Hiya, kids! Well, I made it back to Iraq. Got in yesterday. Stuck in Baghdad until Sunday. This traveling in country thing is getting to be ridiculous with the waits.
I managed to bookend the vacation with a little fun on each side of the class I took. Class was one hell of a week. Started feeling kinda pekid Sunday night. Monday, woke up feeling like hell. By Tuesday it was more like hammered s#*t warmed over twice. Wednesday I was wishing for death. And those were all classroom days. Thursday was practical application. Live burns all day. I woke up feeling slightly better, but better than wishing for death...well you get the idea. I managed to live through the day Thursday but it kicked my everloving ass. Passed the test, got the certification, all worth it.
The Saturday before class started (March 2nd) I saw Gabriel Iglesias at the Toyota Center in Houston. He's a hell of a comedian and it was a great show, but I wouldn't recommend seeing a comedy show in a place like that (arena setting). The acoustics suck. Entirely too much echo. Fortunately, Fluffy has a pretty soft voice and doesn't yell a lot, so there wasn't much echo during his show. A few of the preliminary comics, yeah...ouch. All in all it was a great time though. He's a very humble young man and you can tell he truly appreciates his fans. When he came out on stage he was talking about that being the largest (12,000) crowd he's ever had. Previously it was 10K. His voice broke while he was talking about it. Plus, there were coupons/cards available at every merchandise stand for every fan in the audience to go on line and get a free t-shirt. I know at least two in the audience (my date and I) didn't grab a coupon, but even if only half the crowd did, that's a pile of money he laid out just to get the shirts made, not to mention the lost profit.
Saturday the 9th, I saw Cirque du Soleil: Quidat. I'd never seen a Cirque show before, and now I'll never miss another if I have the chance. My previous assessment of it being circus meets Broadway meets LSD was pretty accurate, and I say that as a compliment. One hell of a show!
Sprinkled throughout were a few really nice meals, although not as many as I'd hoped, what with being sick for part of the trip. At least both weekends I felt decent enough to gorge.
I hope all is well with everyone here.