Hello everyone and welcome to my new weblog (blog). I'm sure a lot of you have been wondering how I've been doing. I'm great, but unfortunately I don't get to tell you all that. I thought that by creating this blog, it will be easier to keep in touch with everyone and to record the events of my tour here in Iraq for all of you to see.

So I guess I'll get this thing started. Last night the FOB mayor and some of the How Battery people were out back preparing for today's deck party. I was on my way back from the aid station after being diagnosed with prickly heat and I noticed a big black plume of smoke coming from behind the house. After talking with some people, I decided to go out back to check it out. When I got there, what started as a small brush fire had turned into a raging inferno (maybe not that bad), that had engulfed a good portion of the grass and trees behind the house. I helped some other people control the fire eventhough I had just taken a shower 20 minutes before. I now smelled like a campfire and my feet were all muddy from spraying water on the fire. After the fire was under control, we realized that one of the telephone lines had been singed by the fire, causing it to short out and not work. So me being the responsible person I am, decided to fix it. I got everything patched up and working in about an hour, and finally went to bed, smelling like a campfire.

Here's a pic of me during my latest convoy to Kirkuk Airbase: