Christmas

I hope everyone had a great holiday......how much snow has there been in the midwest? I've been watching the news out here and i must say i am a little jealous! All that snow? Are you kidding?!??! It has been getting a little cold over here (no snow though....fingers crossed!!), not as bad as there im sure but for a desert, after experiencing temps of 145 for 3 months straight it has dipped to about 40 degrees every night....kinda significant....its all relative.

So I dont remember if i told everyone that I have been on a company flag football team out here.....we had a 12-1 season record over 2 months and then came the playoffs. In two days we played in 4 games, part of a double elimination playoff. Our one loss of the regular season came against a Signal Corp company. Well, our first two games of the playoffs we won no problem but in the championship game, we were headed against the Signal Corp team again. We lost by 1 point and had to play them again 30min later (we had not lost the required 2 games to be knocked out of the tournament so we had to play them again as they had already lost a game).....we lost the second game by 2 points. So for Camp Arifjan, our team took 2nd Place. However, because we were in the top two of our Camp, we were entered into a weekend tournament to play against other Base's top two teams to lay claim to champion of Kuwait. Again, we won our first two games the very day after we took second place in the playoffs and then had to go up against the Signal Corp team AGAIN. We beat them and were on our way to the Kuwait Championship Game......however, since it was a double elimination tournament and we handed the Signal Corp their only loss of this tournament, and since they won the rest of their games, who do you think we played against for the Kuwait championship? The Signal team. Again. We lost the first game against them, again.....6-7......we could have won but our attempt for a 2-point conversion was unsuccessful......so since that was our first loss of the tournament, we had to play them again......30 min after the game we just loss......soooooooo after playing 8 games in 4 days already, we had to gear up for one more.....mind you these last 3 games had taken place during Sunday afternoon.....no big deal right? Not exactly. Let me explain......i work the night shift......so I sleep during daylight hours.....which is when we were playing....so i got off work, got two hours of sleep, played in 3 football games and then went back to work....slightly tired.....

anyway, back to the final game, the championship game for all bragging rights in Kuwait.....against the Signal Corp who we had a losing record of 3-2 against them......we started off sluggish and by halftime, they were winning 12-0. We started the second half with the ball and our quarterback threw an interception. Not looking good. But on their 2nd play, i intercepted a pass/pitch (the ball was barely a foot off the ground) and took it in for a touchdown. The game changed and from that point on, it was all us. We still had our troubles but by the end of the game, the score was 21-12, we pulled it off. Kuwait Champions. At the end of the game, the team presented me with the game ball saying I made the "Pontiac Game Changing Play", that they didnt want to play at the beginning of the second half, but that the interception sparked them to get back into it. It was a great game, and I was SORE....seriously, 9 games in 4 days......it took me a good minute to get out of my chair at work, and another minute to walk the 10 feet to the fridge to grab a water....but since we won, its a good sore. It was a lot of fun and it was awesome to hear the guys talk the whole bus ride back about how we came back and won. I'm still trying to get the photos from the game so when I do I'll send them to you all.

enough about football, im sure you all get enough of it back there already!! I ran another 5k this morning after getting off shift, Rudolph's Revenge 5k Run....I placed in the top 20 out of some 3-400 runners. Started off pretty good, felt good, was just about a hundred feet off the pace truck the first 1-2k but i plateaued and dropped a few spots the rest of the run. It was good though, got a better t-shirt with this run than the Turkey Trot (this one had a picture of Rudolph in a sled that Santa was pulling, The Turkey Trot was a polo that was basically just leftovers from a ribbon cutting ceremony for a local bank that opened....whohooo).

