My summer deployment is fast coming to an end, thank Allah. Poor, pitiful me - I was getting downright inconvenienced having to communicate via this mediocre blogspot website, instead of with my own weekly-generated index pages FTP'ed onto Marc Perkel's server. On the rare occasion I've been able to access the internet - on average every six to eight weeks - I had to return to the page you're looking at, and try to generate something interesting.

And being interesting isn't easy under these circumstances. Not for the limited internet access, but because it's no picnic sounding "witty," or anything less than droning, when your summer has devolved into a droning lump of grit & numbness. The only thing you really enjoy on these Ra-forsaken trips is sleep, or, if you're lucky, reading. Which, for the fortunate few, there is time for prior to sleep.

But the reading material was shit. Or maybe I'm just picky. Couldn't find many hard sci-fi novels I'd not previously read, so about half of what I read this summer was junk. Stuff left behind by other GIs. Didn't so much mind Grisham, Demille or Connelly, but the James Patterson got old quick. At least it was free - he'd have to be for most folks, I'd think. I mean, who in the hell would pay 7 bucks for a book even George W. Bush could read in under four hours?

Even worse, I was almost forced to partake of some Robert Jordan crap, based on another GI's apparent lack of understanding when I alluded to "Hard Sci Fi." Of course, I should've expected as much from a rookie Captain (i.e. a dipshit). Maybe he thought, "well, it was hard for me to read - so it must be hard sci fi..." Fucking retard.

Anyway, the summer was probably great for my career, but not the type of thing I want to repeat anytime soon. Half a year of tax free, hazardous duty pay. Not bad. Maybe I'll get a new truck. I'll certainly be ecstatic to again be with my wife & son. It'll be huge to again plop my ass at home and enjoy the relative safety of the American backdrop. I'm looking forward to NCAA & NFL FOOTBALL, the (AL) PENANT RACE, catching up on the Sopranos, and anything else I can enjoy on my massive, HD plasma screen.

Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy....

:)