Shotgun Wedding - Sort Of..

As some of you know, last week I finally got hitched to my new bride, who is now Tami Lee. Has a nice southern ring to it to match her accent. I never thought I could have as much fun at a wedding, especially my own. Up until now I've always mostly endured them for the opportunity to party with friends. But everything came off perfectly, thanks to all the help to make it that way, and we partied until the lights went out. Our friends came from all over the country, some of which I haven't seen in a decade and I don't think it's possible to express what that meant to us though I tried in a blundering speach at the reception. For those of you who didn't make it down to North Myrtle Beach for the weekend, I had 6 of the worlds best photographers who also happen to be six of my closest friends, in town covering it. So, we'll have heaps of good pics to come. Thanks guys. We made a little side trip on Sat. morning over the the family farm for a little shooting fun and blasted away any hangovers from the previous night before gorging on my favorite home cooked meal, Chicken Bog.
This week started again with a bang here at The International Sniper Competition at Ft. Benning, GA where I'm covering the event as well as the Combatitives Competition this coming weekend. I'm shooting both Video and Still pics and transmitting from the road. What that means is that with 2 big digital SLRs, a video camera with shotgun mic, headphones and a tripod, I'm trying to keep up with guys who are in top phisical condition as they run obstacle courses, climb ladders, jump in and out of helicopters and shoot targets. All that and my editors want me to try to hold the camera steady. Their advice, hold your breath! Just thinking about it makes me want a smoke. It's my first time editing video without being able to shout for help over my shoulder and have one of my fellow staffers come running. It's been a challenge consisting of many late hours in a claustophobic motel room, but you can see my first efforts on this new frontier of muli-media journalism here: SNIPERS click "See the Video." Baby steps right?
As aways, thanks for checking in. JLee

Mea Culpa!

Forgive me friends, it's been too long since I've written. Frankly, after my time spent in Iraq, it's difficult to get enthusiastic about writing about life here...stateside. When friends ask, how I'm doing, I'm apt to reply, "OK," or "I'm coasting," or even "It's been boring." But I recognize that's an issue that many war corrospondents have, becoming disenchanted with daily life after the high drama of frolicking in the midst of danger and catastrophe. What's ironic about that is that is the reason most of us got into this field is precisely because we are fascinated with life in ALL it's complexity. If I loose that, I loose too much of myself and I relinquish the gifts' God's given me. With that said, I'm reflecting, for your benefit, my friends, and for my own, at what I've experienced in the few months since my return. On a professional level, I've been struggling to learn how to add some tools to my arsenal, telling stories with multi-media- using writing, sound and still images. I had the opportunity to watch the last F-14 Tomcats catapult off the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt and futhermore, I got a landing and catapult shot out of the deal myself!
I've spent time with wounded soldiers and lab technicians at Walter Reed Medical Hospital as they were fitted with new prosthetic legs, and arms. I followed along on part of the trip as some of those soldiers rode their bicycles across the country.Most recently, I went down to the U.S. / Mexico border to see how the National Guard and the Border Patrol attempt to stop illegals from crossing. And get this, for all of this, I’ve gotten paid! Paid to take pictures and tell stories…I’m already forgetting what I’ve complaining about!
On a personal level, the smartest and most beautiful little spitfire of a woman recently moved up here to Northern Territory to be with ME (hard to believe I know) and we’re planning our wedding next month! (Tami is now the Assistant Manager of JC Penneys at Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax, VA).
My parents and sisters just finished building a great new beach house on the creek in Garden City, SC. They’ve been worrying about the details for months so that last weekend, when I visited for Labor Day, I didn’t have to worry about anything except getting to the fishing hole while the tide was right, and getting back in time to watch the sun set over the marsh. I got a chance to visit with my always happy nephew, Jackson, and the rambuctious triplets, Mac, Eliza and Emma, who are now communicating in complete sentences and managed to keep me in stitches at their antics all weekend. So, friends, ask me again and I’ll tell you "life is good." Very good. Mea Culpa for taking it for granted.

P.S: Highlighted words should route you to this new-fangled multi-media storytelling stuff I've been struggling with.

