Travel The World

Here are various pictures from last Saturday evening's Marshall-U. of Albany game.  The first few were taken during warmups and the rest during the game.  I had good seats, but it was still uncomfortable what with the 90-degree temperature and hard benches.  Honestly, I've always preferred watching the games on TV.

Of all the activities in basic training, I believe the obstacle course was the most challenging for me.  I especially disliked the high obstacles where there was a real chance of falling and suffering serious injury.  For example, 'the Slide for your Life' in the lower left picture was a particularly scary one.  Anyway, this is the last photo from my basic training yearbook I'll post.  Although joining the military was a rash decision at the time, it was the right one and I'm so thankful I did it.  Doing so really set me up for a different path in life than the one which I was on.  Thanks for viewing!  

I happened to see these three wild turkeys through the window this afternoon.  I was lucky to snap their pictures because they heard me, even though I was inside the house, and began to run.  I'm still waiting to see a bear, but they're sort of rare around here.

One of the more challenging trainings in BT is learning how to properly employ your gas mask.  How to use it isn't the challenge so much as the events associated with its use.  To this day, putting on a gas mask feels automatic for me: Step 1-don the mask Step 2- cover the filters and clear the mask Step 3-seal the mask Step 4-while waving your arms, shout 'gas' three times in order to alert others You're supposed to be able to complete all of these steps in nine seconds or less and you better hope you can do this.  While on a night patrol, I expected to see an aerial flare since we'd just had a class about this and how such a flare indicated an imminent gas attack.  As DIs were running through the forest to get ahead of and ambush us, I popped one button on my mask carrier so I could get it out as soon as possible.  Then, boom!  The entire sky lit up and I smelled gas immediately!  I had my mask out, on, cleared, and sealed in what couldn't have been ...