the same mistakes of our youth, we decided to time our get together at the beginning of happy hour.Back in the day, I was known for being somewhat of a party animal but

In case anyone was looking for me

I'm vacationing in Prescott Arizona with my wife so don't expect me to post much from out here. Oh, hi visitors from Blackfive, Murdoc Online and Defense Tech, thanks for the ping guys! No, don't flinch when I meet you in person, I won't throw a camel spider on you.

Untold Stories of Kindness

A milblogging buddy, Combat Doc and author of the blog A Candle in the Dark, had an essay he wrote and read aired by NPR’s “This I Believe”. Now you might not think that this is a big deal but Bill Gates, David Copperfield, Tony Hawk and Albert Einstein (yes it's been around for a while) have all read pieces placed on this program.The pieces are sharp biting and whatever their view are, honest.

Marines Vs Camel Spiders

Or what Doc did in Iraq when he was bored.My original post about this was called "When stress comes calling" I just couldn't edit the video in country because it was filmed in a Quicktime format. Enjoy!!A little back story behind me and bugs, back in 6th grade I got the tar beat out of me by two girls named Dian and Lynn for throwing beetles on them. Needless to say, I didn't learn my lesson,

I'm actually part of that 6 percent

This is a poll that Glenn Reynolds ran on Instapundit on the 6th of November,Selection VotesRepublicans win both houses 61% 3,850Republicans win one, Democrats the other 34% 2,145Democrats win both houses 6% 3496,344 votes totalIt gives you sort of a demographic about his readers, I don't think he agreed with them though, I was just reading the signs. Lots of small issues over the last few weeks,

Whoop, there it is...

I made a trip to the ER last week and it wasn’t for work. My wife was having coughing fits and after pouring my considerable medicine cabinet full of anti-coughing drugs into her without any improvement, I know we had to do something more. After each coughing fit, she had a harder and harder time catching her breath and the coughing started to get a seal barking like quality so I did what any

Walking the Line

Watching the wave of political attack ads showing up, it makes me glad to have mailed in my ballot weeks ago so I didn’t let any of these angry people sway my vote one way or another. Being a middle of the road guy and seeing everything around me become polarized it’s hard to find a middle ground without stepping on the toes of everybody I know. Following the flock of the left or right doesn’t

Charles Simonyi

Is the next guy in the pipeline for going to the International Space Station. He retired from Microsoft a couple of years ago but if you don’t recognize the name, he oversaw the development of Microsoft Word and Excel. He’s a huge aircraft buff, I had the pleasure of meeting him when I was working the Aviation Medicine Department in China Lake back in the late 90’s. He had come in for a select

Knott's Berry Farm Veteran's Tribute Nov 1-23

I'm making up for some lost blogging time as you may see, one of the best military deals on the west coast. This is from their website. Check out the Silver Bullet, no, not the one I give silly, the ride at Knotts! (if you don't know what a silver bullet is, ask any Sailor or Marine)Veteran's Tribute - Nov. 1 - 23 Knott's annual tribute to our Military, past and present. FREE admission for

A picture worth a thousand words

Todd Heisler The Rocky Mountain NewsThe night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of 'Cat,' and one of the Marines asked if she wanted

Medical needs more bodies

I’ve been watching on how the military I beefing up the numbers of people to handle the wartime workload. On paper it’s looking good, everybody but the Navy Reserve is meeting their recruiting goals (they’re 1500 down). Being at the tip of the spear and going into harms way the way, the Army and Marine Corps are staying ahead. They’re offering huge bonus’s to their service people and bonus’s for

A week out

I was driving to work the other day and it hit me that I was home. No more port-a-johns, being able to walk around the house without shower shoes or for that matter clothes and waking up to a kiss. There is so much color and movement, everything is eye candy that I’m sure will fall back into a normal tone in a couple of weeks but I’m taking advantage of the wonder that my eyes see.Taking some

Back in San Diego

Made a very smooth trip out of the middle east, I must be getting used to flying around the world. I’m at home safe and sound but I can’t come out and play because I’m grounded to my room. Thanks for reading and the support, I’ll be back up for air in a couple of days. Have a great weekend!

