I hope you all have a very happy Halloween!

I decided to go as an Army man this year ;-) I think I'll skip the trick or treating through town through. If you thought razor blades in apples were bad . . . *lol*

It was interesting going on this trip to Al Ristamiyah because I got to see a little more of the country beyond the Green Zone (albeit, only what I could see through the window of the Humvee.) All of what I saw was dirty, dusty and run down. Lots of what one might call shanties. The homes are made of wood frames with corrugated tin roofs and cloth porches. There is garbage everywhere. Absolutely every where. Wrappers, bottles, and who knows what else just laying all over the place. Lots of rubble and piles of dirt and stones every where. There are broken down and abandoned cars littering the sides of the road. Many of the structures that are a bit more built up remind me of the adobe houses out in the western United States in style and construction.

People have herds of sheep just hanging out in their back yard eating the grass and garbage laying around. In the city, people set up on the side walks to sell their goods. Their "stores" are little more than carts with stuff piled high on them in no seeming order. It looks like the images of Calcutta I had seen on TV - overcrowded and dirty. There are 3 or 4 story buildings in the city as well with shops on the first level, but these as well appear dimly lit and over crowded. Merchandise jammed into every corner of shop. Take the House of Guitars, multiply it by about five (in the same square footage) and put a layer of dirt over everything and you get the effect.

All in all, I'd say what I've seen so far is a shit heap, to use the vernacular. Have you ever seen an abandoned lot in the inner city in the States? Broken concrete with grass growing out of it, garbage and wrappers collected in the corners where the wind has blown them. Bent and mangled fences, maybe a small shelter put up by a homeless person. Much of what I've seen of the country so far reminds me of that. It has the feeling of an abandoned lot where crack addicts do their drugs and no one really wants to go anymore. The only difference being the sheep.

We drove back from Al Ristamiyah today. What a trip! The traffic through the country side was manageable, but downtown Baghdad was heavy gridlock. That didn't seem to matter much to our convoy drivers. Following the first rule of convoys in Iraq (don't stop) they proceeded to honk, yell, and generally intimidate every vehicle on the road into getting out of the way and off onto the shoulder until we passed by. When they didn't get out of the way . . . well, things happened.

At one point we came up on gridlock moving through a narrow portion of road in central Baghdad. What did we do? Why, we just hopped the concrete meridian and drove on the opposite side of the road against oncoming traffic. Four lanes of oncoming traffic *gulp*. I suppose when you see an up-armored Humvee with a six inch diameter steel brush guard on the front and a .50 caliber machine gun on top, you get out of the way. Which most people did.

However, there were a couple of incidents. I personally only saw one collision. A small, red, two door sedan tried to cross traffic in front of the lead Humvee and didn't quite make it. They t-boned him square in the passenger side door and spun him clean around onto the opposite shoulder. Evidently one of the other guys was wearing a headset hooked up into the intercom and would periodically hear someone deadpan, "Uh, hit another one."

Myself and a couple other folks took a trip to Al Ristamiyah (about 30 minutes from Baghdad) to work on some radios there. Nothing too strenuous, as it only takes about 30 seconds to program the radio once the changes are entered into the software on the laptop. However, there are several hundred radios to program, so it's taking a little time! I'll tell you what, I'd rather be reprograming radios than patrolling the streets of Iraq though. I suppose that's why I picked the job I did ;-)

There actually was a couple drops of rain this evening. Quite surprising. In fact, today was the first overcast day I've seen since I hit the Middle East.

I'm not sure when I'm heading back to Baghdad. It's a little quieter here. Not so much mortar and bombings and such. To be honest, most of the violence is occuring on a fairly limited area of the country; the famous "Sunni Triangle". From what I hear, the rest of the country is more or less settled down.

I was told today that myself, SGT Knox and the LT are going to be driving out to a site a little south of Fallujah to help get their radios working. Evidently there's some civilian contractors out there as well, so it's a good opportunity to pick their brains and learn a little bit for when we're off on our own at Numaniyah (or wherever I end up going).

