I had to turn the heat on in the car last night. Cold weather is on it's way!

I'm starting to rethink the wisdom of camping next weekend. *lol*

I tried to take a video of my actually coming home and the greeting at the Rochester airport. You can view the clip here.

The video's not terribly detailed because some guy is just walking along right between me and everything I'm trying to film, blissfully unaware that anything is going on at all. I guess the guy walking with the camera in the DCU's and the cheering people didn't clue him in *sigh* But it ends with Kelley running up and accosting me, so all's well that ends well.

I guess I was also on the news that evening, but I haven't seen the clip yet. If I can get a video tape of it I'll see if I can get my two seconds of fame on the local news up on the site too.

It's been a busy week back! Mostly sorting through my junk and trying to re-integrate my stuff back into the apartment. Now that there's two of us living here, it takes a little more organizing to make everything fit. There's plenty of room for two of us, but it's not like when it was just me and I had all sorts of space to myself.

I've got an eBay pile, a "going-downstairs-into-storage" pile. Kelley and I already took two great big garbage bags full of clothes to charity. I think the next step will be to get the paperwork put away and filed. I dropped my taxes off at the tax guy and got the car re-registered in my name today, so that's the first of the administrative duties I need to complete.

On a more fun note, I got a new phone: the Motorola E815. Very cool looking and so far I am very happy with it. Much louder than my last phone (LG VX4400) which I could barely hear ring in a quiet room, forget about riding in a car or out in a public place. Plus, the E815 has Bluetooth which I had wanted for quite a while to allow me to sync it with my address book and use wireless accessories.

Otherwise, I seem to be doing ok for the first week. Mostly just cleaning, organizing and running errands - essentially catching up on a year away. I have noticed I've had a bit of insomnia (it's 1 am as I write this) and I seem to be forgetting things. Mostly trivial things, but still, it can be a bit unnerving to forget something you just talked about. I haven't killed anyone yet though, so I suppose the transition back to civilian life is proceeding smoothly. Although I suppose if I want to kill someone, I ought to do it soon while I can still blame it on PTSD.

While we were in Baghdad waiting on our flight to Kuwait, we met up with a civilian contractor who had been down at Numaniyah with us. He took us on a tour of the rubble of the former Bath Party Headquarters. It had been bombed during the initial invasion and hasn't been fixed yet.

There was a huge underground bunker at the Party HQ as well, three levels deep and several hundred meters long. However, my camera battery went dead while we were still going through the above ground portion, so I wasn't able to get any footage. The place was incredible! Huge blast doors at the entrance, decontamination rooms, air filtration systems. There were kitchens, bedrooms, TV rooms, all kinds of stuff. Everything Saddam would have needed to run his government from underground should it come to it. Let me tell you, with proper supplies a person could have survived in this underground labrynth indefenitely. I was able to get a few pics off of other guy's cameras, so I'll post those eventually.

Here's the videos of the above ground portion:

Ok, here they are. The posts from the time I found out I was coming home to when I actually hit Baghdad and stopped being able to get access to my computer.


8/20

Operation Maybe So begins . . .

OK, so I imagine that by the time most people read this I'll have been home for several days already. I've decided not to write about my redeployment until after the fact.

Why? Because in the Army, nothing is certain until it actually happens. Personally, I can handle the last minute changes and the uncertainty of when I'll be going home, but I'm not sure it's fair to bring my loved ones along for the roller coaster ride. For now, I'm telling everyone I'll be home sometime in October. In reality, it's looking like I'll be home by late September. If I get home early, then it's a bonus. If the redeployment runs longer than expected, then the family members are none the worse for the experience. Save a lot of frustration this way. I mean, we've been receiving information about redeploying since about the middle of July and even in that short time it's changed several times!

Our replacements from the 80^th Division have begun to arrive. One person (the new XO) has already arrived, and the new commander is supposed to be here shortly as well. The rest of the replacements are supposed to be arriving some time at the end of the month - around the 28^th of August or so.

