Dolphins Swim, Ladies Dance, I Fall Down...

Wow Three days ago I was in Iraq, and yesterday I was swimming with dolphins, how odd is my life??? But I am getting ahead of my self... I woke up impossibly early yesterday. I think at about 615 am I opened my eyes and realized I would not be getting back to sleep. I meandered around my hotel for a little bit and then met up with grams and gramps for breakfast and to hang out at their apt for a little while to kill some time. We went to Sea Life Park, and watched a dolphin show and looked at some sea turtles... (freaking huge) after that it was about time to go to my scheduled appointment and swim with the dolphins. I had a blast I managed to trip while in water (go figure.) Which is par for course... but the dolphins were amazing, as was the incredibly stupid hot female that was in my group, thank Gawd for scantily clad women!!!! The dolphins were letting us kiss them and pet them and I was heavily distracted but managed to have a great time... I got to do a belly swim (where the dolphin swims upside down and I hold onto his fins!!!) and this wake board push thing that was a lot of fun... All in all the day was a blast, Gramps took a lot of great shots and I picked up the parks pics at the gift shop... (how sad is it that the first mammal I have kissed in almost a year was a dolphin???) Sigh... By the end of our time one of the dolphins was misbehaving it was rather amusing... After the Dolphin swim Grams, Gramps and I went to dinner, and than they dropped me off at my hotel, where I picked up my rental car and met up with Dr Fish (It has been over four years since we last saw each other, how crazy is that?)and her boyfriend Jarhead. We talked for awhile and walked for a bit. And then it was near 11 and Jarhead had to be at formation early this morning so we said our goodbyes... I brought my rental car back to the hotel and took a cab to a club, where I could watch scantily clad women dance. I had my 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th alcoholic drink (Red Bull & Vodka) and around 1 am headed back to my room, I couldn’t fall asleep right away so I walked down the beach barefoot for a while... around 315 I finally went to bed and woke up at 8:35 hangover free... hooray!!! I tried to do laundry but it is next to impossible here as there is only one washing machine and dryer per floor and lucky for me the one on my floor is out of order... today I’m going to try and see a movie and maybe spend a little more money on unimportant things...talk to you soon... Aloha!
Riddle Me This:
the answer to yesterdays riddle...
Sand...
And today’s riddle is...
What lives in winter; dies in summer, and grows with it’s roots upward???.

