California

Is much too far away! Perhaps if the Great Plains were a little Less . . .

These past weeks. Hello September!

Another nice sunrise in Bonsall.

Looks like today's serving suggestion is to be unmotivated!
Why I'd rather be in Illinois in February.
Ah the gym, the usual afternoon workout with Jerry Armstrong.
Scritch's favorite post, Mel's amp.
Snorting Melanie, she'll never be a controlled substance despite her ability to intoxicate those around her.
Happy days in California.
One of my favorite pictures of my favorite lady.
Sliding ferris wheel in Disneyland. What wonderful time!
Oh the traffic of southern California. Stop and go for endless miles for no reason aside from Californians being unable to drive better than a drunk 3 year old.
Sexy Lady!
She's so happy to be in Disneyland!
We've been having a great time lately and we really enjoyed having Tom and Becky out here!

Snippets from the 2nd week of August.

Turns out that I like parking in the commanding officer/executive officer's spot: I'm just keeping it warm.

And Corporal Tozier is liking those flags just a little too much . . . probably a little more than we all enjoyed being on that working party.


Looks like Scritch is enjoying his nap!

Sunny Summer in San Diego

I've had some fun this summer so far. David Briesh came out to visit some of his family but spent the 2nd half of his visit with Melanie and me. We had a blast! I spent a week and a half on a field exercise where I finally learned how to do some of my job and was able to put some skills to actual use. After a few working parties and getting a game plan straight for what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future (about six months) I'm pretty well relaxed in relation to plans. I love to think/talk about the future but everytime I look back on the ones I've had, I can't help but shake my head when I see how the trailed zigged where I foresaw a zag.

The future I do hope to have a little be handle on is what I'll be doing in about 3 years, quitting. :-P Should be about time to get into school.

Next posts should probably contain a picture or two.

Miles and miles

So it's been 1 year and 4 months since we bought the '09 Mazda3 with 500 miles on her. We've now done 100 times that amount of driving since then. She's doing rather well for having that many miles in that short amount of time. She still gets 30 mpg and runs great. I need to fix some dust covers under the car damaged due to road debris, and we might get a new fender/bumper due to damage from careless and irresponsible drivers. She's had one blowout (due to the road debris) and has all new tires with 70,000 mile warranties on them. (so what? another year and a half til that's gone. :-P) We'll definitely be driving Madeleine into the ground, or until I EAS out of the Marine Corps. Whichever comes first.

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So we're unpacking and setting up the new place and it's working out rather well. We're also getting rid of a lot of odds and ends that we don't need or use. It won't be a spartan place, but we also don't want it cluttered. Melanie is excited about the extra cabinet space along with the extra closet in the living room. Despite the extra storage, we still have to get rid of some items. Friday, the 6-drawer chest shows up (No, the chest is NOT named Friday, well, maybe it is now.) to round out our bedroom furniture and allows us to finish putting clothes away. (Melanie has been doing all the clothes and I thank her greatly for it.) The coaxial cable is tacked along the ceiling so that it's out of the way and I was able to get a white one for the sake of aesthetics. Cable is getting fixed tomorrow and I'm hoping to hit the DVD case and fix it before I fill them up with movies. After we take all the trash out and recycle the boxes and find a place for all our tubs, our apartment should shortly become a home. Scribbles needs to learn that he won't always have a person home with him as Melanie comes to base to volunteer and (soon hopefully) work. He's a whiner but we don't want to let him loose in the house while we're gone until we finish unpacking and doggy proof the place. Scritch/Skritch/Pounce the kitten is awesome and has taken to the litter box like and old tomcat. As soon as he learns to let us sleep, he'll be the perfect pet, IMO. Pictures will be forthcoming.

P'raps it's time to post.

So Mindy is inadvertently at fault for this blogspot. I (Dustin) wanted an easy way to follow her blogspot and found that I can post for my own sake as well. I have no idea if Melanie will post here or not, but she is and will be welcome to it. Hopefully we'll remember to sign each narrative post in order to specify which voice these words were spotten/wriken. This may also be the first of extremely FEW posts that may dwindle into the forgotten cubby of broken toys, outdated VG consoles, and trivial hobbies. This path we'll walk will provide the answer.