Okinawa gets attacked by Gobi Desert Sand

The LA times news story regarding the sand

Air quality is "very bad for the health," China's national weather bureau warned. It said people should cover their mouths when outside and keep doors and windows closed.


China's expanding deserts now cover one-third of the country because of overgrazing, deforestation, urban sprawl and drought. The shifting sands have led to a sharp increase in sandstorms, the grit from which can travel as far as the western United States.

These first two pictures are looking out at the ocean, normally after the trees you can see in the distance, there are some buildings and then the ocean, it's about a mile away. You normally can see way out into the ocean and off in the distance there is a little island. Also this is taken at about noon, it looks very late in the day.











Just driving through town, again visibility is normally a few miles, here you can hardly see a few blocks.







This last one is in the evening, about 5pm, taken from my house, if you look closely you can almost see the ocean, visibility is still about a mile.

Deployment Update

I got a Homecoming window, less than 2 months and he will be home!

Delayed Monday Post

it's not monday anymore but I had this post in my mind and I got to busy to do it so here goes:

disclaimer: I am not a doctor, I am not a parent, I do not study nutrition, these are MY feelings, this is MY opinion, based on nothing more than observations.

Calories are a big part of weight, they are the only part, they make or break your waist. Knowledge about calories is very important to loosing weight, maintaining your weight or gaining weight. With that said, Children have no place even thinking about calories. I feel no one under the age of 16 should even know what a calorie is. This is just asking for an eating disorder. Two things I've witnessed in the last few weeks, one yesterday: A little girl, no older than 5 running with a pint of ice cream, her father tells her she has to share it with her sister. She starts to put up a fit, his response to her "why's" is "you can't eat the whole thing it's got... (pause while he did the math) 1020 calories in it. to which she replies "what's a calorie?" he says "it's what makes you fat". Seriously? Really dude? I wanted to smack him. Even not directly telling your kids about calories and fat grams and carbs, I think a child seeing and hearing a parent verbally share distaste over these things can cause issues. A few weeks ago I saw a little boy about 9 eating some candies out of a bag, he stopped and told his mom that he couldn't eat them, when she asked why he said there were too many calories and he didn't want to get fat. His mom with a near perfect response told her son that he didn't need to worry about calories and he wasn't going to get fat. The boy learned this somewhere. I understand dieting is a major part of millions of peoples lives these days, but let the kids see the healthy side, the exercise, eating the right food, not the ugly side, which I do just as much as the next person, counting every single thing you put in your mouth. Back to the age thing. I pick 16 as the age you must be to think about calories because that I feel is the age where one can partially understand what a body needs to function. Also this is about the age where parents (at least my parents) lost control of what is eaten. Younger kids parents have much more control of what kids do, what kids eat, I often see many really good examples of using this power, kids in sports, playing outside, riding bikes. Childhood obesity is a problem, little fat kids are everywhere, but education can make a huge difference, and over-education can lead to huge problems.