Toby Keith

As part his "America's Toughest Tour 2009" the USO and several other sponsors brought Toby Keith and his musical partner Scotty Emerick over to this part of the world where they put on 15 performances in 5 days. One of those performances happened to be a nice, acustic 6 song show here at FOB Gardez. He was supposed to start at 1030 but the show was pushed back until closer to 1330. When he got here, he told the rather small crowd of 100 - 150 that he wasn't sure for a while there that he was going to make it down to us. About 6000 feet out of Kandahar they found out they had left all their break fluid on the runway so they had to turn around and head back. They were able to get another place, flew to FOB Sharana and from there took a Chinock helicopter to Gardez.

Here's the set that he and Scotty did:
1. As Good As I Once Way
2. I'll Never Smoke Weed with Willie Again - Aparently based on a true story
3. The Balled of Balad - this is one he wrote during his first USO tour and hasn't preformed it a lot but it's basically about an Army Recruiter who gets a guy to join and right after basic he's shipped out to Iraq... it was funny
4. Runnin' Block - Homage to the Wing Man
5. I Love This Bar - After he wrote the song this is what he ended up naming his restaraunt chain and anyone can go in there, present their military ID and to quote Toby, "have a beer and a burger on me" and really, isn't that why I joined the Army? The free stuff?
6. Beer for my Horses

When the show finished we were able to get in groups of 10 or so and get group pictures with him. I also got him to sign the bill of an ACU cap I have here but never wear. What was really cool was when I showed up for the morning show that was canceled (it took a little while to get the news to us) I noticed that the flag the maneuver guys were flying behind the makeshift stage horrendiously dirty. I was thinking about using one from my supply shop for the show so there'd be a clean on flying. I wasn't the only one with this thought as our Com guy TSgt Karpinski (who is even more of a flag Nazi then I am) came and asked if I had one. I gave it to him, he put it up and after the show he took it down, Toby signed it and he gave it back to me so I now have the flag flown during the show as another keepsake. Thanks Karp!

Assuming I was able to get a picture or two to load (and that's a big assumption around here) you might notice that on the left side of this top Toby is wearing a CIB (Combat Infantry Badge). Before the show I was talking with one of the SECFOR sergeants on the team who told me he saw Toby in Iraq a few years back and during the preformance a mortar landed just 20 or 30 yards from the stage. After the all clear was given he got back up and kept playing so apparently the CIB was well earned. At the end of this preformance he also earned something else that he didn't have before, his cavalry combat spurs which is what they're putting on him in this picture. He asked if they were serious when they told him what they wanted him to do so they could put the spurs on but as you can see he played along and was proudly sporting them during the after show photo op.

Well, after trying for a few days, the photos won't post over here so I'll have to throw them on here when I get back... which won't be too much longer now!

Movie Madness, Round 2

There were several blowouts in this round so I'm only going to cover the top two. In a massive beat down The Sixth Sense provided the first shutout of the tournament. Who was the victim here, the academy award winning film The Pianist. The next one I'm going to touch on also garnered a huge portion of the vote. Pirates of the Caribbean blew Pee-Wee's Big Adventure out of the water with 93.8% of the vote.

It looks like Tom Hanks will finally have his revenge over Roberto Benigni. Roberto stole the best actor oscar from hanks in 1999, but in a close vote Saving Private Ryan seems to have more supporters than Life is Beautiful with just over 55% of the vote. Anything could happen though, there are still 17 hours of voting left in round 2.

The outcome that is still in doubt at this time is The Matrix vs. Harry Potter. With the vote split 50/50 at this time I would look for Harry Potter to move on as it is a higher seed than the Matrix, just know that anything can happen since "there is no spoon."

Over 1100 votes have been case up to this point, please keep it up here!

Easter... sort of

Happy Easter! We attended three different parties and I only have shots from the base sponsored 'spring' party. This is the most Eastery picture I have. (I was in charge of part of the festivities at one and the other one happened so fast I wouldn't have been able to take pictures of egg hunting anyway)

Give him a cop car and he's a happy boy. He even got to push the siren buttons and talk on the loudspeaker... it was funny, he started out with "is anybody here?"
He also got to handle actual guns at the display set up, go figure, nothing says spring in the military like playing with guns.

