Snot

I hate colds. They're worse than the flu. When I'm really sick, I don't complaint too much and just suck it up, but with a cold it's different. I feel fine except that there's all this pressure and mucus coming out of my nose/lungs and it's just ANNOYING, and I'm such a baby about it. I've tried Emergen-C, Zicam, Coldezze, Sudafed, Advil Cold and Sinus, and just regular ibuprofin, but nothing really helps. It sucks. Food just doesn't sound good (something to do with not being able to smell I think), and I love food, another reason why colds suck. And I don't understand how I can go from only breathing out my left nostril to only breathing out my right nostril in a matter of minutes, why can 't I have both?? I've had thing dang cold for 36 hours now, it's time for it to go. Any suggestions for things I haven't tried?

Army Streamer Ceremony

Yeah!!!!! It's over!!!!!! I am very happy now. I can go back to surfing the internet and being bored at work :) The ceremonies went pretty well. We never rehearsed with the band, so for the first show, we learned that the band was louder than the narrator's microphone, so no one really heard the actual ceremony, oh well. There were also a few audiovisual glitches, but not much you can do about that. For the second show, we fixed all that and it went off flawlessly, but of course no VIPs attended that show. On Thursday we went to Fort Monroe for a third show, but I wasn't in charge of this one, the band was. It was very cool. Monroe is right on the water and they have a park with a gazebo overlooking the bay and that's where they had their show. You were supposed to bring your own chair, but I didn't know that, so Kurt, Micaela and I just walked around. Part of Fort Monroe is surrounded by an actual moat, built way back. I think like 30 years ago (just kidding). It is really neat though, I should have taken pictures. The picture up top is of the actual participants of the show. When we started making certificates for all of those involved the number got up to around 55... big production huh? Time for me to go to Hollywood.

Blonde Blog 3

You know how when you go swimming and accidentally get water up your nose it really burns. I hate that feeling (it's why I exaggerated my back pain to get out of dunker training at Ft Rucker). Anyways, so I was taking a shower the other day and somehow I got water up my nose! Not quite sure how, but it burned. I'm swearing off showers. Mari, be ready for me to be stinky when I come visit.

Generals....

What a pain in the a$$. About a month ago I got put in charge of the 232nd Army Birthday Streamer Ceremony for Fort Eustis. When I tell that to people who know what it entails, they ask me who I pissed off. The ceremony is high visibility show / production that's put on to celebrate the Army's Birthday. All high ranking Officers (Colonels and Generals) and Enlisted Soldiers (Sergeant Majors) are expected to attend ... fun. I know absolutely nothing about putting on a show and I am the least creative person I know. But I did all the planning and most everything has been coordinated. Notice I said MOST everything. The show is next week and I have all the props, but no people to perform. Kind of key, I'm going to work on that tomorrow. Also, I wasn't quite sure of how to invite the Generals and other VIPs so I waited until the last minute on that too. I guess I just assumed that the General would have the Army's Birthday on his calendar and plan on attending the event, but when I called his secretary she said she had no idea and that I should send an invitation ASAP. Oops, maybe I should have called earlier. So yesterday I figured out how to write an invitation and I sent it to the Commanding General (CG) and I sent another invitation to this other Brigadier General on post. We have two shows so I need two guest speakers to do the opening comments. The CG wrote back that he would attend and give the opening comments. What a relief, the first show was taken care of, or so I thought. Then I get another email. The General wants recommended comments from me. What the hell. He's the general who's been in for a million years and has been to every Birthday celebration for those million years and he's asking me what he should say? Um... Happy Birthday, thanks for coming, here's a cookie? I have no clue!! Please refer back to the comment where I say I am the least creative person I know. Damn Generals... more work for me to do. And I'm still waiting to hear from the other one. One more week, wish me luck.

Vacation

You would think that after spending the first 11 years of my life living near the beach, that I would be a decent sand-castle maker. Not the case. I tried and it looked more like an eyeball with a cone on top. Good thing Micaela didn't know any better. She collected a bunch of seashells and 'decorated' it until a wave came defeated us. We only spend one morning at the beach, the rest of the time we were at the pool which was pretty cool. It had a little island and three waterfalls and most of the pool was shallow enough for Micaela to touch. She didn't really make any friends at the pool, so she ended up taking swimming lessons from Kurt. Kurt believes in the sink or swim philosophy, which Micaela didn't really like, but it worked. She is still a little timid, but she can touch the bottom or swim across the deep end when we make her. After making her swim everywhere for the first two days, we took pitty on her and got her an innertube for the last day so she could just play. Overall it was a very nice vacation, but it's taken a week to recover, especially after driving 16 hours on Tuesday to get home. The 2 hour stop at the Audi dealership in Jacksonville, Fl was especially fun. One of the passenger seat's adjustable axis broke and we had to get it fixed on the way home before we out-drove our warranty. Kurt got pissed when these 3 college-aged girls came in and all of a sudden there were like 10 employees around to help them. Not much need to explain why we waited for 2 hours, and the girls were out of there in about 35 minutes. Oh well, we got it fixed.