Happy Birthday Mrs Smash

Went out for a little happy birthday get together with the Smashes, Joanie, Gracie, Dave, my wife and a mystery blogger who will not be named to BJ's Brewery.

We had pizza (which I've been making from scratch lately, mine might just be a little better) for dinner and for dessert a huge pile of ice cream on top of a pizza sized peanut butter chocolate chip cookie (a.k.a. love handle pie) , below is a picture of Mrs Smash making her wish "hmm, now what do I want?" (sorry couldn't find one where you didn't look silly ;-P)


Above is Gracie and my lovely bride.






As usual when we all got together a good time all around. Next event we our plan is to have Firefly playing in the background.

You see what bloggers are saying about Serenity? I'm not the only one out there that thinks it's the bomb Rotten Tomatoes as of right now is giving it a 86%, critics give it 78% and Users are giving it 93%. Not too shabby!

Orson Scott Card who is one of my favorite writers also has a few words to say about Serenity, what are you waiting for, go buy tickets.

Moment that touched me in the movie? The look on the face of the girl sitting next to us with tears running down her face reflecting the screen.

My totally shameless plug for Serenity

Updated:

(rewrite of a post I did Monday night)

I received an invite to preview Serenity a couple of days ago along with a hundred or so other San Diego bloggers and Browncoats. This might have been the biggest effort by a motion picture company to use bloggers get the word out before a movie. I know if you see it, you won’t be disappointed (well most of you anyway, there are some with an inborn dislike of Sci-Fi).

After being on the wrong side of a multiplanet wide civil war, Captain Mal Reynolds and his battle buddy Zoe, buy a ship from a junk yard, assemble a crew to run the beast which he names Serenity and they all set off to make money any way possible and in the process, try sticking it to the man any way possible (is it just me but does this remind anyone of Cowboy Bebop? Wonder if Joss ever saw that?)

From there and into the mind of Joss Whedon the show blossoms, tight plot line, the series runs like a dream. Each episode a work of art and now the movie Serenity which draws many of the mysteries to a close yet at the same time acts as a good welcome into the ‘Verse to the non-Browncoat. Each show can be a stand alone or as part of a bigger tapestry.

Action, comedy, a couple of romances that have been brewing, the movie will make you laugh and want to cry. The special effects, fight scenes, battles, the movie kicks some serious butt. Joss couldn’t have put the movie together any better. With a comparatively shoe string budget which is way more then he’s used to, he weaved magic. The movie meshes seamlessly with the series. Not that it isn’t great as a stand alone but after you are done seeing the movie, you’ll want to see the rest. At least you can fill your craving with a quick trip to the video store and 14 episodes later (800 minutes of Firefly total…) Afterwards, the question sure to pop up, when is he going to start the series again.

To show how much of a geek I am, I was the only one in the theater wearing a brown coat and I was with the cute pink haired girl.

Here are some other reviews if you don't trust me:

Massawyrm (I have to agree with Beth, this is the best damn review ever)
Beth
The Primary Main Objective… (Heather and I sat next to Kevin)
LT SMASH (Scott was our Firefly Sacrificial Virgin, the only thing he knew about the movie was that it was free and a bunch of SciFi geeks were talking about it, good review)
Blackfive
Blogcritics (hat tip for some of these blogs from the great Blogcritic)
TBOTCOTW (The Blog of the Century of the Week)
Whitney Matheson, USA Today
ResurrectionSong
XDA
IMAO
Salt Lake City Weekly (MaryAnn Johnson)
Instapundit
The Vodka Pundit
Internet Freedom Trail
Game the World
Ga Mongrel
G. Bob's House o' Blog

"Fox, where good TV shows go to die." my wife 27 Sep 05.

What happened to Firefly?

In 2002 Fox pulled the plug on one of the best Science Fiction TV series ever made and there was a great sigh heard all around the world and grown men (and women) wept. Now it's time for the Brown Coats to rise again and join the crew of Serenity.