He likes the big guns too, but they're "too big" aka, too heavy for him to hold by himself.

Here the kids are Easter afternoon, finally noticing their baskets the Easter Bunny left during church. This was about two seconds before I realized I had given red staining easily dropped food to Carter... he was quickly moved to the kitchen.

Spring Break! (pt. 2)

On the 8th we took another tour, this time to the butterfly park and Neo Park which is a research center for international species conservation. I forgot to check the battery on my camera so I didn't get too many shots, but I plan on going back with Jackson sometime. It was rainy this morning as well, but finished by the time we got there.

First stop was the butterfly park. These two pictures sum it up... slight apprehension from Coryn,

grabby grabby from Carter.

Then it was on to Neo Park The first thing you see when you walk in the main entrance is this bird extravaganza, flamingos and whatever else you see in the back there... you can buy food for them, they're very tame, and they scared a little girl who was holding a bag of food but was too scared to give the food to the birds. They have lots of fun animals there, giant Amazon River fish, lemurs, llamas, and a petting zoo comprised mostly of... pets. Dogs, hampsters, rabbits, pigs. But we had to practically run through it because we only got an hour there!

They also have some great plants, a giant tree that looks like a mix between a banana tree and a fan palm from Madagascar called Traveler's Palm but its actually in the same family as Bird of Paradise which explains why the flowers look like a white version of the Bird of Paradise. This blue flower is the one we were supposed to look for at the Botanical Gardens, its a Jade Vine.

Spring Break!

Ok, so it wasn't for us, but it did throw me off all week seeing the school kids every day. I see this face fairly often from Carter these days. His "I want to play with that!" face.

On the 6th we went to the Botanical Gardens (again, yes) on a tour to pick potatoes... I dressed Carter appropriately except for galoshes, I need to get some for him! The lady who was giving the tour took photos and was nice enough to send me them.

Coryn had a ton of fun, really liked being a farmer and found the tiniest potatoes! We went with red potatoes since I like them and know a good recipe (thanks mom!) but they had white and even black potatoes up for grabs.

I had been raining some the day before and that morning so it was nice and squishy orange mud, you can't really tell how orange in the pictures. This was kind of funny to me since I grew up in Idaho and this was the first time I ever harvested potatoes... Japan of all places, and not the sweet kind. :)

Of course, after the potato picking and clothes changing, we had some free time to spend wandering the gardens, had to feed the fish again, and we were supposed to go look at a special flower that was just about to finish blooming but we didn't get there (check out the next post). We opted for feeding the goats and finding flower hats instead. This giant yellow flower grows on a tree and is almost done blooming too.

Movie Madness, Round Two Begins

In about 18 hours round two of the “Movie Madness” bracket will kick off (Sunday, 19 April, 0001 EST to be exact). First off, I want to thank everyone who has participated. 808 total votes have thus far been cast; 40 so far today, making “Movie Madness” the “Top Bracket” on Bracketeers.com. I’m not going to cover all the categories but I would like to highlight a few “massive victories” (getting over 75% of the votes) and a few “surprise upsets” (according to me).

Saving Private Ryan and It’s a Wonderful Life took exactly 75% of the votes over Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Mummy respectivly but that was far from the biggest landslides. Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade 78.6%, The Truman Show’s 21.4%. Forrest Gump 79.2%, Shaun of the Dead 20.8%. Back to the Future 82.1%, Finding Neverland 17.9%. The Dark Knight 84%, The Last Samurai 16% (One of the harder ones for me to pick from. I REALLY liked Last Samurai, but had to go with Dark Knight). The biggest beating was given by Memento (88% of the votes) to A Very Long Engagement (with just 12%. I wonder how many have really seen this French gem with Audrey Tautou?).

