Looking Back

Before I begin, let me first say HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to my beautiful wife! She's about 8 months pregnant right now with our first child and in my opinion qualifies to be celebrated this Mother's Day.

I love you babe!

*edit*
I just got off the phone with my sweetie and guess what! I am the first person EVAR to wish her 'Happy Mother's Day!' w00t!
*end edit*

So I know I said that I wouldn't be getting the Z800 for a while until I had that kind of money to spend, but things have changed. When I wrote that it cost about $900, several days later the price dropped by $350! That kind of money I have, or had I guess. I put in my order over the weekend and it should be on the way by about Tuesday of next week. My best SWAG is that it will show up here about the end of the month.

Also on the technology front, I nuked my computer. Nothing is quite as refreshing as wiping your hard drive and starting over with a clean slate. Thanks to all the crap that I had installed to act as a band-aid fix for various problems that had cropped up I couldn't go for more than a couple minutes without my computer coughing up a hair-ball on me.

On the war front, today is also the 6 month mark for my deployment. That is not to be confused with the half-way point though. Since I deployed ahead of my unit I get an extra couple weeks downrange. It's not a point of bitterness, it just comes with the job of being the leader. Based on a 365 day deployment, today would be the half-way mark, but based on a more realistic 385 day deployment to accommodate my early deployment, 24 May 2006 will be my half-way point.

I also wanted to post this picture of the Crossed Swords at sunset.
At the base of the eastern pair of the Swords is a souvenir stand that is run by a couple Iraqi Security Force guards. They sell an assortment of knives, rugs, pictures, and trinkets. Since everyone who visits the IZ wants to see the swords I've played tour guide to a great number of people and have become something of a regular at this shop. Over the course of my visits I've come to know the two guards, Ali and Salmun, pretty well and on one recent visit I sat and talked with them both while the other Soldiers browsed the shop. It turns out that Ali's wife is due to give birth at about the same time as Katie is. We laughed about it and decided that we should exchange pictures of our kids. As soon as I come back from R&R with pictures I'm going to head straight down there and show them off.

I'm really looking forward to the day when I can come back here with my family and give them the tour. That day is about 20 years away though.

I've also done some geocaching over the last week. A while back I got in touch with the folks at GeocacheArmy.com and offered my services in helping them deploy their Army Men in Iraq. Last week a package arrived in the mail and I didn't recognize the from address. I made a big show of it, pretending that it might explode at any second, I delicately used my knife to make a slit in the side of the package where no sensible person would think to put a trigger so that I could get a better look at what was inside. One of my troops, curious about what was inside, had crept up carefully behind me to look over my shoulder. I knew he was there and when I knew that I couldn't shield the package from his view any more I threw my hands up and yelled 'BOOM!' Ahh, nothing like seeing a someone under constant threat of a mortar or rocket get suprised by loud noises.

Anyway, back to the story. After I opened up the package I found three little plastic Army men each with a serial number attached. I posted the full details of the first cache on the GeocacheArmy.com website. If you have something you'd like me to geocache while I'm over here just let me know =)

Cheers!