Once they arrive, we'll train them up and get them caught up on what their job is for about a week. The lists we've seen detailing the redeployment plans put us leaving Numaniyah sometime between the 6^th and 9^th of September. I figure a couple of weeks after I leave Numaniyah I should be back in Rochester.

It's looking pretty solid so far. But you just never know with the Army. So for now, I'm going to write my blog entries concerning the redeployment in Notepad and post them later.


8/21

New base commander . . .

The new base commander arrived today. That makes 3 replacements on the ground so far. 8 more days until mine arrives (not that I'm counting or anything.)

His name is COL Anderson. All I can think of everytime I hear his name is The Matrix. "Miissssssster Anderson." *lol*


8/25

So bored . . .

Just sitting here killing time. Not too much going on these days. Just waiting for my replacement so I can start training him. Hmmm, lets see. 3 or 4 days left.


8/26

So close . . .

Supposedly the replacements are arriving this weekend. By Monday I should have my guy here and in place working. I spend a week training him, then it's off to Baghdad to start the process of leaving country.


8/28

Getting closer . . .

4 more new people arrived last night. None of them was my replacement. Supposedly he's coming tonight. We'll see.


8/30

Not quite yet . . .

Well, he didn't come as predicted. I did however get an email yesterday stating he was in the J6 office trying to contact me. Unfortunately I was off base at Scania all day, so I missed his phone calls. He called this morning and I talked to him for a short while. Sounds like a nice guy. Has a southern "country boy" accent. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

I've also received an email stating he's scheduled to fly down on the 31^st. So it may be a little over 24 hours before my replacement is on the ground and being trained. Can I get a hallelujah? Can I get an amen?


9/1

It's after 10, do you know where your replacement is? . . .

My replacement is here!! Actually, they sent two people, which is kind of strange. I guess one is my actual replacement, the other was sent down here to help train him. Which is nice for me, because 4 days to train my guy is not going to be enough. With an extra guy down here to train him up I don't have to worry about trying to fit everything in before I leave for Baghdad. The other guy can work with him through some of the things that might come up.

So, the schedule from here. Leave Numaniyah on the 4^th. Leave Baghdad on the 8^th (I think). After that, not sure.

But still . . . WOOHOO!! I am actually leaving.


9/6

In Baghdad . . .

We hit Baghdad late Sunday night. Woke up Monday and started clearing. We cleared all day Monday, I received my end of tour award - we basically got all the administrative crap out of the way in a single day, which was nice. However, now we sit and wait for our flight. I think we leave the IZ on the 8^th for BIAP and fly out of Baghdad for Kuwait on the 11^th. So we've basically got 5 days or so of sitting around killing time. If I figure it right, I think I'll be in Rochester by the 20^th, give or take a couple three days.

I almost would rather be waiting at BIAP rather than the Green Zone. You're just a bus ride away from Camp Victory at BIAP, and there's all sorts of stuff to do at Victory. The Green Zone really doesn't have much in the way of MWR activities. I went running this afternoon, checked my email . . . and that's about it. Somehow I managed to kill most of the day. But you know what? Being bored waiting to fly out of Baghdad is better than being busy waiting to leave Numaniyah. Know what I mean?

I started getting word about when I was coming home all the way back in July. Granted, the early redeployment from Iraq was tentative at that point, but we knew we were going to be out of Numaniyah sometime around the end of August. We were receiving tentative dates and schedules - even lists with the names of our replacements from the 80^th Division. At that point I made the decision not to tell anyone about my coming home - or share information about when things were scheduled to be happening - because I knew from past experience that too much changes in Army life. The military will tell you one thing, and the next day it will change, and then it will change again the day after that. It's not that the Army is jerking you around, it's just a fact of operational life. The mission comes first and you adjust your schedule to reality as things develop.