Got some new news......I don't remember if I had talked about some changes that are being made within my Battalion in the coming month. Well, there are some possible shifting within different sections of HHD Company. From the sound of things there will be some shifting within our shops, I have known since September that I might be moved out of S3 (Operations) where I am now and into S1 (Personnel) or S2 (Intel) or S4 (Supply) or to a line platoon that is struggling to help strengthen it and lastly, and this is something brand new as of last week......I might take over as HHD Commander. My Batallion XO (Executive Officer, 2nd in Command of my Batallion) took me aside last week and said that he wants me to think about taking the Command position starting in mid-January. Every senior ranking officer I’ve known has always told me that whenever the chance to take over a command of any kind comes up, to take it….im not going to lie im a little nervous but this is a pretty big opportunity and as one of my NCOs said to me last week “I know for a fact that there are lots of Captains in this Battalion and to have the Battalion XO ask you to consider taking this position is an honor and especially since you just pinned 1LT, it goes to show that they know you’re capable of doing a good job.” Basically I am a little excited for and worried about taking the chance at this command. It would be great for my career but at the same time I just got settled down into the position I am in currently, id hate to up and leave my section which has been a common trend over the last year for me already (being Platoon leader at my first unit for a month, then put to be XO for the next 5-6months, then shuffled to my current job for the last 7months), I keep feeling like im abandoning the people I work with every time….so im not sure how its going to go.....we'll see.

So all in all, its been yet another good month. I had a box full of gifts that i brought in to work tonight, gave them to my guys and told them to all go home, take the night off......so thats where things are right now.....scary to think that its almost 2009 and that just a year ago I had just started my military career with my first unit and was driving down to Chapel Hill, NC to visit Cathy, Mike, Nicole and the girls.

It was nice talking to everyone that I was able to call on Christmas Eve and Day.....if I didnt talk with you directly, I'm sorry.....Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is in good health and enjoyed the holidays with friends and family.

Thanksgiving and Promotion

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! How was everyone's spreads? I stayed up until 1pm to head to get some Thanksgiving lunch....which is technically my "1am" since I work the night shift....but it was good....had some turkey, potatoes, yams, ham, shrimp w/ marinara....it was delicious....

Lets see...whats happened since I last wrote....well first things first there was halloween....yes I did dress up....as a US Army Officer......there was a 5k Halloween "Fun" Run that I participated in.....the next day was of course my 24th birthday....scary to think about that.....I'm getting old!! go ahead and roll your eyes mom!


On the 9th of November I participated in a Veterans Day Duathlon (the first set of pictures) consisting of a 5k run followed by a 13k bike and finishing up with a 3k run....in total it took me an hour and eleven minutes to complete....just 4 minutes from placing/medaling.....and since i didn't train at all for it, i thought it was pretty decent finish time. The feeling I had in my legs after the 13k ride was incredibly weird....as if they were mad at me for putting them through this. Anyway, there were some snags along the way....the bike i borrowed from the Rec Center.....it was a 21 speed mountain bike that wouldn't go past 14th gear......it had a semi flat front tire AND i couldnt adjust the seat so I was chewing on my knees the whole ride....so i wasnt really able to maintain a decent speed....but it was fun....i finished it and Im thinking about doing the Triathlon in the spring.....we'll see.

I was promoted on the 26th to 1st Leuitenent....had a small ceremony with a few NCOs and Officers that I wanted present....it was good....I was promoted by LTC Powers who said the following before he pinned my new rank on me:

"The TOC (Tactical Operations Center) is the nerve center of the Batallion. Everything and anything is handled by it. Without a solid group of personnel manning the TOC, the rest of us out here would struggle. The ability to handle stress and having the knowledge to quickly and critically think issues through that arise on a day to day basis is key to the success of us all. I have only been with the unit for 5 months and when I first heard that a 2LT was going to be running the TOC, I was a little worried as it is a position held by a Captain. But since it was on the recommendation of the outgoing Batallion Commander, LTC Shun, I went with it and within the first two days we were here, I saw that it was the right decision, that he was up for the challenge, the task at hand and the right choice for the job. Today, I have the privliage to promote 2LT Nichols to 1LT, however if it was up to me, I'd pin Captain on him since he deserves it."

It was nice to hear that he had confidence in what I was doing and said so not just to me but to everyone present (my bosses, other high ranking officers etc). So now I no longer dawn the rank of a gold bar but a black bar.....and since I didnt have the pin on rank for my hat, we improvised and used a sharpie to color it in....Cpt Destremps, my Day Battle Capt counterpart, wound up and gave me a solid punch to the chest (its tradition to punch a newly promoted individual in the chest as it is where rank is displayed on our uniforms...not sure where it started....but its just one of those traditions)...problem was my dogtags hang to about that spot so when i pulled them out, they were bent, he was proud of that.....hurt just a bit too...i included a few photos from my ceremony.

So thats a peek into what i've been up to these last few weeks......hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, too bad the Lions didnt show up to play a decent football game eh? Oh well. Hope everyone's well.

Best Day Of The Year!

I hear that in most places everyone is the fall colors have been amazing....not going to lie, im a little jealous since you all get to see colors other than tan.....I even got a few leaves in the mail from various people. The weather here has been a little strange though, we had that fog I mentioned before but on top of that we had three days of 5-10 min torrential down-pours. I was working in the tent and suddenly there was this loud sound on the roof.....and the canvas started to flap to the point where we could have lifted off....crazy. But since it NEVER rains here, or so far it hadnt, I went outside to enjoy it....well i walked out the door and WHACK I got knocked in the head with hail......thats right, dime to quarter sized hail......i'm in the desert....im a little perturbed.....anyway, it was nice to see some rain and it came back every night for 3 days straight but only for about 5-10 min.....enough to make some big puddles though. It was refreshing.

October had its ups and downs but its been a good month overall and I've been in a really good place for various reasons. A lot of it has to do with starting to look into what I plan on doing for my R&R in March/April. The plan is to head to Europe. My friend Jody is hoping to fly over there to meet up with me, see some sights (Paris, Barcelona, Prague, Venice, Rome, Marsielle to name some ideas), maybe hit up a Mediteranean cruise. A lot of you are probably wondering who Jody is so for those of you who dont know, I met her back when I worked at Round Hill in Wisconsin in 2005. She and I have been emailing one another a lot lately and it came up that I was heading to Europe and we got to talking about things so now the plan is to meet up and hang out for 2 weeks. We both have pretty much the same ideas for places we'd like to see, the type of travelers we are, and since i've done a little traveling in foreign countries before, she's not worried (right Jody?), so its going to be a great time. I'm really looking forward to it.

On the 30th I ran a competitive 5k Halloween Run....it was a lot of fun....some people even dressed up in costume....a buddy of mine was Capt America....fake muscles and all....pretty funny...there was a bumble bee, male version of Zena Warrior Princess and other random costumes....all in all it was a fun time. I'm also playing on a flag football team out here....its a little hard digging into the sand during the games but we're 3-0 right now and have another game on the 2nd.

October Already??

October already huh? CRAZY! Not too much has changed since my last email. I was able to get off post for the first time since i've been here. it was a last minute thing though. I had just gotten off work and my boss was getting back from a convoy at a different base about 2 hours away and needed to be picked up. So i grabbed SSG Stewart, the mitsubishi, drew our beretta 9mm and took off....i got to drive through downtown kuwait.....ummm it was a little hairy....the speed limit is 120kph which is 72mph and since im driving in uniform i have to go the speedlimit.....and still getting passed!!! i was later told that driving during the day is not nearly as bad as night, when all the crazy lambroginis and fast cars come out and weave in and out of traffic. but it was fun to drive in country. kuwait city has some interesting structures, houses, mosqus from what i could see. passed a herd of camels.....and almost ran over a few dead ones along the way....not the usual racoons and deer like back in the states. anyway, went to Camp Buehring, picked up Cpt Anderson, eat decent Chinese food and drove back. it was a short trip, got back to Arifjan by 3pm, but still really nice to get off post and see part of kuwait.

a few days ago we had some interesting weather.....Fog! not sure exactly where it came from but two nights in a row there was a really dense fog. i was sitting outside around 11pm and watched as it rolled in over buildings and enveloped me. it was pretty cool. the ground began to look like it had rained even though it hadn't. throughout the night you couldn't see more than 100 feet in front of you.it was so thick that you could barely make out more than 4 tents away from a given location....it was 100% humidity but strangley enough it was clear during the day. 99% of the time there isnt a cloud in the sky during the day and night usually follows suit. Because of these clear night skies, you can see the moon and stars if you can find a dark place to be (tons and tons of lights keep AJ lite up pretty good)....however, the brightest things you can see are planets that come out pretty frequently.

thats pretty much all thats new here, just hitting the gym and work....ive taken a few days off since i've been here, usually sunday night so i can make it to church, go to the rec center and strum the gutiar, throw darts or play some pool.....nothing spectacular but its nice to have a little bit of time to myself. its not much, but i'll take it. life is pretty good here, hard to believe its mid-october already! it is starting to cool off (relatively speaking since its 2am and still 80 degrees outside) and the leaves are starting to change colors.....hahaha ummm joking since there arent trees out here. i did get a letter from my buddy and his wife back in eustis that included a few leaves that had changed red/orange.....pretty sweet, definately added some color to the tan that surrounds me all the time.

