Dinner with one of my oldest friends

Last night I was invited out to dinner with one of my oldest friends Leslie and her husband Scott at Buffalo Wild Wings (the Mango Habanero sauce rocks). Back story on Leslie, we met the summer before my 6th grade, she lived a stones throw away from me and had a big empty lot next to her house with ATV’s that we used to carve up trails around the place with (I also ran over her big sister which scarred me for life, sorry Shelia!). Sixth grade, she was probably one of my best friends and was in fact my first girl friend before we both knew the full meaning of the word. Meaning we held hands a few times and kissed once… in her shed next to the quads. I think her dad telling me that he was watching me might have stopped that back then.

Talk about some old memories, talking with her reminded me just how much I forgot over the years. Items that were important to her back then aren’t even blips that I have thought about since they happened back then. A few items that I had totally forgotten about, I went to Thailand in 7th grade and brought her and her sister back souvenirs, I remember buying souvenirs but I don’t remember who I gave them to, she still has hers. I have a talent for drawing mazes, something I think I could do before I could actually write and I drew her name in bubble letters and made a maze out of it and I guess I drew her a some other drawings, I have no idea what they were but she still has them. In 7th grade, we had wood shop together and she told me that she was going to fail if she didn’t get a box she was making routed and I routed it for her. It was a big deal to her but all I remember was her asking me for a favor, I didn’t even remember what that favor was. The funny thing is, her parents are still using that box (and think that she routed it, heh). I don’t even have any of the my wood shop projects from back in the day. I think my mom sold them at garage sales or gave them away (like she did my comic books). 

Those are definitely some items out of my prehistory that were important to her and she was able to hold on to the memory because she had kept those mementos. They had fallen out of my memory because I had lost so many items from my past like most of us do. I had thought that I had a great memory compared to most of my friends about those days but seeing Leslie showed much of my past I had forgotten, I didn’t have a diary or a camera and most of those items had been added to the rubbish bin over the years meaning that they also fell out of my consciousness because I didn’t have those bookmarks in my memory to keep them fresh.

Forward to today, we both have kids who are in high school, we’re both happily married, in fact, she’s been married to the same guy for 16 years a cool dude. Anyone who stays married for 16 years and be as happy and as comfortable as they looked made the right choice. We both have tattoos, hah, never thought I would see that day. It’s strange experience seeing us both as adults because the last time we were close to each other, we were still children. We were friends after we moved away from that little neighborhood but after 7th grade we didn’t really hang out and grew two different ways but for that year and a couple of months, we were two peas in a pod and our memories of that time are still locked in place and unsullied by the process of puberty and growing up.

This will be my 4th trip

But I have nothing on Dave Earney from Daves-Not-Here and flythemig29 of Those Wacky Iraqis, 4 years, 2 months, 2 days, 21 hours over in Iraq and that's just for flythemig29. I know Dave was out there before my first trip over and has only came home on vacation. Imagine.

They're both Contractor's who decided to stay. Go over and give them a warm welcome home.

Another homecoming

The planning for the trip started out with discovering a nail in the sidewall of one of my rear tires, no problem, plug it enough to get me to Costco and grab a set of new rear tires, out of there in an hour and load up the fridge. Arrive only to find that they were out of my size of tires so I hit up Big-O and 2 hours later I was back home ready to man handle the fridge.

One of the good things about being the guy that everyone goes to for help when you move is that eventually you get smart and start collecting tools to make moving those big objects not such back breaking chore, of those, my favorite is my wheeled furniture mover and with it’s help, I was able to make short work of the fridge.

Once loaded, I packed odds and ends around it and beat feet out of San Diego, the clock said it was 7 when I left and 2 when I pulled up into my mom’s place. I’ve made this trip more then anybody in his right mind should, I crawled onto the couch and the next morning the roosters crowed me awake at 8. Damn country life.

