Vicksburg 2008

I travelled to Vicksburg, Mississippi for the Columbus Day '96. Since it's been a decade since my first visit to Vicksburg, I did a familiarization drive on the morning of the first day. I hiked the 12-mile auto tour on the morning of the second day. Vicksburg is most remarkable for its terrain. It was certainly ideally suited for defense and luring Grant's army into a siege. The Confederate defender, General Pemberton, underestimated Grant's determination to finally subdue this city. The pic above and below show some of the trenches still marking the battlefield's landscape. At one point, you come up to the Confederate line and the Union line and the distance between them is the length of my arm.






























General Grant watching over the battlefield from his Headquarters.













This is not one of the more famous Confederate Generals, but I liked the statue for its uniqueness. Most generals are posed on their horses. One horse leg off the ground indicates an injury, both legs off the ground indicates they died in battle. This general died shortly after the battle had concluded.





The final two pics are taken at a site called the Windsor Ruins. It's about 20 miles north of Vicksburg, off the Natchez Trace and is truly in the middle of nowhere. I would have given up if I wasn't so determined to see this in person. The house burned shortly after its completion in 1863, but from walking the site and viewing drawings, this was a remarkable southern plantation home. Eerily, only the columns stand in the middle of a heavily wooded area.

You Gotta Laugh. . .

Back from Newport

I had a fabulous time in Newport, Rhode Island last week. The weather was a bit on the cool side, but it felt wonderful. The one obvious fact I noticed was that the people of Newport take pride in their town and their homes. The pic to the left is one of the industrial age mansions owned by the Vanderbilts called "The Breakers". There is a series of mansions that line Bellevue Avenue and parallel the coast. Six or seven of them are now owned by a preservation society and have opened them for tours. Unfortunately, I was not able to tour one due to time constraints.

I was able to get a couple of runs in while I was out there. This pic was taken on the "Cliff Walk", a path carved out of the hillside on the coast. The scenery was so nice and the weather so cool that I was actually able to run for a full hour with another LtCol who was also there for the conference. Normally, I'm pretty selective with who I run with due to my slow pace, but I enjoyed the company and felt I did a pretty good job keeping up.

Last, but not least, is a pic of the town and coastline looking into the Narragansett Bay.

The Naval War College is in Newport, Rhode Island and a select number of Marine officers get to attend Command and Staff college there. Like Expeditionary Warfare School was required for the grade of Captain (in order to get promoted anyway), Command and Staff is required for all Majors. Applications are due in October for one of four possible resident schools I can attend. Wish me luck for Newport!

Mums--Round Two

Hummingbirds and Hibiscus

I thought everyone would enjoy watching some hummingbird antics at my feeder. If you turn up the sound you can hear their wings and chirps. The clip is a little over 3 minutes in duration.

The hibiscus I bought is doing well and has bloomed since coming home. There's another bloom that's forming but I don't know if it will open in time to complement the first.

Bracing for Hurricane Gustav

Today has been a busy day--it started yesterday evening after work with hurricane preparations. Upon waking this morning, I started outside and identified everything that might become a projectile in the garage and stored some of my heavier potted plants on the side of the house that is usually out of the wind. Hurricanes tend to ignore wind patterns. Am I doing anything special? Not really. Just trying to find high, dry places for some of my valuables (i.e. porcelain cats, quilts, framed art, and my Persian rugs) just in case it floods. I may be naive, but flooding is what I most anticipate. So much for my freshly painted walls!

DoD service members in the NOLA area were given mandatory evac orders to begin on 0800 30 Aug, so the cats and I will be hitting the road tomorrow. There's still a chance that Gustav won't make landfall in LA, but I shouldn't have to return until Wed morning at the earliest.

More to follow. . . .