Kuwaiting take 6

For the sixth time in my life, I am Kuwaiting, it's sort of like the Purgatory you go through before going back into real life. Just about every time I come to Kuwait, it seems like I'm going to a new base and they say the base I was at last time was closed down. This new base as usual, is just another plot of sand in the middle of vast desert. I'm not sure there is a rhyme or reason for picking

Where I stand with Google

Just a brief post about some of the search terms people used to find their way here."sailors deployed in iraq not calling home" I'm somehow number one, yet I call home every day."soldiers cheating while deployed to iraq" I'm also number one yet if you know me, I worship the ground my bride walks on.I'm number 15 for "spider video", ok, I can see that."Navy Iraq" I'm number 7, wow, do you know how

Quarter of a Mil goes too..

Somebody from Corpus Christi Texas who visited me for a grand total of "0" seconds!

One of my Marines wrote this Poem

I clutch to your every resonance as though they were your last.You continue to utter the exact words my soul desires.I crave more, I want more!Some instances I feel remorse. I feel more than regret.The distance frustrates me.I must stay focused, I tell myself.I worry, can you handle it? A temporary leash applied at will.A letter size paper, 4 bold digits above. Your voice, secluded to a telephone

Quarter of a million this week

I started my blog back in January of 2004 days before I left on my first trip to Iraq, I was in a different relationship and different unit.  I remember those first days in Kuwait thinking to myself, what in the world have I got myself into?  Almost everybody going forward from Kuwait had no clue, good or bad what the next 6 months to a year would hold for them or even if they would make it

Safe back at my home away from home

With Ramadan going on, most of the fun trips off base have been canceled and there are hordes of upset troops but not I.   I was perfectly happy staying on base, I would have liked the deep sea fishing trip but alas, I'll have to wait till some later date back in the states.  Instead I went on an orgy of surfing the internet and phone calls home.   I went around MySpace posting messages strange

The sound of sadness

I was talking on the phones at the USO to my wife and the guy next to me started sobbing uncontrollably. I didn’t say anything to her but for the final 5 minutes of our conversation, the sound of his hushed sobs were ringing in my ears, what could cause this grown man so much sadness? Earlier I heard him talking about making command decisions, (I wasn’t trying to overhear couldn’t help catching a

Go Navy

The real reason I joined the Navy and not the Army (let my wife know that I was just kidding about these reasons though!) I give you the best Navy Recruiting ad ever made (and if my recruiter had used this, he would have been the biggest lier in the world). I have learned some "Mad Skillz" though.(my dad sent this to me of all people)

Turning up a cold one:)

You wouldn’t believe what happened to me last night….I went to a bar and had a beer and today, I’m blogging from my own laptop! Why would this be? No I’m not at home yet but that date isn’t too far off. I’m on R&R for the next couple of days! 3 beer limit per night, there’s a nice pool here, Chili’s and a lot of military people wearing civilian clothes acting like they didn’t just come from a

What’s happening October 6th?

It's a new season of Battlestar Galactica!  I'm not a fan of unintelligent TV.   Shows that make it to primetime should have well developed plots, smart characters and a storyline that sweeps you away.  Battlestar does a pretty good job at covering all of those points and at the same time the science works logically and is well thought out.   The show comes with its own world view and mythology

A flavor to ask...

Go and visit my favorite Army Wife Toddler Mom and push her over a 100,000 visitors. All it takes is a click of your mouse to put a smile on your face. If the 100,000th comes from me, I think she should buy me a beer at the Milblog meet up next year.

Torture and why I believe we shouldn’t do it

   Not that terrorists don't deserve to be drawn and quartered but as Americans, we can't afford to give up the higher ground.   Every time we press the standards of the Geneva Conventions or stretch the rules of how we can treat prisoners, we lose more of the moral high ground to tell someone else, "Hey, what you are doing is wrong!"        Looking at the view of torture from a purely

Myspace is taking over the world

   Yes, even I am a myspace user, I've noticed it as more of an enlisted phenomenon then an officer one, while almost all of our junior enlisted guys use it, I only know of 2 of our officers and they are fairly infrequent about it, one is described as a single computer geek and other officers think of him an aberration.  Walk around the internet café on any given day (or night) and you'll find 3

Cranky Old People

After 3 trips out here and you start to notice trends, what works and the people who make a difference. There's always someone who goes beyond what is expected of them, doing things that aren't asked has that shining moment when they're so pissed or some subject urks them so much that they have to fix it. I had my moment when I put all of the books in order. There's another guy in our squadron

5 years

I was living in Paulden a very small town 30 miles north of Prescott Arizona on a 5 acre plot with 4 goats, 3 dogs, a garden and a pile of ducks and chickens.   On that particular morning like others, I had woken up before the sunrise, grabbed a shower and was off to work.  I turned on the radio which was tuned to NPR and had to turn down the volume because people were screaming into the mic, I

Ethics

I've been cranky all week and there really isn't a reason for it. Two great weights are off of my shoulders, my advancement exam and the FMF Warfare board but I still feel like there's weight on me. Earthquake weather? I feel an anticipation that something is about to happen or I could be just going stir crazy from being away from my lovely bride so long which sounds reasonable too.