IEDs for Breakfast

Last week I sat in a dungeon, smoked, and played guitar with soldiers from 1-32 CAV. At least that is what the soldiers in the town of Muqdidiyah call their under ground barracks on the old Iraqi Army base near the Iranian border. Removed from the sound of Bradley armored vehicles and the occasional incoming morter and rockets, I listened to Spc. Brian Ahern and Spc. Josh Somma sing a song they wrote called, I Eat IEDs for Breakfast. It was a good song and I thought about how heavily those nasty little devices IED’s or Improvised Explosive Devices weigh on every soldier’s mind. Any time I’ve been with a line unit here, it seems that evil acroynm crops up in almost every conversation. Soldiers talk about the ones they’ve found and the ones that have found them. They simply call this being “blown up.” On some of the bases I’ve heard the booms, seen the dust clouds rising in the distances and listened to the radio reports of the latest blast. Many of missions soldiers go on these days are about finding IEDs, or stopping them, or preventing them from being placed on the roads. In fact, one of the missions we went on in Muqdadiyah was called “concrete ops” filling one of the many holes in the road, created by an IED the night before, with concrete in hopes of keeping insurgents from placing another in the same location. Pictures of the damn things in their many forms were even posted on the Morale, Wellfare and Recreation (MWR) Center wall.
I’ve ridden the roads of Iraq in Humvees, Bradleys, and armored trucks with these men and admit that after each outing I’ve been physically and mentally depleted, having scanned every piece of roadside debris, telling myself I should just relax, whatever is going to happen is going to happen, nothing I can do about it, but still craining to see the little slice of road sometimes visible from the back seat and tensing every muscle whenever our vehicle passed over a pot hole.
Yet these men go out day and night, every day, if not unfazed, at least resolved to completing their missions with a dedication to each other that reaches far beyond the politics of war. Then, when the day’s mission is done, they return to their respective dungeons, smoke and write songs about IEDs.
Gina and I are currently in Taji, doing a story about a new method of distributing supplies around Iraq that requires less trucks and less soldiers to travel these roads. For the past few days we’ve been enjoying the comforts of hotel like rooms, ice-cream in the chow hall and we even went to Salsa night we’re we found more fun than we could have ever expected in a war zone. You can find Gina’s salsa night and other blogs here at Tales from the Sandbox.
Family and friends will be glad to know that we’re reaching the end of our time here and next weekend we will board a plane that will take high above those threats and deliver us home. Still, I won’t forget that there are still soldiers out there who’s homes for now are tents, and metal containers and dungeon like rooms. Soldiers who are filling and dodging potholes on the roads of Iraq.

