New Songs, Baby Wipes and So Cute!

Some of my favorite lines in a recent e-mail from Josh...

"I found this song on itunes - it is on O.A.R.'s new album. The song is called War Song and it is a serious song about places like this godforsaken hellhole, but the first line makes me laugh so hard, b/c it is so true. It is... OH MY GOD, TELL ME THIS WON'T LAST FOREVER. haha Isn't that what I said? I told everyone about it and now I just randomly sing it out. I should write songs. haha.

"I am going to bed. I cleaned my room today. It was so dirty. I even mopped with baby wipes. haha.

"Just to let you know that these sixty something year old women KBR workers stopped me in one of the many chow halls I have been in the last 48 hours and said we just have to tell you, you are so cute. What a bunch of nutties. haha."

And for the seventh time . . .

. . . It's the 5th of the month! Which means Josh has been in Afghanistan... you guessed it... 7 months OR 214 days!! Stay safe Josh, you are close to coming home! xoxoxo

Tuesday, November 4th

Please remember to vote!

I ran to my polling place this morning. Literally! I laced up my shoes and ran the 1 mile to the Methodist Church. It was my first time voting in person. The last election, I had just re-united with Josh after he finished up his Basic/AIT Training, so I voted absentee. I was yelled at for going through the wrong door (Shame on me!). I mean the whole one other person that was there voting, I can see where they would have gotten us confused. Voter #60 at 6:30 this morning. I voted!

You have to love Google's creativity! (Thanks, Diane for sharing this!)

Baci In Action

So, I was in the gym, there was an incident and I had to get ready fast and be on the truck yesterday. I am wearing my vest but underneath is my sweaty pt shirt. haha. Normally I would have on my ACU top or ACU combat t-shirt. I did not have time to fix my helmet and it got all askew in the hubbub. You can't tell because my vest is kind of covering it, but my pants are falling down-even with wearing my pt shorts inderneath because I had no time for a belt. haha. Notice the unlaced boots with shoelaces hanging all about. I just look like such a Gomer Pile. haha. Sgt. Gridley thought was the best part for some reason-the shoelaces. The whole thing turned a serious evening into something funny. haha.

Another Hour Apart

With daylight savings time ending, Josh is now 9 and 1/2 hours ahead of us. Eventhough we are both in the same location, it really does feel like he is further away.

Checked out the weather for Kabul... The sun sets over there just before 4:30 in the afternoon! At first I didn't think twice about that since it will be like that for us in another month or so, but then I realized not many of the Afghan people have electricity. Daylight is their source of light. Right now, the daytime highs are in the upper 60s and lowers 70s. It gets down into the low 40s overnight. In looking at the month of November, by the end of the month, the highs will be in the low 50s and below freezing overnight.

Uncle Josh's Little Ghosts and Ghouls

Happy Halloween!!

I thought I would share pictures of all the nieces and nephews from Halloween. Enjoy!

We'll start with the newest (youngest to oldest)...

TJ and Ella sported some cute halloween themed outfits during the day. TJ's reads "Daddy's Little Monster" and Ella's reads "I love my Mummy!" Gotta love TJ's hair!

Takoda was a pumpkin, or a Pooped Pumpkin as Grandma said. Apparently, he was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day!

Check out his teeth!!

Francesca carving her pumpkin... ah the wonder of the pumpkin guts!

Aarrrrrrrrrgh! One scary pirate!

Rah, rah, rah! Go USA! I think Cassie picked this just for Uncle Josh!

Cassie wasn't really good at posing for the camera, so we had to get some "action" shots.




Jonathan has been promoted!!! A few years ago Dominic wore this costume and Jonthan was the dalmation puppy!





Go, go power rangers! Dominic, are you smiling? :-)

Ready for more... off to Auburn!

Hailey must have been moooooooooooovin' and groovin' for Halloween. Hopefully, I'll post a picture here soon.

"Running with My Boo!"

This past weekend, I traveled down to Virginia to cheer on Jennifer in her 26.2 mile journey - the Marine Corp Marathon.

I made several signs for the race, in particular this one.

And they're off... this is the lead group at Mile 1! (Somewhere in that group is an alum from SUNY Cortland who placed 2nd among the men!! Go Fred!)




