I'm going to be busy for the rest of the week.

(PS for you military folk, the two stars on my good conduct medal were broken off by my seat belt! One of the grooms men wasn't able to get all of his medals mounted so we decided to only wear our top 3.)

Excuse the lack of blogging this week

I'm busy doing other very important things. Hope you all understand, will update soon:)

Very soon to be Mrs Dustman

pictures by Sean

Way cool videos from Armor Geddon

Neil Prakash of Armor Geddon has posted some great tanker videos from Iraq, as a person who has made a music video or two, his womp on mine. Kevin, maybe I should get a Mac.

Emotional support from the Best Man

My best man Larry just emailed me this.....

Sweet, stressin buddy? Well you shouldn’t b.....OH MY GOD
YOUR GETTING MARRIED, ONE VAGINA FOR THE
REST OF YOUR LIFE OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT
ARE YOU GOING TO DO IM STARTING TO
HYPERVENTILATE THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN ALL
AROUND ME MY WORLD IS TURNING UPSIDE DOWN
I'VE GOT ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE MY YOUTH
IS FADING AWAY WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GOING
TO DO OH JESUS HELP US THE END IS NEAR I CANT
BREATHE WHAT IF SHE CHANGES HER MIND AND
LEAVES ME STANDING ON THE ALTER WHAT IF I
CANT SPEAK WHAT IF MY EX GIRLFRIENDS SHOW
UP TO KILL ME OR CUT OFF MY PENIS WHAT IF
MY MOM OBJECTS WHAT IF HER MOM OBJECTS
WHAT IF LARRY ACTS LIKE A DRUNKEN ASSHOLE
WHAT IF I'M A DRUNKEN ASSHOLE OH SWEET JESUS
HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME IM SUFFOCATING I CAN'T
BREATHE I CAN'T SEE I'M BLIND OH GOD GOD HAS
STRUCK ME BLIND CAN I BE FAITHFUL ARE WE GOING
TO HAVE CHILDREN WHAT IF I CAN'T GET AN ERECTION
WHAT IF SHE ONLY LOVE ME FOR MY PENIS OH NO OH
NO OH NO WHAT IF THERE A TSUNAMI AND SHE CANT
SWIM BUT I CAN BUT SHE PULLING ME DOWN OH GOD
HELP DOES SHE LIKE DOGS IM A DOG PERSON I HATE
CATS THEY STING WITH LITTLE TUFTS OF POO
CLINGING TO THERE ANUSES WHAT IF SHE WANTS TO
DANCE I CANT DANCE HOW ARE WE GOING TO LIVE IN
A WICKED WORLD SUCH AS THIS OUR LOVE SO PURE
IN AN EVIL LAND OF TEMPTATION AND WICKEDNESS
OH SHOULD I SHAVE OR HAVE A LITTLE GOATEE ACTION
IF I HAVE THE GOATEE ACTION WILL SHE STILL LOVE
ME WHAT IF SHE ONLY WANTS ME FOR MY MONEY
OH I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY LIKE LARRY THE
MILITARY AND CIVIL SERVANTS DON’T GET PAID WORTH
A SHIT OH GOD I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY HOW CAN I
AFFORD HER OR A HOUSE I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING I
HAVE NO ANSWERS WHAT AM I GOING TO DO OH GOD
OH GOD HELP HELP SOS SOS SOS CAN ANYONE HERE ME
I'M SURROUNDED BY SIX BILLION PEOPLE YET IM AND
ISLAND I'M ALL ALONE WHAT IF I'M LATE WHAT IF SHES
LATE WITH HER PERIOD OH NO CAN I STILL FISH WILL
SHE LET ME FISH EVEN IF I COULD STILL FISH I WILL
NEVER FISH AS WELL AS LARRY WHAT IF SOMEONE HITS
ME IN THE EYE WITH A GRAIN OF RICE AND I TRIP AND
WHILE FALLING GRASP HER DRESS TO STAY BALANCED
AND IT COMES OFF AND EVERYONE LAUGHS AND SHE
LEAVES ME OH NO SHES GOING TO LEAVE ME AND I'M
NOT EVEN MARRIED YET OH NO WHAT DO I DO
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you really have time for this crap? Hurry up man your going to screw
something up. No stress.
Larry

My best friend is a bum. hah hah hah

My Non Bachelor Party

I've been in the Navy for a while and there are certain aspects of military life that I’m well versed in. Bachelor parties are one of them, I’ve sown my oats and don’t feel a burning need to see strippers jumping out of cakes for me (not that I have any problem with that or would have argued if that happened, just didn’t feel the need for it). So last night we had a pre-wedding non-bachelor party. Good turn out, got to put the new bar I picked up in Arizona to full use. Altogether a smooth party, no craziness. Still recovering from the hang over though. Pictures posted here.

