What Time Is It?

Welcome once again to the latest installment of my continuing adventures. Like my last post I am once again waiting for a ride that will take me to Benazir Bhutto International Airport for a flight; this time to Oxnard, Ca. Taken in conjunction with just getting back on Monday from my 10 day trip to Jacksonville, Fl and staying up too late that last couple nights playing Lexulous and Mob Wars on Facebook (I knew joining that thing was going to be a bad idea) my body basically does not know where it is. I'm sure by time I land in LAX at 1 AM local time my brain will be completely short circuited. The good news is that after this trip I will have earned about 40,000 frequent flier miles (one silver lining). But I am getting ahead of myself. I still haven't told you about the last trip.

I left at 4 AM (which is when I leave tonight, or this morning or whatever). Apparently all the flights out of here heading to the States leave dark and early in the morning (somewhere between 2:30 and 4 AM) just like all the flights form the States to here leave around 10 PM. I have to say going to the States seems to suck less than the flight coming to Pakistan, and not just because of the destination. We go over this some in aviation physiology, but I can't recall the exact rational. Basically though the fact that we get to the States during the day seems to make adjusting easier than getting to Pakistan in the early morning. I think sleeping on the plane going east sets you up better and no matter what you are going to be tired when you land so landing in the evening places you closer to the local time to sleep as well.

Here is a tip for those of you that might be flying internationally in the near future. If you have the ability and/or option to get upgraded to business class, DO IT!!!! As far as I can tell there really isn't a first class, so business class is up front where all the good times are. If there is a first class I have to see it just to find out how it could get better. First when you check in you get to go to a different line which is always faster. Then you go to the lounge where they have comfy chairs and drinks (sometimes of the adult variety depending on the country) and snacks and computer access and so on and so on. The seats are huge. The flight attendant gives you a menu so you can place your meal order (yes they actually serve meals - plural) before you take off and they start serving you almost right after flight. On the Boeing 777 the seats can lay completely flat so if you sleep on your side or your stomach like I do you can actually fall asleep. If you don't feel like sleeping they have fully interactive foldout screens (not those dinky ones in the back or the headrest in front of you) with like 100 movies to choose from. After you land they take you to the terminal in a separate bus (the planes almost always park away from the terminal and you get bussed in) and again get to go to a wonderful lounge while one of the airline people clear you passport and get your next boarding pass. I tell you it is the only way to fly. Granted this was all on Qatar Airways, but I flew Emerits to Bahrain in January and it was pretty nice as well. The only bad part is when you have to make that last leg (or first if you are coming this way) on the American carrier. The American version of business is not the same and you are back with the unwashed masses for that flight. For those of you wondering, no the government does not pay for me to fly in business. It pays for the standard economy class and I pay the difference, which is not necessarily cheap, but I figure it's not like I can really spend it on anything else here and it is so worth it.

The one thing that kind of bugged me during this trip was that at Doha, Qatar before you can go to the lovely lounge I had to go through security again. This in and of itself is not that big a deal. What irked me was I had crammed everything into a carry on bag so I wouldn't have to deal with checking anything and getting it lost. When I sent my bag through the x-ray machine I had all my toiletries in it. I had all the miniature sizes and in they were in the clear zip top bag, but I also had a small set of fingernail clippers and two Mach 3 razors. For some reason the security guards felt that this was a safety concern and told me I would either have to check the bag or get rid of the items. I tossed them rather than check the bag. For next hour I tried to figure out how in the world I could possibly take over the airplane with a set of fingernail clippers and 2 Mach 3 razors and I have to say I couldn't come up with anything plausible (and I have a rather active imagination in this area - don't ask).

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind security. I think it is a great thing and absolutely necessary. What I have a problem with is the appearance of security; security for the sake of having security. It's like some of the checkpoints here. The police or guards just wave you through without even looking at you. I've seen them stop a car and be talking to the driver like they are concerned about them and another car just pulls around and drives through (like impatient people can't possibly be terrorists). Lets just say I try to keep my own guard up even after I pass a check point.

Back to the trip, I had a one night layover in DC so I got to hang out with my buddies ET, Nicole S. and Becca M. Here are a pictures to properly embarrass Nicole.

Nicole doesn't like taking pictures.

