It's easy for me to get overwhelmed right now by new people and by people i haven't been around for awhile, which is not unusual for returning solders. I've also spent 100% of my time surrounded by people in iraq for a year with very little personal time or space to relax. As result seclusion in nature actually sounds quite nice at the moment.

I'm back in the states :)

Achilles Tendonitis

Last week going into this week I was rather stupid and bumped up my running mileage too fast.  I ran 27 miles in four consecutive days starting Tuesday, with 12 of those miles occurring on Friday (in 2-3 runs that day), and then only taking one day off before running 6 more miles on Sunday. This past Monday I didn’t run, but that evening my right Achilles tendon started to hurt a bit.  I tried to ignore it and went for a 4.75 mile run Tuesday evening hoping that the pain would go away.  Although that may sound stupid, a few weeks ago (around the PT test time) my right hip was hurting when I walked/ran, but after a few days of it hurting I decided to run and push through the pain.  Mid-run the pain went away and hasn’t returned since.  I was hoping that would occur with the pain in my Achilles tendon.  No such luck.  Yesterday it still hurt when I walked and so I went to the PX and bought some bengay and some cushy insoles for my boots.  I also started taking some ibuprofen and the pain eased up a bit in the afternoon.  Last night I had planned to run approximately 8 miles, broken up into 8 min run/ 1 min walk segments. I started off slow for the first segment and the pain seemed to ease up a bit after a few min.  At 8 min I stopped to stretch, making sure to pay extra attention to the Achilles tendon.  After stretching for a few min I started running again, but found the pain worse than ever before.  Each time my right heel hit the ground I felt a stabbing pain in the tendon.  After less than a min I stopped running and tried walking, but it ended up being more of a limp.  I tried slowly jogging again, but the stabbing pain returned.  In the end I sadly went to the gym and did 40 min on the bike.  The pain is still there today, so I’ll probably head over to the medical clinic to see if they have any suggestions of exercises to do to help the tendon heal. 

It Is the Soldier

It Is the Soldier

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Poem by Charles Michael Province, U.S. Army

 

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Peanut Butter

I am addicted to peanut butter.  I realized this today when for dinner I sat at my desk and used a little packet of peanut butter as a dip for my 94% fat free kettle corn.  I also love to eat both fresh fruit and dried fruit with peanut butter, with one of my favorite snacks/desserts being sliced bananas on a peanut butter covered graham cracker.   I am not sure why I have developed a taste for peanut butter, because although it has always been something I’ve tolerated, I can’t recall ever having a passion for the food.  Also, it is only actual peanut butter or peanuts that I have a taste for right now, not peanut butter flavored things such as cookies. I think I shall jot it down as a weird quirk of mine, ranking right up there with my love of gravy during BEAST, especially on a piece of bread, as well as my love of a rice-tuna-cottage cheese-Texas Pete combination for dinner during crew season.  Later on I’ve gone back and tried those foods and didn’t find them nearly as appetizing.  

 

Less Than A Month

In less than a month from now I will be sitting in my new apartment in Texas enjoying the little luxuries of life such as:  seeing my familyJ; a fully stocked grocery store right down the road; the ability to drive my Jeep when and where I want; wearing my hair down with civilian clothes, earrings, and makeup; being able to cook my own healthy meals; no rifle to carry around all the time; no wondering if the latest boom was a controlled detonation or an indirect fire strike; weekends J; a place to live that has a real kitchen, indoor flush toilet and shower with hot water; a washing machine and dryer to use when I want/need; wearing contacts again (or maybe getting laser eye surgery); being many time zones closer to my family and friends; being able to spend time with my friends while wearing civilian clothes in a setting other than the DFAC; being able to go home in the evening and get away from the military world for a bit, or at least the majority of it;  clean drinking water from the tap; the ability to have an alcoholic drink if I want to, although I still don’t like the taste of alcohol very much; no longer wondering if this week might finally be a week where we don’t go on commo blackout; the ability to use the internet without having a time limit or waiting in line; a really cool cell phone (I have one picked out already that I want to get); being able to tithe right away; bookstores; going clothes shopping; not having to wear ballistic eye protection every time I go outside; baking from scratch with both a sink and even a dishwasher nearby; and finally, being home from Iraq!!!  

