ummm yeah

the food around here is pretty great... as i've stated before. we have more baskin robbins than we know what to do with... a pizza bar, salad bar, burgers, fires, onion rings, sandwich corner, pasta bar, whatever they're serving at the main line that night (sundays are steak, crab and shrimp nights), and a full wok.

which brings me to why there's a photo of an orungatan on here.

i recently had stirfry at the dfac. it was pretty good going down... but its exit strategy was similar to a retarded orungatan with rabies trying to remove chinese fingercuffs while in a tub of pudding.

don't let his cuddly fun looking face fool you. he is a cruel cruel psychopath.

otherwise the chow's been pretty good and after my insane runathon i've decided to try and put the 10 pounds -- lost training and running the Hood to Coast -- back on. lieutenant bomar has me on a fun/painful weight workout and i'm actually consuming protein shake stuff. i still plan to keep up my cardio since i really like running, but i also hope to go from two dimensional to three dimensional. it may be hard for me with my metabolism... but i believe in 9+ months i should be able to have some effect. if not, i'll use bicep implants and shoulder pads to fill out.

wish me luck!

running "away from home"

so this is my second post today... but perhaps a bit more up to date. as some of you know, i signed up to do the hood to coast relay last fall. but, due to my deployment it didn't look like that was very feasible. that's when through discussion with the team captain we decided to try and have me do it anyway, but on a treadmill over here. after some organization and the green light from my command... i set up the run of my life... so far.

the hood to coast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_to_Coast) begins at mount hood and ends in seaside... hence the hood to coast title. i was on the team "truth sneakers" a christian based team. i've yet to meet any of my teammates except for paul who is the one that got me interested in doing the event. as i developed my plan... i thought it would be really cool to have my brother scott run my legs of the relay at the same time i'm running them in iraq. he's been trying to get me to do a marathon or at least a half marathon for some time now.

now that all the pieces were in place all i had to do was go running. sounds simple right? negativo! i've run 6 miles before... but i've never run six miles 3 times in less than 18 hours. and training for this was difficult since i'm still required to work 7 days a week for a minimum of 12 hours a day. so i didn't want to overdo it before the actual event. and let's not leave out the fact that until a week prior to the race, i'd never really ran on a treadmill. i like feeling the outdoors and experiencing the full run outside. on the treadmill my biggest hurdle for the race wasn't the muscle fatigue or the overworking my heart or lungs... it was the insane boredom of running on the conveyor belt. it faces a window... but to keep the place cool they put tin foil on all the windows... so no view. the army has a saying "going nowhere fast" and that's what it was. also... i get motion sick when i get/fall off the contraption. my body still wants to move forward even though my legs aren't moving. i basically look like a uo senior trying to make it home after a "fun" friday night.

to time the event with the folks in oregon... i had to call them from the land line (as cell phones are few and far between here) at the front desk of the rec center and when the runner before me/scott was about 10-20 seconds away i'd run into the exercise room and start running. my goal for times on the run was to not have any of them be more than 45 minutes total. and in the words of our president... mission accomplished!


leg -- distance -- time
1 5.67 miles 40 minutes 27 seconds
2 6.06 miles 44 minutes 56 seconds
3 5.77 miles 44 minutes 26 seconds


my assessment of the run: i'm crazy and shouldn't be allowed to go through with crazy plans like this. but, it was an awesome experience and i'm really glad i was able to do it with my brother. i'm a big bundle of exhausted skin and bones today. but surprisingly i'm not too sore. it probably helps hauling my 50-60 lbs of armor and gear everywhere to help build up the endurance i needed to do this.

several oregon tv stations and the oregonian covered the story. hopefully they got some tight shots of my nike shoes and nike will send me some new/free ones. below are some of the links to the stories.


http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/sports/118810957256780.xml&coll=7

http://www.kval.com/news/local/9368251.html

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/08/30/c1.cr.welch.0830.p1.php?section=cityregion

"after" i arrived

i just wanted let you all know that i arrived safely in iraq.
i've been here for about two weeks now and am settling in just fine. i sent out an email to a few people about getting here but thought i should post a blog on it... so here's a quick synopsis of the last month or so:

"after" i'd finished my last bit of training, andrea flew out for a few days and we toured new york. it was a perfect send off and a much needed reuniting. there was a fun experience getting some handbags, but i'll save that story for another day.

"after" new jersey, my unit headed to kuwait and after many hours of flight and only 1/2 an hour of sleep we arrived at the hottest place on earth. i'm pretty sure even the devil summers somewhere nicer. kuwait is a million and one degrees and it's about 15 degrees cooler here, so 999,986 degrees. it really puts things into perspective when you stop and wonder why we fought over such an unbearable place (there's sarcasm in there somewhere).

"after" several days of no sleep and lots of foosball, we flew via military aircraft to iraq. there really isn't anything like flying in a plane while strapped in like a piece of luggage.

"after" experiencing ft.dix new jersey and kuwait... so far i love iraq. our office is in a building that has a free coffee shop plus a gym. the food continues to get better with each location i get to, as well as the mwr (morale welfare & recreation)facilities. i have internet, phone access and there's also a chapel just down the hallway. so far i've been bound to my desk here at cob (contingency operating base) speicher. they have me putting a newscast together and redesigning a news set. it's not the front lines nor is it all that dangerous... but it is highly stressful at times (i.e. micing up the commanding general northern iraq to do live interviews with cnn, c-span, abc etc.).

"after" reading this you're probably wondering why i titled this post the way i did.
oh well, until next time... in the words of corporal hicks... stay frosty!