Happy Holidays

Greetings to all. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Quanza and a Happening Festivous. As I write this post I am preparing for the family Christmas and trying to get the last bit of admin done for my flight to Pakistan on the 26th (I hope the weather gets better in Chicago before I role back through there enroute).

So where was I. Dismissing the last post which was just a place holder to let you all know I hadn't fallen asleep and to make sure my rabid fans didn't chastise me again for taking too long between posts, the last place I was was hanging out in DC. I want to send a shout out to ET, as well as my friends Nicole S. and Becca M., two wonderful and beautiful ladies, for making my last night in DC so much fun. Regrettably I had to leave for Winchester and thus missed out on what I hope was a spirited Friday night.

I arrived in Winchester for my class for anti-terrorism and personal security on the 12th because the class started on Saturday. Fortunately there weren't any college football games that weekend so I didn't have to miss anything. The class started off with some general information about terrorist organizations and how they operate. The afternoon was pretty cool though because we worked on looking out for vehicle surveillance when we are driving around. What they did was drive us all in three vans from our hotel to the hospital in town a couple times with a few cars trailing us. Our job was to try to identify the cars that were tailing us and identify where, if they were bad guys, would they try to set up an attack. It was kind of amazing the number of cars that either look alike and thus could be following you or could be "suspicious" driving around. We had a lot of "ghosts", people that were not a threat, but we did find the three cars that where playing. It also gave me a nice driving tour of Winchester.

The second day was devoted to shooting, and we were fortunate in that, though it was somewhat cold, there was no rain because the training was going to happen either way. It was fun getting to shoot the 9mm again. I've always liked to shoot ever since I was on the pistol team for my ROTC unit in college. We got to do some basic target practice, some tactical shooting and some different shooting courses. I was ok; not the best, but by no means the worst. I was rather surprised the number of folks that would have had a problem shooting the side of a building, particularly since they were almost exclusively Army. I don't know why, but I figured they shot more than that. I also got to do a familiarisation shoot with an assault shotgun, an AR-15 and a Romanian knock-off of an AK-47. It was lost of fun putting rounds down range. The testosterone was really kicking in by the end of the day.

We did a couple more days focusing on international and domestic terrorism; who they were, what they wanted, why they did it, what their differences were. Then we got the real meat of the class, the driving. They took us out to a race track there in Winchester called Summit Point Raceway. There they gave us some instruction in the class about accident avoidance and vehicle performance, but then they took us out to the track. We got to spend the day doing threshold breaking (trying to use maximum breaking without locking up the breaks), skid avoidance, cornering, and taking the proper line both when you can use the whole road and when you have to stay in one lane like in traffic. Basically they had us drive around the track as fast as we could (I got it up to 97 mph on the long straight away). The second day focused on tactical driving; what would you do if somebody attacked you while you were driving. We got to drive around at high speed in reverse, learned J-turns (that's where you drive backwards, throw the steering over, slap it into drive and speed away the other direction), how to ram through a car barricade, and PIT maneuvers (where you hit the other car in the rear side and make them spin out - this is one you see on COPS a lot). In the end we drove around while they did simulated attacks. My two scenarios were them trying to come up along side and shoot me and trying to block me in at an intersection. The "bad guys" got a couple paintballs shots off, but I think I would have made it. One thing about this course is it tended to make me a bit paranoid. I kept seeing people following me. Though as they say, "Just because your paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

Now when I heard I was going to Winchester I figured home of Winchester Firearms (now U.S. Repeating Arms Company. Inc) but they are actually out of New Haven, Ct. What Winchester, Va is actually know for (by those who know I guess) is apples. White House Foods (which among other things makes applesauce) is based out of there. So guess what the symbol of the city is; you guessed it, an apple. And just like Dothan, Al they have their festival (the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival, which I unfortunately missed) and have erected large fiberglass apples around the city. I actually cheated some this time and downloaded a map so I could find them. I was annoyed to find that most of them were not where they were supposed to be. I don't know if they were moved or destroyed, but presented for you now are the apples I could find of the apple parade.

The other big thing going on in the family is my brother John and his wife Katie gave birth (well I guess she was the only one physically doing it) to a bouncing baby boy (by the way the hospitals don't like it when you actually try to bounce them) Ryan, whom my brother has dubbed his Royal Highness, the Midget King. Don't try to understand it, he is on a roll. I am just happy that these extra few classes kept me in country a few more weeks so I could see the munchkin before I left.

So I'm back home spending time with the folks for the last few days before I get on a plane. I managed to knock out my Christmas shopping quickly this year (we decided to just draw names which dramatically cut down of the shopping list) so I took an afternoon to visit the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History located on the campus of OU. It's something I had been wanted to do for a while (ever since it finally opened up a few years after I graduated). When I was at OU the museum was out of a really small building across from the dorms. Most people didn't even know it existed, and it certainly was not large enough for all the items it had sitting in some warehouse somewhere. Below are a couple of items I thought were neat.

A Saurophangax skeleton. Supposedly these guys were bigger and badder than T-Rex. They are also the State Fossil of Oklahoma. I didn't even know we had one of those.

Proof of the proclamation; just in case you didn't believe me.

A Triceratops (I think). It's in the record books as being the largest complete skull in the world.

A mammoth. Note the festive Santa hat.

Some other dinosaur. Again note the festive Santa Hat. Just kind of gets you in the holiday spirit right?

That is about all for now. The next time we talk I will be on the other side of the world. I hope each of you had a great year, are enjoying the Holidays with the ones you love and have nothing but the best in the new year to come. Please keep in touch. I always enjoy the comments and e-mails you all send. Until next time; if you can't be good, be good at it.