Real Good Thing!

I spent last week (15-21 July) chasing General Pace around Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany. Our trip took us to Baghdad, Ramadi and Al Taquaddum in Iraq; Bagram, Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Qalat in Afghanistan; and Nurnberg, Schweinfurt, Stuttgart and Ramstein in Germany.

This was a troop visit and I expect it will be one of General Pace’s last big trips before he retires in October. At every stop we made he held a town hall meeting with the troops and in Germany he met with family members of deployed troops and visited our wounded at Landstuhl Medical Center. His message was simple: “Thank you.” At every stop he also shook hands with and gave one of his coins to EVERY person. He answered all questions and took pictures with anyone who wanted one.

On this trip the Chairman was accompanied by two other big names: Retired Marine Colonel Harvey C. ‘Barney’ Barnum, a recipient of the Medal of Honor, and Sergeant Major William J. ‘Joe’ Gainey, the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman. They both also spoke to the troops. It was a really busy trip but I did have time to take some pictures. A few of them are below.

This is one of the reasons we have to fight. Me with some Afghan children at the Governor’s home in Qalat.

General Pete Pace, CJCS & me.

At Multi-National Division Baghdad HQ.

With Colonel Barnum.

Outside Uday & Qusay Hussein’s old hunting lodge where we spent the night in Baghdad.

With Sergeant Major Joe Gainey.

Strapped into a UH-60 Blackhawk over Iraq.

With Jim Garamone, DoD reporter.

Sweating on a C-130 on the ramp in Jalalabad.

With Colonel Katie Haddock, General Pace’s PA officer.

With the General’s Exec in a Blackhawk over Afghanistan.

Good to go in the back of the C-130.

Why do Apple’s earbuds suck? Yesterday I went to the Apple store at Pentagon City Mall and purchased our second iPod shuffle for a member of our family. This time it was a hot pink one for my love, Kim. Now Kim likes the earphones that have little hangers that go over your ears and I prefer the in-ear buds. So she and I traded. Since someone in the house has misplaced my usual earbuds I used the Apple earbuds today.

The sound quality is awful! I mean, it sounds like I’m trying to listen to music through a wall. These are made by a company that can get me to shell out $80-plus for a 1 GB MP3 player that doesn’t even have an LCD screen so you know what you’re playing. (They call this a “feature.”) They don’t sell a decent computer for less than $2000 and even that won’t play any games to speak of. (No games any self-respecting gamer wants to play anyway.) And yet they can’t make a set of earbuds that don’t make you feel like you’re listening to them with a head cold. My $12 Koss earbuds sounds 1000 times better AND they actually stay in my ear.

What’s up with that Steve Jobs?