This will be my 4th trip

But I have nothing on Dave Earney from Daves-Not-Here and flythemig29 of Those Wacky Iraqis, 4 years, 2 months, 2 days, 21 hours over in Iraq and that's just for flythemig29. I know Dave was out there before my first trip over and has only came home on vacation. Imagine.They're both Contractor's who decided to stay. Go over and give them a warm welcome home.

Merry Christmas

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!Thanks Justin for the H/T

Christmas weekend

And I’m sitting at home reading. If you’re a reader, I’m probably one of the best kind of friends to have. If I get caught up in an author it’s not rare for me to buy everything they’ve written or at least an entire series.There are few addictions in my life that have carried me as far along as reading. It started out when I was a kid and my mom used to ground me to my room for some offense or

Christmas S.O.P. for all Marines

TO: ALL MarinesFROM: Goode, U. B., Commanding OfficerRE: Operation Order 12-15-04 for: Official Visit of LtGen Santa Claus1. An official staff visit by LtGen Claus is expected at your house on 25 DEC. The following directives govern activities of all Young Marines, during the visit.a. Not a creature will stir without permission. This includes warrant officers and mice. Marines may obtain special

I’ve been admitted (I wrote this in the hospital)

A while back, I came down with a cold, the normal sniffles and coughing, no big deal till about a week ago; I woke up in the middle of night in a coughing fit which felt like my lungs were covered in slime. I bent over the side of the bed and coughed it all up into a trash can and felt fine. I turned on the light and the trash can was covered in blood. Yuck.But there were no other symptoms so I

I was in the hospital

and my cell phone doesn't like playing with blogspot so I posted over at MySpace, have a larger post on my laptop but here is what I wrote from a small cell keyboard. Oh, I'm back home in San Diego, thank you Bethanie and Terri, two great nurses at the Yuma hospital for making my 4 day stay somewhat enjoyable. I'm out now and we never really did figure out why I was coughing up a cup of blood a

Bonding experiences

I’ve found over the last few years that I’ve fallen from the path of being the average military party animal but having lived in those shoes at one time, it’s given me a vast understanding of the lifestyle and now coming into a leadership role. Part of my job is protecting the people around me so most nights, I’m taking one for the team and being the designated driver.I couldn’t count how many

Doing Pre Iraq Training

It's funny to think that I have better internet connections when I'm forward in Iraq but it seems to be true. I'm in a sandy desert city where the only place where I can plug my laptop in is at a Boingo wireless booth which has a terrible connection (actually had better connectivity in Thailand). So if I don’t respond to emails or comments, that’s why.It’s actually relaxing out here, my move is

Moving

Moving out of housing is finally done. Whew, what a long and painful experience. I’m beginning to realize how much of a consumer society we are, even with selling my big furniture I didn’t realize how much stuff we had. Both of us come from a family of hoarders, I admit it. I was hoping to fit all of the rest of my stuff into an 8X10 storage room. That didn’t happen. I did fill the storage room