Aloha! Honolulu, Hawaii

I am currently 34,000 feet in the air, doing some rough math that is just under 7 miles above the earth. A little over two hours ago I left Ireland. ( I was there only an hour and saw nothing more than one terminal, a duty free shop and a few dozen Irish natives.) From the windows I could see that Ireland is truly as beautiful as it has been described countless times before. And from the duty shop I had a small glimpse as to why the Irish are stereotyped as drunkards, Over half of the souvenir shop was stock full of different Whiskeys and alcohol of the like. As of right now I have flown just under a third of the total distance that I will cover before today is over. As we left Kuwait at just before midnight 13 hours ago we have been racing the sun across the earth. (Albeit we had a heck of a lead to begin with, but in our defense we are traveling against both time and distance where as both of these factors work for the sun. As it stands right now I should be arriving in Hawaii about a quarter to 8 pm local time. Just in time to see my first Hawaiian sun set. Let me tell you in a little more detail the events of the past two days. I left my trailer for the pax terminal (on post airport terminal) at 3:15 pm Iraqi time. We were scheduled to leave on a flight bound for Kuwait at 6:15 pm. That flight had some kind of mechanical problem and so they decided to fly over us with out stopping to pick us up. They told us that we could either wait around the terminal and hope another flight had room or come back the next day. We (consisting of myself and one female from my unit that is going on leave as well. She has a huge family in fact she is the second youngest of 7 children, we will call her "Six of Seven" or "Six" for short. After three hours of just sitting we were told that there was a 0120 flight that had four seats available at first come first serve basis starting at a 1040 show time. At this point there were a total of 9 of us waiting for the flight so needless to say we were all trying to justify why we were convinced that we should be one of those four. At about ten twenty we got in line (Six and I would have been the first two in line but there were two others in front of us that didn’t get in line they just hovered around the counter until they were helped. They were very rude and kept saying they didn’t need to wait in line because they had to be on this flight) Luckily all of the hullabaloo was for nothing as it turned out that the flight had plenty of seats to accommodate us. We arrived in Kuwait at about 2:30am and after a briefing that lasted over an hour we were told to meet back out front at 0730. We were all completely starving at this point and the only food place that was open was the McDonald’s so we had a very earlier breakfast and tried to kill time until 0730. Which I think brings us to when I last posted my blog. I ended up running into RFG at the 0730 meeting (he had read the blog and realized where I would be, He said he was looking for me for about ten minutes and that he actually found me because I sneezed, for those of you who don’t know I have a very loud, very distinctive sneeze.) RFG is doing fine he was coming back from leave so needless to say he was not nearly as excited about his next flight. At this point we turned in our non essential equipment (Flak vests and helmets, Our weapons were turned in before we left Tallil.) and waited around for the 1400 hundred lock down. Which i spent primarily with RFG, we talked about his leave and his family and all that kind of fun stuff, Six headed off to get a couple hours of much needed sleep. At 2oopm (1400) we started the last of our briefings, which basically told us what to expect with customs and what was forbidden to leave the country, ie war trophies historical artifacts... yadda yadda... after the briefing they put us in a secured area and gave us our e-tickets for our connecting flights, (after Dallas i will be headed to Los Angeles and then finally onto Hawaii.) Six and I were separated do to alphabetical complications. Basically they split us up into two groups A-L & M-Z as you know I am at the beginning of the alphabet, Six both in her nick name and in her actual name are at the end of the alphabet. As the time for departure grew close they had us all form up in alphabetical order (no small task for nearly 3 hundred people let me tell you.) and filed us onto busses and eventually onto the plane. There were about twenty or so empty seats so we were able to hook up and are currently sitting next to each other in aisle 13... Luckily I am not superstitious... Six is very excited to be going home as she hasn't seen her husband in over eight months... She is also from Idaho but i am not quite sure where in Idaho exactly. Well that has you up to date as of right now, If I am able I am going to post this at a public access point in Dallas... As it turned out I was able to catch a direct flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Honolulu. I literally had to run all the way to the connecting flight as it was set to depart less than 25 minutes after I stepped off the flight from Ireland. That was by far the best of all my flights. All though it was an eight hour flight I was able to sit in first class...Which would have been awesome by itself not to mention the standing round of applause that started as soon as I stepped on the plane... Needless to say I was blushing.... Let me just say off the bat, First class is expensive for a reason.. The service is ridiculous, I literally had three stewards at my beck and call had a 3 course meal including dessert and it was delicious... i can't imagine ever wanting to fly any other way.... I had a chance to call the grand parents the second before i stepped on the flight (an older civilian woman offered to let me use her cell.) So that I would be able to inform them I was going to be in 5 hours earlier than we had originally planned... After I arrived my grandparents met me at the baggage claim and we proceeded to go out to the car (after much hugging and aloha's) And true to form i managed to fall down in the parking lot as a car was driving towards me, I believe at this point all my former claims of being a klutz were forever cemented in my grand parents memory. I checked into my hotel (Exquisite but more on that at a later date.)and took a much, much needed shower. And then we went shopping i had almost been on the island 4 hours and had already spent four hundred dollars... You have to love it.... tonight is going to be early to bed to try and get some much needed sleep and the fun begins tomorrow... I will be swimming with a Dolphin, how awesome is that?????
Riddle Me This...
The Answer to yesterday’s riddle is as follows...
A Clock
And today’s riddle is..
What builds up castles, tears down mountains, makes some blind, helps others to see???