Took a shower and called my buddy Justin, who had kindly offered to store my fridge a couple of weeks ago in his garage along with some beer that he had sitting around. Well it saves me paying for storage and in reality, my mom really didn’t need another fridge, she has 3. We all came out ahead, well actually, he did, I just broke out even. No stickers man!

After lending a very brief hand with some water leaks on his travel trailer, I went to another appointment with a friend whom I haven’t seen since 1993, Minnie. She was the best friend of Heather number one (I haven’t wrote about here yet but I seem to have bad luck with all of the gorgeous Heathers in my life, #1 was the girl I went to Prom with and thoughts of her took up a sizable portion of my conscious mind for a couple of years, she’s now happily married to a guy named Frank and just had her first child)

Minnie asked me to help make her myspace shine so we met at Hotel St. Michael’s, there’s a coffee place downstairs that has free WiFi for paying customers. I’m mildly worried about my new first impression to her. I was wiped out from driving most of the night before and my inner voice sounded like one of those adult voices in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Yet she force fed me coffee and I hacked out something to make her myspace look bit better, far from my best work but my brain wasn’t firing with all of it’s cylinders. Don’t worry hun, I hate it when I do shoddy work, I’ll reach into my bag and work on your place when I get home and am more awake and people will make “aahhhhs” and “oohhhss” when they visit.

We parted at 6 vowing to meet in an hour or so at Prescott Brewing Company with her husband and another couple that I see way too little off, Nathan and Aimee (it ended up being a little over an hour and a half). It was supposed to be more people then just the 5 of us but one had hurt his back at work, another was out of state and the other one had just finished putting tires on his trailer and wasn’t up for anything (slackers and pudwackers). Instead of a large loud dinner, it ended up being a small intimate thing, beer was flowing and me being the story keeper, I gathered up the loose ends of the other side of the mysteries that have plagued me in the dark hours of the night.

You might have noticed, one of my daily food groups is information, I’m a junkie, I eat it and the digestive process of my mind labels it and sticks it into a corner of my large head to regurgitate at a later date either in writing or over a beverage with some buddies. I know curiosity killed the cat but I can’t help myself, I was the kid that always asked “Why?” not just about the physical world but the social chemistry that make people make certain decisions in their life.

If you’re lucky in your life, you have a person in your group of friends that carries your story in their head. Someone who will never forget you no matter what happens and will be interested in your life. I’m the one that talks to everyone, not just here on the blog but in person. I couldn’t imagine being different then the way I am and after watching people, I know I’m far from normal. I tend to reach down or up into someone’s life, put a hand on their shoulder and shake the be-Jesus out of them and dredge up the things they haven’t thought about in years. It shocks some into seeing beyond the new lives they’ve built up and reminds them of the history that has faded into grainy pictures into the background. This past week was Minnie’s turn to be pulled back in my fold.

Seeing Minnie tonight cleaned up an entire corner of that project I have growing in my head. She’s grown in to an amazingly beautiful adult and hasn’t lost any of her natural cheeriness. Her enthusiasm is contagious and my tiredness left me. We were perched at the corner of the table and the stories were flying back and forth, the world rotated off the movements of our lips and for a little while, everything else went away. After timeless period of time, we took a breath and played musical chairs and I was talking to her husband Ryan.

Minnie, I have to hand it to you, you did well, you picked mate who complements the person that you are and totally adores you, great choice. Within a couple of minutes of meeting, Ryan and I were talking like old buddies, he slid right into the conversation without any hesitation and I added a few new pieces to the monument. He’s definitely a cool cat.

Not to forget Aimee and Nathan, we have a unique relationship, we used to double date. I was going out Aimee’s best friend back in high school and Nathan was my buddy. Since I had the only car at the time the four of use went on some interesting adventures together, they have see a side of me….well lets just say it’s a side that’s been rarely seen. Lot of good memories were rehashed.

Much beer was drunk that night and Minnie even talked me on the dance floor to two-step at Matt’s Saloon. Good times and I’m eagerly awaiting the next meet up.

Oh and pictures from that night can be found here.