 

 

It's a Boy!

Congratulations to Meghan and Anthony on the birth of their son, Gavin James, on 03 October J 

He looks very cute in the picture of him on his birth announcement.

1st In A While

23OCT: Where to start?  I have not sat down to write in quite a while, mainly due to the fact that I do not know if/when I will post what I write.  The nicest birthday present I received was that commo went green on Saturday night and I was able to call home.  16 hours later commo went black again and we are still on it at this moment, which means that I can not post this entry until some later date.  I have a lot of pent up emotion related to all of the commo-blackouts, but have not found a suitable time, place, or group to release it. Last night some of my friends joined me outside my trailer to make s’mores and celebrate my birthday.  A few times our conversation turned to the recent events.  Although it is a very sad topic, talking about it helped.  A few days ago I made a list starting on 21 August of the dates and number of people for whom we’ve been on commo-blackout.  Dean called the list morbid, and it is very depressing, but everything was blurring together and I wanted to see if I was exaggerating everything in my mind.  I wasn’t.   

Yesterday I ran about 8 miles, but did it in 6 min chunks with a minute of walking in-between.  I’ve been trying to run more in the past few weeks because I tend to snack a ton at my desk.  Two Sundays ago I ran 11 miles, but did it in 4 min segments with a minute of walking.  I feel a lot better after I run, but then I go and eat a ton of unhealthy food and feel miserable again.  Those two runs are the longest I’ve gone on.  Usually I try for 3.5 to 5 miles a few days a week. 

 

Well Done; Be Thou At Peace

The event that everyone in my class has dreaded, but knew would eventually come, came to pass last Tuesday evening.   We lost our first classmate, 2LT Emily Perez, the night of 12 September 2006, to an improvised explosive device (IED) in Iraq.  She was a member of 204^th SB, 2BCT, 4ID (M). 

I heard the news from another classmate of mine, Abby, while in the DFAC for lunch on Friday.  The news of Emily’s death came as a surprise, especially because she is the first one of us to go.  Last year I was told about the supposed death of a ’04 grad, but from everything I’ve gathered it was a false rumor.  I didn’t want to repeat the news of her death to any of my classmates until I heard something more official, so when I got back to my desk I started looking up the reports from that day.  At first I couldn’t find the report and gave up my search thinking that it was a bad rumor, but later that day after receiving word from another of my classmates about her death, I started looking again.  This time I found the report and the news finally sunk in.  The rest of the night I was in a slight state of shock. 

            I didn’t know Emily very well while we were at West Point, but it would be hard to not have a few memories of her when there were only 191 other females who entered West Point in my class, and even fewer who graduated.  We may have been paired together plebe year in Combatives, but I am not certain.  Most of my memories of her are from Firstie year when she was the Brigade CSM.  Though we were not close, she will be missed. Her family, friends, and unit are in my prayers. 

           

           

 

More Pictures From Iraq

Required "Sitting In Saddam's Big Chair" photo. (Seem's like almost everybody has one of these).

Trying to demonstrate that concrete on concrete slides....but it was on asphalt.

Pictures From Iraq

Standing in front of a palace in Baghdad.
Enjoying the afternoon 110+ heat.

Why I Did Poorly in Enlish Classes

I really do not feel like writing at the moment.  I know I wrote that but a moment ago, but when I wrote that first sentence a question popped into my mind.  Do I over-use and miss-use the word “really”?  And if so, is it common problem found in the American use of the English language?  To figure out the answer, or at least hopefully figure out the answer, I am going to use the one of the great technological assets of the 21^st century…Google.  

My search on Google, titled “define: really,” lead me to the highly reputable (sarcasm) source of Google definitions: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&defl=en&q=define:really&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

It was at this site that I learned my usage of the word “really,” while not grammatically incorrect, is to be avoided since I used it as a vague intensifier. I now feel more educated; however, I am also beginning to question my grammar and usage of a long list of words in this entry. 

I have opened a can of worms on myself.  To being with, I have written in passive voice, as shown in this very sentence. 