A Series Of Unfortunate Events...

Yesterday started out with so much promise, which explains why it went to hell in a hand basket so easily... I haven't slept yet and it is 06am on the 27th i have a mandatory briefing that i have to attend at 0730 and then I am going to try and catch a few hours sleep.
Basically bad things just kept happening to us.... Our original flight decided they werent going to pick us up and we were lucky enough to smuggle our selves onto the second flight. (There is one other female from my unit heading on R & R, she is going back to Idaho, to be with her husband and parents.) needless to say it has been a long and arduous day.... Starting at 2 pm customs will put us in a lock down format for no disernable reason. That will last about 10 hours and then i should be on my way to dallas, I found out i will have an additional lay over in Los Angeles. Which really isnt all that bad although i would have rather flown straight to Honolulu... any way I am admittedly passing out right here at the keyboard... so I am going to make te short as possible...
Riddle Me This:
Answer to previous riddle:
The Dark..
And todays riddle...
This thing runs but can not walk, sometimes sings but never talks. Lacks arms, has hands, lacks a head but has a face. What is it???
The Count down completed....
In Transit
Quote of the Day
I do not claim to control events; but i confess plainly that events have controlled me.
" Honest" Abe Lincoln during the Civil War

A Little Toot,Toot!

I played four games of chess back to back today with three different people (the second wanted a rematch.) I won all four, not to toot my own horn. (toot, toot.) Unfortunately I played four games of checkers after that winning streak and didn’t win a damn one. I do not understand how I could be even halfway decent at chess and not be able to win at checkers. Grrr... I am pretty sure that today was possibly one of the longest days I have worked in a very long time. It wasn’t a bad day. (We have been training a lot of the new guys to take over for us as we are taking on new responsibilities outside the wire. More about that once I return from Hawaii.) Although my trainee was very quiet he did tell me a little about how long my trip is going to take. Which unfortunately is about 4 hours longer than I thought it would be. Apparently it is a 17 hour flight to Dallas and then a 7- 8 hour flight to Honolulu. I’m lucky though my trainee had flown all the way to Guam which is another 9 hours past Hawaii... a 34 hour flight... no thank you! As of right now I am very excited about the trip and can hardly think of anything to write... I will keep you all up to date as much as I can while I am in Hawaii, although I am not sure what my internet access will be like...

Riddle Me This:
The Answer to the previous riddle is as Follows:
A Broom.

And I leave you with this riddle...
Can not be seen, can not be felt,
can not be heard, can not be smelt.
It lies behind the stars and beneath the hills.
Ends life and kills laughter. What is it?

And the countdown comes to a close....
}>1<{ more day until I leave for paradise.

Prelude To A Bitch Slap...

