Yeah hurray! This video has finally uploaded on the third try! So real quick.... Kansas was great! It was a lot of fun visiting with Christy and Dan and their kids. Definitely worth the trip seeing as I will not know when I will see them again. Today has been quite the long day. It began this morning at 5am with a call from Japan. It was good that I got the call cause I needed some questions answered, but it was early. Since then I feel like I have been on the phone all day long calling everyone and their mother to give them our new address and/or cancel my account with them. And for those of you who are wondering we will be using mom and dad's address for now cause that is all we have. I was warned about the address that we were given that would go to the ship. Apparently, mail takes a really long time to get to us if we send it there. So good riddance to America! See you all when we return!

Home Alone

  Well I dropped Joy off at the airport today to see her sister in Kansas.  Her flight left early this morning so I've been home all day by myself.  I did the usual things a guy does on a Sunday; I went back to sleep and slept in for entirely too long.  I went to Home Depot for some stuff to repair a screen to our kitchen window that Sandy (Joy's dog!) ruined.  I got about half way finished before I stopped to watch The Unit on NBC.com, but I need Joy's help anyway so I can get the screen tight enough.  In case you didn't know The Unit is a very cool t.v. show about a secret elite military unit.

  Last night we went to see the movie Burn After Reading with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.  It was

 a good movie and was pretty funny but had a weird twist at the end.  Tomorrow night I'm going to see Miracle at St. Anne.

Leaving San Diego

  So since Joy and I are leaving San Diego pretty soon we decided to finally take a walk down the pier in Imperial Beach.  I grabbed our new point-and-shoot camera so I could take some photos to post on this blog since I haven't done it yet myself.

  Here are those photos along with one of us with our decaying Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns.  I think they look cool with mold and flies coming out their mouths.  I just wish I had some dynamite or something to blow them to pieces before we have to leave because I don't have a hill I can roll them down.  Sometimes I just wish I was a kid again... although maybe it's better to be grown up because I get cooler toys to play with.

  -Brian

The New Grass!?!

  The picture below is actually the spot where I buried Joy after I killed her and her stupid dog (my friend is taking care of her stupid horse).  I didn't have enough room in the back for a dead stupid horse too.  My sister Amie knows, now the rest of you know.  I only use Joy's name on the blog so that people think she's still alive, but she's not she's in the ground.

  Ok that might actually freak some of her family out but don't worry she's still alive and although she might not be "normal" she's at least her normal self.  Sorry if I freaked any one out but hey, it's almost Halloween and we're going to miss Halloween because we'll be sitting in an airport or on a plane to Tokyo.  I've also been home half the day bored watching Youtube and reading The Total Money Makeover (only got through one chapter).  Joy's in the shower singing, maybe I should make a video of that.

  Some of you probably wonder what it is that I do at work now that I'm not at BUD/S anymore...  Just so you know BUD/S stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL training.  There were originally Navy Underwater Demolition Teams or UDT's then in the 60's the SEAL Teams were created and the UDT's were decommissioned but they still teach the basics of both the UDT's and SEAL teams at BUD/S which is why they call it Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL training.  

  Ok back to where I left off...  Now I'm in a holding unit called X-Division (X-Div) while I wait to be re-assigned to my next duty station, which is going to be a Destroyer named the Lassen out of Yokosuka, Japan.  There are about 30 guys in x-div and we all get assigned random jobs around base.  Mostly I've been getting the "good" job of cleaning the x-div barracks I don't even live in, but I say it's good because I get off around 12 or 1pm everyday while some guys don't get off till 4pm.  I have to do things like take out trash, sweep, clean urinals and anything else a janitor might do in the civilian world.  But I'm in the United States Navy and your tax dollars are paying me to live my dream of being a janitor.  So thank you to those of you who actually pay your taxes.

  Well Joy's finally out of the shower now so I better go.

Yay for grass!

We have been waiting for these little sprouts for a week and a half now.I am very relieved to finally see them. You see, our lovely dogs (who are no longer with us here in SD) loved to lay in the same place all day, day after day. The end result was a dead patch of grass. As the patch turned to dirt, the young pup (Shugo) found it fun to dig in that area, only making it worse. So when they left we (by "we" I mean Brian) put new soil down and seeded it. I realize it will not be perfect by the time we leave (next Friday). BUT my hope is that our landlord will see the new growth and realize that it is going to turn into beautiful thick grass like you see in the background. We had to give an extra deposit cause of sweet Sandy, and I would like to get it back... I don't know what I did, but I can't undo it so this is now underlined...

Spaghetti Anyone?

So last night we were making spaghetti. I asked Brian to strain the pasta while I got the rest of the stuff together. Well, I started to hear water pouring, and then nothing. I heard a big shppptsh (I am not sure how to spell the noise it made). Anyway, turn around and there it goes, all our spaghetti down the drain. We accidentally bought angel hair pasta and I think that is why it well down the drain so fast. It was very quick. Pretty funny. At least we still had pasta to cook, so dinner was just postponed for another 10 minutes. And the second batch did not slither down the drain!

The Empty Nest

It is true our nest is empty. I think I got some good videos and plenty of pics. Basically, Brian and I spent 5-8 hours organizing and packing. Two guys did the rest. It was awesome. We only packed what we did cause I wanted to feel like there was some order to it all. I had no idea what to expect. So we did as much as we could, staying up till midnight the night before (I realize that is not that late, but I was very tired). So they were supposed to come anytime between 8 and 5pm. What are the odds they will come at 8am right? So we set our alarm for 7am wanting to get up wash the dishes and one last load of laundry (that was going with them). Well, two minutes after my alarm goes off the movers call and say they are on their way! So we rushed through everything. The guys got here and we continued to pack a few things while they were working on the other room. Let me tell ya these guys work freaking fast! I honestly only saw each of them take about a 5 second break to chug some water. All I know is they have got to sleep extremely well at night.

So basically we had nothing to sleep with last night. We went on base and got a "kit" that had some cooking stuff so we don't have to eat out for the next two weeks. But I was so excited to find this place that someone told me about (but everyone that I asked where it was looked at me like I was crazy), I was so excited we both forgot to ask about blankets. I was going to borrow some from a friend, but she was out and by the time she got home I didn't want to go anywhere. So we will have to get blankets from her today.

So very exciting stuff! It is starting to sink in a little bit that we are actually leaving. Now that our stuff is gone, our dogs our gone, our horse is gone, there is not much left for us. I am excited and nervous. Not sure what to really expect. I am ready though, that is for sure. I will be posting video later. I got some cool ones, but they are long so I need to figure out how to edit them. I only have my laptop now which does not have as many cool applications as my desktop...

Family

So we had a fun time in Auburn. It was really nice to see everyone one last time. Who knows when we will be back. As of right now we are due to be in Japan for the next three years. BUT Brian is thinking about becoming an officer which would most likely mean that we would only be there for 2 years. Either way we will probably only come back to visit once (maybe twice if we're there for three years). The saddest thing was leaving my beloved animals. I will never see Sandy again. She is old and will most likely be dead by the time I go back. Shugo will be meeting up with us soon, but it was still sad to part with him. And Almond... oh Almond, I will miss him a lot. I really don't know what I will do without horses in my life for three years. First thing when we get there I am going to find a horse ranch somewhere...

While we were up on the weekend my mom was doing a project for her psychology class. It was about facial recognition and whether you would be more likely to recognize someone if you saw a short video of them or a still photo. This is my niece Trinity. I LOVE how her little nose wrinkles up and then she says, "You mean hate food?" Hilarious!