Modern Day Cattle Drive to Fort Worth

I spent the weekend in Fort Worth because I had some training to do at the Reserve Center there. Luckily, my training was only a couple of hours, so I spent Saturday afternoon at the Fort Worth Stockyards. Below is a pic of the main street:

This is a pic of the cattle drive that they do daily down Exchange Street:

That evening I watched some Professional Bull Riding with a friend from the deployment. Overall, it was a good time. For those interested, below is the link to Oklahoma's Stockyard City:

http://www.stockyardscity.org/index.html

Hummingbirds

This is a pic of the Bottlebrush tree I planted back in June. This is the second time it has bloomed and it has succesfully attracted the hummingbirds. It appears they still prefer the feeder I have hanging from my patio, but I've seen a couple check out the tree today.

San Diego '08

Hello, Everyone! Just returned from San Diego and wanted to let everyone know my trip went well. . . .after I got there anyway. . . .the flight out on Monday was a catastrophe. After waiting for 3 hours only to have it cancelled, I didn't get out of New Orleans until 6 pm which put me in Cali at 11 pm (1 am, my time). And then there was the incident in which I dropped my strawberry limeade in my lap in the truck on the way to the airport. . . .oh, and my baggage was "delayed" and I was lucky I listened to that premonition telling me to pack my uniform into a carry-on! Anyway, below are some pics (You can enlarge by clicking on each picture):

View from my hotel room

Pics from Balboa Park:

A Tiny Tiger in its Natural Habitat

My New Lawn

The front of my house no longer looks like a desert!

Join Pickens Plan!

T. Boone has asked me to reach out to friends and family in order to get more people to sign up for the Pickens Plan. This is a movement I believe in and would like to succeed. Take a look at his website and join me in the groups "Oklahomans for Energy Independence" and "Sooners for Pickens Plan"!


Find more videos like this on PickensPlan

The Blink Count: Round 1

Goodbye, Pelosi!

Nancy Pelosi, the worst Speaker of the House EVER, is up for re-election. Dana Walsh, a conservative, has entered the race in an attempt to break Pelosi's ultra-liberal stranglehold in Congress. The race will be an interesting one because Ms. Walsh is also competing against Cindy Sheehan, the notorious and most vocal anti-war, anti-Bush liberal activist. She will be running as an independent, being disenchanted with the Democratic Party in not endorsing her extreme ideaology. I invite all to take a look at Ms. Walsh's website and contribute, if possible in order to send Pelosi into retirement. The link is located under the "Links" menu on the right.

1 of 3 Milestones Reached

A couple of days ago I moved into one of the tents at the Arrival/Departure Aircraft Cargo Group (A/DACG). Yes, we were forced to move into the tents at the A/DACG earlier than most units do because our relief sent more people on their first wave than we're sending out on ours. So, to make a long story short, our unit has already vacated the cans to allow them to start moving in and getting settled.

Because I'm living communally now, I'm not getting any sleep. Some foreign lady arrived two nights ago and has been having a love affair with the light switch. She arrived at around 0400 in the morning and promptly turned on all the lights in the tent because, as I came to find out, she had no flashlight. It was really quite humorous, she went through three iterations of turning on the light while another Marine got up and turned them back off because she kept leaving the tent with the lights on. So, I got involved when she turned the lights back on for the third time and gave her my headlamp to use. I assumed that she would buy her own during the day. . . . . Nope, she came and went all night last night, turning the lights on every time she came back into the tent. And at one point I had to get up and turn them off, and as I did so I saw that she was crawling into her sleeping bag! Meaning, she was obviously not in need of the lights anymore! So, I told her this morning that if she's going to stay any longer, she needs to buy herself a flashlight and stop turning the lights on while others are trying to sleep. So, I can only wait to see what happens tonight.

Life on Mars

The eerie orange glow is not from a faulty camera or operator error, but from the fact we were sitting in the midst of a dust cloud that did not dissipate for several hours.

Snow in Iraq

Everyone,
You'll have to push the "play" button twice--when you see "Buffering" in the top left corner, you'll know it's loading. It will take about 5 minutes for it to load then play. Enjoy!