India Rocks

Tara is going to kill me for posting these pictures from India but she took so long to do it. The picture on top is the first time we really started bonding with some of the people there. I was walking back to the bus after a long hot day of work but I felt great because the habitat people brought a huge supply of real mango juice in these juice boxes for us at the work site. I must have drank half of them while the rest of the team of eight got the rest "very greedy". In the village there is a main street and on the side of it I saw five little girls playing a game involving four posts. I decided to be a little spontaneous and see if they would let me play too. Two of them ran into the house scared and the other three stayed and let me in on it. I was in the mush pot I think it would be called and I had to tag anyone who was not touching a post or get to an empty post then the odd person out was it. Pretty soon we had a line of kids wanting to play with the six three white foreign guy. Some of the younger more adventerous westerners joined in too after awhile. I think I was a hit after that because after that the kids would come up and say game? game? . I introduced fag tag but considering there were a couple of gay people in our group I renamed it buddy tag to be a little more considerate of peoples feelings than usual. They enjoyed buddy tag even more and so did the westerners.
The second picture is of me and Tara on the back of the burning hot bus after a scorching hot day of bricklaying. There are other pictures of us but this one was my favorite just because Tara got frustrated with me not looking just perfect after a day like that. I was just teasing her a bit. The third picture was on our second morning at the wilderness resort they had us at. After breakfast we had about 30 minutes to take a walk. We went down to this river and found some really awesome specimens of Quartz that we managed to smuggle back successfully. This particular resort had alot of interesting flora and fauna; iguanas, toads, eagle size fruit bats, rhinocerous beetles, poison dart frogs, enormous moths the size of my hand, geckos, cameleons, and a mango tree with a banyan tree attached and a certain kind of nut producing tree growing up above out of a crevice in the tree. I am going to post some more pictures of India even though Tara may get angry with me.

We are back

India was amazing. We have a tentative plan to return in two years. Next time we are taking the kids. We will post pictures shortly. I know no one reads this stupid blog but I just want to say to everyone that they need to consider India as a prime vacation spot. One location in particular is Goa. Goa kicks Hawaiis butt.

bandierantes

I have been reading about these guys known as the bandeirantes on various websites. I am trying to find information about them from online libraries. I have decided that I am going to become the foremost expert on this group of adventurers. They were men who explored the interior of Brazil before any other European. Don't quote me but I don't think they were working for the crown of Portugal when they went on these expeditions. From what I have gathered they would travel the vast unexplored deserts and rain forests in search of indian slaves and riches. They were usually unsuccessful in these efforts but a good number of these explorers found great riches. One expedition found golf ball size emeralds. Another found an indian village where the people were wearing more gold than clothing. The most famous of these explorers was Antonio Raposo Tavares. I don't remember off hand why he was the most famous but I assume it was because he was the most successful. Some expeditions brought back in excess of 3000 indian slaves. Later African slaves proved to be more productive because the indian slaves would just run away to the forests of the amazon or wherever they came from. When I get more information about specific expeditions I will include a more detailed account of these expeditions. These guys on one of their marches through Brazil traveled farther than Mao or the pioneers. Anyway not much happening here in Afghanistan. Just trying to pass the time.

Random thoughts and the past couple of days

The last three days I have been trying to kill off this growth around my hip region. My method that I thought would work is to go on the treadmill for 30 minutes to an hour a day at level 20 and try to burn just over a thousand calories. I did some reading on Wikipedia about strength training tonight. Why wikipedia? Because it seems to be a reliable source of information. These other sources seem to be fads. I found that doing what I am doing will burn muscle not fat this is bad for a man who is unhappy being not skinny but not sufficiently thick. I am working out hard and eating small servings. Apparently I need to increase my protein intake and that will in turn grow muscle and burn fat. I also noticed in just these three days my mood has stabilized. You know what people with depression need a kick in the arse to the freaking gym. I am serious I am feeling great, "no joke" whereas in Spain one hour I want to lock my hotel room door turn out the lights and hope that I can fall asleep in hopes that I will wake up in a better mood. And then an hour later get jittery and want to go see everything I can before I leave. Continuing with my last couple of days. I have a twelve hour shift in which I try to read, call family and watch a movie to help two hours fly by. Other than that I just make sure no durka durka mohamed jihad enters or comes near the building. Without a clearance of course. I have decided that my next shift I am going to do push ups sit ups and stretches maybe fool around with yoga or pilates when none of the guys are there of course. I would get so gaybled if I was caught doing yoga stuff. I kid you not every guy I know that does that stuff looks like I would like to look not gay of course just in a certain kind of shape toned and healthy and semi bulky. I woman touched my bare chest today. It cost eight dollars for a half hour of pain. I was so sore I did not let my self consciousness about my hair stop me. She massaged my back too. I went once before and felt really stupid because I was not sore and she was weak. Got to go times up.

Afghanistan

This is a little taste of where I am. That is a C-17 that I flew in on once my first time here. I prefer the C-130 it is slower. Those little houses have about six little rooms each that is what I get to stay in. By the way the C-130 crew always say winglets are for Pu#%^&$ refering to the little upturns at the end of the wings of a C-17. Very mountainous here. These look like spring pictures just after rain. The rest of the time picture not being able to see the mountains because of dust.


The plane with the propellers is a C-130 the mission bird as we call it. It is way more comfortable and it breaks down more so we get to stop more. Just wanted you all to see a plane for real men not just a plane with winglets.
The Humvee or Hummer is a common verhicle in these here parts complete with leather interior, bucket seats, surround sound stereo and built 50 caliber machine gun just perfect for rush hour traffic and your occasional case of road rage in Afghanistan of course dealing with the enemy.

favorite actress

Well my wife thinks I am into Lucy Liu but if you mix talent and looks I think Jennifer Connely is my pick. Some people don't take her serious because she was in Career Opportunities and Labryinth but look at the other movies she has done House of Sand and Fog, and A Beutiful Mind with russell Crowe. What do you think of the hair?

my favorite actor

The picture I added of Isaiah Ali and Kale was unintentional but still a good picture. Anyway right now this Viggo guy is my favorite actor mainly for cool points for being Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings series of movies but also for his wide range of movies. He almost always plays the tough guy but he does it very convincingly. For an actor who personally does not promote war he sure does promote it in his movies.