The meeting in Jacksonville was largely uninteresting. Two days of work crammed into four. I won't bore you with the details. The good part though was getting to see all the guys and gals from the gaggle in Pensacola who are now stationed there. It was great to see you all and I hope you had fun. I know I did.

The P'Cola Gaggle does like taking pictures.

I mentioned my trip to Bahrain earlier and I have not forgotten that I still owe you pictures from that trip. My plan was to bring the disposable camera I got in Bahrain and get the film developed while I was there in Jacksonville and scan them to my computer when I got back. Unfortunately that plan was gooned up by Walmart. I went in on Tuesday to drop the film off at the counter that proudly displays "One Hour Processing". When I told the lady behind the counter that I wanted to get the pictures developed the first thing she tells me is they don't do one hour photos anymore. This should have been a HUGE flag, but I was there and I had a few days to spare and she told me they would be ready on Friday. I didn't leave until Saturday, I thought to myself (more on this later) so it's no big deal. I'll just come back a get them. Friday afternoon comes and I roll in to get the pictures and the nice guy behind the counter says they don't have them and if I turned them in on Tuesday they won't be ready until Monday. Needless to say (but I will anyway) I was a tad bit miffed. I was having a very hard time expressing my displeasure while remaining civil to the guy.

I understand that the guy I was talking to now was not the lady who apparently lied to me and it wasn't his fault she didn't know what she was talking about. I really don't like yelling at the wrong folks but this kind of this really bugs me. Maybe I'm getting old and cantankerous, but it doesn't seem that hard to me. Tell me what you can do and what you can't. Give me the information and I will make the decision that works best for me and everything will be good. Granted I could have taken the camera to CVS or Ritz or anywhere else, but based on the information I was given by someone who should have known it should have worked (huff, huff, huff ... ok clam down). Anyway the net result is I had to leave Jacksonville without the pictures and my good friend Katie L. will have to mail them out to me. Hopefully they will get to me in the next couple weeks, depending on the mail.

You may recall I said I was thinking I was to fly out on Saturday. Well that is indeed what I thought and with that thought in mind I went to the airport Saturday afternoon, turned in my rental car and walked up to the check in counter. Unfortunately that is about as far as I got. I put in my confirmation number and the screen comes back at me that it can't find my reservation. I re-enter the confirmation number thinking maybe I fat figured something. Same result. I'm starting to get a bit concerned, looking at my paperwork when I notice the date in the upper corner of the screen behind the itinerary I am holding. It says Saturday 14 February 2009. The date on my itinerary said Sunday 15 February 2009. That's right I was there on the wrong date. Fortunately I was there early rather than late, missing my flight, but it was a bit embarrassing. The worse (and funniest) part was the next day I went to have lunch with a Katie and Jen T. when my friends Scott and Gena P., who I had just dinner with the night before and had said goodbye to and who thought I had already left, pulled up next to me at a traffic light. The puzzled look on Gena's face was classic even if it was at my expense.

Overall it was a fun trip. I hope this trip will be just as good. I am particularly looking forward to coming down to San Diego on Friday and Saturday. For you SD crowd, let the games begin. And for everyone remember to be good. If you can't be good, be good at it.

On The Road Again

Howdy do all. I'm so glad you could join me again for another adventure. As I write this I am actually getting ready to start a new leg. This one will take me all the way back to the States. I am waiting for the driver to pick me up to take me to the airport where I will enjoy about 18 to 20 hours in the air as I fly to Jacksonville, Fl through Doha, Qatar, then an overnight layover in DC then down to Jacksonville, Fl for a Program Management Review for the P-3 Orion aircraft the Pakistan Navy is getting from us. I'm just happy I get to come back to the States after only being here for a month, even if it is for work, only one week and I have to come back. It's better than many people here. Also, it will be nice to see all my friends who are living in JAX again.

In addition to the trip this week I am going to Oxnard, Ca or another PMR the last week in February, this time for the Harpoon Missiles they are buying from us. The cool thing on this trip is I will get to slide down to San Diego for Friday and Saturday nights and see some friends in the SoCal area. The bad thing about these trips is it takes about three to four days to get your circadian rhythm adjusted for a trip of this length. So just about the time I get used to being back in the States it will be time to come back to Pakistan. Then when I get used to being here again I roll to the States again and then it's back here. I figure by the end of the month my body is going to think it on Mars or something.

