Where have I been to?

In answer to some kind peoples' questions, yes, I was able to see the Transformers movie thanks to the wonders of bootlegging. It was actually a really good copy, so I was able to see all the genius of Michael Bay's directorial skills. My review? Well, for a movie about them, there was not nearly enough of the Transformers themselves. I think I was looking for something more like the show where there were some human characters, but they were totally secondary. Also? I loved that one of the main people was a Captain in Qatar. I am going there in a month or two (on a 4 day R and R pass) so I will keep an eye out for robotic scorpions.

I also picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but it was filmed to dark and the camera operator's thumb was over the lens for the first five minutes, so it was more frustrating to watch than anything. Oh well, I will catch it when I get home.




The return flight was a completely different thing than the way down. First, here is the plane that I was on.





Smaller, with windows, and with a tailgate that they left OPEN for the whole flight. Also, the view was amazing because they flew all of 50 feet up. Holy frick! This is not a picture from takeoff, this is 20 minutes into the flight. It was pretty awesome.

That is about it for that trip- I made it back safely, and it was back to work. I was sent back with the first two season of Boston Legal by a guy that works down there. Any fans out there?

=Pat

Where Have I Been?

Salerno! But not the nice one in Italy. The one in sort of Eastern Afghanistan. (Southern? The whole darned place is on a slant, so it is hard to tell) as opposed to... kind of middle Afghanistan like Bagram (which is near Kabul, which is the capital. Remember this for future Scavenger Hunts!)


It was about a half hour flight from Bagram on a C130, the plane of choice for people that jump out of planes. You may notice that there are no windows on the sides of this plane. What that means is that you sit in this steel box and stare at the walls while you bounce all over the sky. So, when we landed and I hopped out of the plane, it was a surprise that we landed on a GRAVEL RUNWAY. I later found out that it is just the taxiway that is gravel, but it was a shock at the time. What else did I have waiting for me? Trees! Woo hoo! This is actually an olive grove in the middle of the base. But my God, the humidity! This is not a desert like Bagram. In fact, it rained most days I was there, at least a little. Hey! I can see Pakistan from here! But do not worry, the bases there are quite safe. This is why they call them bases in Freeze Tag. Salerno is a Forward Operating Base (FOB) but it is really like Bagram lite. They have most of the same stuff, but smaller. Like this Subway shop... truck... thing. That is actually the whole place.

The 82nd Airborne Division Band was playing at the chow hall. No, our meals do not normally have musical accompaniment. This same band was playing at the 10K run I did and at the 500,000th Soldier to go on leave from Kuwait Ceremony. Apparently our fates are linked. But this time? This time they were playing TV show theme songs! On woodwinds! Including the A-Team song! Awesome. Da-dah dah dah... dun dun dun...
(To be continued...)

How Is Being In The Army Like Being A Little Kid?

First, as a kid, you don't get a lot of choice about... well, about much of anything, really. You are going to be told what to wear (UNIFORM), when to get up (MORNING FORMATION) and what to eat (CHOW HALL). You have to make your bed and clean your room (INSPECTIONS.)

If your family is going on vacation somewhere you do not want to go, (DEPLOYMENT) you don't really get much of an option about saying no. Few families are going to go to Afghanistan or Iraq, but the rule is still the same, and the only way you are getting out of it is to do a really good job pretending to be sick. This actually happens more than you might think. Faking a stomachache and licking your palms to make them clammy will probably not cut it. Also, they may send you to the doctors who are about as effective as the School Nurse used to be. You get two options- Motrin and Robitussin. If those can't fix you, you weren't meant to be fixed.

Actually, one of the biggest similarities has to do with how they punish you. First, they might just yell at you and any backtalk will just make it worse. (Choke yourself!) Thankfully in the Army there is generally not a wooden spoon involved (Mom, I am looking in your direction.) But let's say you really get in trouble and they bring you up on charges. At the lowest level, they can give you extra duty, where, after work you have to come back and clean common areas, paint walls or buildings or rocks, or whatever other ideas your temporary jailer comes up with. Kids know this as EXTRA CHORES. Also, they can take a part of your monthly pay. Did any of you ever LOSE YOUR ALLOWANCE for being bad? Does this all sound terribly familiar? Plus, if things are really bad, and you are making things worse by just being around, you may be restricted to quarters, aka GROUNDED.

On the positive side of things, as a kid they do give out shiny things when you do a good job like Gold Stars. This does not end when you enter the military- they have medals!

I think that this should be the next recruiting campaign for the Army. I think it will be especially effective for those who are nostalgic for their childhoods. What do you think?

So, what has changed?

1. We have a new main boss- the last one left pretty much the day that I came back on leave. Is this good or bad? I am not sure yet, but one of the first things he asked me is if I wanted to stick around for an extra year. I did the polite thing and did not laugh in his face.

