BOO!

Happy Halloween!

Hope I didn't scare you all too bad but I wanted to get everybody in the spirit. Sarah sent me some decorations to hang up in the shop and everybody loves them. Halloween here in Iraq will be a little different. No trick-or-treaters but they are having a costume contest at the MWR for prizes. I don't know where people are getting costumes but I plan on going as a army guy. I know it will be a stretch for me but I bet I can pull it off. I always liked Halloween at home and handing out the candy to the kids. All of the different costumes are great to see. All I had was a football helmet and a Vikings shirt and voila, I was a football player (One of my moms favorite pictures of me as a kid). Now they look straight out of a movie with all of the stuff you can buy. It's cool. Just to let you know, you know you're a Minnesotan when you design a Halloween outfit to fit over a snowsuit. '91 Halloween blizzard comes to mind with that one.

Nothing else exciting has happened to me this week, which is good when you are in a war zone. Final editing is happening to the movie "Mug at War". It should be a blockbuster hit for the Christmas season. Ebert and Roper have given it "2 Thumbs Up". The Anaconda Times say that it is " one of the bet war films this month" and the paper Stars and Stripes go as far as saying "It doesn't stink that bad". When it is done, I'll have Sarah post it on the BLOG here so everyone can see it after the special viewing at Cargill happens.

Now I am taking this time to say some public congrats. Congrats to Rory for getting a gig at Marty's once a month. Everyone go on that Friday and support him in his karaoke show. Congrats to my boss at Eddie Bauer who is now my ex-boss because she is going to be a district director for Ann Taylor. Marilisa, you will do a great job and I want to than you publicly for the opportunity you gave me at EB. Good Luck to you. And a final congrats to Matt, my wife's cousin, for joining the Army. I am very proud of him and now we are brothers-in-arms in the Army. He is in basic as we speak, and then of to AIT to be a supply specialist. Way to go young man and the next time I'll see you, your hair will be as short as mine (hehe).

That's all I got this week. Everyone have a great Halloween and I'll talk with you all later

Dan

This One Time, At Anaconda.......

Well, another week has gone by and I'm one more week closer to coming home on leave. Sarah and I are planing to take a short trip when I come home so we can have time together, just the 2 of us. We don't know what to do so any suggestions would be nice. you can leave them here on the BLOG and that way people can see your ideas and maybe want to go where you suggested also.

Now on with our show..........This week our hero was quite busy at work. In fact, I guess you could say I was the most popular guy in the company for a couple of days. I had a lot of engine work between me and my other 2 guys. We were very efficient and got the work done fast and correctly, which is important when you are dealing with helicopters. One thing about what I do for the Army is that it all seems to break at the same time so ether we are not doing anything or everything breaks at the same time, like what happened this week. All in all, it was fun to work at such a up-tempo pace and also stick to all of the standards put in place for safety. Now it's back to waiting fr the next time it all breaks, which is a good think because that means that they are flying and completing their mission.

I have received quite abit of e-mail and letters/packages this week. I just want to say thank you all for your continuing support and that we would be nothing without all of you standing behind us back home. We have received treats for people supporting us on Anysoldier.com and also from our families. My step-mother, Kathryn, sent a whole box of cookies and they were gone by the next day (by the way Kathryn, the peanut butter w/recess pieces was a big hit). Other faves have been the Nutter Butters from Wendy, one of the wonderful people from Anysoldier, Ritz and Easy Cheese from Kathie, Anysoldier supporter, and the coffee that my wife's aunt Sharron sent us (We do love our coffee here). Thank you all again, and if I don't get back to you right away, don't worry, I will.

For all of you Cargillians out there that reed my little BLOG, I am working on my movie "Mug at War" and it should be in Sarah's pretty little hands by the beginning of next month. Production is about wrapped up and now it is on to editing. For those of you who don't know, I have a Cargill coffee mug that I take everywhere. Now he has gone off and done his part in fighting terrorism in the movie "Mug at War". It is good (I Hope), and if you want to see it when it is done I'll try to put it on You Tube or something after Sarah is done with it.

I have carried on long enough, time to get back to all of my e-mail/letters. For those of you who have received letters from me, sorry about my handwriting, I know it is like chicken-scratch but at least I give your eyes a workout trying to reed it.....lol. Everyone take care and I will post again next week.

Later

Dan

View From My Bed

Papa Got A Brand New Camara

I am the all and powerful OZ!!!!

OK, I'm not , but I am in the land of OZ ...... I mean Iraq.......where am I again?

Back to reality. Time for the weekly update in the life of.....SGT Zirbes, soldier to the stars. (Don't ask me why I'm so goofy today. It must be the air or something.) This week went by pretty fast. I had a class on the environment on Friday. It was all about how we can take care of all of our waste products and leave Iraq better than we found it. You don't realize how must waste people produce till you see it first hand. The people involved are doing a tremendous job with the recycling and removal of all of the waste from the base. I'm now in charge of our hazmat program to get us into specs. I'd tell you more but I'd have to kill you with a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick. Speaking of Chuck Norris. Did you know the helicopter was invented when he was observed doing 10 roundhouse kicks in a row and lifted off the ground. Bet you didn't know that. That is what I call a Chuck Norris Fact.

On to other things.......I want to say thank you for all of the mail and support from everyone. I signed up my platoon on anysoldier.com and the response has been tremendous. We get at least one "something" everyday. All of my troops love the treats and letters we get. The food doesn't last long with 15 guys eating it, that's for sure. So again I say thank you everybody.

Now I bet you are wondering why I named this one what I did. It's because my camera's LED screen cracked on it and I needed to buy a new camera. The old one served me well. I took around 1200 pictures with it and I only had It 10 months. I have my mothers camera bug I guess because I had to buy a new one right away so I don't miss a thing. It is a little nicer than my other one. It has more features and is smaller so I shouldn't break this one (I hope). The picture at the top of this I took with the new camera. I think it looks nice.

I've rambled on long enough. I'll let you get back to your lives for another week. I will have more misadventures of.....SGT Zirbes next week for you all.

Take care,

Dan

Poison ROCKS!

Hello all and welcome back

This week went by fast. That's a good thing because it meant that things are moving along and next thing I know, I'll be home. In a nutshell, I worked, went to the bazaar on my day off, and played cards on Saturday with some of my buddies. Oh , I forgot to mention, Bret Michales from Poison performed here on Friday!!!!! It ROCKED!!

I know what you are all thinking, Dan has It so good and he gets to go to concerts and do all of this fun stuff in Iraq, I wish I was him. It is tough being me but somebody has to do it. I went to the other side of the base to the theater with 4 other people and got to sit 4 rows back for the show. He performed for about 1 1/4 hours and had a "meet-and-greet" afterwords. He played some Poison Hits and some covers like "Sweet Home Alabama". All in all, it was cool that he came all this way to perform for us. I got to shake his hand and thank him for coming and he thanks us for our service. I was a big love fest and it was a fun night. The next day I was off balance all day because of the music being so loud. I had that feeling of car sickness most of the day but it was worth it.

I'll post some more pictures down below so be sure to check them out. I plan on updating on Mondays every week but do not hesitate to e-mail me if you want some one-on-one time with me. I am pretty good at responding so feel free to contact me thru e-mail. I also like regular mail, so if you want to go low tech you can do that also. You can get my address from me via e-mail or ask Sarah for it.

Everybody have a good week and I'll talk to you all later,

Dan