Good News

Good news! Linda's breast cancer hasn't spread! She'll still have treatment, but the surgery was a success. :-) Not much else has been going on.
Yesterday was my day off and I mostly just chilled. I got up and went to mass in the morning (i work most Sundays, but they have a daily mass at the chapel.) It was the first time I had gone to that and i really liked it. :-) I did laundry and relaxed in my room.
I got boxes from mom and Justin this week so that was a lot of fun! I got an LSU hoodie that I had ordered on ebay yesterday and an Ohio State one in the box from mom so I'm not set for comfort clothes. I love that my AC works so well. on my day off i can sit in my room in jeans and a hoodie and chill. i love it!
Anyway, I met my friend Theresa for dinner at Subway and it was nice to catch up. Today i'm in the JOC and it's going pretty well. Although I managed to hurt myself on the doorknob earlier. It's a special gift. Thanks for those genes mom!
Well, I'm off. Have a great day!

PRAYER!

Hey guys, I just found out that a good friend of mine, Linda has breast cancer. She has surgery tomorrow (wed) at 1pm central time and really needs your prayers! They don't know what kind it is or if it's spread yet, so please pray for her and her family!

YEAH!!!

Yeah! I got what I wanted and didn't even have to bribe anyone! It turns out that one of the guys that has leave scheduled in October was also scheduled during the slot i wanted at the beginning of August. First Sergent found it and emailed my Platoon Sgt about it. It turns out that he had actually requested the October time and been scheduled duplicate time in August by mistake. Isn't God awesome? I'm so excited. it should be August 4-15th. YEAH!!!!

Leave wrangling

OK, so Bradley found out when he's getting leave (the end of July to beginning of August) and now I'm trying really hard to get leave and at the time I want. I'm trying the old fashioned way, but I think it's about down to bribery. The time I want is full so I have to get someone to switch with me. I think Browns tickets might be involved... :-) It's worth it though.

Other than that things have been going pretty well. Please pray for my friend Teresa though (not the one you know mom.) She just found out last night that her 3 year old nephew drowned in his swimming pool on Saturday night. Please keep their family in your prayers, along with my more trivial leave issue.

Yesterday was my day off and I went to the traditional service last night at seven and ran into teresa. She's a friend of mine from PDT at camp bullis in Feb/Mar. I'm gonna look into extending with her group when i'm done here. about 30 of the 50 medics in my PDT class will be with her running a Troop Medical Clinic up in Balad, Iraq. It would be nice to get to do medic things, and to get to do them with a bunch of people I already know would be really nice. Anyway, just one more thing that's in the works. I'm glad i ran into teresa last night though because I got to be there for her with her family thing.

Well, if i think of something later or i find out what's going on with leave I'll write more. until then...

our little fox...

Some of the guys hanging out and watching One Fine Day in the break room. we only get 9 channels, and they are all AFN (armed Forces Network) but they are actually suprisingly good. there is a wide variety of sports and programming from all over network and cable TV that they consolidate onto these channels. There is even a movie channel that shows quite a few good movies.






Here are some of us hanging out at south gate. me, Fasil, Sgt Long (my squad leader), Sgt Major Mobrad, and Barjas(across the front)












Man love...









Me hanging out during dinner

this is the dust that settled on my helmet in a few hours...inside the tower.











This is some of the food from our dinner with the Kuwaiti Police







The guys changing the blowout on the HumVee...again...











Here is us having dinner with the Kuwaitis. We eat on the floor. They spread out a plastic disposable table cloth on the ground and you eat everything with your hands. we use pita bread to scoop up stuff and sauces.

YOUCH!

So, here is something I never really thought of...The sand storms have let up over the last couple days, so it has gotten really hot out. So I'm in the JOC today and someone came in to relieve me so I could hit the bathroom and get lunch. So I head out to the porta-potty. Now first, let me say that the porta-potties here at K Crossing are the cleanest i've ever seen. there's a lot of sand and stuff that gets in them, but they are cleaned out every day and not that many people use them. Anyway, I open the porta potty, confirm that there is toilet paper, and shut the door. sit down, and YOUCH!!! HOT SEAT!!! Kinda duh, but I mean really hot seat! Like my butt still stings 20 min later. The dangers of life in the desert... :-)

nothin' new

Hey, there's not really anything new going on here. We've been having crazy sand storms and that kinda blows. well, no it REALLY blows. hard. I just sit in my tower and get rained on.

I started volunteering at the USO here on post and that's been kinda fun. We had a big party on Fathers Day with free pizza, cake, and rootbeer floats. It's nice to have a non work related thing to do. Other than that I've just been working and...well working. :-) I'm suposed to have tomorrow off, but we're shorthanded, so i'm hoping they don't make me work.

I ran a 5K on Saturday for the Army's birthday. well...i completed a 5K anyway. :-) I had to get up at 0530 on my day off to do it so I was pretty proud of myself. hmm...what else?

I'm reading this really cool book called Three Cups of Tea. It's about this guy Greg Mortenson who does humanitarian work building schools, primarily for girls, in rural Pakistan and Afgaistan. It's awesome, you should check it out! Also, along the same vein, my friends Andy and Caroline (friends from DTS in Germany) just left on a missions trip to Pakistan, so please keep them in your prayers.

