14 Sept 08

It's Sunday afternoon, I finished my house work a little while ago and have been downloading Arabic news stories and shows. I'm watching and listening to them so I can work on my listening skills. Obviously, this is a skill Mrs. Dub might appreciate....me listening. We have started having 4 hours of class on Saturdays and will continue that process for the remainder of the school. I think they have worked one Saturday out of each month for us to just be off. I know, it's hard to say I have it hard at all. Certainly, this is better than any math class I have ever had to take, and it has less homework than my ethics class last spring. As one of my classmates said, I know we are learning stuff, but it's hard to consider it as work.

Mrs. Dub reported the weather in Oklahoma has finally turned nice and she's glad she's able to open the house up with the windows. At the rate that time is passing, I will be home before I know it and I'm ready. I just want to make sure I've gotten everything out of the school as I can.

10 Sept 08,
Ah, Wednesday, the week is half way done. I saw this picture at The Pioneer Woman's site and had to add it here. Have you ever had one of those days. Today wasn't it for me, but I couldn't wait with this one. Pioneer Woman has an amazing ability to capture remarkable shots with her cameras, as well as a great ability to tell stories. If you haven't seen her site before, go check it out.

Mrs. Dub said she's ready to have me back home and I couldn't agree more. I'm enjoying the training but I do miss my family and home. (I also have way too many chores at home that need attention).
About 90% of the time, Arabic has been fun, in fact, as an extra assignment, two of us went to the movies last night and saw Traitor. A good portion of it is in Arabic and picking up on what was being said was fun and new. I stopped at the store today and heard a woman tell her son to come to her in Arabic and I had to smile. I'm trying to use several different tools at home to help with my learning while at my apartment.
Miss Dub is enjoying school and despite her agony during the first two days of French, now loves it. She into reading stories in French and is 'wanting' to learn at this point. Like I said, I hope to pick back up on my French when I get home.
I know all this sounds boring, but there's not much else going on for me here. Be safe and have a great day.

02 Sept 08

Here are some pictures from home.

Celebrating with a dinner out.

The In-laws, Mr. and Mrs. C with Miss Dub.

Miss Dub getting to go to the range on my trip back home in July.

This is her target, be careful.

I hope to make the rounds soon and see what everyone is up to. Be safe and have a great day.

01 September 08

Well, it's been a good weekend and it's a shame it's over. I started with Friday night up in Phoenix with my brother in law Billy Joe and his wife Christine. BJ took me out to eat and then we stopped by a friend's house.

I meet Mark for the first time that night, but it's not the first interaction between us. Back when I was in Afghanistan this last tour, Mark helped Christine and BJ get the Greg Biffle #16 flag, autographed by the entire team including Rousch, the owner. Mark's front room is dedicated to NASCAR with pictures, memorbilia, car hoods, door skins, et al.

Come to find out, I was on that wall as well. After we got the flag in Afghanistan, we took a group picture and sent it back home. It got back to Mark and his family. Well, Friday night, they took that picture down and had me sign it, and then hung it on a better wall.

I was honored that they felt that strong about me and the military. Mark served 6 years active Army and we had a strong bond.

I got home Saturday, 'on time' curosity of American Airlines and had a wonderful time with my wife and daughter. We enjoyed good food and converstation, as well as spending money. We were awoken this morning at 4:30 a.m. by a phone call. THe Oklahoma City Police Emergency Response Team had been activiated, and they called me as they normally would. The only problem was that I am on active duty orders with the military. Darn it! Not sure if you remember, but back in March - April of this last year I helped write the emergency response plan in the event OKC had to take in evacuees from coastal storms. Well, as of this morning, OKC took in just about 2,000 of the folks from New Orleans ahead of Hurrican Gustav, and that plan that I helped write, was being put to the test today. I would love to have been there. I spoke with one of my sector partners who was also called in this morning. He said things were going well, he also said he leaves for Iraq next week with the Oklahoma Air National Guard. He will actually be back to work in OKC before I will, those Air Guard guys.....

I'm sitting in Dallas/Ft. Worth airport waiting on the final leg of this flight, luckily Gustav is moving slow and hasn't affected us here yet. It's amazing that two months are already down and only 4 months to go. I'm ready, but I still have more to learn back in Arizona, so I must keep moving forward and looking forward.

Be safe and have a great day.

