I'm baaaaack! and you have no idea of how great it feels. I guess the saying you don't know what you have until its gone is so true. Just to be able to do the little simple things like driving in your own vehicle, or grabbing something to eat out on the town can be a real treat when when you can't do these things for months on end.

Well the trip back was hell. I was awake for almost 2 days before we flew out. Then our plane delayed 6 hours in Al Udeid (our deployed location) so we ended up missing our US Airways flights home due to the delay, and a long wait to claim our baggage in Norfolk VA. So we ended up renting 3 vans  for the 19 of us and drove 7 hours back to Charleston. After being up for 3 days I finally stumbled in my door only to be surprised to see my folks waiting in my apartment (they drove down from Ohio) to greet me upon my arrival home. That added a nice end touch to a long, and tiring trip.

I took a trip to Best Buy, Gamestop, and some other stores yesterday only to feel like a kid in a candy store. I caught myself up on missed cd's, DVD's, and games so I'll be plenty entertained over the next 2 weeks off. The one thing I needed, and saved money for was a new PC as mine is over 4 years old. So I ordered one of Dell's XPS M1710 notebooks (fully loaded). From Dell my config was around $4400, but I was tipped off by one of the guys in the desert that AAFES (BX/PX) had a link to Dell with discounts as thats the PC brand you will find in most offices on base. So I checked it out and ordered the same config for $3365 (over $900 off) which made my day. I don't want to spend to much time on here as my folks leave Tues, and I don't want to be rude by not spending time with them so you will all catch me starting to post more often in the next few days, or jumping on XBL. I'll leave you with a few pic's from my trip -L8R

Emir of Qatar's Palace

This is what most of the hotels look like in Doha...nice huh? Kind of reminded me of Vegas but without all the lights.

Inside the mall. It had 5 floors, an ice skating ring, bowling ally, movie complex, and a huge arcade including go-karts, a rock climbing wall, and small amusement park rides.

Me chillin by the armory gate

We worked Presidential support for the trip to Pakistan. This was taken inside a C-17 full of armored vehicles.

It doesn't rain often in the Middle East, but captured this picture before one of the few storms in early spring.

Let me introduce you, this is an F-15E they make nightly runs supporting our ground forces & blowing the $h!t out of insurgents.

Another pic of the F-15E