The Blog of War

Last year Matt from the milblog Blackfive sent out a mass email to all of his fellow Milbloggers asking who would be willing take part in an effort to a gathering of our best blog posts in a single book called The Blog of War (it just went on sale at Amazon where you can search the inside of the book, type my name in to find what I wrote). After gathering these posts up and spending some

Care package thanks!

Just wanted to say a big word of thanks to Chris Huse of Onida South Dakota purchasing the first season of Doctor Who off of my Amazon Wish List, I've been wanting to finish the rest of the season for a while, thanks and Pat C, Debbie S and Debbie D from Operation Care Package for the great care packages they sent to Sherwin, Chris and I, thanks again!

I'm not the only medical person of my squadron who made the news

My boss also had a story written about her. Not much going on over here, studying for my advancement test and dreaming of coming home. After spending months on end looking at just brown, it's nice to return to the techno color of my wife. I'm living every geeks dream, married my very own Anime Girl. Haven't regretted it for a second, not much longer hun!Oh here's a picture of my team trying to

5444

   Twice a year, the powers that be in the Navy come out with a Bibliography of the material you need to study for the bi annual advancement test to get promoted to the next rank up the ladder.  Each bib is specific towards the rate rank of test you are taking and tells you exactly what information you need to study, chapters, instructions, workbooks, manuals, etc.      The exam I'm currently

How those bombing asshats affected my travel plans this year

1. No more bottles liquor or perfume from the duty free shops. I wonder how many billions the people who run the duty free shops are going to loose? Not that I've been a big buyer of either but I'm sure there are people out there that are. That whole line of business is going to go bankrupt, thanks for nothing Osama! 2. Not being able to brush my teeth after a twenty four hour flight. Yuck! This

Information Psychosis

It's a term I picked up out of a Roger MacBride Allen book that was written in 1990 before half of the globe was plugged into the internet.  It's a term for people who had become overwhelmed by information, I'm sure I'm not the only person out there suffering from this?  As bloggers we get online and spend hours just gathering information that we don't even use.  We each have a list of websites

Another one bites the dust..

I just learned that one of my favorite authors David Gemmell has passed away, he wrote Legend and Waylander and speaking as a guy who reads quite a bit, every word he wrote was quality stuff.  Much of his work took place in different series, colorful detailed worlds that blossomed under his pen.  Everything that Dave has written is on my shelves and he'll definitely be missed.  While he does

Excuse me while I fall into this book

I'm taking a time out from everything to dive into Terry Goodkind's Phantom which just arrived fresh from Amazon directly into my grubby little hands along with a copy of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Which was on sale in hard back which brought my grand total to 25.96 which makes it eligible for free shipping and handling! Yay! Took 9 days to from the time I ordered it till it arrived. Not to bad

Walks in the desert

Today is our one year anniversary, thanks hun for making this year one of the best years of my life.  Looking forward to many more anniversaries in the future, hopefully all of them in your arms.  Our exchange is well stocked on anniversary cards to give to husbands but not a single one for a wife so I hope you like the little gift I had sent to you in it's place.   I'm the luckiest guy in the

When I'm on the other side of the globe

Everything strange and interesting happens on the opposite side of the world of where ever I'm at.  When I went to Thailand in January of 2005, all that everyone back home could talk about was these horrible storms and floods washing everything away, when I get home it's warm and dry, the grass is green and the sun is shining.  Now on this trip, hundred degree temperatures stretch all the way

How to get rid of fear by Sean Dustman

I grew up in Prescott Arizona, if you don't know much about Arizona, you might think that the entire state is one big desert. The image you might get in your mind could look like all of those Wiley E Coyote cartoons (there are places like that) but not where I'm from. The northern part of the state is mostly made up of pine forests, grass plains and mountains. Prescott itself is located at a

