Everyday is Tuesday

My boss asked today what day it was, I said, "Its Friday."  He said, "No, Dubs, it is Tuesday.  I will tell you why:

Saturday and Sunday are weekends; we don’t have weekends at this undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, so it can't be Saturday or Sunday.  Friday is the day before the weekend; there are no weekends here, so there is no Friday.  Monday is the day after the weekend; there are no weekends here, so there is no Monday.  Wednesday is hump day, never over the hump because there are no weekends here, so there is no Wednesday.  Thursday is the big college night, the big pre-Friday night, there are no Fridays here, so there is no Thursday.  Therefore, everyday here is Tuesday."

He wasn't lying.  It was Friday, but we didnt leave work until 700 pm and we plan on being to work at 0700 am tomorrow morning.  Oh well...I guess I will get used to it.  But as promised, here are some pictures of my room.

Here is the view of my bed, desk, and entrance to my room.

Here is looking from the entrance at the tv.  Notice game 2 of the world series on the armed forces network.

Here is my desk from the room entrance.  You can see my sink and the entrance to my shared kitchen.

This is the shared kitchen

The shared kitchen looking the other way and you can see the bathroom.

 So all in all not bad at all.

My first post from downrange

I have been here for two days now, sorry for not writing sooner...but things have been a little busy. I landed here from my flight from Baltimore approximately 30 hours after I left. We stopped in Ramstein for 6 hours; left Ramstein flew to Aviano for a three hour layover, and then onto Qatar. We landed at 0100 in the morning local time, 30 hours after I left Baltimore. We then spent 4.5 hours doing our initial in-processing. I cleared customs and walked out of the air terminal at 0445. My new boss was there waiting for me, apparently he had been there since 0200 in the morning, despite it all, he was very accommodating and had everything set up for me. He took me straight to my room and told me that I could just give him a call when I was ready to come into work. I took a little nap and decided that I didn’t have anything else to do so I called up my boss and went in.
Not very exciting from then on…just did a whole bunch more in processing and started to meet everyone who I will be working with over the next year. I know that the most interesting part of this blog will be the pictures and interesting experiences along the way. I am not sure what I can/cant take pictures so I don’t have any yet. And I really haven’t done anything the last two days other then in process so not may interesting experiences.
I will say that the internet here is awesome, way better then I expected…so if you want to skype or FaceTime let me know, I haven’t had any problems getting it to work.
I will try to take some pictures tomorrow so you can see what this place looks like. But until then here is an awesome picture of Kate and I at the Buckeyes game last Saturday.

It begins

I am on my first leg of my journey, i think the hardest wart is already over, leaving Kate and the kids. It was pretty awesome, we started the morning with an awesome brunch at Easton and then Rappa, Sasa, Mike, Austin, and kate and the kids all went to the airport. Some of Sasa's friends, the Scherners, met us at the airport. Kate had a big banner (Kate should be able to post some pictures) and flags for the kids. They all waved their flags and held up the banner, while all the other people in the Columbus airport looked at us like we are crazy people. I am not wearing a uniform and there aren't too many bases near Columbus so it was understandably a little different then what people are used to seeing in Ohio.

The flight from Ohio to Baltimore is only an hour. Once i get to Baltimore i will have to get all my luggage (my two massive duffle bags that were well over the 50 lb weight limit, but southwest airlines hooked it up, didn't even try to charge me extra. Maybe it was the crazy family waving flags or the 33 year old man balling his eyes out, whatever it was, it was enough to convince them that my overweight bags were justified). We were also able to get passes for Kate and the kids to go through security with me and hang out at the Kate. The kids, thankfully don't really seem to understand what is going on, so they were content to stuff their faces with Buckeyes from Rappa, and color.


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The journey begins

My posts will be a little out of order. Had a really awesome post that wrote about leaving Columbus, but I didn't get a chance to send it because I couldn't find any wifi in Baltimore, but it is 2000L and my 365 day countdown pretty much starts officially now. Had an awesome surprise... meeting one of my best friends from the Academy, Peter, in line checking in for the flight downrange. We decided that instead of feeling sorry for ourselves in the BWI terminal that we would take a cab down to the Baltimore downtown and have an awesome steak dinner at "the capital grill". Pete actually already had plans and invited me along with him and one of his family friends, Graham. Graham was a great guy and picked up the tab for all of us. It was a great last meal before we leave and I was very grateful. Here's a picture from the dinner.



Standby for updates from Germany and the post about leaving Columbus. Kate, please email some of the pictures from today.

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GO BUCKS!

On our way to the game

On the road

Two hours into the trip. Will stop in Franklin, TN tonight.


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Last Florida Sunrise

What a beautiful site for our last morning in Florida. The house is all packed up and we are staying at the TLF (temporary lodging facility) on base. The room, or should I say three bedroom house isn't much to look at, but the view out back is pretty spectacular. The plan is to meet the renters at the house, do a walk thru, and then hit the road to make it somewhere around Nashville tonight.
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Location:Postl Rd,Eglin AFB,United States

It finally seems real...

I don't know if it is the fact that next Tuesday I will actually be gone or if it is because the house is finally getting emptied out, but it just hit me that I will be gone for a year before I know it.



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Location:Parkwood Ct W,Niceville,United States

Toddlers Favorite Toy: The iPhone

It has only been a day but I am now obsessed with blogging. I can see how it has been so addictive for Kate.

Anyway, i was just reading an article in the NY Times and anyone who has spent anytime with us lately knows that this is definitely the case in our house. So enjoy, but don't judge until you have spent a whole day with the little devil and demon otherwise known as Jack and Ellie, the five minutes of quiet time, at the time, seems worth the possible educational stunting. Check it out

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Bowling Fun

First Real Post for the New Blog

I figure I should start learning how to work on the blog while I am still here with the blog expert---Kate. So I will begin the first new series of post with my last event in my old squadron. Here are some pictures of my "fini-flight". But on the new blog instead of a bunch of pictures in the post, my plan is to have one picture and then a link to a gallery of the pictures that the post is about. By clicking the "fini-flight" link or the picture within the post it will take you to the MobileMe gallery of that post. Let me know what you think about the MobileMe galleries and if you would rather just see all the photos within the post...but back to the post. For all the non-Air Force people, a fini-flight is a tradition that after your last flight in a squadron, everyone meets you at the jet and they hose you down with water. If you have kids, they usually let the kids do the spraying. As you can see, Jack really enjoyed it.

A new twist...

I am not sure if anyone still reads this, but as you know this blog has been nearly abandoned as theshoppingmama.com has blossomed and taken more and more of Kate's time. But as I prepare to deploy for a year my plan is to use this blog as my journal throughout my deployment. So keep checking in to check up on what i am doing.

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