31 August 08
Many years ago my mother in law, Mrs. C, gave birth to my beautiful wife, Mrs. Dub. How old is she today. Well, we have been together for 17 years now, and she had to be of age to get married, so that must make her about 29....right?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS. DUB!!!

Well, American Airlines has been on time and no problems. I flew out of Phoenix's Sky Harbor. I haven't been a lot of places, but that's certainly a big airport. We went to a nice dinner last night, went by the furniture store and picked out a new mattress and box springs. Ours came unstitched and was still under warranty. The store sent some one by the house last week and looked at the bed, told Mrs. Dub they don't make that one anymore and we would have to come pick out a new one. The store gave us a credit for the entire purchase amount of our last one towards the new one. We opted to upgrade and are waiting for it to be delivered to the house now. Not bad.

We are about to fix dinner tonight having birthday cake and presents. It's been another huge task getting Mrs. Dub a birthday present without her knowing anything. Of course, I walked in the kitchen this morning and say the receipt for her present sitting on the counter top and am almost certain she knows now. Oh well, She still hasn't figured out how I bought it. That was some tricky stuff.

Well, I hope everyone is having a great Labor Day weekend, be safe.

27 August 08
Only 4 days till Mrs. Dub's birthday, but she probably doesn't want me to keep bringing it up, so just pretend I didn't mention it.
Well, you've been reading about me not enjoying this last week in Arabic. Some how, today, I felt in the back of my head that something was about to explode and I was getting very close to getting this. I hope so. Of course, with a 3 day weekend coming up, I'm sure it'll all disappear. I felt more comfortable today than I have since we got here. Here's hoping.
It looks like we are going to get out of class around noon on Friday. I already purchased my airline ticket for Saturday morning and have no interest in trying to find a Friday flight.
I'm sitting here watching the Sci-Fi channel and watching Ghost Hunters. The early episode just happened to be filmed about 18 miles from here, yep, Tombstone, at the Bird Cage. I've been to Tombstone one other time back in April and we arrived late in the day and didn't get to experience very much. I'm definitely hoping to visit it again and get more. And of course, now I'm going to make sure I visit the Bird Cage to run into a ghost. Eerie.
Well, I'm going to get back to the television, I know I should be studying, and I will before I go to bed. Be safe and have a great day.

23 August 08,
Ah, the weekend. It was really nice NOT going to class today. Over all I'm still enjoying it, but we are definitely in the 'I hate this stuff' phase. It's only suppose to last a couple more weeks, then we'll love it again. We'll see.
On to politics. I try to stay under the radar on politics and don't sound off too much unless I feel it really is needed. I don't really have anything to say now about the upcoming Presidential race, except I'm wondering if anybody else has picked up on Senator Obama's announcement for his VP. At a time that the United States is involved on a war on terrorism did he make the right name selection? Who are we hunting? Osama bin Laden. Now we have the Democratic ticket of Obama and Biden? Really? Just a thought.
Labor Day weekend is coming up and so is Mrs. Dub's birthday. This time I have a planned trip back home, no surprises like two years ago when I came home from Afghanistan. I hope everybody enjoys this weekend. Be safe and have a great day.

19 August 08,
Our lead instructor, Jabra, told us last week, that the upcoming couple of weeks would test us, that we would hate Arabic for that time period. Boy, he wasn't kidding! AAAGH! We've started story time. We are given stories in Arabic to read and speak. This part of the school has been different from our hands-on methods we have been using up to this point. We are currently sitting on 800 to 1000 words in Arabic, that we have been given. Now, I can give you many of them, I will say with all certainty, it's not close to 800, but I can sit there and say, yes, I mean,
'na'am', I've heard that word used before. Most of our instructions come in Arabic now, which means I know about half of what's being said and can get the gist of what they are telling us. I would like to know all of what they are saying and have a clear understanding, but that will take time. We are supposed to take our first test this week which will gauge where we are at as individuals in our learning. Yeah?
I bought my plane ticket to head home for Labor Day weekend, back to American Airlines. My part of the City back in Oklahoma has been seeing a lot of rain in the last couple of days, I read one report that they are looking at some flooding now. Our place is up high but we still see water standing in the yard. (Just one more thing I need to work on when I get back to Oklahoma)
Over to the right side of my page you should see the link for Keni Thomas. He was one of the performers who came to Afghanistan during Christmas with the USO. If you don't remember, he also served in the Army and was in Somalia, which was later made into the movie, Black Hawk Down. Since leaving the Army, he has worked as a motivational speaker, song writer and performer. His first CD was Flags of our Fathers, A Soldier's Story. His new CD is Gunslinger, I've heard a couple of tracks from it and will be looking to buy it soon.
Well, I need to get back to the studying. Have a great day.

