Well another Christmas is here. Happy Day! Normally I stay busy on Christmas but today was a no fly day for us so instead I tried to sleep in. My body is pretty much tuned to its 0400 wakeup schedule so on the dot I found myself climbing out of bed before I realized what was happening. But I climbed back in and dozed off until 0900 and I’ve been completely bored ever since then. So here I sit watching bootleg DVD’s and missing my cat.

Last night was pretty fun, I went to the DFAC for chow with a couple of guys that I work with and I got so excited that I almost wet my pants when I saw that they had Chinese food for Christmas dinner! My family has always done Christmas dinner on the 24th; it’s a European thing. But yeah, it was awesome. But then as I was walking back to my hooch I ran into some old friends from way back when and we went to another dining facility for chow. And THEN later that night I got a call from another old friend here who wanted me to meet her for midnight chow because she works nights. So I had 3 big Christmas dinners in the space of about 5 hours. It was good to see everyone again.

Life is good, so good in fact that I think I’m gonna go take a nap.

Even though it’s kind of been one of “those” weeks, life is still pretty damn awesome. Today was a pretty long day, I’m sitting in my chair at my desk in my room and after spending 10 hours bouncing around in a helicopter my body still feels like it’s vibrating and swaying around. I’m loving it though, if a helicopter had boobs and could have babies I’d marry one…ok maybe not but I do like them.

But anyway, back to my week. So I received a really nice email from an ex-girlfriend that made me feel pretty good. Even though things didn’t work out, it is reassuring to know that there are still wonderful people like her out there. And then I got a not-so-nice little letter in the mail from an evil girl that I went on a date with a couple of times. Jason knows her! But I knew it would happen. Let me tell you the story of the day Pete got a Facebook account.

It all started with a pretty cool guy in my Servicemen’s Group in Iraq who kept insisting that I needed to hook up with his hot cousin out in Utah who was evidently sick of a lot of the kind of guys you find out in Utah. Finally after a couple of weeks I gave in and made a Facebook account to talk to his cousin, and when I left Balad, I added a couple of people from work to it.

I forget exactly who said it or how it went but there is an oft repeated maxim that a reliable way to judge someone’s character is to examine the company that he or she keeps. Most of my friends growing up were a bunch of idiots. But I eventually grow out of that phase of my life and moved on to bigger and better things.

One of the greatest things about growing up is that I found myself being attracted to an entirely different class of girls and although by my being single it’s obvious that things have never quite worked out, I still get along and consider myself to be friends with most of the girls that I’ve had much to do with. But there are a few that for some reason have made it their mission in life to try their best to complicate mine. Plus there are a lot of idiots that I used to hang out with still out there. They always seem to find me too. I figured if I didn’t tell everyone about my little trip to the Facebook darkside, that I would be safe. Ah well.

So a couple of friends posted something on my little page that said they needed my mailing address to send me some stuff so I just typed back a reply with my new address. I love getting mail. I’ll take a handwritten letter (hopefully still smelling of nice perfume) over 10 emails any day. But then I picked up this letter lol. It was a rambling mix of vague threats about what happens to jerks and angry statements about how she didn’t need anyone…yup just that. It was like the letter version of an angry midnight drunk-dial. No perfume either, talk about a rip-off! At least it was her 37 cents that was wasted.

Other than that, not a lot going on. Took a few pictures today on the way out to Farah.

And the world recently lost an absolutely gnarly man. RIP Rob Farrely. A guy who went out in style doing what he loved!

Yay for Church!

I made it out to Church here in-between missions and it felt so good to be there. The Serviceman's Branch here is a wonderful mix of nationalities and professions. I've always had a thing for international groups.

And one of the speakers was a Navy Seabee who gave one of the most immediately relevant talks that I've heard in a long time. We recently got nailed by some pretty bad rainstorms, the first of the season here. He remarked that this sudden test of bad weather gave him and his men the opportunity to realize the weaknesses in their construction; bad drainage, holes in roofs, etc. All things that they never would have realized otherwise had they not been tested.

He related that to strengthening ourselves and utilizing every test of our faith to recognize and repair our weaknesses. There was a lot more to it than that but that's Pete's Paraphrase. I love listening to old guys in Church, they've been-there-done-that and they don't care, they just tell it like it is. How I long to be old and wise! lol

Monkey fun

I saw something today that really disturbed me, and it’s not something that I’d exactly write home to mom and dad about…so why not put it out here for the unhinged to appreciate?

I’ve never actually sat down and made a list of things that a man should never ever do. But if I did, way up there at the top right next to abusing a girl or robbing an old lady would be that a naked man should never fight another naked man. Unfortunately I was witness to that very act this evening.

The showers in my area consists of an elevated platform running down the middle of a tent with shower heads on either side divided by an aisle down the middle of the platform. Two very dim 40 watt light bulbs are all the illumination available and are encased in waterproof fixtures that have become coated with dust and grime on the inside that causes them to give everything a reddish-tinge and caste eerie shadows throughout the tent as they swing to-and-fro from the ceiling that shudders in the wind. Coupled with the nonexistent ventilation which results in the tent being constantly full of steam now that they’ve fixed the water heater, it feels like the cheap brothels you see in movies and third-world-countries.

So today I took a shower pretty late in the evening, just a couple of hours ago as a matter of fact. One of my friends goes to work at midnight so I’ve been staying up late and catching midnight chow with her when she wakes up. I was standing in the shower and washing the shampoo out of my hair when I heard a couple of guys yelling. People are always yelling about one thing or another so I just ignored it until I started hearing more people yelling and feet stomping and then some crashing of furniture. I poked my head around the edge of the canvas wall that keeps the showers from soaking the changing area and saw two naked dudes wrestling on the floor punching each other. A couple of other guys were in the area yelling at them to knock it off but seeing as how nobody had clothes on, they were all somewhat reluctant to jump into the fray to separate the two. The combatants continued thrashing around on the ground and knocking stuff over, finally knocking over one of the big metal 3-sink and mirrors units. The warm water was starting to taper off so I got back to my own business and ignored the guys. A few seconds after the loud crashing of the sinks, I heard an extremely angry guy yelling something as he walked into the tent. It went something like, “WTF is going on? Wha….OMG what the #@%*!*!*$&@ are you !*#@! doing #@*% ass naked fighting like a couple of #@%*!!! homos?” It turned out to be an Army 1SGT who happened to be walking by outside when he heard the commotion.

He screamed at them and they both jumped to attention along with all of the other guys who had been snapping towels and yelling at the two idiots. Rather than walk out and risk being asked to join the sausage parade I just toweled off and tried to keep from laughing as I listened to one of the more vicious but hilarious ass-chewings that I’ve ever heard. After a few minutes the 1SGT seemed realize the awkwardness of him facing off against a bunch of naked guys and with a few parting words expressing his disgust with all of them he left. It sure took the fight out of them though.

It definitely wasn’t something that I would ever care to see again but it was pretty funny. Sometimes I think that idiots are just here for everyone else’s amusement.