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly has finally got his featured film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. His crew is a bunch of under dog outcasts, complex, very human, flawed and will transport you to a dark existance 500 years into the future. I would be doing this amazing series a disservice by using my poor writing skills trying to explan the twists and turns that the crew go through or how tight the plot is plugged together. This is by far Joss's best work (sorry Buffy fans!)


If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out the Serenity Movie website. The TV series out on DVD in all of the stores and in less then a week, the rest of us are going to be flocking to the nearest movie theter wearing our trusty Brown Coats. The series has been my best entertainment buy this year, come out and join us on the 30th and you'll know why they can't take my land.

Milblogger's visit to New Orleans

Want to see the stuff the military is going through on the ground? Check out what American Soldier has been doing. Good post.

How many times do you get a second chance in life?

I’ve been a constant visitor to New Orleans since the early 90’s, there are weeks of my life missing due to being extremely inebriated, I’ve been in every shop on the French Quarter but there have been times when I’ve become lost and suddenly within the passing of a street found myself transported into the twilight zone. I’m a person who’s been to house parties in South Central LA (admittedly completely out of his element), see the worst of what the West Coast has to offer, been shot at in Iraq and have never been as scared as I one time I turned down the wrong street in New Orleans. One morning after a night of good times, a couple of buddies and I were driving about checking out the sights without a map. Hung over from the night before, we weren’t at our sharpest, just turning down roads that looked interesting when we noticed that there was trash and broken tree limbs in the streets, boarded up windows and the normal sounds of traffic has faded. We’re driving down a street that’s wide enough to have five lanes but the paint is faded, there’s not another car on the street that’s moving. Huh? I look at my buddy in the passenger side seat and because I’m looking that way, I see a large group of black men pouring out of a house and running towards my car, some of them had bats in their hands. I stomp on the gas, my tires squeal and we’re gone. What in the hell was that? Between one heartbeat and the next, my safe world had changed, since that moment I’ve been watchful of where I go. I have developed a mild amount of paranoia about stepping into the unknown, especially in strange foreign cities.

I know Katrina cost countless people their livelihood, but for some folk who were living in that twilight zone existence, this might be a blessing. An opportunity to start fresh with no baggage, there’s an entire nation who’s willing to pull these people back into the light. I hope that neighborhood got washed away and there’s not one brick standing on another. I hope that the people who were living in that borderland place decide not to go back to New Orleans and take advantage of the help that is offered to start anew. I hope they’ve been scattered into the four winds so when I finally take my wife down there, which I will someday when they rebuild, I won’t have to worry about wandering into that nightmare neighborhood again.

Best of Craig's List

Craigslist is a great place to find deals on the internet or sell something. During the hurricane the site has gained much fame for helping find missing relatives, finding jobs of those misplaced, housing and has a nice list of Katrina support sites. Today I found the holy grail, if you haven't been reading the Best Of you're missing out, some good humor going on there. Warning not for the best materal for reading at work.

Other news, haven't been called up to go to New Orleans and discovered that my wife makes excellent Sweet Apple Pork Chops and her pumpkin pie with oreo crust sticks to my ribs in a unmilitary like manner. Must work out more.

I used to think Katrina was a cute name..

Like the days following 9/11, half of the country is glued to the news. Satellite pictures, blogs, weather channel, Fox and CNN, I’m starting to feel News Saturation sinking in again. Katrina has been the most documented natural disaster in history, satellite pictures up within a day, hourly accounts through blogs, personal photos, unlike 9/11, there was something new happening by the second. Stories of horror, miracles, anger and sadness, strangers showing goodwill, acting like animals, total chaos being rebuilt into a semblance of order. Clearly someone dropped the ball.

All of the different facets of the human condition seen in the past week. American government officials breaking down and crying for help on live TV, thousands of people saved from roof tops and a picture of a storage lot full of buses underwater. Hope dashed as levees started breaking in the middle of the night, a week later and 60 percent of the city is still under water.

