Iraq Bound... Or How I Spent My Summer Vacation...

Well I am back in Iraq. I got here yesterday afternoon, I would of updated the blog last night but I literally crawled into the shower and then into bed. So let me tell you about the last ten days or so... lets see, I saw Pearl Harbor with my grams, Which was very somber but definitely could not be missed. I did go out drinking one more time met up with a couple of soldiers that are stationed in Hawai`i, we hung out, drank a little and wandered around down town Honolulu for a little bit, we ended up in a strip club where I bought a girl a lap dance, and gave a guy about twenty dollars in singles so he could give them to the stripper he was completely enthralled with. I will never understand my compulsion to go to strip clubs and then completely avoid strippers. The strip club was called Hawai`i By Night and it could not have been smaller if it had been in a single wide mobile home. (We will all pretend that not one of us have any idea how small trailers can be... ) Gramps and I saw The Omen, neither one of us was very impressed, and then Gramps, Grams and I went and saw Cars (the new Disney Pixar animated film) That was very good, I definitely would suggest that you all go see it. I can not believe how many movies I saw while I was in Hawaii, I think I saw at least 10 if not more... sheesh! The trip to Dallas was fairly uneventful I did get to sit in First Class on the way to Los Angeles and on the connecting flight I met a very sweet newlywed couple. They had met on a plane two years before on the way to Peru and spent a week together walking the Inca Trail, they had just got married three days before I met them and were on their way to Belize for their honeymoon. So here is the fun part I had actually left Hawai`i a night early because I was going to meet a friend in Dallas and we were going to spend some time getting to know each other. We met online and had spent much of the last week talking on the phone and decided that it would be fun to get together in Dallas and see if the chemistry we felt carried over into a physical attraction, unfortunately as she was stepping on to the plane to Dallas a guy grabbed her arm and she popped him one in the face. (My kind of girl!) Well the Airport security grabbed them both and she missed her flight. Unfortunately we will have to wait until after I get back stateside to meet in person. She really is a very sweet young woman, She is a Nurse at a pediatric hospital in Alabama. And I think we will call her “Rocky” from now on... as in Rocky Balboa. Eh it’s funny to me. So the day I was supposed to leave Dallas I met a woman by the name of Martha J. Nemechek who is the mother of Joe Nemechek the driver of the US Army NASCAR car. Yeah I didn’t have any idea who she was either, but she was a really sweet old lady and just said thank you so much for your service and that her son drives for the soldiers. It was kind of cool. The flight to Kuwait seemed endless and as I mentioned before our lay over was in Budapest, Hungary. And because of some bureaucratic BS we weren’t allowed to leave the plane, I wish I could describe how upset all the smokers were with this information but not even I am that good a writer. We arrived in Kuwait a little after ten pm on the 15th and were asked to be at formation the next morning at 0900 so that they could take accountability and let us know when our flight was to depart, after the 9am briefing I found out I would not be leaving that morning, and decided to get a massage. I have mentioned the appeal of these massages before. Attractive woman rubbing me down with baby oil, not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning let me tell you. That is unless you have the masseuse that I had. It isn’t just that she was completely repulsive. Because trust me she was. This woman was mean and I swear to you she bruised my neck and my ribs. I can not possibly describe her in enough detail to convey how truly hideous she was. I will how ever do my best. She was six foot 5 and easily 220 pounds her face resembled the Oompa Loompa in Johnny Depp’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory except that she had teeth similar to the inhabitants on Skull Island in King Kong. If I’m lying I’m dying. I could seriously count all of her teeth using only one hand. Now please understand I am not usually one to rag on someone else’s teeth. As mine are far from being considered perfect but her teeth were hideous... Pointing every which way some were yellow one was almost black... I’m sure you at least partially understand the woman was not going to win any beauty contests anytime soon; in fact I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t even give her a participant’s ribbon. Needless to say I am just a little scarred emotionally from this traumatic experience. Yesterday morning we were told to be at the designated spot at 0730 and we would be departing soon after, after waiting for two hours they finally took us out to the airplane. It turned out that the Japanese Air Force was going to be flying us into Iraq. Which I thought was pretty cool. After we were all loaded on to the plane and had sat there in the heat for over 20 minutes one of the Japanese guys in very broken English apologized to us and informed us that “The plane is broke.” and then he asked us to wait outside and they would get another plane ready two hours later the second plane was ready and after we had all gotten on and were once again sweating up a storm the same guy very obviously embarrassed informed us that this plane was broken as well. He made his apologies and said they had one more plane and they will try again... two and a half hours later we all piled on to a third aircraft and actually made it off the ground. We had one passenger get airsick which was very unfortunate. But in the end she was alright... the plane did kind bounce around a lot so I really don’t blame her one bit. Once we arrived in Tallil I waited a few minutes for my checked bag. And started the long slow walk back to my trailer once I got their I realized that I did not have my room key as I had left it with The Man With the Big V-8, luckily he was not at work and told me that RFG had my keys as he had borrowed a movie last. So after I woke RFG up I got my keys and opened my door only to find out that my air conditioner was not working. It was beyond hot in my room (the average temp has gone up almost 15 degrees since that last time I was here!) so after I tracked down my new supervisor to let him know I had made it back. (I’ll explain that all in my next blog) and took a long awaited shower. After a shower that was probably longer than absolutely necessary I went to the billeting office and begged for them to fix my air conditioner. Which they finally got around to doing about 5 hours later... I literally passed out as they were replacing the AC unit. This morning I unpacked my things and put my room back the way it belonged and later today I will be picking up my weapon and finding out just what my new responsibilities entail. Oh the fun!!!!