Pictures of hiking around with Jason and his kids

by Watson Lake in Prescott AZ. My mom has a foreign exchange student named Keven staying with her, I took him along too. Pictures can be found here. More posts on the trip as soon as I get home.

Arizona Bound and meeting Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert

I’m getting ready for a road trip to Arizona, I won’t be long at this house and my tool box is way too big to move around being a single guy. It’s paid off and maybe someday in the future I’ll be able to make full use of it. I could sell it and get a nice wad of cash but unless I’m rich in the future, I’ll never by anything that comes as close to being as nice.



Arizona’s going to give me a chance to touch base with myself, the last month has tried my emotional balance and I could use the stabilizing influence of friends and family. I am getting better, haven’t came close to crying in over a week.

Well the last time was at the book signing a week ago tonight with Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert (son of Frank Herbert). They were doing a signing for Sandworms of Dune, last book in the Dune series. Great stuff to read when you’re in the middle of an alien desert on the other side of the planet, it gives what you see out there a spiritual aspect.

Kevin’s read about my life lately on myspace and out of his 3 thousand odd friends has put me near the top. He knew how much I cared for my wife and could imagine the devastation that I was going though. At the signing at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore he greeted me with a hug and some words of condolences and my eye began to tear up. There were more things I wanted to say but I was a little choked up and told him thank you and that his books were enjoyed by many military folk in my reading circle. It’s funny how a kind word from an almost stranger can tear down the walls you've built.

By the way Kevin and Brian, I finished off Sandworms and wanted to let you know, it’s a great read. You guys did an amazing job pulling in all of the loose plot twists and tying it together in a nice neat bow. Frank’s a hard act to follow but I don’t think he could have picked a better pair to do it then have the two of you to fill in his odd shaped shoes.

I’m eagerly awaiting Metal Swarm this fall (not storm).

Thanks for the closure guys!

Okay here's a cheery post

The wailing must end sometime, I made this video of climbing Thumb Butte with my buddies and 2 of our kids fourteen years after that other Thumb Butte video. I still sound dorky and have found out that a small palm sized camcorders are very shaky. I did have a great time and look forward to my next trip up there.

Getting ready for an Arizona run with the son

Collin are hitting the road tomorrow to go see the family. After the craziness of Comic-Con, I Opted for something a milder, such as converting old 8mm to a digital format and editing some of it to post online.

The result of my day of making movies, the first is a really short clip of when I could still fly, I'm too slow and chunky for such things these days (and I don't have a rope).


The first is a clip of my good buddy Larry and I at Granite Dells in Prescott Arizona doing some rappelling. If you listen long enough you can hear his ditty that he made with one line “Sean Dustman plummeting to his death…" and his shoe falling off twice. He also pulls some tasteless pranks such as screaming about the rope not hitting the ground when I'm on my way down and offering some friendly greetings to the guy from the next video, Dan.


The second clip is an earlier day rappelling with Dan, not as wild but the close up of his knees shaking is pretty funny.


The third is with Dan and my ex wife getting stuck and unstuck in the snow in 1997, I had totally forgot about it till I saw the video, anyway, it shows what I look like without any hair and my favorite old Nissan.

Back in the day

My old roommate, James is heading out to Iraq and he left his 8mm camcorder in my care (if I transfered his 8mm to DVD) and I started going though some of my old 8mm tapes and made the following video of me and a couple of friends climbing around Prescott Arizona back in the early 90's.

It's hard to imagine being that young again, I miss those days sometimes.

An afternoon in DC in less then 7 minutes

Video of spanding an afternoon with two DC blogging buddies wandering about all over DC. A great afternoon, my lovely bride does a lot of the talking but we all take turns (she looks better then me anyways). No Conference clips here though.

We made it back to San Diego

It ended up just being me and my son going to Arizona, the brides mom came in this week and it's hard to be at two places at once. Helped my sister tear apart the inside of a house for a day then the next 4 days were spent driving around and visiting friends all over the state. How my week was spent?

