Weekend wrap-up

I had a pretty good week this week. We had another dust storm come in a couple days ago and it looked like it was going to be a doozy. Well, it lasted for about 24 hours and then moved on. It did have the effect of keeping temperatures down for a bit, so for that I'm thankful.

We only had three men at our weekly meeting for the "The Purpose Driven Life" instead of the 8 or 9 we had a couple weeks ago. I hope that was because the others simply couldn't get away in time and not because they've lost interest. Speaking of church stuff, I'll be leading the singing this Sunday evening again. We only have a guitar player who's on an acoustic, so adding a bass to that doesn't make much sense. If there was a keyboard player, then I'd play to make a trio out of it. Oh well. I'll play for the morning service and I may even be playing a new bass! The man who is going to give it to me said he received it after playing some Irish tunes at the St. Patrick's Day "festival" here in March. Since he doesn't play bass he said I could have it! I'll play it while I'm here and if the new bass that was ordered by the chapel staff doesn't arrive by the time I get ready to go home, I'll leave it here. I hope I get to take it home though.

I'm looking into what classes I'm going to take from AMU when I finish this "e-learning 101" I have to take. It's apparently just a course on how to use their online library and other online college applications. I want to breeze through the class to get my GPA started off on the right track (can you say four point oh?) and then get on to my other core classes. The school has deemed me worthy of receiving transfer credits for 48 units. I think that makes me a sophomore. I wonder which fraternity I'll pledge? I think I'll stick with Epsilon Gamma Alpha for now. Anyway, I'm looking at either finishing my English requirement or even knocking out the literature class. Wish me luck!

I got to talk (actually talk) to the family last weekend. I'll call again later today to see if anything new has transpired. It's good to hear my wife and kids' voices from time to time. She is definitely doing better at coping this time. We think it's a combination of having been through it so much recently and also the fact that the boy can help by taking care of himself has relieved much of her burden. Thank God for the eventual passage of time. I just wish I'd be home for his musical and for my daughter's dance recital. Guess it's a good thing we have a video camera.

We won our softball game this morning and we have another one tomorrow morning. Fortunately I have not had to miss a ball game yet for church. It's just worked out that way by the schedule. Hopefully it continues, but I've already decided that if there is a conflict then I won't be playing ball that day. It's all about priorities. Since the kids do movie night on Fridays, I thought I would join them and I used the big screen here to watch a movie last night. I think I'll just start doing that every Friday. I had a couple other guys join me to watch "Transformers" last night. (My wife was not surprised.)

Well, I think that pretty much sums up my week. Yes, I did do some actual work, but that's nothing anyone back home wants to read about. Have a great weekend and drop me a line or leave me a comment.

TWI(B)S

It should be "This Week in Baseball" but we play softball out here. I know! I'm in a combat zone and I'm writing home to my wife to send me my softball gear. What's that all about? Anyway, we had three games over the weekend and we went 1-1-1. Huh? A tie in softball? Yes. The league organizers declared a time limit for each game, which is fine, but they called the game for time right in the middle of our comeback. Seriously. We had just tied the game. I was on third base as the go-ahead run and the whistle sounded. Just like that. How dumb is that? Anyway, that's how we got a tie over the weekend. I may try to post a picture but based on how long it took me to post the other one about the Easter decorations, I probably won't worry too much about it.

Another... sand storm?!

Holy Smokes! Well, I'd call it smoke, but it's dust. And tons of it, too. I was walking back to the office from dinner and I was walking into a wall of dirt. It came from somewhere and steadily covered the horizon. My mind instantly came to two conclusions:

1) Oh, crap, there's going to be dust all over EVERYTHING!
2) You know, if that were rain it would look a lot like that rain storm I got caught in when I was in Okinawa in 1993.

Then a third conclusion worked its way forward: You'd better move it or you're going to end up breathing this stuff.

So I ran. I made it to the building just about a minute before the storm did. It was Cruise-azy I tell you. As I type this some 4 hours later, it's still howling outside. Of course now it's really dark and wouldn't you know it... I left my flashlight back in my can. Ugh!

On a positive note, I got to play some softball this past weekend. Unfortunately, since I left my glove at home (honestly, who thinks to pack softball gear when deploying to a combat zone?) I had to use a brand new one given to me by MWR. Well, when you're playing firstbase you need to have a glove that's nicely broken in so the ball doesn't pop right out and cause you to lose at least two outs. Trust me on that one. Still, it was fun to play and we actually have a league here on base and we play every weekend (weather permitting).

So this week's off to an interesting start. How's yours?