Unlike with the twin towers, I know people who are missing and my units other corpsman, her roommate still hasn’t head from her mother, this is touching everybody I know. My roommate is from Louisiana (his family is fine), one of his friends is coming to stay at our place till he gets back on his feet.

Meanwhile, the military all over the country is geared up to move forward at a moments notice, there is already 60 thousand troops in the area, I know my guys are ready to go. I’ve spent weeks in New Orleans and love the place, it carries a lot of weight in military circles as the place to go. Now I don’t know if I’ll every be able to go to that place and the only thing to hold in my head are the memories and photos. I’ll always regret no being able to take my wife there while I had the chance.

Donate to the Red Cross or check out Instapundit, Glenn has a huge list of places to donate.

Playing at the Beach

My first try at coloring my wifes hair.

pictures by Sean

Whew

Katrina was very bad but not as bad as some of the forecasts predicted. There’s still a lot of healing to be done on the Gulf Coast and I’m hoping the nation can come together in helping those folk out.

Big one for the Big Easy

I’m watching the Weather Channel’s coverage on Hurricane Katrina. I’m a huge follower of natural disasters lore, dark humor is part of being a medical guy. I’m looking at that bottom little number where it says pressure, 902 mb and dropping. Camille at it’s worst was only 909 mb and is the name everyone in the hurricane community uses as the Boogyman killer hurricane. Andrew’s worse was 922 and it's con. Already this is the second most intense hurricane to hit the United States, the most intense was an unnamed storm in 1935 that hit the Florida Keys. This also make Katrina the fourth most powerful storm in history. 175 mile per hour winds with gusts with gusts to 215? That's craziness! Get out of there! In 2002, an American Red Cross estimate found 25,000 to 100,000 people would be killed if a major hurricane hit the New Orleans area, they were talking about a category three hurricane.

Jack Army is packing bags (thanks Tammi), here are some New Orleans bloggers takes on what is going on and a few that haven't left.

This is what National Hurricane center says about Category Five Hurricanes:

Winds greater than 155 mph (135 kt or 249 km/hr). Storm surge generally greater
than 18 ft above normal. Complete roof failure on many residences and industrial
buildings. Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown
over or away. All shrubs, trees, and signs blown down. Complete destruction of
mobile homes. Severe and extensive window and door damage. Low-lying escape
routes are cut by rising water 3-5 hours before arrival of the center of the
hurricane. Major damage to lower floors of all structures located less than 15
ft above sea level and within 500 yards of the shoreline. Massive evacuation of
residential areas on low ground within 5-10 miles (8-16 km) of the shoreline may
be required. Only 3 Category Five Hurricanes have made landfall in the United
States since records began: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Hurricane Camille
(1969), and Hurricane
Andrew in August, 1992. The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane struck the Florida Keys
with a minimum pressure of 892 mb--the lowest pressure ever observed in the
United States. Hurricane Camille struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast causing a
25-foot storm surge, which inundated Pass Christian. Hurricane Andrew of 1992 made
landfall over southern Miami-Dade County, Florida causing 26.5 billion dollars
in losses--the costliest hurricane on record. In addition, Hurricane Gilbert of 1988
was a Category Five hurricane at peak intensity and is the strongest Atlantic
tropical cyclone on record with a minimum pressure of 888 mb.

This storm is 20 miles per hour higher then the minimum for making a category five storm, the differences between the other categories? One to two? 21 mph, two to three? 14 mph, three to four? 19 mph, four to five? 24. Anything greater then 155, there is no category 6. The guys who made the scale considered anything higher then that to be absurd.

I’ve turned up a few in New Orleans and love the city. But knowing how some people down there think, there’s probably thousands holed up for hurricane parties and they're having problems finding designated drivers. Not the smartest move but with the gridlock getting out of the New Orleans, maybe turning up a beer would be a good idea.

My prayers to everyone affected.

