Monday, July 13, 2009

Half of 2009 by the Numbers

Today I passed 3000 miles riding--more than I thought I would have ridden by now. So I figured I could do a short numbers update. In addition to riding 3000 miles in just over 6 months, I have lived (in the sense of having some type of domicile for a week or more) in three countries:
United States
Kuwait
Iraq
Two states: Pennsylvania and Oklahoma
Four Army Forts/Bases:
Fort Sill
Camp Buehring
Tallil Ali Air Base
Ali Al Salim Air Base
This blog has more readers than ever. When I started it, I wanted to give my friends a way to keep up with what I was doing without me sending emails they might not want. IF they wanted to read the blog they could. Last June I put Site Meter on the the blog. That month I got 370 visits and 503 page views. June of this year there were 4378 visits and 5681 page views. People from all six continents look at the blog. I guess an old guy in the American Army is weird enough to make a New Zealander laugh. In any case, The blog has had just over 26,000 visits since last June, making my blog almost as popular in a year as Hannah Montana is for 112 seconds!

I have had two glasses of wine and four beers since January 29 when I got activated. So the "no alcohol" policy is not much of a hardship. There are other activities I am only able to participate in during leave and pass that I will not count and also miss a lot more than more than Guiness Stout or Pinot Noir.

I have watched two movies since I was deployed. Both at the insistence of my roommate who worried that I would be completely culturally illiterate without having seen: "Full Metal Jacket" and "300."

Oh and I did watch the first 16 episodes of "24" while we were in Oklahoma. Since I am still here, I assume Jack Bauer saved the world.

That's all the numbers for now.

"Blindness" by Jose Saramago--terrifying look at society falling apart

  Blindness  reached out and grabbed me from the first page.  A very ordinary scene of cars waiting for a traffic introduces the horror to c...