28 more days!!!

...no, there's definitely more than 28 days until I go on leave or go home for good. There are only 28 more days until the University of Alabama kicks off its 2010 football season. It seems that even though some people couldn't care less about some sports, you begin to take interest in even the most dull sports during a deployment. I watched a great deal of the World Cup last month and I can remember watching hockey during my last deployment. One sport that I love is college football and as I mentioned, only 28 more days! Technically it'll be 29 more days until I get to watch football due to the time difference, but who's counting?

28 more days until UA football means only 28 more days until the Air Force half-marathon. I've been training as much as possible and have been running a minimum of 5 miles at a time for the past few weeks...typically a little more than that though. My feet are finally beginning to get some good blisters and I'm hoping that I'll be well past that by race time. We learned last week that there is another race coming up in October called Mogadishu Miles, it is ran in remembrance of those who lost their lives in 1993...most people know that as the story of Black Hawk Down. Anyway, that run consists of a 50k (31 miles), 25k (15 miles), or a 5k (3.12 miles) combat run wearing "full battle rattle"...or combat gear. I have been asked to run in the 25k, but we'll have to see how the half-marathon goes first.

Tonight was a great night all the way around. A few of the "scroungers" in our line of work managed to get access to some steak, crab legs, and lobster tail...what a night! Deployments are bearable because of small victories like tonight, getting to feel like I'm at home with friends. Many of the guys like to even drink non-alcoholic beer, or "near beer" as some call it just to feel a little more normal. If any of you have seen the movie Shawshank Redemption then you'll remember when Andy Dufresne (the main character) makes an agreement with the guards and does some tax work in order that his friends can all have three beers each. Andy chose not to drink the beer, he just wanted to feel normal, if only for a few minutes.

All is well in our little slice of the world, the new leadership has done a great job at changing the morale around the office and I have come to really like them...even though I had my doubts at first. We are swamped all the time, but they actually have encouraged us to get out of the office from time to time just to clear our heads. It turns out our Chief is a bit of a rug connoisseur and has challenged us all to go buy a rug just to see what kind of deal we can get from the locals. He also dared all the guys, and girls if they so choose, to grow mustaches. Daniel was the only other guy to accept the challenge and tried this for a couple of weeks, but he cut it after enough people poked fun at him. I told him I'd shave my head instead of growing a mustache, of course he didn't have to know that I was planning on doing so anyway! Although Loni told me it better be back when I get home for Christmas, I'm really enjoying it for now.