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

Thank You For Your Support

Howdy all, whats happening?

One more week down and closer to coming home. Time does go by faster here than when I was in Ft Sill. I guess its because I keep busy here with work and corresponding with all of the people that supports me and the rest of my unit. I have written more letters and cards than I have ever and I love doing it. My handwriting is not the best so I have done a few with the computer so I can use spell check and make it look good. Over all I just want to say thanks and I will try to respond to everyone s fast as I can if you send me a letter or care package (I do like care packages :-)). It is just amazing the support that we get for doing our job for our country. Thank you!!

Now the good stuff. This week I started my Christmas shopping for people back home. I am not going to tell you what I bought but the items I have bought are cool I think. I am trying to get it done early here because selection can be limited around the holiday time I have herd so I start now so there is a selection. My mother-in-law would be so proud of me. She starts shopping for the holidays the day after Christmas and we are never allowed in the part of the basement where she hides them. The one thing I don't have to do is hide them, I'm in Iraq.....Hello!!

I hope everyone has had a great week and I will post again next week with more from Iraq and the life of a man called Zirbes.

Till Later,

Dan

Here I am Again

I'm back and ready to BLOG again.

I want to thank Sarah for keeping everyone updated in my internet absence. As you all know I am an internet junky and I am so happy to have internet finally. Now down to the business of blogging.

I have been in country now for 1 month and the time has actually gone by fast. I work a 6 on 1 off 10 hour day schedule that keeps me busy most of the time. On my days off I have gone to the PX and to the Turkish Cafe here on post. It is more like a room that has a window that you order food from and it is Turkish food. It is better that a kick in the pants though. I have also decked out my room with fun lights that Sarah has sent me. I have beer mug, Hawaiian shirts, chili pepper, flip flop, margarita, and bobber lights lighting my room. It makes it a little more fun to be in. My roommate and I call it "Club J-Dan". People like to come over because it is cooler than their rooms. Well, as you can tell I have internet now and that was no fun to set up. You have to have a degree from MIT to figure it all out, but we got it up and running and now I can communicate with the world again. I missed all of you.

Now I have received some mail from some of you. I got a letter from my Grandma. She is so cute and I love hearing from her. She is not on the computer so she gets to read my crappy hand writing. That's ok though because I love writing her. I also got a letter from my Aunt Dee Dee, my Mother-in-Law Pat, and friend Christina. I do love mail call and seeing my name on the board. I have also received packages form my Parents and The Lions club in Mound. A co-worker of Sarah's, Jewel, gave them my name and they sent me a very nice box of treats and other items that I shared with the members of my platoon. It was cool to have other people take notice that I haven’t met but cared enough to send something.

I just want to say thank you for all of the support and prayers that I have received since I’ve been deployed. My step-mom Kathryn says that they say my name every Sunday at their church and that makes me feel good and at the same time I feel that they shouldn't make a big deal of it because I just doing what I signed up to do. Either way I'm glad that there is such great support of all of the troops including me. I'm just shy you know......NOT!

This is the most I've typed in a while and my fingers are getting tired so I will end it here. Monday is my reset day so I will use that day to update you on all of my news and happenings of the week. Take care and I will talk to all of you later.

Dan

Fun in the Sun?

Dan still doesn't have his own internet access. We've ordered the satellite dish and it's on its way from the UK to Dan. (Shipping was $700.00!!!) It should arrive any day now. We've talked almost every day on the phone. He likes to hear about what is happening back here. He has called his room there home a few times, and it makes me a little sad since home is back here with all of us, but really, what else can you call it when you're going to be there for at least a year?

He's gone shopping at the bazaar on post and bought a few movies. He's been shopping at the post exchange, and ordered a few things online. He's enjoyed having ice cream from Baskin and Robbins.

He says his bike ride to work is about 10 minutes. For security reasons, he can't talk about what he does each day, but there are lots of other things to chat about. My mom got a chance to talk to him over Labor Day weekend and she really enjoyed it. The connection was good and had fun asking him questions about life over there.

He has enjoyed getting mail from all of you, so keep sending him letters! Hopefully the next entry will be from Dan.