Deployments and Relationships

It’s true, deployments will make a strong relationship, stronger and shatter the weak ones. LA Times just published a pretty good article about relationships and deployment and the rise in divorce rates (hat tip to T Bone, nice blog by the way). I’m getting married shortly and this isn’t an issue that I’m worrying about in my relationship, but it is something that I follow very closely. Just watching relationships around me degenerate and from being in them myself. The article tells of this Joey character (it must be an Army saying because I've never heard it) who pops into your home while you're away. This is the guy or gal who's hooking up with your significant other when you’re gone on deployment (that bum who's living at your house who your neighbors keep are emailing you about).

Use common sense folks when turning over all your earthly possessions over to someone else. Getting married to someone you barely know right before you deploy could be one of the worse mistakes you ever make in life and could set you back in a hole that's really hard to crawl back out of. It’s not a nice article but it is good info to anybody who's in a relationship with a military member or in the military (and it might make those people that pray on military members who are about to deploy feel guilty for being Evil slugs). No sugar coating here. My advice? Be careful and always have an exit strategy in case the worse thing you could think of (other then dying) happens to you (then you might want to die and we get into the subject of raising suicide rates, which is another rant).

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I just saw the video of what Hot Coffee mod does to San Andreas and I think someone is going a little overboard with slapping an AO rating on it. It's funny though. Shouldn't we worry more about the car jacking, wanton distruction and running around laying waste to the countryside that takes place in the rest of the game? Oh wait, that's why I like the game, blogger Maddox also has an excellent take. (I'm number 5 on google for "bloggers Maddox" heh)

There's always questions about Camel Spiders in Iraq

I've posted a short video of a camel spider eating a lizard taken by some of my guys in Iraq, I have more too (spider and mouse, spider and scorpion, etc) this one was the clearest of the bunch. If you have arachnophobia, I'd advise you not to click on the link, it is fairly yucky. This speciman was about the size of my hand spread out, maybe 5 inches across. Camel spiders aren't really spiders, they have 10 legs and 2 eyes and belong to an order of non-spider arachnids called Solifugae. They are aggressive and believe me, it hurts bad when they bite (taking a chunk out, story for another day) but non-venomous. From observation, I think they only live for a year, you get there in the early spring and the ones you see are fairly small and as the summer progresses, they get bigger and bigger. Not very bright either, they'll chase lights, shadows and strings but they move super fast and when ones coming up your pant leg with it's fangs spread, it'll make you scream like a girl and dance about.

Here's another camel spider video, there's also some more info to be found here

Update 12 Nov 06 Here's a video I titled Marines Vs Camel Spider.

Blogger friend down for a bit

Tragic and I went out to visit Da Goddess in the hospital where she was recovering from back surgery. We walk in and who's there? The Smash's and Gracie, a frequent blog commenter. She's doing alot better then what the picture shows (yes it was staged). We gave her some get well gifts and she walked us to the door. After leaving her to the mercies of hospital food, the rest of us went to Gaetano's Italian Restaurant in Tierrasanta, the pizza was great. Mrs Smash ordered some pasta which ended up being over cooked, we mentioned it to the waitress and she brought out another plate. Got home, did a guest post over at Da Goddesses and now hitting the sack, thanks for the good night!

My Secret?

Every Monday, I check out PostSecret.

Wedding Registry

I know, it says November 10th but we're actually getting married in a couple of weeks and there's a wedding registry on my side bar for those of you that asked:)

3rd website Updated

I've opened up a Castpost account like the castpost made by Jack Army, his first Castpost shows the value of body armor. I saw his Castpost last night and thought, wow, I want that! Pretty cool service. The video on mine was done by members of the Norwegian Army (thanks Marlon, you can tell by the viking longship on their shoulder patches) I've laughed every time I've seen it, rumor has it, when it came out over there, everyone was emailing it to each other on government computers and it clogged the network (Update, that was the video below, "The Way to Amarillo, story here). Good work on the video guys. I have hours of video that I've taken, be posting best of clips soon, just have to edit and weed it down a bit.

UPDATE, Another highly entertaining music video made by the Royal Dragoon Guards over in Iraq and can be found Here it's a remake of "The Way To Amarillo", thank you Myron and Jessica for leading me to it at exactly the same time, I've never seen it before. Heh heh.

Pictures from my trips to Arizona

are posted on my fotopage, sorry about the delays in posting, getting ready for a wedding is busy work! I'm usually much better at getting something online but haven't had the extra energy. Life is wonderful and full too, those spare moments get gobbled up and before I know it, I'm about to put a ring on my fiancees hand.