Room for Rent

Well, I'm pretty much done. And will probably have little net access soon as I have to move out of my current palacial abode in favor of tent city. No, I have no clue when I'm actually leaving, and if I did, I couldn't say. Basically, it's time to re-enact living in Kuwait. Sleep a lot, read some, watch a movie, play some computer games, repeat. So yeah, if you don't hear from me for a while, I'm probably not blown up, I just have no readily available net access.

TeddY2K out!

The Votes are In

and the results are unanimous. Teddy has been elected to all 275 parliamentary seats in Iraq!!! The crowd goes wild!!! Okay, I can't back that up, and the votes won't be counted for about three weeks. And I'm pretty sure I wasn't an option on the ballot. However, the elections did apparently go well today as I have seen in the news, and I no doubt would have known if something was wrong as I was at an important IP station near a polling site most of the day. With traffic restricted, people had to walk to vote, and it was very good to see hundreds of people on the street, men and women alike, some with their children. I saw one family walking down a road and their daughter who couldn't have been more than about 2 or 3 was happily waving a holographic Iraqi flag. I did hear the mortar that landed near the green zone this morning that apparently slightly injured one marine, and two contractors, but as far as I've been able to ascertain, those were the only injuries of the day. Right as the polls were closing (voting was extended an hour due to high turnout!), I thought we were going to "get it" as I heard more gunfire than I've heard all year and it seemed to be moving towards us. Turned out to be Iraqi Army celebrating of course. They still haven't figured out that what goes up must come down. I did read that 46 people were treated at Baghdad hospitals for falling bullet related injuries after the soccer victory the other evening. Speaking of gravity and bullets, two nights ago while pulling in to our home FOB, we saw tracer fire in the distance, far enough away that I couldn't hear the shots. Then they turned our way, and passed over me about 100-200 feet in the air and the tracers burned out right over me, which probably means they landed somewhere inside the FOB. I still don't know who was shooting.

As to Dad's question, once the TOA occurs, pretty much all that's left to do is get on the bird and fly out as at that point, all equipment will already have been signed over, training completed, etc. And for Chad, yes, I do know some of the guys returning home with that unit, as some of them were in my unit that got split up.

Happy election day, everyone! TeddY2K out!

In Addition

I realized I forgot to answer some questions from the comment section. I apparently have an advisor, but they were named via snail mail that went home, so, I don't currently have the name off the top of my head, and I did pick the classes myself online.

What do I want for x-mas? Heck, coming home safe is fine with me too! People have sent me enough care package stuff throughout the year, so I really don't feel like asking for anything!

Perhaps he could smooth the path for a Knox alum; I shall have to look in to that.

No calculus. He he he. Sadly, I have not taken a math class since High School being as I scored a 5 (thank you Mr. P!!!) on the AP Calc exam and that got me calculus credit, and Knox didn't require any beyond that. That is not to say, however, that I did not use math in college. I used it quite a bit in chemistry, biochemistry, and physics. And a little bit in that worthless computer science class I took where the teacher said everyone was cheating, and gave 17 people F's, and tried to take me to the honor board. Oddly enough, for some reason my case never came up. I think it was becaues it was the last one she tried to send in and the school had realized she was "cracked" at that point. However, perhaps calculus would be a good thing to go back and take a refresher on if I can fit it in to my schedule. :-)

Motorcycle course. Yes, yes. I want to get a bike. I am caving in to the current "cool" trend. Plus, for just travelling around during good weather, they get decent mileage. Boo to ridiculous fuel costs.

TeddY2K out!

Change of Pace

So, I realize that a lot of my posts have been not very military or Iraq oriented. This has occured for several reasons. One, not wanting to say too much for opsec reasons, and also two, because I pretty much do the same stuff all the time, not all that much that happens here is of particular interest to me, hence I don't feel motivated to post about it. Which is good in a way, of course, being as that means that I'm not reporting horrific tragedies every time I turn around. Although, frankly, I wish I did have more I could say about over here that woudln't just turn into political ramblings or some such. Anywho, there was a slight event of note last night, although I did not witness it personally.

Okay, so, while I was sitting on the computer last night, our current platoon sergeant came in to use the computer as well and told me that all kinds of calls were coming in about people taking fire and fire-fights and such. Ironically, he had an amused look on his face. Unclear as to why such a situation would be considered amusing, I got out a mangled "what!?!" He went on to explain, that apparently Iraq stomped Syria in some "Southwest Asia Cup" soccer game or some such, so celebratory fire was running rampant, much like when the Iraqi team was doing well in the Olympics last year (I have heard stories of how the whole sky would be lit up with tracers and body-armor and helmets were worn around the clock due to the number of rounds falling out of the sky). Not 2 minutes later, he got a call on his cell phone from some of the guys down in the trailers saying they had just gotten video of "the biggest fire-fight we've ever seen!" He then took the wind out of their sales by explaining to the caller the situation as he had just explained it to me. I'm sure the video is still probably pretty cool though.

Okay, that's all I've got. TeddY2K out!

Back to School

Well, I managed to get registered for classes over the internet today. Isn't technology wonderful? There were a few classes I wanted I was unable to obtain due to lack of pre-requisites (one of which I think I actually have) or classes being restricted to majors only, but I may be able to remedy that when I get home. Currently, I am signed up for:

History 239: History Of American Foreign Relations (3 c.h.)
Information Tech 168: Structured Problem Solving Using The Computer (4 c.h.)
Politics and Government 101: Citizens And Governance (3 c.h.)
Military Science 102: Introduction To Leadership:Teamwork (1 c.h.)
Health Sciences 176: Introduction To Motorcycle Safety (1 c.h.)

for a total of 12 c.h. which I think meets the cutoff for full-time. I may be able to fit another real class in there if I can get a waiver for a pre-req or some such. I may also stick in a weight training or other fitness class for another credit hour. I wanted to take microbiology as well, but it's at the same time as the history class, and I want to take a bit of a step away from science this next term and check out those other options. Trying to decide if I want to do second bachelor's, or grad school, or go straight to work. Possible actual jobs, molecular biology, epidemiology, or state dept. or intelligence agency work. So many options... time to start figuring!

That's it for today. TeddY2K out!