11 August 2008
Well, tomorrow makes 14 years in the Oklahoma National Guard. It's hard to believe. I have to say I'm pretty happy with where I'm at and what I'm doing. With two deployments, Katrina, and Arabic Language School, the military has given me a better quality of life than I could imagine having without it. Of course, I would rather be home with Mrs Dub and Miss Dub. But as any veteran or current military member will tell you, sacrifices have to be made to ensure we all have that better life.
This is a short post as it's time to head off to school now. Happy Monday, be safe and have a great day.

05 August 08,
Ok, enough about Continental Airlines, even though I got back to Arizona 4 hours late. Mrs. Dub let me buy a Garmin GPS and we used it on our way to Ft. Worth. It really helped going through that maze down there. My brother was able to break away for lunch and then he took us back to the training center for the ceremony. He made a good point in that Ft. Worth has the resources to have the graduation at any of their municipality buildings but instead they had it in the training center. They did state this was the largest class they had had in a long while so it's possible they weren't anticipating the crowd that showed up. During the ceremony they walked across the stage where the Chief of Police handed them their badge and then once everyone had theirs they lined up in front of the stage and that's when I got to go forward. I was proud to have been asked to pin his badge on him. He got Saturday off and started in his FTO (field training officer program). He will be with an FTO for the next 4 months, changing shifts and sectors and applying all he has learned. Here are some pictures.




















Be safe and have a great day!

03 August 08,
I'll share more about my trip in another post. I wanted to dedicate this post to the folks at Continental Airlines. Now, this was my first experience with this airline company. I originally chose Continental out of necessity as it was the closest flight to what my time line needed to be. The price was comparable to the others. I arrived at the Tucson International Airport on Thursday afternoon and the first leg of my flight was running about 10 minutes late. Really, no big deal, I was headed home. We board the plane and fly to Houston, where I have to change flights. When I landed in Houston I looked at my ticket and thought my arrival time here was my departure time for the next leg. I raced across the airport and made it to the gate to discover my flight was in an hour. Ok, good, I didn't miss anything. I waited at the gate and they announced our flight was going to be about 30 minutes late. Um, ok, I can handle that. I called Mrs. Dub and informed her, she wasn't thrilled as it meant she would have to stay up a little longer, but was excited to have me home. Well, the flight ended up being about an hour and 1/2 late pushing me from arriving in Oklahoma City at 10:35 pm to 12:15 am. What was funny at the time we finally boarded was watching the commercial provided by Continental Airlines about how wonderful they are and how they have a great satisfaction rate from their customers, mainly us. I got a chuckle out of this and continued with my trip. I always assume something can go wrong and now and then isn't a bad thing.
We enjoy our weekend and now it's time for me to head back to Arizona for school. I arrive at the airport in Oklahoma City an hour and 1/2 before my flight, get to the gate and am notified that the our flight to Houston will be an hour late. Really?! Is this every flight with Continental? Well, since I'm heading back to Tucson and have given myself leeway, it'll work out. We finally get on the plane, which just came from Houston. The pilot makes an announcement as soon as we are all seated, "Folks, don't blame us for the delay, we are the new crew and have been waiting for this flight just as long as you have". Ok, I can live with that. Now, we finally take off from OKC and head to Houston. I'm watching the time and wondering which gate we will land at and how far it will be from where I need to be. The gates of course change when you have such a tardy flight like ours. I arrive at Houston, grab my next ticket and see that I need to be at the next gate. I get inside the terminal and realize that I only need to walk 30 yards to the next gate but that I'm looking like I'm about 10 minutes late. I think to myself, " Well, Continental hasn't had an on-time flight yet in my experience, so I have a good shot at this." Well, I found Continentals' only "on-time" flight and it was the one that left without me. Good Grief! How hard could this be? Well, I walk up to the employee behind the desk where my flight was suppose to be and talk with Alisa. I tell her I just arrived from Oklahoma City and that our flight was late because the flight from Houston was late. She confirms this and reschedules me for the 6:15 pm flight. So, that's where I've been for the last 3 hours. We had a lightening storm roll through which delayed some more flights. I still have 45 minutes before I'll know about my flight. I don't see where I'll try this airline again. I'll let you know if I make it out of here, and if you find yourself in the Houston Airport, look me up.
Be safe and have a great day.

