surfing

I'm not sure what I was looking for today while I was surfing the net, but I came across CNN's tribute to the fallen soldiers of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They posted every photo with the age, affiliation, hometown and country, if they were coalition, and the story of their death. I thought I would go through them, being the least I could do to honor them in some way, but I didn't make it through the A's before I realized it was overwhelming. Too many names, too many roadside bombs, too much to take in. I finally decided to look up Pat Tillman, kind of Arizona's own, so I kept scrolling. 

One entry caught my eye as I quickly scrolled through. The story of his death was a lot longer than most and it had a link. It turns out that he is the first Medal of Honor recipient for combat since the Viet Nam war. The link was to an official site giving the official story, the narrative of the president at the posthumous presentation, a picture of the redesigned medal and other information about the soldier. I don't remember his name. I remember Paul Ray (his middle name) but not his last name. I was surprised that there have been so few Medals of Honor given out, but then again, this is the first time we've been engaged in big time war. Bosnia, Somalia, Grenada - the soldiers who fought there unfortunately didn't have the war machine behind them and went all too often unheralded for actions deadly and costly.

Anyway, by the time I got to where Pat Tillman should have been, he wasn't there. I checked a couple of times, but he's just not there. Maybe it's at the family's request but there are plenty of other stories that read "killed by friendly fire," sadly. The cover up is what makes his story stand out, though.

Enough of that. The only other thing I did today is start to play bass in Guitar Hero World Tour. I found out I can do that, and it's easy to do (not the playing but the arranging to play). You can play bass in the other games but it doesn't count for anything. In this one you make another character and off you go, and you still get points for your band. I made my character and they started me on beginner, which was so easy that I almost fell asleep. I went from beginner to expert in one day on bass. I can't play everything on expert, but I try songs on expert first, and if I absolutely can't play them, then I can go down by levels until I can. I really like playing bass. Totally different from guitar, but you have to watch the repetition factor, which gets to me. I forget what I'm doing and I lose my fingers. I did pretty good on Hotel California, tho, and that's got a great bass part.

That's about it for today, and it's not even 7 pm yet. Man, is my schedule messed up. But I think I feel a migraine coming on. I think it was scrolling through all those photos, to tell you the truth. Josh is coming over tomorrow so he can help me ship back a subwoofer to the factory and take a look at the sound system in my bedroom, and then Kathy's birthday dinner in the evening, so going to bed early isn't a bad idea. Besides, I really doubt I'll be asleep anywhere near 7, or 8, or 9...