Hi, my name is Rick.

Fletch taught me that.

I went to a “wine festival” the other day.  I refer to the festival parenthetically because it was more like a carnival that happened to serve wine.  The primary foods were deep-fried and consisted of corn dogs, potato thingies and bloomin’ onions.  Very unhealthy stuff.  The patrons did seem of slightly higher stock than those you would see at say Denny’s or Check-Into-Cash however.  It was a good time.

There are very few things I hate more than people walking around all day with Bluetooth devices on their ears.  Also, Iran has decided to start imprisoning women with suntans.  Makes sense to me.

Speaking of unhealthy food.

Kuwait

I think global warming and “going green” are the modern day equivalents of McCarthyism.

Illegal immigrants in Arizona are protesting legislation which aims to verify citizenship.  Read that again.  A reporter asked the Governor of Arizona what an illegal immigrant looks like.  She couldn’t answer.  I can: they look Mexican… generally.  Offended?  I bet if you ask a Mexican what a terrorist looks like you wouldn’t be offended by their answer.

If I could punch Rachel Maddow in the face and get away with it, I would.  Actually, if I could punch her and just get in a little trouble, I would.

I was in an El Paso Wal-Mart today for 25 or so minutes and I didn’t hear the English language spoken once.

Baseball players are smug.

I really, really wish Joe Montana wasn’t endorsing those rocking-shoe soled Sketchers.

The best thing about neck tattoos is that you never regret them.

Fact: HDTV makes reality look more realer.  I can even watch the NBA in HD and that’s really saying something.

I wish I liked baseball.  I also wish I liked scotch.  I think the likelihood of either is the same.

I’ve locked myself out of my house three times since I got back from Iraq.  That means that I’m a dumb-ass.

Radical Islam

In celebratory anticipation of Eva’s return, I’m posting a shot I grabbed of soldiers waiting to fly home.  I was waiting too.

Abstract, Kuwait

Well it looks like I’ll be leaving Kuwait here very shortly.  Eva unfortunately must remain here for a few days so our Kuwait exit and our Iraq grand entrance shall not coincide.  So is life, and more apropos, so is Army life.  That being said, we’ve been far more fortunate than most with the schedule we’ve been dealt to date so complaints aren’t really in order.  That being said, complaining is relative.  That also being said, complaining is relatively ineffective so I try to avoid it if at all possible.

So we’re here in Kuwait, as is evident.  One would expect hoardes of active duty Army people scurrying about, but in reality the preponderance of personnel here are in fact National Guard.  And let me tell you, some of these Guard guys are old.  Now, a lot of my commentary on this site is admittedly fictional, but the following tale is not:  I walked into the shower facility here to get ready for bed last night.  A particularly old Guardsman walked in after I got out of the shower.  He went to the sink.  He took out his toothbrush.  He turned on the faucet.  He put toothpaste on his toothbrush.  He then removed his teeth and brushed what teeth he still had in his maw and then proceeded to brush his removable teeth.  So, now you know what I mean when I say some of these guys are old.  It was very, very amusing.

Talk to you all soon.

Kuwait

Well I finally have a photo to post.  It’s not so much that I finally took a photo I consider good enough to post, but rather I finally took a picture at all which would facilitate the posting of said picture.  That was admittedly too many words.  And I didn’t even take this picture… a friend of Eva’s named Tina took it for us.  As though an explanation is necessary, this is Eva and I in Kuwait.  If it doesn’t look hot then the picture is deceiving.  We’re at Camp Buehring, and it could most certainly be a lot worse.  There are plenty of facilities here to occupy the cornucopia of unoccupied time we currently have available.  We spend about 4 hours in the DFAC (Dining Facility) every day, and whatever other time we have available is spent wandering about looking for minimally occupied common areas which have air conditioning.  We’ve discovered that air condition is paramount.  Not very Meriwether Lewis, but an important realization just the same.

Quick side note: if you would like a copy of the picture, click here to get to the large size on Flickr and then just click the ‘Download the Large size’ link right above the shot.  Also, you can click the picture itself to see my photostream and some of my more recently posted photos.  (“Recently” here is a relative term.)

What gainfully employed time we do have is spent in mandatory training; “checking the block,” so to speak, before we head up north into Iraq.  We’ve learned about IEDs, Fratricide, Humvee and MRAP rollovers so far… real sunshine and rainbow stuff, let me tell ya.  However, it is necessary and applicable so overall it was all probably good.  Fortunately, almost all of the training Eva and I have had to do has coincided, so we’ve been hanging out more or less all day, every day for the last week.  Not too shabby.  People are jealous.