I often wonder if any of the authors that I enjoy so much ever had a life half as crazy and distracting as mine. I don’t claim to be in their league, though I do hope to be one day. I don’t know about you but when I think of Dean Koontz, or Harlan Coben or Stephen King at work I picture them in their home office typing away on their latest adventure. I know Harlan has three children and I can almost see them standing at his doorway waiting to tell him about their day at school. Dean Koontz has a dog named Trixie (a golden lab, I believe.) that is (as I picture it) asleep at his feet, looking up occasionally hoping for some little tid bit of his half eaten lunch. As for Stephen King, I can’t help but picture him in a dark room with horror movies or eerie music playing in the back ground, as if Maine isn’t creepy enough, he needs to add to the ambiance of his story. His Wife Tabby humming to her self on her side of their office. (She is an author as well.) As clearly as I see the three of them in their everyday lives, I envy their assumed serenity. Currently this struggling author is sitting in a folding chair with his lap top in his lap, (Imagine that!) At 6:30 in the morning in the same clothes he wore to the gym earlier this morning. The Invader had another night off last night and is sleeping five feet to his left. If I was just a tad more obnoxious I would be tossing some of the club crackers that are sitting next to me at him while he slumbers. I woke up this morning at 5 am on my day off to go to the gym with Screaming Testicle. Who at the last minute decided he was not going as he had no sleep last night. Normally this would of been the only excuse I needed to crawl back into my bed and try and catch a few more hours of desperately needed sleep. Today however before I had time to talk my self out of it I headed over to the gym and did my chest and abs work out. Bow at my self discipline... Bow! LOL So I feel kind of bad because I am sort of to blame for Screaming Testicle getting no sleep. Last night I was sitting on the steps in front of his room, with my back to his door and his roommate (Big Red) wanted to get in. I told him if he could open the door with me sitting there he was more than welcome to go in. Apparently he thought he would need t o exert his self and he yanked on the door handle. The door it self did not budge, (I must of been a great door stop in a former life.) The door handle however snapped. Which means that I had to go over to the billeting office and request a work order to have it fixed. As of 7:35 am that has not yet happened. I just had an amusing argument with Not Law and the Invader, apparently The Invader is vexed by my music being played at night. At any other time I would be using head phones but as I use the music to fall asleep it is very uncomfortable to wear them, and as I am very accident prone it really just seems to be a bad idea to wear something that could possibly choke me while I’m sleeping. Now I want you to understand it isn’t as though my music is being played at some unbearable decibel. It is just loud enough to hear, its on the fourth bar which depending on the time of night if you breathe too heavy you are no longer able to hear the music. The Invader is an only child and has yet to learn that he is no longer going to be coddled as he has been his whole life. This is even more of a problem as Not Law and I don’t get along and The Invader has a sympathizer who out ranks me. The argument did not go bad as it could have but I did manage to get Not Law’s panties all in a bunch. (I have a particular smirk that he interprets as disrespectful; his powers of interpretation are amazing.) Screaming Testicle who was there as well. (We do this so that a soldier is treated fairly, two soldiers and at least two NCOs any time there is going to be someone of higher rank speaking to someone of lower rank, in this case there were three NCOs but the third was just there in body the one time I looked at him he looked as though he was wondering if he had left his coffee maker on.) ST Asked me afterward why I didn’t point out any of the issues I had with The Invader. I explained that it really matters very little if I think the guy is dirty once I go on leave everyone else will see for themselves. If ever I have met some one that deserved to be bitched slapped more, I do not recall them. I can not believe that by this time next week I will be in beautiful Hawaii.... Thank Gawd!!!
Riddle Me This:
Answer to the previous Riddle...
A Map...

And Today’s Riddle is as follows
I have a hundred legs but can not stand, a long neck but no head; I ease the maids life.
What Am I???

4 Days and a wake up… can you feel the excitement???

Carpe Diem!

