Nov 3, 2010

Busy, busy, busy. Between work, Army, school and family, we are also trying to finish the painting of the outside of our house. We made good progress last weekend replacing trim and soffet on the west side. One more end and we'll be done.

This weekend marks the final salute to Vietnam Veterans in our Operation Oklahoma campaign. Governor Henry declared 2010 a salute to these heroes who never received a proper welcome home for their service and sacrifices made during that conflict. To Sarge Charlie and any other veterans who served, I say, "THANK YOU AND WELCOME HOME".

Miss Dub will celebrate her 17th birthday this week. Good grief! What happened to macaroni glued to plates in kindergarten? She's a junior this year in high school and we are starting to look at colleges now. Time moves to swiftly.

I'm doing as well as I can. I would say I was starting to fall apart physically, but that would be lie. I'm just finally getting around to getting myself fixed. I had ear surgery a couple of weeks ago to repair a hole in my eardrum. While the surgeon was there he also did a little reconstruction on the bone chain. I had an MRI done on the left knee and am waiting for a date for surgery to repair it. Hopefully they don't find any surprises when they get in.

Well, I'd better get back to doing homework, something about theories and research utilization, blah blah blah. Really, I think I'm learning something. Only 15 more hours and I can be done with that!

Be safe and have a wonderful day.

20 September 2010
First time visitor to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Luckily I have no idea where the prison is. I'm up here for some Army training. I must say, I never pictured Fort Leavenworth as nice as it is. The girls would love the area around it with the barns and farm homes and even the buildings on post themselves.
It's been a busy summer and going into fall hasn't slowed down yet. Miss Dub is driving herself to school, Mrs. Dub is taking a class too, and I'm taking another six hours towards that far away bachelors degree. It's getting closer though, after this semester only about 9 hours left.
Time for bed unfortunately, we are up earlier tomorrow morning. Be safe and have a great day.

August 1, 2010
Yes, I know it's been a long time. Yesterday I finished my paper for school, still working on that 26 year bachelor's degree, and only 15 hours left. The bad news is that now I have to stop, for now.
With a pending deployment coming up I need to concentrate on getting things around the house done, and there's always a lot to do. Between work, school, guard and family it's been a busy summer so far. Miss Dub goes back to school in two weeks. She's had a busy summer too. Her idea of summer was staying up late into the early morning hours and sleeping in till mid afternoon. However, we didn't let that happen too much. We told her to find a job or she'd spend much of her time volunteering to help others. She's done a good job, spending one week as a youth counselor at the Military Kid's Camp, packing food boxes for families in need and helping out where she could. Kid's Camp was a true experience for her, no air conditioning in the barracks, being outdoors most of the day, and truly helping other kids proved to be both punishing and rewarding for her. (But she's considering doing it again next year).
Mrs. Dub has been good, she's taken over the Family Readiness Group as the leader for my unit and just got a promotion at her job. We now have to refer to her as "the Director".
I've been pushed by the military to get myself back in shape. I hate exercise, but I know I have been out of shape for some time and over the last six weeks, I have lost 10 pounds. Mrs. Dub has been working out with me so she works as my drill sergeant. Our goal is to make the whole family more healthy by exercise and eating better. I miss my chili cheese dogs for breakfast, gotta love Coit's.
Well, we are headed out to church right now, be safe and have a wonderful weekend.

14 May 2010,
Well, I'm into my 5th day of special assignment. Tornadoes came through the city Monday and we have been out here helping the citizens and keeping out the rift raft. It's been a busy year so far. Last week I managed to finally finish both my classes for college. We got our alert notice for deploying to Afghanistan again next year so a lot is happening to get ready for that. This will be trip number 3. I should look at investing in some property this time, 100 acres of mine-free land, yeehaw!
Miss Dub is almost finished with her sophomore year of high school. She hasn't admitted it yet, but I believe it has been harder than she expected. She's in that age where she doesn't want to listen to any advice we have for her. We have told her that she would have to get a job this summer instead of lounging around the house playing on the Internet and phone. She has finally filled out an application for a retail store. I had to lie and say I was 16 to get a job when I was only 15 1/2, I was ready to have my own money.
Mrs Dub is fine. She has taken over the Family Readiness Group for our company and is working to get it up and running. She's been wonderful in the position. She's ready for this week to be over so I will get home at a decent hour. We are only working 12 hours but she's use to 10 hours and having me home in time for a decent hour dinner. I made her watch 2012 Monday before the storms came through. In hindsight that wasn't a good idea, and she let me know. Well, better get back to keeping people safe, you do the same and have a great day.

15 March 2010,
Ah, the last day off before I head back to work for another set of days on. Last Tuesday I experienced for only the second time in my 13 years of law enforcement a traffic stop initiated by the violator. Yes, while traveling on I-44 Interstate I got behind a vehicle that was going a bit faster than the posted speed limit. He noticed me in his rear view mirror and changed lanes. Obviously he was unaware of my intentions to change lanes anyway as I was about to exit off of I-40. As soon as I changed lanes and was again behind him he turned on his flashers and began to pull onto the shoulder. Well, I had the notion of what he was doing and just to make sure he wasn't braking down I pulled off onto the shoulder also and turned on my emergency lights. I walked up to the drivers door and he was already gathering his state driver's license and insurance forms. I asked him if everything was alright and he stated, " I know I was speeding". I said yes he was and since he was aware of it to slow down and then got back in my car. I think I left him a bit puzzled but I insist that regardless to how many tickets I might write, if I can change the driving mentality if just while I'm present I've done my job.
Mrs. Dub was complaining Sunday about Daylight Savings Time, commenting on how much she hates it and hates losing that hour of sleep. I had to remind her that since we stayed in bed till almost 10 am, that I didn't think she lost any of it. I don't think she agrees.
I took both of the girls to the gun range today. Miss Dub has been chomping at the bit to go and shoot. I can even get her to clean my guns with less hassle than feeding the horses. I brought the whole armament of the pistols, shotgun and AR-15's. This was their first time with the rifles and shotguns. We got some practice in on the paper targets and then I turned them loose on the steel targets. Everyone loves these as you get the "tink" sound when you hit the target. Later in the afternoon we went and saw the new "Alice in Wonderland", 3D of course. Johnny Depp has the problem of overacting so I didn't understand some of what he said but I thought the whole movie was great.
Be safe and have a great day.

