memorial day

tomorrow will be memorial day.  i'm happy that the country will take a "day off" and remember those men and women who paid the ultimate price.  that is for those who remember that's the reason for our three day weekend.  it's a hard day,  people continue to die today.  for a people that don't understand why, no let me rephrase that refuse to understand why.  as i sit here and watch the various commercials for sales and blowouts. not one mentions why.  for presidents day they usually float around the busts of our forefathers.  for mothers day, various mom's at different stages of life.  would it be too difficult to have these thinkers (advertisers) think of some way of atleast saying thank you for the boost to their sales if not for just being free.  well i for one will tell anyone i can tomorrow about the friends that i knew and will never forget that lost their lives for mine and my family's freedom.  people need to be aware that freedom is far from free!!!  i'll leave you with a quote perhaps it will help explain my disdain,  i'm sure most would agree, and thank god they don't know exactly what freedom cost.  it's a pain i don't wish on anyone, i merely think respect has been earned.  the auther is unknown to me if someone knows who said this i'd love to shake his or her hand.  : "For those who fought for it FREEDOM has a flavor the protected will NEVER KNOW"

wonderful day

i had a good afternoon yesterday. it started with me picking Kalel up from his preschool at about 4:30 PM. i had a relatively peaceful drive home. Kalel is very vocal about what he wants to listen to on the ride home and well i did not have the correct music. (anything from the "cars" soundtrack). almost like clockwork he was out before i jumped on the freeway though and so i get to lose myself in the sounds of MY music. yesterdays choice was : all elvis all the time (satellite radio). i am not kidding about getting lost in the soulful sound of "the king". i guess it's because it really does make me think about living in another time. i've heard my grand parents and even my parents tell me of much simpler times. i've been going through and dealing with quite a bit lately and so it was a welcomed peace and i could feel it slipping away as i exited the freeway and went back to the stop and go which is street traffic. Kalel began to stir and resumes his argument and disagreement almost as if he never fell asleep. i was determined to not lose the peace and told him of the great afternoon we were going to have. he could not have been any more excited. basically i had told him that he was about to have an afternoon of breaking any rule ever placed on him. run around barefoot outside, throw caution to the wind and wet everything he could think of. (code for forget we're in a drought) all while drinking soda, and eating ice cream and ice cones and anything else the street vendors could think to sell us. we did all that and more. when he was done wetting everything to include me he turned the hose on himself which in definitely proved to be playground suicide. the sun had set at that point and we personally added to the city's water shortage. i decided he had enough and that a nice cool bath before bedtime would suit him well. after breaking his heart by explaining that now that he was wet he needed to go inside for a bath he decided all it meant was more water play and horsing around except indoors. after drying everything after the storm that hit the bathroom it was time for him to go to bed. he was of course exhausted and i've never had an easier time putting him to bed. he was gone the moment his head hit the pillow. it was a little past nine and i was still very hot and needed to cool down, i jumped in the shower not to late after that and then grabbed a book i'm still trying to get through and sat on the porch under the half burnt out porch lights. as i read "the gamble" a story of the political machine behind the later stages of the iraqi war effort. i was taken back to a much hotter day just about 6 years before, as i mounted some vehicles departing from baghdad. after a few moments of sheer anxiety which is usually the initial reaction when i think of my time in the desert. even as i sit here telling you of my afternoon it sends chills up my spine, i suppose it's not just the memories of things done or seen but because of the realization of everything that could have been. when thinking of that experience in contrast with the afternoon i just lived today i could not be any happier and i guess that is how i happen to deal with the stress that even thinking about Iraq brings to many of my friends and thousands of other service members day in and day out. i couldn't read anymore (part of the reason it's taking so long to read this particular book) anyone who knows me knows how fast i speed read through things. i went back inside just before my date with leno, i think late night is great. besides the TV had quite a rest with no disney channel on at all for Kalel. I can't wait to do it all again tomorrow. Today I have class, the beginning to the next chapter in my life.

lost and found

I went to lunch pretty bummed out about the money situation again with this internal struggle of what I will do and so on. Anyway funny thing happenedat lunch. It did not make my situation any better, but it did teach mesomething about myself.

I parked at the far end of the parking lot and I counted the money that Iwas going to deposit. I had the envelope ready so that I would make it as quickly as possible. I walked in to the building because it has indoor ATM’s. I stood by while the man in front of me inserted his card and went about his business. I saw him take the money from the machine put it in his pocket and walk away. As I approached the ATM. I realized that he had not closed out the transaction and his balance was visible. The ATM prompted me to give it further instructions. I thought he may have forgotten his card but then noticed it was the type of ATM where you insert and pull out thecard in one motion. So he was gone. There I was in front of the ATM with abalance of over $10,000 available. I’m a very fast thinker so almost immediately my mind went racing dreaming of everything I could buy and how things would be better, about taking Kalel to Disneyland about just plainly
being ok. I thought about how with so much money in the bank the $1,000(daily limit) I could have taken was nothing. I then thought about everyone in my life and what the implications of me actually taking this meant. I thought about how if even $10 were taken from my account it would cause such an impact in my life. Anyway long story short, I’m sure you can understand why I could not take any money from this "poor" man who was probably dealing with his own problem and therefore so absent minded. I closed out the transaction and thanked god for being behind that man because I’m sure I saved someone a lot of heartache and at the same time I feel as if I found a little bit of the soul I thought I left so far away in the desert.

warning

Consider yourself warned. I expect this blog to be an outlet for the discontent and anger I've been holding inside for some time now. Although I realize how lucky I am to be alive. I think from time to time, because of human nature, I forget those hard times and revert to being weak minded and fret over the little things, that in all actuality are very unimportant, to say the least.

A little history on me so that the previous statement makes a little more sense.

I was born at the height of a civil war. In retrospect that is very much and oxymoron because it was as from civil as one could get. Either way my birth was, let me repeat the key word, during WAR. I came a couple months early and in the midst of battle, my mother and father were escorted to the hospital where I was to be born by armed men. From my birth up until the age of about 2 and half years old, I lived in a country plagued with war and the evil that takes over a people when the death around them becomes as common as the cold or flu. In other words no escaping it, because the hate just spreads.

My father made what I think was the best decision of his life. At the tender age of 23, he put his life aside and along with my mother decided that my brother and I deserved a better life. So my father and mother who would have probably survived the war, with no regard for their life headed north to the land of opportunity, where they knew they themselves would be second class citizens so that their two boys would not have to. Something I don't think I could ever thank them enough for.

to be continued......