I really don't know what else to report. One day just runs into the next around here and the only way I even know what day of the week it is is by looking at my watch. Every day is the same. I did finally get to talk to mom though after missing her for weeks. Also talked to Grandma on her birthday. The Army turned 233 on Saturday (it shares it's b-day with Grandma.) OK...rambling done. love you guys! tootles!

car trouble.

Yesterday was a long crappy day. And though I am tempted to whine about it I'll just say this. We had four of our vehicles break down during the shift. We blew a radiator hose on the way to work. Our relief broke down before they got out of K Crossing. One of our vehicles randomly caught fire around 4pm. And we blew a head gasket on the way home. The pic is of the busted Hum-Vee that broke down at 2am on the way home. It was a really long day.

I mean, you all know that cars just randomly break from being around me...but this is crazy!

Here is me playing around in a Hum-Vee











Our BBQ on tuesday at Sgt Long's trailer









Me at SOMO on Tuesday searching trucks







Here is some especially interesting grafitti from the porta potty. :-)

Day Off

So. today is my day off and it's been pretty nice so far. I just got the seventh season of Gilmore Girls from Amazon.com so i was up late watching that last night. I slept in until 11 and then met my friend Theresa for lunch. Worked on getting my internet acct's set up, and then stopped here at the internet cafe. I have a cook out with some coworkers at six and then have to go to bed early because I have a PT test in the AM. at 0500. yuck. My last "week" went well. it seems like we have four day weeks since it's three on, one off. i had qrf in the afternoon, and tower at night everyday, which I also have the next two days. It's blowing pretty good right now, but i hope it lets up for our cookoff. It's good to get me out and about and being social so I don't revert to a total hermit. :-) anyway, not too much going on here...same junk, different day. :-)

Sand storms

Sand storms kinda suck. That might be kind of a "duh" thing, but we've had a sand storm blowing in for the last two days and it sucks. Not only to you get sand EVERYWHERE, but it cramps my stayle. :-) yesterday I got stuck sitting all day in a tower with no dvds because i won't take my laptop out in this. the today, which is my day off, i was supposed to go on a camel ride with my friends and then grill out steaks. no dice. Sand storm. On the flip side it blots out the sun so it cools down a bit and that't kinda nice. Anyway..I'm off to brave the elements. love ya!

this is the view from the tower. It's exciting stuff!

Me in frount of one of our guard towers during a dust storm








Me and Virgis, one of the kuwaiti police...the one who had me sit in a puddle.











Me and Mom at the Oyster House in Gulf Shores on pass










Me in the Humvee







us under the truck at camp shelby...it's amazing how much cooler it is!

Me and my friends at the beach on pass










At the qualification range









Me and Bradley











Me and "the girls" on the flight over here

ahhh...air conditioning!

It's now 1930 and I'm sitting the in the nice air conditioned JOC talking to you. But that is not how the day as a whole has gone. I spent the entire afternoon broasting in a tower with a busted air conditioner. I know i haven't posted a pic yet, which i hope to tomorrow, but picture a nice 7x7foot greenhouse on stilts. Now crank up the temp to 115. I drank more than 3 liters of water in 5 hours and peed twice, and not much each time. Let's just say my skin has a distinctly salty flavor at the moment. Then thing is though, you don't get drenched in sweat here, it's so hot, dry and windy that it evaporates immediately. Anyway, tomorrow is my day off and i'm looking forward to it.

OK, here's a funny "me" story. So, we were all sitting around the other night chatting before dinner. There was me, my LT, a few sergents, some kuwaiti police, a translator, and a couple other kuwaitis that i didn't know. We sit on these benches around this big table that's the same height as the benches. well the benches are wide enough to sit indian style, which i frequently do. On this particular evening, Friday I believe, I decided to do just that. so I scooted my butt back to cross my legs and my weight was shifted too far back. I lost my ballence and splayed on my back in the dirt, much to the merriment of all present. :-) I was fine asnd barely fazed, but my sergent just looked at me and said "i thought you were lidding when you said you would be the one to fall out of the tower..." :-) I wasn't.

I had a great day at work on that Friday. I was at south gate, which is with the kuwaiti police. there are two particular jokesters who work there, and both were there that night. We played soccer and monkey in the middle, and just sat around and joked. One of the guys, Virgis, is a real clown and was teasing me with a bottle of water. Well, I ended up pouring it on his lap. He took it in stride but exacted his revenge later. While the Sergent Major (kuwaiti, and the other jokester) distracted me and had me standing, he poured his entire bottle of water on the bench I was sitting on. It took a few seconds after I sat down for the water to sink in and for me to notice. I then proceeded to jump the table in pursuit. :-) I love working with those guys. I told him i would introduce him to a super soaker. He just grinned and tried to repeat it. So now i'm in the market for a super soaker. :-) I think they will also come to learn about the wonderful american water ballon. the nice thing is though, with the temp, you dry in like 20 min.

Anyway, i'm gonna run. When I got in here the sergent in cahrge told me that he was so impressed the other night with how I did in here he wants to change the schedule to have me in here whenever isn't. yeah. :-)