28 July 08,
Well, Wade called me on it, guess it's time to post. I really did have time this weekend as on Sunday all I did was watch the Eureka marathon on the SciFi channel. Talk about your do nothing weekend. I guess I'm saving it all up for this next weekend and I fly back to OKC on Thursday and drive down to Texas on Friday. It'll be a busy day but I wouldn't miss seeing my brother graduate the police academy and pinning his badge on him.
Class here is going pretty good. Well, I felt better today about it anyway. Come to find out we didn't have to learn the words as solid as we had been working the weeks before but just needed to be familiar with them and learn them over the course of the next 5 months. You could have told us that last week and I wouldn't have stressed about it so much.
Anyone else watching Nashville Star? We are down to the last two weeks. I still like Gabe and Melissa the best, it'll be interesting to see who gets kicked off tonight in the next 30 minutes. Who's your favorite?
Well, I'll post more later, be safe and have a great day!

23 July 08,
Good Wednesday to everyone! We made it to the half way mark in the week. Hang in there, the weekend is getting closer. We have covered almost 200 words this week, and will spend the next two days just working with them, good, I don't know how many new words I can take at a time.
Mrs Dub and Miss Dub went to see Mama Mia today and the report back was it was great. Now, there is no doubt, period, in my manliness, but I do love a good musical. Now, don't give me an option of a musical and a Steven Segal or a Bruce Willis movie... Batman, Hellboy or Hancock, because the musical would come in second, but I'd still go see it afterwards.
I called home and talked with Miss Dub. Usually on the phone we always greet each other in Spanish. She answered and I started off with, 'Como esta?' She replied back with, 'I don't speak Spanish, I speak Arabic.' So I came back with in Arabic, 'Elfy macos wa waraka al a arf, bil macos cus waraka maruba.' She came back with in Spanish, 'Bien, et tu?" Ok, so it was probably funnier if you were there.......
What did I say? Pick up the scissors and paper off the floor, with the scissors, cut a square in the paper.
Be safe and have a great day.

20 July 08,
Ah, the weekend is over. I know, who is ever happy to end a weekend? Well, the sooner the weekend is over, the sooner we start the next week, and the sooner I get home to Mrs. Dub and Miss Dub. Lt. M was popped into town on other business and we did get to have a couple of meals together, but mostly I just stayed in.
I have gone over my list of words a couple of times, and my numbers. Over all I'm feeling good about my recognition of most of the words, still fuzzy on the most recent ones. I'm not feeling good about my speaking them. Obviously, that's the main goal here. I'll get it, won't I?
Miss Dub had her wisdom teeth removed Friday and is doing better. Mrs. Dub has been taking care of her and then Nana and Papa came and got Miss Dub Sunday afternoon to let her spend the night with them. Poor Mrs. Dub is alone at the homestead, she never really likes that.
I talked with my brother this evening. He's down to two weeks left in the 7 month training at the police academy in Ft. Worth. He said last week was tough as they did scenario training and really put the stress on them before sending them off to their 'calls'. The good news is that he said he feels much more confident about himself and his training.
Well, that's enough for today, be safe and have a great day.

16 July 08,
Ah, half way through the week. Today we were introduced to over 30 words by just playing Monopoly. Yes, I can say I've never seen Army training like this before. The interesting thing is that I have learned more Arabic in a week than I retained from a semester of Spanish.
Mrs. Dub got their Glamour Shot pictures. I can't wait to get some. I was able to view the photo album on line and they look great. As soon as I can, I'll get some posted. Mrs. Dub says we can't, blah blah something about copyright, I'll let you know they came from Glamor Shots, and heck, I paid for them, I can do what I want.
Some of the guys are talking about going to see The Dark Knight this week. Mrs. Dub likes to say I'm just on vacation and I'm out partying every night. Well, I'll have you know, it's not true, I didn't go out at all last night...... I may not have the grueling schedule I'm used to keeping but it's still work. Our instructors tell us that they have to keep us stress free and enjoying the class for us to be able to learn like we are. And trust me, at the end of each hour there are several of us holding our heads wondering how we can keep any of the information from seeping out.
I wish there was more exciting things to talk about, but I go to class and I come back to my apartment. Of course, if anybody is in town this weekend, the party is over here!
Be safe and have a great day.

