Last Sunday during church a storm blew through the valley. We drove across town to get to our hotel and realized when we got there that apparently a microburst had hit only our block because there were giant branches strewn across the roads, the sidewalks and all over the lawns in front of our building--and we hadn't seen anything like it anywhere else in town. It reminded me of our little, friendly tornado in Tennessee. Once again, it was just our neighborhood.
The next morning, I walked out to find seven fire trucks and several cop cars surrounding the building next to ours in the hotel/apartment complex where we stay. There were old, hairy men standing around eating pizza. I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on until I overheard someone saying that it was on the news. I went home and looked up on the internet to find out the story. Turns out, the building next to ours is a charity housing project hosted by the hotel/apartment complex for homeless veterans who suffer extensively from PTSD. One of the occupants had given all of his possessions away Sunday night and then Monday morning went ballistic saying that he had planted a bomb in the building and was going to blow everyone up. This man had a criminal record involving making explosive devices, so they took it very seriously. Nothing came of it, but it sort of freaked me out that there are vets with PTSD wandering around the complex--specifically ones with an affinity for explosions.
Then, yesterday afternoon I took the kids to walk around downtown Salt Lake City. We walked around several blocks and ended up at the library. When we walked back to our car, we saw cops surrounding the block just adjacent to where we had parked. We found out later that a man had been pacing up and down on the opposite side of the block where the kids and I were just moments earlier walking, carrying a high powered rifle. Someone called the police and when the police showed up the man opened fired on the police, hitting one officer in the leg. They fired back and shot the perpetrator dead. All of that happened at the same time I was walking with the kids on the opposite side of the block. Considering that I could have been on the other side of the block, I just keep thinking that I'm so glad I parked where I did. The picture below was the kids up on the roof of the city library right around the same time as the incident.
The other day I took the kids to Kennecott or Bingham Copper Mine. It is the biggest copper mine in the world. This is another one of those famous landmarks in Utah that I've never been to, which we now changed that, too. It was huge and the rock-hauling trucks were the size of two-story houses. The kids had fun, but the Great Salt Lake still was our favorite outing.
My sisters and I hit downtown Salt Lake City and went to the LDS Church History Museum, temple square, toured the capitol building and then went to Liberty park.
Korea update: We are now number four on the Korea/Daegu waiting list. Brian called the woman in charge of determining how many numbers are approved each week to find out how long we were looking at waiting. She informed Brian that the commanding general of Korea had decided to recind command sponsorship approvals to anyone who has school-aged children--even though waivers had already been approved for my children to go to school five weeks ago. Brian was furious. We have been screwed left and right by this whole process. We've had a lot of people trying to help us, but then we keep hitting brick walls that seem insurmountable. Brian wrote a memo documenting everything that has happened to us from all of the promises and the things people did to help us get the family over there and then all the things that have been absolutely unfair, illogical and otherwise ridiculous and took it to his battalion commander. The battalion commander was going to take it to the garrison commander over Daegu and then they were going to take it to the commanding general of Korea. We're still waiting to hear the decision, but we decided that we're not going to let them drag it out weeks and weeks. We are going going to make a decision this coming week. If it looks like they are going to give us command sponsorship in the next two weeks, we'll wait. However, if they are indecisive or giving us the run around again, we are just going to pay for me and the kids to go over next weekend. If we choose this route, we will only stay one year and we will have to live on the economy (meaning no Army housing) and I will have to homeschool the kids. Then we will request Germany, Italy or Hawaii. I am worn out with the drama that seems to never end with Army life, but the more the economy looks bad, I think it's best for us to stay in the Army. I am ready for some calm in my life, but doesn't look like that's on the horizon anytime soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment