Sunday, May 11, 2008, 09:00 PM - USMC
More info to follow soon, but I'm now a Thai TV star. I've been told by a few people out in town that they saw me on TV.
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Wednesday, February 6, 2008, 03:55 PM
So, we're running through the infamous Walking Street of Pattaya this morning and we realize that there's something weird going on. Not only are there girls and boy/girls trying to sell themselves, but there's also a bunch of monks, incense, what look like offerings, and other stuff. It seems that today must be Chinese New Year! It's an odd scene to see 9 monks standing in front of a club and blessing it while some of the girls are praying and others are yelling various comments to the passers-by.[ 1 comment ] ( 5 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Sunday, February 3, 2008, 04:29 AM - Food
Just a quick catchup for all of you who don't read Lisa's blog or need a recap because I only post on 2 month centers as Marc so statistically pointed out: After Bangladesh, we went to Hawaii for a week, spent Christmas and New Years at home, got sent to Korea for a week on 8 hours notice, and am now in Thailand. Nice recap.
I've decided that when I eat at a restaurant that I would like to go back to in the future (especially those in foreign countries) that I will blog about them in my own personal review. Hence: Bassaracum.
The Internet told me that this restaurant was excellent and has been since the 1980s, serving primarily "Royal Thai Cuisine". You can read all about that on their website if you click on the "related link" below.
So tonight, I drug my friends all the way over there to check it out. It turned out to be a very elegant restaurant in an unlikely setting. More of a cross street than an alley, but it sure felt like an alley. The people were exceedingly pleasant and eager to serve. As appetizers we tried the Chicken Sate with peanut sauce (of course), shrimp spring rolls, Krathong Thong (like a pastry cup with shrimp, pork, corn, and peas). For my main course, I had massaman curry (in Lisa's honor since it's her favorite). It was outstanding...I dare say even the best I've ever had. To top it all off, we shared a mango and sticky rice dessert (which my faithful followers should know is one of our favorite desserts of all time).
In review: weird location, great atmosphere, pleasant people, outstanding food, good price. The total bill for three people with drinks and everything came out to be around $65. So this is inline with the cost to eat in any of the big western hotels here, but more expensive than a non-tourist restaurant. I'd give it 5 stars and would go back there again.
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Sunday, February 3, 2008, 04:28 AM
This is my placeholder because I need to write about "life in Bangladesh" for two weeks.[ 2 comments ] ( 6 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Tuesday, December 11, 2007, 05:05 AM - PC
Lisa added a utility on her blog that shows where in the world her readers are.
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Monday, December 10, 2007, 06:42 AM - USMC
On November 15th, Cyclone Sidr came in from the Bay of Bengal and devastated the country of Bangladesh. A few days later, III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) sent a Humanitarian Assistance Survey Team (HAST) into the country to assess the damage and what role, if any, III MEF would play in the Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR) to the country.
On Saturday, 24 November Lisa, Nathan, and I were at some friends house eating dinner when I got a call from my unit saying that I was being called in to work the next day in order to prepare to leave for Bangladesh on Monday morning. Wow...talk about short notice! I do have to admit that packing was pretty easy since I hadn't unpacked from when I got back from the Philippines! Needless to say, Lisa was not happy with the line: "I don't know how long I'll be gone for...it could be a couple of days to a couple of weeks to a couple of months". That kind of ruined the four day weekend for us.
Sunday came and went. I spent the entire morning through afternoon planning the movement and communication pieces of our mission. Granted, we didn't entirely have a complete mission yet. That's okay, cause we kind of made it up as we went along. Essentially there were going to be three Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU) in the area providing relief, so the MEF commander wanted to send a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) command element to sit on top of the three MEUs. The short lesson in Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) doctrine is that a MEF is the largest combat organization in the Marine Corps. A MEB is smaller than a MEF and a MEU is smaller than a MEB. All ya need to know
So my role in all of this was to provide communications and command & control functions to the MEB Air Cell (pilots from my unit) as they directed the MEU aircraft when to go where. Sounds good to me!
Monday came and went, waiting at the passenger terminal on Futenma just to hear that the flight slipped to Tuesday. Tuesday came and we finally took off...with my 3,000 pound pallet of comm gear!! Hey, it's better to take it and not need it than it is to need it and not have it. Due to the distance we needed to travel, we ended up staying in Pattaya, Thailand for a night. When I say night, I really mean it. We got to the hotel around 10pm and left at 7am. Most people took advantage of the endless..."nightlife" and rested on the plane the next morning.
When we landed in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Wednesday the 28th, it was full of the hurry up and wait game. After a few hours going through immigration and what not, we finally made it to the hotel and headed to the Embassy. After some SNAFUs there, we finally were allowed in and tried to scout out an area that we'd be working.
The next week and a half was full of 16 hour days trying to command and control these forces in order to meet the priorities of the local government with the resources we had. It was exhausting but very rewarding to say the least. Most of the damage was along the coast in southern Bangladesh rather than around the capital of Dhaka, but we could see remnants of the cyclone around us as well.
Below are some links to articles on the web about this high profile cyclone and our efforts in the country. Stay tuned for my next post about the experience of being in Bangladesh.
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000. ... endocument
http://www.e-mela.com/page.php?id=1845
http://www.pacom.mil/special/0711bdesh/index.shtml
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000. ... endocument
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000. ... endocument
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007, 04:09 AM - USMC
I was in the Philippines for the last month. Maybe there will be more to come later. Maybe not. Ahhh...the mysteries of life![ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Saturday, July 14, 2007, 05:16 AM - Japan
Typhoon Man-Yi graced us with its presence last night and all day today. Yesterday evening I took everything that was outside and put it in the storage closet except for our trash cans. I kept thinking: "oh, all the previous typhoons ended up being nothing, so I'll bet this will be the same way!" Well, I ended up obsessing over it until about midnight when I ran outside in the rain and pulled the trash cans and recycle bin inside. Uggghhh.
This morning, I awoke to winds that felt and sounded like it would break all the windows of the house and ran being thrown about. 120 knots (140 mph)!! My first question was "how am I going to let the dogs out to go to the bathroom?" Well...see the picture below:
;)
There's nothing like a good flak and kevlar to protect you from flying debris!! It was actually a pretty bad storm! Note the video below (and one more picture if you click the related link at the bottom of this post).
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007, 04:15 AM - Family, PC, Japan, Pictures
On Sunday I got to do something that I'd wanted to do for the last year or so (since I first heard about it). About a mile off Torii Beach, there's a net with three whale sharks inside. A Japanese diving company runs tours out there so you can dive with them. For only $115, you can dive with the largest fish in the sea...sounds good to me!
Since Lisa doesn't dive, I figured it would be a perfect thing to do while she and Nathan were gone. So, on Sunday I saddled up with two friends and we went out there. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I can't really even explain what it's like to have this huge fish coming towards you with it's mouth open and nudge you into the net. Or to run your hands across it's back from the mouth all the way down to the tail.
Click on the related link below for some (bad) pictures. I also took all the videos that Brian took with his underwater camera and made a little consolidated video shown below. Enjoy!
(Click the Play button in the window below for the video to start)
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Friday, July 6, 2007, 02:46 PM - Family, PC
HA. I'm blogging more than Lisa now! And she has like 18 baby sitters at the Cabin in Minnesota, so she can't use Nathan as an excuse.[ 4 comments ] ( 30 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
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