Sand Storms

Hey,

Wow, time sure is flying by!! Hard to believe that its been over a month since i left VA....guess when you are busy with little time for distraction thats what happens right? Since I've been working 12-13 hour days, 7 days a week, there really isnt much time left for me.....where does it go? well after work i am left with 11-12 hours of 'personel time' which is used loosely here. I get off work, change, get to the gym by around 10am....work out til about 1130am, shower and in bed by 1230pm. Sleep the daylight hours away. get up at 6-7pm for dinner chow (which is my bfast....a little weird eating dinner food when im groggy....), get back to my area to read a little, get ready for work and head in to work at 830pm....thats where the time seems to go!! So personel time.....yea kinda non-existent right now....i did get to a movie last week, saw The Mummy 3 in a small 'theater' which was just a stage with a projector screen playing the movie on the wall....but for the time, it felt like i wasnt deployed.

the last few nights have been extrememly busy because of wicked sand storms are brewed during the night keeping my convoys from moving. Why would that make me busy? Wouldn't that make my life easier if they dont have to move? Well, heres the problem, just because the convoys on the road dont move in iraq doesnt mean that convoys waiting to move in kuwait are stopped.....so basically in the infinite wisdom of the Brigade Command above me, they continue to send missions down to me for more convoys to get on the road....what this means for me on top of already coordinating for places these convoys can stay/sleep/fix their vehicles, i have to contact various units at Check Points to get convoys through. All of this causes a back log of convoys, lots of phone calls from Brigade and units wondering why/when their convoys are going to move etc.

so now that these sandstorms have passed, i've got over 600 trucks on the road hauling over 400 special (i cant tell you what im moving) vehicles, 150 containers and a bunch of misc stuff all in and around iraq. and thing is, my battalion has only tasked out 80% of our assests so its only going to get more hectic.

i was able to step outside during these sandstorms and wow was it dusty!!! obviously i've never experienced one until now and from the sound of it, they are pretty frequent (one of my monitors here is used strictly for me to keep on eye on the status of routes/roads and the visibility.....if visibility gets below a certain point, we can not keep convoys on the road because our Medical Evacuation helicopters cant fly to support them....) but the frequency of these sandstorms will only increase during the months of march-july.....yippie. Anyway, when i walked out of my tent here i could barely see 50 feet and should have been wearing some kind of goggles or something because i got BLASTED!! some women might pay tons and tons of money to get the exfoliation i got for free that night!!!

Things are going well though, i gave my Senior NCOIC the night off last night and made it through without a scratch...sort of. it was rough night with my junior enlisted not getting their jobs done on time or correctly but we're (my NCOIC and I) on getting things squared away.....oh by the way, i caved, i got a Kuwaiti cell phone and two vehicles we have for my office, a mistubishi SUV and a mazda6....sad thing is these both have 17k+ miles on them from driving in crappy weather (sand sand and more sand) on top of being able to only drive at 20kpm on post....20kph is 12mph.....so its not really a good engine....but whatever, it gets me around when i do need it.

ok, im going to get going now....hope everyone is doing well on that end.

caved, got a kuwaiti cell phone and i now drive a mazda6

Photos

Hey everyone! Here are a few pictures of me during different times over the past year. Below is a little description of what each photo is about.

Gas Chamber - Training at Fort Lewis, WA....coming out of the CS Gas Chamber

Fort Sill - (Oklahoma) Trained there last summer, me sitting against a tree after shooting on a range

Canoeing in VA - Hit up a small lake in Newport News park

150mile MS Bike Ride - Back on 31May-01Jun08 I took part in a 150 mile bike ride to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. This was taken on one of the stops as I was stretching out....yea, awesome photo opportunity