Bad Drivers

I’ve spent the last week in Bayji, Iraq with the 1-187 Infantry known as the “Rakkasans.” When we arrived last week, not only were we greeted with our own “Chu,” a one room aluminum apartment, but we were also given an old beater humvee to make our way around camp. I was just learning the intricacies of turning on the headlights and parking brake and Gina and I had plans to decorate it with an Army Times logo but before we could do so, the vehicle was “appropriated” in the middle of the night and we haven’t seen it sense. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
Bayji is a Sunni town with an oil refinery near the northern tip of the infamous, “Sunni Triangle.” I’ve been going on daily missions here which largely amounts to overseeing the Iraqi Army and Security Forces. It appears that, at least in this area, the U.S. is stepping back and letting the Iraqi’s deal with their own problems and I am told that most of those problems are a result of the corruption and organized crime in the form of extortion.
The greatest threat to our troops here, as in so many areas of Iraq, are the roads. Those nasty little Improvised Explosives Devices (IED’s) are prevailant here, as are mines and the occasional suicide bomber. Soldiers wear full protective gear which not only includes their helmets and body armor, but ballistic eyewear, fire retardent gloves, and even earplugs to preserve hearing in case of a loud boom. Things have been so bad here that the gunner that usually stands up with his head out of the hatch, stays crouched down until he needs to man the gun. As they drive, everyone in each vehicle constantly scans the road for any trash or pothole, or greesespot or anything outside of the norm that might be an IED. The problem is, trash, and potholes, and greesespots are EVERYWHERE and the soldiers try to remember whether that particular piece of trash was there yesterday. This makes any drive off the base a nerveracking endeavor.
Here in Iraqi, when coalition forces travel the roads, the locals know to stop and pull over to show they are not a threat. So, as you advance through a town it appears you are riding in a funeral procession or an ambulance as all approaching vehicles pull over to the shoulder while you pass.
At sunset yesterday, I was with A Company, in the lead vehicle on our way to visit an Iraqi Army checkpoint. We were cruising along with lights flashing and sireen wailing. Cars were pulling off the road in front of us until we hit a long straight stretch and I watched the small white dot of a sedan grow larger and larger in the wind shield. As the car got closer I noticed that I could only see one head in the car. A vehicle that fails to stop and only has one person inside is the common profile for suicide bomber. On my last trip here I got a chance to see them and their results numerous times but back then, I was riding in a large, heavily armored vehicle. This time, I was sitting on top of the fuel tank in a Humvee and time seemed to slow. I felt the gunner tense and then straighten in the hatch. I gripped a camera in one hand and the complicated door release in the other, my knuckles white. I think I stopped breathing as I watched the car get closer and closer without slowing. I voice in my head was commanding, HE’S TOO CLOSE, SHOOT! but it seemed like an enternity before our vehicle commander finally shouted the same order, “SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT” and the gunner up top began firing his M-4 on the approaching car. It always amazes me how much can go through your mind in those seconds. I saw the sparks of bullets richocheting off the ground in front of the looming vehicle. As it reached us I thought, TOO LATE! THIS IS IT, WE’RE DONE. The gunner continued shooting. Seven shots in all as it passed us and there was no explosion. We got out of the humvee and the soldiers cautiously approached the car now sitting beyond us with four flat tires. As I crouched near the back of our vehicle shooting pictures, I was alternately still expecting an explosion and dreading seeing the bloody remains of the driver when he emerged from his car with his hands up. He was untouched by the bullets which had cut a neat hole in his front bumper and pierced his tires. He explained through the interpreter that he was driving into the sun and therefore didn’t see our Humvees and that his music, still blaring an Arabic ballad, prevented him from hearing any sireen. Our platoon leader called for help to repair the vehicle and we waited for it to arrive in the form of Iraqi Police. Then we loaded back up and continued on the mission, Alpha Company’s evening just getting started on the roads of Bayji.

Note: I’ve finally updated my web page with pictures from the first half of my trip. More to follow.

A Desert Isle

We’re wrapping up our week here at FOB Iscan and I’ve got packing to do. All Gina’s gear is neatly stacked on her cot while mine is scattered over two cots into the little wooden box they’ve provided us here as an office. This log is an effort to avoid the monumental task ahead of gathering it all up in the most economical way to manage it between here and two helicopter rides that will take us to Baghdad and on to the 101st area of operations (AO) up north.
It’s been a good week here with good people and despite the portapotties and pidgeon droppings, I’m beginning to see this portion of the trip as easing into the war zone. In addition to doing a dozen soldier stories on everything from the laundry service to the canine unit, I’ve managed to get in some patrols in town and even take a boat ride to blow up bridges. Well, foot bridges and palm trees but they were nice explosions. Just what I needed to shake the dust off, work up a sweat and start churning out “combat photography.” About the bridges:
There is an “island” here off the Euphrates. I have “island” in quotation marks because the only thing that makes it an “island” is a canal ditch that feeds off the river and runs around it. It seems a few months ago, it was determined that insurgents were using the island as a safe haven. The place was raided and heaps of weapons an explosives were found. So, the 1st Bat. 67th Armor decided to take it over and secure it. For a photojournalist, it sounded like a classic case of “should’ve been here yesterday.” However, there was work left to be done. At least one foot bridge and a palm tree spanned the little canal and the mission of the 50th Engineers we were with was to take their boats laden with explosives to the island and blow up these bridges in hopes of making them too difficult for the bad guys to cross. It was a nice ride on the boat and I got to watch the explosives experts at work. It took two blasts to take down the foot bridge of which I have no good pictures because, I’m a wuss, and damn it, I can’t help but jump when the explosives go off. That bridge out of the way, our team hiked to the palm crossing. As they were rigging this one I noticed a shephard approaching from the opposite side with his flock. The soldiers immediately waved him off, the word “BOOM” is evidently universal language for get the heck out of here. There were oohs and ahhs and woops of success at the flash of light and the pulp that rained among us. Mission accomplished, everyone said, but as we walked away, I looked back to notice the shephard surrounded by his sheep, on OUR side of the canal. Somehow, the wiley old guy and his entire flock had managed to cross in the time it had taken us to pack up our gear. I didn’t have the heart to point this out to our team. Besides, we were late for chow.
As the light fell too low on the river for me to make any more pictures, I sat back in the boat. The wind was still, the water had turned to glass, the motor drowned all other sound and silhottes of palm trees zipped by in the blue night. For for a few blissful moments I was transported to a jon boat in the SC lowcountry, on my way to a duck blind or a fishing spot, or to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July. Many of my favorite memories were rolled into one on this foreign stretch of water.

