'tis the season

Merry Christmas all! I just wanted to post quick to say that and I hope you all had a great holiday. Mine was very humble and I was able to have a nice talk with Robyn for a little bit on the phone while she opened my present for her. She also sent me a few pictures of Porter opening presents and it was so cool to see:) Only a few days left in 2008! Time to sprint to the finish and get home to spend some good quality time.

The days before Christmas

Hi all and Merry Christmas!

I know it's still a few days away, but as it rapidly approaches I just wanted to take the time to reflect a little bit on the joy of the season. I know you might be thinking, "joy of the season...but you're in Iraq!" However, my ability to keep a jolly spirit doesn't change just cause I'm not with my loved ones this holiday. As a matter of fact, I find it easier to appreciate Christmas and the wonderful things we're normally able to do and share with one another more than I normally would. It's amazing to me, that in a Muslim majority country like this, our DFAC is covered with our American normal Christmas icons. They have pictures of St. Nick and a 15' Christmas tree right in the middle of the DFAC complete with wrapped presents underneath it. Along the front of my battle captain desk there are battery powered lights that someone got in the mail, and better yet, I opened yet another of 25 presents that Robyn individually wrapped, numbered by day, and sent to me in the mail for Christmas. This morning's present was especially wonderful and brought a smile to my face. I had been waiting to see which DVD it was, because due to the shape of the wrapped object, I pretty much knew it was a DVD. Would you believe my surprise and appreciation when I unwrapped a SpongeBob Squarepants DVD!? :) Truly awesome and a stroke of genius by Robyn. I probably would have appreciated getting a newer release DVD of some violent movie or something, but because it reminded me of being at home watching Spongebob with Porter and Robyn on the couch, that DVD was the most special and perfect DVD she possibly could have gotten me. Might sound wierd, I guess, but that's us. Anyways, my day has been great and I'm thankful to have such a thoughtful wife and a wonderful little guy at home. I stayed up last night for a little while just thinking about how cool it will be to have Porter run up to me in January yelling, "Daddy!"

1000 pound club

Hi all,

I just got done with my shift and wanted to update you all on what I've been up to. I decided a little over a month ago that I was going to start powerlifting again to compete in a competition they have in the gym here on the FOB. Every month they have a 1000 lb. club competition, or Superman Competition. The goal is to be able to lift a combined total between the bench press, squat, and deadlift of a thousand pounds or more. To date, they have had only 8 other people make the goal, so I decided to get on the wall. I was able to Squat 365 lbs, bench press 295 lbs, and deadlift 440 lbs for a total of 1100. Not too bad for not having touched weights since Collegiate Nationals in the spring of 2004. Anyways, they took my picture and made a certificate to go up on the wall in the gym with the other 8 guys. I am #5 out of 9 for my total weight lifted. Now that it's done, I have one other weight lifting competition I am going to do on the 22nd that is a double your bodyweight deadlift competition to see how many times you can lift double your weight. After that, I plan to get back to more cardio exercise and get ramped up so I can run my 2-mile in under 13 minutes. Things are still going well with the job and the people, so I can't complain there. I just miss my little boy and my amazing wife. I hope you all are doing well back there.

A day off!

Hi everyone,

I got the chance to have a day off today:) I slept in a few extra hours and got some reading done. Then I came up to the MWR in our HQ and got to call Robyn for a little bit before getting online. I've just been trying to catch up on emails and the blogs and what everyone has been up to. There's a lot going on with everyone! Robyn has been a busy body back there making sure that everyone is taken care of for Christmas and working her little fingers to the bone to make everyone's presents. She did a little handy work around the house and fixed a problem with the drywall seems that we were having on in our house! How many wives do that?! I am just so lucky to have such a capable and independant wife and mother for Porter. She literally has done everything for the Christmas presents for everyone, to include my family and friends. I never have to worry about that stuff and I truly appreciate it. I don't think that everyone realizes all the time and effort she puts into it though...she shops throughout the year for Christmas and collects presents over time. She was done with Christmas shopping in November! The only thing she's been working on lately is just wrapping the mountain of presents for everyone and finishing up some of the presents that she has been making herself. I just hope everyone appreciates what she has been sending everyone:)

I have just been glad to have some new experiences working directly with an aviation unit here and learning a lot about the helicopters and everything that goes along with them. My job is essentially to manage information for them. I collect threat information and weather and consolidate it into a briefing that I give them before they go out to fly so they know what to look for. While they're flying, I manage the information they relay back and consolidate that for the next folks. I also manage other stuff for the unit here at large and make sure things are running smooth. As the Battle Captain, I pretty much run the fight for the Commander and update him on things as needed. I coordinate with other units in the area that might need support or be able to use the information that our guys gather and make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's a neat job and I get to work with some very interesting characters...most of them very nice:) Of course there's a lot more to it than the 3 sentence description, but that's the gyst of it! I hope you all are getting ramped up for Christmas and enjoying the holidays! Thank you so much to Robyn's parents and Megan and Aunt Dede and Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas for all the cards/packages/support that you have sent me. It's been very nice getting packages for the holidays with the little goodies in them:) There's more candy and snacks around the office from everyone's care packages now than we can eat! Everyone is going to be working it off in the gym over the next month trying to get back in shape before we come home:) I need to get going to grab some chow, while I'm on the subject, so I'll talk to you all again soon!