Yes I've actually been here a month. It has actually gone by very quickly. We have a couple things to mark the days since they all seem to run together. Monday is blue shirt day. Thursday is "Man Love Thursday" were everyone wears a pink shirt. Today, Saturday, is "Aloha Saturday" where, as you can probably guess, we wear Hawaiian shirts. The days seem to drag by but the next thing you know it's time to break out the Hawaiian shirt again. The other cool thing about the weekend is while we still have to come to work, we at least get to wear jeans. We have a couple other things to mark the time as well. Sundays we try to go to the auditorium they have here at the embassy and we play a movie; things like that. With all the traveling it will probably make this month go just as fast as January.

I still have not gone and done any sight seeing here in Islamabad, but I did get to do a couple flights in our C-12 the last couple weeks. So far I have been to Karachi and Kabul, Afghanistan. Unfortunately I have not left the airport, but it does get me out of the office for the day. Actually it seems kind of far to go for lunch, but it gets boring eating at the same place all the time. Now while I have not been able to stop and doing any sight seeing, I have done some drive by stuff. Presented here are some pictures for your amusement. Please for give me if some of the pictures are a bit blurry.

The Supreme Court Building.

The Prime Minister Secretariat (I think).

Flying over the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

From the ramp at Kabul. Not a whole bunch to see.

This statue was at the airport at Kabul.

Well it's time to finish packing and get ready to go to the airport. I am really looking forward to seeing several of you soon. For the rest of you please know you are in my thoughts. Until next time, remember if you can't be good, be good at it.

Turing To The Dark Side

Welcome back and greetings from Islamabad. Regretably this will probably be another short post. Things have continued to settle in. I have received all my personal property, which is nice because the cable is not working yet. It is supposed to be functional, but such is not the case. Fortunately I brought my movies so I have something to put on the TV. It was rather quiet here by myself. When I first got here there were a couple of others in the house as well (the guy I was releaving and another dude from the office). Since then they have both moved out (one to go back home and the other to a different house). So I am in this big house by myself. I don't mind too much (since I do have my movies) but since we are not supposed to drive by ourselves I have to coordinate rides to work all the time. The powers that be have decided to re-arrange the housing situation which is kind of annoying. They are giving me an assistant in the office and he gets here on the 1st and was supposed to move in here. This was going to be advantages since we would probably be on similar schedules so rides would work and he was actually born here in Pakistan so having him in the house could help with other issues if the arrive. Under the new plan though he will move in with someone else because they don't want two guys from the same shop in the same house and I will get some Army dude. I hope he is cool. Otherwise this could get old.

I have finally given in and turned to the dark side. I have resisted and resited but I just couldn't take it any more. I have finally joined Facebook. As a general principle I find all the social networking sights to be evil. I'm not exactly sure why; it's just an irrasional avertion I guess. I don't like those supermarket club things either. Perhaps it's the hermit in me. I just don't think that everyone necessarily needs to know everything about you all the time. There are just too many of my friends that are on it. I've already had the pleasure of IMing a couple of them and considering how bad I am at e-mailing maybe I will do a better job of staying in touch on a personal level this way. So if you have not already been invited to be a freind on the network it's because I didn't find you and you are cordialy invited to look me up. The big thing for me is going to be making sure I don't waist too much time on it.

The other big news (aside from selling my soul to the internet) is that I will be coming back to the States for a couple visits in February. I go to Jacksonville, Fl the second week and Oxnard, Ca the last week. The bad thing is that I will be coming back here in between the trips and my internal clock is going to he all screwed up after going, literally around the world twice in three weeks. I look forward to seeing all of you that live in those areas. Hopefully I will be able to make it down to San Diego for the weekend after Oxnard. I will be in touch with the details as I get closer.

Well that is about all for me for the moment. I know I still owe you the pictures of Bahrain and I am going to try to take some of Islamabad here soon. It's just that work takes up a lot of the day. I will try to get those to you as soon as I can. Until then feel free to look me up on Facebook and be good. If you can't be good, then be good at it.