My other son, Alec (he’s not really my other son but I call him that) gave me a very cool Behringer guitar and amp and is turning 16 this summer, don’t worry son, I’m kicking into that fund too. He's the one on the left

My real son has shown an interest in Vlogging, so I helped him with his first entry while he was playing video games. (Just in case he joins the military later in life, it’s easier handling post traumatic stress when you already have defense mechanisms in place) We also made some movies of us doing wacky things going across the state, going to put the clips together in a movie before he goes home. I'm related to my two favorite traveling companions. Collin and I sang, took pictures and video everywhere and had a great time. Expect more pictures soon.

Friends I visited?

Jason, haven’t seen him in person since 2000, he tried giving me and Collin a cat, they were cute but I don’t want to be responsible for Gatsby eating it when we got home. I’m not sure if the dog thinks cats are good eating or not. I'm happy that you're doing alright buddy.

Justin, who I haven’t seen since I came out in November, he needs to come to San Diego and eat lobster. He used to make fun of me for being a corpsman, about being a male nurse. Know what he is now? A male nurse.

Larry, who might as well be my brother, I visit him every trip out there and hopefully we’re going on a family beach camping trip this summer

Nathan and Aimee, whom I use to double date with all the time in high school, I haven’t seen them since 1993, it was great seeing them, they're very good people.

Andy, who just started blogging and has earned a coveted high spot on the links. Not many of my friends from high school are bloggers, have to take care of them when they start. I haven’t seen him since 1991, he lives down the street from my uncle and is actually making a living as a photographer.

More on the trip later, have to go make some breakfast.

A tall tale

A week or so ago, I sent out a bulletin on Myspace asking my buddies there to leave a real memory they had of me in my comments section (most of my friends in real life reside there and aren’t bloggers) My oldest, Jason Roach, left a comment about a story that I had shelved because I knew no one would believe me, since he’s told it, I might as well share my recollection of it. It hasn’t been told in 15 or so years because I didn’t want all of my friends to think I was a liar. Everyone involved in that story had fell off the face of the earth including Jason and with this story, who would believe me alone? The story is stranger then fiction. A couple weeks ago, Jason shows up out of the blue and shares the story in a comment which brings up this memory which is a 100% true (the comment is posted along with a bunch of other somewhat embarrassing comments about the dark reaches of my past when I used to be a party animal, read them an weep, I’m not deleting them, so there goes my presidential bid).

Back when we were 16 or 17, I used to do a bunch of odd and somewhat crazy things, one of my hobbies was exploring old mines all around northern Arizona and in Prescott, there was this mine call Black Jack mine (I really don’t know the name of it, that’s just what people told me it was called, but I think it was really called the Barbara Mine because the entrance looked like this picture taken 1930’s)

The mine was a literal maze that went though this mountain next to Granite Lake, a ladder that went up a couple hundred feet with side branches and an exit at the top of the mountain, tunnels that scattered off into the distance and pitfalls everywhere. It was one of my favorite places to hang out and was a sure bet to awe anyone who hadn’t seen it.

This one weekend, I gathered, Jason, another buddy Brian Mercer (I don’t know where he’s at but he can now find me by using google) and the last guys name slips my mind and dragged them out there with me. I had this 70 foot length of fire hose which I found at the dump a couple of weeks earlier and had it strung over my shoulder with a plan to use it to swing across the main shaft to some of the side passages (I still haven’t done that) I had been explore because there was a 12 or so feet gulf with lots of air underneath it.

I was such a regular at going to this mine that in reality, I hardly needed the light. I knew were all of the shafts and turns were liked the silence of the darkness which was unlike anything you could find on the surface. On this day, I had my light in my hand but wasn’t really using it, just going by feeling and the sound of my feet.

