Random Thoughts and Pictures

There has not been much going on here lately so for this post I've ransacked my camera for some of the more interesting pictures that I've taken since I've been here that haven't made the cut for the other posts. I hope you enjoy. This is actually a more recent picture. Shantel's mom had sent some water balloons in a package and instead of using them as water balloons, we blew them up and used them as targets for a quick reaction shooting contest that we had. As you can see the balloons were fairly small and were difficult to blow up, but American ingeniuty triumphed once again as we quickly discovered that the canned air that we use to keep our computers dust free would quickly inflate the balloons and not leave us panting for air. Of course I won the shooting contest, did anyone have to ask????
My interpreter took this picture the other day as we were wandering through the Headquarters and Service Company area. We came across an improntu stickball game that I joined in on. The Iraqis weren't squaring up to the plate and had a wide open stance similiar to what Jose Oquendo used to do for those of you who can remember him. I put my clipboard down to represent home plate and squared up like you see here and the pitcher immediately moved to the right because he was afraid I'd hit him after I hit the rock. It took me a minute to convice him to stand where he is standing. I then preceded to rip off some line drives almost to the building in the background before I reverted to my normal.....swing......and a miss.
This is not a picture taken with a fancy filter on the lens. It was taken with the same camera as all of the other photos I have posted. There just happened to be a dust storm going on. We've had several of these lately but I think this was the worst one I have seen. We were in the gym working out during one and the wind was blowing the sand through the seams of the prefab Morton style building.
The above two photos are of a Marine MV-22 Osprey as it takes off from the Ar Ramadi Helipad. The flight path takes it right over our house. So far I haven't flown in one of these just the CH-47 Chinook and the CH-46 Sea Knight (a smaller Marine version of the Chinook), but my boss has and he says it is a pretty interesting ride as they come in for a landing and the sudden change in motion as the rotors tilt to switch from forward flight to hover mode.

Well that's all for this post. I hope everyone enjoys.