Troop Weblog

Mystery solved!

For all of you who have received a random phone call from me this week asking if you sent me an embossing tool as a present…I figured out where it came from!!! After about 20 minutes on the phone with the company where it was ordered, they told me it was from Aaron and Danica Elliot, our friends in Korea!!!! What a weird coincidence that it would be ordered from a company in Texas and made by Oraton, my mom’s next door neighbor!! No wonder I was confused. Anyway, I’m sure your minds will rest easy now.

Optical Illusion

If you take a look at the following picture, let me tell you ... it is not animated. Your eyes are making it move.

To test this, stare at one spot for a couple seconds and everything will stop moving. Or look at the black center of each circle and it will stop moving. But move your eyes to the next black center and the previous will move after you take your eyes away from it.... Weird

QOTD-Snap-Crackle-Pop

What does the Commanding General's Speechwriter do when there's no speech to be written?

"bubble wrap in the shredder. give it a try."
-Rich

Jim Morrison-Arab Prayer Leader

So, I'm on my way back from dinner tonight.
The sun is setting.
The bats are coming out for their evening feed.
And I can begin to hear the evening prayers from the nearby Mosque.

Everything is as it should be.

Then I start to think that I recognize the prayer.
Now, I understand how language immersion works and you just sort of start to understand another language, but my exposure to the Arabic language has been limited to these daily prayers and the two or three phrases in I know.

Still, this prayer is very familiar-it's speaking to me. Not the words so much as the tune/harmony/melody.

Next thing I know I'm humming along... and not like you do when you don't really know the song. No. I was humming along as if it were as familiar as a Christmas Carol. But why would any Muslim Prayer be that familiar to me? This was really starting to freak me out. I was getting ahead of the prayer; I knew what direction it was taking, when the tempo was going to change.

That's when half my brain decided it had had enough fun at the expense of the other half and I recognized that the sound was not a Muslim prayer coming from the mosque but the muffled sounds from the radio in a Suburban parked down the street blasting the "The End," by The Doors...

"Lost in a Roman Wilderness of pain,
And all the children are insane;
All the children are insane;
Waiting for the summer rain."

I’m not sure if I should feel relieved or just silly.

WLU Law Ranked #9

Shout out for Michelle's Law School.

The Princeton Review ranked Washington and Lee University Law School #9, in its annual Best Overall Academic rankings.

Way to go babe! Top 10 Law School!

The Friday Five

1. What's on top of your refrigerator?
Don’t have one at the time.

2. What's your favorite meal of the day?
Dinner. The only meal that always has a dessert course.

3. Wash dishes by hand or in the dishwasher? What detergent do you use?
At home we use the dishwasher for the dishes and hand-wash the pots and pans. Although Michelle might say both since I like the dishes to be spotless even before they go in the dishwasher. I think we use Cascade?

4. How often do you eat out compared to eating in?
We eat home a lot, but we’ll eat out at least once a week for dinner. Lunch is almost always out of the house.

5. Any cool plans this weekend?
Right! :-(

Wet Weekend

Jesse sent me these shots from last weekend in downtown Blairstown, NJ-where I went to High School.

While NJ didn't suffer nearly as much as Florida and the southern states they clearly got a taste of Mother Nature's awesome power.

Hope you guys have a sunny, dry weekend!

New Resolution

In an effort to keep everyone better informed and share more of my adventure in Iraq I've resolved to post here more often. I'm going to try and keep them short and include some more pictures. If there is anything you'd like to see or hear about let me know!

I'm Back!

Hello everyone! Sorry, I've been gone for so long. I just retuned from my mid-tour leave. Everyone deployed for 365 days is authorized 14 days of Rest and Recuperation Leave in the middle of their deployment. With travel time included I was out of Iraq for three weeks. I meant to post some notes from home while on leave, but I never got around to it... Sorry.

I got back to Iraq on Thursday. I feel incredibly recharged despite the fact that I left on Monday and it took 4 and half days to get back. It seems to me that the process was much smoother on the way home than the way back. That may have something to do with the general disposition of all the travelers. On the way home everyone is in a great mood, to a man we'd all have given a kidney if someone asked for it. On the way back you'd be luck to get a smile.

Leave was great, and I that's a big part of why it was so painful to leave Michelle a second time and come back here.

We were not sure when I'd actually make it home (the flight from Kuwait through Germany to Atlanta is chartered and doesn't operate on any kind of schedule). Michelle was in NJ for the wedding of her friend (and KD sister) from The College of New Jersey, Kristin Jacobson. Michelle had RSVP'd for 2 in case I could make it home. I landed in Atlanta at 8:30 the morning of the wedding. The folks at Delta were very cooperative and 15 minutes after landing they had changed my open ticket to Roanoke, VA to Newark, NJ, and I was running to catch my 9:10 flight. Michelle picked me up at the Airport we made a quick stop at the Hotel (shower, shave, throw on a suit) and we made it to the church just before they began seating the parents.

It sounds like a lot of hustle and you might think we would have preferred a reunion at a slower more private pace, but this was really great. We both love weddings and you could really feel the love between Kristin and her betrothed, Chris. The wedding and the reception were great. My first night back in the states included a wonderful, romantic wedding, a delicious meal served in courses and an evening of dancing and enjoying the company of our great friends, Kristin and Mike, who were also at the wedding.

The next day we had breakfast with my parents and then went to a birthday party at Michelle's dad's house. Jim and the boys even came so we got to see almost everyone (Jim delivered a hug from Jen who had to work).

We left for Lexington that afternoon. It was nice to finally see our new house for real. Pictures did not do it justice. Michelle did a great job! Over the next two weeks I did a few projects around the house, hanging pictures, curtain rods, and the like. We took a few day trips in the area, went out to eat a few times, saw a movie, and just really enjoyed spending time together whatever we were doing. Whitney and Toby were particularly excited to see their old man again... Toby ran right up, gave me a hug and peed all over my leg in excitement. My parents came down to visit in the middle of the second week and we visited some of their friends who live in town. We also fought a flood, when the first hurricane came through. The last weekend we drove up to Gettysburg, PA and met up with Sandy and Jesse for a picnic at the Devil's Den and an afternoon spent lounging near the Pennsylvania Monument.

It was very hard to leave, but those two weeks reminded us how much fun we have together and now it's only 6 months till this deployment ends, I get out of the Army, and we never have to endure anything like this again.