Of Fobbits and Soldiers...

It’s amazing how fast things can change. Less than 48hrs. ago we were housed at the “Central Press Information Center” enjoying all the comforts of the “International Zone” (IZ) formerly the “Green Zone.” We had bunk beds in a “media lounge,” internet access, even a big flat screen TV. Best yet, we had clean flush toilets. One night last week, after a tough day at the hospital, we enjoyed dinner with the “Fobbits” (definition below) at the Blue Star Café. At this local hang-out in the IZ, we ate a mixed grill, drank cold Turborg beer and discussed how to right all the wrongs of the world.
Today, we’re living in the storage hanger of a maintance building on a dirty industrial complex 30 mi. south of Baghdad. Pidgeons fly over head, splattering the soldiers and marines on their cots below (the Marines don’t seem to mind). This is FOB Iscan where soldiers from the 1-67, 4th Infantry Division trudge through the wasteland of a huge power plant, the smokestacks belching black soot. No TV, no internet, and you carry your own TP to the port-a-pots. Somehow, though, I feel more at home than I did in the IZ. At least I’m finally with the soldiers doing work I can see and understand. Until now I felt vaguely guilty living the life of a “Fobbit.” A “Fobbit” is someone who never gets away from base and has little idea what’s happening “out there.” The guards, civilian contractors, state department employees and all the misc. people who keep a modern army operating, but never see the “outside of the wire.” They live a sheltered, relatively comfortable life in a war zone. I can’t blame them for trying to make their own lives as comfortable as possible here, and I have appreciated their hospitality. For me, though, that life is somehow hard to enjoy when I know what life is like for the average soldier in Iraq. So I’ve been getting soft and living in shame until now.
The soldiers here in Iskandiriyah are out in to these mixed Sunni/Shiite towns trying to tamp down violence, support the local police forces, and bring a level of civility to this tortured area. Much of the population here worked in Saddam’s military complex, either with The Medina Division Repulican Guard or in the munition factories. As a result, the local populace are now largely unemployed and desperate.
Yesterday we went with A Company to the nearby Sunni town of Jur as Sakhr where this unit is simultaniously building a little patrol base and employing some of the locals in a painting project to improve their own town. With the little U.S. sub-station in the middle of downtown, they hope to provide an additional level of security; with the white paint a job, a sense of self respect. Still, the soldiers must be on the lookout for roadside IED’s and the Shiite run police force generally refuse to enter the town. This is life in Iraq: the constant, one step forward, two back (or vice versa) struggle that continues. I’m looking forward to exploring it more in the days to come.

Fight for Life

We’ve spent the last few days at the Ibn Sina hospital in Baghdad, home of the 10th Combat Support Hospital (CSH) where U.S. doctors and nurses fight for the lives the “fresh trauma” victims. These are soldiers and civilians, Iraqi and American, even insurgents. It doesn’t seem to matter to these docs as they are entirely focused on saving the life in front of them. I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to describe the miracle of what we’ve seen the last few days. The experience has been overwhelming in many ways: the severity of the wounds we’ve seen, the intensity of the ER and operating rooms, the delicate care in the intensive care unit. My first day here I watched a patient very nearly die from a gunshot wound to the chest and a surgeon place his finger on the pulmonary artery to keep the blood from draining a life. I saw the surgical team refuse to give up on that patient when many would have thought it hopeless. I very literally watched a life saved and realized the miracle that was being performed through the hands, hearts and minds of these care givers. These are not docs who dispassionatly run the patient through the system, patching them up and moving on. These docs and nurses follow their patients through their treatment, often checking up on them after they’ve left the trama center for further treatment. They take personal responsibilty for the lives that are saved and the deaths weigh heavily on them. Yet everyone we’ve talked to say this is the most rewarding experience lives, to be able to save life and limb and send a soldier or civilian home to his/her family.
As a photojournalist, this story seems like the opportunity on a life time on one hand, and the most daunting I’ve ever attempted on the other. Every day I’m put through the paces mentally and emotionally, trying to figure out how express the magnitude of what is happening here with my very limited tools: an eye and a camera. I have the feeling that I could spent a lifetime and never be equal to the task but I am so grateful for this opportunity and for the people I’m covering.
Last night I got the chance to talk via email to a fellow shooter, Toby Morris, who was shot in the leg by a sniper and treated at this very hospital last week. He seemed to be in remarkably good spirits though he may have a long road to recovery. Talking to him and seeing all these injuries is a brutal reminder of how dangerous it is “outside the wire.” It scares the crap out of me when I let myself think about it and there’s no way not to think about it here. Still, I feel stonger than ever about the importance of telling the stories of these soldiers.
Please keep Toby, the docs, the soldiers and all the victims of this war in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks for reading and for your support.
JLee

