I was out of the house yesterday for one hour. ONE HOUR. And both of my FedEx packages arrived during that time. A couple days earlier I knew I had a package coming sometime between noon and five, so I decided to wait at home. They got there at five. *sigh*

Does FedEx have a camera or something in my apartment? Are they monitoring the parking lot of my apartment complex? Because they seem to have an uncanny ability to arrive during the few times I'm not home.

What a beautiful morning! Sunny and crisp, a great fall day. After yesterday, I'm surprised it's as nice as it is. It was *pouring* yesterday! Dark, windy, cold, rainy . . . ugh. Of course, I didn't pack a jacket or sweater because it's usually a bit warmer down here in NJ than it is in Rochester. I froze my ass off yesterday though. Almost made me look foward to going to the desert ;-)

In other news, I had a productive weekend for once at drill!! Friday, I broke down about 25 workstations and 5 servers all networked in together. Saturday, I set 4 of them back up, upgraded their RAM and OS, and installed some software. It was nice to be productive. Sometimes I feel like they don't have much use for me down here, but once in a while I get to contribute something from my MOS and it makes me feel good.

Man, I've gotta get the pictures page up before I go so I can post photos I take over in the Sand Box. My issue is planning out the menu system for the other pages. Once I get than done, I'm good to go!!

Good trip to Dix today! Five hours from door to door, so not bad at all if I do say so myself. Traffic was pretty light, even around Philly, which surprised me. I thought for sure I would get bogged down like I usually do around Lansdale. Free sailing today.

I went and saw Hero tonight at the local movie theater. It was really good! It's not what it looks like at all in the commercials. It's more of an artistic movie than an action hero style movie. Visually, it's absolutely stunning. The whole movie is in Chinese though, so if you have trouble with subtitles, be forewarned.

Well, I was supposed to go down to FT Dix today to make up some old drills, but I can't get ahold of anyone about billeting down there. I'm not going to drive the 5 hours down there and then end up having to get a hotel. Oh well! Guess I'll have to spend another evening hanging out with my honey.

Kelley and I went out to Red Lobster tonight with some friends of ours. It was a good time. It was nice to hang out with Rick and Sara (the afore mentioned friends) for a little bit before I go off to Iraq.

I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to order a "Lobersterita" which, evidently, is just a frozen margarita. But I'd never had a frozen margarita before, so I thought I'd try it. The thing was huge! It was reaaallly good though. Very tart (and we all know how I like tart things *lol*).

I got a call from my BN Commander last night telling me that I have been officially chosen to go to Iraq. I've known about the possibility for about a month now, but I guess it's official now. What great fun!! I can't wait to go *not* .

Tentatively I'm going to be going to Numaniyah, just south of Baghdad in central Iraq. You can check out this map to see where that is. Just find Baghdad, then follow the Tigris river south. There you'll find Numaniyah.

I've been told that the activation will be for about 18 months, with one year total in Iraq and three months on either end here in the States. It could be more, it could be less. You never can tell with the Army. The total activation length really depends on how much time I spend mobilizing and demobilizing. My clock doesn't start until I hit the ground in Iraq though, so the less time I have to spend getting ready to go, the better!

There is a silver lining to going to Iraq however. The timing of my activation works out well for me and a number of other people. I'll be making some pretty good money over there (have you seen the number of special pays you get for going over there?!? My god, war pays well) so I'm hopeful I'll be able to pay off some bills while I'm gone. Kelley needed an apartment and I needed someone to watch my apartment while I'm gone, so she's going to move in while I'm gone and take care of my place for me (she practically lives there now anyway *lol*). Dad needs a new car and I need someone to watch my car, so he's gonna take my car while I'm in Iraq. All in all, it does seem to fit well with where I am in life right now. At least I've got that going for me.

My thoughts on going over there? I'm not really worried about going. The odds of being killed or injured over there seem pretty slim when you crunch the numbers. I mean, we’ve move hundreds of thousands of troops and millions of tons of equipment in and out of the middle east for almost two years now. We’ve invaded, fought, and won a war against a foreign country and occupied it for more than a year. In the course of all this, only 1000 people have died, including accidents! I've read wounded estimates in the range of 7000, but even still. Those numbers are low considering what's being accomplished. Pretty incredible if you ask me.

On the flip side, I've spent enough time in the field from my active duty days to know what it's like, and it's not always fun depending on how rustic your living conditions are. I'm just hoping the Army has had a chance to build up the facilities a bit before I get there so I'm not living out of a tent and pissing in a cat hole for the whole time I'm there =) My only real worry is driving in convoys. Seems like every time you turn on the TV another road side bomb is going off, blowing up a Humvee. I'm hopeful that I won't have to be doing much driving. If I have any say in it, I'm spending the entire time on post behind those locked gates. With any luck it will be the most boring year of my life!!

My gut feeling is that where I'm going in Numaniyah won't be too bad, as it's a command cell based in an old Iraqi air field. I'm supposed to be providing telecommunications support to a J-Cell (Joint Cell) which means it's the place where a bunch of officers from all branches of the military manage operations. This is a good thing because:

1. It's hard to operate computers and telecommunications equipment without electricity. If there's electricity and computers, it's probably indoors. If it's indoors, there's probably water (read: showers & toilets) and air conditioning. Computers don't functions too well in 140 degree weather, so I have a hard time imagining here not being AC. I'm also figuring that if there's electricity and computers, there's going to be Internet connections, so I should be able to keep in touch via email and maybe update the site once in a while.
2. If the J-Cell is full of officers, they're probably going to make sure they're comfortable. I get to benefit from being near all the big wigs because my quarters will be better than someone out in the middle of nowhere.


So, that's the story on my upcoming deployment. I'll write more as I have more thoughts. Enough for now though.