Long Time no Blog

My vast fan base asked me why I was no longer blogging, I informed the masses that I really didn't have much to blog about. I then found out that my blog provided entertainment during rather boring meetings and conferences, so I will try to find something to help my fan base avoid death by power point.

Duke Blue Devils

Well, they won it all, I thought they were going to be vulnerable to teams that were bigger, but somewhere between the end of the regular season and the ACC Tournament, Duke developed an inside game. Brian Zoubek, Mason and Miles Plumlee and Lance Thomas came up huge on the boards and defense, and kicked in a few points on offense, just enough to win the whole show. I think this year was one of Coach K's best seasons ever - - he didn't have dominant players like he had in years past, but he took the team he had and got the best out of them. 3 of the players were seniors: John Scheyer, Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek, that is a testament to not taking the flash in the pan, one and done type of players that other colleges have taken. It will be interesting next year, Duke will have 2 of their top 3 scorers, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith, plus the aforementioned Plumlee brothers, and some other pretty good players, so, we will see if the combination of perimeter scoring, rebounds and strong defense will work for them again.

Life in the Pentagon

We (the AFPAK Hands Management Element) now have our own office, it is pretty nice, much more quiet than working with the rest of the Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell (PACC). We share an office with our Strategic Communications Section, there are 3 USAF LTCs and an Australian Colonel in that section. I have trained the Air Force LTCs to make coffee in the morning, which provides us something to talk about. Basically, I set the coffee up, alls they have to do is push a button, which is right up the Air Force alley. They are normally there first in the morning, so they push the button, I have freshly brewed coffee waiting on me. Pretty sweet.

Sam and Cheney

Sam and Cheney have settled down in their new digs. They spend most of their days lounging on the deck, defending the backyard from anything that walks past. Cheney is starting to gain weight again, she had stopped eating for a couple of weeks or so because she was stressed out over the move and her loss of all of the attention Ben had lavished on her when he was watching them in Tennessee.

Movies to check out

My blog buddy Bill from NC comments on the movies that he has seen, kind of a grass root movie review. I have seen a couple of good ones over the past months, and a stinker or two. Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart was the best I have seen him act. The movie was a good one, not really advertised, but very good. Precious was a great movie, a good story, but it was very hard to watch, I kept waiting for the next horrible thing to happen to the girl. Julie and Julia was very good, I am amazed that Meryl Streep does not get more recognition, she is clearly the best female actress of this time.

Survivor

OK, now that college hoops is over, there are truly no sports to watch on TV. Luckily, there is a pretty good season of Survivor going on. This season Survivor has brought back some of the best heroes and best villains. There have been some pretty surprising votes, but that is Survivor. I was amazed that the villains voted off Boston Rob, but that is true Survivor - - kill off the strong and leave the weak to fight it out. Russ has come up with a pretty strong alliance on the villain side, and I was stunned when the heroes gave him an immunity idol. That will probably go down as the dumbest Survivor move ever. We'll see.

Other Weekend entertainment

I have been venturing around DC and the area on the weekends, just checking things out. I went to two aquariums, the National Aquarium here in DC and the Aquarium in Baltimore Harbor. If you are coming to DC, don't bother with the aquarium here, the only highlight was an adult spotted drum. The rest of the stuff could probably be found in a nice pet shop.

The aquarium in Baltimore on the other hand is a great aquarium. It is set in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, so you can spend the whole day there just wandering around. They had a pretty good carribean reef set up that had most of the usual suspects that we see in Honduras, but not a lot of the really small stuff that makes the reefs interesting. I did spot a green moray eel, doing what eels do best, just hanging around waiting for an unsuspecting fish to swim by. Also in the Inner Harbor is the USS Constellation, which was constructed in 1854. The Constellation is a sloop-of-war and the second United States Navy ship to carry this famous name (the first was the sister ship of the USS Constitution which is in Philadelphia harbor). According to the US Naval Registry the original frigate was disassembled on 25 June 1853 in Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia, and the sloop-of-war was constructed in the same yard, possibly with a few recycled materials from the old frigate. USS Constellation is the last sail-only warship designed and built by the U.S. Navy. The sloop was launched on 26 August 1854 and commissioned on 28 July 1855 with Captain Charles H. Bell in command. It served through WW I as a training ship, and then was transferred to Baltimore as a museum ship.

The Sisters

For those of you that followed my Boston Marathon train up blog, you know what the Sisters were. Two tough hills that I ran on while I was at FT Bragg. The series of hills were a pretty good trainup for Boston's famous Heartbreak Hill. I have been riding my bike to and from work twice a week, it is about 15 miles one way, the ride there is pretty nice, mostly downhill. That of course means the trip back is mostly uphill (Beckman's law of physical geography: For every down hill, there is a corresponding up hill). There isn't a lot of traffic in the morning, and just a short stretch of thick traffic on the way back. Folks around here seem to be biker friendly, which is pretty good. I start off at the house in Alexandria, hit South Vandorn Street, take a right on Eisenhower AVE and follow that to Old Town Alexandria's Commonwealth AVE. Commonwealth AVE has a dedicated bike lane, which is the first one that I have ridden on. After Commonwealth, I get on a couple of bike only trails: A part of if on a trail called 4 Mile Run and it finishes up on MT Vernon Trail. MT Vernon Trail goes right past Ronald Reagan International Airport, then rolls along the Potomac River for 3 or 4 miles and finishes up at the Memorial Bridge. From there, I cross a few streets and am at the Pentagon.

Speaking of the Pentagon, Tan Man and the Zombie are still around. The Zombie is wearing his summer zombie uniform: The same pair of shorts EVERY DAY and I suspect the same T shirt. Other than that, same routine - - dump his shaving kit on the floor, get naked and walk around to the disgust of others.