Blast to the Past

Call me crazy but I am so happy right now being back here in Kandahar. At the moment I’m living in a big transient tent with about 200 other guys in bunk beds with a 300 yard walk to a cold shower or porta-potty, but in spite of that I couldn’t be happier. The atmosphere in Afghanistan is absolutely electric; people here act like they actually have a mission rather than just sitting around punching their tickets like in Iraq.

It has been a trip down memory lane as well. I arrived just in time to see the last vestiges of my old company being dismantled on this base. I watched as the tent that I lived in for over 4 years was torn down and discarded. I had to laugh when I saw the workers struggling to break apart the huge and sturdy bookshelf that I had built. I built it extremely tough so that I could stack sandbags against it on the outside wall of the tent so that I wouldn’t have to roll out of bed when the rockets started hitting. But eventually after a good 10 minute struggle against 3 men and a 20 lb sledge-hammer, it was beaten down small enough to fit into the back of a pickup to be hauled to the burn pit. It’ll probably be 20 years or so before anyone finds my last little parting gift that I left here though. I went out late one night in 2006 when they were resurfacing the runways and taxiways and buried a time-capsule with some pictures, letters, and a few trinkets. Maybe someday I’ll come back and dig it up.

One really annoying thing here is our little subcontractor guys from India. I normally get along great with Indians but when there’s a whole mass of them, they get really annoying. They tend to have really bad hygiene and listen to incredibly annoying music. But the worst thing is their mysterious nocturnal activities that we’ve come to call “Tag! You’re her!”

It goes like this: imagine a big huge tent, probably 80 x 300. There are 4 rows of bunk beds with all kinds of bags, footlockers, cans, electric cables, etc all over the place. Well these guys wait until like midnight and then one of them will jump out of bed and you’ll hear him tear-assing around the tent in the dark like a damn drunken jackrabbit, knocking stuff over and bumping into things, and then when they get wherever they’re going, it gets quiet for a few minutes and then starts all over again. And seeing as how a number of the Americans in the tent are former Marines, they immediately started throwing out accusations of homosexuality. Not entirely unfounded though, dudes in this part of the world are so screwed up. But that’s where the tag! you’re her jokes started.

It’s midnight here and I’m starting to laugh at things that aren’t funny and my eyelids are getting heavy. Lemme go hike down and take my icy-cold shower and crawl into my cozy sleeping bag. Tomorrow is a slow day, the weather is bad and our choppers are grounded so I don’t have to fly! Happy day!

Back Back Train is comin'

Today is a big day for me! I've been in-processing with this new company for almost 3 weeks now. In-processing is probably a less than accurate description because it implies action. Altogether I would say that I spent probably 8 hours these past 3 weeks actually with work related activity. The rest of the time I've spent cruising around town, lounging in my posh hotel room, swimming in the pool, at the gym, and I even went wind-surfing for the first time. I do enjoy some down-time now and then but this has just been ridiculous. I've been soooooo bored it's pathetic.

There have been all kinds of paperwork hassles with security clearances and stuff that needs to be released and transferred to my new company and that's why I've been sitting around. So today when I went to the evening briefing, I was pretty surprised to hear my name called as somebody flying out in the morning. I am so excited! When I left Kandahar just over 2 years ago, I never ever thought I would get the opportunity to see that place again. Here I go!

Pete = Celebrity

I have to admit that my mother is one smart lady. As a kid I remember several occasions where she and my dad took all four of us rowdy hell-raisers and sat us down at the table for several hours and demonstrated proper table manners. We fought and argued. My brother would tip my chair over, and we threw table knives at each other. I used to deliberately test my mom to see how far she would go with her "ridiculous Mrs. Manners school" as one of my older sisters so eloquently described it. How my mom put resisted the urge to take us out back and bury us alive in a potato sack I'll never know. But over the years she and my dad drilled manners and some common sense into us and although I do still make my share of mistakes, I realize now that I have the background to recognize and learn from them.

 

These carefully cultivated (often with the help of a motherly backhand lol) manners have helped me immeasurably throughout my life. I once scored a bank loan that I needed but wasn't qualified for because I instinctively stood up from my chair when the bank manager (a lady) walked into the room. After some discussion, she remarked that she was impressed that I was such a polite young man and I replied that I couldn't take any credit for it but my mom could and I would pass along her compliment. It was a completely honest answer but BAM!

 

And now my manners have helped me to achieve mini-celebrity status among the hotel staff here. Having spent many an hour working as a waiter or bartender, I have a real soft spot for service folks and one of my major pet peeves is rude customers. I've made friends with most of the staff here including the manager of one of the restaurants. She brought a photographer over to my table one evening when I was having dinner with a girl and he asked to take a few pictures of us together. I didn't think much of it but then I started getting phone calls in my room from the girls, "Mr. Pete, did you see your pictures? Mr.Pete, Mr. Pete!"

 

It turns out he is a photographer for a famous magazine and our picture was in the happy couples section. So my polite manners and willingness to befriend strangers brought me, a pork-eating high school flunkee infidel, into a high-class Kuwaiti socialite magazine 4 pages away from the King himself. Now I've just got to wait until the magazine comes out in a couple of days so I can scan my 2 seconds of fame and put it out here. In the meantime, here's a picture of my newest culinary kryptonite: restaurant style nachos.

My thoughts exactly

The hilarious genius of Bill Watterson strike once again. The last panel expresses the conflict of my thoughts exactly haha.

For Kris

Thanks!

Days like yesterday make me long for Wal-Mart. I spent the better part of 2 hours wandering around various markets and shopping areas here in Kuwait city shopping for of all things, laundry detergent. My hotel being a 5-star, charges outrageous prices for all of the little services such as laundry. It’d cost me almost $3.50 for them to wash a T-shirt, $0.75 for a pair of socks, it’s crazy. But in the crew lounge that they reserve for airline flight crews, there is a washer and dryer so I went out to find some detergent.

I started by asking my new friends, the Filipino girls who pretty much run everything at the hotel and they all looked at me funny when I said I wanted to do my own laundry. Nonetheless they directed me to try a few certain markets and places so I wandered off to try my luck. Everywhere that I went I was greeted with the same skeptical looks and quizzical questions from shopkeepers. “You want what? Why do you want it? Are you sure you want it? What will you do with it?”

Finally I found a big box of Tide for about $5 and took it back to the hotel. A couple of the girls came over as I walked in the door, they were smiling their big Filipino smiles and then when they saw that I had indeed bought laundry soap, they all started chattering excitedly among themselves in Tagalog and pointing at it. They seemed rather surprised that the overpaid American was actually going to go through with it and do his own laundry. I’ve just been wondering over and over again when I see things, “What the hell is wrong with this place?”

It’s not all bad though, there was a very exciting wedding the other night. I’d never seen an Egyptian wedding, it was crazy! And because I was dressed nicely and had been chit-chatting with a lot of the guests hanging around the lobby, they invited me along. It was a really charged atmosphere with a band consisting of 5 or 6 guys beating these different kinds of drums, a guy on a soprano sax, and another guy playing what looked like sawed off clarinet with a trumpet bell. But together it all blended into that magical Middle Eastern sound as they wandered around the lobby with all of the party guests loudly sounding their traditional Bedouin “trilling” that they do. Quite the experience.

