Some of you may remember that the alien from the Weekly World News had a better record of endorsing Presidents than most political pundits. Now that the tabloid has shut down, the Kentucky Derby might be angling to fill those shoes. Hillary Clinton couldn’t be there this year, so at a campaign appearance, she told the crowd to place a bet on the 20-to-1 long shot, Eight-Belles, the only filly in the race. So how’d that work out for her?:

Hillary Clinton’s pick to win the Kentucky Derby this year came in second, but was later euthanized on the track. The tragic moment at Churchill Downs cast an eerie spell over the campaign and the candidate who recently compared herself and her candidacy to the only female horse running in the race, Eight Belles.

The kicker is, the filly came from behind and fought her way to the second spot before breaking both her front legs.

The soldiers in Iraq couldn’t be there either, so the Kentucky Derby had to come to them.

First Lt. Jessicah Garrett, of the Kentucky National Guard 138th Fires Brigade, was charged with bringing the Kentucky Derby to Iraq — and she was holding steadfast to the famed sporting event’s traditions. There was Derby Pie and Bourbon Balls and even Mint Juleps — the kind made out of Mojito mix and 7-Up — but the pinnacle of Saturday’s festivities were the mock horse races.

___________________

Soldiers running in the race not only braved the dessert [sic] sun and dust, they had to gallop around a track for 5 minutes — with a make believe horse no less. These horses were made out of anything from socks and towels to brown paper bags attached to pieces of wood. One racer even had a horse fashioned out of a cartoon cut-out of a donkey.

There’s a metaphor there somewhere.

Okay… what soldier doesn’t march through some Baghdad street, exchanging the evil eye with the locals, and think, “I could paid four times as much working for Dyncorp.” Well, the private sector does have its down side:

AN AMERICAN security guard recruited by DynCorp International to serve at the As Sayliyah base has been “stranded” in Qatar for over a year after he was sacked by his employers in April 2007.

What’s this? They fire this guy, and he doesn’t have enough to get back to the States because he blew all his dough (and his wad) in a hookah bar where you can still get a few things prohibited in the Koran?

Not according to the marooned.  He claims it was all a negotiating tactic on the part of Dyncorp:

“[T]hings started to fall apart as I arrived here in October 2006. I was forced to sign an employment contract in which the emoluments were less than what had been promised and agreed in the US.

“One of the major setbacks was the absence of a pension plan which figured prominently in the promises made in the US. There was also a shortfall of about $15,000 in the annual package in the new offer.”
 

According to him, things came to a head when he, along with eleven other contractors, complained to Qatar’s Labour Department. Then Dyncorp refused to pay up, so they fired him and told him to take the next plane home. So he gets an injunction against his deportation so his suit could go forward, and his former employers handed over his passport to the police and reported him as an absconder.

Dyncorp managed to dodge service for three months, and he sat, waiting around in Dyncorp housing for over a year to have his day in court. That is, until this past week when the company tried to have him evicted, which is what prompted him to go to the paper.

Remember, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal? He has nothing on this guy.

Just be thankful you didn’t get canned in Afghanistan.

As a military wife, I have what I consider to be the perfect hobby.

I am a scrapbooker.

It’s not only a great way to pass the time when your husband is deployed (as mine is now), or other instances when you have nothing but time to kill. For instance, when you’re pregnant and you’re waiting for that delivery date to start looming large on the calendar (as I’m doing now).

Scrapbooking not only helps you get through such periods but it is also a truly wonderful way to capture and preserve everyday moments which later on are going to be precious keepsakes to those your scrapbooks are handed down to.

Imagine how your youngest daughter would feel twenty years from now to receive one of these special scrapbooks – say, one that memorializes her own first year of life – when she gives birth to her own child. Or a scrapbook of your wedding on display at your 25th wedding anniversary.