We did a little convoy training this evening in anticipation of the drive out there. What a blast! We drove over to Saddam's old parade grounds in a Nissan 4x4 SUV and took turns driving around the place at about 50 MPH trying to simulate driving out in the population. The truck in front of us would stop suddenly and point out the window to simulate incoming fire (from the right or the left) and we would then have to exit the vehicle from the opposite side, since you obviously wouldn't want to be climbing out of the car on the side they're shooting at you from. Let me tell you, getting out of those SUV's is a lot harder than it sounds! You try climbing through one of these Japanese trucks with all your gear on and an M16. It's like asking a turtle to climb through a matchbox car.

At one point I was driving and the instructor called incoming fire from the left side, meaning I had to get out of the passenger side door. I stopped, put on the parking brake, and shot for the passenger side door. I got hung up on the shift lever on the way out, and you should have heard that poor transmission grind as I tried to exit the vehicle! Another time I tripped on the way out and my rifle went flying out the door without me, and I followed shortly thereafter.

Oooh, a couple three mortars just went off. Those were kind of close. I could actually hear the snap of the explosion instead of the dull thud of a far off mortar.

At any rate, the best training run came when one of the Air Force guys was driving. Before he got in the car, he says "I just want to let you guys know I've never driven over 55 MPH in the States, so this might be an adventure." We all kind of looked at each other and climbed in the truck. We went on through the run and he did just fine. After his turn was finished we got out and talked about how it went, when all of a sudden we smelled something burning. We turned around and smoke was billowing out from under the hood. "What in the world is going on?" we were all thinking. Suddenly, the Air Force guy speaks up and says "I know what it was. I left the parking break on the whole time I was driving." He had been tearing around the parade grounds for about five minutes with the parking break on!! Needless to say, on the way back to Camp Phoenix we all agreed he would not be driving during the convoy tomorrow.

I got a web cam working on one of the computers at work today, so I got to chat with Kelley on Yahoo IM and she could see me. I couldn't see her because she didn't have a camera on her end, but at least one of us got to see the other one. She said it made her cry, but she's always crying over this kind of thing *lol* (for those who don't know, I'm not being mean. That's an inside joke between me and Kelley. So don't write any nasty comments!)

We were driving back to the palace from Phoenix base last night in a Nissan pickup truck. Two folks in the front, four of us riding in the bed. As we drove past this group of Iraqi kids, one of them yelled out "Wassup killa!" Perfect english, just as clear as day, it was like something out of a rap album. If I wasn't in Baghdad, I would have thought I was driving through any urban area in the States.

If nothing else, at least we're teaching the Iraqi people about hip-hop culture *lol*

Well, looks like I'm heading to An Numaniyah after all! I got word last night they were looking for me to get on a helicopter to go to Numaniyah. "Wait" I thought to myself, "I thought I was staying in Baghdad." Well, I hadn't seen my supervisor for two days, and last word I had I was living here and travelling to various sites. So I just never got on the helicopter because the last order I had received was I was living here. I found out today that none of the information I had was correct: I am neither staying here in Baghdad, nor was I supposed to get on the helicopter last night! *lol*

So, the new story is that I am indeed going to An Numaniyah, as originally planned. However, I will be staying here in Baghdad for a couple of weeks to get trained up on some of the radio systems and other equipment I will be working with. Then, once the training is all done, I will be heading south to stay at An Numaniyah. We'll see though. There's a whole lot of confusion up here right now. No one really seems to know what's going on. My feeling is that if I played my cards right, I could probably just sit here in the US Embassy for the whole year and do nothing, and no one would notice.

Had the afternoon off again. Slept the whole afternoon again. If I wasn't in Iraq, I'd swear I had African Sleeping Sickness.