How I Got Here and What It's Like

Goodmorning Everyone,

As you all know, I am on night shift so for me, it's dark and early! At 3am, the temp gauge declares it to be 81 degrees outside....very nice! So it's been a little while since I last sent out a more detailed email, due mostly because of being out in the field (if you can call a landscape full of sand the "field") and being trained up for my job. Have you all seen the movie "The Matrix"? Well, in one scene Neo (a.k.a. Kianna Reeves) approaches a guy watching 'the matrix', basically 6 to 8 plasma screens with green letters/numbers scrolling down it. Well, imagine that scene and you get a good idea of what my desk looks like. I personally only have two 17-in monitors and a 15-in laptop but the rest of my operations area I can look around and there are three 60-in plasma screens, 8 more 17-in monitors, 10 15-in laptops....its a lot of info floating through this place!!!! Kinda like Mission Control for NASA. Anyway, the job has a lot of working parts and my staff and I are starting to grasp it pretty well. We have only been at it for 3 nights now (with our counterparts nearby just in case until they head back to the states next week) but I'm fairly confident that we'll be aright once they leave.

But lets back up a bit since I haven't really gotten into my time here between my flight and now. Surprisingly enough, the flights (all 4 of them) went by pretty quickly with barely any hitches (except each landing was a hard landing....bounced 3-4 times before the wheels finally stuck to the ground). For those of you who didn't know, my flight here was not as direct as I would have liked. We took a bus from Newport News (at 2pm) down to Norfolk Naval Airbase (which is operated by the Air Force, kinda odd i know). The bus ride was almost 2 hours, followed by a 7 hour wait. We boarded, got settled down on a 757 (250 seats for 65 Army and 100 Air Force personnel) and I ended up having the middle section, three seats to myself!!!!!! Just about everyone had at least 2 seats to themselves but there were a few of us (me being the only officer not in business class) who got three....and it was GREAT! They had movies playing (its been a LONG time since I've been on a flight that has shown one....Hawaii with the family was the last time I think)....oh and they fed us 4-5 different times and it want peanuts but full meals!! See, our flight pattern, as I mentioned before was a little....odd....from Norfolk, VA we headed up the coast to Quebec, Canada. Thats right, NORTH. After an hour at the airport, sitting on the plane as it refueled, we were on our way....to Iceland. What!??! Iceland? Yea, figure that one out. Anyway, we had another hour to refuel there (again not let off the plane). From there we took off for Budapest, Hungary...where we FINALLY were able to get off....after nearly 14 hours of being on the plane. We were only allowed to stay in the airport but that was good enough for me. Got a little suvenoir, did some people watching (there are some good looking people in Europe, very fit people too), man I am excited to be stationed in Italy, and got back on the plane for the final leg. We landed in country and were immediately shuffled into a bus with it's shades drawn....it was 11pm over a day later.

After a 2 hour drive to Camp Buehring, we downloaded our weapons into our Arms Room and got our initial briefings. Finally, at 4am we were released back to the bus to sleep until chow....at 0530. Got little sleep, ate some food and finished our inprocessing. We were then suttled to our base and were allowed to drop our gear. From there, we went to CIF (Central Issuing Facility) where we got issued even more equipment, the newest, latest and greatest in body armor, helmets everything! I got a duffel bag and a giant rucksack (backpack) full of new gear to go with the rest of my stuff. From there, we headed back to our base to put our body armor together and get some sleep before we went to the range the next day.Wake up was 0300 for the bus ride to Udairi Range where we got a more in-depth instruction on convoys and CQM (Close Quarters Marksman). We spent three days here and it was a great way to climatize because it was BLAZING HOT!! I spent the first night out in the sand with a few others who decided to brave the night (there are lots of animals that come out in the desert when it cools down, scorpions, wild dogs, Big Bird....you get the idea) and now I can say that i've slept under the stars in a desert! Take that Survivorman!!

Once we got back from the range, I finally got to see the place I will be staying in for the next year. It's a big open bay with 3 wall lockers per person. Because of this many lockers, we are able to arrange them so people have some privacy. Most of the junior enlisted share their 'space' with another soldier (everyone has a bunkbed to themselves) but as an officer and the fact that most officers are working odd hours, we have our own area. I've got wall lockers on either side of my bed and I used the second bunkbed to block the area towards the middle of the room with a sheet for a door....its cozy. Home away from home. I'll send some pictures when I get the chance. Anyway, we live in what's called a PCB or Partially Constructed Building. Its not really 'Partially' constructed, its got a roof and air conditioning, its just called this because we (USA) promised Kuwait that when we left here, we wouldn't leave any signs that we had been there.....except for all the concrete we've poured in the middle of a desert....yea.