These are tremendously special books I am talking about…much more than just pictures stuck to pages bound together. You gather all sorts of special memorabilia to go with those pictures. You spend time arranging the pictures and the items you’ve collected on each page. They are definitely a labor of love when you are finished!

Here are some other ideas concerning scrapbooking and what a versatile hobby it is:

• It’s a great way to preserve spouse’ journey on deployment or their carreer.

• A way to keep your self busy and not go CRAZY while spouse is out to sea.

• The perfect excuse to STAY at HOME. (for the bar bunnies who can’t seem to stay home long enough while hubby’s gone.)

• If you can write your name you can stamp or scrapbook, is my motto! You really don’t need to have a creative bone in your body.

• It’s an awesome way for kids and relatives to see what they have been up to over the years.

• Most important……It’s really fun!
• You can make some great friends by sharing this as an interest

Anyone who is interested in either stamping, scrapbooking or card making, please leave a comment or email me at clubamerica25 AT gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Spring fever and the 2008 baseball season are upon us. Baseball fans around the country are eagerly flipping through TV channels and newspaper sports pages following their team’s early trek into the 162 game season with aspirations of post season promise.

That sounds really nice, but it’s not entirely true. Only the fans of teams with large payrolls are truly watching their team’s progress with realistic hopes of post season action. The rest of us (yes, I’m a fan of a team with a payroll that New Yorkers would chuckle at) are watching our teams’ progress and hoping for a “good show” and a “decent season”. We know our team’s chances of making the playoffs are not unlike our chances of winning a multi-state lottery.

How has baseball become what it is today?

Interesting question when one considers two other sports that have addressed and found a solution to the high payroll problem. The first of these is the NFL.

Football long ago blazed the trail with a serious, concerted effort to ensure that all teams in their league would be able to compete with each other in the ability to acquire talent by using a team payroll salary cap.

The NHL has just recently come to this very same solution after a season-ending lockout. Hats off to these two major sports leagues! Before someone throws a flag at me and demands why I haven’t mentioned the NBA, you have to look at basketballs salary cap structure. Well, that’s if you can. It’s so complex, dynamic, and vague, that it isn’t really where the NFL and NHL are.

Why then, many ask, hasn’t baseball embraced the NFL and NHL salary cap style of contract with the player’s union?

Believe it or not, the answer is quite simple. As a whole, MLB is happy with the revenue they are generating. Oh yes, they have a luxury tax for the big payroll teams. But let’s be realistic.

Would a team willing to drop over $100 million on player salary for a season be discouraged from spending incredulous amounts of money on players because of this luxury tax? That answer speaks for itself season after season. The low payroll teams suffer severely, as do their fans, but baseball as a whole is making money.

Personally, I never see baseball solving this issue. The commissioner of MLB and the few powerful owners benefiting from the lack of a team salary cap never consider this when renewing their contract with the MLB players union. They are happy with the revenue they receive and don’t really care about the fans of teams such as Minnesota, Kansas City, or Oakland.

The best thing for the fans, though it’s as likely to happen as finding the ark of the covenant or life on Mars, would be for MLB to insist on a team salary cap during the next contract talks with the MLB player’s union. The union would absolutely refuse to agree to it. There would absolutely be a lengthy lockout resulting in the loss of at least one season of baseball. Fans and associated businesses would suffer short term losses. It would be a terrible note in baseball history.

But what about the long term?

Take a look at the NFL and the NHL. Are those players short of money? Are they forced to take part time jobs in the off season to compensate for a lack of potential salary they may have had if there wasn’t a salary cap? Are there not players in football and hockey still making absurd salaries?

I’m sure that Alex Ovechkin making $9.54 million a year playing hockey and Dwight Freeney making $12 million a year playing football won’t be looking to pawn any family heirlooms anytime soon.

I won’t bother answering those questions….we all know the answer to those questions.

Baseball will continue to operate as it does now, favoring the big market teams. The remainder of the league will continue to survive and do the best they can. A MLB team salary cap will likely never happen.

