Valentine's Day

Cupid sets his eyes on the target with his sniper scope, and gets ready to squeeze the trigger with hightly trained accuracy, but his taget is thousands of miles away. . .

I'm sure its not difficult for everyone, but trying to show your loved ones just how much you love and care for them while constantly being so far away has been a task that I'm struggling with. I love my wife and son more than anything in the world, and anyone that asks will get an ear full on the subject. The problem is that its hard to remember to do the little things that constantly re-spark that relationship and keep the romance, mysticism and adventure alive. I truly do believe that one of the hardest jobs in the world is that of an Army wife, as well as an Army mom.

With the war in the middle-east still going on, these strong women are forced to play the role of both mommy and daddy for the children that we soldiers have to leave behind. They have to constantly tell their children that daddy is at work and will be home soon. And reassure them that daddy will actually return.

I didn't get to spend this Valentines with my family this year, or the year prior to that, but I hope and believe that my family knows that I was there for them in spirit. . .

I joined the Army in hopes of being able to provide better for my family, and so far through training, duty assignments, and now deployments, I've only been able to provide for them financially. Hopefully after this deployment, I won't be going anywhere for a little while, so that I can actually enjoy this better life that I have been trying to provide with them.

Frustrations with Ubuntu Karmic Koala Network Manager

So I've been using Xubuntu Jaunty for a little while now and decided to try to do a fresh install of Xubuntu Karmic. Upon first boot-up everything looked to be in order and my little netbook seemed to respond to commands slightly faster. I'm currently deployed to Iraq, so our choices for internet are few and far between. Not all the areas on the Fob are wired for hard line connections, so the other options are to go in with a big group of people and get satellite internet, or use these usb cdma modems. The modem I have is an Axesstel MV100N usb modem, and actually works quite well. . .under Jaunty and any Ubuntu derived distro prior to that.

I went through and configured my modem under Karmic and it recognized it and everything seemed to be the way it should, until I went to connect. It just sits there and hangs. I decided to do a little searching on the net to see if I could find a resolve for this, but every potential fix required you to have an active internet connection to fix it. . .which wouldn't be a problem if I was back in the states and had my home network to work with.

So now I'm back to Jaunty since it has been quite faithful to me, and Karmic has been a letdown with various usability issues for my current situation. I guess I will just have to wait until I return to the states before giving Karmic, or Lucid another go. Its quite a bummer really. Karmic seemed quite promissing. I hated the thought of having to load Windows back on this computer just to use it to communicate with family and work on graphics and programming. Maybe at some point when I am on the Fob for a long enough period of time, I will try to use the free Wi-Fi at the laundrymat to try to find a resolve through updates and configuration, but until then Jaunty is working wonderful.

Random thoughts in Iraq

Army life. . .well it's definitely not for everyone. Being a medic has its ups and downs. Like today for instance. I had to work on an Iraqi that ran his car into a jersey barrier and cracked his head open on his windshield. I patched him up and sent him off in the ambulance in hopes, that even though he made a stupid judgement in his choice of actions, that his family will get to continue to have a dad around. This event really got me thinking about back when I was in the states. I was always racing around in a hurry. For what though? Was getting there that few extra minutes really gonna make that big of a difference? If I got into a wreck and died or something, I would have left my wife and son to fend for themselves. Instead of me being there providing for them like I should be.

I realized how much I take the little things for granted. My son is growing up so fast, and I've hardly been there for any of it because of my work. I'm blessed that I have a loving wife that is willing to put forth the effort to never let our son forget who I am. Just yesterday my wife told me a story about my son that just broke my heart. She has been staying with her parents in Alabama for a few months now while I'm deployed to Iraq to help take care of her mom that recently had knee replacement surgery. So they took a trip back to our house in Georgia, and my son goes running up the stairs yelling, "[w]e're going to go see daddy! Daddy is up there! Come on mommy!" She had to explain to him that daddy was at "work."

I just can't wait for the day that I get to go home and hold them both in my arms and not have to let them go. My son is 4 now and I have been gone for 3 out of the 4 years he has been alive. I've been trying to finish up my school while I'm in the Army, so that I can actually get a decent paying job when I finally get out. Current plans right now though is to get accepted into the DPT (Doctor of Physical Therapy) program. My PA (Physicians Assistant) has been very helpful in teaching me different sports injuries as well as the human anatomy which I will need to study and remember while going through schooling. So much stuff to keep up with, just gotta keep my eyes on the prize and never give up.