14 July 08,
Ok, it's Monday night, and that means Nashville Star. I have no idea who keeps voting for Coffey, but they apparently don't know what country music sounds like. Yes, he is a good singer as every one points out, but he belongs in a different arena. I definitely like Melissa and Gabe.
We had the weekend to rest our minds so I went up to Phoenix to visit with brother and sister in-laws. The brother in law had a birthday on Saturday and I finally got a chance to visit them and help him celebrate.
How's class? Well, the good news was even after two days off I retained at least 85% of what we learned last week and was able to follow the commands. Today we started our numbers from 11 to 10,000 and then learned another more words, mostly dealing with personal hygiene. I had about as much trouble today as I did our first day, but I feel confident that it will all come together as long as we keep working the way we are.
Well, that's about all for today, be safe and have a great day.

09 July 08
Well, it's Wednesday, that means only two more days of torture till the weekend. We were introduced to basic body parts today. All day I kept thinking about a Homer-ism I see on Sanni's site, about learning new things pushes old things out of the brain. The class itself is pretty good and they seem to think that I've retained at least 70% of the Arabic I have been introduced to so far. Of course, my other thought is that the only thing we are missing is scooby snacks. I think the training is similar to Pavlov's dogs.
Mrs. Dub and Miss Dub went to Glamor Shots today to get pictures made. It sounded like they had a lot of fun. Of course, I don't think Miss Dub needs to look any more grown up than what she already is, and the term I heard used for Mrs. Dub was "hot".
I haven't ventured at all outside of the class and my apartment yet, so there's not much to report yet, but it'll get better. For now, be safe and have a great day.

08 July 08
My head is going to explode with the worst headache I can remember and I can only assume it's the results of today's class. Of course, I can now point at a door with a fish when directed to in Arabic, can you?
Even with the headache I managed to do an hour of stretching using my P90X dvd. I plan on doing the stretching video for the next week and then start going through the rest of them. The two goals for this next six months is to learn Arabic and get back to exercising.
August 1st is an important day in my family. My brother spent the last 7 months in the Ft. Worth Police Academy and will graduate that day. He has invited me down to pin his badge on him. I am truly honored about this and will be in my Police uniform also that day.
Well, this thinking is really hurting so I'll stop for tonight. Be safe and have a great day.

07 July 2008
I arrived in Sierra Vista Arizona yesterday. We started our first day of Arabic school today. I'm both excited and terrified at the same time about this school.
After class I finally got moved into my new apartment. It's a two bedroom that came fully furnished, except for food. Mrs. Dub packed me some stuff, jiffy pop popcorn, ranch style beans, chili, oreos....you know good food. I told her I would start with a traditional Asian dish tonight, pasta with a nice peanut sauce, also know in the bachelor world as ramen noodles and crunchy peanut butter Of course, I'm much more mature these days and decided to run to the grocery store. Oh boy, frozen pizzas!
Ok, I'm just a guy.
Well, I'll go for now. Be safe and have a great day!

01 June 2008

Well, it's one week down and 7 days a wake-up to go. We started running the day time zero range here yesterday. The training had been broken up into 5 day cycles and yesterday was day 5 of the 2nd cycle. What that means is during our 12 hours out on the range, we had 9 soldiers come to shoot. Today was day one. By 1000 hrs (10 am) we had seen 18 soldiers. Then the storms came. We had to shut down the range due to lightening strikes near by and the heavy rains that came through. At one point I got on the public announcement system to recognize the sponsor of our weather, "Today's weather brought to you by the U.S. Army, where if it's ain't raining, it ain't training" That got a good laugh by those stuck out there. Then the 70 mph winds kicked up and the rain came in sideways. Two hours later....We finally have the chance to determine it's passing and begin working on getting the range ready for soldiers to come back out. First order of business was calling range control for a pump.

Look at the picture of me, LT M. and my soldiers as we try to recreate Washington crossing the Delaware. Now see the round holes to our right side. Out of 32 firing positions, we had 15 underwater. Each foxhole position is 4 feet deep so you can see, we got some rain. Of course, you know me and I try to make the most of whatever I'm given so we had some fun with it. Then 200 soldiers showed up and we had to work hard. We only managed to get about 80 run through, but they were shooting two different weapon platforms, using iron sights and then a Aimpoint CCO, (close combat optic). We left the range by 1930 hrs (7:30 pm) and grabbed a bite to eat. Well, somehow it's already 9:40 pm and I need to get ready for tomorrow.

Be safe and have a great day.