Grilled cheese and tomato soup

Blessed grilled cheese and tomato soup, one of the staples of my diet back home.  I have a strange weakness for dipping grilled cheese sandwiches into tomato soup and they had both of them today at the chow hall.   Which made me a little sad because it reminded me of home, it's the small things that touch you out here and that also make you happy, clean sheets, cold air conditioning and a good

War down the street

Is it making you guys back home as edgy as it is making us to read the news about the what's happening in the middle east? Not Iraq, we've been pushed back to page 3. Being deployed out here and reading about the largest Israeli offensive to happen in 24 years taking place only a couple of hundred miles from where I'm sitting is a bit disturbing considering the powder keg that we are sitting

I miss good food

Another dry and dusty day in the desert, we're in another lull of injuries.  The entire squadron had a day off Monday and we threw a bar-b-q where there were steaks that were actually quite tasty unlike the boiled pieces of meat that share the appearance and steak name that they serve at the chow hall but really taste and feel like leather.   It takes a fare bit of skill to make a good piece of

Rip Acidman

I've been a follower of Rob Smith for a couple of years, he's one of the grandfather bloggers, a sure sign that I haven't been blogsurfing is I missed his death, godspeed Rob, you left your mark on all of us.

Boring life..

I haven't been blogging much because there's not really much going on in my life.  Much of what I'm doing these days is routine, taking care of the illnesses and so far, minor injuries of a helicopter squadron.  I'm not flying CASEVAC (casualty evacuation) so all of the war stories I experience are either second hand or through CNN.   We have had some broken bones, not of a serious nature. 

Tito, RIP

I’ve had camel spider we have named Tito secreted away in our back room, living in a terrarium for the past month (the room is a converted bathroom that smells like swamp gas, no one goes in there unless they have to). Usually camel spiders don’t survive long in captivity according to my prior experiences and what I’ve read on the internet. For a month, he’s eaten everything that the night crew

Drill

   It went like this, I was sitting in my office typing up a report, thinking, "boy, I am sure tired and I really need to pee" when a Marine ran into the office screaming, "Someone fell off the aircraft and is unconscious!" in a very panicked tone of voice.  I responded with the good old, "Oh shit!" and grabbed my bag and a stretcher and ran out of the office, on the way out I yelled into

Rocks and water bottles

A couple of months ago my unit got a bright idea to string camo netting over the port-a-johns to keep them out of the direct sunlight making them a few degrees cooler inside.  It actually works.   Earlier today, I was doing my business in one of them and a prankster Marine noticed me going in there and started throwing rocks at the door to make me jump.  After all of the time I've had pranks

A sample of the letters my wife has sent

and no, she's not going to post what I write in them! At least not with my name attached to them (heh).

I’ve lost my Muse

I've realized that I'm a night time writer, all of the thoughts of the day run through my head right before I go bed.  Reading a post on another blog (Anti-girl's, she's on MySpace) I knew what my problem was, I was typing most of my writing before I went to bed.  My body does a flush of everything that I thought about and before I started blogging, I would lie in bed tossing and turning each

Letters Home

Everyday that my unit has received mail in Iraq, I would usually get a letter from my wife, sometimes 2 or 3, our mail out here isn't exactly regular but you can count on getting mail at least 4 days out of a given week. She has also been sending a care package or two each week filled with stuff that I needed but had not thought about till I opened the box, then we all would think, oh yeah, why

06-06-06

Summer has finally arrived to this great sand box. Our thermometer showed 127 a few minutes ago, it's in the 140's out on the flight line. For you folk back home, imagine a blow dryer turned over your whole body. At least it's not humid; you body sweats and the evaporation cools you off somewhat, that is if you're drinking enough water. I have no reason to complain, I'm not working on the

Memorial Day was just another day

I was going to do a post for Memorial Day but our internet out here has been acting up so here I am a day late and a dollar short. Back in the states, Memorial Day weekend meant a 96 (4 day weekend) where everybody would either head out of town and have a good time someplace with their friends and family, good times to be had for all. Being in the military, one of our defense mechanisms for

I'm the featured Milblogger of the week

at milblogging.com. Thanks JP!

Advice for Iraq (update)

Each year I do an update on this list, so this is my current version with new things added as technology gets more advanced. This list is geared towards the RAMF guy. If I were in the front lines living out of a bag, I wouldn't be carrying around a 10th of this gear. This is just general advice.You don't know how much you miss music till all you hear is the local stuff all the time (sounds

Support

I wanted to say a few words of thanks to the people who have been sending me out some wonderful care packages:First person on the list is my wonderful wife, I've got a hand written letter from her almost daily and an email, numerous post cards and all sorts of care package goodies that I didn't even think I needed till it arrived in the mail. I sometimes have a hard time believing my good

When stress comes calling...

