I talked to Jennifer last night. She has arrived at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas for further processing and training prior to her deployment in Iraq. They ended up with 11 of the communications specialists from Fort Gordon leaving on the trip. One of the original group couldn't pass his clearance and they are trying to replace him and that person may arrive this week. The group of 11 includes 3 sargeants and 8 specialists. Jennifer said that Fort Bliss has processed over 200,000 personnel leaving for Iraq and the base is one of the major processing stations for military personnel going to Iraq. Jennifer also said that unlike the norm in the Army, she and her unit are being treated exceedingly well by personnel at Fort Bliss and she is being shown a degree of deference that she hasn't seen in two and a half years in our nation's service. She will be at Fort Bliss for a week of training and processing. Her training will include Guerilla warfare and her gear includes helmet, M-16, flak jacket, boots, gas mask and tent and sleeping bag.

Darla has a coworker whose brother is an Army reservist and has been called up as a convoy driver in Kuwait. He and his group shepherd the troops from Kuwait to Iraq. He has Jennifer's name and will look for her on the manifest and introduce himself to her. It's a small world.

Two of the women in my office belong to a professional sorority and they have "adopted" Jennifer during her tour in Iraq. The group will send Jennifer care packages consisting of audio books, cds, letters, food, hygiene products, etc. The women in the group range in age from 21-28 and are anxious to support one of their age group in the war effort. I was touched when they approached me and asked if they could adopt Jennifer. I gave them her cell phone number and will follow up with how they can reach her in Iraq once she is stationed.

There is widespread support for our troops within this country. Perhaps not in Canada, but currently Canada is too much like the French, their politics are soft in the head and especially soft in the backbone. As I've said before, if Canada was ever a target of terrorism, Cretien would come crawling to the United States and beg for our help. And, of course, he would get it. We don't hold grudges, we simply call a coward a coward and move on. Are my politics too transparent? With a child heading into harm's way, I don't have time for the idiots that want to debate whether we should be in Iraq or not. When Howard Dean said "I've never supported the war in Iraq and I never will", I immediately labelled him "UnAmerican" and was thrilled to see him make an ASS of himself on tv after the Iowa primary. What a prime example of a politician. Hey, Howard, we have sons and daughters, mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers being killed in Iraq. Shut the Hell up and support our troops! Their blood may not be on your hands, but a true American supports the men and women who fight for our country and politics has nothing to do with it. Figure it out...or move to Canada or France with the rest of the world's ostrich population.

Jennifer said that the military is chartering a commercial airliner to move the troops from Fort Bliss to Iraq. The military does not have airliners capable of moving hundreds of troops at a time and uses the commercial airliners to handle large troop deployments. She will leave sometime between Friday and Sunday. If you haven't called her, get off your hands and wish her well.

Again, I can't discuss the mundane in this epistle and will leave it at this. I'm concerned for my daughter's safety and again ask for you to pray for her wellbeing. Ken

It is Martin Luther King, Jr Day here stateside and the entire city of Sacramento is a wasteland. It is never more apparent that this city is a government center than on a national Holiday that has yet to be embraced by the private sector. What I mean is that while those of us who work to bring money into corporate coffers toil, the public sector sits idly at home and enjoys a day of rest. The freeways are at full speed with nary a slowdown at the time that normally they have ground to a halt and traffic inches its way along toward downtown. Today, the freeways were devoid of traffic and congestion. I slept in an extra half hour as Darla and the boys are off today and the house was a little extra quiet. I knew that traffic would be light and actually left the house at 7:15 instead of 6:45 and made it to the office close to my regular arrival time.

Well, reality begins to settle in as the time for Jennifer's deployment has been set and draws near. She will leave this Sunday for Fort Bliss in Texas, where she will learn the details of her mission. She will then take a military plane to Kuwait on January 31st, where she and her group will meet up with other soldiers being deployed in Iraq and will convoy into hostile territory. Sad to say, but a similar convoy was attacked just this past week and two soldiers were killed and four others wounded. This is the real deal. I talked to Jennifer last week and asked her how she was doing with her deployment imminent. She said, "Dad, can you be both excited and scared at the same time?" I told her, that yes, I'd been married twice. Jokes aside, I sent an e-mail to family and friends last week and announced a call to prayer. I asked that you pray for Jennifer's physical and emotional safety and to remember her parents as well in your prayers. Jennifer's tour is expected to run from January 31st to April 22nd and she will be working on the communications infrastructure in Iraq.

Again, this is your chance to call and wish Jennifer Godspeed. PLEASE call her on her cell any night or weekend. Her number is 310-927-6311. Remember, she and the rest of the military are in Iraq because the fight for freedom is still going on. It may appear to bleeding heart liberals that we are fighting for Iraq's freedom, but in reality, we are fighting for our basic human rights and freedom in this country and for all freedom loving countries in the world. Call her and tell her that she is in your prayers and that you love her. She leaves for Iraq on January 31st.

I have trouble prattling on about mundane things like golf and high school basketball in light of the real danger that Jennifer will be facing in the coming months so I'll leave this at that. Please ask God to take Jennifer into his loving embrace while she is in Iraq. There is only one who loves Jennifer more than I do and I'm so happy that He is a loving God. Be well.

It is a frantic Monday morning..or at least it appears to be outside my office window as cars scream by on their way to work and school. I've enjoyed a bagel and a cup of coffee and thought I'd update my blog before digging into work.

Darla and I enjoyed a nice quiet weekend with the boys at their Dad's house. We dined on Pizza on Friday night. I played golf on Saturday in our annual Captain 'n Crew event, a scramble format where we combine A, B, C & D players into a team and play a scramble match. Admittedly, it is not my favorite format (I don't like any golf event where an individual score isn't posted at the conclusion of the round). Our team ended up with an A player that I could routinely outdrive, in fact our team used nine of my drives for the match. That isn't a good thing when many of the teams had A players with 2 or 3 handicaps that can hit the ball 300 yards off the tee. I hit it about 275 on a great drive and about 250 on average. We finished with a 67 and the winners all shot 61.

I'm the Vice-President of the golf club this year and my main duties are in writing the newsletter and in setting up and administering the Christmas Party. I'm on the audit committee and the rules committee as well, but the newsletter and Christmas Party are the two biggies. I am moving the Christmas party this year to a vintage Victorian building in the small town of Lincoln, outside of Roseville. The restaurant wants, and we have contracted to bring in, at least $2,500 for the room based on a dinner price of $42. We are charging the members $30 a plate, so we need to have 42 couples attend to make our minimum. If we do, we will be $1008 short of our tab at the restaurant. What I've decided to do, is hold a 50-50 drawing at every tournament. Our first event cleared $122 on the 50-50 drawing and we have 20 events this year plus 4 open meetings to make money. We are off and running. I haven't announced the cost of the dinners and if we do well, I'd like to drop the cost to $25 this year. The restaurant venue is very nice and I want to market this as an elegant night out with your wife or significant other. A chance to get together with your buddies AND make your wife happy all in the same night.

Darla and I went out to dinner on Saturday night. We thought about going to the movie, but decided to spend a quiet night at home. We are getting old or something. The thought of standing in line for the movie and then sitting in an overly cool theater for two hours just doesn't motivate us anymore. We watched the movie "Just Married" on HBO and had a good evening.

Sunday, we went to church and then Darla dragged me over to her friend, Michelle's, house for a two year-old's birthday party. The party started at noon and I dragged my feet at home long enough that the party was winding down at one o'clock when we got there. There were seven screaming toddlers tearing open gifts and throwing toys around. I thought I'd die, but the party quickly broke up after the breaking of a Scooby Doo pinata and the mad scramble for falling candy was over. The harried mothers gathered their over-sugared youngsters and dragged them to the car for a loud drive home. I have never been a huge fan of little kids and can take them in very small doses. Within forty-five minutes of our arrival, the only child left was the birthday girl and she spent her time dragging a balloon around the room and watching it get batted about by the blades of several ceiling fans as her Dad and several other men including myself watched the Green Bay- Philly game on tv.

