Spring Photo Shoot 2011

Wow it's been a long time since I posted on here! I had every intention of being back before now, but with all the deployment hoopla, which included starting a blog just for that, I have been so incredibly busy. I hope you'll all forgive me, and will enjoy these pictures that a friend of a friend took for us recently. She and her sister are Two Sister's Photography. You can find them on Facebook, or on the web.

www.thetwosistersphotography.blogspot.com

Thanks so much to Bayleigh and Julie for being so great to work with...:)

Red, White, and Blue Baby!

10 years

8 years

3 1/2 years

Rocker Chic

Too cute...er cool, I mean.

I embellished the shirt, and a daycare mom did the skirt.

Makes me smile

Logan's favorite...took us forever to get it!

TTT - 7/12: New Digs

Blog day! As Tracey says, "One week closer to being home with Lynette and the kids!"

Oh the excitement this week! I don't even know where to begin. Let's begin with the move since that is where the title comes from. In preparation for the oncoming crew we have condensed from 7 PCBs (Pre-cast Concrete Building) into 3.5. My PCB was one of the lucky ones that got to move. This is my second move since being here as, if you recall I mentioned weeks ago, the advanced team lived in a different building from the one I just spent 5 months in.

In an attempt to not get all riled up, as this topic has made me for the last week +, let's just say it didn't go according to the plan. We are all moved now and I'm nice and snuggled into an isle bed where everyone can pass by, point, and laugh at the zoo animal. ;) I spend a lot of time in my off hours just sitting here on the internet so some of them who sleep during the day might think I am sewn to the bed. :p

Today was supposed to be the day I told everyone that another topic of my ire is also complete, the range. Sadly, that is not the case and I have rescheduled to tomorrow afternoon...where it will probably be like the last 2 days, 110 degrees with 65-70% humidity. I have sweat buckets the last 2 days because I have been forced to be outside for extended periods that I am not used to...I'm a paper pusher now, I can't handle that kind of heat! :p

Other than that, we are continuing to prep for our departure here. We are starting to hand in gear for inspection by customs. Some of us are gathering items together and shipping them home so we don't have to carry as much to the airport. This is a little spendy, but I definitely think it's worth it! This also helped quite a few of us go from our customary two locker setup from the old building to our new one locker setup in the new one. Sacrifices are being made, but we're leaving soon so we are just rolling with the punches. I feel like the "Greatest" using the Rope-a-Dope until they wear themselves out and I can deliver the knock out blow, going home!

That's it for this week. Hopefully, if all goes well, I will be in full swing of turnover with my relief and start the slow wind-down. Things are about to get pretty hectic and cramped around camp so I'm hoping I keep what little sanity I have left intact. ;)

See you next week!

TTT - 7/5: Independence Week!

Blog day, here again! It's July!!! X amount of time before we come home!!! One less Tuesday to go. And so on and so forth...on to the show!

As per usual, this week was mostly uneventful. As I mentioned last week, I was supposed to go to the range. That was canceled due to weather. The group that went the day before us got stuck their the next morning because the visibility was terrible. Sandstorms are crazy! As the day went on, the "weather" got worse so they postponed our day. I have no idea how or when they plan on rescheduling us because turnover is right around the corner, but the next comment I have is derogatory and not suitable for deployment talk. ;)

Friday there were some NFL coaches on camp, I missed it because I was working on some caching things (more on that later!) It was the head coach from Houston, the coach from Arizona (boooo!!!! :p), former Seahawks head coach Jim Mora, Jr, and former coach Jim Mora, Sr. They changed the time on it twice so I missed it, but ultimately I was working toward a different goal when someone asked if I went. I may have said an expletive or two when I realized what time it was. ;)

The rest of the weekend itself was pretty slow, but I got two packages! One from my lovely wife, who sent me more books than I'll be able to read in a year, and more food than I'll be able to consume in the time we have left here. :p There was also a few DVDs which I appreciated greatly! (Zack and Miri is hilarious btw!) The day before that though, I got my caching stuff!!! I received two fake rocks, 5 nanos, and a small lock-n-lock container. I had an awesome multi/bonus caches set up like one similar to home, but I've run into a couple issues with that. (That's another story.) I hid them all last night (4th of July hides!!!) while the main attraction for the camp was going on. Michael Peterson was here for a "concert." Since I was out hiding caches I didn't get to see it, but apparently he did my storytelling than singing. He is a WA native I am told. The best part is Lynette saw him in Nashville on her latest ombudsman trip. Small world!

I was all fired up today about some stuff. We are moving into a different building in prep for the new crew. There is an instruction on what is going to happen, how the move is going to go, and who is moving where. Some people don't want to do what their told, so as Lynette said to me, "Way to make friends" by calling people out and making sure things go as planned. This is the military people...life sucks for short periods sometimes. DEAL WITH IT! That's my little angry moment...I try to contain those, but it doesn't always work out in my favor. :D

On a positive note for today, I got a FTF!!! I now have to move one of the 9 containers I placed yesterday, but those have other issues anyway. Maybe next week I can talk about the caches I got published...as of now they are a no go. :( I have my best people working on it!

That is it for this week. I hope it was a little more enjoyable than the last few weeks. I also hope as the weeks go by my attitude gets better, but as it stands right now, I won't hold my breath. I bid everyone a good Tues-Mon, and I'll see you next week!

TTT - 6/28: Winding Down?