I really didn't have a reason to be feeling stress, yes it has been a little busier and we're at the 1/3 mark in the deployment. Too much work and not enough play must have been adding up. So tonight when I walked outside of my office and saw the dead camel spider sitting on the ground. A light bulb blazed to life in my head and I swear I heard a devil giggling in my ear. I had found my

Personal Data of 26.5M Veterans Stolen

Anybody following this story? Very scary stuff.

when it rains..

I'm still putting together a thank you post for all of the care packages I've received but I wanted to say a few words about safety. If you're a civilian, you wouldn't believe the levels we go to concerning safety programs. We have rules about everything, get on an aircraft you have to wear a cranial and hearing protection, helmet while riding bikes (good idea), every vehicle out here looks

I've posted pictures

Since I'm slacking this week on my wordsmith skills, I'll use my camera instead, pictures are over here.

Milbloggers Live

Sorry about the lack of posting but I've actually been a bit busy taking courses online and working on a warfare device that I've been slacking off. But enough of me, the great milblog fathers have come together to do a group blog called Milblogs (imagine that!), none of us are quitting our day jobs but we're using this as a forum to toss ideas back and fourth. I've had the honor of being of

Camel spiders, dust storms and acts of god

The camel spiders and scorpions are coming out, every night you can hear cheering coming from one of the maintaince shops as they put their latest contender into battle. You can preach the dangers of playing with poisonous insects but boys will be boys. The scene of Jarhead where they’re fighting scorpions? It’s been relived every night in multiple units out here and probably has back into

Labor of Love

We’ve been at this base a little over 3 years in some form or another and each unit to roll through here has left books behind. Fast forward to the present, our unit has a couple thousand books spread out through a couple different buildings on stacked 3 deep on shelves and in boxes.Being the reader that I am, it was driving me nuts so I finally got off of my rear and did something about

Dead Like Me?

Being the bad influence I am, I've got two of my coworkers addicted to the Showtime series Dead Like Me, they can't get enough of it. I have yet to tell them that it only goes for 2 seasons before being taken away by some evil reapers and sent to dead TV land. By the way, thank you hun and Lee for hooking me on the series, Sherwin and Stacey thank you too, I haven't started working on Chris

Another day in Paradise

First month is over with and most our the bugs have been shaken out. My medical team is all set on their schedule and life doesn’t seem all that bad. I’m working a swing shift so I never get to seem my room with the lights on. My rack is a cave covered with poncho liners that lets in no light (and hopefully bugs too). It has it’s good points and bad, I’m off everyone else’s schedule so I never

Rage against the Machine

Karma must have a strange balance, with all of the good things happening in my life there is also the bad. Since I've gotten out here, all sorts of electronic equipment found an excuse to die in my presence. First to go was my work thumb drive which survived less then 24 hours in my office. Came in to work one morning and the computer wouldn't read it, it said 0 bites available and wouldn't

Lucky charms and handling the heat

Throughout the history of wars, soldiers have gone in to battle carrying something on their person to bring them luck. Everyone out here has their lucky charms, me being a reading fool, my lucky charm is this picture of my wife which I use as a book mark so I'm looking at her smiling face throughout the day. It's starting to heat up and some of the people on their first trip out are complaining

Some have had it harder then me

My blogger buddy, American Soldier, has had it tough, out here for only weeks and gets blown up twice and sent home. I've been out here 3 times and have had it easy. He's posted about some of his adjustment troubles. Don't compare my job to what he's had to go through, if I were any more relaxed out here, I would melt into the floor. My biggest fears are for the safety of my wife and the

Easter in Iraq

This is my third Easter in a row in country, altogether just another work day. The only reason I noticed was because the guy on the bus said, "What in the heck are all of those people doing on the bleachers?" and I said, "Oh, it must be Easter Mass." We're already losing track of the days. I have my outlook calendar send me reminders of when I need to send in reports and such but I'm not

Rain, Dust go away come back another day

A sure way to make sure it rains on any given day is not to bring your Gortex or rain gear to work. It started raining as soon as I stepped off the bus with thunder rolling in the distance. Actually it's better out here after the rain, clears much of the dust out of the air and gives a cool welcome relief from the sun. Guess I should enjoy the rain, before I know it will be summer and there