Milblogger Bar-B-Q

Started off the day making sure the house was in order and prepping the vegetables and meat for the curry, first person to arrive was Ted from Game the World with a package of very good cigars. I’ve been a blogging friend with Ted around a year now, he’s from Palmdale, I discovered his blog while I was stationed at Edwards AFB looking for local bloggers. This was a first time actually meeting him in person, writes some intelligent well thought out stuff without falling into left or right side of the political spectrum. Sorry about the hasty welcome Ted, was in the point of cooking where a lot of stuff was happening at once.

Orlando (my wedding photographer) and his wife Shannon showed up, who are total non bloggers, just passed invitation to him at work on a whim. They were a little bit out of their element, sorry guys, I’m sure it was instructive though.

Next to arrive were John and Beth, who are both fairly heavy hitters in the milblog community, a launch from them usually equals a couple hundred hits. Very affable couple and it was an honor having them both in my house. They also brought some excellent Bar-B-Q sauce from Kansas which I didn’t notice till I had almost finished Bar-B-Qing, I have a one track mind while cooking.

Mr. and Mrs. Smash showed up with potato salad and I think beer, but not sure.

Next was Kevin from The Primary Main Objective with his very beautiful Italian girlfriend and more beer.

Lex brought an 8 pack of Guinness, which ended up being the first beer to be finished and told some crazy sea stories that the rest of us were in awe of.

After a call to Joanie (Da Goddess), I started cooking the rice; she had Gracie (our favorite reader) in tow. She had a vegetable tray. Beth, Joan and I also played around with each others cameras too. Nice hanging around other photo bugs, I'll have to go on one of Joans photo trips in the near future.

With everyone settled and the food not about to catch on fire, I excused myself to man the grill and let everyone mingle. Remind me next time to get the gas grill running, works much better for chicken. After a half hour of sweating in front of the grill, dinner was ready. No one had dug into the food yet and since I was the cook, might as well break the ice and dig in, most of the boys moved outside and the ladies talked inside. I can’t comment on their conversation because I didn’t really overhear much over it, you’ll have to read Joan’s or Beth’s blog (when they blog about it).

This is was probably the highest concentration of milbloggers to ever meet in San Diego and certainly the most Navy milbloggers in the same building, I’ve noticed maybe 20 naval milbloggers on the map, the real number is probably closer to 40 or 50. Between the bunch of us, we probably pull have 10 thousand readers per day. Not to shabby.

Ted and I were hanging to the sidelines because we were the babies of the group (also we were smoking Ted’s excellent cigars, of which he left some in my expert care, sorry Scott about smelling the place up). The conversation flowed smoothly. Few things I noticed about each of us milbloggers, we all had great stories that we could never blog about. Flying into mountains, almost shooting a coworker by accident, chopping down trees, many close calls that can be told as sea stories but never set down in ink. Some of these stories told either have people who read our blog or our bosses involved, cross into OPSEC issues or are just embarrassing to ourselves or the people we work in a very real life sense of the word.

Much of the talk was over my head, not meaning that I couldn’t understand it but out of my realm being an enlisted medical guy. Battle field tactics, river warfare, weapons, ship to shore battles and such. Not that I didn’t enjoy the hearing it, definite good learning experience, but I mostly set back and listened. As John says, you learn more when you shut up and listen. Lex, what the heck does shooting your wristwatch mean?

We also talked about various soldier support charities we’ve supported at one time or another. The one that we’ve been throwing our weight behind currently is Project Valour-IT, they buy voice activated laptops for wounded troops who have lost use of their hands enabling them to keep in touch with their families (or blog) while in the hospital. Eventually the sun was shining fully on the porch blinding us men so we moved indoors to join the lovely ladies.

My wife was suffering has a cold (no don’t worry she didn’t touch the food!) after a long day and cold meds she was pooped and needed to lie down for a bit. Kevin noticed that I had a copy of Team America (unrated) sitting on the floor and said that his girlfriend had never seen it. Enough said.