Home Sweet Home

Assalamu alaikum (which means "Peace be unto you" in Urdu) and welcome back to my rousing adventures. Well I am slowly getting setled in. As I mentioned in my last post I managed to get here without my baggage, but I managed to get that squared away in a couple days. The only thing left was the couple boxes I shipped with some clothes. After talking to the Personal Property guys they said I could wait a few weeks for them to get a customs waiver or I could go down to the airport and talk to the customs guys in person and get it in that day. As you might expect I chose the latter. The only problem was I would have to drive to the airport.

I mentioned a bit in my last post about the strange situation that is driving in Islamabad. I haven't done too much driving myself; I have been a passanger more times than not, but I have seen a few strange things. I was going back to the airport here to fill out some paperwork so I could get the few boxes I shipped out here and there was a bit of a back up due to a traffic light being out. We were in the righ turn lane (which crosses traffic since they drive on the left side of the road here) and amid the trucks and cars was a flat bed cart being pulled by a donkey. Another morning we were going down one of the roads in town and there was a couple guys leading a camel. I've also seen horses and cows on the road. And just today I was again going to the airport, this time to fly myself, and I saw, and I'm not kidding, a guy walking a small bear. Not a shaggy dog, but a bear. I don't know where he got it but there it was. But as odd as the menagery on the road can be it is nothing compared to the people driving. The guy I releaved here said he got a call from the States from a friend who said he was feeling very low and considering suicide so he called a suicide prevention hotline. The call got out-sourced to Pakistan. When the guy told the operator he felt suicidal they got really excited and asked if he could drive a truck. It's kind of like a strage game of "Frogger". Pedestrians refuse to walk on the sidewalk (which they do actually have in places) and instead insit on walking in the streets, or worse, crossing the street right as you are coming. They will step into the road right in front of you without considering looking first. It's amazing to me that there aren't more people run over then there are. Traffic lanes here are strickly advisory in nature. Drivers often don't bother to even pick a lane and instead use them all. And if there is enough room for a car to fit it becomes a lane. We joke you have to be able to use all four lanes of a two lane road to drive. The Pakistanis are also very big proponents of car pooling You will regularly see 6-8 people in a car or a family of five on a motorcycle (dad driving, a kid on the handle bars in front, a kid behind dad, mom behind that kid sitting side-saddle and holding the baby). On the same trip as the bear sighting I saw a bus filled to over-flowing (literally). There were about 25 school kids riding on top of the bus. Personally I always wanted to ride home from school like that but they kept telling me to keep my arms and legs inside the bus. It would actually be quite impressive if they weren't trying desperately to either run you over or get run over themselves. On second thought it is less like Frogger and more like Burnout.

As I mentioned before, I got in country on the 1st and it took me about sumer and the weather was actually very nice. One thing about being a Gulf State two days to get my internal clock ajusted, so you can imagine that the last thing I really wanted to do was to take another trip. Regretably they didn't ask me and instead scheduled talks between Naval Central Command and the Pakistan Navy on the 9th in the Kindom of Bahrain. It was actually a nice trip (aside from the 6 am flight there and the 12 am flight back). Bahrain is a very small country on the Arabian Gulf and can get very hot in the summer. Fortunately it was not is that they have a good deal of oil and are by and large a very rich country. As a result they have some great building project and some wonderful architecture. Unfortunately, I suck and failed to bring my camera (I should have it sew to my sleave like a pair of mittens). I did get a disposable camera and take some pictures, but have not been able to get them developed. Hopefully I will have them for the next post.

Well that is all for the moment. Sorry there isn't more, but what can I say, there isn't much going on. Perhaps things will get more interesting (in a good way) soon. Until then, be good, and if you can't be good, be good at it.

Happy New Year!!!

Greetings from the “Land Of The Pure” which is what Pakistan means, in case you didn’t know. It’s been an interesting week or so since my last post. As you may recall, I was supposed to fly out the day after Christmas. I was all packed up and ready to go. I put my car in the storage facility and rolled to the airport. My dad drops me off, I walking to the terminal, up to the desk and tell the nice person behind the counter I am going to Islamabad with Chicago as my first stop. He comes bake to me saying probably not. For those of you who weren’t looking at the weather report for Chicago, they had a nasty ice storm on the 25th and were still crawling out from under that and were further going to be beset with fog in the evening. So I called my military travel folks and they told me that with the delays through Chicago there was no way I was going to make any of my connecting flights and the next available flight was on Tuesday the 30th. The good news thus was I got to spend a few more days in America with the folks. The bad news was I had to get a hold of the folks in Pakistan and explain why I was not going to make it. It wasn’t too big a deal since no matter how cool I am I still can’t control the weather and they understood this. The only big deal actually was that when I forwarded my new itinerary I misspelled “delayed” and the program I was using didn’t have a spell check function. The folks here found it great fun in ribbing me for this when I got here; but I am jumping ahead.