I had the day off today, for the most part. Just waiting for work to start and get going on the new position. Turns out I'm not going to An Numaniyah after all. I'm going to be living here in Baghdad in the Green Zone and working with CMATT (Coalition Military Assistance Training Team). The CMATT team are the people who are working to train the Iraqi military. My job will be to travel to the various training sites around the country and provide telecommunications services to each of those sites. It's similar to what I had thought I was going to be doing, but some of the details have changed. I'm pretty encouraged by my assignment plus or minus the means we use for traveling from place to place. Providing tech support to all those training sites may mean more driving that I had hoped to be doing. Some of the areas are a pretty good distance though, so I would imagine we will be traveling by air some. We'll see. If I'm out on the convoy and the little fuckers want a fight, we'll give 'em a fight.

There were a couple of mortar attacks on the compound tonight. I was inside the palace, so it didn't really effect me too much, aside from shutting down the internet cafe for a few minutes. There was a mortar attack last night which landed in Camp Hope (the living area over behind the palace) but it was a dud. Boy, you should have seen the 98th Div folks when the palace alarm went off! It was almost humorous watching everyone evacuate the tent last night. It was the first time we had heard the alarm and no one (including me) really knew what was going on. Folks were madly scrambling to get their body armor on and get into the bunker. Talk about keystone cops! Then, one knuckle head (who shall remain nameless) tells everybody to put a magazine in their rifle. Now picture this; we're all jammed into this little concrete bunker in the dark with no one really sure what's happening and he wants to have soldiers with loaded rifles in there? What is a rifle going to do against a mortar attack? I'm much more afraid of a nervous soldier with a loaded weapon in a confined space than I am of some Iraqi lobbing random mortars.

Fortunately cooler heads prevailed after the all clear was given. Once the senior folks had a chance to discuss it they made it SOP that in the case of an alarm we were to take our weapons and a magazine with us, but not to load the magazine without specific instructions (which is the right decision, IMO). The real failure in all this was that our group of incoming soldiers was not given a briefing about what to do when the alarm goes off and the command to take cover is given over the intercom. We had people just running for the bunker with no real idea of what was going on. In the dark, there's lots of voices and it's hard for the appropriate leadership to take control of the situation. Hopefully, now that the first time is out of the way, it'll straighten itself out. What they really need to do though is run a couple of drills so people have a chance to practice what they're going to do during the next mortar attack.

On a less combative note, I have been sooooo tired lately. I don't know what it is. My best guess is that it's a combination of factors: jet lag, not sleeping, wearing the IBA every where (that stuff is friggin' heavy!!), plus I think I'm coming down with a cold. I slept for about 4 hours this afternoon and felt a little better. My feet certainly felt better after taking the nap. I have some royal blisters from the boots they issued us in Bliss, and I'm still trying to recover from them. Walking has been pretty uncomfortable for the last week or so. Hopefully the blisters will get better soon. I put some athletic tape over them tonight and they felt quite a bit better. Here's hoping I've turned the corner and I can start to walk like a normal person again.

The 98th Division was supposed to go inprocess today and be assigned to our various sections, but as we were walking over to the area where we catch the bus to the building we were informed the parking lot was locked down because of a possible VBIED (Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device). Essentially a car bomb. This is the second or third time I've heard someone mention a possible bomb since we arrived in Baghdad. Security people are especially nervous right now as they had those two bombings here just a couple of days ago. Personally, I think it's just people being cautious as aside from those bombings the other day I've not heard of anything happening in the Green Zone aside from the occasional random mortar fire. I've heard a few thuds off in the distance (mortars?) but otherwise the most threatening situation I've been in has been my encouter with the State Department spook.

Actually, the bus ride from Baghdad International to the Green Zone was an experience too. I was on the first bus in the convoy so I was able to see the Humvee with the MP's providing security up in front of us. We didn't stop for any traffic, and I'd routinely see the gunner on the top of the Humvee motion emphatically for other cars to pull to the side of the road to let the convoy pass. And they did, as I imagine they didn't want to get shot. There was one instance where a car merged onto the highway from an on ramp and ended up next to the convoy, simply as a natural result of the flow of traffic. The MP motioned rather forcefully that he should pull off to the side of the road. You would have thought he lost both front tires the way the car pulled over! I saw the car swerve hard to the right to get off the road, and then we passed.