2. We have Physical Training (PT) five times a week. At 5 am. In the interest of following along with the number five theme, I am going to take five fingers and a palm and smack whoever came up with this idea.

3. We have a mandatory work day of 0730-1930 every day except Sunday, which is 1400-1930. This? This I am fine with because I was already working those hours and more anyway. So, meh.

4. Lest you think this will all be complaints, I have some good news. Actually, it is great news. When I left, I was the only person in my whole shop. While I was gone, I got FIVE new people in. It is almost too wonderful for words. I am back to being the dumbest person in the place, but I guess that was true when I was here by myself too, huh?

5. It got HOT here. It is about 100 degrees most days. That is one thing, but it also causes the "100 Days of Wind" basically because the big bowl of the mountains acts like a convection oven so at about 11am, the wind starts blowing at at about 15 mph and just goes up from there. By 6 or so, the flagpoles are being bent nearly in half, and I even saw one of the flags get ripped right off of the line and take off towards Pakistan.

6. Remember General Order #1? The "no drinking, no sex" one? Well, it has been updated.

"Personnel are prohibited from entering the living space of the opposite sex, with the exception of personnel married to each other, unless for official military business. If entry is required for official military business, the door must remain open at all times.

Sex. Sexual relations in a deployed environment have a degrading effect of unit cohesion, morale, good order and discipline, and jeopardizes unit readiness as well as mission accomplishment. Therefore, sexual relations and intimate behavior between individuals not married to each other are prohibited."

Again, not something that changes my life, but I still find this to be very silly. Did they not watch Starship Troopers? That was the best army in the history of cinema!

What did that kid in Poltergeist say?

Ah Afghanistan! How I did not miss you one bit! Just a quick post to let you all know that I made it back safely, and thank you to everyone for making my trip home just fantastic. I can't wait to be back again, this time for good. See you in January, or so.

Running Is Nothing But Trouble

So, apparently, the Army wants us to be "in shape" and apparently if you are unable to eat without starting to sweat, they start doubting your fitness. In my defense, those 64 slices of American cheese were very heavy. So, the way that they test you is the Army Physical Fitness Test. It is as many pushups as you can do in two minutes, then two minutes of situps and a two mile run. Each event has a scale of 0-100 points, but like in high school, you have to get at least 60 points to pass. So, two of us took it the other day. I finished the first two events and then we moved on to the run.

As I have mentioned before, there are a lot of mines here, so they do demining all the time. When they do it near the perimeter road, they close it to all traffic including runners. When we went out there to start, they were not operating yet, so we asked if we had 20 minutes- plenty of time to run a mile out and come back. Sure, no problem, they say. The mile out goes well, but as we get about 1/2 mile from the end, we see caution tape stretched across the road. Jeff is a minute or two ahead of me at this point, and no silly piece of vinyl will deter him. He jumped the tape, despite the engineer's protests. And while they may not go chase him down, I present a second chance for this gentleman to complete his mission of closing the road.

"Stop right there! The road is closed!"
"But, he kept going!"
"Yes, but you will not."

Can't argue with that. So, noticing that I was almost exactly 1/2 mile from the end, I just ran 1/4 mile back the way I came and then came back to the caution tape. I was tempted to break through it, humming the Chariots of Fire theme, but it was down and the road was open by that point. The distance was inexact, and I kept my own time, so is it officially official? No, not really. But it is good enough for government work.

The Vacation Countdown Has Begun!!!

So we are down to 1 Month!
31 Days!
5 Steak Nights, and that even includes tonight!

So, to help the time go a little faster, Laura has sent me a mystery package. One empty photo book and 30-some sealed manila envelopes.
All I know for now is that some of you (you know who you are) have come together to spell out a message with pictures involving one letter each. So far, it says "HIP" and has featured Nat eating some cardboard, "The Running Gluck" and Judy having her own Groundhog Day (Don't drive angry!)

This is great, and I cannot wait to see what the next 30 days hold. And, of course I will be bringing it home with me so that people can see the finished product! I will post which ones I have gotten in the comments, so keep looking to see if yours arrived!

Oh, and if you are participating in the photo message book, you also likely have played in one of the scavenger hunt, or are at least aware of the zombie theme of the second one and the Thriller "dance" number. Well, it hurts to say, but these cats are better dancers than Adam, Dennis and me combined.So, I should be home from around the 13th or so until the 27th of June. See you then!

UPDATE- 13 June
So, you already know about
H-I-P
but the new additions to the puzzle are:

a- Chrissy, either doing a Fonzie thumbs-up with the "aaaaaaay" or since she is wearing a mortarboard and college polo shirt, possibly referencing her grades at Notre Dame. This also marks the first lowercase letter.