Walking along like this in the darkness, I heard this “yip” off in the distance, I almost thought I imagined it, I stopped and held up my hand for the others to stop (even before joining the military, I was using battle gestures) and there it was again. One second I was standing there and the next I was running off down the tunnel, my friends probably thought I was going crazy, I skidded to a stop in front of one of the bigger holes in the ground and shining my flashlight down, the tunnel curved so I couldn’t see the bottom from the side so I slithered down onto these railroad ties that were wedged a couple feet below the lip and at the very edge of the beam of light, almost swallowed up by the curve I could see a black shape and a smaller brown shape moving around, I leaned down almost upside down (no I’m not the brightest camper) and saw what looked to be a bear!

My friends had just caught up to me and I said, “There’s a bear down there!”

On top of that black mass (which I hoped was dead) looked to be a puppy and it was making the whining sound I had heard a couple hundred feet away. The next events seemed to happen in seconds, I tied off the fire hose and lowered myself down to the bottom and the thing I thought was a bear ended up being a large very flat dead dog. It looked like it had been there for a while and sure enough there was a puppy, I think it was a German Sheppard mix of some sort. I gave it some water from a bottle of water I had in my bag. That dog was sure happy to see me.

About this time my buddies on top started calling down and asking if I was alright and I told them I had found a live puppy at the bottom of the mine shaft and was bringing him up. My emotions were still going strong and it was strange, clamoring down a mine shaft 50 feet deep without any idea what was really down there, I didn’t feel any fear. Just a drive that I needed to save the dog (save the cheerleader, save the world type thing). I put him in my pack and worked my way out of there and we named him Lucky. My mom wouldn’t let me keep him so Charlie took him home. I’ve told the story once or twice since then but it’s mostly lived in my head.

Thinking back on that story, it’s no surprise that when I joined the Navy, I decided on being a corpsman.

Jason’s memory of the event was a little different then mine, he said the shaft was a hundred feet deep and that they lowered me, in reality, it was maybe 50. I went up and down hand over hand and came up the same way, his memories of the event were a little more twisted then mine because it was the first time he ever went there and to the uninitiated, it can be pretty spooky without the thoughts of dead bears and crazy rescues going on. The walls were crumbly granite and the wood that was holding me up was probably a century old. Crazy? Maybe. But the memory it left was worth it.

Thanks for reminding me Jason.

I've posted some very old pictures

over at my fotopage, me with long hair, glasses, jumping and climbing all over things, friends of mine doing the same sort of stuff. Oh to be young again!

Hitting P-town

I’m just about to finish off my Prescott leg of my trip. A bunch of really old friends from high school had a get together at one of the bars here Coyote Joe’s. Being the smarter older versions of ourselves, not as prone to making the same mistakes of our youth, we decided to time our get together at the beginning of happy hour.

Back in the day, I was known for being somewhat of a party animal but it’s been a while since that version of me has reared its head. Yes we have had parties at my house but in reality, its been very rare to see me drink more then 3 drinks in one sitting. I’m getting old and slow and my body doesn’t recover like it used to.

Friday night was another story. Two of my oldest friends Larry and Justin and a small collection of people who we haven’t seen in years took over the bar. Had a great night and caught up with ages of lost time and the next morning, there were a bunch of pictures on the digital camera and a deadly serious hangover that made me feel at like one of those zombies from Dawn of the Dead.

Whew, what a night, thanks for coming, those who did.

Update: Pictures that cover the entire trip are here!!!

Untold Stories of Kindness

A milblogging buddy, Combat Doc and author of the blog A Candle in the Dark, had an essay he wrote and read aired by NPR’s “This I Believe”. Now you might not think that this is a big deal but Bill Gates, David Copperfield, Tony Hawk and Albert Einstein (yes it's been around for a while) have all read pieces placed on this program.

The pieces are sharp biting and whatever their view are, honest. Ernesto’s piece is called Untold Stories of Kindness. His writing goes to show you that there is such things as an atheist in a fox hole and contrary to stereotypes, enlisted men can be intelligent and observant and maybe the path to peace isn’t a battle to be won by the government but by a change in vision of the people.

Great essay Ernesto and I'm proud to be in the same line of work as you.