Is my usage of the word “very” in the previous sentence yet another attempt by myself to use a vague intensifier?  What about my comma usage?  Should that be “use” or “usage”?  Should the quotations go before or after the question mark? 

Oh dear, this is getting out of control.  Time to change subjects. 

Yes, the previous sentence is not a sentence at all, but a sentence fragment.  Poor grammar, I know.

So much for changing subjects.  

That was another sentence fragment.

I promise, this time I will change subjects. 

On a side note, I almost used the word “really” in the above sentence, but edited out before I wrote the sentence.

Does that constitute a new subject?  I hope so, but it most likely does not.

 

_______________Official Change Of Subject Line________________

 

Throughout the day I often find myself running into situations where I am on one topic and it leads to a new question and/or train of thought, and before I know it I have completely digressed from my original subject of interest of study.  My total digression most often occurs when I am sitting at the computer because I have the ability to immediately gratify my desire for insight into whatever subject or topic arises by researching it on the internet.  If I do not happen to have a computer easily accessible when a questions arises, then I more often than not have my interest peaked for a moment but completely forget about whatever it was before I am able to research the question or topic.  This week I started writing down key words in a little notebook I carry around so that I can go back at a later time to find the more information on the topic. 

            A few of the reminder notes I jotted down were “Dorcas,” “Plass other writings,” “butterfly metamorphosis,” and “Zoroastrians.”

 Dorcas arose from an email one of my friends sent me where she began the email, “Hey Dorko.”  Her greeting reminded me of a similar name that one of my sisters calls me; that being Dorkiss.  I then remembered that in the Bible there is a woman named Dorcas, which led to me wondering what the name Dorcas means.  It turns out that Dorcas is Greek for gazelle. 

I would go into the significance of all of the other words and how they ended up being jotted down in my notebook, but that discussion would take far too long and be quite boring.  My head is beginning to hurt from thinking to much and too hard about something that, in the grand scheme of things, is of no importance whatsoever, and so I am going to step outside for a breath of fresh air. 

 

Violin, S'mores, and OPSEC

(04/05SEP) I will not be able to post this entry for another day or so, but I figure I may as well continue to write and then post it later.  I do not really feel like writing at the moment, but I am telling myself that by writing when I don’t want to write I am actually exercising my mind more because I have to think harder to come up with something to write.  My logic is most likely completely wrong, but at least I feel better.

            Yesterday morning the chaplain came over to my desk and asked if I had any pictures that I wanted to include in a slide-show that will play in the background while I play violin at the upcoming concert.  Though I do remember agreeing to perform in another concert and knew at the time that the concert would be in September, September was always so far in the future that I pushed the thought of it to the back-burner of my mind and only occasionally allowed it to resurface for a brief moment before I once again banished it to the “Task for sometime in the future but not soon enough to care about” list.  The chaplain’s request caught me completely off guard and I suddenly had to dive into the far reaches of my mind to quickly brush the dust off the event.  I have spent the past day trying to think up a piece to play, but I can not think of anything.  Perhaps I will resort to the same measures I used last time and enlist the help of my friend Rob.  I wish I could email him right away and ask if he has any ideas and/or if we could meet up to brainstorm together, but the commo blackout is preventing me from reaching him.    

            The s’more making party was a success on Sunday evening.  Seven people ended up coming, which turned out to be the perfect number because there were exactly enough seats for everyone.  There are still some marshmallows and plenty of chocolate and graham crackers left over, so there will most likely be a second s’more gathering.

            Yesterday CPT P pointed out that I do not talk a lot about my family on my blog.  I know first hand how easily information about a person and their family members can be found on the internet without any cost, having produced an OPSEC example for the commanders just a few weeks ago. I can only guess how much more information can be obtained through payment and so my lack of talking a lot about my family and mentioning last names of people is my feeble attempt to protect their privacy.  Of course, my attempt is most likely futile because if someone really wanted to know then they could still put the different pieces together and figure everything out.  

            My writing 1000 words a day seems to have developed into writing 1000 words every-other day due to time constraints.  I sit down and write when I have a spare moment, but then a task arises that I have to attend to and so I do not get around to writing again until the following day. 