Nice visit to Baghdad

I just got back from a nice overnight trip to visit a friend and spend some time with some other Artillerymen up in Baghdad. He is on staff at the HQ that runs our area of Iraq, and works with the senior Artillery COLONEL for the 10th MTN Division at Ft. Drum. Since Robyn and I have been thinking about going there after the career course, I went and talked with him and his boss about the possibility of me going there. The COL was very nice and said he would talk to the personnel folks about me possibly going there, so that's cool. I also got to have a nice dinner and chat with another good dude about life and the Army and what we're doing in it. It was good to be able to talk with someone I can relate to about the direction things are going with our careers and families. They were throwing a celebration for the Artillery called, "St. Barbara's Day celebration". It's a tradition in the Artillery to honor the patron saint of the Artillery branch and to keep alive the traditions and brotherhood of the Artillery. It was held at a really nice hotel accross from one of Saddam's palaces there. I got a couple good pictures of Jim and I outside the hotel overlooking the small man-made lake that is between the hotel and the palace with the palace in the background. I will try to download them soon and post them on here for you to see. I'm wicked tired now though, because I worked until after midnight the night before I flew up there, and didn't get to sleep until around 0300 from packing and then had to get up at 0530 to get ready to catch my Blackhawk ride. Then, I stayed up until around 0300 after watching Army get destroyed by Navy and chatting with Jim. After getting a few hours of sleep, Jim took me back to the airport around 1115 so I could catch my flight back. So...early to bed tonight to get ready to come on my 12 hour shift tomorrow! Not too much longer left though, and I'm just thankful that this is a shortened deployment. I miss my wife and little boy very much.

Ping Pong King

Well, I found out last night that I am NOT the ping pong king. One of the guys I work with and work out with at the gym challenged me to a few games after our work out last night. He beat me at least 15 times. I won once...using two paddles. I happen to be very coordinated with both hands...just not as coordinated as he is with one hand. He didn't destroy me, most games were within 5 points, but he consistently won, despite my best efforts. So, hopefully I'll be able to redeem myself a little bit tonight with a rematch. It's nice to just do something like that and not think about all the other stuff going on and how much I miss Robyn and Porter. That is by far the hardest part of these deployments. My buddy, Jim, who works for the folks at Division aparently talked to his boss about me and asked me to send him my officer record brief (tells about all the stuff I've done so far) because they are losing three CPTs and are putting in requests for people coming up soon with the Army G1 (personnel management). So, it looks like he has been talking me up a little bit and is trying to help me out with our goal to get to Ft. Drum, so that's pretty cool! Hopefully it all works out. I need to get going to try to give Robyn a call before I go get my work out on and get some rest for the night, so you have a wonderful day!

-Joe

Internet at work

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to write again to say hi and to let everyone know that things are going pretty well here. I got a package from Robyn yesterday that has one individually wrapped Christmas present for every day of December up to Christmas! They are numbered 1-25 and I have opened two of them so far:) Isn't she an awesome wife?? Of course, something of note is that now we have the MWR internet in the building that I work in, so I can walk down the hall after my shift to log on here and let you know how things are going instead of having to walk a half mile to the internet after I get done walking a half mile back to my tent. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up with this a little bit better. I've been talking with one of my buddies from my Officer Basic Course who is stationed out of Ft. Drum about how he likes it there and how the unit is, and so far he has nothing but good things to say. He also happens to work directly for the most senior artillery officer in the Division who controls where all the Artillery officers go, so that gives me an 'in' if I do get the chance to go there:) I'm going to go visit him at an artillery celebration they're having soon here in country, so that will be cool! Robyn has been talking with his wife and a couple other wives that live there online and getting all sorts of information about the post and housing situation. We'd probably end up living on post based on what we've heard and what we'd like to try. It would just be easier only having to drive a few minutes to work instead of 25 or so. It would make it so I could come home for breakfast and lunch if I had time instead of being kind of stuck on post throughout the day like I have been so far. It would also make it so Robyn didn't have to travel very far to run errands or do something with other officer wives on Post. Things are still really uncertain because we don't know if that will even be an option for me after the career course, but it's another one of our hopes. I'm just glad that it's now December and Christmas and New Year's Eve are around the corner! That means that not much longer and I'll be on my way back home to see my wonderful family:) For now though, I'm pretty worn out from my shift and am going to go get a work out before heading to bed. Take care!

-Joe