T- Angie using cardboard letters on a beach, which I am told is somewhere in Dundalk (Since when does the 'Dalk have a beach?) to make a nice pop culture reference. "Waaaaaaalt!"

G- Kathleen, drawing in the California beach sand (I assume.) This enigmatic message now stretches across the country!

HIPaTG. Hmmmm...

UPDATE- May 15
The latest additions both involve letters on peoples' chests, but unfortunately it was Tom playing Skins and Kara playing Shirts.

"E" Tom, your mom must be so proud that you made the papers.

"T" Kara, what is the story behind the "T" shirt? Is it that it is a t-shirt? Oh. It is. In honor of me explaining that joke, I will give you one of Stine's favorite jokes.

Knock knock
Who's there?
Control Freak... Now YOU say control freak who?

See, it is funny because...

UPDATE- May 24th
So, apparently I have been taking too long in posting this, and have fallen behind a word or two. But just know that opening these is the first thing I do in the morning, and it is a great way to start every day.

"R"- Cori apparently predicted that I would go for the pirate theme in the evite. Yum, yum, rum.

"E"- John looking nearly as pimpalicious as my faux-gold plated cell phone. No, really. I think it loves the 70's. "Wu-Tang! Diversify Your Bonds!"

"A"- Katie, wearing the greatest hardhat I have ever seen

"D"- Momma Mayes, dancing with the cast of Madagascar, although for a kids' movie, that lion really looks like it is about to decapitate that monkey. With its teeth.

"Y"- Mike- I am sure that if there was a letter "X" anywhere in this message, he and his 360 would have gotten it.

"I"- Heather, who I would think was getting ready to bring people an episode of Sesame Street, going so far as to actually dress as the letter, but I do not think that Grover would teach kids to win at the expense of the team. You must be thinking of Peyton Manning volunteering with the United Way.

"T"- Carrie's Tea Party, including the fancy hat. Fancy a spot o' tea, guvnah? No? Fake cockney accents are not funny anymore? But... the tea! OK. We have had T-shirt and T-party. What is next? T-time? Mr T? Curtis, I am looking your way!!!!

"S"- Rick is a master of Photoshop. Like, seriously good. Don't cross him, or he may paint your face into something really unpleasant. Such as the cast of Two and a Half Men. [shiver]

UPDATE- 31 MAY (12 days! Woo Hoo!)

"A"- Liz, your shameful attempt at winning best photo by putting my own dog front and center will not succeed. For shame! But awwwww.

"L"- Curtis, you're showing the two sports that, if played here, would be most likely to result in land mine interaction.

"M"- Laura- Looking mighty fine in a t-shirt with what can only be described as a duck with a grenade in his hand on it. Plus! The Yuengling! Oh yes, I am but a few days away from one of those too.

"O"- Bryan- Randy's donuts! That looks good enough to stop a monorail!

"S"- George- All he needs is three more people, and he can spell out SEXY. I call dibs on "Y". Unlike the "X", no one will see it as a target and punch me in the stomach.

"T"- Joshua, what are you trying to say? You want to take me out for cheesesteaks? OK, twist my arm. Wiz wit!

HI PAT, GET READY, IT'S ALMOST!!!!

JUNE 4th UPDATE

"J"- I always knew Jen thought of herself as a princess.

"U"- What a lovely picture of my mom. Even she has to be happy with this one. Plus? Topiary!

"N"- To Kristin, Liberty starts with N! Actually, she has followed the trend of people living in PA using real PA landmarks. Mmmm, bell.

"E"- Stine, in a pose that says he should be painted on the side of a WWII bomber.

JUNE 6! The time and the words are getting shorter!
"S"- Sarah- Somehow Pirates just keep reappearing within our circle of friends. Yar, indeed. And just remember, when life gives you scurvy, make lemonade! (Not green Starburst)

"E"- T White and Laura D. White E? Whatever could this riddle mean?

"E" Kristi and the foundations of flip cup. Table, cups, and beer. Such a simple design, is it any wonder we love the game so?

"Y" Jason- Y? Oh! WHYYYYYYYYY? Heh. Platoon rocked.

"O" LT, it cannot bode well for your marriage that you and Josh are fighting about which is the superior cheesesteak place. The Geno's vs Pat's debate has broken more than one home.

"U" Steve, is that another "Y"? Ohhhh.

"S"- Megan shows that spinoffs can go completely mad, from Superman to Supergirl to Retro-20's Supergirl. What you decided not to go the body paint route like George?

"O"- Lucy demonstrating her greatest talent

"O"- Yateses- The award for "furthest traveled" clearly goes to the Yateses (Yates? Is the plural the same, like deer?)

"N"- Laura- the creator, the organizer. My favorite destination at my final destination. Wonderful job.

Thank you to everyone that participated. This is simply great (I have overused the word "awesome") and I love it.