Dentist 1, Tooth 0

Yep, the good news is that the docs were able to fix me up. There really isn't any bad news so I guess the good news is just the news. It seems I got lucky when I showed up, I just had to fill out a couple forms and then the doc went to work.

When he was done it felt like I had sand in my teeth, which reminded me of a sandstorm that we had a couple days ago. Check this out: (click the pic for the whole video)

It only took an hour to go from sunny and bright to this. When you watch the video you'll hear the rain dropping. Once things dried up you could see where individual drops landed based on the pattern of dust that they brought with them.

We're lucky here in the IZ that we have all these buildings around us to break up the sandstorms so we don't get those sweeping walls of sand that you see in other places.

Also, this story went down in my backyard. When you see pictures of both these guys (the secretaries, ambassadors, and generals) you can be pretty sure that they held these news conferences/briefings just a few short steps from where I live. These kind of events are pretty encouraging. Knowing that I'm contributing to the effort that has the attention of such important people goes a long way toward making my job in particular seem a bit less pointless. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't understand why I'm here, I just don't often get to see the result of my efforts and that gets frusterating.

Everything considered, I'm very proud to be here doing my part to make Iraq and America safer. I can't wait for my kid and grand-kids to start learning about this kind of thing and ask, "Dad/Grampa, were you in the war?" so I can smile and say, "I sure was."