To Whom It May Concern

Ah, California

Well, I've waited far too long to post, as usual. So, as the title of my post would give away, I am back out in San Diego now, this time living here instead of visiting. My new car is wonderful. It's loud, it has a stiff suspension, but it's a tiny bit fast. The SRT4 Neon is a delightful little car. Of course I NEVER speed, because that would be ILLEGAL! *GASP*

I'm caught now trying to switch over from living out of a bag to living normally in a residence once again. It's difficult to get away from the idea that I have to keep my shampoo and deoderant in a little bag, and clothing in a bag, etc. I attended the Marine Corps Birthday Ball with belly, but unfortunately 15 months of time away caused a few things to be forgotten, one of those things being that I had put my Army class A uniform in my locker back at my unit in Nebraska :(

So, a trip to Men's Warehouse and I went in a kick ass grey suit, the first suit I've owned since I was like maybe 12 years old. Is that sad? Not really, I have never cared for 'dressing up' but I also realize that I'm of an age where I do need one. And wow I look great, if I do say so hehehe. Okay, enough modesty.

Our trip back to the United States was interesting. We stopped off in Ireland, some of our guys got in trouble for drinking some beers (woopity doo, so they had a beer, oh well, no one got in any real trouble). Then we landed in at Ft. Campbell, and all 170 of us got herded into a really old hanger with bleachers on both sides, and sat thru a group of the 101st Airborne's homecoming, which, while kind of cool, was really awkward. You had the families for about 30 of their soldiers all looking at us with this "Who the..." look on their faces, but everyone was really cool. I got to shake hands with some general.

Then we flew into St. Louis then took a three hour bus ride to Ft. Leonardwood where we did our demobilization. It was interesting to go to two forts I had never been to, in one day. Then, at about 8 p.m. we had yet ANOTHER coming home ceremony for about another 20 troops, this time for a group of engineers from Leonardwood. Then I got to shake hands with yet another general.

Next day during our demob, I got to shake hands with the top general from Nebraska, so I shook hands with three generals in under 24 hours, oh joy of joys!! *rolls eyes* We all did medical and financial and personnel crap, of which there are going to be tons of problems later on for a lot of the soldiers because the assholes did a really shitty job taking care of us. After about 5 days, we were done, and loaded up into buses, and headed to Norfolk, Nebraska.

All the way into town, for about 3 hours of the drive in Nebraska, there were Harley Freedom riders with us, and thru every town, there were signs and flags and people at every intersction, it was amazing. Then after a short tearful ceremony in Norfolk, we were released. I visited with the father of the young man in your unit who was killed in Iraq, that was hard. Then midas, shoes, and my parents and I headed out to the Great American Steak Buffet for dinner, and afterwards my parents took my gear home and midas and I drove to Lincoln.

We got my new car out of storage, I drove it around, slowly, the engine needed to break in, then stayed the night at midas' house. belly had to wait to get leave, so I spent a few days just lounging, both with midas and at my parents, and eating too much food. Then belly arrived at the airport *YAHHH* and we spent a couple of days settling some business, then off we headed for California, with a stop at her parents along the way.

The trip was pretty fun, the car has plenty of zip to it, passing people on a two lane is just a matter of how much gas you need, I have yet to really push it as hard as it can go, even now. No real reason to be crazy. When we got to Arizona we went out with belly's parents to eat, and spent the night. Then the next day we headed back out on our trip, and arrived in San Diego at about 9 that night.

So now here I am, in the wonderful world of San Diego. Oh what wonderful weather! Oh what horrible prices, rude people, and retarded drivers with no common sense! All in all it's not too bad though, but I am working on what I hope will be a decent job, we'll see :) I can't call my friends in Nebraska at night, because when I used to call at about 8 or 9, it's midnight in Nebraska, at least they know they can call me *shrugs*

There are a lot of other things that are interesting about being out here, and I'm sure I'll get to them. I'll apologize in advance for this post, because I know it's really cryptic in some ways and has a lot of run on sentences, but I don't give a crap, I'm tired, but I AM posting, so there!! So it's time for bed.

Oh, and USC football blows!! Just a little FYI!