Well, for those who were waiting for last week's leadership discussion, I apologize.  A last-minute trip to the doctor for some recurring low-back pain kept me out of school for the day.  Luckily, leadership training continues!  Today we'll be tackling: Leading Legal Administrators, Paralegals, and Civilians.  This should be an interesting discussion - particularly as regards civilians. 

I'll be live-Twittering the discussion, using the #jagcldrship hashtag.  Feel free to listen in or -- even better! -- add to the discussion.  We'll be starting at about 10:15 (in just 30 minutes!) and it will last about an hour (or a little more).  Come check it out.

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

On Sunday afternoon, 14 March 2010, the opening ceremonies for World Model were held in the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in central Taipei.  Among the guest speakers was President Ma of Taiwan.  The first committee session kicked off on Monday morning.

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

I finally caught up on sleep and got 12 hours of it after I went to bed at 19:00 last night.  It was amazing...

Today we met up at 08:00 to head over to the Dunraven wreck, which accidentally sunk in 1876 when it crashed into to some it couldn't see.  it was an amazing dive, I really do prefer wrecks to reefs, but once again I can't upload any of the pictures we took because the internet is too slow here for that.  We did see an eel inside the wreck which was pretty cool.  Here's a link to the Dunraven wreck:  http://www.aquatours.com/wrecks/dunraven.htm

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Yes, it is possible to have some grass in the desert!  Some soccer photos of a game with Kuwait Military team versus U.S. Army Kuwait team

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

On Sunday the West Point Triathlon team faced over 1,000 competitors and close to a dozen collegiate triathlon teams (including Navy) at the Miami International Triathlon. The team did very well overall in there final tune-up race before nationals on April 18th. Here are a few pictures from the race:

The team is now headed to Vero Beach, Florida for a week of training. Check in later this week for more updates on the training!

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Last week, the Soldiers of The U.S. Army Field Band had an amazing experience; recording selections with the Marcus Roberts Trio.  Marcus is one of the leading jazz pianists in the world, as well as being an award-winning composer and a distinguished educator. 

This is a photo of Marcus at the keyboard.  Although he is blind, after a few minutes with him you completely forget that and know that this is absolutely someone who you would never, ever call "disabled." He's an amazing musician and also a wonderful guy to be around.

This is his bass player, Rodney Jordan. He's a New Orleans native and a terrific player.

This is the drumer in the trio, Jason Marsalis.  You may have also heard of his brothers, Wynton Marsalis, the world famous trumpet player and Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center; and saxophonist Branford Marsalis, formerly director of the Tonight Show Band.  Jason also hails from New Orleans.  Here he is behind his drums inside the enclosure we use during recordings to keep the sound from bleeding into the other microphones.

Here's a shot of the entire set, showing how we use baffles to isolate the trio's sound but maintain good sight lines.  The camera in the lower right was focused on Marcus's hands that I could see in a small video monitor next to the conducting stand.

The session was really intense but enjoyable.  Here you see the trumpet section concentrating on their entrance.

Recording CD tracks at this level requires great musicians, superb technicians, and a lot of equipment.  Here's a shot of what much of the room looked like.

The Soldier at the center of the technical side of the session was SFC Howie Smith, one of our great audio engineers.

Here, Marcus and I are just chatting between takes.

The performers (and conductor) in the room rely on the team in the audio booth to listen with the most critical ears to tell us what needs to be fixed, to keep track of "good takes," and make sure that at the end of the session we have a "Grammy Ready" product.  MAJ Bruce Pulver, Deputy Commander of The U.S. Army Field Band, is head producer and pulls everything together.

Between takes there's all kinds of verbal and non-verbal communication that occurs very quickly.  Just like any Army specialty, professional musicians have their own "lingo."  Here, Jason and I are talking about what kind of rhythmic feel we want.

Whether in uniform or not, there's deep respect between musicians.  SFC Tim Young, the fabulous pianist with America's Big Band, the Jazz Ambassadors, talks "piano stuff" with Marcus.

In just a few days, groups of The U.S. Army Field Band will be travelling throughout the upper Midwest of the U.S. presenting free performances.  Check out the schedule at ArmyFieldBand.com and follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/fieldband or Twitter www.twitter.com/FieldBand for the latest news.

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

I am exhausted...in a good way.

Last night after a full day of diving we let our hotel at 22:30 to take a bus to Mt. Sinai 2.5 hours away to climb Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the 10 commandments from God.  We got there around 2:30 after a few stops to pick other people up and proceeded up the mountain.  A few friends and I were dead set on one thing, riding camels...

We kept scanning the pitch black night trying to catch a glimpse of one or two and although we couldn't see anything, we could smell a strong odor that we deduced to be camels.  Needless to say our excitement rose.

A few hundred yards up the trail we found Bedouins offering camel rides for 80 Egyptian pounds (5.4 Egyptian pounds = 1 USD).  We paid as quick as we could count the money under our flashlights and mounted our desert steeds.  It was really hard to see anything and the camels weren't too accomodating so we didn't get any good pictures (sadly) mounted on the camels, but the next morning on the way down we were able to get some good pictures of us with camels in the daylight.

