Gonna See My Wife

I found out Yesterday that we're going to get a four day weekend this weekend. I found this out about lunch time. At the same time I found out we weren't going to get a chance to see our families before we deploy like eveybody else did since we're coming through on the tail end of our Brigades deployment. What they call the "Main Body" left for Kuwait this week and we'll follow behind and catch them there or in Iraq. So the plan here is to push through as fast as possible. The bad part about that is we're getting the junky left over gear. So far we haven't gotten the cool gear like the camelback water systems, the new lighter stronger Kevlar helmets, or the Wiley-X sunglasses that everyone else got. Why? Because the supply Seargent has already left. That's good planning. Hopefully we'll get that stuff in country. If not, as long as I get a weapon and body armor everything should be O.K. If I don't get those things I think I'll tell them they can fight without me until they come in. What are they going to do kick me out of the Army? Or worse, send me to Iraq?

Anyway, when I found out about the four day weekend I called my wife who got on the next plane to Dallas. Right now I'm writing from a hotel room outside of post while she's taking a nap. She had to fly through the night and hasn't slept yet. This is the first chance I've had to use the built in wireless card on my laptop. It's pretty cool and the service here is really fast. Obviously it was good to see her pull around the corner in the rental car we have for the weekend. Don't really have any plans but, don't really need any. The kids think Mommy is going to see a "friend" for the weekend. I think it would have been too hard on all of us for them to come, and I don't think I could say goodbye to them again and explain all over why I wasn't coming home for a long time. I would have loved to see them but I think this is best all around. So, if you know my kids don't talk about mommy seeing daddy this weekend. By the way, if you rent a car from Avis it's about $90.00 a day. If you rent a car from Hertz it's $15.00 a day. Where's the invisible hand of competition? I guess it's slapping the snot out of Avis right now.

In an interesting turn of events I have small pox. Not really small pox but the vaccination for it. So I've got a contagious oozing knot of puss on my shoulder under a large bandage. mmm tapioca anyone? I also got the Anthrax vaccine and a typhoid shot. The Anthrax is a seires of shots lasting more than a year. You get a booster every so often to keep your immunity up. Appearantly you also lose any desire for cheesy eighties heavy metal. Too bad they don't give you the bullet vaccine, or the hand grenade vaccine. I felt sick for about a day but, in the immortal words of Monty Python, "I got better".

I'm reading a book by Dan Brown called Angels & Demons. It's the prequel to The Da Vinci Code. It's pretty good. it seems the main character follows over into the next book, which I guess is why they call it a prequel.

Since today is Friday I'll start the weekly run of mail call this afternoon or this evening. If you have any questions now's your last chance for this week.