Baba Sawa

 I am currently in Chicago with my family.  My Grandfather passed away on Saturday, 12 April.  Baba Sawa is what we called grandpa it translates to ‘old dad’ or ‘old man’.  Its a bitter sweet occasion as the family has all gathered for the funeral.  I saw friends I had not seen for 8 to 15 years.  I had missed 15 years with my grandpa as we were in the US and they were in Iraq.  I saw him maybe three times after having not seen him for 15 years.  Last he saw me I was 5 the next time he saw me i was 20.  I am now 21 and he died at 76.  His birthday was in March.  I will miss him and all the time we did not spend together.  We would play cards when we were younger and he would let us win all the games and would celebrate with us.  When we got older and learned to play the game the right way he  would not let us win a hand…  He had such a kind heart.  He was so humble and all around amazing.  He would make us laugh til our sides hurt.  It is from him I got my sense of humor.

Myspace…

This blog was inspired by Whitney’s comment “Dude? What happened to your myspace?  Here is what happened…  I kept receiving emails from this guy at work… and at first I didn’t know who he was so I added him as one of my friends and then it hit me…  I knew this guy and he outranked me and should not have been emailing me.  So instead of blocking him I deleted the whole profile.  I think I might go and create one when I have the energy to…   So that answers your question Whit…

Pills

Quit bugging me Whit… Here is your blog…

 So I have a sleeping problem and I get nauseous a lot…(No I’m not pregnant… unless Whitney is the father… hmmm…not possible…I think…) and no matter how tired I am I just can not get to sleep once I get in bed.  I was given some meds for my nauseousness… and one of the side effects was drowsiness.  I took these meds four times a day… one with every meal and one at bedtime…   I felt like zombie with these pills…  recently I was prescribed a new med specifically for sleeping…I don’t now what its called … well last night I had both these pill bottles next to each other… and took the wrong pills…now I can take up to three sleeping pills so after an hour of me still being awake I took a second pill… and after swallowing the pill I realize my pill tastes different so I look at the bottle and sure enough I took my nauseousness pills instead of my sleeping pills… so to top it off I grabbed the right pills and took yet another pill…  if anyone is keeping count that was pill number 3.  I finally fell asleep… I woke up this morning and went to sit up and as soon as I did that I fell over in bed and fell asleep again… I am still tired and its 1:41 pm…

What did I learn you ask?  well not much… just don’t mix your meds… 

Airport Security…

So for Christmas I went to San Diego to visit my parents and so when they dropped me off at the airport I had a little over an hour so they decided to stay with me and we went to a little store right next to security… I like snow globes and I saw one that said San Diego and has buildings and well looked like a snow globe… my dad said he would buy it for me and would not take no for an answer so I asked the sales lady if I would be able to take the globe through security and she said and i quote “Oh yeah sure, it won’t be a problem.”  I said are you sure…she said “oh yes…” so my dad bought the darn thing…

 At this point I have about forty-five minutes so we decided its best I go so I don’t miss my flight… I hug and kiss the family and make my way onto security… thank God this was a late flight and there was no line… it was me myself and I…  I go through the process of taking my shoes off and putting them in the little plastic containers and my cell and my wallet along with the shopping bag I had the globe in and two sweaters… as I walk through the guy says “We need a bag check”  and I though ‘Oh Crap!!! This can’t be good…”  keep in mind my parents had already started for the car… so this old guy looked to be 70 if not older came to the security bag place and took the container that had my cell, and the bag… my phone then started to ring, as if things couldn’t get worse…

 Now when you miss a call with most phones, your phone will notify you…my phone peeps three times… when you miss a call… now I mentioned this guy is 70 right?  the old man looks at me and says I am going to have to look in this bag is that okay… I said oh yes do you mind if I go get my shoes and other belongings… he says yes and I go grab my things and I turn around to go back to where the old man… and as the poor guy sticks his hand in the bag my phone begins to beep to let me know I had missed a call…  The man did not know what to do… he pulled his hand out of the bag so fast I thought he was going to fall over… and then started to look around and check the machine around him thinking there was a bomb… I couldn’t help but laugh at this point and tell the man that it was my phone and that I had missed a call… he relaxed quickly and continued to search my bag…

 After nearly dying of a heart attack he found the globe and said that I could not take it any further and that I would have to check it on one of my carry ons… I had already checked my bags and he said… “just have them find one of your bags and put the globe in it…”  as easy as that sounds my bag was probably on the plane… Thank God my parents had not gone too far, I called my pops and he said but the lady said you could take it… at this point I wanted to kill her… that little..anyways… my poor pops came back and took the globe and flew it with him several days later when he came for a job interview…

 Lessons learned…

 1.  Don’t trust the lady that works at the airport store… she just wants to make $20.

2.  Put your phone on silent so you don’t give the security guard a heart attack and you get arrested for bomb threats.

3.  Be thankful for your parents and all that they do for you… (that would have been a globe in the trash otherwise)

4. Don’t get mad at security… they are “trying” to do their jobs…even if it seems they don’t often do it very well…

5.  Thank God for spell check.

Promotion

I have been in the Marine Corps for a little over two years now… Sep 11 was my two year mark… That day is significant to many… and it marks the day I went to Marine Corps book camp… On December 2nd I was promoted to Meritorious Corporal… Being its on the second it makes it special… regular promotions are on the 1st of the month… in order to get it Meritoriously I competed on several boards where you stand in front of 7 Marines, the ranks range from SSgt to SgtMaj… on the last board you have 6 1StSgt’s and 1 SgtMaj and you get asked a series of questions…

 I was so nervous before getting up in front of these Marines but once I stepped in front of them all I could think about was getting promoted… Once I won two weeks later I would get pinned on (promoted to the new rank).

There was a lot of drama with the ceremony it self and I wasn’t able to get it like I wanted it… So we had two ceremony’s… one was on Dec 2nd which fell on a Sunday with close friends and family and the second one was on the 3rd with Co-workers.

 On the first promotion I had The Ma’am (Maj Johnson) and GySgt Packard pin me on and Maj Johnson led the promotion.  On the second ceremony my parents pinned me on and my boss led the promotion ceremony so everyone was happy… I was so happy to be able to get all the people I cared about and looked up to involved…

Christmas

Whit… you have been bugging me for a blog… this one is for you…  

My favorite time of year has come… and as an added plus my  birthday is two days after… I always feel better knowing Christmas season is around the corner… I put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving… these past two years though since I am stationed in Va, I put up the tree at work… we had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree last year… it looked so lame… this year though we brought a new tree and it looks amazing… Now I don’t mean to brag but I did decorate it… could be anything but beautiful…

 I am currently in Cali to spend Christmas with my family… Planning on going to the beach to get some sun…then the SD Zoo and Sea World… my sister also flew out so its been a real blast…

Whit I miss you and wish I could see you this Christmas… but I will come visit the next time I have a day off… and we can cause some real trouble…

MERRY CHRISTMAS Everyone…