So close...

We hit 119F (48C) today. I've been waiting for 120. Everyone tells me about 120. Oh, Iraq is so hot it hits 130 in the shade...

No. It doesn't.

119 is plenty hot. Don't get me wrong. But I want 120. It's an admittedly arbitrary threshold, but it's a threshold all the same. I just want to say that we hit it.

It's like fast-roping from a CV-22 (a tilt-rotor aircraft, takes off and can hover like a helicopter, flies like an airplane). I just want to do it once. I know it will be uncomfortable and scary because the rotor wash pushes the rope to an odd angle. But I still want to experience it.

Once.

Aside from failing to hit 120 yet again, the day was a mixed bag. Some days it feels like a bad treasure hunt where every clue on a certain project just leads to another clue.

Who is the right person to ask? Never the person I'm asking, and probably not the person that they then direct me to, but maybe the next troop I get referred to... or maybe not. One search actually brought me full circle.

Though when completely that particular personnel loop, I was able to give the confused person at the beginning/end of the search a phone number for someone that he is now supposed to call.

Tag. He's it.

One of my other projects is having better luck. Someone emailed me not only the information I needed, but they sent it as part of an entire filled out packet that I thought I'd have to remake myself. Sweet.

I refuse to be frustrated. There are lots of ways to still have fun here.

I'm not on the list next time we have dedicated range time to qualify on the Mk-19, a machine gun that fires grenades.

I now have access to mini-dirt bikes that I can cruise around on if I so choose. And some ATVs.

Why not?

May as well make the most of it.