Live from Fruityville

There is definitely something wrong with the men in this country. I went for a run outside a couple of days after I got here and I noticed that just on the block that my hotel is located on, there are 9 or 10 men’s hair salons, or as they call them here, saloons. And they have some pretty goofy names, I even sent a picture of one to the Engrish blog.

I try not to jump to conclusions but I have my suspicions about a lot of the guys hanging around in the salons. They all prance around like a bunch of tulips; if they’re not getting their hair done they’re fawning over some dude who is. Pretty interesting. I have nothing against gay guys as long as they respect what I stand for, but with the people in this part of the world, it’s just odd how someone can be so at peace with themselves living with a duplicitous set of standards in life. On one hand, they profess to be so morally superior and condemn that sort of behavior. On the other hand, they act like a bunch of fruitcakes and many have told me over the years that it was men who were created to pleasure each other, women are just there to produce heirs. We had of problems in Afghanistan with the Afghans and man-love, but that’s another bunch of stories.

Anyway, life is good. Kuwait is boring as crap but I’m glad I’m in a nice hotel with a gym and a pool. Kind of a disorganized mess getting processed here but hopefully I’ll be on my way before too long.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying my heavily censored cable TV and internet, and sand. Lots of sand.

E Pluribus Pete

I’m pretty sure that I’m making the right decision by moving back to Afghanistan but it is really hard to leave here. People always say that you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone but over the past few days I’ve been getting a big taste of what I’ve had for so long and what I’ll be missing. So many people, including many that I’ve never met but that I’ve helped out via email or on the phone have all been coming up to me or calling and wishing me well and letting me know how much I’ll be missed here. I tried to keep my leaving on the down-low but even on short notice, I was very touched that a lot of the organizations and people that I’ve been dealing with over the years went out of their way to make me plaques, certificates, coins, and lots of personal gifts. I had to make a special trip to the post office today to mail it all home!

But more than anything I will miss some of those wonderful people that I work with. These dear friends with whom I have spent thousands and thousands of hours working mean so much to me. With them it’s like a big family where we all know each other well enough that we really don’t even need to do a lot of talking, but we all yell, laugh, and talk all day anyway. It’s a wonderful mix of people; Mexicans, Marines, Mormon (me), Macedonians, Kosovars, Bosnians, Georgia rednecks, the list goes on. It will be good to go through life and know that I have true friends in almost any corner of the world that I may find myself in.

The time has come to move on though. As has been proven countless times in my life so far, it doesn’t make any sense to say goodbye because I will be seeing you all again down the road somewhere. The world truly is a small place, and I’m grateful for that! Until we meet again!

Women...

What a week! In the past few months I have seriously gotten back into my gym rat habits, it doesn't matter how frustrating or stressful my day has been, a hardcore workout just drains all of that away and I sleep like a baby at night. I've been going to gyms ever since I was a little kid and my mom worked at an MWR. My brother and I used to tag along and just hang out and figure out what was what. I developed the habit over the years of being all business when I go, I don't go there to chase girls or try to impress anybody. For me, a gym isn't a social club, at least not until a week or so ago when I met an incredible girl there.

 

This girl is stunning. She is almost a spitting image of Ms. Goodnight from the old James Bond movie. But I didn't approach her as beautiful women have a way of complicating my life, especially over here. That habit is hard to break when I go home, my friend Nikki tells me I often come off as too aloof or uninterested. Here I try my best to keep to myself but after a few days of this girl coming to the gym she started talking to me, just saying hi at first, and then making small talk. Then she told me one day that she had made reservations at Sammy's, the Turkish restaurant, for us the following evening so we could get to know each other. I figured it couldn't hurt so I dug out a nice shirt and cleaned my boots and off I went.

 

The evening started off really well, we talked about so many different things and I found out that she's got two degrees from Penn State, a big dog, her own house, and a range of interests that seriously rivals my own. She is the kind of girl that every man dreams of when he imagines a good girl. Somehow the conversation drifted into the character traits that we look for in a partner. I felt pretty safe with my honest answer that rather than stereotypes, it is the unique qualities of the individual that are most attractive to me, and she seemed pleased with the answer. But as the conversation progressed, the change that came over her was startling.

 

In the matter of a few minutes she went from being a sweet, charming, and coyly beautiful girl to an angry quasi-feminist with an insatiable demand for chivalry from a man. In retrospect I suspect that she has watched way too much television and expects life to exactly conform to masterpiece theater type behavior. She complained bitterly about the men in her life who have been such jerks, guilty of the cardinal sins of being 15 minutes late or not pulling out her chair at a fancy restaurant. The list went on and on and it's hard to describe, but the change that came over her was so dramatic and sudden that I was at a loss for words.

 

I'll be the first to admit that I am guilty of being less than a gentleman at times but I grew up watching the way my father treated my mother and his example was a powerful one. I can not recall a single incident of him ever even raising his voice to her, or to any of us kids. Sure he didn't always do all the little things like opening car doors all the time, my mom is every bit a lady but she would have told him to knock it off if he tried. Through all of her health problems he has been there to care for her, bless her, whatever it took. She has always been his absolute first priority through everything. When he and I talk about what the future holds for him, he doesn't talk about how much fun it would be to do this or that; rather he says that my mom would enjoy doing this or that, and it's obvious that he's just along for the ride and to make sure that she's happy because that's what makes him happy.

 

I was thinking that this girl is so intelligent and amazing, so confident in herself that maybe it might do me some good to try to conform to her advanced notions of chivalry. The distinction between my date's idea of a gentleman and my impression of a true gentleman, my father, was something that I was trying to get my head around until I started writing it down and then I realized that I was being blinded by beauty.

 

After that enlightening dinner, we had one final activity together when she wanted to go to the pool and swim instead of going to the gym. I hadn't been to the pool here yet so I went along, amazing workout btw. But it was obvious that things had soured somewhat and being the smart girl that she is, she called me out on it and I told her that while I am open to improving myself, her demands are just too unrealistic. The hormonally charged portion of my mind that I try to keep under control was screaming in my head, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?" as I watched her walk away for the last time…in her bikini. I so need to get out of this place!

The Confusion Feel-Goodies!

It has been an interesting few weeks in a number of ways. I received a very tempting job offer with a fat raise in Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago, and to my surprise, I was extended a calling at church not a day or two after I got the job offer.

 

The calling was quite interesting by itself; I'm the missionary services coordinator for my servicemen's group in an area where it is forbidden to actively proselyte at all. However I know that it is a real calling and not just a "busy title" and an excuse to speak during Sunday school. Then I was assigned to speak in Church on missionary work and I dutifully researched and prepared what I felt was a good talk. As I was preparing I was surprised at a lot of things that I had heard before but since forgotten.

 

It went quite well but before I had even finished speaking, a soldier that I recognized from somewhere came in and sat down in the back. He described himself as a wandering spirit and said that he was always interested in learning about new religions and after the meetings were over, we spent over an hour in the back just chatting about religion, family, old girlfriends, and he agreed to be taught about the gospel.