            This morning I got up for a run and when I stepped outside I was pleasantly surprised to find that for a split-second I was actually almost cold.  The weather was perfect for running, although my run yesterday morning was better than today’s run.  On Sunday I ate lunch with one of the people on the praise team and we got on the topic of running.  I mentioned how I am not very fond of running and have never been extremely good at it.  He suggested the same thing that my Dad has been telling me for years, which is that I should try running for a few minutes and then take a walk break and continue this process throughout the course of my run.  Walking and running utilize different muscle groups and so I will be able to run further and for a longer time before tiring.  Although I do sprint intervals occasionally, I have not made a habit of going on runs where I take walk-breaks.  Yesterday morning I tried the technique for the first time and found that I enjoyed my run more and actually ran faster when I was running, though I only had time for a 50 min run.  At one point when I was passing a group of runners one of them called out to me that I was running at a fairly fast speed, whereupon I had to turn my head back and admit that I was only running for two minutes intervals and then walking for a minute.  It still felt good passing people. 

 

 

More Pointless Ramblings

Currently I am sitting at my desk trying to stay awake.  Last night I was the staff duty officer and my attempt to condense my inspections of the battalion area and my inspection of two soldiers going out on a mission miserably failed.  Due to the failure of my plan to do the two inspections in quick succession (there was quite a long time gap while I waited for the soldiers) I’ve been awake since 3:30am after having gone to bed last night around 11:45pm. I shouldn’t complain though because I was able to get four hours of sleep, which should be sufficient for one day, although I wouldn’t recommend making it a habit. 

            Usually I treat myself to a caramel frappacino from Cinnabon the morning after I have staff duty, but last night my friend Derrick made me guacamole and I proceeded to eat a good portion of it at dinner and even more around 4am.  Since my caloric and fat intake must already be off the charts for the day I opted to forgo the frappaciono and instead picked up some sugar free Rip-It energy drinks from the DFAC. 

            Happy September and Happy Labor Day Weekend. I am trying to think back to what I did last year for Labor Day weekend, but I can not seem to remember.  I know that I was in Fort Huachuca, AZ going through OBC, but can not come up with the specifics about the weekend.  The year before last, when I was a Firstie, Anne and I went camping in upstate New York over Labor Day.  I really miss Anne, camping, and upstate New York. This year Labor Day weekend is pretty similar to every other weekend during the past 9 months, but in order to try and make it a little different I’ve organized a s’more making get together with some friends for Sunday evening.  Not only will it be a way to celebrate Labor Day, but also a celebration of being a month closer to going home.  I already had the marshmallows, and yesterday I went to the PX and bought some chocolate bars, graham crackers, and a grill.  Today or tomorrow I’ll have to go back and pick up some charcoal.  Having an actual bonfire is not feasible since it is of course a fire hazard.  Plus, there is not nearly enough wood here to build one anyway. 

            It is much 8pm now and I am still at work, but that is because I noticed that the Michigan vs. Vanderbilt game is on TV.  I didn’t think I’d be able to see a Michigan game at all this year, but now I can say that I was able to see them score at least one touch-down this season.  I’ll rack it up to another thing I didn’t think I would do in Iraq.  My list of those things is becoming quite long (play violin, bake, knit, learn sign language, etc…). 

            Yesterday I didn’t accomplish writing 1000 words, but today I think I just may with the help of a loop hole.  I was tasked to write a short paper on the BN history and so I am counting what I wrote for that as part of my 1000 words, though it will not be posted anywhere. 

 

1,035

1000 words.  If I sat down every day, could I write 1000 words by the end of the day?  How long is 1000 words?  I’ve only been out of school for a little over a year and I have already forgotten the amount of time and space it takes to write 1000 words.  Before, if given an assignment of a certain word length, say 2500 words, I could immediately think of the number of pages of either single or double-space type that it would take to fill 2500 words.  Having forgotten that months ago I am now typing without a clue as to how long I’ll be typing. 

