Tick...tick....tick....tick....

Not much time before I leave. I've been prepping everything, making sure I have all the supplies I need. I've managed to keep ahead of my schoolwork because next week is going to be a little nutty and the week after that is going to be downright batty. I ended up registering for 2 classes instead of one next semester to keep me on my toes and to occupy my spare time with a useful endevour as opposed to playing games or watching movies. I can always drop a class if it's too much but I'm trying to keep the momentum.

Supplies

Made it up to a camping super store today - REI. They had a lot of what I was looking for, and I was able to try out the sleeping bag I picked up to see how it fit my body. I ended up getting a Big Agnes Encampment
http://www.bigagnes.com/Products/Detail/Bag/Encampment.
Hopefully it will serve me well. I'm still debating getting a sleeping pad for it for some extra comfort.

In other news, I've crested the hill and am on my way down...I've just about done encoding Stargate season 6 and heading fast towards season 7. Of course MGM decided to start putting a delay in if you rip the episodes off the DVD so I have to fix it with a program called AVIMux. It's not a huge deal because the process is quick, but it's an added annoyance.

Entertainment

So when I got back from my trip to NJ, I had a 1TB laptop hard drive sitting at my desk waiting for me. I installed it, got everything up and running, and began ripping all the movies that I enjoy from my collection to my hard drive. I have over 30 movies now, and have finally (today) found my stargate tv series DVDs. So, I've begun the arduous process of ripping all the episodes to my laptop and will surely go through them in my downtime overseas.

Testing various blogging techniques

Testing various methods of keeping people informed by linking my accounts.

4th of July

Had a really great time with my folks and my sister's family. I had brought a bunch of fireworks with me to their place and shot them off with my assistant (nephew).

Wife and I had a long talk on the way back, making sure we were on the same page about what should happen if, God forbid, something should happen to me while I was away. Between my life insurance from the military that I'm still paying into and my company she and the girls will be well taken care of. Let's hope it never comes to that.

On a lighter note, my daughters still continue to make me laugh every day and just putting my oldest to bed and have her hug me tight and say "I love you da-yee" makes my heart melt every time. I am savoring every moment as the countdown moves to "less than a month".

Ugh, and here I thought I'd never make a blog

So we'll see how much I keep this up to date. I decided to create one mainly to chronicle my little jaunt to the sandbox aka Afghanistan.

So far, my days have been filled with bloodwork, filling out papers, shopping and preparing my family for my departure. I've tried to do as much research as I can so that I'm as prepared as can be. Some may say I'm overpreparing...but I'd rather be overprepared then under.

Anyway, had to think a while on the log name etc. I've always loved Godzilla, and grew up watching his movies every sunday. Unfortunately some *deleted* people have taken up godzilla, gojira, oldgodzilla (which is my xbox handle), and haven't posted to them in 9 years....but fortunately not oldgojira. So there it is.