The convoy was swerving left and right on the highway, and at the time I couldn't figure out why the bus driver kept driving all over the highway. Someone later on explained that whenever the convoy would come up on an abandoned car on the side of the road they would move to the opposite side of the highway to get as far away as possible from it. The insurgents will set up an IED in an abandoned car and then set it off as a convoy drives past.

Well, I just heard they still haven't opened up the parking lot, so I'm going to see if I can't find an internet connection somewhere.

So what is Baghdad like? I haven't had an opportunity to see much of it as I haven't been outside the Presidential Palace since I arrived here. From what I have seen, it looks much like it does on TV. Different shades of brown and tan with the occasional bit of green from shrubs or palm trees. Lots of sand and concrete. I took a couple pictures from the bus window, but that's about it.

The Green Zone is a trip. What I saw driving in was lots and lots of concrete. They've got huge concrete barriers set up everywhere. The road in to the palace had 20 foot concrete barriers running the length of both sides of the road. It was like driving through a maze.

There's folks from all sorts of countries here. British, some sort of Asian nation (Malaysia?), the Philippines, and many other soldiers that I can't identify by their uniforms. There's civilians and U.S. Government types here as well. I had one guy come up to me and demand I erase the picture I had just taken. I asked him why and he said he provided security for the State Department and didn't want to be in the picture I had taken. I hadn't even noticed him when I took the picture, but when I went back in and looked, sure enough there he was. So I erased it. When I was sorting through my pictures last night I noticed him in another photo,but I'm going to keep that one just as a special souvenir *lol*

I am so glad to finally be here though. Not so much because I'm in Baghdad as much as because I'm sick and tired of moving my stuff around!! God, the last three days it seems like all I've done is load my stuff from one bus to another, to a plane, off the plane onto a truck, off the truck and onto another bus, into a temporary sleeping area, back onto a bus . . . Man, that shit is heavy!! Four duffel bags, two computer cases, full body armor and an M16 with 210 rounds. I will be glad to finally be where I'm going just so I can stop moving those damnable duffel bags around.

I finally got some sleep yesterday. We arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait via C-130 on Monday night (actually, early Tuesday morning.) We spent several hours in the "terminal" at Baghdad International Airport before convoying by bus to the Green Zone once the sun came up. I say "terminal" because in reality the place they drop off incoming soldiers is on the other side of the air strip from the actual terminal. It's little more than a couple of tents, a PX in a trailer and some port-a-potties. There were phones there so we could call home, as well as a couple of big screen TV's. I got to watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees in 14 innings on Russ Ortiz's bloop single, so I was pretty happy.

Once the sun came up we loaded up on buses and drove to the Green Zone. Evidently there's no travel during the day if possible, as we seem to be consistently flying and moving in the early morning hours. Nobody has actually stated that as a policy, but it's either that or we have the intinerary from hell. Once there we did some basic inprocessing (more forms) and then moved to the Presidential Palace.

You should see this place! Chandeliers, alabaster stair cases, foutains. The first grass I've seen since I hit the middle east *lol* Quite the hang out. Once we got to the palace we unloaded our bags and got settled in to the temporary housing, which is basically just a festival tent with sand bags stacked up outside along the perimeter for protection. It's an open bay, but there's beds and showers and electricity, so not bad all in all.

We got done about 2:30 PM and I just crashed. I layed down and fell fast asleep. I hadn't had more than an hours sleep here and there since I got off the plane in Kuwait early Sunday morning. Between jet lag and all our traveling occurring at night, I hadn't had a chance to sleep for a couple of days aside from the little cat naps I caught here and there. Surprisingly I didn't feel tired or run down, but when they finally did let us go, I crashed. I slept for about 6 hours, got up and ate some midnight chow, then went back to bed for another 5 hours or so.