Ultimate Road Trip

The ultimate road trip started at Camp Navistar on the Kuwait border, an interesting place some have dubbed as the world’s largest truck stop. We struck out on a convoy called the “Arrow Express” making the run of about 400 miles to Balad, just north of Baghdad. This convoy consists of miles of “white” trucks, those driven by “TCN’s” or Third Country National contractors carrying the supplies and equipment needed to maintain the coalition Army. The amount of stuff we bring in is phenomenal and it all all comes into the country through Navistar. These “whites” are unarmed and vulerable, sometimes hijacked by desert pirates in the south or attacked by insurgents further north, so the Army provides armed escort trucks called “greens” to see to it they all reach their destinations safely. It's a dangerous and unheralded job. I'm glad Gina had the idea to do this convoy and hope her story gets these drivers, both "whites" and "greens" the attention they deserve. I had the priviledge of riding in the front of the convoy for the first and safest leg of the trip. Ironically, this is when I was most jumpy, tensing whenever we met a civilian or passed a mound of dirt on Hwy 1 (aka MSR Tampa.) My driver, Sgt. Robbie Green, a 1st Battalion 12th Field Artillery soldier from Springfield, VA, as the lead “green” truck, had the responsibilty of calling out everything that could be a potential hazard over the radio which would then be relayed back to each truck in the multi-mile long convoy. I first got the sense that we were really in Iraq when Sgt. Green radioed “oncoming traffic southbound in the northbound lane, advise all trucks to stay right” just as a civlian pick-up whizzed passed us. Noticing my dismay Sgt. Green said, “oh, that’s just normal here,” and I reminded myself that it was time to start expecting the unexpected and that I was once again going in the rabbit hole.
The trip to our first stop at Scania, another big truck stop near the ancient ruins of Ur took us a little over 7 hrs. where we crashed at a little paradise of a camp during the day wanting to make the final and more dangerous leg of the trip under the cover of darkness. One day turned into two as, par for the course here, after loading back up at 1a.m. and heading out the gate, the road was closed due to firefights and IEDs (improvised explosive devises) further along the route. So we turned around to do it again the following night. The good news is that Camp Scania is a little paradise. Largely removed from the fighting the town is relatively friendly, and the camp well equipped. Even camel rides are offered at a little bizaar there. Gina and I went on a brief patrol with 167th Infantry National Guard from AL, of the town of Shumali where I showed off my grace in front of the townspeople and soldiers by falling backwards dead into the center of a huge tractor tire as I back-peddled up the sidewalk photographing the patrol. I must have looked like a true redneck reclining in an intertube. A cold beer and a slow flowing river was all I needed but I was happy to provide all with a good laugh, far beyond embarrassment at this point.
The following evening we loaded back up and this time I drew the rear “gun-truck” which was an up-armored Humvee. I didn’t know which was better. When I was in the lead I was in a big armored tractor trailer safely enscounced but I would be the first to find any hazards. I thought it would be good to be in the rear but then I remembered how fragile Humvees seemed by comparision. Luckily, the route to Baghdad was fairly uneventful punctuated only by radio reports of other convoys that had hit IED’s, and the occasional tracer fire in the distance. My gun crew joked through it all, telling stories and cranking out tunes on the I-pod hanging from the review mirror. We made it to Balad by 3:30 a.m. (about 6 hours) and caught a couple hours sleep on a cot before jumping on a blackhawk helicopter for the short flight to Baghdad at day break.
Now, here we are at Baghdad’s “International Zone”, formerly “The Green Zone.” This is another surreal place where we have received our official Press ID’s that seem to put us only a notch above Most Wanted Terrorist in the eyes of all the security here. We’re living behind giant concrete walls. Of course, I’m anxious to explore this phenomenon of a modern International walled city inside a war zone where you can drink a cappacino while listening to bombs explode in town, but I’m not to go anywhere without an official escort and by the way, “no pictures please.” Oh, well, a comfortable bed awaits and is much appreciated. Goodnight to all.
JLee