Off to Auburn

So tomorrow afternoon we are headed up to Auburn to drop off the dogs. Sandy is going to live the remainder of her life (however long that might be) with my parents, and Shugo is going to stay with my friend until he is ready to be shipped to Japan (which if all goes according to plan will be in March). Mom and Dad are going to have a last going away BBQ thing on Saturday and then we come back Sunday. Very quick trip. Hopefully I will get some fun picks and footage. I am really liking the video on my camera. The video here is Sandy's favorite thing to do. We walk to the bay (about 6 blocks) and she will just get in the water and lay down. I like to call her swamp dog, cause it's kinda swampy. And she gets swampy. Basically the dogs end up smelling like dead nasty fish. Lots of fun. Ok Never mind about the video. It won't upload... maybe another day. This is her happy face.

Sad Awesome Possum

So on Sunday Awesome Possum returned. This time he returned to the front yard and sadly he was found dead. In a pile of dog pooh. He was not playing dead this time. His hair looked like he had been in someone's mouth (probably just got hit by the sprinklers). I guess that is just the life of a possum in the city...

Things you just don't want to hear

So this morning as Brian is getting ready to leave for work he says, "Oh, so yesterday before you got home, I had the dogs in the front and they started barking at someone. I went to tell them to shut up and this lady was taking pictures of them... There was a man with her, but he was standing in the street. I didn't think much of it cause I thought they were just passing by. After they left our neighbor came over and told me they were taking pictures. I said I didn't think it was a big deal, and he said he thought they were doing more than that..."

What does that mean? They are trying to take pictures of our house and our dogs so they can break in and steal our stuff? Hope not. Our stuff should be gone in about 2 weeks anyway. The Navy is going to come pack it all up and ship it out as soon as the right paperwork goes through the system.

Regardless of whether or not our stuff is here, that is creepy. What is more creepy is that the dogs are my only protection this week. Brian is out of town, and (I am sure this might offend some of you), but I have no weapons! We left them with Brian's parents since we cannot take them to Japan. Not that I would want to kill someone, but if they were breaking into my house to steal my stuff and possibly kill or rape me, you better believe I would shoot them. I do have a baseball bat and two protective dogs, so I am sure I will be fine... just don't sneak up on me.

Annoying neighbor

Please realize that this video was taken with a little point and shoot camera... just imagine how loud this idiot is in real life. This was a very mellow "episode". It happens regularly, usually twice a day. Usually I am not home long enough to catch both, but if I am home all day, it happens about twice... Can you say possessed? 

New Toys!

Soooo since we are going to Japan we decided that some new equipment is necessary. First of all we only have one nice camera. Which means that since I am trying to do business with it, Brian never gets to use it. So we got him a Nikon. I will never touch his Nikon cause I know nothing about it. He already had lenses cause he has a film Nikon. So yay for him he can take it whenever and wherever he wants. 

And of course we needed to get a nice little point and shoot cause we never do happy snaps, cause it is too much of a hassle to lug out the big camera. Not to mention when we are in public our nice camera just draws way to much attention. Especially when we just want to snap a few snappys. The good news for you is that now you will see some more snaps of our everyday life....AND video! I am most excited about the video! Yay! I will quickly learn how to post a video and you will see what we do around here.

Awesome Possum

This morning I found a cute little awesome Possum in the yard. Well, actually Shugo found it first. I think he was up on top of the fence and then fell off into the yard, cause he crawled very slowly and I doubt he would have gotten as far as he did crawling before Shugo found him. I think he was running from the neighbors cat cause soon after awesome possum was spotted the cat jumped on the fence to come get his prize, but Shugo was not about to let that happen. I heard Shugo bark as if there was an impostor in the yard and Sandy soon followed. I look out the door and see them both looking and sniffing at something, but I see nothing. I go over to check it out expecting to see a baby bird or something and there it was the cute, little, baby, awesome possum. Playing dead of course. He was doing a good job too. Eyes were closed, mouth open, stiff looking body. I am sure if he moved at all Shugo would have jumped on him. Since he seemed dead the dogs were happy just sniffing and waiting for movement. 

I put Shugo in his kennel, told Sandy to stay away, and went and got my camera. Of course he did not want to play dead for me. He slowly made his way back under the fence most likely to be eaten by the neighbors fluffy cat...