 

Just as he was leaving, myself and another soldier were preparing to close up the chapel when in came yet another soldier who asked us where he could get a bible to read. One thing led to another and he ended up tentatively agreeing to come to Church to be our pianist as we are losing our dear Sis. Jones, who btw if she weren't already married I would marry just to hear her sing all day. But what an experience!

 

I had wondered about this calling and whether or not it was something I should take seriously. In the course of 2 weeks I have gone from being totally excited to have a calling, to somewhat confused about the nature and purpose of it, to slacking and neglecting it because it felt pointless. But on the first day where I put forth a heartfelt effort by giving a prayerful and earnest talk on missionary work, this happened. Again, words fail me as I try to put my thoughts and feelings into words.

 

But the confusion continues. I am still awaiting final word on the transfer to Afghanistan. I could be out of here on Friday or Saturday but here I sit, planning missionary discussions. If anything it is quite a reminder that I need to better accommodate the Lord's timeline for things instead of the other way around. What to do, what to do?

My favorite holiday!

Halloween was fun once again! And even though some of our costume stuff didn't get here until the day after Halloween, it just means that we get to drag it out and have two days of being retarded. I decided to be a gorilla again this year and my co-worker decided to be a beer keg, both of us looked pretty rediculous in the misty pre-dawn darkness walking out to our bus stop to go to work.
 
One thing that I often forget is that there are so many people from so many countries here and most of them have't even heard of Halloween. I had a great time on the bus pounding on the windows and watching the shocked expressions on people's faces as we drove by, they had no idea what was happening, it was hilarious. And on the way to work my bus makes a couple of different stops to pick people up and in the early morning most people aren't quite firing on all cylinders just yet so I had a great time of jumping out at them as soon as they set foot on the bus, we got some great video of me getting punched and kicked by some frightened girls.
 
We also made our appearance at the Air Force ELRS party, wandered through the passenger terminal, the Green Bean, anywhere else that we could find a crowd. It wasn't until we got off work and were waiting outside to head home that I realized I had been wandering around meeting people, taking pictures, and even giving a piggy-back ride (she was cute!) all with my zipper down. Of course writing this reminds me of a few other embarassing zipper stories...that perhaps I'll share another time.
 
But the definite highlight had to be on the bus ride home after work.  Normally the guards will just hop on the bus and check everyone's paperwork and badges as we get back to our compound so because it was totally dark outside driver kept the inside lights off as we approached our security checkpoint. One of the little security guys from Nepal hopped up the stairs with his flashlight and I jumped out and growled at him only to see his face contort and eyes widen in horror as he let loose with a terrified shriek and jumped off the bus. We were all roaring with laughter and his two buddies who saw what had happened were almost on the ground they were laughing so hard. To his credit, the poor guy saw the humor in it all and started nervously laughing himself. It was a great ending to a wonderful and fun-filled day.
 
Life is good!

Hymns 'n stuff

It never fails to amuse, or even amaze me when something happens that seems to be the final piece in a giant puzzle of thoughts that have been wandering in and out of my mind for months. That particular thing happens, oftentimes it is seemingly unrelated, but all of a sudden it hits and a dozen “ah-ha!” moments come at once and I feel enlightened. I had a couple of those moments today.

Some of my newfound realizations are things that only I would understand but among the other things that I realized or was reminded of today was how telling our body language can be when we're unaware of being watched. It’s also been interesting to see how lately certain lines from Church hymns seem to come to life. And I have come away with a greater appreciation for the effort that I need to put forth in finding a good girl to marry; extra emphasis on the good, not the hot, the rich, or the popular. Been there done that, dated a Swedish national figure skating champion lol.

But I digress. I have a few buddies here but deep trusting friendships seem to be elusive to me, both here and for life in general. Here we generally only know each other by nicknames, first-names, call-signs, etc. A few of my buddies I only know as Ski, Snowball, Macho, Mr. James, and of course I’m simply Pete to everyone. I think that we enjoy the relative anonymity of each other’s company here because it enables us to serve as each other’s sounding boards for the fears, frustrations, or hopes that we normally wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with our “normal” friends and nobody has a wife here. It’s just easier to share things with a stranger sometimes.

One of my buddies here has been struggling with a bitter divorce and I could tell from things he had mentioned before that it has taken a lot out of him. Even behind the mask of bravado and humor that we men tend to put up, it is apparent that someone has ripped this guy’s heart out, gnawed on it, and carelessly tossed it aside. And today in my office my mp3 player was playing as usual and my buddy sat slumped in a chair staring off through the open door into the distance, seemingly lost in thought. Then a particularly sad country song about love gone wrong and the resulting heartache started playing and his face gradually took on the saddest look I have ever seen on a man. The song was obviously familiar to him and seemed to be a catalyst that brought his misery to the surface for a brief few minutes of remembered, distant pain.

It is kind of difficult to describe but empathy is a powerful emotion that isn’t just reserved for girls. Of course I couldn’t help but think about the pain of love lost myself but more than that, it made me more aware that he might be a person who needs a helping hand now and then. I dunno, mushy dude-stuff really isn’t my style so I’m kind of at a loss for how to describe it but I felt real honest sorrow for this poor guy and for the awful things that this girl back home was putting him through.

One of my all-time favorite hymns reads in part:

...In the quiet heart is hidden, sorrow that the eyes can’t see...

This all sounds very corny but only because my inability to adequately express what I'm feeling makes it so. And I only write this here because I’d get a writer’s cramp from hell trying to write it in my journal, that and the internet is still relatively anonymous…isn’t it?

Pre-dawn adventures!

My alarm went off a little early today so that I could take care of some stuff on the internet this morning but as I woke up I could hear a storm outside slapping sheets of rain against my hooch. I also heard the faint *ping! ping!* of my internet antenna cable banging in the wind against the mounting pole. I didn't want it to collapse so I jumped out of bed and ran over to the door and saw that the support wires for my antenna pole had come loose during the storm and the entire setup was swaying violently back and forth in the wind.

 

I grabbed my flashlight and knife and ran outside and climbed up the concrete T-wall to start reattaching the support wires. I was concentrating so hard for a few minutes that I didn't realize that I wasn't alone in the darkness. It wasn't until I finished tying off the first cable that I glanced down at the ground to try to figure out how to get off of my perilous perch that I saw 3 of our contract security guys from Nepal all clad in their bright yellow rain gear intently staring at me. No doubt they were wondering what this idiot Yankee is doing 15-feet up hanging off the side of a T-wall at 0400 wearing only a pair of boxers and a flashlight in the middle of a raging storm.

 

They had a little huddle and then one of them, obviously the leader, cleared his throat and said in an absolutely comical Indian accent, "Sir, we all think you should come down. Your situation looks quite dangerous. Please come down, sir."

 

I took his advice and climbed down and showed them what I was doing but they still didn't appear entirely convinced that I wasn't an idiot and they wandered away a short distance and kept watching as I climbed the other T-walls to finish tying everything down. The whole experience was somewhat exhilarating, after all it isn't everyday that I get to run around in my underwear while its raining, much less climb on stuff.

 

So today looks to be a productive day, before 0600 I had already made a fool of myself, saved my internet setup, and had a wonderful breakfast. Who knows what the rest of the day will hold?

