To all you Korean music fans out there (note: you'll have to pause the music at the bottom to get the full effect)

On Turning 30

Hello and welcome back gentle readers to another exciting installment of "Are We There Yet?" Today's topic is one that is near and dear to my heart. A couple of months ago I turned thirty which officially makes me old. The irony here is that in order to mentally prepare myself for turning thirty, I've been telling myself that I was thirty for the past three years. This strategy did very little to soften the blow of actually turning thirty for real. Now I don't really believe myself to be that old, but it did make me take stock of my life and compare where I was at with where I wanted to be at this point in my life. I had grown up naturally assuming that by the time I was thirty I would be a multi-millionaire. Sadly this has not yet happened. Instead I find myself in the army among the enlisted ranks and still in school (another thing I didn't think I would still be doing) and getting ready to undertake a major career change. Don't get me wrong I'm happy with my life for the most part; I have a wonderful family, I've travelled the world (although usually not to the good places), I've gotten to do some really cool things professionally which has been exciting. Anyway I have tread down the path of self-pity for long enough I think. So until next time, adieu.

Support Our Troops

Hello and welcome back to another installment of Are We There Yet? I recently returned from a deployment just before Christmas and therefore needed to scramble around in order to get my Christmas shopping done. It was December 22nd and I was heading to store to finish up my shopping. The parking lot was quite congested (as parking lots often are this time of year), and I found myself in a line of cars waiting to merge turn onto the road that runs in front of the stores. The cars on that road would let a car out and then go and the car behind would do the same thing. This system seemed to be working effectively until my turn came. The person who was supposed to let me out was an older woman and she was riding the bumper of the car in front of her and was making it a point to not notice me waiting there to get out. I was sorely tempted to employ my new driving skills that I had developed on my last deployment and pull in between her and the other car, but it was Christmas and I abstained. As the grinchy woman passed by I noticed she had a big yellow support our troops ribbon magnet on the back of her car. Now I doubt the woman knew I was one of the troops that her magnet proclaimed her support for, it would be hard to notice the haircut and the DOD tags on my car when she was making it a point to look in the other direction, but the moral of the story is that you never know who you're cutting off so don't do it. If you're that lady who cut me off and you're reading this, you should be ashamed of yourself and riddled with guilt for what you have done. Tsk Tsk. If you're not that lady, but are inclined to exhibit similar behavior from time to time you had better not do it to me or I will call you out on my blog and you will feel silly. Until next time I bid you all farewell.

The Commute

Shortly before going on my last work assignment, my family and I decided to move from the base where we were living to a fairly distant location. I have now returned and am faced with a commute that ranges from an hour and fifteen minutes to two hours each way depending on traffic. My wife tried to make the journey easier with a bunch of Christmas gifts for my car such as a steering wheel cover, Ipod adapter for the car, seat cushion, etc. Having made the commute for a couple of days now I've come to realize it is the only part of my day that I have to myself. While I'm not a fan of getting up at 0430 in the morning to make it in to work by 0630 (or really 0615, because in the army if you're not early, you're late) the commute provides me with time to think. This morning I reflected back to an idea I had while deployed to Iraq a couple of years ago. I had watched a Seinfeld episode where George had pretended to be handicapped and got a rascal and was chased by a group of old people with rascals. I thought that the army should consider standing up an entire brigade comprised of older people and outfit them with armored rascals. They would be a formidable force bearing down on the enemy and yelling for the enemy to get off their lawns. While this may sound silly at first, it is certainly no more silly than the CIA trying to slip Castro exploding cigars during the 1960s. Somebody over there must have been a big Looney Tunes fan. Anyway that's all for tonight, tune in next time for another exciting installment.

Welcome

Greetings, this is my first attempt at blogging although I have been a contributor to several blogs in the past. With the new year and all I thought I would try something new and give blogging a shot. I suppose I should explain the reason behind the name of my blog. My wife, Lucy, has a blog that is called Finding Joy in the Journey. As far as blogs go its pretty nice with pictures, music and whatnot. However I feel that her blog mainly tells her point of view on different events in our lives. So in order to keep things fair and balanced (just like Fox News) I have decided on the creation of this blog so I have an outlet to tell my side of the story. Enjoy.