Home in Olympia, WA

I'm home! Time to change the strings on the acoustic arsenal. Got a lot of pickin' and fiddlin' to catch up on...

Reflecting on a Year in Mosul

We're at the one year mark in Mosul, and it's time for a quick recap:

• Hundreds of boxes of school supplies, toys, clothing, and musical instruments have been distributed to dirt poor families and schools throughout Mosul and surrounding towns. The musical instruments were courtesy of fellow Celtic aficionados in Olympia, Washington, and fans of the Chiff and Fipple website.
• Made a lot of friends among the Iraqis, primarily the interpreters. These guys and gals are just like us--they want to make a living, raise families, bounce their grandchildren on their knees, etc.
• My fiddle and mandolin have survived intact, and now a lot of troopers know that there is a bald major with a mustache who haunts the palace late at night with Irish tunes.
• It has only snowed once here--back in February.
• Several troops and civilians and Iraqis have come and gone, and some are gone forever.

Mosul is about to hold elections along with the rest of the country, whether CNN believes it or not. They don't know everything--the camera has a magnetic pull to anything violent or out of the ordinary. The thousands of good news stories that happen every day across the country get eclipsed by the occasional barbarism--but rest assured, we're winning.

Tolle's Resolutions for 2005

• After spending nearly all of 2004 in Mosul, Iraq, I hereby resolve to eat, sleep, breath, and bathe in acoustic music when I return to Olympia, Washington. Too many guns, not enough music in Iraq.
• I will not place myself in a position where I'm forced to watch ESPN. Our makeshift gym had ESPN piped in 24 hours a day, and I watched the same over-priced professional athletes getting richer and romping around the primo vacation spots of the world, while we uniformed few held back the tide of Muslim fanaticism in Iraq. I wouldn't walk across the street to shake hands with any basketball player or golfer, but I would for a 19 year old kid who left home for several months and took shrapnel or a bullet while serving his country. They are the true role models, along with the teachers, law enforcement officers, and firemen in the United States.
• I won't sleep on a blow up mattress this year when I get home.
• I won't eat anything fried for at least a month when I get back.
• I'll spoil my little girl and have real quality time with my wife.
• I will vote at the drop of a hat to keep anything that looks like a mosque from being built in my neighborhood. (Have you ever found stockpiles of explosives and machineguns at the First Baptist Church or St. Martin's downtown? I think not.)

Just a few things to think about in the coming year. You don't realize what you appreciate until you're taken away from it for a year.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Senator Kerry stopped by for a visit at the palace. Stripped of the media glare, he's actually an affable and courteous chap. But remember--this is the same guy who called his Hollywood buddies "the heart and soul of America," while the rest of us were dodging car bombs downtown. If Hollywood, that bastion of make-believe, were to be swept away in a tsunami (not an impossibility, considering its location), I think America's heart would continue to beat. But then again, that's my opinion, I could be wrong. (Sorry, Dennis Miller!)