            Why am I writing 1000 words a day, you may ask?  Is there a certain end purpose to this all?  Well….not really.  I seem to jump from interest to interest every week or so.  One week its practicing violin, the next week its working out, followed by a week of studying for the GRE, after which comes a week full of baking.  More recently, a few weeks ago I was quite taken with pondering the topic of love, and then last week I took up learning sign language. My devotion to an activity usually only lasts between a few days and two weeks, and then after that I’ll take up a new activity though I will occasionally come back to my previous interests.  For example, I don’t practice my violin more than a couple of times a week now because the other evenings I’m either at the gym, baking, attending a briefing, or at a Bible study.  I suppose in the end I could argue that I am a more well-rounded person, though I hardly lack much of a depth of knowledge or expertise on anything.  Writing 1000 words a day just happens to be my latest ploy to make the time go by and keep myself, especially my mind active and busy.  

            319 words done, assuming that I don’t go back and revise or delete anything that I have previously written.  Will I allow myself to do such things as revise? I don’t know.  I pondered the question for a few minutes as I walked back from lunch and wondered if I should set any ground rules for myself, but the thought of rules seemed to hinder the freedom to think and write, so I dismissed the idea.  What will I write about?  I don’t know.  There are many things I don’t know at the moment. 

            This morning I went for a jog at 5:30am.  Although I don’t like waking up early and I am still not a huge fan of running, if I do have to run I would rather run when it is cool outside. At 5am the temperature outside was 81 degrees, and by 7am it had dropped to 77 degrees.  I do believe that is the first time I’ve seen the temperature in the 70s in what seems like a very long time.  The temperature is now once again up past 100 degrees, but the highs for the past couple of days have been below 110, which is another new thing. 

            524 words.  Perhaps over the next few days I’ll drop the required number of words down to 500…and then 200…and in the end grow tired of sitting down to write and forget about the whole idea. 

            My mind has gone blank at the moment and I can’t think of what else to write.  College football season starts this coming weekend, which also happens to be Labor Day weekend.  Normally I don’t care a whole lot about college football, but this year I am a tiny bit interested in the whole thing since it will make the time go by faster, though the only teams I care about are Army and Michigan. 

A couple of weeks ago I received a package in the mail from my friend Anne, who happens to be in Cambridge, England at the moment getting her masters degree.  The package was full of delicious food ranging from candy bars and short cake to dried fruit, but it also contained a book called “Jesus, Safe Tender Extreme.”  In the letter that she included with the package she wrote that she was sending the book along because she found it to be a refreshing and useful look at Christian life written in a common matter without the holier-than-thou and above-this-world attitude that many Christian writers tend to end up taking.  Though I’ve only made it to page 100 due to limited reading time, most of it done while eating lunch in the DFAC, I must say that I agree with Anne’s assessment.  The author, Adrian Plass, writes in a manner that elicits in me a feeling as though I’ve found someone who’s thought structure is the same as my own.  Not only is what he writing of interest to me, but I also enjoy the way he writes.  He’s genuine in his mannerisms, not trying to put on a front or pretend to be something that he’s not.  In particular I’ve enjoyed his description of a near drowning he once experienced and description of, “The little man with a notebook who lives at the back of my head scribbled busily away, noting with interest the various nuances of panic and fear, the exact sensations that accompany drowning, and the emotions evoked by the imminent loss of those whom you love.  He was just on the point of starting a new piece under the heading ‘First Encounters with God’ when I managed to struggle free from my trap.”  I often feel as though I myself has a little man in my head jotting down notes on whatever is going on in my life as to record them for later use.  Of course, I do not often get to writing, especially lately, so most of those notes go the way of my notes in real life and end up set aside to be forgotten.

I must admit that I cheated a bit with today’s 1000 words.  I wrote the previous paragraph, totaling 362 words, yesterday.  The commo blackout is finally over and so I may post this entry on my blog.  1,035.

 

August Update

Right now I’m sitting at my desk and writing in my blog instead of making corrections to people’s security clearance packets.  The packets are a constant source of frustration for me.  It’d be nice if I had received some prior training on security clearance procedures, but MIOBC didn’t touch on the subject and when I arrived at my unit everything was focused on the deployment. The person who was responsible for the whole procedure before I arrived in the BN is no longer in the Army, so my assistant S2 and I are stuck trying to figure out the process ourselves.  Since I haven’t received any training I’ve had to search out advice from other battalions, brigade, and the people who I turn the packets into back at Fort Hood.  Everybody has a slightly different version of what is required.  Putting together the security clearance packets isn’t a high priority for the other BN’s and BDE due to the fact that we are in Iraq and busy enough with daily combat operations.   