I had the pleasure of running portions of the race with Jen. I linked up with her shortly after mile 11 and ran around Hains Point to Mile 15 with her. While she ran the 5 miles to Mile 20, I walked a block over and reunited with her for another 6 mile run to the 26 flag. She did an amazing job - one of the most consistently paced runs I have ever seen and she reached her goal of breaking 5 hours, with a 4:54:42 finish! Way to go, Jen!!

When It Rains, It Pours

From Josh... "It did something that it has not done since April here - in any measureable amount - it rained. I mean pitch poured. You couldn't leave the b-hut or you would be instantly soaked. I forgot how much I hate when it rains here because it makes everything smell so much worse and it seems to stay damp forever. It finally dried out this afternoon. It is back to being sunny today, but I think it is only making it into the 60s. It does not get light until 530 which is a big deal because it used to get light at 400 and now it is dark by 530 at night. We wont change time so come Saturday, we will be 9 1/2 hours ahead of you all. So excited that there is only 2 more days in Oct. This month took forever. We are all afraid that Nov. will be long too."

There was a bombing today in Afghanistan too. As Josh said, Afghans killing Afghans, but he wrote to let us know he is fine.

The Four Letter S-Word

Anyone want to take a guess... SNOW! It has started to arrive in Afghanistan, just along the mountains, but it is coming. Josh writes, "There is snow on the mountains again. Every night it snows a little bit, enough to coat the top of the mountains, but by mid morning all the snow is gone. It still gets to warm up there during the day." Of course, Afghanistan isn't the only place that is seeing snow. We are actually in the forecast for a light, light coating (possibly) overnight. I guess what is most exciting about this is that we have returned to the Fall/Winter here in NY, and Josh left when there was snow on the ground... so we are approaching his return.

Josh is away right now on a mission/job, though he is stationed at another FOB, not moving around the country. They do not have internet connections for each of the soldiers, but there is a computer station where he waits in line to write. Things are going well for the most part. He has some evening duties, so he is adjusting his sleep schedule accordingly. He has been visiting the gym each day as well. Which according to some people, they thought he needed it... Josh writes, "This guy from this other platoon who is with us here at Phoenix said the other day that I must have taken up running and biking in the gym because I was getting heavy before the deployment. Was I getting fat before we left?? I did not thinks so; I mean I carried a little more weight before we left, but I do not think I was heavy. Do you? Be honest." NO, Josh, not at all!

I missed the monthly posting for the 19th of the month. Hopefully, if all goes as planned, three months from now, Josh will be home, safe and sound. We have not heard anything on a return date. Everyone is hearing something different. The replacements are supposed to arrive late next month, but we are not sure how long it will take for him to leave Afghanistan. Of course, the route back is long and complicated and he won't come directly home. The will "demob" somewhere in the US, possibly Ft. Bragg or possibly elsewhere (anything closer would be better)! My 19th of the month treat was a sports massage following the marathon. It worked it's magic.

Traveling Through Salang Pass

This is an e-mail that Josh sent to Barry School this week. It is a pretty good update of what he has been up to.

"Hope you all do not mind my messages, but every once in awhile our battle rhythm is slow...I try to keep busy during the down time by going to the gym, watching movies or AFN-American Forces Network but the treadmill gets old and I get tired of the chuckleheads in there. How many times can you really watch Wedding Crashers and as far as AFN goes I have seen the same Kristie Alley made for TV movie where she goes crazy and keeps foster kids locked in her basement four times since being here. I seriously think AFN is a subsidiary of Lifetime Television. I am really not a fan of Lifetime to begin with, so AFN is kind of a drag. So, I pass the time and get my kicks out of sending e-mail to folks to pass the time. Lucky you guys. haha. Feel free to delete on receipt. I will never know. haha.