Another Tuesday is here! Last blog for June 2011 from Kuwait. Ahh, the milestones we keep track of here. ;)

Really the only things I want to write about in this latter portion of the deployment are gripes and complaints. That, however, is not the purpose of this forum for me, and if the command found it they would not be gentle. So I'll keep the ranting to a minimum and try to be civil. :D

We are into the push for the next crew to get here. Boats are getting pulled and given a good once over to make sure nothing major is jacked up. We are making plans for what boats are going to come in and when...futile given the fact the boats are still operating and breaking, but we do what we can. It's hard to make a schedule, and a tool for retrieving boats has essentially been removed until the new crew arrives. That's about it for that because everything else will be me venting about something...

It is staying fairly consistent in the heat category here. The average temperature is roughly 115. It makes it difficult to be outside, but those of us who need to be out in it are managing. (I have an office with AC so I'm not one of the tough ones! :p)

Another event going down right now is the range. All PSU personnel will be filtering through the range between now and when the next crew gets here. I'm going this week, and if I want to stay positive on this blog I probably won't write anything more about it after this sentence.

The countdown is in full swing for a lot of the guys, but I'm trying not to get in to it. The command is making everyone aware of the time left as well so it has been difficult to avoid. I keep telling people if the number of days left has more than one digit, I don't want to hear about it. Maybe when the next bunch gets here I'll start paying attention, but until then I have stuff to focus on.

I think I'll call it good there this week. There hasn't been much else exciting going on. My caching supplies shipped on Friday so I might be busy putting all of that stuff together in the next week or two to keep me sane!

Until then, see you next week!

TTT - 6/21: What's next?

Another week has passed us by. Yay! The good news about this week is I don't remember much of it. ;) Time is starting to blur together in a rapid fashion which makes time seem to fly by.

As I mentioned last week, this was our big show. There wasn't a whole lot going on in my world, but we got the last major milestone of the deployment out of the way from the command standpoint. Now we are on to the next phase, which is get ready to leave!

This week also was Father's Day week. There were lots of presents received, kind words exchanged, and a RC car road race. ;) My lovely wife got me a book, that I asked her for two months ago. There is more to this story that might seem comical to some and very angering to others. Let's just leave it at it is signed by the author, and I loved it!

"Books" seem to be the common gift around here during this deployment. Whether it be a gift to ourselves or from home, the literature is flowing! Now you'll notice how I wrote "books." In this fabulous age of technology it isn't good enough to get a bound book anymore. (This is my preference, and it's hard to sign a digital book!) There are all sorts of eBook readers around this place.

I know of one Kindle received this weekend. Just in my division that makes 4 people with them. Granted one person has gone through two since we got here...ironically enough he's the electronics specialist. :D There are also a few iPads floating around. I guess these are great pieces of technology, but it will never substitute holding a book and turning the pages. Plus, how am I going to have a study or den or library if all my books are all just bytes on a hard drive somewhere....LAME!

I'm sure these things are very handy to have on a short trip or when you have to pack light, but I have yet to find a justification for owning one myself. Most of the books I read aren't even available in digital format so now they really seem useless! ;)

Now that I have finished my eBook reader tangent, all I have to say is that the next couple weeks hold a trip to the range, (not excited about that,) and getting boats and records ready for the oncoming crew to take over. I can only hope it goes fast, but at least I have this weekly ritual to help me pass the time.

With that, I bid you adieu, and I'll see you back here next week!

TTT - 6/14: Showtime!

Good news! Another week has passed! ;) That is about all though, that I can talk about. I'll do my best to say what I can this week.

So the title of this blog may be confusing, but I will explain the best I can without saying too much, as I said before. Last week was relatively busy for the Boat Maintenance Facility. We were playing the musical boats game. We had all of our boats in our shop at some point last week for various reasons. Most of them were getting preventative maintenance. The Navy side also had a few boats in. Right now, there are no boats in the shop. (Maybe we can get it cleaned out before we have to pull one!)

This is where the title comes in, our purpose for being here is upon us for the last time before we leave. I can't say how long, what it is, or when we are leaving, but there it is! Showtime, the pucker factor is at it's peak. Is it dangerous? I guess, but the command is on alert so everyone else is a little edgy. That's pretty much the extent of what I can say without getting myself in trouble.

Highlights from last week for me other than work...I made my iPhone work as a phone for the first time in 5 months. :p I lowered the number of caches I can find by 2 last week as well. That leaves 6 that I can realistically get to before we leave. There may be a possibility for more since I found out everyone has to go to the range before we leave here...(not a happy camper about that btw.) That will be a tale for another time though.

This is where I sign off for the week. I'll be back next Tuesday for more "exciting" tales from Kuwait! See you then. ;)

TTT - 6/7: Short and Sweet

Ahh, Tuesday. The first Tuesday of June! Someone gave me a number of Mondays we have left. I told him not to tell me that again...it's still way too many. :p

This week, like so many before, has been uneventful. I can't even think of anything interesting to write. And the things that I can think of to write, I'm not allowed to. So this week I'm just going to make this a quick, "Hello!"

Everything here is fine, other than the 115 degree heat that is only going to get worse. Work is picking up briefly, and then we'll be in full swing to get ready for the new crew.

I have a feeling the remaining weeks are going to follow suit with this blog, but you never know. That next exciting moment could be anywhere around the corner! (Hopefully it's sooner rather than later! ;))

So I leave you with that for the week, and next week there will be more words on the internet! :p