The nature of man vs. the wonder of nature….

I’m sitting in front of the computer waiting for some stuff to download and right now as I type I am hearing the most lovely sounds that I have heard in quite awhile; real honest thunder! I was in the shower when I first heard it and I thought it was mortars hitting, that’s how hard it shook my hooch. After a minute I poked my head out of my door and saw the silhouette of the inky black thunderclouds as massive bolts of lightning flashed across the sky. And now the rain is just beginning to sound on the roof; how great thou art indeed. This is the magic of the season for me, when it first begins.

This morning didn’t start out quite so pleasantly. I woke up early and went through my usual routine and then got on the bus to work. Halfway there someone starts calling out over the radio, “We’re receiving indirect fire! Cease operations! Repeat, cease operations!…” BOOM! BaBOOM! And the bus kept rolling along as the unique twangs of BB King’s “The Thrill is Gone” played in my headphones. Indeed.

And the fun continued after we got to work. Some genius decided to install a loudspeaker inside of our building that’s wired to the giant voice so every time a shell hits anywhere near us we have to listen to a full minute of a screeching automated recording that warns “INCOMING! INCOMING!” and then proceeds to mumble all sorts of advice about taking cover and being vigilant for UXOs.

But the rain keeps pounding harder and harder, just this 10 minutes so far has made up for the whole seemingly endless heat and misery of the summer. I LOVE IT! In 5 more minutes I’m gonna lay down and I guarantee that I’ll be asleep in a matter of minutes, dreaming those peaceful “rain on the roof” dreams. Good night, world!

Memories....

Not too long ago the base where I lived from the time I was 2 years old until I was a senior in high school closed. It sounds corny and silly but it is a little painful sometimes to see the places that I knew and loved so well abandoned. The bushes behind which I first kissed a girl, the overgrown football field watered over the years by gallons of my own sweat and even a bit of blood, or the Army Depot that for years was the “anchor” for so many aspects of my life. The last time I was there I walked through a lot of these places and I could just close my eyes and see in my mind things the way they were back then; the hustle and bustle of military men and women with a purpose, the horrible PA system and the smell of grilling at high school football games, even the AAFES warehouses where I spent thousands of hours slaving away shipping liquor all over Europe. At times it felt like there were the echoes of the thousands who had gone before bouncing around deserted hallways and rooms. And as insignificant as the history of Giessen was, it will always be a place that holds a special corner of my memory.

Another such place is over here in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Today as I drove over to a part of the base that an Army medevac unit recently pulled out of, it was kind of spooky to see everything just abandoned. There were trailers and offices with the doors open and debris scattered everywhere. It has only been a matter of a 5 or 6 weeks but already time is moving in on the place. There were still smoke alarms faintly but faithfully beeping out a warning in response to the dust that blew through the smashed and cracked windows. Books and papers littered the floor, everything pointed to a recent habitation by soldiers but there wasn’t a soul to be seen or heard, in fact it was silent except for the lonely wind and the faint chirping from the aforementioned alarm.

It kind of struck me that I have spent my life exploring places filled with ancient and even not-so-ancient history but it has all been sanitized by the passage of time. Only the most permanent and stubborn of reminders remain from history, things like castles or Hitler’s mighty WWII bunkers scattered throughout the forests of Germany. The battlefields have all grown over leaving few obvious reminders of the brutal carnage for which we remember the sites. But here in Iraq, it was an eerie foreshadowing sensation of things to come. Of bases that once buzzed with the excitement and business of war, all going silent, one by one, and being claimed and sanitized, and forgotten by all but the few who were lucky enough to be here to be a part of it.

I recently had to tally up my time here for some paperwork I was submitting and I realized that I have spent 60+ months over here. Sooner or later I will leave and I seriously doubt that I will ever come back but a part of me will always ache for that something that will never return: for the feeling of belonging that being a part of the mission here brought or that feeling of comfort and normality that mark my memories of Giessen.

Moving on is a human thing to do but it is up to each of us to realize in our own good time that we must do so. Bit by bit I’m realizing it. Either that or it’s just entirely too late at night and I didn’t want to go to bed so a rambling, semi-coherent rant followed. No matter what though, this is 2 minutes of your life spent reading this that you won’t get back haha! :)

My absolute favorite kind of soldier!

I love military working dogs, I always have. This particular one flew in from out in the field with his handler and they had a few hours to kill before flying on to their home base. It was amazing to watch the dog. They both set up shop in the corner of our little warehouse type building and the handler just racked out on a cot. But the dog stayed alert and stood guard for an hour or two until he was comfortable with the situation and used to seeing us going back and forth. I guess once he felt safe enough, he laid down and was soon dead to the world himself.

After they slept for a bit he let us play with the dog and take pictures, what an absolutely fun loving and loyal animal. It was hilarious because of the intensity that he applied to screwing off; play-time was serious work for him.

All the guys in this part of the world who hate dogs for being "unclean" are morons and have no idea what they're missing out on.

Amanda Love...

For the past week or two...I've lost track of the days, I've been working over in another section handling rotary-wing ops. It involves a lot more interaction with large groups of people, many of them armed and dangerous, many of them beautiful women, some beautiful women with weapons, a few a**holes...yada yada yada. Well I've also been working different hours. Before I used to get up at 0400 and my workday would start around 0700 but now I'm up at 0200 and my workday starts at 0430. Needless to say I'm just a little slow first thing in the morning.

At about 0500 the other morning, I was still longing for the soft embrace of my Egyptian cotton sheets and memory foam mattress when the secure phone rang with an urgent request to contact a soldier in the facility. I dutifully set the phone down and yelled out into the mass of people milling in the area, "I need Amanda Love! Amanda Love come to the front counter!"

A few quizzical looks only served to frustrate me, perhaps I simply wasn't being loud enough. So I yelled out even louder, "I NEED AMANDA LOVE! AMANDA LOVE COME HERE RIGHT NOW IF YOU'RE HERE!"

I picked up the phone to report to the girl on the other end that she was out of luck but she couldn't hear me because she and everyone in her office (I was on speakerphone evidently) was laughing so hard. When she finally caught her breath, she asked me in a sweet little drawl, "Now honey, do you really need a man to love?" and fell into further hysterics.

It took me a second but as soon as it hit me, I laughed and swore to the girl that I would have my revenge. Naturally, everyone in the section insists on retelling the story to anyone who will listen and almost without fail the person shakes their head and makes a comment about how I need to watch the Simpsons.

Ahhhh, with friends like these...

Talk about crazy...

This happened at here at Balad!

Halloween!

This month is so exciting! I love October! In addition to all of the excitement that comes with the changing of seasons, it's also Halloween!

 

Growing up we did Halloween a few times but after the draw-down in the 90's in Germany, my family was pretty much the only American family in my village. It wasn't until I got to Afghanistan that I really started to get into it.

I totally dropped the ball last year and only had time to order some Afro and mullet wigs but this year, we're going all out…at least a couple of us are. Our resident scary black guy is going to be a pimp, Chico the Grande Mexican is going to be a beer keg, and I'm still trying to decide between the angry chicken, a Mexican guy riding a donkey, or a big hairy gorilla again.

