Leaving for a JMRC rotation at Hohenfels later today. We'll be there for a month, then going back to Grafenwoehr for a couple weeks. It's pretty much Christmas leave after that and then we'll be in 2008. I'm not sure what kind of net access I'll have, but certainly not enough to upload pictures or anything so that'll have to wait for a while.

It's been really cold in Baumholder and Hohenfels is supposed to be worse. The forecast is looking nasty, almost freezing and rainy. They don't call it Frozenfels for nothing, I guess.

I returned from my Raven SUAV class at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama today. The Raven is a small unmanned aerial vehicle used by the US Military (and possibly others), details are on the first link for those who are interested. It's very easy and fun to fly, and my team's instructor (Ricky) was great.

It was great being back in the states, I've really been getting tired of Germany lately. The food was great, we went to: Denny's, IHOP, Arby's, Pizza Hut, Krystal, Friday's, Hooters, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and a local mexican restaurant (twice). Everybody spoke English, and the stores were open at reasonable times. I'm looking forward to my Christmas leave even more now.

Redstone was pretty cool too, it has all sorts of rockets and missile development groups including NASA. Most of our training was in the afternoon and evening. A typical day was a flight during the day and one at night. We flew pretty much every day except one, because of a tornado warning.

Raven Training Gallery

Went to the 62nd Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung in Frankfurt with Brad today. It was smaller than I imagined, with a TON of people. It was nowhere near as cool as the Geneva Motor Show and much more crowded. Still, there were some interesting cars there. On the way back, we ran into Mcdonald and Stowers in their rental car. It was having mechanical difficulties so we helped them out, ended up having it towed and taking them to the rental agency to get a replacement. We made a Mcdonald's run and got 18 cheeseburgers for 4 people, our new record. All told it took us 6 hours and we didn't get home until 20:00. For the record, the Mainz/Weisbaden area is a royal pain in the ass to navigate.

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I uploaded a batch of new photos from Iraq. They were in an unsorted folder I forgot about, until I remembered a picture of Kuwait City I took from the air. There's some good ones in there, especially the Misc and Redeployment galleries. The pictures of Kuwait City are in the Deployment gallery. Check them out: OIF 05-07 Pictures.

Went to Amsterdam with Southard and Koval this last 4-day. It was interesting, but not really that different from a big tourist city in Germany. The city center is even dirtier and smellier than Paris. The only thing that stood out was the food, which was excellent no matter where we ate. Just about everybody spoke English, it was very refreshing. You get whiffs of marijuana every now and then, and get offered cocaine and ecstasy every 5 minutes. The city has a lot of canals, more than I realized until we went there. Gallery

Knight's having a yelling contest with some girls across the track. He's probably the loudest guy in the company and he's putting them to shame, it's pretty funny.

They held a Rally over the weekend (which was a 4 day), and one of the stages was in the Baumholder Training Area, so me and some of the guys went. Gallery

Got back from Grafenwoehr this morning at about 0400. Left at 1900 and made it all the way to the road being Baumholder without breakdowns when A3 (one of our 5 Tons) blew a tire. Spent about 30 minutes trying to get it off with no luck. The Chief ended up hauling it back with his wrecker. The trip out there last month was bad, 10 hours driving in pouring rain with two breakdowns. Unloaded everything and got released at about 0700, it was a long night. Hohenfels has been postponed, don't know when. Pictures soon. Gallery

I'll be leaving tonight for Grafenwoehr for a month of gunnery. I won't be doing much different since I'm not on a tank, it'll just be more of the same in a different place. The month after we'll be at Hohenfels for our field problem. Not really looking forward to either of them, but it'll be a break from garrison which I really don't like.

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I've decided to change my blog's format from text to pictures. I have a hard time keeping it updated when I have to write something all the time. A picture with a link to my Smugmug gallery is much easier so I'll give that a try and see how it goes.

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This is an Mi-6 Hook helicopter. It's truly stunning, with a main rotor that spans 135 feet and a weight of almost 100,000 pounds. There is one bigger helicopter, the Mi-26 Halo, it weighs more but has a smaller rotor.

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I 'caught' this dead fish in the Nahe, I haven't actually been fishing here yet.