On Jacki's blog (www.jovialjacki.com), she posted about us taking out our nasty disease ridden bushes. Those things were not just difficult to pull out, they were also difficult to put in the trailer. I tried using a regular wood saw, but there was entirely too much drit and other things (I randomly found a BASEBALL in the bush). After trying to work around it, I finally decided on using a hacksaw. It worked much better and was much more rugged, but it turned out the bush had some tricks up its sleeve. Halfway through the project, the bush broke my hacksaw. It is not a particularly nice one, Sears bargin bin special. Even being halfway done, but bush was still wayyy too heavy to put in the trailer so it was time to improvise. I grabbed the new welder and gave it a shot. Up until this point I have only welded much thicker metal so this was new territory, but it needed to be done. Now that it is welded together, I won't be able to replace the blade when it dulls, but the important thing is the project was finished. Here is a pic of the weld:
Emergency Fix
Welder Project #1
The first project I tackled with the new welder was fixing my truck exhaust. The exhaust was working fine, but it was not held in the most sturdy or professional way. Here is what was holding it on:
I ground an existing hanger off of my pipe, and welded it to a spare clamp that I had. Lastly, I needed to tack weld the clamp together. The pipe now sit an inch or two higher than it did, which I think looks nice, and it is FIRMLY in place. Very happy the first project went off without a hitch. Having PD around to bounce ideas off of was extremely helpful.
Promoting Marines
On Sunday, John was the Promoting Officer for one of his old Sergeants, now a Staff Sergeant. John is no longer this Marine's OIC (Officer In Charge), so he was honored and excited to still be asked to be his Promoting Officer. John loves making new SNCOs (Staff Non-Commissioned Officers).
Here are a few pictures John sent over.
More Iraq Pictures
It's supposed to say "Do not SPIT GUM in the urinals".
Oh, those clever, dirty-minded Marines.
The living quarters
Stogie Night
The Marines each got a beer in honor of the Superbowl!
The Platoon
Here are John's Communications and Communications Maintenance Marines!
(He's in the back row, 4th from left.)
Radar
Some people (me included) wanted to know what that big thing is behind the Squadron in the picture I posted yesterday. Here's what John said:
It's the Radar, which is what the Air Defense Control Officers use to control the aircraft that come into our space. They take the planes who are far out or at high altitudes and bring them down close so the ATC can land them.
If we actually had bad guy pilots, they would also use it to identify them and help the good guys fight them.