 

Yesterday I baked my second batch of brownies in the toaster oven my parents sent me.  These were chocolate caramel brownies with m&m’s on top.  Very high calorie, but well liked by the people in my BN.  The lack of a well-stocked grocery store makes baking from scratch a near impossibility, so I’ve resorted to using mixes and adding in my own touch.  The PX has carried brownie mix for a month or two, but of course by the time my toaster oven arrived the PX had run out of the mix.  Fortunately, I’ve grown used to the unpredictability of the PX inventory and so I bought a couple of boxes of brownie mix a few weeks ago.  The sad part is that I am now out of all of my mixes and will have to wait a few weeks before my small order from netgrocer.com arrives in the mail with a couple more boxes of brownie mix and a bread mix.  In the meantime I’ll have look at my toaster oven longingly and dream about when I’ll next be able to bake. 

 

A few days ago I was able to talk to both of my sisters on the phone.  I was very proud of my sister Heidi when she mentioned that she’s started to do 10 modified push-ups a day and has noticed and increase in her arm muscle.  She inspired me to work on my push-ups, because that is an area that I’ve never been very good at and usually try and avoid except for when I have to take an APFT.

 

My smiling while typing on the computer and fixing my hair has led some of the people I work with to believe that there is a guy that I like and am conversing with online.  I’ve tried to explain to them that I have communicated with some friends occasionally (hence the smiles because I like to hear from my friends) and that I fix my hair because it’s against regulations to have my hair flying all over the place, but my explanations have fallen on deaf ears.  The assistant S-3 went so far as to try and figure out who the guy is and concluded that he’s a 1LT in the aviation brigade.  He’s only about 8 months off with his conclusion.  The truth is that there aren’t any guys at the moment I’m particularly interested in, though I do enjoy talking to and spending time with my friends. 

 

Woohoo! It’s supposed to get down to 115 on Saturday.  Actually, that’s not much different than right now because it’s been 115-118 degrees the past few days, but still it’s on the cooler side of really hot J

 

Okay, I’ve wasted enough time and should get back to work. 

 

 

 

Mail = Milk ... I hope

The past couple of afternoons I’ve come back from lunch and SSG D and SPC L have asked me if we’ll get mail that day.  Since there’s been no milk at the DFAC at lunch I told them that there wouldn’t be any mail, but today there was still no milk at lunch and we got mail later in the afternoon. Thanks for the package Mom J  Everyone loves the rice crispy treats you made.  I’m saving the brownies for tomorrow. 

 

It sounds a bit weird, but I think there is a correlation between the availability of milk and the mail delivery.  We hadn’t had mail delivered to Camp Taji for almost a week until today and I also noticed that the DFAC’s been out of milk, juice, fresh fruit, and some other food items for a few days.  Surprisingly, there was still lettuce at the salad buffet at lunch.  The disappearance of lettuce is usually the first indicator that the supply convoy wasn’t able to make it here for whatever reason.  My hypothesis is that if the supply convoy wasn’t able to reach Camp Taji, the mail delivery convoy (or whatever method is used to bring mail here) wasn’t able to make it either.  Therefore, no milk =  no mail, and vice versa.  Perhaps I’ll pop my head in at dinner to see if my hypothesis is correct. 

 

I’ve stopped going to dinner at the DFAC and instead taken up eating crackers and peanut butter after the afternoon briefing.  I snack a lot during the day, but when I go to the DFAC for dinner I still eat my normal amount of food even though I don’t need to eat that much.  Plus, I’ve started working out in the evenings because I’ve found I’m in a better mood and more awake during the day when I sleep in later instead of getting up between 4:30-5am to work out.  If I eat dinner in the DFAC it cuts into my evening work out time since I usually eat dinner after 7pm.  The downside of working out in the evening instead of the morning is that it’s hotter outside, but I’m slowly adjusting to the heat.  At least it’s not humid.

