Over Here – Day 143

It's been a while since I posted, and that's because I've been pretty busy. I had some pictures to post, but unfortunately my external hard-drive fried because of a power-surge. Maxtor is sending me a new one, but they won't restore the data from the old one, which really sucks. When I was talking to the representative, they asked me why I didn't backup the data. Which was pretty funny, and incredibly irritating at the same time, because they market that particular brand (the OneTouch) as a backup hard-drive. Pretty stupid, if you ask me. But I guess it's better than nothing. My buddy has the latest pictures I took, and I need to get them from him so that I can post them here.

Things have been pretty boring here. Our New Year's and Christmas celebrations weren't too spectacular. I was actually on the Nigh Shift during Christmas, which kinda sucked. But we did have a Christmas tree. On New Year's day, I didn't actually realize that it was the New Year until somebody told me. That's because all the days are pretty much the same here. You don't even know (or care) what day of the week it is.

Other than that, not much at all. I'm doing alright - I pass my time by watching movies or reading. Speaking of reading, I've been doing that a lot. I've been through about four books in the space of a month. The first two are by Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere and Stardust. Both are light, witty reads and typical Neil Gaiman - imaginative and expressive. I enjoy his works very much and you might too, if you're into fantasy, witty prose, and typical British humour. The third one I finished, is Edenborn, a novel by Nick Sagan, Carl Sagan's son. It's set in a dystopian future where a plague has wiped out almost all of humanity. Genetically engineered survivors are in two factions - one dedicated to preserving humanity as it was, and the other dedicated to genetically engineering better humans that can survive the plague. I found it pretty interesting. The one I'm currently reading, and have almost finished, is Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. I've been meaning to read it for quite some time, and I made sure I bought it before I left the US. It's an amazing book and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

Other than that, not much. I have the day off today, so I'm enjoying it. Previously, we had a day off every nine days. Which was pretty terrible. But now we have it set up so half of us (in Maintenance) are off on one day, and the other half on the next. That way, we get to be off once a week, which is good.

I'm just hanging in here. I am getting my mid-tour leave in May and I will be going to India, so I'm looking forward to that. What else - oh yeah, you can always hear stuff explode around here. A week or so ago, we were getting hit by mortars all through the morning. It wasn't anywhere near us, although one did hit close enough to set the walls vibrating. But the insurgents can't aim worth shit and usually end up sending their mortars into the lake. So we really don't have much to be concerned about.

As far as the weather goes, it's pretty chilly here. It rained over the past week which made all the dust here turn into squelchy, sucky, sticky mud. Mud that almost sucks the boots off your feet. Mud that gets everywhere. Mud that looks like different consistencies of chocolate ice-cream. But it's starting to dry up, so that's a good thing.

Other than that, not much else. I'll keep posting here from time to time, and maybe next time I may have something more exciting.