After eighteen years of putting up with dozens of TDYs and deployments I've gotten fairly numb to this sort of thing.

But it still stings.

The Baltimore Aquarium, 2004.

In ways, the buildup for a lengthy deployment is a lot more nerve-wracking than the deployment itself. The week-long melodrama of scrambled errands, the increasingly anal & bureaucratic labyrinth of outprocessing, and finally those creeping hours of hurrying-up-and-waiting. Not to mention flying for two days. By the time you get there, you've been ready to get there for days.

Briefly listened to Rump Leakage and Shemp Hannity today. Boy, those guys are delusional.

Rush insists he surprised everyone with his plea deal, and that liberals are upset he didn't do any time. But, as I explained (below), no serious adult thought he was facing jail time. The political touchdown is ours - albeit a defensive one - and now Pigboy is tap-dancing to boast how we only settled for a PAT ("notice how the lefties didn't go for a two-point conversion?").

Shemp is still my favorite - tries to sound profound, comes off idiotic, keeps me in stitches. Said "can't see the forest through the trees," and probably always mangles that one (it's "for the trees," you neocons), but I didn't hear his hilarious Niger pronunication - "nay-ZHEER" - instead of the correct "nee-ZHAY" or "nee-ZHAIR." He did whine about that Spanish Star Spangled Banner, though. Such important matters on Hannity's struggling mind...