Archive for August, 2007

So I have had the past two days off.  Haven’t done a whole lot, but on the first day off I sat in maintenance from 0630 till 1500 with our borrowed truck.  They replaced the oil filtering system with a new dual filter system. That’s all they did!  Its supposedly a two hour job.  I did manage to get it dispatched though, and that’s no small task with our Maintenance Section.

I have a lot of different disjointed thoughts is my head.  Not one of them complete, nor worth a write up of their own.  Oh well, here is some of the things running through my head today.

• I am tired of being expected to take a bullet for a bunch of people too cowardly to take one for themselves in defense of their own country.
• If you want us to leave, then let us!  Don’t say go home until the bullets start then beg for us to do your job and stop the fighting.
• I almost bought it the other night. If I have to go, I prefer to go down doing my job and not as the result of an accident!
• If I did medicine like maintenance fixes vehicles, there would be a lot more dead folks.
• I can finally see the light at the end of this deployment.
• If I am lucky, I’ll be home for my daughter’s birthday.
• I miss my family. I would really like to start living my life with them at some point.
• Why is it that I worry so much about other people’s perceptions? Why can’t I be the popular guy instead of the geek just once.
• It amazes me how people I thought were friends, or at the very least colleagues, can be that insulting and just not see beyond their own narcissism.
• Or is it the truth?  That scares me most.  Its a conscious process for me to avoid it and make sure I am doing right.
• I wish I didn’t have to worry about censoring myself here. OPSEC, personal, or otherwise.  Making this place private sort of defeats the purpose though.
• I wish I could share more of the pictures I have taken.
• Why can’t I find anything worthy of writing about?  It can’t be that boring here.  Maybe I am just tired.
• Wow! This post is really mediocre. I should just delete it.

These signs are plastered all over theater.  They mean that those spots are for parking humvees and other tactical vehicles.  However, anytime I see one I can’t help but imagine Humvees whipping into the lot, tires screeching,  machine guns blazing, as the crews fight for the spot.  The winner is the first one to back in properly with his spotter still breathing.  Now, that is Combat Parking! 

As some of you know, I gave up on MS Windows a long time ago.  I have a small partition with Vista on it, but I run openSuse Linux more than 90% of the time.  I have also moved into the realm of Composited Desktops.  I had been running Beryl, but it merged back into Compiz earlier into the year and became Compiz Fusion.  A few nights ago openSuse finally released some packages of Compiz Fusion as Compiz 0.5.2 was released.  The Gods were smiling on me and I had a decent connection, so off I went and got the packages.  I uninstalled Beryl, installed Compiz Fusion and began to play with the Geeky goodness.  If you thought Mac OSX Dock apps or the semi-transparent windows in Vista were cool, look at this!

Its been one long continuous patrol this week.  Its all blended into one never ending day.  Out all day, up all night.  Patrol this, secure that, drive way the hell out to this place.  Its gets tiresome.  We got back around noon today after spending the night at that peculiar remote outpost in my dream.  I got a few hours sleep between patrols in a non air conditioned connex box of an aid station on a stretcher.  They have built it up pretty well though, so no deja vu episodes. When we returned to the FOB, there were no showers of course.  They don’t turn them on till late because of the water shortage.  So no nap for me as I can’t sleep in my bed while stewing in my own filth.  Cleaned up a best I could, but I had to wait till the showers were opened.