My Nephew!!!

Now that Betsy and Mark have posted pictures of him on their blog I feel it's safe to mention the birth of my nephew, Iain Paul, on this blog. He's soooo cute, but if you want to see pictures you'll have to go over to Betsy's blog. He was born this morning and weighted 6lbs 15 oz. It hasn't really sunk in yet that my sister is a mom and that I'm an aunt, but I'll hopefully be able to visit them the weekend after next and that will most likely make it a bit more real. Have I mentioned that he's very cute?

Fort Leavenworth

Thanks to some help from my friendly neighbor and fellow 1BCT'er I now have a working LAN connection in my room. So far I've greatly enjoyed my time here at Fort Leavenworth. Although class the past two days has gone a couple hours into the afternoon, we've been told that's not normally the case and that most of the time we'll be done by noon and then have the afternoon for studying and such. Not only do I feel like I am getting a great workout for my mind and being intellectually stimulated here, I'm also getting by body back in shape. Even with class going into the afternoon, we still get out incredibly early and so I've been able to get in a good run and workout at the gym before heading back to my room to eat dinner and study.

Fort Leavenworth is so much more beautiful than Fort Hood. Yesterday I went for a run around the post and saw signs in many of the front yards of the houses stating the year when the house was built. Most of them were built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. One more great thing is that there is supposedly a ski hill nearby that has days where active duty military can ski or snowboard for only $5. Some of the other people in the course and myself will most likely go check that place out later this week.

To sum it up, the past three days have been almost like a vacation or retreat. Though I'm sure my mind will get a good a workout and as a result I'll be quite mentally exhausted at times, right now I am really enjoying the course and being at Fort Leavenworth for the next couple of weeks.

Infomercial Time

I am going to risk sounding like an infomercial right now because I feel the need to share about how I am very impressed by the Space Bag. The Space Bag is a storage bag that looks similar to a huge ziploc bag, but instead of only having a seal at the top, it also has a one-way valve that fits a vacuum cleaner hose so that you can vacuum out all the air in the bag and thereby significantly compress whatever you put into the bag.

I must admit that I'd seen products similar to Space Bag on TV before and laughed at them, but then saw the product at the store a couple weeks ago and figured that since I am doing a lot of packing where maximizing the usage of all available space is essential I should give them a try. So far I have packed my C Bag, which is the duffel bag that will be packed in the milvan and which I will not see again until I am in Iraq. Normally I struggle to fit everything on the packing list, but with the use of a couple Space Bags I was able to pack, in addition to almost everything else on the packing list for that bag, an extra pair of ACUs, a feather pillow, a down comforter/throw, a set of sheets and extra pillow cases, my JLIST (think big and bulky pants and jacket), and my wet weather boots, as well as some extra t-shirts, socks, and underwear.

I hope to use the Space Bag when packing my other two duffel bags, but will not be able to add as much additional stuff. When we get to Kuwait I will most likely be breaking the vacuum seals on a couple of the bags in order to get to my clothes and things necessary for everyday life. There will not be a vacuum cleaner handy when it comes to repack the bags to head up to Iraq and so my originally nicely compressed stuff will puff out to all manner of sizes.

This evening I also packed my small tough box that will go in the milvan. The violin I bought in Iraq last year and Joe Bear will both be making the trip back over this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!