Getting ready to grill up some bratwurst and drink cold, fake beer. Only in Iraq...
The internet has been especially screwed up these past few days, hence no updated blog. Well after an hour I finally got logged in so, here you are.
Poker. Sandstorm. High Winds. Poker. Empty PX. Poker. 60's at night. Poker. 100's during the day. Poker.
There's your three day update.
Exodus 19:4
You ain't gonna believe this... Derrick pulled another... ANOTHER Straight Flush tonight. 4-8 of Hearts. That's three total in less than a week. The odds are, for lack of a better word, astronomical. He got his name on the board twice.
That was as exciting as it got tonight. I couldn't get a decent pocket to save my life and when I did finally get pocket Mop-Squeezers, nothing came up to help them out. Ah well...
Tomorrow (technically today) should be thrilling. We're cleaning the "Poker CHU." It needs it. We're gonna pull everything out, sweep, mop and rearrange.
I'm going to attempt to go to bed soon. Key word = "attempt."
John 17:12
Below is what my post would have read last night if, right during the middle of the post, we had not gone into "blackout." We lost a soldier yesterday; please pray for him and his family.
Original Post Title: Home on the Range
Weapons Range, that is.
Justin and I squeezed into our body armor this morning and took off down to the range. My "little brother" was running a small arms range for the S6 section. I took plenty of pictures and video and was going to get to shoot as well but, the CO showed up and nixed that. I understand his reasoning and he's a by-the-book type guy so, it was cool. I just shot some more pictures instead of bullets.
Gonna watch ST:Voyager tonight and go to sleep early, I think (hope). I'm tired.
Colossians 1:24
This would have been the Addendum:
So, much for a quiet night of Voyager and an early bedtime. Three guesses as to what happened and the first two don't count.
Congratulations to Derrick. On the board sits a 4, 5, 7 and 8 of diamonds along with I think a club or something. Justin has the "nut flush" with the Ace, Chad has the next high one with the King, or so they thought. Justin goes "all-in" (which to his credit is the right call when there's that many chips already in the pot and you know you've got the highest flush. Chad calls the "all-in" with the King, thinking Justin had something smaller. Derrick (who is trying to stop shaking) calls the "all-in" as well. Justin turns the Ace, Chad turns the King and Derrick turns the 6. The 6 of Diamonds. Straight Flush. Two of them in the past 3 days. Awesome.
Here's today's report:
"Blackout" was lifted about an hour ago. Not much happening today. PFC's Moser and Trekkle are being promoted to SPC so, I'll probably head over there and take some pictures at the ceremony. Other than that, I REALLY HOPE I GET TO JUST WATCH VOYAGER TONIGHT...
John 13:14
If you're scratching your head over that one, it simply means, we are to treat our friends, not as they treat us, but as Christ loves us. Think about it.
No poker game.
I hung out with Chad tonight and we watched The Departed. Ho.Lee. Crap. This is a dang good movie. Did you like The Godfather? Yes? Then you'll like The Departed. Especially if you have an ounce of Irish blood in you (I happen to have 2). Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Alec Baldwin. Granted, I'm not a big fan of the last two mentioned but, the movie rocked.
Just woke up from my midnight nap and here I sit. Eating a sammich and chips and drinking a frosty fake beer. Gotta love it.
I distributed a bunch of Free Texas books today. The Regimental Commander and CSM, their secretaries, 1SG Brown and my brother, SSG Blakemore all got their signed copies today. The CDR and CSM were outside the wire today so I don't know what they thought. But the secretaries loved it and so did SSG Blakemore and 1SG Brown.
Colossians 1:28
Can't a guy just sit in his room and jam some PE without someone showing up, banging on his door and asking for a poker game? Not in Mosul, obviously. 
Foxy and I spanked that behind.
With 2 exceptions (no names... to protect the shamed), everyone did well. Jacob and Justin have hit their stride and are doing well too. Of course Jacob was only paying 1/2 attention tonight as he folded 2 Straights and a Full House... ON THE BOARD!!! Geez...
Here's a picture of our busted up tree.
Isaiah 30:21
This is especially true on actual Mondays. Not much to report today other than the storm that blew through last night blew through HARD.
One of our trees was blown over last night and barely missed Jacob's truck. That would have been a tough one to try and write in a report. It also blew over our wireless link to our innarweb people so, at 0430hrs I was on the roof of our "office" building trying to manually realign the transceiver. After a few minutes of fiddling with the alignment I finally got a blinking link light and locked it in place. About a minute later I got the solid link light and decended from the roof. The internet was still patchy but it was now due to the fact that the main station, about 1km away, was having issues because of the same storm.