Riddle me This:
The answer to the previous riddle is
Potatoes, Dice (as in Snake Eyes), Needles, Storms , I.e. Hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones and the like. And a true lover, as in love is blind, Gramps has a ton more answers that you can check yours against.

And today’s Riddle is as follows:
In a tunnel of darkness lies a beast of Iron, it can only attack when pulled back. What is it????

We Interrupt This Program....

Hey,
Just wanted to let you all know that I have made it back to Kuwait... I spent the night in dallas last night... there were a couple of hiccups... including a new friend of mine getting arrested... more on that later... We rode from Dallas to Kuwait in a 34 year old 757... and it looked and behaved almost twice that age... we had a layover in budapest,Hungary... and they would not let us deplane... due to some political BS... needless to say... the smokers were not pleased... I will fill you all on more as soon as I am able.....
No riddle thistime as this is only an update.....

Did I Really Pay To Fall Down????

So yesterday I had planned to go to Pearl Harbor and do the whole tourist thing there... Unfortunately my grandparents were not feeling up to it. ( I had done a fairly good job of wearing them out the day before...) I swear to you the two of them have twice as much energy as I do... So instead I sort of wandered around the island looking for things to do, I went to the Dole Plantation.. Which was uh... Dull... Give it a sec it’s funnier than you think. And then after that I sort of just went for a drive, in my wanderings I came across that was advertising sky diving.... Now let me give you a little bit of history... I have always been sort of an adrenaline junky... when I was younger I did some river rafting (or tubing as it was in an inner tube) And a lot of cliff diving and I have even bungee jumped a couple of times. I could never work up the nerve to climb Into a perfectly good airplane and jump out. It always seemed like one of those things that would be awesome and extremely dangerous... keep in mind I fall down a lot... and the idea of falling 14,000 feet is enough to give me chicken skin. (Goose Bumps for you haolies!!!! LOL) Any way so I went inside theri little building and met the owner and made an appointment for ten o’clock... this morning. At the time I don’t think that I thought I was going to actually go threw with it... But I thought I would at least have the option.... Well it turns out that last night after I got back to my Hotel I decided I did not want to sit in my room like a bum (as I have for pretty much my entire vacation after ten PM with one or two exceptions. So I went down stairs and ran into a large group of Air Force guys that were in route to Guam that had a night to hang out. I asked them if it’d be alright if I kicked it with them (after I explained I was on leave and by myself) and they were more than happy to oblige. We found a sports type bar a couple of blocks away and it turned out that the bar was having a bikini contest at 11pm... So obviously we were going to stay there until after the contest. (Yes I realize that there are hundreds of women on the beach in bikinis, but you are actually encouraged to stare at the ones in the contest.).. anyway before the Bikini contest winner was announced they decided to have a male booty shaking contest... now mind you at this point I have had a little to drink... a little being... 5 or 6 Red Bull Vodkas and a MAI TAI. I only bought two... the guys kept buying rounds and who am I to say no???? Anyway there were five men chosen for the booty shake contest and after one round the MC decided he needed another contestant. He saw my shirt (almost all of my shirts have sarcastic or funny sayings on them, trust me they stick out. This one reads Everyone Loves A Fat Guy! ) and said he thought it was awesome... (he was not a skinny guy either!) Anyway so I entered the contest did my little cheer-leading-hip rotating-gyro-dance-thinga-majiger. And ended up winning the contest and fifty bucks to boot... Who said we don’t learn anything in high school any more??? After the contest I was quite the celebrity... and danced with a number of attractive women... hmmm all in all a good night. This morning I woke up rather early and had pretty much convinced my self that I was going to blow off the Sky diving thing because well frankly I fall almost every day