Alex McVeigh’s posterous

Alright people, if you can't get to Dallas and steal me that statue, then here's the second thing on my list. I don't have a price for you, but I'm worth it, whatever it is.

Alright people, listen up. This here picture (submitted by a loyal reader in Dallas, TX) is of a life size statue of the man, the myth, the legend, Dirk Nowitzki. 

I must have it. If we are going to get in and get out with this thing and not have it turn into a "Dog Day Afternoon" style hostage situation, we need to be smart about it. Send me your plans and schematics.
 
 Here's what we'll need:
 
 - Ski masks. Preferably black
-A wise-cracking computer hacker who can bypass the alarms, but also provide much needed comic relief. Preferably black.
- One of those hockey puck shaped things that sprays smoke everywhere, like the one they throw into the lobby in Die Hard.
- A gun with no bullets.
- Some bullets.
 
 One last note for all you Potential Danny Oceans out there: it has to be taken out in one piece. I will not have this sacred monument desecrated in any way.

What you see before you is some chicken I grilled. The same chicken that I plan to have for dinner.

But here's the rub: today is July 29, and the chicken had a sell by date of July 27. I'm living on the edge here.

If you don't see another post, it means I'm dead of some sort of horrible food posioning.

I love smoothies. They're cold, they're fruity, they're delicious. There's a great place near my house, and they have good ones at the gym as well.

But you know who doesn't have good ones? Starbucks. I hate Starbucks anyways, I never buy coffee from them. But there's one on the base where I work, and I was feeling like a cold, frosty treat today, so I grabbed one. And this is how it looked 20 minutes later.

I don't even want to know the horrible chemicals and filth used to make this thing, but I feel dirty having drank (drunk? dranked?) half of it.

Headed to the Department of Education building in your nation's capital. I'm on a bus with about 20 kids under the age of five. I hope they pay attention to that sign and keep their weapons off of the seats.

The four-year-old sitting behind me clearly can't read, since she's got her AK-47 just sitting on the seat. Kids these days.

Last week, I was given the assignment to take photos of the Iraqi prime minister laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This photo is of an Iraqi news crew that I was sharing the media pit with.

Two things of note about this news crew:

1) All I could think about is the movie "Air Force One" where Gary Oldman leads a terrorist crew disguised as a Russian news crew onto the plane. In fact, while I was killing time waiting for the PM to show up, I was looking around trying to figure out which secret service agent was the traitor that would allow these terrorists to make their attack.

2) The guy pictured was standing next to me, and he smelled terrific. Believe me, there's no way to make that sound heterosexual, but its the truth. He had a light peppery fragrance that was subtle yet masculine.

I'm not proud of this, but I plays 'em like I sees 'em.

Spent the day hanging out with a bunch of soldiers doing warrior training, and they had an entire class about explosives, like those pictured above.

Assignments like this make me feel like such a zilch. These are soldiers, training to go to war, learning about things that could kill them, and I'm just the jerk in the ink-stained, wrinkled shirt holding a camera and notebook.

Then I'm interviewing them, and they're saying things like "if we had known this during my first deployment, some of my friends would still be alive," and I'm nodding along, like I have any idea about what their talking about. I mean, my brother is in the Marines, but that doesn't mean I know anything about what they all go through.

Then they go home to live in their barracks and get up at 5 a.m., and I'm watching "The Great Escape" for the hundreth time and doing fist pumps every time Steve McQueen is on screen.

This is a simulated humvee rollover machine. Soldiers are in the thing, they get flipped upside down, and have to exit.

There's not many feelings in life worse than waking up at 3 a.m. And having overslept by a half hour.

Usually at this time of night I'm shooting jumpers with Dirk Nowitzki, then we hold hands and dance in circles in a fragrant meadow while The Animals' "So Happy Together" plays in the background.

On the plus side, this is officially the earliest I've had to wake up for work. We'll see how long that record lasts. Its an interesting assignment, so stay tuned for updates.

I don't know what's worse, that there's an entire brand of products labeled "Bald Guyz" (you have to love the 'z'), or that bald people have such problems keeping their head dry that they can't use a hankercheif like the rest of us.