23 Feb 2010,
I'm ready to be done with college, especially since I've been working at it ever so slowly over the last 26 years. I attempted to take 9 hours this semester but within the first week I realized one class was going to be too much and dropped it. I am managing the two other classes without too much extra work. The goal is to stay on course and I can finally have my bachelor's degree by May of 2011. That will mean at least 6 hours over the summer and 9 hours for each semester next year to reach that mark. We will see.
The family is doing great, Miss Dub is managing high school ok, she played one of the nasty princesses in a school play tonight. Mrs Dub believes she is being typecast as a villain all the time, let's see, there was the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, a witch in Into the Woods, a cranky crazy grandma in The Sweet By and By, do you see any stereotyping?
Not much else to report right now, be safe and have a great day.

31 January, 2010,
I must say I enjoy the winter snow storms much more when I'm at home with the family. For fear of sounding like my last post, I can't remember the last time we had two significant snow storms in the same season. After a 1/2" of ice we received 5" of snow.
The Oklahoma National Guard has announced we are yet again in the window of another deployment. My travel agent has no imagination whatsoever, and I'm looking at going back to my second home, Afghanistan. Now of course, nothing is set in stone and we are simply preparing as if....... ( for those who are easily fooled....)
We are headed into town to have dinner with Mrs. Dub's parents so be safe and have a great day.

01 Jan 2010,

Happy New Year!

Well, I must say the last week of 2009 was certainly interesting. Mrs. Dub thought we should all post our experience on Christmas Eve in the family. At the police department I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, don't ask why, it's not worth saying. Anyway, as with every other Christmas I wanted a white one. Boy did I get it. Because the weather was suppose to get worse on Christmas Eve I took Mrs. Dub to work that morning. She called me at noon to say they had released everyone for the holiday and the bad weather. By 10 am it had begun snowing sideways with wind gusts up to 60 mph. I picked Mrs. Dub up from work and she rode with me the remainder of my shift. Since it was the holiday we were suppose to be able to come in as soon as the next shift broke out of line up. The snow got so bad that the next shift got snowed in the parking lot at the station and we were told not to come in. This was fine since I my self was stuck in a snow drift in the McDonald's parking lot and had been there for an hour and a half. Over the course of 4 hours in this one drift I managed to move my vehicle in a half circle and finally found myself up against the curb of the drive thru window. I finally found some traction and slowly made my way thru the drive backwards. This was working until I backed into the next snow drift which was much deeper and it was there we stayed until the wrecker finally made it to us. After two pulls through the snow I made it to the main street where we headed for the highway. At least up there the plows should have been working. We got on the highway and drove a half mile before a semi truck and trailer, a pickup, a Toyota corolla and a suv had the entire width of the highway blocked. I parked far enough away to avoid getting stuck again and walked up to the vehicles. I finally managed to get two of the vehicles moved and advised the semi and the pickup that wreckers and sand trucks were on their way. They were only a hundred yards away from gas stations if things got worse and there was no need for me to stay any longer with them. It was already 630 pm and we were going to leave at 4. I made my way around them and drove another half mile when we found the 50-75 car pile up. I didn't get close because I didn't want to get caught in the middle of this. There was no way for me to make my way to the front to determine what was wrong so I turned around on the highway and with lights going drove the wrong way back to the next exit and got off. We finally made our way to the location of two other officers who had abandoned their vehicle and walked almost a mile to a gas station. I picked up one that lived out in the same direction as us and made our way to his house. 20 miles later we dropped him off at his house and we started winding our way out of his neighborhood when we hit our 4th drift of the day and was stuck for another 2 hours while waiting for a wrecker. It was now 10 pm on Christmas Eve and Mrs. Dub and I were in a police car trying to get home. Ms. Dub had been home alone since 7am. We were able to get within 3 miles before it was no longer possible to go any further. With 6'-7' snow drifts covering the last 2 lane highway to our house we weren't going home and Ms. Dub was spending Christmas Eve home alone. We had to turn around and found a friend's house who put us up for the night. Mrs. Dub cried, I was just too exhausted. I got about 3 hours of sleep before I had to start all over again on Christmas Day. Mrs. Dub stayed there while I went to work. I ended up getting stuck in a snow drift again for about an hour that morning. If there had been a dealership open I would have traded in the Ford Crown Victoria for a 4 wheel drive. It was worthless in these weather conditions. Mrs. Dub finally made it home around noon and had a short walk to complete the trip. I made it home after work around 5 pm.

In other news, the Oklahoma National Guard announced once again that we were being considered for another deployment in support of OEF, possibly meaning Afghanistan sometime around May of 2011. Let the games begin.