Brussel Sprouts & Belgium Waffles

I haven't either of them since I've been here. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to even tell you what a brussel sprout is. Probably something green and not very tasty. For those who aren't up to speed, I've been in Brussels, Belgium for almost a month now. I wasn't really looking forward to coming to a large detachment and I had a lot of reservations about the place. It's not quite as bad as I had expected and I've had a lot of fun in the few short weeks I've been here. Here's a pic from Thursday night karaoke.

That's me and my boy, Jake, belting out our rendition of Jeremy by Pearl Jam. :) If anyone out there was every considering visiting me while I was stationed overseas, this would be the place to do it! Just give me a month's notice so I can ask off. As far as time off goes, I don't nearly have as much time off here as I have had at my previous posts. Which is really ashame considering all the places there are to go around here. They keep us pretty busy around here. I guess the upside is that it'll probably make the next 8 months go by faster.

And then I'll be home! Fuck yeah! I'm pretty stoked at the thought of it. Lots of things I have to figure out by then...what kind of truck am I going to get? Should I go to NCTC for my AA or just go back to UNT? What kind of living arrangements will I end up making in Denton? I don't have answers for any of these questions but I'm sure they'll sort themselves out the closer to September that I get.

Happy Belated Birthday Blog

A lot has happened so I'm just going to hit y'all with some bullets.

• This blog turned 2 as of Oct 18th, sorry I've neglected you lately.
• I turned a quarter of a century years old last Monday.
• I got a new camera for my birthday so I will try to upload a pic or two soon.
• My trip home was great, it was awesome to see everyone. I wish I could have stayed longer. And if I didn't get to see you, let me know and we'll try to work something out next time I come home!
• I reached my 200 lbs. goal. (That's a good thing) I'm going to see if I can get 210-215 by year's end.
• I still don't know when I'm leaving Cuba for good. And it's possible I might lose my slot in Switzerland and end up going somewhere else when I do leave here. Hopefully that won't happen though.
• I have less than a year left in the Marine Corps. This time next year I will be Civilian Compton.
• Therefore, I am now taking applications if anyone is interested in getting an apartment with me for Fall 2007. Must want to live in or near Denton, TX and able to keep the place tidy.
• I'm going to run a half marathon next month. I don't know how the hell I'm going to run 13.1 miles.

I think that just about covers anything going on recently. I'll try not to go so long without any updates. Compton out.

The New Word

As I sit here sippin' a cup of coffee, I thought it would be a good time to get around to fillin' y'all in on what's been going on. And a lot has been going, let me tell yah. I should probably drink coffee more often, it really gets me fired up to write something. I could get pretty long winded here but I'll try to keep it concise.

In the past month the thing that I think was the most exciting was that I finally got Lasik done! I've had glasses since the third grade so this is something I've wanted to do ever since I first heard of the surgery. I had it done at the Key-Whitman Eye Center in Dallas by Dr. Whitman himself. It was freakin awesome! I could see 20/20 the day of the surgery. I was just amazed by the whole process. It was completely painless and Dr. Whitman did an absolutely astounding job. There's an interesting story that goes along with that too, if you see me ask me about it and I'll tell it to you. It's a bit long to put here.

I primarily went home for two weddings though, and both of those were great. Again, I just wanted to throw out a congrats to Alex and Katie, and Cyrus and Lisa. I got the surgery inbetween the two weddings and also floated the Guadalupe river with a bunch of folks. Here's a pic of me and my bro floating down the river. Note the fashionable goggles I am sporting. hehe, I had the eye surgery 2 days before going to the river and I couldn't get my eyes wet. Not being one to back out after putting so much into planning the trip this was the alternative I came up with. Probably not the smartest thing to do in the world, but it all turned out ok. No harm, no foul right?


Every now and then I would hear someone shout out "Hey Goggles" throughout the day, which always made me chuckle. We even caught a Robert Earl Keen concert on the tail end of the trip. I'm looking forward to the next time I can take another trip like that. My time in Texas seemed way too short and it reminds me of how much I really miss it.

Coming back to Cuba, everything is pretty much just like I left and it's back to business as usual. I can no longer talk on here about ANYTHING work related though because of possible reprisals from my superiors. So if you want to know what's going on in Cuba you're going to have to ask me about it in private.

So that's the low down on what's been going on. I have other rants and thoughts but I'll save those for another time so I can keep the posts flowing. To finish this post off I have a favor to ask you. After you finish reading this leave me a shout out in the comments. I'm curious to see who and how many still read the site. Thanks.

Update Hell

The updates haven't exactly been frequent but I'm not going to put the site to rest any time soon. It's a little frustrating trying to update it at times. The internet at home is so slow it makes me want to pull my hair out. And the computers at work don't play nice with Blogger. I also fear some kind of eminent disaster looms in the bowels of Google's machinery and my site might slip away into oblivion. I need to get this site off their Blogger servers and onto something else. If anyone has a good recommendation as to where I could migrate the site to get ahold of me and let me know.

Also, here's a little pic goodness from that Chilifest concert I went to a month ago. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the land of capitalism and can't wait to go back again this summer. :)


My primary reason for going home this summer is so I can go to two of my best friend's, Alex and Cyrus, weddings. I've missed just about everyone else's weddings up to this point because of where I've been stationed. But not this time dammit. So I'll get to be home for a little over two weeks from June 23rd to July 10th. Somewhere in there I'm planning a trip to go float the Guadalupe River too, so if any of y'all are going to be home and want to go hit me up!

Wake Up Call

There's nothing quite like being woken up at 0300 hours by the ring of a gunshot coming from your neighbors backyard domestic dispute. Especially when you have to be at work at 0500 hours. I hate getting woken up early before work, couldn't they have been more considerate and used a silencer or a pillow or something? Geez...

Anyways, it's been real busy around here this month which you can probably attribute the lack of updates to. Everyone and their dog took some vacation days this month so the days off have been far and few between. And the ones we do get off we end up getting tasked with some menial chore. However my turn is almost here. I'll be home at the end of this month to go to Chilifest with some friends. I can't wait, it's going to kick ass! And if any of y'all want to go too, we currently have a car full but you're more than welcome to caravan or meet us down there.


I'm coming back to Cuba on April 5th and then it's going to be a long two weeks as we get ready for our semi-annual inspections here. Sometimes they're painless and sometimes it's a long process but either way, getting ready for them is a pain in the ass. And on a sidenote my ankle is almost better. The ligaments/tendons are still messed up but at least I got the cast off a few weeks ago and I can walk on it. I only had to wear it for 3 weeks but it sucked. One of the guys here took some pictures of my foot before the cast was put. He left his camera in the states though. So whenever he gets that mailed back to him I'll try to get the pictures and post them.