LAST WEEK!

Here's a little low down on the crazy week that was last.
It all started Friday morning with the previous post. The tree demolished the windshield and the hood.
After lunch that day I was erroniously informed that my computer would once again be wiped and reloaded. This caused a panic and I made a flying trip to the computer guys to play like Jesus with the tax collectors. Fortunately our primary contact Doug smoothed things over and I left satisfied.
That night I received a call at 3 in the morning regarding a personnel issue which was extremely bad and very pertinent.
Monday morning I received word of a seperate personnel issue which would require my first written order, and I must say it was a dang good piece of writing but I can't post it here.
Tuesday was normal.
Wednesday we discovered inadvertently that garrison and installation command had wanted us to enforce an installation policy which didn't exist yet. So for a few hours there we were chasing ghosts attempting to make a short deadline on a topic which was impossible to solve short of contacting the CG and getting a policy written and then implementing it. Regardless that would not have happened by the end of our fuse. It was however gratifying and honorable for a high ranking NCO to call and apologize for putting us on a wild goose chase allowing us the honor of knowing we were the unit to put them on track of this pertinent oversight.
Thursday all hell broke loose (pardon the French). Early morning was fine followed by a dog in the Stray facility coming up positive for Parvo. The resulting chaos and revelation has led to a massive public affairs and media frenzy mostly for the purpose of educating civilians on and off post, soldiers, NCO's, and officers about Parvo and how to aid in the prevention of it.
It's now Thursday, one week later and the issue is still ongoing as the neighbors of one of the positive dogs, dogs came up positive yesterday despite being vaccinated. So we're currently working hard to find out the root of the issue and fix it.
More to come on the outbreak.

Happy Friday the 13th!!!
This was a great way to start the day and how about coincidence that it was the morning of Friday the 13th. I showed up for work and look at the parking lot and am puzzled by what I see. Then I look again and much to my surprise our GOV seems to have been injured during the previous evening's thunderstorms. I thought I'd post the picture for everyones amusement.

A rash of posts!!
Part two:
These are very old burial urns. In Okinawan tradition (maybe Japanese too) the body decays until only the bones are left and then the bones are placed into one of these urns. The urn is then placed in the family tomb.

While we were therre the season of the cherry blossoms began. We initially went to Nago where we thought there was a festival on one of the weekends however we found out after a little while that that festival was the next weekend after we would be gone. So we headed west to another festival which was happening that weekend. It was done on a mountain trail and in a park which was nestled into the mountains.
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This is the pineapple winery. Nothing special and we discovered that unsweetened pineapple wine tastes more to both of us like rotten pineapple than anything. We did bring back a bottle of the sweet stuff though. Karly also had the opportunity to try a couple of different sake types and reaffirm how much we aren't real fans of the stuff. I was driving so I didn't drink.

This is just a funny picture. It is on the southern tip of the island. If you read closely it say's "quasi" national park. I'm not exactly sure how a national park can be quasi but much of the english we encountered left a lot to be desired so we chalked it up to interpretation.

OOPS!!
I think I may have killed a plant.
I don't do that often but this time I did. There is a little green left so I may yet be able to save it. It is not for lack of water. I put fertilizer on it the other day to help it grow but instead it started turning brown. Some of it's leaves got bright green though so I thought it was doing fine but this morning it looks mostly brown so I cleaned off what fertilizer granules I could find, cleared away the new mulch and watered the snot out of it. I hope that helps. My poor, poor purple flox.
All of our other plants outside are doing wonderful though.

So here goes with pictures again. Since Karly hasn't posted any of the pictures from Japan yet I figured that I needed to start. Here's the first sampling. Picture number 1 is a very very very long stairway which leads to a shrine of some sort in Nago. All of the trees in the canopy are Sakura Yoshimo Cherries. they are just starting to bloom.

The second photo is from a pergola type thing at the Ocean Expo Park west of Nago. The park lays claim for having the 2nd larges aquarium in the world. We did visit the aquarium but have no pictures as we didn't want to carry the camera.

The third picture is another of the clear and wonderful days (of which there were only a handful). It is at the Okuma Beach resort for US DOD only. Have I mentioned I love the Army.
Picture 4 is again at the Ocean expo park. the silouetted statues are Shisa. They are on pillars at the entrance to the park and are there to ward off evil people and evil spirits. The Shisa or Shi Shi are unique to Okinawa. Many people mistake these as "foo dogs" which are totally different in design and symbolism not to mention foo dogs are chinese not Japanese. They serve a similar purpose though. Actually Shisa are generally not even Japanese the legend of the Shisa and the production of these lion dogs is unique to Okinawa.