Long Time, No Talk

Sorry, I've gone off the grid for awhile. Lack of internet at the house has severly limited my keyboard for recreation time.  It didn't help that I was in San Antonio at Fort Sam for 2 weeks of training at the end of January either. I headed down there for Community Recreation Chief class and was pleasantly surprised to see some old friends faces. Aaron, Mark, Scott, Jon C, Jon O, Joe P, Sam S were all there. It was a great class and san Antonio is a fun place to spend a couple weeks. Aaron, who worked at Jackson for a short time, now lives in Italy and doesn't get a lot of food choices other than italian and seafood. So I basically followed his lead on the food preference choices. We hit mexican, steakhouses, burger joints, BBQ, and Carrabas cause you can't get Marsala in Vicenza. I ate so much I swear I put on 20 pounds. It didn't help that I only worked out once the entire trip. Ugh. Class consisted of lots of briefings primarily focusing on the fact that as the wars die down and until we start our next one, come on Iran, the DOD budget will be reducing to pre 9/11 levels. As Mr. Abney from our HQ put it, we are going back to what is needed not what is neat. Crap. There goes all the fun stuff :) Oh well. How does that old phrase go, something about doing more with less!! That's going to be us. The only crappy part is that a lot of bases in Europe are closing, decommisioning, etc. So it's getting harder and harder for me to have the opportunity of a European tour. Just 10-20 years in Germany or Italy, that's all I'm asking for, is that so hard?! Apparantly so.  Anywho. Since I got back the first weekend in February, I've been catching up on house chores and primetime tv, hoping to get to Vegas this last weekend for International 7s. However that kind of fell through. David Y was going to be in town from
Boston but got pulled back a few weeks ago, then Jimmy R was going to bring his lovely fiance for the day but i assume it got nixed since he never wrote back, and the other folks I talked to didn't contact me until it was too late, so I went landsailing. We had sustained 20 mile an hour winds which equates to 40mph on the landsailer, which is fun but can be downright sketchy when you hit a 30mph gust. I had an unhappy moment. The cart tipped up and I put my hand out like a dumbass and it hit the wheel, got flung back into the axle, then cranked under the axle as it came down. It felt like I snapped my lower arm and my hand off simultaneously. OUCH. I pulled over and held the mess in a position of comfort and palpated (that means probed gently) for the damage. It was still all together but bumpy and swollen in some new places. It hurt like the dickens. I left my glove on for the rest of the day. At one point, Michelle mentioned that I looked like I was in pain, uh, yep. Saturday night the stupid hand swelled up and turned four shades of purple, yellow and green which is never good, but nothging seems to be out of place, it doesn suck trying to straighten out the tuck of my shirt and just try wiping your ass without your thumb, ICK. So instead of Vegas on Sunday also, I watched it on NBC. Great coverage. Samoa won the whole thing at the final second with a try over New Zealand.
That just about catches everyone up on where I've been and what I've been doing in my exciting life. I hope to get some pics of the new homestead soon to share with everyone as it shapes up and all of the unpacking is finished. Type at you soon, I'm off to lunch.