The 4th of July Weekend

With the fourth of July weekend coming up there will be many oppurtunities to see the sites of North Carolina. I plan to check out Raliegh, Durham and other cities in the N.C. area.

Sweat

It's an incredibaly hot Monday. I have been sweating all day. This is as bad as Florida. At least when I was in California there was only dry heat so it wasn't as bad.

Settling in but not settling down

Well I finally feel comfortable in the barracks. It took a few days of cleaning, rearranging, and unpacking for me to finally get to a point where I don't feel utterly disgusted every time I walk through the front door. But, there is still a lot of work to do.

In the mean time I will begin, finally, working on all the big projects I had been planning on doing after my vacation is over. The first up is my photographic stories website, the redesign of my personal site and finally the Israel documentary. While I'm working on the "Big 3" I'll also be setting up my wedding photo business, finishing up my bachelors degree, reworking the repro section of my shop, freelance at the local paper.

Whew! In short I will be busy.

Apartment Flop

I had been hoping beyond all hope that I would get approved for BAH and be able to live in an apartment, but to no avail my dreams were dashed recently. By not approving me for BAH the final had been driven into the coffin of my dream. It would be too taxing on my budget to live out in town without outside financial support, so I just have to wait for now.

Checking In to Camp Lejeune

Well, I spent the majority of the day checking into the division Headquarters of Camp Lejeune, N.C. The process and boring, involving some paperwork and a few classes.

After finishing division check in procedure I will continue on the Battalion Check-in procedure which will take me at least another day or so.

Went base pool today. It was an indoor pool. I would have preferred an outdoor pool, but after spending all day in Alpha's I was happy just to swim.

Tonight I plan to see Batman Begins. In my next blog I will contribute my thoughts to the blog.

Fayetteville, N.C.

Just spent the weekend in Fayetteville, N.C., and I stayed on the Fort Bragg Army Base at the Airborne Inn. They gave me a really nice room with a fridge, microwave and all the regular accessories. Since the base is so close to Fayetteville mom and I were able to go into town with no problem. We saw all the museums that Fayetteville had to offer including the art museum, Airborne museum and the Cape Fear history museum. At the Cape Fear museum visitors could tour the home of Edgar Allen Poe...no not the writer, the brick maker. Yeah, I know, kind of disappointing.

Other then that, this is pretty much the end of my vacation. I will check into Camp Lejeune tonight, and after that pretty much start working. I'll still be going on road trips though, and I plan to update this blog whenever I get a chance.

Till then,
Peace

Florence, S.C. - Dentist Capitol of the U.S.

I'm in a awesome library in Florence, S.C. on my way to N.C., and I just wanted to tell you a little about what's going on. Well yesterday I tried out a restaurant call The Lady and Sons, which featured a bevy of southern foods. I had the buffet and filled myself to the limit with all kinds of foods including chicken, ribs, collard greens, mac and cheese and mashed potatoes among others.

The Lady and Sons is owned by a Food Network cooking personality Paula Deen. Check out her site: http://www.ladyandsons.com/

Today we are almost to Jacksonville, N.C. where we will be working on finding an apartment.

Here's a site about Floence, S.C.: http://www.cityofflorence.com/index.html:

In Savannah, GA

Just finished visiting Tybee Island, which is right next to Savannah, GA. Beautiful place. Next where going to get dinner at a place Jack Carillo recommended called Lady & Son. Don't know what kind of food to expect, but if J.C. recommends it, its got to be good.

Back from the promised land

It was an awesome 10 days in Israel. During my time I saw Tel Aviv, the Golan Heights, the Dead Sea, the sun rise from Masada, Jerusalem, the Western Wall and much, much more. Besides that I met a bunch of great people. During my time in Israel I worked on a documentary about my experience. For the documentary I shot almost 9 hours of video, and over 2000 photographs. I also plan on shooting a little more video to help fill in some gaps, and I also plan to include some illustrations as well. It should turn out to be a great project.

I will upload some of my best photos to my website, www.djmphoto.com, when I roll out the next revision in a couple weeks.

I haven't forgotten about my other project, www.photographicstories.com, but I won't be able to devote time to that until I get more settled at Camp Lejeune.

Till then I'll try to update this more often now that I'm back in the states.

Peace
Dave