While everyone was singing along (Mrs. Smash doing the hand signs), I slipped away to post some pictures and steal Joan’s blog title. Which in fact is a misnomer, while it did stop all intelligent conversation, conversation was far from over. Not unlike what you would have heard if I had shown the same movie to a room full of Marines.

Good times had by everyone I think, the list of things that I am not good out stretches long but I can organize a good party with the best of them. Can’t wait for the next one!

How do you get a group of milbloggers to shut up?

Put in Team America!














Now who wants to watch Team America?














America F.... Yeah!!!

"Your Curry and Bar-b-q kick butt Sean!"

Us Sandy Eggans put together a milblog/blogger Bar-B-Q today with me hosting the get together. Guests included the Smash's, Neptunus Lex, the Donovans, John and Beth, Da Goddess, Kevin from The Primary Main Objective and Ted from Game the World plus Gracie (our favorite blog groupie) and some folk that I work with plus my beautiful wife. Will write more about it later once I sober up.

Range and weekend plans

Coving the range for the latter part of this week, which is a welcome break from verifying health records. Some of my fellow corpsman look at this as a horrible duty. Not I, half of the reason they look at it that way is probably because they can’t keep themselves entertained, I do not have that problem. My job out here is pretty much hang out incase something does happen, figuring these guys are firing live ammo. Our range here at Miramar is nice compared what I was used to. When I was with the reserve side of the house, we were using the one out in Barstow. Which is fairly close to being in Iraq, really hot or cold, windy, being exposed to the elements and no shade. Here, nice air conditioned soundproofed office, friendly range staff and electronic scoring. No more hanging out in the butts while people are shooting over your head. Showtime is at 0615 and get out of here around 2, hopefully.

Sorry about the lack of blogging, I’m suffering a mild case of writers block. Probably due to all the paperwork flowing through my hands right now at work, too much stuff on my mind and it has drained out all of my independent thought. Busy weekend ahead which I will write about after it happens due to milblogging OPSEC (psssttt, we're throwing a Milblogger Bar-b-q!!!). Will write about it afterwards. Any Sandy Eggan bloggers want to come, drop me a line.

Have you thanked your Soldier's Angel lately?

Sorry about the lack of posts this week, my cohort and I are getting the squadron ready for a medical inspection sometime in the near future. Lots of record reviews and data entry. After this, it will be easy sailing till our next middle east trip in the spring.

If you haven’t checked out Soldier’s Angels recently, now’s the time to do so. They have some amazing projects going on, Project Valour (Voice-Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops(I could use one to blog while driving but am unwilling to lose my arms)), Armor (buys Kevlar blankets to line the floor boards of vehicles), Blankets of Hope (Sewing circles provide handmade blankets to the wounded), Operation Top Knot (baby showers for families of deployed service members) and uncountable others. If there's a way to make a forward deployed soldier's life better, they're probably doing it. I know me and my guys got lots of care packages and letters from them. There were some unhappy campers out there who where cheered up by the support that they received from Angel's. I’m sure there’s endless stories of how they’ve improved someone’s life, my personal story other then the piles of care packages and support letters? I ended up marrying one of their members and couldn’t be happier. These are good people.

If you are in the Military or know someone over there, you can sign yourself in to this world of free goodness here, if you want to help these fine folks by Adapting a Soldier, making a blanket, sending care packages, donating a computer, A/C or just throwing some cash their way, sign up here. Everything helps.

A very heartfelt thank you Patti

Update:
John of that Argghh!!!!! place has a huge list of people that are supporting VALOUR-IT, Soldiers Angel's just bought their first 3 laptops for our injured troops, if you have been surfing the blogsphere this week on the right, left or center, you can see, it's been getting quite a bit of attention, thanks John. This project was inspired by CPT Ziegenfuzz, fellow milblogger and author of TC Override, he suffered injures in Iraq to both of his hands and is unable to type (for now, we miss his writing so much we're making him blog from his hospital bed!). It's a good cause, put your money where your mouth is and support your troops. This isn't about politics.