One Year Down...

Oh man, as of today, it has been one year since I left the United States to come to Iraq. Granted the rough part started a few months earlier when I left Felice, Annalisa and Gage behind in Hawaii, but missing my family is not what this post is about, instead I am going to talk about killing time here.

One year in the desert and the dust, the dust, that is a good place to start. Let me tell you about sandstorms. Having lived in the places I have, I have seen near blizzards, tropical storms, hurricanes and earthquakes, none of them compare to the absolute suck of sandstorms. During the summer time, the heat will dry out your entire body and no matter how much water you drink, you will rarely go to the bathroom, instead sweating it out all day. So when the sand comes in, it is great because it sticks to your chapped lips and every other inch of your body. You can also look forward to seeing the world in a new light, quite like John Carter would have us believe Mars looks like; you see the world turns orange. The whole sky around you a nice orange hue, add white lights on the side of buildings and you get an eerie neon blue glow. So your whole body is gritty, you are stuck in Cydonia and to top that off, you can barely breath. Any sort of physical exertion will have you coughing up nice sand lugies all day and then picking large sand buggers at night. So as soon as you get a chance, come to the desert, you'll love it.

Now this part is going to sound odd, but I am almost sick of TV. I know, I know, I am in Iraq in the middle of a warzone and I am complaining about TV. I am sure you understand that the current state of the conflict is very different from year one and two, so yes I am complaining about TV. The problem is, when I watch it, I am 99% of the time watching DVDs of TV shows, when watching TV DVDs, you don’t watch one episode then go to another show, you watch the entire series all the way through. So far I have watched South Park at least two times, same for Scrubs, at least once for Malcolm in the Middle, My Name Is Earl, Heroes, Twin Peaks, and M*A*S*H (oh the coincidence.) I am sure I will never be so sick of TV that I will stop watching it, in fact I just got done with Dexter Season Two (highly recommended) and trying to figure out what I will watch next.

My latest way to kill time is Fantasy Football. I honestly don't know how I went through previous seasons without FF. I have liked the Vikings since I was a kid, the Bucs since moving to Florida and the Colts since Dungy got wrongly let go and replaced with an ass hat, but never spent too much time looking at other teams unless they were playing against one of mine. Now I find myself pondering if the Eagles defense will keep the Steelers offense back enough, yet in field goal range to justify keeping Jeff Reed on my roster and if Marques Colston will get better soon, since I could really use another wide receiver. FF is suggested to all of you out there, regardless of football experience, it is a great way to bring you closer to the game and get you just as pumped about the Houston @ Tennessee game (hey I am starting Andre Johnson) as the Tampa @ Chicago game (go Bucs, but let Matt Forte score at least, he is one of my running backs.)

Anyway, one year down less than three months to go, then this will all be over, hopefully I won’t find myself back here in a year, otherwise I might have to join two Fantasy leagues and purchase about ten more complete TV series box sets from the local Bizarre vendors. Until then, see ya and don't forget to vote, preferably for Obama.