It finally hit home this morning that I'm really in Baghdad. Being in Iraq didn't make much of an impact on me yesterday because I was busy taking it all in, rushing here and there, unloading and moving baggage, etc. As I was walking to the shower trailers this morning it just seemed so surreal to be walking around the Iraqi Presidential Palace in downtown Baghdad. Who would have ever thought! It just all seems so cool. To be honest (and I know this sounds weird) this all seems like one great big adventure. How fun!! Eating dinner in Saddam Hussein's dining hall, walking his court yards, taking pictures of his architecture. I'll tell you what, if my deployment keeps going the way it's gone thus far, I'm going to have a good year.

The weather here in Kuwait is absolutely beautiful! It's kind of like a really nice, hot sunny day in Rochester. It's warm, but not unbearably so; maybe the 90's if I were to take a guess. I was expecting "oh-my-god-I-can't-breath" kind of hot, but it's turned out to be quite pleasant, all in all. Certainly better than winter in Rochester, I can tell you that.

Anyway, you'll never guess what I found. A Starbucks!! I swear to god, an honest to goodness Starbucks here in Kuwait. Even when I get called up, I still can't get away from work! *lol* I had to laugh when I saw it because some of my co-workers and I had joked prior to my mobilization that I could become the manager of the first Starbucks in Baghdad. Camp Doha isn't quite Baghdad, but it's a lot closer than I think any of us realized!!

I still haven't gone to bed from the night before. Wait, I take that back; I slept for about an hour this morning, then had to go shave and such for a briefing from the general. Otherwise, I've been busy all day getting ready for the flight out of Kuwait this evening. I've been getting my IBA (Interceptor Body Armor) all set up, putting the finishing touches on my kevlar helmet, trying to find something I need in my bag and repacking, realizing I need something else from a bag and then repacking, emptying the bag again to get to another item in the bottom of the bag I need then repacking . . .

Now I think I'm pretty much done though. Just a matter of leaving the laptop and the Ipod plugged in until just before we go so they get all charged up. Perhaps I'll try to sneak in a short cat nap as well.

We left for Kuwait today. What a trip! We flew from El Paso into Baltimore for a one hour layover. From there, we flew to Rhein Main, Germany and from Germany to Kuwait. What a long flight. I'm not sure the actual time in the air, but we left at 2:30 PM Saturday and arrived at 8:00 PM on Sunday. With all the time changes, I think it works out to 20 hours or so of actual flying. Luckily I had a nice seat - an aisle seat with no one on my other side.

I slept almost the whole way because I had been up the entire night before packing. They told us we could take 3 duffel bags worth of gear, plus two carry on bags. Let me tell you, I used every single inch of space in all 5 bags, plus some. They issued us a ton of crap at Bliss!! I couldn't fit my kevlar helmet in my bags so I ended up carrying it by hand. I even ended up putting my dirty laundry in the pouches of my body armor because I had no space left.

Once we landed in Kuwait we were bussed to Camp Doha where we were scanned into the system and had a couple of briefings. We then went to what they called RFI (Rapid Fielding Initiative) where they issued us still more gear. Two pairs of boots to go with the 3 pairs we got at Bliss, plus some other gear like Wiley X goggles, military issue goggles, some Under Armor t-shirts, and some other miscellaneous gear. Nice stuff. The best thing they gave us was another duffel bag. The gear I got at RFI only takes up about 1/4 of a duffel, so now I have somewhere to put my diry underwear until I can get to do laundry.

So, since I slept almost the whole flight over and my clock is thoroughly screwed up from being in a different time zone, here I sit writing at 0400 in the morning. According to the schedule, we fly for Baghdad tomorrow evening on a C-130. That was a surprise to me as well, as I had been told we would spend a week or so in Kuwait. I'm glad for the quick movement. Less chance to sit here and get tied up in bureaucracy, worry about what's going to happen in Iraq, or just be plain bored. I say get me in country and let me start soldiering so I can get my ass back to the States.

Today was more going to appointments, getting examined, and filling out paperwork. Nothing too exciting. The biggest issue I'm having right now is packing for the plane. We only have 3 diffel bags and 2 carry on bags. I worked on packing/laundry from 9 PM to about 2:30 in the morning. I crammed and re-packed and moved things around to try to make it all fit, but it just wouldn't go! So I think I'm going to just end up carrying my body armor and kevlar separate rather than packing it in the duffels. They originally told us they were going to give us the body armor over in theater anyway, so it kind of sucks we have to make room for it now.