Near Misses

If I was even a little paranoid, I might think someone didn’t want me to go on leave. During my last tour in Iraq back in ‘03 I had a close call four days before I was scheduled to go on leave. The incident was labeled Friendly Fire 070403. The very abridged and bare bones story is as follows. I was working the night shift at a Forward Aviation Refueling Point (FARP) Every time we had a bird (helicopter) it was our job (as lead position) to guide them into the very difficult to find (read tactical) fuel point. This is done one of two ways, either with chem lights (looking very similar to those guys at the airports waving their flags and such.) The other option was to let them set their Spot light on us (we wore reflective vests and wrists bands to help guide them.) Either way in order to do our job correctly we had to stand directly in front of them as they came in and landed. At first this is very unsettling as all of the birds are equipped with .50 calabur or above ammunition. I don’t care if you’re Dirty Harry, a weapon of that size especially many weapons that size tend to create little fears at the back of your head that say ever so quietly and completely convincingly “If that weapon went off you would be pushing up daisies before you hit the floor.” On the night in question it was about 2 am and we heard multiple birds approaching from the south. (In our down time we tried to sleep as much as we could as we still had responsibilities during the day. Usually we slept in or on the trucks.) Thankfully that night we were a bit sluggish getting up and throwing our boots on. I honestly believe if we had been in our designated positions you would not have ever heard of the sandbox files. I was never given an explanation as to why the Marine Pilot sent those nine rounds down range, in fact short of finding out that he had been relieved of duty I never really heard anything after that night. Suffice to say my stress level those next four days was higher than absolutely necessary.
The reason I brought up that night from almost three years ago is that something some what similar happened yesterday. As we were driving our perimeter checks, our camp was attacked simultaneously from at least four different positions. Three of the four attacks landed inside the perimeter. Luckily only one Mortar actually went off and there were no injuries. The one that landed in our area narrowly missed supervisor truck as we were driving behind him we watched it hit the ground next to his truck. Once again I repeat there were no injuries. This is where the story takes an amusing turn. After we marked off the area of impact, we contacted EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) and they sent the Italians to our area (the American EOD was taking care of another UXO (Unexploded Ordnance) else where. Now the Italians are macho to begin with but their EOD experts are so full of machismo that I swear I’m more manly after having spent just over six hours with them. Apparently the Mortar or UXO as it is now considered dug deep into the ground on impact. The Italians brought out a backhoe and began digging down until they found it. Now during all this my partner and I have set up a cordon to block off any gawkers that want to catch a quick glimpse of something going boom. So basically we are sitting on top of our truck watching them digging further and further into the ground with no result. At 6 meters (18 feet) they hit a water table or run off point. As it was almost dark at this time they informed us, ( this part is a lot funnier than it seems as I speak very little Italian and he spoke even less English. So we communicated in an almost uncomprehensible sign language.) They were quitting for the night and they’d be back in the morning. Just like that. So then we were basically just guarding a large deep hole that somewhere underneath the water something was still waiting to go boom. My job sucks.
On a completely different note, It came to my attention last night that I am almost completely unable to flirt with the opposite sex. I have no problem getting them to be comfortable and wanting to talk, but as far as flirting I haven’t a clue. I wonder if I will get any pointers while I am in Hawaii... Gawd I Hope so...

Riddle Me This:
Sorry it has been so long since my last post, I have been fighting a cold that has been going around and I am trying my very best to not get it right before I start my vacation. The previous answer is as follows...

The Vowels A, E, I, O, U
And today’s riddle is...

Where may you find roads with out cars, Forests with out trees and cities with out houses?

Good Luck!!!
And the Countdown Continues
6 Days and a wake up....

A Burning Desire...

