She's baaacccckkkk!!!

Yup, I am back in the land of computer connection. I'm sitting in tent city in good old Kuwait waiting for an airplane to give us a ride into Iraq. I will never be able to comprehend the stupidity that is the military deployment travel system. I'm amazed that anyone every gets into Iraq at all!
Tonight was a little morale night... Outback Steakhouse, Carrabas, and a band called "A Verse Unsung" all flew in so we could have dinner and a show. How freaking cool is that. The food was delicious but I was really amazed by the band. It was a group of young kids from Minnesota who flew all the way out here. I was so impressed with them. I guess it just seems that so many people and celebs flaunt this "support the troops" attitude but some of them actually mean it. For a band that isn't well known to want to come out here really freaking rocks. A Verse Unsung rocks! :)

Otherwise everything is just lovely... the sand is pleasant and the wind can't be beat. Hopefully we'll be out of here soon and I can hurry up and settle down. Ooooooh, I take that back... just got the word that we are out like trout in the morning....wooooohoooooo!!!! It's on like donkey kong... no more Kuwait for me!!!!

Let the stress games begin

OK, I'm ready to admit it... this deployment is starting to stress me out. I feel like I've got a hundred things on my list of things to do but the only one I really want to do is doing nothing. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to relax when relaxing is on the list of things to accomplish.

I'm down to two classes left for this stinkin degree. For some bizarre reason, I registered for both of them and they just started today. That was stupid. How in the hell do I think I'm going to complete two classes with a trip to Iraq falling right in the middle of the 8 week semester. Stupid stupid stupid. Of course, I could be working on some of those assignments right now instead of pointlessly blogging, but frankly I just don't feel like doing homework. I'm sure the stress of it will get to me in an hour or so and I'll sit down to try and be studious.

I guess the big part that is really sucking right now is not knowing when I'm leaving. There are so many arrangements that have to be made, but they're all pretty impossible until I have a departure date. Being a single home owner really sucks when you have to deploy all the dang time.

T-mobile must be letting me down

I can't imagine that the "suddenly stop calling-itis" has struck yet another of my beaus, so T-mobile must be to blame... perhaps I should call customer service and unleash all of my anger on some dude in Indian that I can't understand anyway. I'm sure they'd appreciate my woes... ugh boys!

Back to reality... thank jeeebus!!

The last three weeks nearly stripped me of my will to continue breathing... ah, good old Army training. But as I'm sitting here I feel like I have bitched about the experience so much in real life that I hardly want to run through the laundry list of gripes that I have again. So just believe me when I say that Camp Atterbury is no freaking bueno.

Anyway, I actually have no idea what I'm writing about right now... I just wanted to update the old blog since I didn't keep up with it during all this training. I'll be leaving for Iraq again in a couple of weeks but I still have no idea what day exactly. That's one of the things that I love about the Air Force. I try to do the right thing and find out what date range it's acceptable to take leave and this is how the conversation goes:

Me: So I have a month window between training and the date that I have to be in country, when should I expect to be traveling so I can take leave and visit family?

AF Dumb Asses: You know that you could leave at any time.

Me: Of course I understand that concept, but when might I possibly expect that you'll put me on a plane?

AF Dumb Asses: Again, you could leave at any time.

Me: So when might I know something about this departure?

AF Dumb Asses: Well the tickets won't be released until the 17th.

Me: Oh, so can I assume that I probably won't be leaving until the 17th?

AF Dumb Asses: No, you could leave at any moment.

Me: Right... are you saying that if I haven't left by the 17th, that you'll be able to tell me something concrete on the 17th?

AF Dumb Asses: No, that's only when your tickets are available for booking.

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So I leave without any explanation but the sense that I probably shouldn't leave the base for the next 5 weeks, because who knows... at any second I could be expected to be packed and on the plane. Stupid AF.

OK, but it hasn't been all grumpy stuff, I promise :) Randy came to visit during the week between GATOR and CST which was really cool. We did the classic Pikes Peak hike. Everytime I climb that dang thing, I seem to forget how challenging it is within 24 hours... but as soon as I'm back on that mountain the memories come flooding back of what a pain in the butt it is. I think we both kind of wanted to quit at the halfway point, but we made it all the way to the top. It actually even snowed up there. It really was beautiful as always. Here we are at the top together:

He's also been teaching me to rock climb which is a petty humorous adventure. It's great fun and quite the little workout. These are some pics from playing around at Garden of the Gods:

Fun times!! :)

Alabama is hot...

yup, that pretty much covers it... so hot, want to touch the hiney hehehehhehehehe