The Oasis

Planes, trains, buses and taxi's. They say being a journalist is 90% "getting there." I'd say more like 99%. Well, we're not quite "there" yet but trying to make the most of where we are which is the JW Marriot in Kuwait City, Kuwait. To a good 'ol country boy like me this joint is quite impressive. I always judge hotels by their bathrooms. If I had the time, I think I could happily get through an entire Mitchner novel in this one.
We're working on doing some stories here about soldiers who also haven't quite made it to the big event so we'll be in Kuwait for a few days before moving up North. I'm hoping that tonight's rest will do away with the jet lag that over 36 hours of traveling imparts. Word to the wise: no matter how great the deal, don't take the 12 hour British Airways layover in London if you come this way. Since our arrival we've been working with our Public Affairs Officers, Maj. Dave Tippett and Cpt. Paul Edwards to cut through the red tape and are assured that there are good things ahead.
This afternoon Gina and I paid a visit "Camp Gustavo," where AP photographer Gustavo Ferrari host a little shin-dig at his Oasis camp on Friday afternoons for Ex-Pats living here or passing through. The directions to the camp went something like this: Do a U turn at mile marker 30something, then take a right through the break in the berm. Drive down the dirt track until you feel broken asphalt, then turn left by the old tire. Go straight until you pass under the power lines, then slightly left towards the two little hills on the horizon....
There, he and fellow ex-pats regaled us with stories of middle-eastern adventure and mayhem and treated us to grilled chicken from his BBQ pit (which is often destroyed by Kuwaiti tanks during training excercises) until a red sun descended below the desert horizon. Thanks to Gustavo and the rest of our new friends. You just made "getting there" a little easier.

What Really Matters

I just returned from a worldwind tour to N.C., S.C. and Ohio to see family and friends before departing for Iraq on Tuesday. I've been making my list of things to do before I leave, things to pack, etc. One of my lists is called "what really matters," and is my way of prioritizing what is absolutely necessary to get the job done, like, for instance, cameras. Mrs. Griggs, my fourth grade teacher once called me "The Absentminded Professor" for my ability to catelogue wholly worthless information while forgetting where I left my backpack. So, I make lists. The problem is, I'm also a procrastinator and this applies even to my list making. In the process of making my lists tonight I realized I hadn't dumped the images on my camera's memory card to my computer. On it, I found pictures of my sister, Stacy's, triplets during a tea party. Emma and Eliza are shown here... or is it Eliza and Emma? I'm reminded that THIS is what really matters. Guess who's going on the list (as soon as I find it.) I'll miss you guys.

BLINK INTO FOCUS - Intro

I'm sitting in my favorite place in the world tonight thinking about leaving for my least favorite place next week. I'm surrounding by family watching the lights reflect off the water here in Murrells Inlet, SC but by late February, I'll be surrounded by guys with guns, miles of sand, and looking to where the next threat may come.
This will be my web log for my upcoming trip to Iraq where I'll accompany Gina Cavallaro, for Army Times in hopes of telling the stories of the US soldier and the Iraqi people. This will be my second trip to the "sandbox." On my first, I thought I might gain an understanding of the people and our role there but I have to admit, I failed in that endeavor. I didn't even come close. Now I realize that the best I can offer are little slices, bits and pieces, tenious impressions that will be shaped and changed with experience. My camera's shutter fires at up to 1/8000 of a sec. It's just a blink but it's my primary tool to tell these stories. Maybe I can bring life in Iraq into focus for you at home in some small way. But, if not, well, maybe this will at least be a bit of entertainment as I log my random thoughts. Thanks for checking in. You can view my web page at www.jamesjlee.com.