I talked to Jennifer last night and she is still in a waiting mode with the military and her deployment to Afghanistan. She is pretty disgusted with the whole incident and there is a rumor that they will have to be re-cleared for the mission if it stretches over thirty-days past their initial clearance. She knows that she will be sent to an air base in Texas for further briefing before they leave for Afghanistan. What she doesn't know is when all of this will happen. Last week during the preparedness drill, the Army pulled three of the soldiers off KP and had them back in the barracks preparing to leave. Apparently even the sergeant weren't aware that it was simply a drill. The soldiers aren't happy and feel that they are being toyed with.

That's it for this week. Be good to each other. Hold up the Lord as the example for your lifeand make His way, your way. Ciao.

Back to the blog after an extended holiday season filled with fun and celebration. The new year lays in front of us like a blank canvas. I'd get my paints and brushes and begin to work on a masterpiece, but life intervenes and my creative impulse wanes.

I came home on Wednesday night to a gathering puddle of water on my garage floor and a leaking hot water heater. The house is thirteen years old and the hot water heater was original equipment. The bottom of the tank finally rusted out and water was dripping. We put some rags around the base of the unit on the pedestal that houses the hot water heater and got on the phone with contractors to find someone who would do the job without breaking my meager bank. I tried several contractors before settling on Home Depot. Many small businesses in communities bemoan the Home Depot monopoly, but I saved $100 on the job and I'm glad they are there to keep costs manageable. Frankly, they have forced several small businesses out of existence, but the contractor who installed my H2O heater is getting plenty of work, and as a subcontractor, doesn't have the overhead of running his own business. He had to install a 2-gallon expansion tank on the wall next to the water heater as we have water meters in Roseville now that will go operational in 2006.

Jennifer is still in Georgia awaiting the military to publish her orders. She was called into a meeting (along with the other 14 soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan) on Monday and told that their orders were being drawn up and that they would be leaving on Wednesday. They took the rest of Monday off to prepare for their departure. Jennifer called family and friends to say goodbye and arranged to have her car put in storage, etc. On Tuesday, they were again called into a meeting and told that the excercise of Monday was a "preparedness" drill and that their orders would be coming at a later date. People have asked me if Jennifer plans to make the Army a career and I tell them that she has already decided to opt out of the military after her four year stint. Stunts like what occured on Monday help to solidify her decision. It seems that respect is a one way street in our nation's military.

David's basketball team has entered their regular season and are now playing league games. They are 1-1 in league after blowing out Placer on Tuesday 77-44 and then losing to the league powerhouse, Granite Bay, last night 63-48. I opened the Sacramento Bee newspaper yesterday morning over my toast and Lucky Charms here at the office and saw a 1/4 page picture of David leaning over with his hands on his knees and his coach imparting advice on how to guard his man and not draw a foul. What the picture doesn't show is the other end of the court, where David's man is shooting free throws after David fouled him. It is a good picture of David the athlete and I tried to scan it to e-mail, but the scanned picture came out too dark. We have several copies of the paper courtesy of friends and teammates and I'll send a copy to Dad and Shirley. The article was about how difficult it will be for area champions to repeat.

I have a golf tournament this weekend, our first of the year. It is a Captain and Crew scramble event. The tournament is a good mixer and allows new members to get to know the group. I had hoped to have my new Wilson Deep Red irons, but alas, the factory was closed over the holidays and the clubs are scheduled to be shipped out today and arrive next week. My first tournament with the new clubs will be a medal event. Oh well.

I'm sorry that this blog entry is late this week. With all that has been happening, I frankly forgot to blog. Can you believe it?

Work is going extremely well. I just finished my first 60 days on the job and received a glowing review. The production is beginning to take off and the relationships that I'm developing with my agents is priceless. Hope all is well with all of you. God Bless.