We’re both heading north here in a few days.  We leave the same day, potentially on the same flight, and might be at the same base in Iraq for all of two days.  We could just as easily part ways as soon as we hit the ground in Iraq.  It’s not impossible to tell, but damn near.

We’ve actually seen a lot of people we know from West Point here in Kuwait.  Most of them are aviators from the 1st Cavalry Division.  People we’ve seen, in no particular order, are: Jason McCoy, Grant Cloaninger, Kevin Britt, Mike Hahn-Conti, Dave Park, Nick Fullmer, Tina Chong, and a dude I went to high school with named Marty Davis who’s a Specialist in the Wisconsin National Guard.  Of all the people we’ve seen, seeing Marty Davis was the craziest.  Seeing classmates from West Point is expected; seeing classmates from Horlick High School is decidedly not.

So that pretty much sums up the last week.  Yes, it has been 4 short paragraphs worth of activity.  I suppose I could describe the actual deployment out of Ft. Bliss too.  Here it goes: we waited at the airport on Ft. Bliss, we got on a plane and flew to Bangor, Maine where we waited, we  flew to Shannon, Ireland where we waited, we flew to Kuwait City, Kuwait which looked strikingly similar to El Paso and Ft. Bliss where we waited, then we got on a bus and drove to Camp Buehring where we disembarked and continue to wait.  There ya’ go.

The “Stars and Stripes,” while likely sounding to you like a WWII anachronism, is in reality a wonderful resource here.  It’s a great (albeit oftentimes the only) source of news and it’s free in deployed areas.  As I’m new in theater, I’m still amused by the weather forecasts contained in the “Stars and Stripes” daily.  Here is today’s forecast: “Hot today with sunshine and patchy clouds.  High 100 to 106.  Winds east-southeast 8-16 mph.  Partly cloudy and very warm tonight.  Low 80 to 86.  Winds north-northeast 6-12 mph.”  And it’s not even summer yet.

Well I hope that was enjoyable.  Expect similarly long winded, somewhat disjointed descriptions of the happenings in Kuwait and Iraq as time goes on.  Updates will continue to be sporadic for the foreseeable future, so keep checking back… you never know when I’ll bless this page again with my sharp wit and cunning logic, thereby quenching your thirst for quality commentary.  If you’d like to send Eva and I an email, click the ‘About & Contact’ tab at the top of the page and use the email form there.  Talk to you soon.

Surpise!  Another photo!  I posted this to see if any of you found it as novel as I did.

Eva, Kuwait, Point & Shoot, Rick

Sarcasm is a virtue.

Eva and I are here; not too terribly horrendously horrible, but verging on it.  Also not too exceptionally picturesque; let’s put it this way… I haven’t taken one picture.

The best list of three adjectives with no spaces in order of applicability to describe this place would be: hotboringbland.  If that confused you, Idon’tapologize.

We’ll be heading into Iraq shortly, so more to follow on that.  Expect pictures… at some point.

Kuwait

Eva and I begin our long awaited, much delayed, highly anticipated trip to the beautiful middle east today.  We are, in actuality, strangely excited.  We are also well aware that this inexplicable excitement will subside in a very, very, very short span of time.  Oh well.  More to follow.  (Oh, and I didn’t take this picture… there you go; full disclosure.)

What does this mean?  Well it means I’ll be on a plane and in Kuwait and in Iraq here in the not too distant future, so I don’t know when my next update will be or how regular my updates from here on out will be either.  I’ll be taking photos (hopefully) more or less non-stop while in Kuwait and Iraq, so look forward to those.  I’ll post when and as I can, but I think I’ll be rather busy.  Look forward to middle eastern pictures and commentary.  See you soon!

(p.s. Click the image to see a wholly unrelated albeit completely engaging image of Korean gods… which I actually took.)

UPDATE: Eva and I are now sitting in a booth at a bar in Shannon, Ireland.  Instead of drinking Guinness, we’re watching longingly as others drink Guinness.  What a tragedy; I’m in Ireland and can’t drink Guinness.  Drat.  Or draught.  Well, both, I suppose, because I have neither.  What?  Now I’m confusing myself.  I’m tired.  Regardless, we’ll be in Kuwait in about 7 hours or so.  Hooray.

Kuwait