 

I was a gorilla back in Afghanistan one time and it was so damn pimp. I had girls running from all over the place to take pictures with me, yup me and like 20 girls with guns. That was a good day. I should probably do that one again. We'll see.

On stuff...

Ok so I've been trying a lot harder to read my scriptures regularly…hard for me but I'm getting better! And then yesterday I had the startling revelation that confirmed to me what I've heard so many times before. There really is something in there for everyone.

 

I've heard it said that it helps to "liken the scriptures to ourselves" to better understand a scripture. I didn't even have to do that, this was tailor-made just for me! Read on:

 

This is from the Acts 10:13 "And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat."

 

YES! That answers so many questions for me lol. This is my new raison d'être. Watch out world!

 

In other news, I have a new gripe. Why does it always seem that as soon as I leave the States to come back here, everything cool with the weather happens? Before this most recent trip, the last time that I was home it was nothing but sunny blue skies the entire time. I made the most of it but I wanted something different, I even packed a coat! Then not 3 or 4 days after I leave, Colorado had the first of a long series of spring snow storms! The airport even shut down for a few days!

 

But what prompts my latest round of revulsion for Aeolus and his twisted sense of humor/neglect was the email I received from one of my sisters in Colorado a couple of days ago. She said:

 

"Thanks for the note, it cheered me up. Our first day of fall we started off with... SNOW... and we're on a storm watch as I write this, supposedly 2-3 inches of snow gonna fall before morning. Sunday it was 92 degrees. NINETY TWO. Monday night it was almost freezing…."

 

COME ON!

 

This is on top of what happened the very night I arrived at my base at Balad, we had the first sprinkling rain of the season. It was one of those nights that you can only experience in the desert where the dark night air just has this electric, magical feeling. The lightning flashes would light up the inky black rain clouds, and for a brief second, illuminated the silhouette of a C-130 taking off, it was impressive. As soon as the storm drew nearer, the deep rolling thunder washed over the base…I just loved every minute of it! I am most definitely a weather person. What ruined it was that some of the more odd-sounding thunder turned out to be a helicopter crashing nearby...needless to say that put a damper on my enthusiasm.

 

So here I am. It's a lot cooler than it was when I left but its still 100+ degrees. What I wouldn't give for some snow right now…

I was reminded again today about where on Earth the dumbest specimens of the dumbest species of birds live. Pigeons, right here in Iraq.

I was riding in a bus from Camp Liberty over to another part of this massive base to try to catch a chopper ride up north today, it was quite a scenic drive. Saddam built quite an impressive lake with a peninsula stretching out into it topped with an interesting looking palace. There are also fancy guesthouses scattered along the shore and lots of canals with gaudy footbridges passing over them.





Well the bus was cruising alongside one of the canals and I noticed in the distance, perhaps 200 feet away, a pigeon flew off of the roof of a building on the opposite side of the canal. He skimming the tall reeds that grow in scattered bunches along the sandy banks, then he veered over and skimmed the surface of the water as he pushed himself harder and faster. I must have watched for about 20 seconds or so and just as I was beginning to think that even a clumsy pigeon has its graceful moments, he started to slide closer and closer to the bus.

I didn't even think anything about it until he was about 20 feet away, still furiously flapping his wings, seemingly to keep pace with the bus. Suddenly, he banked sharply to the left and flew straight at the side of the bus and POW! His feathered corpse bounced off the side of the bus, down to the sidewalk, and then skipped into the water.

I swear he did it deliberately. There is no way he could have NOT seen the bus. And it isn't even hot, I can't understand why a pigeon would be suicidal. Ah well. Enough of my tired musings.

Hello, Goodbye!

On the eve of my last day outside of Fun-Land for the next who-knows-how-long, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Lately I have been finding myself out at 0200 driving down dark country roads, miles from anything or anyone, my body seemingly trying to catch up to my wandering mind.

It has been an absolutely wonderful three weeks of R&R and this taste of “life” seems to make it more difficult than ever to go back to my adopted reality of 90 hour work-weeks, dust, heat, idiots, etc. But I had a lot of time to just sit and think about things, especially the future, and through all of my good times coupled with the quiet times over these past few weeks, I have come away with a renewed sense of optimism and gratitude for how blessed I am.

I am especially grateful for the intangible things to which I give credit for everything that is good about me; the God-given talents and abilities, but most of those are pretty personal and boring for everyone else anyway. I just feel so lucky to be alive right now, it’s like Gordon B. Hinckley was always saying about being optimistic, “There is no better time to be alive!”

I’m pretty sure he was speaking of things on a higher level than I am right now, but we both obviously love life. I was wondering what it would be like to take an old pioneer and toss him on a jet-ski, or take one of the guys who ran a silver mine in the lost canyon in Salida and send him down the 500 foot zip-line that goes over his old mine these days. It always blows my mind to cross the Rockies in a matter of hours, in the comfort of my truck with music, A/C, and good company. How great is it to be alive?

I keep saying it but this was such a great vacation and it was just what I needed. I met some new friends (and some old ones again), I went camping a bunch of times, played with lots of little kids, went swimming, hiking, climbing, shooting, ziplining, and just drove for hours with no particular destination in mind. It was wonderful!

But the time has come and I need to pack my bags and get ready for my 20+ hour nap on the plane back to Dubai. Yay. Let me know who wants souvenirs!

Over the past few years I had almost completely forgotten the wonder of high-speed internet without bandwidth restrictions, OPSEC warnings, or IT Nazis. It is nice to have access to Youtube and other similar websites, I'm uploading a bunch of stuff.

In other related news, my sister and brother-in-law and their herd of kids came up to visit for the long weekend. In spite of being a little tired I canceled most of my plans and bummed around playing dogpile and rediscovering the joy of kicking a big rubber ball in a big field. I hadn't been on playground swings in years and my friend Jessie and I even caught a random high school football game. It was quite a weekend.


Here I am getting mugged by a 7, 5, and 2.5 year old. Vicious!

Random

I heard this song once and thought it was awesome...still is.

R.I.P

It is always a terrible tragedy to lose something precious to you, especially if you have been through so much together. So much sweat, hard work, thousands of hours spent together through thick and thin. This weekend I lost my dear friend...


Fare thee well, my Casio G-Shock G2300B-1V Tough Solar watch.






For the next 6 months it will be patiently keeping time on the bottom of Deer Creek Reservoir. The alarms that I had set for 0400, 0620, 1800, and 1840; all very important times in my regular day, will sound faithfully as the wrist-less timepiece forlornly calls out in the inky, cold darkness to a master who will no longer wake or act on it's urgent message of punctuality, well-being, and productivity.

Sometime after that, the ML2016 battery will be completely drained of its power and the display will dim and then in an instant, time in 29 cities across 27 time zones will cease for the watch and it will go dead until the day comes when it's rechargeable solar cell is once again exposed to the sunlight.

Oh happy day.

ps This is just a bad guilt trip lol

Well another 4th of July is upon us, and it brought a lot of dust here. Massive amounts actually. No matter how many times it happens, it is always something of a shock to open the door to my hooch and see that everything has taken on a bright orangish-red hue from all of the dust in the air. No matter what I try with my cheap little POS camera, I can't capture the color in a picture. It is like being on Mars.

