Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron
bubble
–William Shakespeare Witches in Macbeth

I’m sure it’s probably not halloween for most of you yet, but it’s 6:40am here. It’s nearing for the rest of you. A day where you get to pretend your someone else; a task not uncommon for some of you, I’m sure. It’s a good excuse to hoard candy, and tell your friends how awful they look to their face and keep them as friends. As someone put it…

There is nothing funny about Halloween. This
sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal
demand for revenge by children on the adult world.
–Jean Baudrillard

Heh, go figure. Today also marks another week gone by. They seem to be going by faster for me. Work keeps me busy, I’m sure that helps. I’m trying to keep one step ahead of everyone here since my job is one of those jobs where people don’t notice you when things work, but the moment they break, everyone is cursing your name. I’m sure there will be a lot of stuff I’ve done that will stay transparent, but I hope I made some type of mark here. Those who drive the convoys know they’re doing something with every trip they complete. Because of them, one more convoy made it safely to it’s destination. I guess I can say that because of me, some airmen can get his email, but it’s not really the same. Oh well, my volunteering makes a mark I like. I know that because of me, I made it so a few people at least can write a program in C++. If nothing else, I helped spread geekdom! w00t!

I have been pretty worried most the night, however. While driving over to our other site to work on their computers, I just heard that eight marines were killed in Fallujah. I might be selfish, but I keep hoping that Daniel is ok. I’m sure he is, either way. I’m pretty sure he joined the Marines because I joined the Air Force. One of the diadems that come with being an oldest brother is having the younger ones looking up to you and trying to walk in your footsteps. I’m not sure if that’s why he took Japanese, or not, but I do feel he joined the marines because of me. I love him dearly, as I do any of my siblings, and I pray he’s ok. Still, my ever optimistic attitude never lets me think anything is bad, so I’ll continue feeling bad for the friends and families of those who gave the eternal sacrifice, and keep fighting the battles I can to try and uphold their honor and not cheapen what they died for. They’ll have my eternal gratitude for what they’ve done, as shall any who wears the same uniform as I do.

I’m thinking I should probably get out and try and do something that most people would consider fun. They’re showing Hero at the theater tomorrow at 6pm. Maybe I should go. Maybe I can find someone to go with, although I doubt it. My friends just got off tower guard duty and they’ll be getting ready to do convoys again. I hear they might be gone for a while as well. Nothing new, I suppose. Either way, I guess it doesn’t matter if you watch a movie by yourself anyway, since you can’t really converse much. Still, I miss going to see movies with my wife. Well, I miss my wife in general. Again, nothing new. Just comes with the lifestyle. If I’m not a lieutenant by next year, I’m sure I’m going to get out. While I like the pride, I want to spend more time with the family. Besides, driving buses back in the states does nothing toward fulfilling my dreams. Being with my wife is one of those dreams, however.

My best friend, Clint sent me pictures of his son! He dressed him up as Tigger! I’m sure he needs to learn to crawl before he can do any pouncing, but it’s just so cute! Also, Nagisa came online for a while. It was good to catch up with her as well. We talked for a while before she vanished… like a ghost… on halloween… hmm… Also talked with mi-chan from 2much. She didn’t even know I was out here. pfft! Friends… Ahh, I love them anyway.

What else… I’ve been watching Angelic Layer before I go to sleep. They’re still putting the DVD’s I gave them on the server, but they locked the part of the drive they’re putting them to! I guess someone uploaded pr0n earlier, and so they locked that portion down. (The submission section.) So, now I don’t have my dvd’s or access to them. I should get the disks back soon, but for now I’ll just finish Angel Layer, which was up there already.

Welp, I hope that gives you all a good update. I should get some pictures of me in my vest and with some big guns. I think I’ll do that tomorrow. Or maybe Monday. I have some friends coming by from the COMM to take pictures then as well, so I guess I’ll just join them. Yea, that sounds good. So, look forward to it.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween. Someone go trick-or-treating for me! I’m going to study my Japanese and go to sleep. 🙂
Maybe I’ll dream of having a good day. We’ll see.
Until next time,
StriderA

P.S. I’ve been trying to install Gentoo on a laptop with no CD-ROM. No floppy disks either. I don’t have any other computers with linux on them, so a network boot wouldn’t really be an option. I tried to get it to boot off my USB stick, but syslinux doesn’t seem to want to work. I tried with both the knoppix and gentoo images. I don’t really want to download something large, since this network is crap. Any other suggestions? If not, I’ll just wait for SGT Smith to come over with the usb cd-rom he has. It’s not as l33t, but it’ll at least work.

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ October 31, 2004 7:11 am