There are times when I think things happen just so I’ll have a little something to write about. Don’t get me wrong these are a great help and usually prevent any unnecessary ranting. Which I am sure you have all noticed I am prone to do. Yesterday at around ten am or so we noticed one of the air force POL trucks coming towards us like a bat outta hell. As I am sure you can imagine this is an obvious sign that something bad is happening. Apparently while they were finishing fueling up one of the generators that powers one of our handy dandy security cameras, (Very cool little buggers but even I don’t have a high enough clearance to tell you any more about them.) As I was saying as they were fueling the generator some of the fuel ignited and engulfed the entire generator in fire. (Oops!) The AF guys borrowed our radio to call back to their op station and report the fire. At this point (after I took my radio from the now very nervous Airmen) I headed towards the fire to see if I could do anything about it. We had one 10lb fire extinguisher, I figured at the very least I could slow it sown a little until the fire truck arrived. As I drove closer to the fire I realized it was mo-gas that was burning. (Mo-gas is similar to the regular fuel you would put in you vehicle. And it has an annoying habit of being very, very flammable.) Not only was it mo-gas but it was a now full fifty-five gallon drum of mo-gas. Thank fully I chose to just watch it burn. The fire truck arrived about ten minutes after I did. And put the fire out. They looked a little nervous, one can hardly blame them.
I have been reading so much lately I can hardly keep my personal library stocked. I have finished all but the seventh book of Stephen Kings Dark Tower Series. As you have probably guessed finding the entire series over here is no small task. Luckily I have an intimate relationship with both my charge card and Amazon.com. I am pretty sure that I have put at least a handful of Amazon’s employee’s children through college as they often receive my patronage. In the past four days I have read two other books the first was The Straw Men which was the first book in a trilogy. (I will receive the other two books in the same package as Book seven of the Dark Tower Series.) It was an awesome book the author’s first and a very interesting take on both domestic terrorism and serial killers. Obviously this book not big on the happy, but it was very good. I was very annoyed though when one of my favorite characters was killed in the second to last chapter. The book I finished today was very good. Body Rides a stand alone book which is a nice change of pace from the constant series I seem to constantly pick up. I could give you a gist of the whole story but I would probably go on forever basically a would be hero saves a beautiful former Olympic Silver medalist from her would be torturer/killer whom he shoots a total of four times once in the head and three body shots. As a token of her thanks she gives him a bracelet that allows who ever wears it to possess another person, possession is really the wrong word ride inside another person is really more accurate. The bracelet lets you inhabit another person and read their thoughts, emotions, feel every pleasure, pain and every inch of their body, but that is all you can do you can’t interact or influence them in any way, which our hero finds very frustrating.. Long story short the woman he saved ends up being tortured and slain that night anyway. And the adventure takes place as he tries to find the killer he though he had already killed. I don’t know if I’m really explaining it very well but it was a very interesting book. I found myself wishing more than once that I had a similar bracelet.
I love Chess. I think I have forgotten how much I really enjoy that game. I played two games today and literally wiped the board with the other player. (Modesty is a virtue that I seem to lack occasionally.) It’s funny but every time I play Chess I think of my father (Mr. Brooks). Some of my favorite memories of him are sitting at our coffee table in that hideously pink house. (The house was great ,the color was atrocious!) Playing this old game of kings. He used to beat me every single time, it made me crazy, but it was really the best of times. And as fun and sappy as that was I’m going to end this before I start telling you how he made the old truck dance on the freeway. Hmm memory lane is never as far away as you think.

Riddle Me This:
The answer to the previous riddle:
An Umbrella

And today’s long winded riddle is as follows:
We are very little creatures; all of us have different features. One of us in glass is set; one of us you’ll find in jet. Another you may see in tin, and a fourth is boxed within. If the fifth you should pursue, it can never fly from you. What are we?

James' Thought of the Day:
When life gives you lemons, throw them at people who have sugar. :)

And ofcourse the Countdown continues.....
12 days and a wake up

Something Wicked This Way Cometh...