Now for some that I see as upsets. I am surprised that Life is Beautiful has taken 2/3’s of the vote from The Rock and National Treasure has taken almost as many from Aladdin. I didn’t think O Brother Where Art Thou would garner enough support to defeat the cult classic The Princess Bride but it looks like it will, 56% to 44%. It looks like the 1980 Raiders of the Lost Ark will edge out the 2007 smash hit Juno 54.2% to 45.8% and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl will take out The Goonies 62.5% to 37.5%. Perhaps the biggest upset is the highest grossing trilogy of all time The Lord of the Rings being edged out by the Sixth Sense 52.2% to 47.8%.

I am sad to see my #2 and #3 favorites About a Boy and In Good Company falling so early in the contest as well as my #5 Lost in Translation… to Pee Wee Herman of all people!
Now, if you would like to vote in round two and it is after 0001 EST on Sunday click HERE!

Tonight

I know I have a little catching up to do, but I wanted to write about tonight since it is fresh in my mind and I have no pictures to share. It was a busy but beautiful day, odds and ends running this morning, cleaning the house up a bit, babysitting for 4 hours, and the deployed spouses dinner. As a treat I thought I'd take the kids and try to see the Ginowan fireworks from Sunabe seawall (um, sort of like looking across a bay?) We walked along the seawall for a bit, listening to the waves crash and observing Saturday night life in a popular section of town for moderate night life (restaurants open til 2, moderate drinking later in the evening, night divers, families out for walks). Had a passing conversation in Japanese about the fireworks and the time, had Coryn walk along the top of the seawall, and found ourselves a seat along it. While we waited for the show to start, we talked about stars, divers (its kind of funny watching lights below the water), blinking lights on buildings, and more. Then the fireworks started and it was a decent show; close enough that the kids were entranced, at least until the night divers started to exit the water. Carter tried to throw his binky in the water, and a nice American boy went and got it for us. There were a couple of times we thought the show was over and started to leave, the Japanese don't feel the need to have a constant barrage of blinking lights to keep the audience's attention. Then we had a nice conversation with the family the boy that helped us belonged to and we went on our way. All evenings should end this well!

Passing the Time With a Little Bracketology

Hey, look at that... the Internet service here decided to let me post a picture. This was me at a convoy briefing last month just before I went outside the wire as the driver of an MRAP (Mine Resistant, Ambush Proof 18 ton armored vehicle). There aren't a whole lot of officers who are actually licenced to drive over here and even fewer who actually get out and drive but I really like driving and from time to time there is a need for me to help out so they let me behind the wheel. I bet the enlisted passengers aren't too excited when they see an LT is driving them but I think I do a pretty good job, and if nothing else I've always brought everyone in my vehicle safely back, no worse for wear.

As my time here draws ever closer to an end I am finding new ways to entertain myself until I get back to the real world. I have taken it upon myself to acquire some $10,000 worth of recreational equipment from the good folks at the USO since there is nothing MWR (Moral, Welfare & Recreation) to speak of here on FOB Gardez. Most of the equipment has come in, including an X-Box 360 and a Wii but we still have no facility to house all this fun stuff so for now they are set up in my office, along with a 42" plasma screen TV and I let people come in a use the stuff there. We're supposed to be getting the building materials for the MWR facility in the next few days but we'll still have to wait for the skilled craftsmen (i.e. not me) to construct something sufficient for our needs.
I recently found something on line that might be a fun distraction for me. It is a website called Bracketeers and you can set up tournament style brackets to determine what random item from a group of random items is the best whatever... did that make any sense? Well, in honor of the recent termination of March Madness (congratulations UNC, you succeeded in completely destroying the second half of my bracket this year) I have selected 64 of the movies Lisa and I have rated 5 stars on our Netflix account, randomly seeded them and starting RIGHT NOW you (yes you!) can click HERE and start voting for your favorites. A new round will begin each Sunday until late May when a winner is crowned. I would appreciate your participation because it will give me something to do here, something to look forward to when I get back to my room at night besides going to sleep and starting the next 14 hour work day.