I spent the day just sitting around waiting for something to happen. Yeah, nothing did. I definitely appreciate the dust though, it has kept the temperature down to a balmy 100 degrees haha. Visibility was down to under 100 yards, and the talcum powder-like dust just piles up on everything. It's like snow, you can walk around and leave bootprints everywhere.

I am grateful for days like today though, it has been nice and slow and I've had a chance to do some reading, and I even mopped and cleaned my entire office! Domestic Pete!

And I imagine that it's kind of obvious that I didn't have anything in particular in mind as I started typing, though I was tempted to repeat on here a joke that was written on the wall of the porta-potty. I'm hungry, it's lasagna day, and I want thirds. Ah well, another 4th of July has come and is on it's way out. I want to remember this one, hopefully someday my semi-coherent ramblings will serve to help me remember days like today. I do miss this place when I leave, and I never want to forget it, or my time spent here.

To mark the occasion...

I looked and saw that I had written 49 posts (47 published) about a whole lotta nuthin on here. For number 50, I had to put up something special. This is my favorite picture on their website haha.


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see more Lolcats and funny pictures)

Goodbye to an old friend...

I have had the same pair of sunglasses for over a year now, that's a miracle to me. When I buy my sunglasses, I buy them 4 or 5 pairs at a time from Wal-Mart of King-Souper's because they are forever getting smashed up. Well for some reason the pair that I've been wearing since I got to Iraq have just lasted and lasted, I was very impressed. Today though, they finally had enough. I just walked outside and stopped and looked around for a minute and *pop!* they snapped in half, sad! I've got backups but still, this is tragic to me.

It's something about the heat or the sun affecting the plastic I'm sure. I remember once hot summer day in Afghanistan and a co-worker was having a heated discussion with some idiot pilot about something and *bam!* his cheap knock-off sunglasses just exploded! The timing couldn't have been more perfect because it scared the hell out of the idiot that he was talking to and he played it off perfectly by slamming what was left of them on the ground. Talk about angry eyes.

Ah well *sigh* Time to go get acquainted with some new glasses :(

A great book!

I just finished reading Nancy Reagan’s book of letters that Ronald Reagan wrote her throughout their marriage; it was absolutely enlightening and profoundly moving. What amazed me was how vibrant and completely 110% heartfelt the love between these two remarkable people was even after more than 50 years. While I have devoted a lot of thought to marriage and the future, it had never even occurred to me to wonder about the evolution of love over a lifetime, or even beyond. It tied in nicely with a speech that I read not too long ago advising young people to counsel with our elders and learn from them. I love it when the world starts to make sense!

I’m actually pretty grateful that the generator mechanics came by and killed the power to my office today. Even though it turned my office into a 120 degree sweatbox for a couple of hours, it disconnected me from the computer for long enough to read that book and learn a thing or two. I need to start doing that more often on my own, without being compelled by the generator mechanics lol. There are a lot of things I should be doing.

Ahhhhh…and vacation thoughts fill my mind! The thought of getting away from here for a bit, being able to sleep in occasionally, and even (especially!) being able to choose the company that I keep, that all sounds so wonderful right now. While my body may be in the desert, my mind is most definitely elsewhere:

Even though I once wrecked a nice car on this little road, I still have very fond memories of it. It is one of the most picturesque stretches of road that I have ever seen anywhere in the world. It runs about 5 or 6 km's from Landstuhl to Mittelbrunn, the village I lived in near Ramstein.






I am most definitely not a golfer, but I thoroughly enjoy the driving range.






The old AFRC resort at Chiemsee. I have a million memories of from my 17+ years visiting there. I mooned a whole shipload (that's shipload lol) of people from this dock.





Just one of many stops when taking an RB from Hanau to Giessen.

To Somebody

Slow day!

Holy crap today was a boring one. I started off with a big to-do list but most of the stuff just dropped off without my having to actually do much. So I sat around the office lamenting the fact that nobody is ever online when I am, and wondering why nothing exciting was happening in the news. And then….I discovered the Google language feature!

I wrote a quick 30 second story and translated it from English into German, into Spanish, into Dutch, into Hindi, into Serbian, into French, into Maltese, and back into English. Perhaps it’s just me but it cracked me up to read what turned out.

The story began:

“One day, little Johnny woke up and decided that it was the day he was going to change. He wasn't going to take any more bullying from anyone, he wasn't going to listen to his mother, he wasn't going to eat his vegetables, he was his own man!

Unfortunately for little Johnny, that was also the day that Kim Jong decided that little Johnny's house on Google Earth was just too good of a target to ignore. Boom!”

The story ended up as:

“One day, little Johnny woke up and said that this change has been decided today. He said that the world has not heard from his mother, and not abuse, it does not eat vegetables, it was a man!

Unfortunately, little Johnny, the day when Johnny Kim Jong the small house on Google Earth is also good to ignore. Tree!”

I've forgotten most all the French I ever knew but I remembered enough to think that it was equally amusing:

“Un jour, peu de Johnny se réveille et dit que ce changement a été décidé aujourd'hui. Il a dit que le monde n'est pas d'entendre de sa mère, et ne pas en abuser, il ne mange pas de légumes, a été un homme!

Malheureusement, peu de Johnny, le jour où Kim Jong petit Johnny maison sur Google Earth est également bon de l'ignorer. Arbre!”

Peu de Johnny, haha, I’ve totally got my brothers new nickname. My sister used to call him Mr. Panties because as a 14-15 year old stretching his newly developed muscles, he used to like to lounge around the house in his tightie-whities. Ahhh, look at me, airing the family’s dirty laundry out there for everyone to see!

Dumb pilots

Today I got a funny reminder of what was at the time an extremely scary experience. I had a copy of this picture saved away somewhere but I couldn't find it until somebody just emailed it to me.

The chauvinists in my shop back in Afghanistan liked to say that it was a perfect example of why women shouldn't drive cars or airplanes, but I prefer to think of it as a proof that there is the occasional girl out there as dumb as us.

This girl was was flying a DC-8 for DHL and we were running a turbine airstart cart that provides enough air pressure for the plane to start its engines. The normal procedure for any aircraft is to wait until the guy with the marshaling wands says its ok to go. Well that just wouldn't do for her. As soon as she started the #4 engine, she powered on up and broadsided everyone's favorite truck. Quite the experience.

At the very least, its another blessing for me to count, and more than a few more gray hairs on my poor mom's head if she ever saw the picture.

Moody blues....

The past few weeks have been something of a drag. Normally I am pretty quick to jump out of bed and hit the gym or run my errands bright and early in the morning but I’ve just been totally out of it, I really have no idea what’s wrong with me. I noticed yesterday that I have the practice of going from being in bed to fully dressed and out the door in 10 minutes down to an art.

