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| Daughter's Brand New Car |
Sadly my daughter learned one of the true “joys” of car
ownership over the weekend. She’d spent most of her adult life in New York City
where a car is superfluous. Since she moved to Los Angeles, auto mecca that it
is, last month one of the first things she and Wing Man did was buy their first
car together. They were sideswiped by a hit and run driver Sunday night which
caved in the left side of the car pretty well. In the best news in a bad
situation department – both she and Wing Man came through unscathed if a little
pissed off. When I spoke with her last night my daughter was appreciating what
a great insurance company USAA is as the car will be going in for repairs
today. One of the real benefits of military service is that my children are also
eligible for USAA membership.
Buddy and I watched the first ever college national
championship football game last night but to be honest Buddy was not that big a
fan. It was a very exciting game as I thought Oregon was going to run Ohio
State out of the stadium after the first few minutes but as usual in football
the stronger team won. Ohio State using their third string quarterback was a
great story and they wore out the flashier Oregonians and their truly scary
offense.
My wife and I talked where she continued to take issue with the
hot temperatures she’s forced to endure in Panama. As the ice was rattling off
the windows I found it hard to muster a lot of sympathy. I told her she could
return and all her issues with hot weather would be instantly solved. I don’t
think she’s going to take me up on that. We did have a nice talk about the
future house in Panama as she’ll visit the land we own with some appraisers
later this week.
I got to bed late (after midnight) due to the game but the
empty house on the hill was rocked all night by the signature winter winds. I
woke up repeatedly through the night as different sounds emanated from peculiar
locations. I even got up at 3AM because I was certain Buddy was having one of
his panic attacks down in the basement. Since these attacks are usually accompanied
by bodily emissions that are extremely olfactory in nature I beat feet
downstairs.
Buddy was soundly asleep and did not take my panicked
inspection of the basement in good grace. I eventually figured out the winds
were strong enough that the two rocking chairs on the front porch had been set
in motion to create the sounds that woke me up. My wife would have claimed we
were haunted – it certainly felt that way last night.
I finished Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, the book
upon which the hit movie was based. Now
here was a guy truly haunted, by the ghosts of his three teammates that didn’t
make it off the mountain in Afghanistan.
If the book is true (and I do think some license was taken) then the
movie did not go far enough in portraying the heroism of Messrs. Murphy, Axelson,
and Dietz.
The first half of the book was tough to get through as he
spent a long, long time going through his SEAL training. I get it – it was
tough. The book truly soars though when the four man team in dropped off in the
Hindu Kush and are shortly embroiled in a battle for their lives against hordes
of Taliban fighters. Luttrell is a
plainspoken Texan and the co-author didn’t smooth out the dialect which made it
more realistic and enjoyable. This guy was one tough S.O.B.
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