our collective digital self
Posted by Michelle on Jun 26, 2003 in Michelle
Congratulations on being admitted to the Certificate in Technology and
Communication Program at the University of North Carolina.
You will be getting a formal letter regarding your admission and next
steps, but I wanted to be the first to let you know. I am certain you
will do well in the program, and I think you also can give us feedback
to help us improve what we are doing.
Posted by Michelle on Jun 23, 2003 in Michelle
Pea Island Wildlife preserve
View of the ocean from under some old stairs that no longer touch beach
Bodie Island lighthouse
Cape Hatteras lighthouse (the one they moved)
Posted by Michelle on Jun 22, 2003 in Jeff, Michelle, pups & other pets
No cute photo this year of the three pups – they were half wet, dirty and grumpy on the beach.
Very cool mosaic at this artist coop, the horses are all over the Outer Banks and the location they are at gets to decorate them accordingly:
Another cool horse
I’m driving along and at a red light, I see some complete dumbass who ended up hang gliding over a Holiday Inn – seriously, he was way far from the hand gliding area at Jockey’s Ridge:
The house had these sun light windows that drove us crazy but the dogs loved to sleep in the warmth of them:
Jeff out front of Cape Hatteras
Another shot from Pea Island preserve (most insect infested place ever)
Two cute kids sitting in the surf:
Posted by Michelle on Jun 22, 2003 in Michelle
The latest from Robert:
We had the USO show today. It was suppose to start at 1200 so we got
there about 45 minutes early to stake out a good seat. We were on the
side left side of the stage, pretty close to the front. The show was
delayed about an hour and a half, so they brought in fire trucks to hose
everyone down and keep them cool. The show was really good. I am
sending some pictures. Guess which one is my favorite. Entertainment
Tonight was out there, so you might see us on TV.
Posted by Michelle on Jun 21, 2003 in Michelle
The latest from Robert in Iraq:
In my office, we have an E-4 named James Thomas. He is a great guy and
a good soldier, who has a terrible story. He has been in the Army
Reserves for like 10 years. James basically had a slack unit and just
went when it suited him. He never cared about promotions or anything
like that, so he would show up to drill when he needed some extra cash
and wouldn’t go on months he didn’t need it. This actually happens a
lot more in the Reserves than you might think.
James is actually a very intelligent man. He has a masters and a good
job at a hospital as a counselor. Well, one day James is in his office
with a couple of clients went the phone rings. He answers it and the
voice on the other end asked for “Specialist James Thomas.” He said he
just froze and told the person (which turned out to be SSG Hager, my
NCOIC) to hold on. After considering hanging up and running to Mexico,
James answered the phone and identified himself as James Thomas. Hager
told him that he had just been cross-leveled, which in the Army is akin
to a professional athlete being traded. He was to report to Garner, NC
in two days. Being from Atlanta, GA, he had never heard of Garner. But
two days later, with a look of shock on his face that cannot be
duplicated, he was in Garner. He actually had a great attitude the
whole time, in spite of his situation. Oh yea, I forgot to mention, he
got married the day before he left.
Well, anyways, even though James is a lowly E-4 and I am a powerful O-3,
he has a way of finding the hard to find items, all the time. There are
often times me and the Major are drinking piss hot water, because the
unit said that there was no ice, and James will stroll in with a glass
of ice water. He is the guy to go to for stuff like that. He has the
enlisted connection going on all the time. Yesterday, we were suppose
to work out at 7:00 pm. He never arrived. So I am sitting out back on
my porch (the ghetto porch), when James comes out of the back of the
tent. He tells me he is too tired to workout, but to come and see why.
James found and brought back to the tent a refrigerator. It is damn
near a full sized one. A number of them had apparently been sitting in
a Conex for the last month (while we drank the piss hot water I spoke of
earlier). He was there when it was opened and he snagged us one. He is
my new hero. The only problem is it runs on 220 power and our plugs are
110. We need a converter. But I am not worried. I put James on the
job.
Posted by Michelle on Jun 10, 2003 in Michelle
Funny email from Robert:
The problem we have is that we get eaten alive be sand fleas. This would
not be so bad, except the doctors around here said some of the sand
fleas carry something called ‘leach moniasis’, which comes in two forms.
The first causes a skin lesion, the second causes liver failure. To
combat this problem, I decided till the ground behind the tent, put
gravel down, and build a deck and overhang.
I decided to do this at 11am yesterday, when it was about 115 degrees.
Like many of my crazy ideas, once this got into my head, I had to do it, regardless
of the consequences. So I told one of my NCOs to come meet me behind our
tent and I got some tools. One thing I quickly realized is I am not 18 any
more. Swinging a pick-axe in 115 degree weather is actually harder than
it looks. But being a bonehead, I simply continued on. After leveling
the ground, me and my NCO carted 12 buckets of gravel from a site about
1/4 of a mile away. This helps keep dust and sand fleas down. I then
got four pallets and two old pieces of wood and made a deck. We then
put up some camo netting to shade the area. This took about a total of
4 hours in the blazing heat. I was exhausted by the time we were
finished.
Soon after completion, one of my other NCOs proclaimed that my porch was
a ‘ghetto porch’ and she didn’t see why I was so proud. Fighting back
the urge to cry, I informed her that my porch was not ‘ghetto’ but very
nice. She was not impressed. At this point, I stumbled back to the
office to get some water. By the time I got back (10 minutes later),
this lazy sergeant in our tent was already out on the porch with his
chair. To his credit, he thanked me for making the porch, which his fat
ass was now sitting on. I just gave up, got my chair out, put it on
the porch, and lit up a cigar. Ain’t Iraq great?
Posted by Michelle on Jun 6, 2003 in Michelle
More from Robert in Iraq:
We have a sergeant, a master sergeant in fact, that our unit picked up
when we were at Bragg. He was taken from a different unit and plopped
into a slot in our unit. He was always a little weird, but very quiet.
He came with us on the deployment to Iraq and has been stationed at
Tallil with the rest of us.
He was placed on the night shift and has to
sleep during the day. Somewhere into the middle of April, he went
pretty crazy. Now mind you, not like violent crazy. More like funny
crazy. During one of the nights he was suppose to be on duty, MPs
stormed the chaplain’s worship tent. There was an unidentified person
in the tent. It turns out it was this sergeant sleeping on a table in
the tent. Later, this sergeant went down with heat stroke and spent
some time in the field hospital. He came back with 1000 disposable bed
sheets and 500 hospital gowns. We have no clue what they are for, but
he hoards them.
Realizing that he is crazy, this sergeant was sent down to Arifjan to
serve as a liaison officer, to make sure we get supplies here that we
need. Ever since then, he has been going in the dumpsters of Arifjan,
rooting for garbage. The guys from my unit have had to get him out
twice. Once in front of the tent and once in front of the dining hall.
He keeps going on about how they don’t give us anything (which is true)
and this is how you have to survive in Tallil. They found a bunch of
old ice cream buckets in a bunker near the tent. He wanted to do his
laundry in these buckets (even though they have laundry service at
Arifjan).
So if you are wondering why we don’t get a lot of supplies, the fact we
have a crazy man, going through dumpsters, as a liaison officer, might
be one of the reasons why.