The flight, when I finally did get going, was not too bad considering I was flying half way around the world. My new itinerary allowed me to by-pass Chicago and head straight to Dullas International Airport in DC where I proceeded to have a 6 hour layover. Then there was the 13 hour flight to Dubai which is in the United Arab Emirates. I was all the way in the back which for anyone who has flown across an ocean knows is where they put all the families with small children. It actually was not too bad. I had a window seat with no one in the seat next to me, and the kids didn’t scream too much (and I got to see Wall-E three times and read most of “Odd Hours” by Dean Koontz). I was supposed to have a couple hours before flying on to Islamabad, but the plane was 40 minutes late in landing. Also, you don’t get off the plane directly into the terminal in Dubai; they bus you what seemed like a mile to the terminal. This of course took just this side of forever. Next you have to go through security again to get to the ticket counter to get your boarding pass (assuming you can find the ticket counter). The end result was that when I got to the ticket counter there only 40 minutes until the flight was supposed to take off and apparently they close boarding before that time. The guy behind the counter was very helpful in talking with his counterparts to basically hold the plane so I could get on it (he even escorted me to the gate to make sure I got there), but there was no way that my luggage was going to make it. One of the benefits of working at the embassy is that they send an “Expediter” to the airport to help you by-pass the lines at customs and get out more quickly. When I got off the plane and found the nice man holding a list with my name on it I told him that my luggage didn’t make it on to the flight and his response was, “That’s not good” which of course filled me with confidence. Ultimately I arrived in Islamabad three days later on the 1st (the other nice thing about the flight was celebrating the New Year on a plane over the Arabian Gulf) at 2 in the morning with only my coat and carry-on bag in which I had some shirts, but no underwear or socks (a tactical blunder I do not plan on repeating). It only took me two days for the rest of my bags to make it.

I am starting to get settled in. The house I’m in is nice, but there are issues with the hot water and the cable isn’t working. Also, Pakistan is having a serious shortfall in power production resulting in routine power outages. Fortunately we have a generator that kicks on automatically when the power fails. The city itself is interesting for lack of a better word. If you’ve been in a third world country before you would recognize the trash alongside the roads, the buildings that should be torn down except there are still people living there and the general brown tone that permeates everything. It’s kind of strange to see a four lane divided highway with both modern cars and donkey driven carts. It is a city living both in the 18th and 20th century (I wouldn’t say the 21st century).

Regrettably I have not been able to get out and see much of the city. All I have seen has been during the rides to work and the trip back to the airport to get my luggage and unfortunately due to force protection issues I don’t know if/when I will be able to go see anything resembling a sight. Some of you have told me you wanted me to take pictures of the house and car I am using to see the great digs I have here, but again due to force protection issues the powers that be do not want me to do this (and I kind of have to listen to them although I can tell you it is a Toyota Camry). Obviously my first concern is being safe and I do not want to jeopardize my or my roommate’s security by posting something the bad guys can use. Hopefully things will calm down here enough to be able to do at least structured excursions. I will be sure to pass along anything I get to do.

That pretty much brings you up to speed with me. I am still trying to get my internal clock reset to this new time zone (as you can see from the cool clock to the right the States are 10 – 13 hours behind Pakistan). As always, I look forward o any comments you may like to post or if you prefer you can shoot me an e-mail; it remains the same as when I was in the States. Until next time be sure to be good, and if you can’t be good, be good at it.

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.

The Black Hole

Greetings all from the lovely town of Winchester, Va. As you may have noticed this is not the location I mentioned in my last post. Yes, it all got chanced again. So I am here and the class is cool so far. However, my computer still has an issue with the screen and so I can't use my own computer. I am writing this on the public computer in the lobby of the hotel. This post is just to let you know where I am and while it might seem like it I have not been sucked into a black hole. I will put out a more in depth post next Sunday when I get to my folks place. Have a great week and be good, or at least good at it.