“I don’t know.” I hear those three words on such a regular basis that they have started to take on a new meaning. One that I assure you Webster would not stop the presses for even if the meaning became world renowned. In the interest of using as few blue words as possible, I am going to say that those three words have come to sound a lot like “Bugger Off.” To say that things around here are tense is an understatement. According to recent rumors the rest of the Unit should be here sometime with in the next seven days. (Is it just me or do I sculpt the vague into prettier pictures than the media?) I want to say that this is a good thing, at the same time I would also like to say that I have a beautiful wife and family waiting for me back stateside. But sadly the former statement is just as false as the latter. The truth of the matter is that the entire unit being here is a pretty solid step towards all things that are the suck. The entire unit means all the big wigs as well. And as I am sure there is some secret rule some where in one of the higher ups Big Book of Unnecessary Rules that says if it is not broke fiddle with it until it is. For the most part there are very few of us that are completely satisfied by the way things are run here. That does not mean for one second we want some one to meddle with a system that is working. Yes it is very hot. (The last two days the temp has been just under 120...ewww) Yes the days are extremely long. 13½ hour guard shifts starting at twenty after seven am as well as PT at 0530 am. It isn’t ideal by any means but it works. We have adapted and we will over come. (Even if we do Bitch gripe and moan on occasion.) No one knows for sure what’s going to happen officially when the rest of the unit gets here. As I mentioned I have heard a lot of “ I don‘t knows.” One of my favorite rumors is that all of the current guard units will be taking up exterior mounts. (As in outside the wire, where just two days ago one of the positions we will be assuming was involved in shots fired incident with some local insurgents that aren’t fond of 10,000 watt hand lamps being shined on them as they are approaching the perimeter. Oh the fun!) As always I will keep you updated if any new concrete information is available.
On a completely different note there are quite a few of us who have seriously considered head butting each other to get a few days light duty. Let me explain, as you know Barbie and The Invader had their little battle royale. Due to the fact that they both received stitches, they weren’t able to wear the kevlar required at guard duty. So for the past week and a half they have been at the FARP. Not only did they get to sleep in, they were off every day before 3:30 pm. As most of us would love to actually have that extra five hours to hide from the heat. It has been very tempting to slam our heads together. Barbie had his stitches removed today and was back with the night shift as of 8pm tonight. The Invader has no intention of coming back to guard duty until he is either dragged kicking and screaming or there is no longer a FARP to go to. (Fortunately the FARP is closing the same time the rest of the unit arrives, grin.) Man that guy is such a skeez!


Riddle me this:

Answer to the previous Riddle: The Human Heart.

And today’s is as follows:
What may go up a chimney down, but cannot go down a chimney up?

And the countdown continues..
15 days and a wake up... a tad more than two weeks and I will be swimming with dolphins. God is good.

The Full Story... Starring Barbie and The Invader

Once again I was not present for the altercation. And once again I have assembled the bulk of the story from numerous eye witness accounts. Once again I would like to stress how unreliable second hand information is. I read somewhere that as far as a prosecutor is concerned the only party to be less likely to tell the truth then the prime suspect, would be the eye witness. That said the following is what information I have gathered referring to the fight between Barbie and The Invader. The two have a history of bad blood. The Invader has made a name for himself by saying the wrong thing, or something that could only be construed as intent to instigate. Barbie as much as we love him does not have a high tolerance for much of anything. (Especially smart mouths, such as myself.) Barbie is however one of the most loyal people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. According to several sources on the night shift the Invader was nearly in two other fights within the past three weeks. Once with Ducky (who most of you would be interested to know is currently tipping the scales some where in the neighborhood of 278 lbs of solid muscle.) And once before with Barbie (who soaking wet weighs almost 163 lbs, though much smaller is also almost completely solid muscle.) Neither one of these previous arguments progressed passed the yelling in each others face faze. Though it was obvious to most of the night crew there was a brawl brewing. The night of the fight started the same as every other night. Barbie and The Invader replaced Toothpick and I. As I was leaving I put my hand on Barbie’s shoulder and said half joking “Don’t kill the kid.” Little did I know a little more than ten hours later those words would sound much more ominous. Apparently things were tense most of the night. At one point Barbie attempted a civil conversation and The Invader would confess a desire that would set Barbie’s already hot blood to a magma like boil. Those words more or less were as follows In a joking manner to one of the others on the night crew (currently this third person has not earned a nickname.) That if he shot anyone it would be “Not Law”(formerly known as NinCompOop) and RFG. As I mentioned previously Barbie is one of the most loyal people I have ever known, RFG and Barbie’s friendship is somewhere between brothers and a surrogate father/son type of relationship. Needless to say, even jokingly threatening to do this when each and everyone us carries a high powered weapon and over 200 hundred rounds is not a laughing matter. At this point the tide has turned. The Army has a lot of rules that make things like how a fight is started very important. According to these rules the person that is most likely to get in the most trouble in the aftermath is whoever threw the first punch. Barbie is well aware of this and begins saying anything and everything he can think of to get The Invader to throw a punch. Much to his credit The Invader is not so easily baited. Thirty minutes or so later things appear to have settled down to The Invader. Unbeknownst to him Barbie is still at his boiling point. The invader is sitting on the hood of the Humvee, Barbie makes a move to pull him off and The invader throws the first punch. Similar to the bulls in Spain, Barbie takes the blow full on and sees only red. I can’t tell you what happened blow for blow, as everyone has a different opinion of how the fight played out. I can tell you as I said before, Barbie might have a small build but he is one tough S.O.B. At one point as they were rolling around on the ground The Invader managed to pin both of Barbie’s hands underneath him. At this point Barbie says to himself I have other weapons and begins to head but him not once not twice but three times. Relenting The Invader releases Barbie’s hands and Barbie sits up and begins wailing on his head. At this point Ducky is finally able to get an arm around Barbie and yank him off the profusely bleeding Invader. While seperating the two of them was no easy task stopping the head wound proved to be much more difficult. Above The Invaders right eye was a laceration so deep they could clearly see his skull. Which would later take six mean looking stitches to close. Above Barbie’s eye was a smaller laceration that would later take two stitches as a precautionary attempt to prevent more bleeding. The MP’s were notified by the TMC personnel and both Barbie and The Invader are currently pending UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) action. Which could be any number of punishments from the extreme such as being sentenced to prison (very unlikely) to medium intensity such as loss of pay, loss of rank or least intensity extra duty. I will keep you posted as I learn more.


