Long Road Home

I pulled back into San Diego after 3 weeks of leave, 3000 miles on my new car and 500 on the truck. During the long drive, I finished the entire Twilight Series, it’s strange to think that the two biggest selling Mormon authors write SciFi and Vampire novels.

Anyway, it’s back to the grind, my wife is going to grad school in another part of the state which gives me some time to sink into the job and I’m beginning to think I’m going to need that time to polish everything up. One of the parts about being in charge of people is the responsibility you have for those underneath you. I have no problems with doing it but I seem to have a talent for getting blindsided by things that were totally out of my control. Guess I’ll just have to work harder.

On other news, I’ll be in San Diego till at least January 2010, I extended my orders here waiting for some other set of orders to open up to a very non exotic place. Blog world is going on in a couple of weeks and if any of you are going, keep an eye out for me. I’ll be with the pink haired girl.

Fans of Firefly, Buffy and Serenity check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a supervillain musical directed by Joss Whedon with Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day. While the writer strike was going on, Joss went out and grabbed some of the best talent with waivers and in 6 days came up with the video below and it’s great, no, it’s a work of genius. Even better, it’s totally free so what are you waiting for? It's right here and will bring a smile to your face (or if you want, it's on Itunes but not Zune).



Anyhow, I’m off to go empty out some of these boxes standing in stacks around my place, peace out till next time.

Just finished Band of Bloggers

and am very happy with what they did. I was a bit worried about how the show would turn out but they did a great job putting us all together, it would have been nice if they had included links to the blogs so we could click on over to who the show was about but since they didn't here's what I have and how I know them or don't know them in the last few.

Of course Colby Buzzell from My War Killing Time in Iraq is here, currently he's living up in San Fran and is actually making a living out of his writing. We were both included along with Dagger Jag in September 2004 article by the AP (Dagger Jag has since shut down) and over the period of a weekend, I had 70 thousand hits. You'll notice going around the sphere that chicks seem to did Colby, if they are a fan of milblogs, his book is usually at the top of their favorite books, my wife is a big fan of his too. As far as milblogging circles go, when someone is asked to toss out the full name of a milblogger, it's usually Colby, Matt of Blackfive or me and I don't get a fraction of the readership of those guys.

I've read Rusten D. Currie of Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum since I started blogging, he's an amazingly gifted writer, haven't met him in person though.

Lt Paul Rieckhoff founder of Operation Truth, National Guard Soldier from Florida. Don’t really know much about his group.

Sgt Chris Messick A Line in the Sand he lives up by Long Beach, we met during a prior interview together and he's also buddies with Carla from Some Soldiers Mom.

Tonight was the first time seeing and reading Spc Kate Hoit from My American-Iraq Life (wonder if she listens to This American Life?), now mostly blogs over at Over and Out. Her links have crashed when she moved to new blogger, so I can't say who we know in common. What I've read so far, she seems quirky and funny.

And if you google Spc Edouard H.R. Gluck, you'll find his pictures everywhere but it doesn't show if he has a blog, I'll keep looking when I wake up more..

And my friend Won thought SPC Jeff Tanner was pretty cool (they look alike) but I don't have a clue to where he writes though. You have to remember, many bloggers out there didn't blog under their real name and it's hard bringing the two together.

The show goes beyond words, they painted images to match what the speakers are saying as they were interviewed, the words were all ours back by images and video we had given them. They channeled that and meshed all of our stories together giving a snapshot of what we went through in a fairly seemless manner. Enjoyable stuff. It's on all though the weekend if you missed it. The show goes down smooth no matter what you think about the war, good stuff.

History Channnel tonight!

and all weekend, I'll be on a show called Band of Bloggers, here's the schedule

Friday, November 09
08:00 PM
Saturday, November 10
12:00 AM
Monday, November 12
12:00 PM
Monday, November 12
06:00 PM

Watching Pushing Daisies

You probably don’t know who Bryan Fuller is but he’s the guy who has been the brain behind some of my favorite shows of all time, Heroes, Dead like Me and Wonderfalls. And with Pushing Daisies, he doesn’t disappoint.

It lays out a little bit like the movie Real Big Fish, the characters are colorful and larger then life. The story circles around this guy named Ned who owns a pie place called The Pie Hole, Ned’s not like the rest of us. He has the gift of life, he touches anything dead and it comes back to life, if they stay alive for over a minute someone else drops dead and if he touches them again they die and he can’t bring them back.

I would like to say this is different then anything else you’ve seen before but it’s not, if you’ve watched anything by Bryan, it’s all alike. Genius that is, watch it, it doesn’t disappoint.

Next is Bionic Woman

What am I doing tonight?

Watching Heroes of course, after a TV drought of almost 2 months, I have turned it on. Too bad I won’t be around to finish the season, if you haven’t heard, it sounds like I’ll be making my 4th trip back in the Sandbox.

October is going to be a busy month, one of the bad things about making First Class is that I can’t hide out from the big events. Fall is Ball season and it looks like I’m going stag to both the Marine Corps Ball (early November) and the Navy Ball (late October). I’ve been peer pressured into going to both.

I wasn’t planning on going this year but the higher ups on both my Marine and Navy chains of command didn’t take the argument that I didn’t have a date. So I’m probably going to volunteer to be the designated driver to the drunk folk who can’t afford to pay for hotel rooms ($140 or so bucks). Might as well give the junior folks rides back to the barracks or where ever they need to go since paying for a room for myself would be a waste.

Army Wives

Over at SpouseBuzz, they have a couple of posts with discussions covering the first two episodes of the new Lifetime show Army Wives. The storyline is based on a book by Tanya Biank called Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives. There has been talk about the series for a while in military publications and by the spouses. After being around the military family scene for the better part of a decade in a half. What do I think? (Mild spoilers ahead)

I’ve seen all of these characters; I worked with a spouse who was a surrogate mom. I’ve seen pettiness and gossip and also some of the lengths spouses go to support their husbands or wives. The show picks up on the extremes of everything you would get out of the average base, not out of a neighborhood. Glad I don’t have this kind of drama in my life.

Spots that struck me? I like Roxy, I’m glad my wife didn’t salute my boss when she first met him though but she comes from a military background, her grandfather was a 28 year Marine and her dad was a Navy optometrist and her minor was in military history. She’s a strong character dropped into an unfamiliar situation.

I’ve known the people who spend beyond their means like the husband of Pamila, betting on a check that will come any day. The LtCol’s wife who has bruises which come from an unexpected source. The male spouse who’s wife is suffering from PTSD and is acting out, I’ve seen this from both sides.

We’re both looking forward to future episodes, as dark as some of the scenes have been, they haven’t even been as dark or as bright as it can be. Give it time.

Fox, where good TV goes to die

I watched every episode of Drive with puppy dog on the edge of its seat thrill, wow, Fox has came out with a great show! I was looking forward to a Monday night of TV goodness, watch Drive at 8 then Heroes at 9. But the big wigs at Fox (who are known for murdering great TV) have once again drove a stake into the heart of this show and killed it off after only 3 episodes. Like Firefly, it will soon go the way of the DVD.

I guess on a positive aspect, it will give me more time to blog or spend quality time with my lovely wife but it does make me awfully sad. Poor Nathan, two amazing shows shot out from underneath him, who hates him at over there? Damn you Fox! I hope you fall line up falls flat on its face!

Thanks for the hat tip Lee.