Teams without financial pull will develop great talent and continue to see those players eventually leave to pursue greater salaries with the richer teams. This is the best thing for our great American pastime, right?

Play ball, New York, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles! Play the best ball you can, Florida, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Oakland.

If you think PTSD heals over time, think again. Chuck Keller tells his story, so Iraqi Vets don’t make his mistake:

I finally sought treatment at a veterans center a couple of years ago.  It’s still difficult to admit the problem.  I’ve always known deep inside that I had issues with what I saw and did in Vietnam.  I have learned through my conversations with other vets that Corpsmen and Medics tend to have “special” conflicts and damage because of the unique perspective of a “non-combatant.”

We are, as a rule, “healers.”  The violence and bloodiness of combat goes against the very nature of people who want to stop just those two things.  So, there is the trauma of combat multiplied by the stress of trying to overcome its consequences multiplied by the psychological pressure of wondering if you did enough or if you could have done more or if your training was sufficient for the job you were trying to accomplish.

Trauma is a strange thing. I remember watching a show where one soldier started having flashbacks after seeing some body bags when he walked off the plane and stepped into Kuwait for the first time. Others can go through the worst events imaginable and be relatively functional, and it doesn’t seem to have much parallel to courage or bravery. It almost appears to be an automatic response, where each person has different triggers.

My advice to returning vets:  Seek help.  Take advantage of the VA’s treatment centers.  Don’t be afraid to admit you’re suffering.  Don’t do what I did and let your best years fester away when they could have been so productive. 

Listen to the man.

I feel safer already:

Some federal air marshals have been denied entry to flights they are assigned to protect when their names matched those on the terrorist no-fly list, and the agency says it’s now taking steps to make sure their agents are allowed to board in the future.

Sweet.

On what might have been an ordinary Thursday in the front door he waltzed: Our family’s version of the Comp USA Consumer of the Year.

“Honey,” Daryl announced, two colorful boxes pressed against his chest, “Come and see what I just bought us.”

“Bought us.” Now, there’s an interesting phrase not uncommon to this household.

“Bought us” properly defined in our front foyer classically translates into: “Honey, look what I just bought myself and/or the boys, but because it was so ungodly expensive, I have to somehow include you if only to keep the flesh on my backside for impulsively buying some new, extremely frivolous computer software.”

Not to be confused, of course, with that other popular front-foyer phrase, “Bought YOU“, which basically means the same thing. Except that while the price tag might be considerably smaller, it’s still nonetheless an outrageously unnecessary acquisition for the household. Let alone something I might actually want.

With serious misgivings, I stepped closer, even though I knew from experience it was the one thing I shouldn’t do. Still, I couldn’t help myself. I simply had to see what this credit card warrior in retired Navy senior chief’s clothing had managed to drag home as “good kill” for the family this time.

Cardboard boxes instantly fell away and plastic wrappers flew to the four corners of the universe as two EverQuest expansion CDs courtesy of Sony, Inc materialized – mandatory, of course, for that critically essential, Numero Uno time waster currently in vogue: Advanced Fantasy Game Playing via the Home PC.

No doubt the urge to expand on this seemingly brain-sucking, wallet-raping computer pastime, otherwise referred to in our home as “EQ”- which I prefer to term “the game from hell” – was the whole purpose behind the mysteriously-exuberant act of volunteerism on Daryl’s part earlier that evening: “I’d be happy to run out to JC Penney and exchange for a smaller size that Mother’s Day blouse your mom sent you…where’s the receipt, sweetie?”

“I am shocked, Debi…really shocked, ” he breathed, when it became apparent, from a few well-chosen words on my part that all I saw before me were two impractically-purchased pieces of silly game technology intended to enhance a computer game already loaded on the family’s PC that I didn’t want, didn’t need and couldn’t possibly care less to have in my house.