The base is broken down into 7 zones, I live and work in Zone 6. There is a gym, dining facility, Rec Hall, PX (post exchange...mini walmart), even a little bizzar to buy little gifts. Everything is within walking distance....for me....the footprint that I basically stay in isn't much bigger that Gonzaga's campus so just about everything I need is within a 5 min walk. I have had to go to different Zones (had to get my second Anthrax shot at the hospital in Zone 1) and for that there is a bus system. There is a red-line that runs clockwise around post, blue-line runs counter-clockwise and the Express which I've never been on because it never stops. The speed limit on post in most areas is 20kph which throws me off, until I was told how to convert it and now I understand...20kph = 12mph. All you do is multiply kph by 6 and drop the zero (20x6=120=12). Simple. So as odd as it sounds that 12mph is the speed limit, it is.

So, as I'm sure you all know, in the desert, sand is EVERYWHERE and when I was on the range in Udairi, there weren't any showers so for three days of being outside, my face was extremely gritty. All around base there are latrines/bathrooms/showerhouses. Now, there are three different kinds of latrines here on post. The first is a regular port-a-john with little amenities (toilet paper when you're lucky, a mirror and some hand sanitizer), the second is what's called a Hot Box. A Hot Box is an elevated little building with two stalls, two sinks and running water. The catch is this: next to each toilet seat there is a trash can. But this is no ordinary trash can. See, these Hot Boxes, although they have running water, do not take to toilet paper very well. Because of this, the remedy is to wipe yourself and drop the TP into the trash can. This trash can does not have a lid so its a little crude. Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why is it this latrine is called a Hot Box." Well, good news, I have an answer for that. It's called a Hot Box because under the 130+ degree sun, it gets REALLY hot inside, thus Hot Box. The issue with this, besides the obvious that you can fry your brain in there if you stay in too long is this; remember those trash cans with used TP in them? Well, the substance on that TP plus extreme heat don't really mix very well so needless to say, during the day if you get a good trade wind coming towards you, it can get a little nasty!!

Ok, on to newer and more pleasant things.....I am starting to settle down here, still learning the job, absorbing as much of it as I can before my counterpart leaves. It might not seem like much of a big deal to everyone back home but it's already been nearly 2 weeks since I left, thats crazy! Time has gone by pretty quick so far and from what it looks like its only going to pick up over the next 11.5 months!! i'll be back in no time! I would take pictures of my work area but i'll have to find a good time to do that, we deal with a lot of Secret/Classified information and because of that, only certain people are even allowed in my tent area so if I am to take a picture, i'll have to turn off the computer screens and make sure maps that are on the walls can't be seen. Right now we are in what is considered a cloth sided tent. Inside we do have wood flooring and our desks are made up of 2x4s and plywood but honestly its kinda nice because there is no need for caution with them. We got phone numbers posted in permanent marker all over them, notes and documents stapled all over them, it works just fine for us. However it sounds like we're may be getting a new building that should be built by November....a little more permanent than what we got now.Ok, I just scrolled up and realized just how long this email has gotten so I will leave you alone so you can get back to work, school, sleep, dinner (or making dinner), or whatever else you were doing. Hope all is well on the homefront.

Holding down the fort on this side of the world

Boots on Ground

Greetings from Kuwait!

Just a quick update (i'll write more later when I have more time)....i arrived last week safely, went through a few days of training (Close Quarters Marksmanship, Convoy Training, M16 Range etc) and now am in the process of learning my job (which is where I'm at right now). I am working the night shift (9pm-9am) and for those of you who are wondering, the time differences are as follows (My timezone is ahead of your timezone by the listed hours):

East Coast: 7 hours

Midwest: 8 hours

West Coast: 10 hours

To keep it simple, most of you are waking up when I am going to bed. As for the weather here, its a little warm....but I'm pretty much adjusted to it. During the night it tapers off to a cool 93 degrees as compared to the 123 degrees during the day. There are NO CLOUDS in the sky at all so the only relief from the sun is shade but that really doesnt do much except drop the temp maybe 10 degrees.

As for my living conditions, its not bad, I will add pictures later along with a more details about my first week out here. Things are going well out here, I'm really looking forward to working here for the next year....hard to imagine that a week has already gone by!! 51 more to go!!!! Anyways, just wanted to let you all know that I got here safe.