Moving into my new home away from home

We're moving into our permanent barracks this afternoon which happens to be the same building I lived in on my first deployment 2 years ago. Wonder how much it's changed since then? We've been living in tents, waiting for the prior unit to leave. The tents were actually nice, 3 heating/cooling units per tent, real mattresses, porcelain toilets and hot showers. The barracks we're going into

rain and thunder

There will be periods of time when I'm cut off from the outside world, they call it going to Minimize, our phone and internet is cut off. It's a way to keep the rumor mill under control when something bad has happened or we're about to do something. It sucks to be cut off from our families and friends when all you want to do is let them know you're alright but I personally know of family back

Made it safely to Iraq

I'm on the ground and just got done with my first breakfast in country, I've only been gone a little over a year and the entire place has got a facelift. The MWR building is finally open, there's local guards everywhere and we now have a Burger King, Subway and Pizza Hut. It's going to take a strong will to stick to my diet! We have comfort trailors with real toilets! What is this world coming

Picture from the Solar Eclipse

And pictures from our trip out can be found here. Middle of the night and I tried as hard as I could to stay up all day but fell asleep right after the eclipse and woke at midnight, just in time for MIDRATS (meal that they serve around midnight). It’s a mix of breakfast and dinner foods, I had French toast, a slab of some kind of fish, wax beans and sweet tea then walked over to the phone center

Want to see a snapshot of my life 10 years ago?

Go over to Pete's post about finding me online, he tells it better then me. Oh, I plead the fifth.

Kuwaiting for a bit

For the fifth time, I’m Kuwaiting till we make our move up north, not sure where I’m going to post this yet, for I am still sitting on the bus. Flew over here in an old 767, I’m used to flying Southwest and these were smaller seats then that. I had the distinct luck to find myself sitting between two large Marines and at each stop, I had to unpeel my self from the seat and stumble about without

out of the blue

It’s been a strange week, I’ve been hearing from important people in my life whom I haven’t heard from in years. Pete from the prior post and my best friend from high school, Justin. Figures this would happen right before my next Iraqi adventure, it’s been great catching up. Justin was my brother from another mother and a decade ago, we lost touch. Many bit and stories that make me the person

Caught up with an old friend

It’s a small world, an old corpsman buddy of mine, HM2 Peter Gutierrez, found his way here from an old news story about me and now has a blog of his own. I've been wondering what had happened to him all of these years. If you’re interested in what’s happening in Camp Lemonier, Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, he tells a great tale. We went out on our first deployment together as young HN’s in

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

Started out with a good plan this morning, leave work at 11 to go up to Long Beach and pick up a moped that my mom had shipped back from Thailand. Sure, no problem mom. After a couple of calls yesterday to the shipping company, I found that I needed to clear customs first in Long Beach, then take the clearance paperwork to the shipping company in Compton and pick up the 400 pound package from

One of my last weekends here

My roommate James has just returned from his 6 month deployment to Japan and I’m in my final days before my newest Iraqi adventure. It has been a good weekend, my new computer came in on Friday, an HP Pavilion dv5000z (MCE) with a 2.0GHZ Turion processor. My first take, very sleek, I’ve been typing unplugged an hour and a half and it still has half of its power. Lighter then my Toshiba, screen

Tom Fox had a blog

You can find it here, thanks pop.

Busy Pre-Deployment Life

Sorry I haven’t been updating much lately, busy trying to squeeze as much life out of my last weeks here, both at home and at work. Speaking of which, busy busy busy, many shots to give, much blood to suck out of veins and bodies to examine. We’re getting all the blocks checked in our pre-deployment lectures and work ups. Rifle ranges, smelly gas chambers, power of attorneys and wills.

ABC News Story and the Zogby poll

Well written story on what happens to some of us when we get back from the war zone.Soldiers Describe 'Emotional Roller Coaster' Upon Return From WarI'm leaving shortly to go back to Iraq for the third time but I didn't see one road side bomb, have to look at a weapon pointed in my eye or have to injure another human being. Did treat a lot of injured folk though and had rounds bounce off my

What would happen if we leave Iraq right now

Orson Scott Card (author of Ender's Game) has a few well written words to say about the subject.

