From down in the comments below, Chef Tony wanders by with a request:
"Hey y'all, my friend Shane is in the 'Stan. He & his troops are in the middle of nowhere and I'd like to make them a bit more comfy. If you can help by sending & asking others you work & know to help in this it's be great. I know I loved getting ANYTHING from home while I was in Viet Nam (68, 72) and I'm going to pay forward on that. Google has good info on how to pack and ship but I can help there too, 612 703 6573. Thanks much & take care."
Begin forwarded message:
Tony,
After sitting down with some of the boys and discussing "wish lists" I've nailed down a few items that would be in demand around here. Since we have no PX, toiletries are a real pain for us. That being said, the following is a cursory list of things the guys would like:
-soap
-toothpaste
-toothbrushes
-dental floss
-shampoo
-shaving cream
-razors
-foot powder
-deodorant
Some other items the boys would like:
-Christmas decorations (small fake trees, lights, ornaments, etc.)
-Snack foods (cookies are great--but anything would be good)
-books
-magazines
-coffee (the stuff in the chow hall is awful)
-drink mixes (Gatorade, lemonade, etc.)
This is only a very generic list. If there is anything else you can think of I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. Just don't send items such as alcohol (sadly, we are not allowed to drink) or anything that might be restricted from going on an airplane such as explosives, aerosols, ammo, and other stuff like that.
Again, I thank you for thinking of us and your continued support. It means a great deal to know that the folks back home think about us.
Take care and God bless.
Shane
It just occurred to me that a mailing address might be helpful. ;-)
My address is:
MAJ Shane Gries
201st VTT
Camp Blackhorse
APO AE 09320
Thanks again!
Take just a moment and think of their sacrifice, and please find a way to let Major Gries or someone like him know of your support.
I have been having a lot of problems lately with comment spammers, and have tried to take some steps to cut down on the mischief. One of those was to default to closed comments for new posts.
However, I didn't really remember doing that, so no comments were allowed on the last post, and I thought surely there might be some interesting discussion about it. SO, for anyone who'd tried to comment on our Dear Leader's recent award in the previous post, that was the reason for not being able to comment. Well, that, I didn't want to subject him to even the remotest possibility that someone might say something unnice about it all.
I'll close them back up after a few days to forestall anymore comment spam later on. Maybe.
I awoke to a supreme suprise this morning (along with millions of people who have seen the potential to live their lives free of tyranny begin to wither away once more in the face of American fecklessness) to see that our President has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Kudos, sir.
Although there seem to be many people who cannot understand how such a thing can happen so soon in his tenure (after all, it took History's Greatest Monster 22 years after he left office to receive his), I believe this seemingly inexplicable award is the result of concept best explained in the words of Mr. Obama's predecessor in the office:
"The soft bigotry of low expectations."
Either that, or the prize committee members all simply voted "present."
In the course of my work, I have to prepare "notices to proceed" for contractors on a regular basis. This is just a simple letter instructing them when a project is supposed to start.
That's the easy part.
The hard part is trying to tell them when to stop.
Every contract has a total calendar day duration, and so you have to add the requisite number of days to your start date, and that gives you your end date. Now, I can usually do a pretty good job of counting days up to around 31 or 32 or so, but since I don't have access on my computer to any of our construction scheduling software (don't ask me why), anything with calendar days past about a month reduces me to trying to add several months together in my head, ticking back or forth with a pen to the start date, and then finally to the end date. Or something. For those of us with severely diminished smartness capacity, a simple task like this amounts to a Saturn V launch. Especially when it's something oddball like 350 days or something. Or the phone rings. Or the guy's standing there waiting on you to add numbers. Or you hit yourself with a hammer.
Anyway, today I had one of those long ones with 350 days.
Being that I don't know anything, but I usually know where to look for the answer, I got to wondering if there was a handy tool on the Web that I could insert the start date, tell it how many days, and then let it do all the ciphering and give me a finish date.
Lo! And beHOLD! Three seconds of typing calendar date calculator into Google got me one such neat handy tool from timeanddate.com. (Very inventive URL, by the way!)
Anyway, it works very well--much better than spending agonizing minutes looking like a monkey with a seizure disorder trying to add up months in my head. Just another one of those tiny things that makes life pleasanter.
In other news--it's a very pretty day outside, and I love bunnies and kitties!