"So last week was a really big week for a geek like me. haha. Our platoon is at times tasked, in addition to our other duties, to conduct long range convoy operations. We have been all over. I have been as far east as Jalalabad, as far south as Helmand and Khandhar-a couple of times. Last week, we were tasked with a long range to go to Konduz which is about as far north as you can go in Afghanistan before hitting all the other "Stans". What was great about this trip is we were going to get to go through the famed Salang pass which goes through the Hindu Kush mountains. Kabul is a little over a mile high. The top of the pass reaches just about 11,000 feet. It is a slow and steep climb. Lots of switchbacks and sheer drop offs. At the top of the pass is a 4KM long tunnel that is barely two lanes wide. It has no lights and no ventilation. It was built by the Soviets during their time here. Awesome. Good ol' 24 was a champ climbing the mountain pass. However, I noticed several Soviet tanks were not so lucky as we saw several of them at the bottom of canyons hundreds of feet below us. After seeing these, the platoon sgt. would follow up each time by telling me, "Now, Baci remember I have kids." I mean I was not planning to ruin anyone's day. The tunnel was wild. Due to the lack of any ventilation, smog just hung in the air. When we would pass another large vehicle, the truck would scrape the walls and the other truck b/c it was so narrow. In the middle of the tunnel, you reach the apex of the pass and then start the descent down the other side. More switchbacks and sheer drop offs, more reminders about children back home. When we got to the bottom of the pass, we conducted a tactical refueling drill which is really a fancy way of saying "watch Josh run around as fast as he can with huge fuel cans full of diesel fuel and put as much fuel in the truck as he can before the Lt. decides we have been stopped long enough". As I was refueling, I looked up at the gunner in our truck. His face was completely black from all the smog in the tunnel. What a trip-literally.

"For some reason there was an unusual amount of livestock in the road on this trip and it kind of became a running joke. We almost hit a goat, a sheep, and a camel. You think a deer does serious front end damage. I can not imagine what a camel would do-but there he/she was just running across the road in front of us, and they say an eleven thousand pound vehicle can't stop on a dime. haha. It was great to see the Hindu Kush mountains and go through the Salang Pass after reading and hearing so much about it.

"My other big nerd moment came over the weekend. I grew up literally "Inside the Beltway". My Dad worked for the government. Members of Congress and Senators lived in my suburban town-not the Obama, Clinton, or McCain kind-just average 9-5 congressman and senators. I even profited from it. I had a little lawn mowing business when I was in junior high and I would tool my little mower all around the neighborhood cutting lawns and word of mouth got me a job mowing a senator's lawn. I thought this was so cool. I mean he could have had a huge lawn business cut his lawn but he had this gangly kid cut it with his Craftsman mower. haha. In reality, I think he was too cheap to hire a big lawn mowing business but he was my best paying customer-a whole twenty bucks. Woohoo. Extra cheese on the pizza tonight! Politics was just a part of life. So, when they asked people who would be interested in meeting with a group of NY congressman and woman I was game, plus it got me out of some work. Don't judge. haha. Anyway, one of them was our Congressional Representative-Michael Arcuri. When they asked for people who were willing to meet with them, it really meant that they needed you to pose for pictures, but I didn't care. There was one congresswoman from Nevada in the group and she got up in the turret behind a gun and started swinging it around wildly and posing for pictures. She kind of made everyone a little nervous. haha. This is the link to one of the pictures and articles written about the event. http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/arng/27bct/newsletter/keepingtabs_37.pdf
The others in the pictures are other guys in my unit. As you are looking at the picture, the man directly to my left is SFC. Adams, my platoon sgt. He is the guy I am driving around all the time and warns me about his kids. haha. The vehicle in the background is a Cougar. If you could see the whole grill-you would say yeah that does look like a Cougar. I don't drive that, but it is a new vehicle-so we pulled it out to impress the good congressmen/woman. I think a more effective display would have been to put my patched up truck out there. haha.

"It has gotten a lot cooler here over the last week. I finally had to put away my PT shorts/short sleeve PT shirts and break out my Army issued high speed PT jogging suit. haha. It still reaches the high 60s/low70s but the mornings and the late afternoons/early evenings are really cool. For obvious reasons, the b-huts are non-smoking. I am a non-smoker but 95% of the personnel in my platoon are smokers and lots of socializing in our downtime for our platoon goes on in the smoke shack-a small open air pavillion structure-just outside of our b-hut. So now I am finding I have to bundle up pretty good at night if I am going to stay up on current events in our platoon, unit, and on the FOB. There is more gossip in this place than a junior high cafeteria-no lie.

"Hope you guys are all doing well.. It is almost the weekend! That really doesn't mean anything to me, but the upside to that is that Monday is never a downer. haha. Have a good one. Josh"