Man, I am sleepy. I've been up since 4 this morning. It's going on 24 hours. But it's a long plane ride, so I can sleep then. I guess I need to do something to kill those 20 hours from here to Kuwait *lol*

We went out to qualify on our weapons today. What fun!! It was a good little drive out to the range, as it was across the border in New Mexico (don't ask me why the range is so far away. Made for a good nap though). When we got there, we were on this flat desert plain with mountains rising in the not-so-distant horizon on three sides. It was absolutely gorgeous scenery.

I hadn't fired this particular M16 yet, as it was brand spankin' new and just issued to me. So we went to the zero range to adjust the weapon to me specifically. I had no issues zeroing.

Actually qualifying was a different matter. The first time I shot 13 out of 40. You need 26 to qualify. My shot groups were crazy tight, but consistently low. So essentially, all my rounds were going in the same place (whichs means I was aiming correctly), the rounds were just going too low. This was confusing to me though, as I had just zeroed, so it should be dead on. The second time I raised my sight picture and ended up firing 29. Good enough to qualify, but not great overall. Again, the shot groups were tight but tended to be low. This was true of all the misses. I really hope I get another chance to zero once I get to Kuwait.

Later that night we did a night fire, which is where they give you tracer rounds and fire in the dark so you see what it's like. If you've never seen it, tracer rounds glow a bright red. You end up with the bright red streak coursing through the sky as you fire them off. It was neat to watch 25 people firing tracer rounds all at the same time.

We got back around 10 pm, so I need to get to bed before I have to be up at 4 am. G'nite!

Today was spent going through the SRP process (Soldier Readiness Processing). SRP consists of filling out a myriad of forms - placing your name, rank, social, and today's date on everything you can think of. SRP also consists of lines. Lots of lines. Lots and lots of lines.

So I spent most of the day sitting in line waiting to be seen by this office or that office so that I could fill out more forms. The offices had names like AG1 or MED1 or AG2. Then came MED3.

MED3 is where they screen you for your immunizations and give you your shots. Since my shot records failed to make it from FT Dix to FT Bliss, I "volunteered" for the full complement. Eight shots. "Ugh" I thought, "This is going to be rough."

I don't know what it is about getting shots, but I always get woozy. First I start to feel a little sick to the stomach. Then I get light headed. Next, I feel all the blood flow out of my head, and shortly thereafter I'm sitting in a chair (or laying on the floor) in a cold sweat watching the room spin in circles as little colored dots dance in front of my eyes.

It's not that I'm nervous or scared, because I'm not. Well, maybe a little nervous. But not that bad. I really felt quite good today about getting the shots. There just is something about my body and pain. God forbid something happens in Iraq. I'm more likely to die from shock than from the injury itself. I got woozy when I cut my hand a couple years back. And let me tell you, today was no different. I just wish I could have gotten some pictures. *lol*

All in all, I think I did pretty well. They drew 4 viles of blood (and tore my right arm up in the process. You should see the bruise!) Then they moved to the immunizations. I got through 5 with no problems before my body gave out on me and told me in no uncertain terms, "I really don't want to be here doing this anymore." I let the medic know I wasn't feeling so well anymore, and proceeded to sit down. Although I was feeling pretty crappy, I got through shots number six and seven (which I vaguely remember). However, a civilian doctor happened to walk by just as the medic was finishing and saw me. Evidently I didn't look very good, so he insisted I needed to lay down.

The funniest part of all this is that here I sit, green as an apple and sweating profusely working very hard not to pass out (how embarassing would that have been), and the medical staff are trying to figure out where the cot is to lay me down on. They finally figured out that someone else was already on it (at least I wasn't the only one!) "What do we do? Where's the other cots? Someone took them. Well what do we do with him?" I was more than willing to just lay on the floor, but for some reason the medical staff didn't like this idea until they decided they had no other choice. Personally, I thought the cold floor felt good once I was allowed to go there.