Riddle Me This:
The Previous Riddle’s answer is:
One’s Breath.

And Today I invite you to solve this mind bender as peacefully as possible... grin.

If you break me, I’ll not stop working. If you can touch me, my work is done. If you lose me you must find me with a ring soon after, what am I?


Happy Cinco De Mayo everyone!!!
20 Days and a wake up!!!!!!

Playing Doctor

The subject of my previous blog was Big Reds unfortunate accident. You might be amused to find out that even though I wasn’t able to help Big Red during the moment of his crisis. I have been delegated as his official out patient medic. It really isn’t as big a deal as I am making it sound. Basically it is my job to change his bandages every day. Let me tell you his finger looks nasty. It really is very gross. I felt so bad, it hurts him so much even to change his bandage. I would of never made it as an actual doctor. I feel so bad when I am causing pain to someone else. Ironically I can cut someone to the bone verbally and not feel bad at all. Eh sticks and stones my arse. So in order to make things as complicated as possible, the doctors gave Big Red a huge roll of these new finger bandages. It seriously took me like fifteen minutes to figure the damn things out. If you had any idea how embarrassing it is to admit that I was nearly out smarted by a roll off cotton weave bandages. Sheesh. Last night Barbie and The Invader got into a nasty little fight that ended with both of them needing stitches. I haven’t gotten the full story yet but according to a couple of different sources The Invader was goading Barbie on, talking a whole lot of crap. Apparently after a while he finally said to much. The invader received the large majority of the beating, and apparently the stitches that Barbie received were more precautionary than necessary. The Invader was not so lucky apparently after Barbie head butted him repeatedly (yes, head butted, Barbie is a tough Sob even though he barely weighs over a buck fifty) Apparently I’ll be changing more bandages than I had previously thought.
I finally got my IPOD in the mail today. Wahoo!! I haven’t really started messing with it yet as I am sure that once I start I will be sucked in for a number of hours. I really can’t tell you how excited I am to have yet another gadget, even if it is one of the most trendy gadgets currently on the market. Mine is black which makes it just a little more cool. It has 30 gigs of memory. I realize that all of you could probably care less but I am so very excited about it. Is it possible to be addicted to gadgets? Do you think there is a Gadgets Anonymous? I am truly a tool.

Riddle Me This:
The Solution to the previous Riddle:
Wind
And Today I leave you with:
This is as light as a feather, yet no man can hold it for long.

22 Days and a Wake up!