Sorry for my absence - been down in the Ozarks

[Dr Alan]

Sorry for the disappearance, but it's taken me awhile to recover from the trip to Fort Lost-in-the-Woods to be there from my son's graduation from basic training at Ft Leonard Wood. Plus I had to put out a lot of fires here at home to get my business tracking right after I got back

Long story short, I looked at a map of Missouri and decided that it made sense to fly to KC since it is geographically closer to FLW than is St Louis, KC and FLW both being on the western side of the state, NW and SW respectively. Bad, very bad choice. The highways in Missouri do not go as do crows and I found that I had to drive EAST from KC two thirds of the way back to St Louis, then south 75 miles to I-44 (old Rt 66), then west to St Robert, MO and FLW. Bottom line is that if I'd flown into St Louis, I'd have had a 140 mile trip as opposed to a 275 mile trip from KC, MO. Should have touched base with my forum friends before I booked my flight. Plus I picked out a compact rental car based on the yellow color alone, a Chevy Cobalt with 22+K miles on it and I added about 850 to that, and it was badly in need of a front end alignment - constantly pulled to the left making for tiresome driving after 3-4 hours at 80-90mph, and the front brake rotors were scored and even heat-dished a tad because the pads were worn out. When I retuned the car to Alamo at KC and told the agent that it needed some serious service before it was rented out again, he looked at the mileage and laughed, telling me that at 23K plus miles, mine was going to be the the last rental of the vehicle before it went to wherever it is that used-up rental cars go. Live and learn. Somehow, I don't think I'll ever seriously entertain the thought of buying a former rental car.....

And of course I stayed in ultra-cheap motels and on my return read an article on MSNBC that basically said NEVER to make coffee in the coffeemakers in cheap motel room in the midwest because you have to assume that somebody's cooked up meth in the coffeepot. No wonder I was wired! But it's the drain cleaner and rat poison that really scare me. Anybody can stand a bit of Pseudofed.

On the plus side, I was able to do a lot of Christmas shopping and got a genuine Ka-Bar, a big bucks knife, for my stepson Ethan at an Army surplus store in Rolla, MO. Had it sent home and it got here before I did. Also bought a boatload of illegal (in Maine) fireworks in Missouri and UPS'd them to myself in Maine labelled as "antique books". I have since been given to understand that this is a felony if I had used the USPS. Cloudier rules with UPS but they did have big signs up saying that sending explosives was illegal. Are M-1000s explosives? The UPS guy here was funny. He delivered the package and said "You got a package mailed to you, from you, from Missouri!" I said "Yep" and he said "But it's from Missouri", and I said "Yep" again. Somehow I think he may have known all was not on the up and up, lol.

Anyway, Wade is now at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama for AIT (his MOS is EOD) for 9-10 weeks, then then 5-6 months at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida with two weeks leave to be at home for Christmas. After Eglin there is a mandatory two weeks here at the local recruiting station, and then I fear he will be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, especially given his MOS. He did however hold up very well during his training and was one of the leaders of his platoon, which was known as the "Punishers".

He also was "dealing": selling bags of cough drops that his siblings innocently and repeatedly sent to him at his request, to his platoon members for $30 a package. Thirty bucks for a pouch of Hall's Cough Drops! Candy of any kind is disallowed during basic, but for some reason cough drops are OK and Wade made the most of it. He had $600 cash in his pockets when I met him for family day at the fort - which we blew through rather indiscriminately at the PX (think of Wal-Mart, Circuit City, and L L Bean combined with even lower prices and no tax whatsoever) - and all of it was from dealing cough drops. Not exactly kosher as I understand it, but the drill sergeants kind of looked the other way......

His graduation was moving, and I'm very proud of him.







Again, my apologies for being absent or very nearly so of late. Things should improve now.

[Allen Repashy]

Welcome Back Doc!.... I am sure you have a lot of catching up to do. We missed you around here!

Alllen

[Andrew Gilpin]

Hey Dr. Alan, good to hear a bit of an update..... nice to know what's going on with others sometimes, and I got a couple of good chuckles in there too!

[Salzy]

Glad to have you back Alan. We missed you around here.

Quite the adventure you had while you were out too. Thanks for sharing.

[tmfleo]

Wow sounds like a heck of a trip well glad to have ya back Dr Alan

[crestiesx2]

Welcome back. I think I learned a lot form your post. #1 being don't drink out of coffee pots at motels. #2 your proud of your son and that is AWESOME (awwww), #3 I can drive 4 hours to Missouri and UPS myself some explosives Red white and blue all the way ****!!

[Chicubswally]

Hats off to the proud pappa. You have a good son there Dr. Allen.
On a lighter note, I can just hear his saying, "Ptttttts, hey soldier, wanna buy a box of Sucrets?"