There is a saying in the military: "You'll know what's going on when it happens. Until then, don't worry about it." To me, that approach to life is no big deal because I'm used to it. But I was concerned about dragging my family and other people who care about me through the mud as one deadline after another came and went. So I chose to not share the information I received about my redeployment with my family or friends. I figured if the plans turned out to be wrong and things got pushed back far enough, folks back home would be none the worse for wear if I got home at the originally scheduled time instead of the new, earlier timeline. On the flip side, if things went the way Baghdad was saying they would, then everyone gets a nice surprise when I show up early.

This caused problems for the blog however. How do I keep up with it without everyone knowing what's going on? I know people come here to keep up with how I'm doing while I'm in Iraq. Obviously I can't write about what's going on here at the web site and still keep the schedule quiet. But I also have been using the site as sort of a journal to document my experiences over here and I didn't want to lose all that information. So, I decided to write about the redeployment process on my computer but not post them.

So, here for your reading pleasure is my "hidden" blog entries, starting August 20^th and running through September 6^th. After the 6^th I had a hard time finding electricity for my laptop so the posts kind of went quiet until I got home.

Ooops, never mind. The guys just showed up and they're ready to go out. I think I was nominated to be the designated driver tonight. I'll post the entries tomorrow.

Man, I've gotta stop coming to Fort Bliss. Every time I come down here they stick a needle in my arm. More shots today!! This time it was hepatitis A and B. Gawd, that stuff hurts.

Yes, I am a baby when it comes to needles. Raz me all you want, I don't like getting stuck. The upside is I'm covered for the next great biological disaster I suppose.

We're off for the weekend here at Bliss. The civilians who do all the out processing don't work on the weekends, so we're left to wait until Monday to pick up on the paperwork. Not sure what we're doing, but if I know the guys from Numaniyah who are here with me, it will involve copious ammounts of alcohol. Let me tell you, Army sure guys do seem to like to drink!

Well, not quite, but close enough. I arrived back in the States for good on the 13th. That's the reason I wasn't able to write or email as much; I was travelling from Numaniyah to Baghdad to Kuwait to Texas, where I am right now.

I'll post some about the trip home. One word: long. For now, I'm pretty busy out processing so I still probably won't have a ton of time to mess with the site. But the good news, I'm done with my tour in Iraq, I'm back in America and I should be back at my apartment in the middle of next week if things go as planned.

I've been on a bit of a domain name registering spree the last couple of days. You can now get to the site by going to www.markrhodes.name and www.jasonbloomberg.com. As always, www.markrhodes.us will also work.

I imagine markrhodes.name is pretty self explanatory, but why jasonbloomberg.com? Go take a gander at www.rhodes.com. It's owned by a gentleman named Jason Bloomberg. Jason Bloomberg? Can you find anything on that site that has anything to do with the name or word "Rhodes"? I certainly can't. And the bastard won't answer the emails I've sent inquiring as to his willingness to sell the domain. So I figured if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Bloomberg.com is of course already owned by the large media company eponymously titled by Michael Bloomberg, so I did the next best thing and registered jasonbloomberg.com. I'm not sure Jason cares that someone else owns his name, because if he wanted the domain I imagine he would have registered it long ago. But I found the irony of our totally unrelated names pointing to each other's sites too much to pass up. Kind of a circle of life thing.

You've gotta find your kicks where ever you can, know what I mean?

A new virus has been released which, once installed on your computer, monitors your surfing habits and blocks sites that appear to be related to pornography by displaying web pages with verses from the Koran. You can read more about it here.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sort of repression we're fighting against.

For anyone who keeps up, I probably won't be online much over the next couple of weeks. I also probably won't have too many blog entries to publish either. Things are picking up on post after a bit of a lull and I imagine I'll be pretty busy for the month of September. So don't worry or get nervous if you don't hear from me as often as you're used to. I'm still here and doing fine. I just don't expect to have as much time to get online as I've had.