why should I pay four hundred dollars to have some one push me out of an airplane??? I took a shower and got dressed and decided to go get breakfast. I got in my car and decided that I was going to go skydiving and to hell with backing out, this is my vacation and it is a beautiful place to sky dive. So I took the 30 mile drive and signed in at the front desk... 35 minutes later I was sitting in an airplane and they were opening the door... It was by far the most amazing thing I have ever done. I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 14,540 feet. ( I was attached tandem style to a trained sky diver) we had free fall for a solid minute. Which at the time seemed to last for ever and then we let the parachute out and I experienced what it would feel like if to be yanked back up a hundred feet by my pelvic bone.... Ouch! ladies and gentle men.... Just ouch! I purchased the video and the pictures which I am going to have developed tonight... I hope... If I can put them on the web I will let you all know how to see them... To celebrate an awesome morning I went to HOOTERS for Lunch... and let me tell you today was a great day.... after I post this I am going over to have dinner with my grandparents and Gramps and I are going to catch a movie... Mission Impossible III... Hope fully Tom Cruise will not feel the urge to jump up and down like a mad man on any couches... I hope your day was at least half as amazing as mine.......Aloha
RIDDLE ME THIS:
The answer to the Previous riddle is::::
A Bridge....
And the challenge of todays riddle isn’t so much solving the one answer but guessing all 5 of the answers... Yes I promise there are at least 5....
What has eyes yet can not see?????

Give Me Warning!!!

Hmm, I think that all attractive young women below the age of 18 should have to wear some type of notification. Now a few friends and I have had this conversation a number of different times... But on the beach I think this is even more important. I don’t want you to think that I am some kind of pervert, because I’m really not. I do enjoy looking at all the beautiful bodies that are traipsing all over Waikiki at any given moment. I just think it would be nice if the younger girls wore something (I’m not opposed to a burka) to warn older men that we should not be looking. Today for example as I was tanning (read burning) on the beach there was a very attractive young brunette that was with her family she looked to be between 16-19 but for all I know she could have been 14. I do not remember girls looking like that when I was in high school... well not very many of them anyway. Needles to say she caught my eye. By caught my eye I mean I could not take my eyes off of her for almost two hours... (hence the burning ) Luckily I had my IPOD with me and was able to use it in a non obvious way as a sort of mirror (Thank Gawd for IPOD) anyway not too much has happened in the past few days, I have seen three movies, two by my lonesome (X-Men 3 and Just My Luck) and one with Gramps (The Da Vinci Code) by far the best of the three... For those of you who have read the book the movie does a good job of staying true to the book and I only had a few gripes. Grams and I went to the Zoo yesterday, where we discovered that even the animals in Hawaii are on vacation (everyone of them was asleep or just lounging) and for dinner Grams made this wonderful tuna salad thing that is Gramps’ favorite. I’m not a big fish guy but the salad was freaking amazing. Tonight Grams, Gramps and I are heading to rehearsal so that I can meet some of the people from their chorus. You know it’s kind of funny but I have the hardest time walking up to people and starting conversations... I love to talk, and I like people you think I would have less trouble merging the two things... go figure... Hmm I wonder if Mrs Right is some where on this island. Although to be honest I would be okay with just meeting Mrs Right Now... LOL, I am such a tool. I was watching the news last night and they said it was supposed to be upwards of 124 degrees where I stay back in Iraq... and all I have to say to that is, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA..... grin.... They are right, (the infamous They) Laughing does make you feel better..
Riddle Me This:
The Answer to the Previous riddle was:
Icicle
and today’s riddle is as follows:
Man walks over, man walks under; in time of war he burns a sunder. What is it????