So, after a couple of minutes I felt better, got back up, and went over to get my last shot: small pox. Have you ever read about the small pox vaccine? They actually include instructions for caring for the injection site after your receive the shot. It's that involved. Let me share the details of this little guy.

First, you have to keep the injection site covered with a bandage for about 21 days, because the site is infectious and could spread the virus to others if it touched them. They say a blister forms after about 3 days (hasn't happened yet), meaning the shot is effective. It then scabs over after a couple more days. The scab falls off somewhere between 14 and 21 days, and you have to keep the site covered for 3 days after that. The bandage you use to cover the blister/scab is infectious so you have to take great care when disposing of it. They even recommend sleeping with long sleeves on so you don't accidentally pull the bandage off, touch the injection site, then touch some other part of your body. If you did that, you would then develop small pox blisters where ever you touched. If you rubbed your eye, for instance, you'd get a blister on your eye and lose your eye. God forbid you touch your, um, nether regions if your hands were contaminated. You can read all about it at the Army's small pox site. The small pox vaccine that is, not touching your nether regions.

I also got the first of the anthrax shots. That one was the worst in terms of pain. It burns! It's odd, the shot itself doesn't hurt but about 10 seconds after they give it your shoulder burns like mad! Man, it felt like someone hit my shoulder with a hammer a couple hours later. It is so tender. The slightest touch and I'm well aware I've received the shot. Forget lifting my arm above shoulder level.

So, that was SRP day. Lots of boredom and waiting punctuated with moments of dizziness and laying down. Sounds a bit like a weekend of sitting around drinking with nothing to do, doesn't it?

I stopped at the Military Clothing & Sales Store today. They had my computer bag for sale! The same one I ran over on sunday and ripped various holes in. I was pretty psyched.

I'm a sucker for a cool bag or gadget. Some people like shoes, or cars, or something else. My thing is bags and technology.

I left for Texas today. Finally. It's been a bit odd, this whole mobilization process, if for no other reason than it has seemed to take so long and, by extension, hasn't really seemed real. As long as I was coming home every night and sleeping in my own bed, it didn't really feel like I was heading off to war. Now, it's starting to feel like things are moving. I'm glad for that, as the constant feeling of waiting for the deployment to start was beginning to bother me.

Getting on the plane at the airport wasn't too bad. I managed to run over my laptop in the parking lot though *lol* I had this super heavy bag and I didn't want to carry it clear across the parking lot, so I dropped my bags at the entry of the parking area with Kelley, and proceeded to go park. However, in my rush to get to a good spot that had just opened up, I ended up driving over my laptop bag. There really wasn't any damage, but the bag is a little tore up. That, and the case for my glasses was pretty squished. But after a little pressing and shaping, it's as good as new.

Kelley and my dad were at the airport to see me off. It wasn't too emotional saying goodbye, even though Kelley cried a lot. Which is nice, in a selfish sort of way. I guess I would be concerned if she wasn't upset. It bothered me more to see her so sad than it did to be getting on the plane myself. Like she said though, it was nice that she got to see me off at the airport, as there was some debate whether I would be flying out of Rochester or NJ. I did ok myself until I got to the security area where your family members and such can't follow. Then I teared up just a little because Kelley was crying [stupid girls ;-) ]

The flight was smooth! Window seats on both legs *woohoo!!* Chicago O'Hare was a really nice airport. Got a little lunch there, hooked up with the other soldiers from 8th BN, and waited for the plane to get there. I got some really nice pictures on the plane too! You should see some of them. I got a couple just as the plane came out of the clouds and into the clear sky. Beautiful! I can't wait to post them up on the site when I get a chance.

After we arrived in El Paso, we hopped on a bus and headed off to FT Bliss, which was just about 10 minutes away. Once there, we stood in line to get signed in, went to a briefing, then had the night to ourselves. So far, everything seems fairly streamlined and organized which, to be honest, is a bit surprising to me. I expected a lot more confusion, but the folks here at the CRC seem to have the program down well.

