Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

Yogurl and I finally got to go down to New Orleans last weekend. We had been planning to go there later this year, but since Biz and Mike are moving, we had to go sooner. It was a blast. The first day we were there we went to the French Quarter. We took a short walk down Bourbon street, but mostly we were looking at antique and art shops. We also went to the French Market where, according to my calculations, we spent three years looking at the merchandise. Yogurl sure enjoyed it!

The funniest thing about being in the French Quarter was that even though it was only 2 pm, some people who were tourists there had already begun their binge drinking for the night. I guess to some people New Orleans is meant to be a big party all day every day.

One of my favorite spots there was Jackson Square. It was a nice little park near the river. In the center was a statue of the man himself - Old Hickory, General Jackson.

On Monday we went to Jean LaFitte park. I was enjoying seeing the swampland and marshy areas just because of how different they were from anywhere else I had ever been, but then to make it even cooler, we saw a whole bunch of alligators. We also saw turtles, which were gallapagos turtles, in my expert opinion, and snakes and lizards and stuff. But the coolest thing was seeing the alligators! One of them actually moved around while we were watching him!

We had a blast hanging out down there, and most especially seeing Biz and Mike, but most especially seeing Lydia and Isaac. How Fun!

Bon Appetit!

This post is dedicated to the yummy foods we ate while we were in New Orleans. If I lived there, I would definitely be in excess of 400 pounds. The food was so delicious. Not so much healthy, but super delicious.

We ate at the Gumbo Shop, where we had jambalaya, shrimp creole, chicken andouille gumbo, red beans and rice, and my personal favorite, crawfish etouffee. It was so delicious. Biz found a crab claw in her seafood gumbo. I'm assuming that it was supposed to be there...

Later we had beignets from Cafe du Monde. We don't have a picture of them, but they were pretty good. They were like Utah scones covered in powdered sugar.

For dinner we had muffulettas, which are the best and greasiest sandwhiches ever thought of. They are made with Italian round bread, and they have layers of different kinds of salami, like capicolla and mortadella, and provolone cheese. On top of the stack of meat and cheesy goodness is an olive salad, and who knows what goes in that. Well, Yogurl does, but I don't remember. What was amazing is that the muffuletta we ate actually looked just like the one in the picture! Yum!

One of the foods we were looking forward to most, though, was the King Cake. Biz is a semi-professional king cake maker, and she was happy to share the secret of the age-old art with Yogurl. Yogurl even put on a super-Yogurl shirt for the occasion. Just look at how awesome that cake turned out. Believe me, it was even more delicious than it looks.

DC Visit

To start out with, I'd like to say thank you to anybody who is reading this and pays taxes. Thanks to your donations to the federal government, I was able to fly to DC this week and rent a car to drive around for 2 days. I also had $44 a day to spend on food. That was very generous of you all. So thank you.

Tuesday was a super long day. Yogurl and I got up at 2:30 am so we could catch our 5:30 flight. We got a little lost on our way to the airport, but since I wasn't afraid to ask directions, we got there just fine. Then we got into San Diego at 9:00. Yogurl went home, but I stayed there since I had a flight at 1:30 to DC. I tried to see if I could catch an earlier flight, but when I tried to check in it turned out that my unit had never finalized my tickets. Thanks guys! So I spent about an hour getting that worked out. Anyway, I got into DC around 11:00 pm and finally got to my hotel in Quantico just before 1:00.

The next day I got up early and went over to the Executive Safety Board. I was the NCO representative for MCI West. Apparently this was the first time they have had NCO's at the meeting. I wouldn't be surprised if it is the last. The other NCO's were so stupid I felt ashamed to be sitting with them. For example, one of them said that while he had never ridden a motorcycle, he thought that crashing on one wouldn't be so bad and that safety could be improved by reducing the protective riding gear requirements. Wow.

Since they realized we were totally useless, they let us leave around 1:30. So I changed and drove off to DC as quick as I could.

Yogurl says that I make a funny face when I take pictures of myself, but I think this picture proves her wrong. Let me tell you, DC is probably the coolest city I have ever been to. I say probably because Montreal will always hold a special place in my heart. Otherwise, DC is totally the coolest place on Earth. I got lost looking for Arlington and ended up parked near the Washington Monument. I didn't have a ton of time where I was parked, so I decided that getting close to the White House and going in the Lincoln Memorial were my top priorities. The whole area was just amazing. Just outside the Lincoln Memorial I got to see the Wall as well, which I didn't realize was right there. Seeing these spots, as well as the WWII memorial, made me really wish I had more time to pay proper respect, but I will definitely be going back again someday.

I never made it to Arlington. I got lost in DC for about 80 minutes, and then it was dark, so I just ate something and went back to my hotel. The trip back was pretty good, I slept on the planes quite a bit, and Yogurl was there to pick me up. What a great trip.

Sergeant At Last

Hey everybody, sorry we haven't blogged for a while, but things have been busy with nothing really interesting happening. This weekend was really fun though. We went down to the gaslamp district of San Diego to celebrate our 2 year anniversary. Now, we know it is a couple of weeks early, but our next two weekends are booked up, and this week was restaurant week in San Diego, so we celebrated early. It almost got foiled when they told us on Wednesday evening at work that we had to work til midnight on Friday and then until 9 on Saturday. Fortunately, I weaseled out of working Friday and didn't have to be in Saturday until 1430.
We forgot our camera, so we have no pictures of our hotel room at the Marriott or of the restaurant we ate at, but they were both very snazzy. I forgot a black belt for the pants I was wearing when we went out to dinner, so we walked to the nearby mall and bought one at Nordstroms. Yogurl thought it was just like something in a movie: Buying clothes and then actually putting them on as you leave the store. It worked out just fine and we had a blast.
A couple of weeks ago we hiked up a hill in the area that we hadn't been to before. It was really nice. We could see for miles and miles around us and all the way to the ocean, too. It was great!
Today I got promoted to Sergeant. Yeah. Sergeant Manburger, that's me. The Commanding General of MCI West came and promoted me, which was a big honor. It really made me nervous, though. I would rather just have had my OIC promote me, but you don't say no to having a General show up. He was really encouraging about me applying for a commissioning program and told me that if I had any problems putting my package together that I could call him. Wow! Since he is the guy who makes the final recommendation on my package, I'd say that's a good sign.
As you see in the photos, Yogurl helped promote me, by putting my chevrons on one side while the General did the other. I figure that she is the only person who has worked as hard for this promotion as I have, so she deserved to be a part of it. Isn't she great!
Speaking of Yogurl, she has to go to the dentist this week to get fitted for a crown. One with lots of jewels that won't mess up her hair. Just kidding. The kind of crown that goes in your mouth. Though I can't imagine the former costing any more than the latter. Oh if only Yogurl would brush her teeth occassionaly.
Here you can see that Yogurl has been trying to keep warm during the freezing cold weather we have been having. It got below 40 here I think. On base it is frequently below freezing when I leave work at night. That might not sound cold to some of you, but you probably don't ride home on a motorcycle either.
Anyway, the only other thing is that I found out today that I am going to a Safety Conference in Quantico in 2 weeks and that my reservations had to be turned in by the 22nd of January. Don't you love the Marine Corps? Anyway, that's all I know about it for now. We'll keep you posted.