Another Day in Paradise

Just another day in paradise. Another bright sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky except for occasional smoke billowing up from a blast or fire. It is definitely cooler now. High about 106 today. I actually enjoy the later nights or early morning around sunup, it is actually cool then. Daybreak is about 0500. The sun sets about 7:15 PM. The only bad part is that you get sweaty outside, then go into an air conditioned room, then I freeze a bit. Hey, it could be worse, like no air conditioning at all.

I talked to my son, Mike this morning. It was a good conversation. He will be deployed in about a week. He will be in Al Asad area, which is maybe a few hundred miles from here. I don’t know if I will be able to get together with him while both of us are here. I will have to see what the commanders say.

The Army is doing a good job keeping us busy. I know the load is down for the troops, but they have sponsored a lot of activities. The gym sponsors a lot of sporting events in the evening. About once a month, they put on tournaments for 3 or 4 days. Things like basketball, volleyball. I joined a 12 inch soft ball team. We came in 2nd out of 9 teams, so not too bad. ( I think I was more of a help than a hinder. We will see if they ask me to play next month or not.) As you can tell by the photos, it is truly a sand lot baseball game. There is nothing but sand, rock and hard ground. You have to wear sunglasses, because when the wind blows it really gets tough to see.

I started to take a Spanish class 2 evenings a week. Interesting that I travelled 8000 miles to learn Spanish, when I never bothered at home. So far it is going pretty good. I don’t know if I will ever be able to say those “rr” words. We will see how much I retain.

Go Cubs and Bears. What a cute family. I predict a cross town world series for Chicago in October.

Tom