So, here I sit, jamming to some old school PE... 
"Fight the Power!"
John 10:9
The skies are a nice brown today. Lovely.
I was gonna write more but a poker game just broke out. Gotta run...
John 14:6
I am officially under 6 months as of today. I will be flying out of here on October 26th of this year. Will I ever come back? Who knows? I can say that I won't volunteer to come back but that doesn't mean I won't get told to come back. But if I do, it will only be for 6 months, never a year again. Ever.
Woke up and went to check mail. No mail. For anyone. No "Mail Plane" ($5 to anyone who can tell me where that comes from, Tab and the boys don't count and neither does Justin). Went to the TOC, checked on them. All's well. Went to the PX. They actually had some new movies in. I got a Jet Li collection and some other Martial Arts movie. Gotta love the Kung Fu Theater.
Finished two more fobs while listening to the commentary on Return of the Jedi. I'm getting ready to work on a few more while listening to commentary for Episode 1.
The internets absolutely suck right now. I talked to Tab for 5 minutes earlier and had to call her back like 15 times due to dropped connections. I will be so glad when the other company gets all of their equipment in and I can say goodbye to the idiots we have now.
With the increase in recent temperatures, I've seen all kinds of new critters running around. I'm going to try and get some pictures of them soon. New birds, lizards and geckos. Pete, our "Safety Guy", said that a group of soldiers were moving some boxes and came across a den of baby cobras. NICE! I think I'll need my telephoto lens for them...
Philippians 4:11 - This is an important one to learn and sometimes difficult for some people.
An "off" night. No biggee, I still had fun. That's the great thing about poker and why I love it.
Jacob was "King Daddy" tonight. That friggin' guy was on fire. And Chad got me on a Nut Straight with a freakin' Full House on an "all in."
One of Jim's "guys" had a going away party tonight and I cooked 50 burgers and 20 hot dogs for them before my game. He (the soldier) is getting promoted and moved down to Camp Liberty (Baghdad). Congrats to him.
T got back from his field trip today, early. Derrick picked him up at the PAX and they both joined in to tonight's game.
That was pretty much the whole day. Oh, it got to 104 degrees today but I tell ya, it ain't so bad. 104 in Texas would have been murder but here, it's dry. I'm sure once we start getting into the 120+ days it'll be hell, though.
John 15:5
Well, I got roped into a Dominos game which, before the bones even got shuffled, turned into a poker game. Finished at 0300hrs.
I still got it... 
Galatians 2:20
Just one.
Last night/this morning I finished 3 fobs, 1 pace cord and 1 rosary, all while listening to the directors commentary of Star Wars (Episodes IV and V). I will probably do more of the same tonight with the commentary for Episode VI.
Let's see... What else? Went shopping, bought movies. Got a haircut. Reconfigured a hard drive for the TOC. It topped out at 102 degrees today.
Borrowed Justin's Hooptie for the ride to the PX and now I smell like exhaust. I'll be hitting the showers very soon.
The IT people at BISD are FREAKING MORONS and I hope that one day they read this. When I get back I think I'm going to write a proposal to that jacked up district and just take their jobs. OR maybe I should just run for mayor of Belton instead of Nolanville. Yeah...
John 6:35
Today was pretty much un-incredible. Same stuff, different day.
We had another "low-fly-over" tonight but this one wasn't nearly as low as last night. Still kicked up a bit of dust though.
I got some of my beads in the mail today. Looks like I can start on the fobs tomorrow (after a brief refresher from Jim) and then as soon as the crucifix's get in I can start work on the rosaries.
I'll be designing and building a website for Rachel and Buddy's church sometime in the next few weeks (as soon as we change internet providers) and that will keep me busy as well. Lord knows I need something to do over here, other than watch DVD's all night.
I got my Gator repaired and I'll go get it reregistered sometime tomorrow. We have a broken hooptie that I'm gonna try and get repaired too. We'll see how that goes...
Jeremiah 2:13
Well, the day was like any other, relatively boring.