Iraq and Kuwait take's

I've uploaded all of the movies I made while deployed forward with HMM-764 here, this all takes place during the summer of 2004. They're sitting around gathering dust, might as well share them. The back story on these movies.Back in 2003 I started out with a fotopage, I had been reading blogs of troops deployed to Iraq and after a bit of peer pressure, started a regular blog, Doc in the Box.

Marines offering assistance

Marines from the 24th MEU are providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the Philippines following the mudslide that took more then a thousand lives. One of my fellow corpsmen Sandy deployed out with that group, he’s likely trudging through the mud and with a couple hundred Marines, helping where he can. Getty Images has a huge set of pictures (notice many of them are of Marines

Unrest in Iraq

But don't take my word for it, Zeyad does a great job covering the story, so do the guys from Iraq the Model, Riverbend also has a post. They sound scared, which isn’t unusual for someone living in Iraq these days, but there is a hint of panic in these posts. Zeyad says this might be the last straw, everyone is talking about how tense the situation is. Someone out there has been pushing

My connection to the world died one day

A couple of months ago, we had some friends over to play board games, no alcohol was involved. Heather was kicking all of our butts at Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit when one of the guys playing got up to get something to drink out of the kitchen and tripped over my laptop cord.The computer moved a little and the cord popped out, something I’ve done literally hundreds of times. I paid it no

Americans don’t travel much

I consider myself fairly well traveled, but something I’ve noticed when trekking around a foreign country. You don’t run into that many Americans, there’s a lot of Germans, Australians, Japanese but only a few us. What brings this up is that my cousins from Australia are visiting right now. Posted a few pictures here. My cousin Greene gets 6 weeks of paid leave and can take up to half a year of

Two Marine Choppers Crash

Off the coast of Africa, the story says CH-53's, that's what I fly.Not good...

Troubled by mob violence

I am troubled each night I watch the news, when did it become popular for mob violence to make the rules? Is it my imagination or is someone trying to inflame a worldwide civil war between the mobs and every one else that wants to maintain order. My basic problem with protesting is that it’s controlled by mob mentality. There might be a bunch of smart folk in the group but put them together in

Gmails new messenger

Have any of you tried Gmail’s new chat feature? If you’re logged on to your Gmail account, you can now chat with anyone logged on to their Gmail account or Google Talk without a separate program or even opening up a new window. Yahoo also shows you when your contacts are online but you still have to use their messenger to talk. What's cool about this? You don't need to install a program when

The strong shall survive

I never would have thought I would describe a post by Dax as beautiful but he has done a beautiful post about a re-enlistment ceremony that took place at his restaurant. One thing about being a nation at war, people that aren’t willing to put their life on the line for their country aren’t going to be signing up for a second or third tour. It’s 4 and a half years now since 9/11 and the people

drudgery and endless filing

My brain has gone to mush, getting ready for our upcoming trip and crunching numbers. Get home and my feet have been growing roots in the carpet, just haven’t had any good blog ideas or anything of interest happen in my life other then drudgery and endless filing of paperwork.For those that don’t know, I’m getting ready for another trip to the Middle East, for which I’m just another small cog in

Our rides through Thailand

This is the van we hired for our trip and my faithful traveling companionsand this is a boat ride we took up the Mekong between Laos, Thailand and Burma when we stayed at the Golden Home Resort at the Golden Triangle.

Birdflu in Iraq?

This is a little spooky, 12 possible cases, 2 deaths so far out of Northern Iraq next to the Turkey border, here’s what WHO says and the Reuters AlertNet message. Maybe I’ll avoid the chicken this time around, don’t forget to wash your hands.

Way cool!

One of my pictures is this weeks editors choice at fotopages.com!

Odd things that happened on our trip

Heather and I were walking down a street in Bangkok and a bus was passing us slowly, this guy was leaning over a girl checking out my wife when she covered his eyes.In Ubon, we were walking down another street next to a stoplight and the light changed, this group of a dozen or so people on mopeds were all checking out my wife and none of them noticed the change till they were half way through the

Have you heard this?

Ding, Fries are Done!!!I know, tasteless but my mouth is still burning from all of that spicy Thai food on the vacation. Slowly getting the house in order and mindset back to work. It's hard this time around, had a pretty good time. It's been years since I've had so much fun, maybe it's the company. Will be posting more of the pictures soon.Hat tip to my slacker blog child devildoc8406, after 2

BN DISCIPLINATOR/ DISCIPLINE VIDEO

This video made us laugh this morning.

