So...it seems I have much to learn...about the Army, about deployment and about blogging. OK, let's take it from last to first. Blogging...a good blog, according to Tim Ferriss' "Four Hour Work Week" requires an update around twice a week. Obviously, I haven't done that, so mea culpa. Loyal readers, I promise to make efforts to update this. My concern is that I will post something I ought not post, you know, something like saying, "LTC So-and-so is a Doody Head". That's not cool to post, so I'll watch out for that. The other thing I don't want to post is something along the lines of, "I hate First Army/My Brigade Because Of One Particular Odd Thing That Has Nothing To Do With The Deployment In General." Well, that's not acceptable either. I don't want to go off on tangents and rants about stuff that's really just me venting and not helping me to become a better Officer or helping you all know some of the stuff going on. To be honest, the brigade I work for is pretty decent, as far as Guard brigades go. Overall, they want to do things right, and I respect that. The leadership shows up daily with the intent of doing the right thing regardless. Like all other Army units, we have issues to work on, but who doesn't?

So one learning curve is the deployment. Basically, I'm to the point where I know I have to write down what I want my wife to send me every other month and every month, starting in February. This includes my copy of Outside magazine, body wash, deodorant, etc. That sort of thing. Then I'm trying to figure out what to pack (which is pretty obvious...I mean, uniforms, equipment, coffee, what else is there?), what to put in each duffel bag, paint the bags appropriately, that kind of thing. Right now, it's still at the "academic" stage. I'll probably go get the yellow and black paints, the stencils and mark my bags this weekend. Right now, the "big rocks" in the pile are to get the plan for next week put together and get a couple more loaves of french bread baked for Thanksgiving. I hate rolls, and since dinner is at my place this year AND we've been given "responsibility" for rolls, I've chosen to bake bread. Essentially it's easy enough to bake when drunk, so I'm covered in any state of mind. And the house will smell great for a week - freshly baked bread, espresso, and turkey. The challenging part here is to keep my mind like water, and to encourage the other Officers and leaders around me to do the same. Most of the time, I'm the one being encouraged.

My apologies for the short post, but I'm out of steam writing-wise, and I have to get up kind of early. Be well, enjoy the post and I promise, Kelly, to post more often! ;)