However, about 20 minutes ago "there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter" (and so did everyone else here in our little area). Sitting here I heard the unmistakable sound of a large helo in the distance. That distance was closed rather quickly and the noise was hellacious. I swear I thought it was landing/crashing right in our quad. When I opened the door I walked right into a dust storm caused by the prop downwash. Debris was flying everywhere. Justin flew out of his CHU, eyes wide (as were mine, I'm sure) and we both had looks of "What the frag?" on our faces. The helo was probably about 30 to 40 feet off the deck and moving slowly towards the "Spook" compound. At first we couldn't figure out what type of bird it was, due to the dust and it being dark outside. As it went down in the compound, we thought it was a Puma. It was on the deck for about a minute and then lifted off again. Through the dust and minimal light at the compound Justin said it was a Hip (MI-8), a Russian bird. He said the UN uses them over here. All I know is that it was big, low and scared the hell out of everyone here.
That's it.
1 Kings 18:41
The temperature topped out around 98 degrees today, not too bad. It's a dry heat so it's not quite as harsh as 98 degrees in say, Nolanville or Houston.
The internet is still jacked up and I confronted our providers today. The HTIC (Head Turk in Charge) will be here around 2100hrs to take a look at what I'm talking about.
I got my 550 cord from Ranger Joe's today. Once I get the beads from Oriental Trading Company I'll begin making keychain fobs and bracelets as well as "tactical" rosaries for my Catholic family and friends. It'll give me something to do other than watch DVD's/stare at the walls (which are starting to close in rapidly). So if you want something special, email me and let me know.
My back is still hosed and the medicine seems to be only upsetting my stomach as opposed to relieving any pain. The Army really needs to enlist Chiropractors.
Captain America agrees with me...
Exodus 17:16
The PX actually had, are you ready for this, Bratwurst.
I went yesterday and got burgers for the cookout today and later last night, T went up there and found freakin' bratwurst. Awesome. So, today we had burgers, brats and fake beer. It was almost completely awesome. Of course it would have been completely awesome if the beer was real. Especially when most folks here don't even drink beer, real or fake. That would have meant a lot more for yours truly.
To answer your many questions over the previous post; I was bored. So, boredom + MC Hammer gif + Sonja Blade gif = Mortal Kombat Dance Style. Bored, bored, bored...
John 12:3
Hammer Wins!
FLAWLESS VICTORY!!!
Quite a few of you thought that the answer to the $5 question was Spaceballs. Now, while there is a character named "Prince Valium" the correct answer is Beetlejuice. The quote, "sleeping with Prince Valium tonight" is said by Wynona Rider when she is referring to her Mom (Catherine O'Hara) while the ghosts are trying to scare her in her sleep.
So there.
Poker was very good last night/this morning. We went to 0400hrs, hence the tardiness of my post.
Everything else is status quo. I think I'll have a Whopper for lunch today. Nom, nom, nom...
John 5:39-40
So there I was, thinking that this Valium was gonna put me out... Uh-huh. The sun started to rise this morning at 0445hrs. Know how I know that?? Because I was still awake!! I didn't even get in the bed until 0530hrs and then had to force myself to sleep. That stuff did dull the pain but as far as what I've always heard about it, it ain't "all that."
Once the dust settled this afternoon it turned out to be a nice day. Blue skies, sunshine, 80 degrees and a slight cool breeze. It almost seemed like home (until I heard "Attention, attention, attention...").
Finished up Season 1 of The Practice, now I've gotta buy it online because the friggin' PX doesn't have season 2.
Our old pal Leonard finally showed up this past week. He's are EPLRS guru and also a member of the ESP family. Marvin goes on R&R Saturday and the rest of us are just waiting for tomorrow night.
My skull shoes and fox are ready to go...
Numbers 14:38 / Isaiah 46:11
So I went to the medics today about my back. The doc gave me mucho happy pills. I'll be "sleeping with Prince Valium" tonight ($5 to anyone who can tell me what movie that's from, Tab and Mike don't count).
After "work" today we pretty much hung out around the firepit and told "war stories." No fire, too hot. Just fake beer, a warm breeze, a few sprinkles of mud-rain and my friends. It was nice.
I picked up the 1st season of The Practice yesterday at the PX. I got sorta hooked on it a few years ago when Uncle C and I were duck hunting on a semi-regular basis. The cabin had a tv and FX was showing 2 episodes a night on the weekends. So after the evening hunt and while knocking back a few we would watch it. It's a good show. Boston Legal is actually a spin-off of it. And you all know that I love Boston Legal. The Practice is a lot more on the serious side though.
So, it's happy pills, The Practice and sleepy-time in a while.
Mark 9:24
