Life

The Adventure Gets Better?

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I hate colds. Actually, I hate being sick. I’m not sick very often and when I am I suspect that I am an awful patient. Anyway, I came down with a cold last night. Drugs seem to help. I hope it doesn’t get worse. So it sounds like we’re finally leaving on Saturday. At least … Read more

DMV Sucks!

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Yeah, I know. I’m stating the obvious here. Nonetheless, after today’s experience I feel and deep need to reiterate this painfully obvious truth. So, I needed to get a base pass for the oh-so-cool red Mustang Convertible — now dubbed the Comms Mobile — so that I can drive it on base. In the course … Read more

And Now We Wait

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We are trained up and ready to go. Now all we have left is to wait for the time to actually go. Today was a pretty light day. Got laundry done, packed up some gear, got it loaded on to a pallet. Did some shopping for some final items. Yesterday before flying down I made … Read more

Duty & Its Cost

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I put my kids to bed tonight. Probably the last time I’ll do that for a while. We all cried. The goodbyes make me sad. As my daughter pointed out, there would be something wrong if I were not sad. I still don’t like feeling sad. This poem has come up a couple of times … Read more

A Date with my Girlfriend

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I took my girlfriend of 18 years out on a date tonight. We went to dinner, then to a coffee house for desert. We talked a lot, walked and held hands, spent time being a couple again. It was awesome. I can’t wait to do it again. Aloha

The Real Deal

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We completed and passed our FEP. We have been deemed qualified and ready to go and serve in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. I’m enjoying a few days of liberty before we ship out. I return to San Diego Sunday evening. I have the final goodbyes with my family to get through. That … Read more

One Last Goodbye…

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One more watch. Monday morning we start tearing down Camp Cluster. That too will be a training evolution with folks looking on to make sure we do it right. It’s raining here. Hard enough that they are issuing flash flood warnings for the area. We’ll be packing away tents wet and dirty. That will mean … Read more

1 Down, 2 to go

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For being in the middle of a FEP there sure isn’t much happening on watch. I just finished my second watch of the FEP. Nothing happened. A Red Hat asked me to explain various tasks and systems in the communication’s suite. Pretty simple stuff. I’ve got two more watches in this FEP, the mid and … Read more

FEP Me

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Our FEP has begun. I was on watch from 1200 to 1800. Woo hoo. What fun. Voice comms were a problem everywhere. I’m walking up to the van to assume the watch and before I even get there they tell me to go to HDC and trouble-shoot their VHF/UHF. Off I go. Receive but no … Read more

Boredom & Surprises

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The Boredom — This morning we sat through several briefs that are required for deployment. Most of them were pretty dry, boring stuff. Death by PowerPoint, as they say. The Good Surprise — we did our Physical Requirements Test (PRT) today. I did 40 sit-ups (better than before but still in need of work), 61 … Read more