Home in my own bed

We landed at 2 PM yesterday and drove back to San Diego, it felt great taking shower in my own bathroom and sleeping my bed. 9 o’clock I was out like a light then 4 rolls around and I’m wide awake surfing the internet and reading L.E. Modesitt’s, Colors of Chaos. Anything by L.E. Modesitt is comfort food that I can always just open up and start reading. Not that it helped me get back to

Before the Sun

Prachuap Thailand, view from our balcony

Finally at the beach

We’re in a small beach town called Prachuap, it’s on the Gulf of Siam, 4 hours south of Bangkok (289 km), staying at the Hadthong Hotel, 850 (20 bucks) baht per night, swimming pool and one of the best ocean views money can buy. This is the hidden treasure of Thailand, unlike the Tourist cities and islands of the south, it’s peaceful and quiet. Beaches are clean and the people friendly and better

Chiangmai’s Night Bazaar

We spent last night at the shopping Mecca of the world, Chiangmai’s Night Bazaar. After driving through the mountains that look like a cross between the Smokey Mountains and Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona we pulled of the mists and a large city was sitting in front of us. I think Moo was saying that it’s the third largest city in Thailand. Falunks (foreigners) everywhere, before settling in for

In the North Country

After I sent out my last post, we walked out to our van and it wouldn’t start. So we hitched a ride back to the hotel and our driver went to an all night garage where he found that he had a bad fuel pump. Whew, almost stranded in the City of Heaven (that’s what the name translates into).Got up the next morning and headed north towards the Burma/Laos boarder. I made a friend Heather dubbed

Through the burning lands

After spending a few days in Bangkok we drove up to Ubon to see the family and sign some paperwork on the sale of a house that my mom owned up there. 7 hour drive to Ubon, 2 hours of that spent in the dark on a 2 lane highway, some of the vehicles with lights, some not, faster cars passing the slower, sometimes with 3 cars abreast going different directions at highway speeds. Spooky! I’ve

Glasses work better then the old ones

Long day driving through Bangkok traffic, whew, I'll post pictures of the worlds largest Croc farm and other sights later for now, I need a shower! Mini blog meet tonight that I need to get ready for. Thailand is awesome!

Landed safe

We landed yesterday after a 21 hour 3 leg flight and our driver Moo picked us up and gives my wife and mom flowers and drives us to the hotel.After all of my years of being a avid globe hopper, I’ve found the worst thing you can do when you get off the plane is to take a nap, totally messes up your inner clock. So the first thing everyone did? Took a 4 hour nap, so now it’s 4 in the morning and I

Mom's visit.

My mom came to stay for a couple of days before our trip to the Far East. After a week of prepping the house before her arrival, it received a passing grade; she doesn’t think her son is a slob anymore (or any less). She’s been retired for a couple of months following the sale of the restaurant and has devoted her time to her hobby of real estate. She’s been buying property in Northern Arizona,

A few thoughts on blogging and the new year.

I’m stealing the idea from Acidman’s thoughts on blogging. This year I didn’t make one wish or resolution to keep. I could lose a few pounds, work out every once and a while and study a bit more but in reality, I’m happy with my life. I’ve quit smoking, hardly drink, have a beautiful wife who clearly loves me. It would be nicer to make more money and not have to go Iraq but my previous post shows

Thanks TLC, for all the Nightmares

My entire life I’ve had a small problem with insomnia. It’s not an every night thing but at least one night a week, I can’t get to sleep till 2 or 3 in the morning. No it’s not PTSD, it’s been happening since grade school. Well, on two of my recent episodes, my kind wife was surfing around the TV before stopping on the learning The Learning Channel then proceeded to turn over with the remote and

My garage is back in order

This post is for my roommate James (who is currently having a blast on his deployment to Japan with an F-18 squadron), showing that I am taking care of his truck and that I've found a home for my tool box. Here's sort of a picture of what part of my garage looked like before the cleaning and below is the after picture. My mom's coming out this weekend she's sort of a clean nut (unlike us). So

Happy New Year!

Went to see the USS Midway on Friday with lovely Fuzzybear Lioness, she’s one of the voices behind Project Valour IT, first time for all of us. Very cool!Fairly mild new years eve, no great planning went into it, just gathered a bunch of food and invited the Smash’s, one of my coworkers, old buddy Frank, Lynne and TJ over for dinner. If I was thinking correctly I would have taken the picture with