“Obviously, you haven’t heard that hundreds of thousands of people around the world are playing EverQuest and buying up expansions as fast as they go on the market,” Daryl was quick to lay on me as the big news bulletin of the day.

“That means families from here to Australia and back are dying to play this game with all expansions installed on their computers. Think of it: Kids are able to say NO to drugs by staying home, learning all kinds of educational things about mythical beasts and performing spells and other stuff while playing this game. Husbands like me are able to have fun at home that we should be having, well, at home. And you could even get in there with us, slaying dragons and everything from fairy maidens to orc warlords and even other EverQuest members by engaging them in duels. I think it’s time this family got busy and started riding the wave of the future like everybody else by getting involved playing these games on advanced levels, don’t you?”

Imagine.

Here’s a guy who can’t remember to pick up three things at Food Lion, but he can suddenly recite Sony EverQuest member statistics like the Pledge of Allegiance. Even more remarkably, this same man who only recently managed to correctly balance the family’s checkbook actually thought I would want to leap headfirst into one of these new EverQuest expansions right along with him and my three mythical beast-obsessed sons.

Guess what? Miracles don’t always happen. The last thing I want to do – in this lifetime or the next – is slay anything, online or otherwise. Although I must admit I wouldn’t mind getting the chance to charge into a Sony, Inc boardroom with an M-16 in hand and let’s just say make a half dozen of those executives in three-piece suits get up and “dance” as my way of saying “thanks but no thanks” for bringing this online version of computerized crack cocaine into my home.

I am not alone in my disdain. Other military wives have let me know that they don’t like online fantasy games anymore than I do. And they definitely don’t care for the fact that their partners are able to justify dropping more and more cash simply to upgrade and improve that glorious, online game-inspired fantasy because it makes the game “that much more satisfying” to play. Yup, games like EverQuest.

If you think football season addiction is tough for a marriage to survive, try “EverQuest”, a three-dimensional, fantasy role-playing adventure that seems very innocent when you first load it onto your computer. Soon after, it takes on huge, sinister proportions once members of your family commit themselves to actually play it.t

Daryl would stay up until the wee hours of the morning facing the glow of the monitor as he worked his way from one level to the next, wielding fantasy weapons. My sons would cry and plead to log on to play the game day after day.

EverQuest states right in its literature, “THERE IS NO END TO THIS GAME.” But, as soon as Daryl’s Visa card gave birth to this little charmer, would he spend every possible waking moment trying to find one? Sure, he would. Because meals can always be eaten solo in front of the computer screen. And kids are going to turn eighteen and leave home, anyway. And as for wives, we must have some laundry to fold or a floor to wash or a rerun of “Home Improvement” to sit in front of to keep us busy, don’t we?

About the time I thought my sanity would do backflips all the way to the North Carolina border (if only to escape the tedious fantasy countryside of EverQuest rolling through our living room,) what decided to follow Daryl and my sons home to relieve their pent-up frustrations while wielding an earth shaker, centi war spear, chill dagger courtesy of EverQuest?

“Worlds of Warcraft”, the momentary mother of all role-playing game obsessions, complete with dozens of sophisticated weaponry, theaters of conflict and a cornucopia of quests no one in their right mind would want to attempt. But, of course, Daryl and my sons had to try them all, over and over and over again.

I can’t help lowering my head in prayer now whenever one of them is attempting a dragon raid in Everquest. Or a guild raid courtesy of “Worlds of Warcraft”. As I can personally vouch from experience, the outcome of these missions are going to mean all the difference in the world between a good day on the planet and a bad one for Earthlings everywhere – at least those who happen to live at my address.

It’s been nearly a year now since those computer games moved in and took control of this household. How often have I been able to get the family PC in my clutches?

A few times, actually. When Daryl or one of my sons takes a bathroom break or walks across the living room to hunt down the phone to order out for pizza, I’m practically touching it. And, of course, I can sit and watch the screen over their shoulders just about any time I want to – as long as I don’t talk, breathe, or so much as blink for the duration of that day’s fantasy mission.

