Sunday, September 12, 2004

Bought a Webcam

I bought a Webcam at WalMart today. It only cost 28 bucks and it came with a microphone. It installed very easily on my end. I tried to get my sister to log on to Windows Messenger to see if it worked but we kept running into different problems. I then called one of my Friends and it worked right off the bat on his computer. He could see a pretty choppy picture of me and we could both hear the other person talk. It was pretty cool. I then tried it with my parents and had similar problems that I had with my sister. We kept at it for probably and hour and it finally worked. So the plan is to have my wife buy one tomorrow and see if we can see each other over the internet.

The communication options during this war are incredible. Even the first Gulf war didn't have this many technology options. I spent today with the friend I went and saw the movie with and we were discussing the differences in how communication is really making this war different. America can literally find out what is happening minutes after it happens. We figured Vietnam was the first war that offered information back to the American public within 12-24 hours of when it happened. We came up with the assumption that this might be one of the reasons that war was so unpopular. Up until then the average American thought of war in a more romantic view. It was a bunch of guys defending our way of life in a far away place. They didn't necessarily see the effects of war, just the outcome. I don't think America was ready for those kinds of images. Please realize that I have next to no idea what I'm talking about. I was barely alive in that period of time and am merely postulating.

It's neat to talk with My friend, we'll call him Kentucky for lack of a better name. He's 55 and was in the service at the end of the Vietnam war. He has children that are almost my age and yet here we are, two men from two different generations in the exact same position. My daughter just started kindergarten, his children are graduating from college. He's worked for the same company for 28 years, I've been alive for 30. But here we are as equals in the face of war. It's just interesting to see how this experience has impacted our lives so similarly but in totally different ways. In regular life we probably would have never even had a conversation longer than Hello had we met. Funny how life changes, but cool.

We report to the company we are attached to for training tomorrow. I assume it'll be pretty low keyed. This is where I did my initial training after Basic the first time around and it was pretty laid back then. The next few weeks should be a classroom atmosphere while wearing a uniform. The blogs for the next couple of weeks probably won't contain much about what I am doing in the Army for reasons of OpSec (Operational Security) I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you. So I'll find other stuff to talk about.

In honor of the Minnesota/Dallas game today I have a little quiz. How do you keep the Dallas Cowboys out of your front yard?

Install a goal post.

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