 Well...I just tried to upload the pictures I took, but apparently the internet here is even too slow for that so I guess I"ll just have to make links to other people's pictures that are similar to what I did:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/chadsteph/1/1258272045/hiking-mount-sinai-with-camels.jpg/tpod.html

We then watched this sunrise at the top:

 http://www.sacred-destinations.com/egypt/mount-sinai-st-catherines-monastery-pictures/slides/sunrise7-c-becklectic.htm

It wasn't as good when we went b/c it was partially overcast, but still definitely an amazing experience.  After that we explored St. Catherine's monastery, the oldest in-use monastery in the world (500 A.D.) before heading back.

http://inillotempore.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=799

I've only got about 10 hours of sleep total in the past 4 nights from all the adventures and early mornings we've had, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.  We were supposed to have a night dive tonight, but the waves were too rough so we postponed it tomorrow after our first wreck dive (Dunraven), which I'm extremely excited for!

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Thursday was a little more of a slower-paced day, and I found myself not knowing what to do at times.

My last patient of the day was one that surprised me a bit.  I knew the possibilty existed, but didn't think the wisdom teeth would be too difficult to get out.  But due to the age, race, and time of day (last patient - Murphy's Law) - it ended up not being quite as straight-forward as I would have liked.  Every tooth had to be sectioned (cut into pieces) and removed to get it out - even though they were fully erupted.

In the end we had done:  4 exams, taken models for a temporary partial denture (flipper), removed 6 teeth on 3 individuals, delivered 1 crown, and did 2 fillings.  I also had another canceled appointment from the new Soldiers that are learning their jobs.  This is starting to bug me since it is becoming fairly regular.  The staff that is in charge of them recently changed over, and does not seem to be on top of their game like the last set of NCOs.  I spoke at length to one of the NCOs and hope that the situation will be remedied.

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Our arrival in Egypt was anything but easy. Our plan was to put our vehicle on a ferry from Aqaba and land in the Sinai in the town of Neweba. We did not expect to encounter as many problems as we did. On the Aqaba side, the immigration officer giving us our exit stamps "somehow" missed stamping one of our passports, something we didn't know about until a minute before we were supposed to drive the vehicle onto the ship. Fortunately the dock manager was sympathetic and allowed us to go back to immigration to acquire the missing stamp. We got back to the boat literally as the ramp was being raised, and only after arguing with a random guard (in Arabic) who wasn't going to allow us to re-enter the dock without a lengthy vehicle inspection. "But we were just here 30 minutes ago and you looked through everything!" He finally gave up and waved us on, frustrated that we couldn't understand his excuse for wanting to search us again. We pulled the "white guy card" on that one. But... back to the story. We made it onto the ship in the nick of time and were pleased when the ship's crew bumped us up to first class. We are not sure whether or not it was because of our passports or because we were obvious foreigners, but it was a welcome bonus after the recent drama at the dock. The crossing of the Red Sea was very quick (about an hour and a half) but there was a problem when we reached Neweba. Because of rough seas there was only one dock the ship we were on could dock at, and there was another ship stuck at that dock due to some problems with its cargo. We waited offshore for over two hours. During that time, one of the financiers of the ferry company stopped by the table to offer his apologies and inform us that the ship had used so much fuel while waiting that they had lost all of their profits from this trip. We spent a little time after that wondering why we needed to know that information.

Now the real fun began... in customs. We had done everything we thought was necessary to successfully bring our vehicle into Egypt. We checked and double-checked with our shipping office in the embassy in Amman about what was required and did we have everything we needed. The answer we got was "yes, all you need are these papers and you are good to go." We are going to punch our buds in shipping. They didn't tell us that our vehicle had to be equipped with a fire extinguisher, and apparently the papers we were handed did not have the insurance we purchased included in them. Lesson learned on our part... read everything thoroughly. But, we were trusting and it bit us in the end. We were informed by the customs personnel (they are all police) that we would have to purchase a fire extinguisher before we would be allowed in. Of course, they have a stock of fire extinguishers ready to sell you. Next, we had to pay for insurance on the vehicle. We learned this after an exhaustive struggle to understand angry Egyptian dialect. So we paid a hefty sum for insurance on the vehicle. Next, we had to pay a "customs fee", yet another thing we had no clue was coming. Oh but wait, the hefty sum we paid earlier was actually the customs fee, even though it was clearly explained when we paid it that it was the insurance fee (we were all talking insurance at that time). So, another debate and an hour later and we still don't have insurance. By this point we've had no fewer than 10 people talk to us, some in uniform, some not. We handed our passports and ID cards over more than six or seven times. They must have made a thousand copies. About a dozen trips into random offices later and we still had gotten nowhere. Our minds were starting to go numb trying to understand what they wanted from us in order to leave. The answer was already there in our minds... they wanted to squeeze as much money out of the Americans as they could. After we had been there for about three hours waiting on God only knows what to happen, we managed to pay several more random fees (60 pounds for this, 100 pounds for that... 20 pounds for something else), have our stuff searched (are those sticks for stabbing people? no, they are for hiking), give a tip to the employee who changed our vehicle tags to temporary Egyptian tags (at he suggestion of the police), and we were free to leave. Oh wait... no, we had to stop at the gate for yet another search, yet another handing over of our documents, a few more questions, and now we could leave. We were dumbfounded at how completely inefficient the organization was. And we still don't know what the very large customs fee was for considering we were not importing anything but our personal belongings and would be leaving in two weeks. It was something we knew we had to experience at least once while traveling, and we are glad that part is over.

So, we made our way south along the Red Sea to the town of Dahab. A hippy little resort town with lots of Europeans running around. We didn't get here until 1am and we will be leaving shortly to find St. Catherine's Monastery and hike up Mt. Sinai, where we will camp for the night, enshallah.

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

The West Point Model UN team arrived safely in Tapei, Taiwan, and is now in the middle of the first day of competition. 

 Email

 Print

 Comments

• Share:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•