Big Time

Happy Birthday, Sis... here's a little
lowcountry for you.

There's something about a salty breeze that does wonders for me and my sanity. Yesterday, Heather, Luke, and I went to Calabash, NC to eat dinner (Charlie was at a birthday party) because that's the nearest place that has good seafood. Our favorite little block building restaraunt, The Seafood Hut, had a line wrapping around the entire building, so we decided to go on down to Coleman's. It's right on the river in Calabash along with two or three others. Also on this river are the shrimp boat docks.

After dinner, Luke wanted to look at the boats so we went down on the docks and took some pictures. There were several boats lined up at the docks and the black-faced gulls were swooping around everywhere. There was one little boat anchored out in the river. It was the smallest boat there. Ironically, the name of the boat...Big Time.

And it occurred to me that whoever named that boat had it right. That is the Big Time. How much better could it be? Every day, that guy gets to smell the salt air and watch the sea waves roll. He listens to the gulls laugh and watches the marsh grass sway in the breeze. His day is not ruled by a clock but by the coming and going of the tide. And the food. I could eat shrimp every day of my life for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and not get tired of it. This truly is the big time.

My "educated" uncle also used to own a shrimp boat. One of my favorite memories of my lowcountry upbringing was going out shrimping with him. The boat was already out shrimping around Trunkett (Trenchard's, spell it how you will) so he picked me up in his wood bateau at one of the boat landings on St. Helena. Once on the boat, we dropped the nets back and watched the "doors" disappear beneath the waves. The engine groaned with the extra drag placed on it. My uncle pointed to the cables connected to the doors and said, "everything between those two cables is mine." We hauled the nets up and unloaded them on the culling table. We separated out the shrimp and sorted them by "count". We also kept some crab and a few of the doormat sized flounder. The rest was tossed overboard for the waiting dolphins, gulls, and sharks.

We anchored the boat in the sound just inland from the ocean and started cooking. We boiled the shrimp and crabs and fried the flounder. For musical entertainment, what else but Jimmy Buffet. We ate until we were stuffed and watched the sun go down over Bay Point.

For those of you who have never experienced such a thing, I recommend you try it someday. I could probably open a very successful psychotherapy clinic on a shrimp boat. I think it's because the salt breeze creates a disconnect in the mind that unleashes you from the rest of the world. One that makes you forget, if even for a moment, that the rest of the world even exists. And it's at that point, when you tune in to the natural wonders around you and your troubles be damned, that you realize that yes, indeed, this is the Big Time.

Lord Help Us.....

It was found out today that the enemy is using a terrible new weapon against American forces. Word about the new weapon is spreading among even the American troops. The use of this weapon causes men to desert their posts, running at full speed. Even the slightest sound of the new weapon causes their adrenaline to build until nervously shaking, the American forces flee. This weapon is even being utilized on American soil!



What is this new weapon that could cause such a stir in our American troops?














The ice cream man. He rings the bell and they drop whatever it is they're doing and come running with fists full of dollars.

Artsy Army Part Deux

Here's part two of the Artsy Army...


Tank track...158 track pads per tank...9 bolts per pad...
and they all have to be checked every time you stop.


The Master Blaster. At least that's what we call it.
It's method #5 for firing the main gun.


We had cool stuff, but this is how alot of our time
was spent...pouring over maps and drawing overlays.


These are dummy rounds for the 25mm gun on the
M2 Bradley. We used these for training on loading the
25mm.

Artsy Army Part I

These are some pictures that a buddy of mine took while I was at Ft. Knox. I didn't think there was anything at all artsy about the Army. Who knew?


This was our last day of Gauntlet. We were headed home after
about 2 weeks in the field. That's a smelly bunch there.


There was very little time for this.


These are 25mm sabot rounds for the M2 Bradley.
Interesting patterns.

Folks sometimes ask me what I do in the Army. I tell them that I'm a platoon leader. That generally gets the "deer in the headlights" look. So I tell them that I command a platoon of 4 M1A1 Abrams tanks and can also effectively lead scouts in a reconnaissance platoon. Again, they look at me like a monkey doing a math problem. So below are a couple of videos showing what I do.

This is our graduation video from Armor Officer Basic Course. There are a couple shots of me in there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3JnnFsNKYw

This is a video that I found on youtube.com that pretty well shows what I'm talking about. I'm nowhere to be found in this, but it could just as well be me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmluA6tZ30c

And when I'm not blowing stuff up, I clean up pretty well.

Out,

LT

Photoshop Phun

Here's my tribute to Amy. Boy was she right, photoshopping is addictive. I spent a couple hours fiddling with these things. Although, technically, I'm not using photoshop, it's still fun. I use HP Photosmart. Anyways, here are some of the redneck zoo pics that I messed with a little. So as Victor, my favorite Mexican waiter, says...Enyoy!!

Granny's Gift

When I was about 13 years old, one of my uncles went to "college". While he was being educated - reformed, call it what you will - Granny Harriott bought him a guitar since there wasn't a lot to do during the day at this particular institution. One of his "classmates" happened to know how to play and, there being nothing else to do, passed on his musical knowledge to my uncle.

Not to be left out on the present receiving, my other uncle - educated uncle's brother - had to have one as well. So Granny outfits lesser educated uncle with an identical guitar. These guitars were pretty decent. Yamahas if remember correctly. They had a certain thin twang about them that Yamahas are prone to have. It's because of the thin spruce tops that Yamaha uses in the construction, but I digress. Suffice it to say, Gran probably dropped a couple hundred on each one.

Seeing how a little bit of whining worked for lesser educated uncle, I decided to throw my hat into the ring. Sure enough, it worked. But Granny didn't drop the same kind of cash on me. And rightly so. I was 13 for heaven's sake. I would probably put it down in a week. She went to Fast Freddy's and bought something that Freddy probably didn't know much about. I recall that she spent about $60 for mine, case and all. What she bought me was a Sigma which is made by the Martin Company. Martin is known for producing world class acoustic guitars. This thing was worth 10 times that much.

Granny's $60 investment paid off. This guitar has followed me everywhere since then. I have played it until my fingers have bled. It has been an outlet for joy, a vehicle for expressing the unexpressable, and a healer of broken hearts. Unless you ask sister her opinion, then it ranks somewhat lower.

I've since added to my guitar collection (2 garage sale classicals and an $800 Ibanez that almost cost me my marriage), but I always come back to this one. It knows exactly what I'm trying to say and how I'm trying to say it.

She's had a few bumps and bruises along the way. The most noteable is a deep gash in her top from a college (note the lack of quotation marks) incident that almost saw the death of my roommate - at my hands. But despite her blemishes, her tone still sounds the same as the day she came home from the pawn shop.

So, Gran, I think I've gotten some mileage from that $60. It's lived in 9 different houses, played on Lord knows how many stages, and even done duty at 2 Army posts. It's 23 years later and I still haven't put it down. As long as there is a song in my heart and a tune in my head, I imagine this guitar will be in my hands. Thank you, Granny.