Memorial Day

Please pause a moment today to just think and/or thank.

For Future Reference

Things not to do when conducting a 17 mile foot march in full gear:

1. Have your hair cut earlier in the day by the German barber-ladies that leave your neck and shoulders covered in razor-sharp slivers of shaved hair.

2. Wear metal jewelry of any sort around your neck. I'm going to guess the ring where my cross' necklace was sawed into my neck and chest will be gone in another day or two. (Note: this rule includes dog-tags, which are by regulation worn around the neck. Find something else to loop them on to. I was really glad I overlooked them altogether.)

3. Wear underwear.

That is all.

(Oh, and if you can, avoid switching out your old small arms protective inserts (SAPI) for the newer, greener, heavier version.)

Or Maybe Mr. McLinty

I missed you. I really did. Writing halfway entertaining things and getting positive feedback is one of the more enjoyable things I get to do. It takes care of those creative urges. (That is, it keeps me from trying to be creative on Memos and Damage Statements and Congressional inquiries.) Plus I'm a real sucker for affirmation.

As I've said before, I feel like every time I write it should be something of true substance, the kind of post that would cause US businesses thousands of wasted work hours if I had more than a half-dozen readers. But I don't have more than a half dozen readers, but that's really ok, because that's about how many close friends I actually have, counting the Wife and the Bean.

Speaking of that one...we have a kid, if you didn't get that email, and I'm going to pretend you did and that I saw you when I was home on leave and you are almost entirely caught up on what's been happening with all the baby business, because if I did try to write about it all, well, I'd probably never complete that post.

We don't call him the Bean anymore, but for lack of a better option, that's what I'll go with here. Correction, I have a better option. The baby shall henceforth be known to the internet as the King of Lint. Until I come up with something better. Why the King of Lint, and not, say perhaps, his real name? Two reasons, really.

The first, because the King of Lint collects lint in all manner of unexpected places. The usual places, too, to be sure, between toes and fingers, but in unusual places also, like in the creases of his hands and other baby folds of skin in which someone who just lays around and kicks and flails about all day has no business accumulating lint. Bet you never considered lint removal as a parenting duty before, did you?

The other reason, which I'm not sure I've discussed, is that if you don't already know who I am, I don't want you to know who I am. Or who my family is. Or what they look like. It probably wouldn't be all that hard to figure out, but if you're just happening upon this site by chance, you probably don't care enough to put forth the effort. Along the same lines, my boss has been known to resort to warrantless wire tapping and other monitoring, and if I end up travelling on business somewhere, say to Iraq, I think I have to report this blog if I intend to continue posting. That being the case, I can prove to government censors that I am not, in fact, intentially or otherwise giving away secrets about the operations we're about to conduct. If he doesn't know who I am or what the hell I'm talking about or why I care what someone writes on the inside of a porta-potty, you can be pretty sure nobody sitting in an internet cafe (or cave) somewhere in the middle east does either.

That and my blog doesn't give out Atom/RSS/whatever feeds or show up on internet search engines. Search all day for "deltayankeekilo King of Lint" if you must; in theory you still shouldn't find me.

So why, after all this time, have I finally sat down to write again? Well, the Wife is hosting a gathering of the 'ladies' of the battalion, and, I along with two cats and every item gathered over a weekend of house cleaning for which we could think of no appropriate place, am locked in the guest bedroom while they have coffee and plant flowers and vent about the Army and not knowing whether their husbands will be around two months from now.