7 Weeks

Seven weeks ago today I left VA for Iraq (Friday will be 7 weeks in country).  It was over a 3 day trip to get here...  but I made it.  That first week I think we had two or three instances when the skies opened enough to rain for about 5 minutes.  The second week we had dust storms.  This week we got another dust storm.  It showed up Monday afternoon.  It was bad!  The sky had a yellowish tint and the sun was blocked.  While standing outside, I noticed that it was more humid than it usually is here.  About 10 minutes later, it started to rain.  The only problem was that since there was so much dust in the air, it rained mud.  It was probably the grossest thing ever.  I stayed outside under a shelter, just so I could experience it.  The rain/mud only lasted about 10 minutes.  Then it stopped raining, and instantly everything was dry again!  The air is so dry that it soaked all of the moisture back up immediately.  Today the dust storm was still here and the wind was blowing really hard today.  It makes the wind feel like sandpaper.

Monday night I went to a recording of the the Colbert Report.  I was pretty excited about that.  I ended up sitting in the third row, center stage.  My favorite quote from the show was: "Hi Stephen's Mom!"  I got a few pictures and I am trying to upload them right now.  However, the internet is still moving slow.

Today is Marc and Kris's second anniversary.  Although they have been together since I was 11 years old (13 years), they have only been married for two.  They are two extremely cool people with a nice house down at the beach.  My greatest time hanging out with the two of them would probably be New Year's Eve this past year.  We all went to Mom and Dad's house and stayed up drinking and playing board games.  We had a ton of fun and walked away with a few stories also, I can't say too much about them, but I will say that one of them involved a blender, my wife, magarita mix, and whole lot of tequila.  Kris also used to send me packages all the time while I was in Korea.  She always sent cookies, Maxim magazine, and even a playboy or two (too bad I can't get those things here).

Im looking for another run to compete in.  When I got here I started training for the 5K, then my roommate talked me into the 10K.  I did that, and now I have nothing to work for.  I mean besides getting in better shape.  There is an 8.5 mile bike race the end of this month.  But I don't have a bike, and I have never thought about riding a bike that far before.  Leading up to my run, I wasn't doing as many pull-ups, and last week when I started doing them again, I could tell.  My goals for when I leave here are to run atleast one 10 mile run, and to be able to do 25 pull-ups without stopping.  Right now, the farthest that I have run at once is a 10K (6.2 miles).  And the most pull-ups I've done without stopping is 16ish.  I think I can do it.

Today I did go take a US History CLEP.  If I pass it then I only need two more classes to finish my associates degree!  Also the college that I attended last fall is compiling all of my college credits to see how many I still need for my Bachelor's degree.

That is all for now, I love and miss all of you!  Bye!