Corey-The Butterfly Effect

When my son Corey was in Airborne school, back in September/October timeframe, he was 30 minutes late for formation one time which got him in trouble. They put him back with the class coming through after his so he graduated from Airborne with the next class. Then the weather kept him from graduating for another week. Of course we were kind of frustrated because that put him coming home on leave back 3 weeks. I was annoyed but still in the back of my mind was thinking "Maybe there's a good reason for it"...I'm always thinking that when something goes 'wrong'. The spot that he was supposed to fill was, of course, filled by someone else who deployed to Afghanistan. At the time, he was irritated that he wasn't deploying as soon as he was out of Airborne school like some of his buddies were. Corey, instead, was assigned to the Global Response Force.




Fast forward 4 months.



While Corey is in Haiti, the boy that filled Corey's spot in the unit that went to Afghanistan was killed, along with his captain, a few weeks ago (Feb 2) when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device Feb. 2 in Zabul province, Afghanistan. I'm so grateful that it wasn't my son, and thanking God for the series of events that kept him out of that jeep in Afghanistan..but I feel so guilty being so happy for me when there's a mother in Albuquerque bringing her son home in a coffin...



http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=13287





Melanie

Diet

Wow. I'm so weak today! Yesterday I was having surges of energy, and today I've just been dragging. Tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday. I'm a complete idiot for starting this diet 4 days prior to Superbowl Sunday. This is a bigger eating day than like, Christmas or Thanksgiving! We go to Mom's, Shelly and family go over to Mom's and we just eat. For several hours straight! Shelly always makes these darling jello footballs (eggs) in the colors of the teams and we all look forward to those! Jeffery makes these sausage pizza things...making my mouth water just thinking about them....

I'm so hungy! I'm past panicking, but I'm approaching depressed. Yesterday I cheated and had an extra cracker. Today, I had to leave mom's house because I was eyeing these chocolate mints...

Now I'm walking around the kitchen, looking at everything I have and talking to myself about shooting someone.... Oh yeah, and I'm down 5 pounds.

Corey

I got to talk to Corey yesterday. He's in Haiti and got there about the 16th, I think.  His job is 'throwing people around'.  He works in a place where they give jobs to people for the day. There is a 3 ft wall around their work location.  The people who come to get jobs wait in line for hours, days, to be first in line when they hand out jobs. (Jobs like taking out trash, being security, etc) So some people just get so desperate that they will try to cut line or climb the wall to get in, and Corey 'gets to toss them back over the wall.' 

He said that the people there have no shame at all. They will just pee wherever they happen to be standing. If they are in line, they will pee standing in line. At his work location, there is a corner by the wall where they can go use the bathroom. (UGH!) He went over to the corner to pee and noticed there were holes in the wall. Peering through the holes were eyes, watching him. He said "That was weird".  He said that a lot of the Haitians come up to about his chest. He'll look and see some 'kid' walk by, and when the 'kid' turns around he's got a full beard and wrinkles and is a grown man/woman.  He can look out over the crowd and see over the crowd.

He got to feel the 6.5 aftershock! He said he was sleeping on his truck (they have to sleep outside) and it felt like someone came and shook the truck really hard. He said there's been quite a few that he's felt. I'm so jealous! What geologist wouldn't want to be standing on the ground (not in a building, of course) when an earthquake hit!

He'll be coming back to the states fairly soon. The ARMY is getting trucks ready to load and ship back.

The first few days he was there he hauled bodies out of the hospital, then went to work as a 'bouncer' basically, keeping peace, keeping people from fighting in the line.

SWhen he's in the states I get to talk to him about every week, unless he's in the field for 2 weeks in addition to texts in between. I can't believe I've been fortunate enough to talk to him twice since he's been in Haiti. Saw him last in July. Seems weird that it's been that long since I've seen my son, but at least I get to talk to him on occasion.  Too many people I know don't get to talk to their sons...

Diet...

So, Since I have a class reunion in June, and an Orlando vacation in August (I don't want to be fat in Florida...it's just too dang hot!) I started a new diet on Tuesday. It starts out with 2 gorge days, which is the best part of it! Wait, no, the best part is that I'll be 30 pounds down in 6 weeks. Okay, At this point, the best part was my 2 gorge days. I talked Mother into starting it with me. So, after the 2 gorge days, we get to eat 550 calories every single day! For 30-40 whole days! If that doesn't make a person want to throw glass bottles at a brick wall I dont' know what would.

With safety glasses on, of course.

This morning, I woke up thinking "Crap, I can't eat anything today". This causes me stress.

I'm starving. We can break up our meals of 100g meat, 1 veg, 1 fruit and a cracker and eat parts of it as snacks through the day. By the time lunch time got here (ok, 11:00 being lunch time) my lunch was entirely gone from using it as 'snacks'. I'm panicking.

The good news is that I just received my Tectonic Maps of North America. I'm going to put them all up on my wall at home by the computer. I got the whole set. Each map is 41" by 44" and there are 4 maps for the whole of North America!

I wonder how they taste...