So, that's where I'm at now. I'll be posting more as I get the chance. Supposedly I'm going to be in Texas for about a week (also, very good news) then head off to Kuwait for a week, then convoy up into Iraq. That's all tentative, but that seems to be the story I'm getting.

Kelley and I had a really nice experience tonight. We wanted to go do something nice before I headed out, so we decided to go to the Olive Garden up on RT 104 in Greece for dinner (Kelley really likes it there.) About 3/4 of the way through the meal, Kelley started crying out of no where, which is not really surprising to me as she's been spontaneously crying off and on for the last month (poor girl, I really feel for her. This experience has convinced me that a deployment is harder on the families and loved ones of the soldiers than it is on the soldiers themselves!)

Anyway, the waitress happened to come by the table as she was crying, and Kelley explained to her that nothing was wrong, she was just crying because I was heading out for Iraq the next morning. The waitress then came back a couple of minutes later and said the restaurant was going to pay for our entire meal and we could choose one free dessert. How nice of them! It wasn't like it was a cheap meal either, because we both had drinks, we shared an appetizer, plus our meals! Then they threw in the dessert on top of it all.

I wanted to take this space here to tell you about it and encourage you to go eat at that Olive Garden as well. I thought it was very nice of them and I really appreciated it. It means a lot to me when folks who really aren't that involved with the whole Iraq war go out of their way to try to support you and your loved ones. Thank you Olive Garden!

So I just got done watching the Vice-Presidential debate. Actually, I watched the debate for as long as I could stand, then flipped to the Yankees-Twins game, which I watched for as long as I could bear, then flipped back to the debate. And so on, and so on. Neither one really captured my attention.

Does anyone else out there get the sense that absolutely nothing new is coming out of these debates? Has anyone said anything we did not already know? Aside from the fact we (re)discovered that Bush is an absolutely horrendous public speaker, what has anyone said that they haven't said multiple times already?

I must admit, I wish Bush would just stand up and say "Yes, we f***ed up with the post war planning, stuff happened, we're adjusting, get over it." This constant insistance about how well it's going in Iraq gets old. I would have thought politicians would have learned their lessons from Clinton and his refusal to be forthright. But I suppose not.

On the same note, Kerry's criticisms and ideas seem just a little too oportunistic. I really don't think Kerry believes a word he's saying. He's just mouthing what his advisors have told him will differentiate him from Bush and appeal to people who don't already like Bush. Kerry is as much a part of America's Iraq policy as Bush and Cheney are.

Is Nader on the ballot in NY? =(

Oh, and the Yankees lost. Go Mets!! And since the Mets aren't in the playoffs, I am hereby adopting the Cardinals and Red Sox for the remainder of the season. Should they meet in the World Series, I have to stay loyal to the NL. Go Cards!!

Well, I finally got another section of the site started. I've managed to work out the navigation menu I wanted to use throughout the rest of the site (which is what was holding everything up) and started the beginnings of some pictures from my field exercise in Poland during October of 2002. You can can check out all the work by following the photos menu to Photos/Military/Poland 2002.

My only concern is that the larger photo that displays isn't quite large enough. Perhaps at some point I'll try to upgrade it. I'd like to make it so that you can click on the larger photo and have a full size version pop-up, but I'm not sure how to do it as it's all java script anyway.

Kelley and I finally went and got her two cats, April and Sabrina to bring them to their new home at my apartment. They're actually kind of nice cats. Sabrina is cute. She's this little ball of black . . . roundness. I'm not sure how else to describe her. April is just a plain old standard cat with a bad case of the wiggles. She will not sit still for more than two minutes!! She's not hyper or anything. She's just always doing something.

Buddy (my fish, for those who have forgotten) got a new home as well. I saw this cool looking apothecary jar at Pottery Barn and decided it would make a nice new penthouse suite for the Bud Man. I wanted to get him a bigger fish bowl anyway, but this makes his bowl a little more interesting, more of a design feature for the apartment rather than just a plain old fish bowl sitting on the sofa table.

My place is getting to be like Dr. Doolittle's *lol*