facebook

don't post here very often anymore. when i do post about what is going on, i usually use facebook. feel free to look me up there and send me an invite.

hilarious

Saw this picture today and had to share. In honor of Father's Day, this one's for the guys!
Curves

Facebook

looks like facebook has hit the tipping point. Everyone is on it now. Sarema has been harassing me to join the social networking site and I finally agreed. Seems like I'm the last guy to get on the boat... even my mom was already on.

Hunter's Birthday

Hunter's Birthday Gifts 2
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Hunter turned 4 today and we celebrated with neighborhood kids at the park behind our house. Hunter was very excited and very well behaved, which means his parents had a good time, too. More photos on my flickr site linked on the right side of the blog.

Steppin' Out at SMB

Steppin' Out at SMB
Originally uploaded by plummetskydiving

A shot of Sarema and me leaving the King Air about 15000 feet over Skydive Monterey Bay in Marina during MLK weekend.

Girl power

I'm getting on the plane from LA back home to San Luis and the entire flight crew (both pilots and flight attendant) is composed of blond women
Hooah. You don't see that everyday

Two Months

s42258ca113241_8.jpg
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Wow, I can't believe it's been two months since I posted to my blog. Everyone's probably stopped checking it by now.
Between my three jobs (IT Manager, Battalion Commander, and Daddy) I don't have a lot of time to post these days. The kids are growing so fast that I'd rather spend all my spare time with them than get on an blog. You can see for yourself in the picture here how fast they're growing.
Hunter and Sarah are both in the late stages of potty training and sometimes it seems like they're going to be in high school tomorrow.
So lets do some catching up:
Spent Christmas here with my sister, her husband, and my parents. Then moved to NorCal for a week with Sarema's extended family.
In January, I took a solo 1200 mile tour of California in our RV, attending various army guard functions and my monthly drill. Sarema and I also got to do some jumping at skydive Monterey Bay for the first time in about 5 months.
In February, I went back up to the bay area for drill and then spent a week at a computer security class in Sacramento.
It's good to be home now, if only for a couple of days. On Wednesday, I'm flying to Georgia to commission one of the new lieutenants in my battalion.

Tough Training

IMG_1836.JPG
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

I just returned from four days in the Nevada desert training hard with the M9 pistol. I borrowed a Beretta 92F from a friend and put over 600 rounds through it while wearing the body armor that I need to fight with the next time I deploy. The Front Sight instructors were great and I improved my pistol skills dramatically during the challenging course.
Although the weather sucked, including howling winds and 6 hours of firing in snow/slush mix (see the picture), having friends at the course with me helped out a bunch and made it tolerable. Randy, James, Joe, Adam, Tom, and Jim (who i met for the first time on the trip) were a blast to train with. Adam even drove us out there in his palatial RV.
More pictures on my Flickr account (link on the right)
Now it's back to my other job... IT manager.

Gamer

Gamer
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Hunter has become quite the little gamer this past month. He's pretty adept at finding and playing all the games on Sarema's and my iPhones. He and I even played cooperatively on an XboX 360 arcade game tonight. It was really fun to play with him and he even held his own in the game... especially for a three year old!

Promoted

Promoted
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Two months after taking command of the battalion, I got promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on Saturday by the man in the center, Colonel Baldwin, and the man on the right, Command Sergeant Major London.

Newest Firefighter

Newest Firefighter
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

My buddy, Rick, graduated today from the Los Angeles Fire Department recruit training facility. He's a full-fledged firefighter now, but will bounce around to a few different fire houses for the next year while he's on probation with LAFD.
Congratulations and we're proud that your hard work paid off, Rick.
More photos on the Flickr page.

New Battalion Commander

New Battalion Commander
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

I finally tracked down the official photographer for my change of command in October. This is one of the 8 photos that I uploaded to my flickr account if you want to see more.
the man on the left of the photo is Colonel David Baldwin, my brigade commander and boss. The man on the far right of the photo is First Sergeant Rick Munoz, my former first sergeant in Charlie Battery five years ago. He's about to be promoted to battalion Command Sergeant Major and we'll be a command team again.

Lopez Lake

Lopez Lake.JPG
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

A photo from our recent overnight trip in the RV to the local lake. Hunter liked it a lot and keeps asking to go back.

Veteran's Day After

I Celebrated Veteran's Day yesterday by re-caulking the RV's roof. That was just as fun as you'd imagine. Later, we took the kids out for dinner at Applebee's since they were offering free chow for vets.
Now I'm looking forward towards my weekend drill in a few days. This will be my first full weekend as the battalion commander. Seems like I've been a commander for several months already with as much work as I've been putting in, though...

Halloween

Halloween_Hunter
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Here's a photo of Hunter in his full fireman costume, ready to go trick or treating. Sarema has a great post on her blog about the efforts leading up to this photo, getting Hunter into his costume and ready to go.