I’ve decided to preserve my own sanity by settling for an obsession of my own. I do needlepoint now. Ask any widow of modern technology, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned country sampler to keep the mind in balance.

As we sat trying to watch the opening scenes of “Stop Loss” unfold at the movie theater near the base the other night, we knew it was going to be one of “those” frustrating nights at the movies.

After spending $45.50 just to get all of us in the door and then spending another $30 at the concession stand, we were ready to take the young couple and their loud toddler sitting behind us out for some “extra military instruction” before the first ten minutes had passed.

A few well over-emphasized, “SHHHH!’s” did no good. That child was determined to talk and cry through the whole movie.

What is with parents who think it’s OK to take their young children to movies that aren’t made for kids? “Stop Loss” is definitely one of those Not for Young Kids movies.

People, you get a babysitter when you want to go to a movie like this! You don’t try to save 10 or 15 bucks by taking that child with you. Nobody in that movie theater appreciates that you have your child in attendance with you, crying and yammering away – let alone how graphic the movie might be for that child to sit through.

Apparently, parents of these kids just don’t care what their children are exposed to as long as they themselves get to go to the movies they want to see.

I’m sick and tired of having to put up with somebody else’s children because they are too lazy or too tight when it comes to springing for a babysitter. If you’re like me, start doing something about it when you leave a movie that’s disrupted by children this way.

Take the time to ask to see the manager. Tell the manager how dissatisfied you are with your movie-going experience and request compensation. You’re sure to receive passes for another movie in the future.

Those passes won’t make up for the bad time you had at this movie but they will be nice compensation for the next movie you want to see that won’t cost you and your group $9.00 per person just to get in.

And maybe if enough people complain and enough free tickets are given out as compensation for these complaints, the theater will enact a “no young children policy” during movies that are inappropriate for them to be taken to.

Us? We can’t wait for that day to come.

MC Jake here,

What is it with youngsters these days? They think they can be disrespectful or snotty to adults and get away with it. This drives me crazy.

While walking through the commissary the other day on my way home from a challenging day of babysitting the young sailors, I recognize a lady and her son from the neighborhood and knew her husband from a previous command, and had seen him at my son’s school a few times.

I suddenly hear this young man, around 14, tell his mother that he is not going to get her (she was about 5 foot tall) something that she needs from the top shelf. As she stands there and pleads with this youngster to get it down for her, he gets even more vocal, and starts to run his mouth and tell her that if she was taller he would not have to come along shopping with her to help and that he should be home playing his Xbox.

Well, after a few more steps I could not take it any longer and turned around and reached up on the shelf and got what she wanted and handed it to her, all the while glaring at this youngster with a look that would have scared Satan. He commences to ask me what my problem is and gets an attitude with me!

I lean over very close to this youngster, and very quietly tell him that I am a Master Chief and that nobody speaks to me like that. Then he has the nerve to say to me that he should whip my old ass (I am 6 foot 225 lbs with a body fat of 6 % as of last PT) . I looked over to his mother and ask her a simple question. Was she going to let her son get away with speaking to me like that? Her downward glance spoke volumes to me. This was a child out of control and she could not do a thing with him.

Well, I turned back to this young pup and told him that if he thought he was man enough to whip me to come on. I called his bluff on the previous statement. At that point he thought better of what he said. I handed his mother a business card and told her to call me when she got home, I had a few ideas to run past her on his behavior.

She called me later that evening asking what I had in mind, I told her that I knew of a few guys that would love to help straighten her youngster out. I had already made a few calls to clear what I had in mind. She ask what I meant, I told her a few friends of mine worked in the Special Ops area in the Navy and just loved helping young kids out with attitude adjustments.

I told her that if it was ok with her and her husband that I would be at her house 0600 this morning. She said her husband was in the Gulf but she had no problem with it. Just having a break for a few hours to sleep sounded good to her.

So this morning I picked up this young pup and took him over to see my friends. We show up at their area by 0615. Well the first thing we did was issue this young lad a set of cammies and a back pack. We were nice his was only loaded with 10 lbs in it, ours was at 40 lbs. By 0630 we were on the beach going for a nice little run with the young pup in tow. After about the first 2 miles he was winded and wanting to quit, so we slowed the pace down a bit and continued on our run. After 2 more miles of alternating running and walking so we did not kill the youngster we decided to turn it around and head back. I spent the last 3 miles walking beside this pup and talking with him.

I came to understand that this young man was acting out because he resented the fact that his dad was going to be gone for almost a year. He had already done a year over in the Gulf and this was his second tour.

He asked questions of me that I could only give general answers to but he listened to my ever word. Things like what his dad was doing over there and was it dangerous. I told him, was it dangerous? Hell, yes, it was! But that is what his dad and the rest of us in the military lived for. He came to understand that his father was a special man, he dedicated his life to preserving his son’s rights to be able to have an xbox and all that he had.

After we got back to our area we got the youngster some good Navy chow and then went back to our training area and broke out some of the toys we get to play with on a daily basis. M-60, M-16, and a few others. You should of seen the look on this young man’s face when we went out with our toys and a couple of ammo cans and got to blow away a few rounds. We taught him to respect the weapons we use and how to use the sights and for the grand exhibition he got to bust a few caps himself.

On the way back to his house this afternoon around 1500, he promised me that he would never speak to his mother again like that and that I had taught him that those of us that have dedicated our lives to the military our honest to god heroes in his book. I told him that anytime he felt like he needed someone to talk with that he was free to call me.

It is now, going on 2200 and I just got off the phone with his mother who called me and ask what happened to her son, the young man that came home this afternoon was not her child. He was volunteering to do chores around the house and had came right in and cleaned his room up. He hung 3 pictures of his dad on his wall and he was just different.

I told her we went for a nice little run on base and had talked alot. I understood where his problems came from and what she needed to do to keep him reined in if he got out of line again. Just tell him the Master Chief was going to come over and take him for a run again.

So if any of you mothers out there have a problem child and know of someone that is a good leader and a honorable person ask them to give you a hand course correcting these youngsters before they end up on the wrong side of the jail house doors. Or you can just show them this entry and let them read for themselves that there are good people out there that can help them.

Master Chief Out.

So I’m watching the golf match on the Golf Channel (it’s silly, I know, but I like to look at the grass, and some of the golfers are nice to look at, too), and on comes one of “those” advertisements.

You know, for one of the pills to help you in a very private arena.

The couple are sitting in two bathtubs, overlooking a nice vista. I have seen this so many times that I now have some questions:

• How did the tubs get to this spot?
• Where are the towels, or their clothes?
• And the car?
• Is there water in those tubs, and if so how did it get there?
• How does it stay hot?
• Where does it go when they pull the plug?

• And why are they in separate bathtubs?

Now I know this is a commercial. And I know I am supposed to use my imagination. So I have, and I want to hang out in the great outdoors in a nice hot bubbly bath, just like our romantic “older” couple.

Oh and that’s another thing – these folks are not kids anymore. Who helps them get out of the tub? (I know, stagehands really.)

Do these advertising people really think I am going to try their product (don’t really NEED it) because I can imagine myself in a tub overlooking the Grand Canyon? Puullllleeeze.

If I want a romantic bath, I will turn up the heat in the house, pour a glass of wine and make sure the bed is ready – I sure don’t want to get it on out in the middle of nowhere.

AND, have you heard the warnings? How far is that tub from the nearest emergency room, should that dire warning come true? If we’re out there long enough to discover a four hour boner, how long will it take to get to the hospital to get that thing fixed? And who is going to drive?

I’m just sayin’.