Today was a little different though, I woke up at my (old) usual time of 0400 on the dot with no alarm clock and my body was just rearing to go. I threw my shorts and shoes on and went out for a hard run, although I could feel the strain from my slacking over the past weeks in my muscles, it felt incredible. I ran until I thought my lungs were going to burst and then stopped and watched the sunrise. Oh it was beautiful; there is something about the sky in this part of the world that just feels different. Not to sound too much like I’ve lost my mind but I used to absolutely love it when the moon was full in Afghanistan, and to some extent here. The sky has an ancient feel to it that I have never noticed in all of the many places that I’ve been, except for one place. After my first year in Afghanistan I went to Salt Lake City to visit a good friend and I found myself with a few hours to spare so I wandered around temple square and went to the visitor’s center. I had been there a few times before as a kid. As I climbed the circular walkway that leads up to the giant Christus statue, I found myself staring at what felt like the same sky that I had been looking at just a few days before on the other side of the world, with the exception of Earth hanging in the heavens. It was quite interesting to me and even though I can’t quite explain or find anyone who shares my opinion about it,I know that every time I go back there, it will remind of me of place that I’ve called home for so long now.

It really is funny some of the things that you get attached to. Some nights in Afghanistan I would drive out to the middle of nowhere just to lie in the bed of my truck and watch the sky. Ahhh those were the days. But I digress...



Where does the credit for my newfound zest and energy belong? I’m not 100% sure yet but I recently read a book. Of all the books to read, it was a hippie book called “The 10 foods that should never touch a woman’s lips”. Why that book? Well that’s a long story that isn’t in the least bit interesting. Although the message of the book is clouded by quite a bit of conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo (not doubting the conspiracy, there was just a lot of it) about big corporations and the government, what I did get out of it wasn’t really apparent until I started sitting down to eat breakfast in the morning and finding the options extremely unappealing. I found myself passing up stuff like frosted flakes (still no Cheerios…*sob*) and hash browns for much healthier breakfasts, including loads of fruit that I suddenly find myself craving. I dunno, maybe I’m pregnant. Or maybe I was just getting stressed about work or stuff at home, it’s hard to tell. Whatever it was, I’m glad I’m back to normal. Sometime around August I plan on taking a day off and going to the pool, gotta look my best lol. Ко долази са мном? Било ко? You know you want to!

I would like to think that of all my faults, ingratitude would not be found among them. I always make what I feel is an above and beyond effort to be gracious and accommodating to people, sort of as a way of thanking those who have done the same for me. I absolutely love my parents and there is nothing that I wouldn’t do or give for them, I pay for my cat’s care while I’m gone, I say “thank you” regularly, even to those who might not be deserving of it.

In spite of all that and then some, I fall short when it comes to appreciating the smaller things in life, the things that aren’t always quite so obvious. Sometimes I never really even appreciate the important things until they’re gone, the only really serious girlfriend that I ever had can attest to that lol.

Recently something dropped out of my life, something that I took for granted. One minute she was there and the next, gone and I couldn’t get her back, no matter how hard I tried. For the first desperate few days, I fell into kind of a funk. Every morning I would wake up, hopeful that today would be the day that the hole in my heart would be plugged, but alas, everyday I was disappointed.

Who could possibly leave Pete so forlorn and dejected? Who has such an influence that they could impair Pete’s ability to work, think clearly…even affect his appetite? I’m afraid that the pain of my neglect and ingratitude has grown so severe that I cannot summon the strength to mention her name...




























Cheerios! Where art thou, my precious? Why have you abandoned me in my hour of need? Come back to me, with your succulent whole-grain goodness! Lower my cholesterol! Fortify my diet with the magic of your nutritious wonder! My milk is alone and incomplete, my bowl half full. I love you Cheerios! If you come back, I will never take you for granted again! I will savor every morsel of you to be found within your yellow box, which illuminates my heart and belly like the light of the sun itself!

Seriously! Being out of Cheerios is NO fun at all! This sucks! All they have is Applejack’s and that hippie Kellogg’s fruity crap in a box. BOOO on you, DFAC! Booo!

Bombers, birds, and....other people

Ahhhh, it’s been a quiet week for me. Two of my co-workers who seem to hate each other but insist on dating and talking about marriage are both on R&R together for a few weeks, it’s amazing how much less tension is in the air. To me it just seems to be common sense that if you want to date someone, much less marry them, it’s a good idea to actually like the other person, or at least have something in common with them…maybe that’s just me, I dunno haha.

Ooh and a few months ago my sister rescued a big beautiful blue and gold macaw, Tara, from some jackass who would keep it locked up with no food and a blanket over the cage all day. With a bit of gentle socializing from my folks, the bird really developed a whole new personality and was a lot of fun to play with when I was back on R&R. Unfortunately she made a huge mess everywhere she went and she would get rowdy and loud if nobody paid her any attention.

My mom had been looking for a good home for the bird and found a lady in my grandma’s church congregation out in Missouri that had been wanting a big parrot for a long time. She and my sister drove the bird out and delivered her to the lady. Normally the bird would just patiently sit on your shoulder as you walked around. My mom would do gardening and the bird would just wander around and explore the yard, my sister even wore the bird up to the airport to pick up a friend. For some reason though, Tara went nuts when she got to Missouri and immediately flew up to the top of the tallest tree in the lady’s yard and refused to come down for anyone. She stayed for 3 days until one of the neighbors with a cherry-picker and some peanuts coaxed her down. There’s no drama like parrot drama.





The other news is that I found perfect gift for my dad for Fathers day. He is kind of an airplane nut, I think it’s genetic. Anyway, one of the most amazing and strategically vital airplanes built during WWII was the B-17 bomber. The U.S. built thousands and thousands of these bombers and blew the crap out of Europe with them. It’s the same type of bomber flown in the movie “Memphis Belle”. Well there are only about 10 in the world that are still flying and one of them is going through Denver! I secretly bought a ticket for my dad to go take a flight in one and on the 6th of June, my mom is gonna drive him out to the airport and surprise! I just wish I were there to see it….and to get my own ticket and fly. That plane had better still be flying by the time I get back from over here.

Happy sort-of belatedly celebrated birthday Tito! Today is supposed to be some kind of (former)Yugoslavian holiday where they party and play sports, all of my Balkan buddies here are joking about it. It would be like the 4th of July of we did away with America...sad.

Every day is a day closer to the 4th of July!





Oh yeah, email me back, Ashlie!

Well in spite of feeling a little silly for writing about almost falling asleep in a porta-potty, here is a picture of the actual place where it happened! For the low one-time-only price of $39.99 plus $9.99 s/h, you too can have your own limited-edition framed and autographed copy of this picture. It comes in a generic government-issue wooden picture frame and has a detailed account of the entire event written in the fanciest font that MS word has to offer….ok yeah, not really.

I am bored to tears today. I sit here staring at some paperwork, chugging water, and resisting the urge to reach over and smack a coworker of mine. I think I’m still tired and that’s why my patience is somewhat thin. I wish that I could project my thoughts right now; I’d start thinking about how headphones were designed to be put on your head so you can listen to your music, not to be set on the desk and turned up so loud that everyone else hears it. I’d think about how the same Beyonce song 50 times a day for 14 months is getting old.

Ah well, I’m stuck here dreaming about R&R and how wonderful it’s going to be to sleep in without an alarm clock. I can’t wait!