 

Happy Birthday tomorrow Heidi J

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Night

A few weeks ago my BN Chaplain asked me to play violin at gospel concert originally scheduled for 01 July.  I had no clue what to play and when I told my friend Rob about it he suggested a doing a medley of a few songs and offered some suggestions for the pieces.  I practiced the medley a little, but wasn’t sure about the order and flow, so I was glad when the concert got pushed back to 08 July because it gave me more time to practice. The concert has been pushed back again to the 21^st  since there’s now a memorial service on the 8^th for a soldier from 1-66 AR who was killed on Sunday.

 

On Monday I mentioned to Rob that I was wasn’t sure about the songs in the medley. He offered to help me with it so the next day I left him a note telling him that I’d be at the Chapel practicing on Wednesday and if he could stop by it’d be a big help, but I understood if he couldn’t make it. Everyone’s schedule can change at a moments notice.  When I arrived at the Chapel on Wednesday I found my friend Derrick there leading a gospel choir practice.  After the gospel choir rehearsal finished Derrick stayed around.  He wanted to accompany me by singing while I played violin, which is usually what we do, but I told him that I wanted to play alone that night.  It had been a long day and I wasn’t in a very talkative mood, which I think he took as me not wanting him to be there at all (which wasn’t the case) and so he left a short time later. I wasn’t sure if Rob was going to show and had realized that what I really wanted to do that evening was play hymns on my violin as a way to worship a bit that way without having to worry about the key or if I was in time with the other person. 

 

A little after 10 pm I decided play one more song before I packing up for the evening.  As with each song I had played the words of the hymns repeated in my mind and I became solely focused on worshiping God during the song.  When the hymn ended I turned around and was startled to see Rob sitting there looking like he had been enjoying the music.  I had no idea how long he’d been there and when I asked him all he would say was “long enough,” although I did manage to get it out of him that he’d been there before I started the last song, which is weird because I didn’t hear him come in or sit down.  We worked on my medley for a bit and then called it a night.   

 

When Rob and I were leaving the CH on duty noticed that I didn’t have my bike and told Rob, who did have a bike, to ensure that I made it back to my room safely since women aren’t supposed to walk alone at night.  Usually I ride my bike, but a strange thing happened that evening.  I’ve been more careful about locking up my bike ever since I had one stolen and on Sunday I bought a new bike lock.  The bike lock comes with a pair of identical keys and I hadn’t had any trouble with key until Wednesday evening when I went to unlock my bike to ride it to the chapel. Neither key would budge in the lock.  Eventually I gave up trying and walked to the chapel.  By the time Rob and I left it was late and it was a bit of an imposition for him to escort me back to my room since he lives in the opposite direction, but he was nice enough not to complain. I told him the story about the lock and when we reached my room I got the keys to the lock to show him how it didn’t work.  The first key didn’t budge in the lock, but the second key worked without any trouble.  Since then I haven’t had any trouble with the lock. 

Happy Independance Day Weekend

I can't believe it's July already. The month of June flew by, which is something you won't find me complaining about.

It's 4th of July weekend, which means it's a four day weekend. My plans for the weekend are to sleep in late and then head out to the lake with friends and family to get some water-skiing and tubing in followed by a good bbq. Then, once it's dark out we'll all go and watch the fireworks.

Shoot...I just remembered something: I'm in Iraq...There go my plans.

I am very grateful that I get my usual day of rest tomorrow, which is more than a lot of people get out here. That's about as close as I'll get to any four day weekend. On the actual 4th of July the DFAC (Dining Facility) will probably serve up BBQ/picnic type foods for lunch and dinner.

The weather has cooled off a bit the past few days. At night it gets down to about 81 or 82 degrees and mid-day it's only 105-110 degrees out. When I was going to lunch I saw a cloud in the sky. I think it was the first cloud that I've seen in over a month. The cloud was very tiny, but I wanted to take a picture of it. After lunch I noticed that there were a few more clouds scattered around. Each was fairly small, but it was a bit of variety.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to give my first violin lessons. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Congrat's to all you '03 grads who were promoted to Captain today :)

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day Dad! And Happy Fathers day to all the other fathers out there.