Tuesday, January 5, 2010

From Sweating to Freezing

It certainly is cold here. When we left Iraq it was much cooler than when we arrived, but I was still riding in short sleeves. It was in the 70s on cool days, mid to high 80s on hot days. Here at Fort Dix it is below freezing except for about 5 hours in midday when it is just above freezing. If I were not so close to home I would be homesick for the creature comforts of Iraq. In Iraq the internet was slow but it worked. Here it is fast, but down more than it is up and that's with only a few of us using it. It will be permanently unusable when hundreds of us are here. And especially so because the on-line gamers will be back and hogging whatever bandwidth they can dominate. And because we are newly arrived in a new Army bureaucracy, I do not have government internet access, because everyone involved in the cooperative process of establishing access show who is in charge. So I can't do the work that I getting inquiries about from Iraq.

But enough bitching. I have already seen my wife here. My kids are coming up tomorrow. Several of my friends in the local area are planning to visit. I can call anybody on my cell phone. It is wonderful to be back and I will get used to the cold.

"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...