Catching Up
Perfection can sometimes be the enemy of ‘good enough.’ -Lt. Col. Convertino
My commander recently said that, and I thought it apt for this site. There hasn’t been any updates and I haven’t done any writing, all in the name of perfection. This site wasn’t exactly as I wanted it so I kept tinkering and such. Now, I’ve switched to phpnuke, and am content with having merely a good site, instead of an empty site striving for perfection.
It’s been a long time so let’s catch up first.
Last time we had a chat, I was juuuust starting to get use to Seoul, South Korea and was beginning to get out and enjoy myself. Well, Uncle Sam just can’t be having any of that, so he packed me up and shipped me off. He didn’t want things to be completely different, so he sent me someplace every bit as cold as Korea… but with less daylight, a longer winter, and a much larger moose population. I’ve been assigned to the last frontier. The land of the midnight sun. America’s 49th state, Alaska.
I am stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base, in Anchorage which is nestled snugly on an extremely grumpy fault line, and across the bay from an active volcano. My first morning here, I was greeted by the snort of a very large female moose, who was gnawing on the branch of a small tree. She was staring at me as if to say, “It’s been about a month since I’ve eaten and his sweater looks kind of like leaves. I wonder if it’s eatable? I’d have to get him to stop moving first before I can find out, preferably by stomping a mud hole into his face.”
I grabbed an apartment and picked up my car, and then did something rash. I test drove a new car. Then I bought it. Let’s see now… I’m living in a state where Winter lasts from October until May and where it will normally snow half a foot at a time, and you can go 3 months at a time driving solely on snow and ice. Buying a rear-wheel drive, 400 horsepower car makes perfect sense! Once again testosterone bitch-slaps common sense and tosses it through the window. I went and bought a 2005 Pontiac GTO!
Summer was spent on the road. First attending a three week class in Mississippi, then flying to England with my brother and his wife for two weeks to visit dear ol’ Mum. I, having a more widely traveled palate, spent the two weeks happily shoveling down whatever food was put in front of me. My poor brother however, became quite intimate, and very fond of several toilets in England and Scotland. We toured a castle or two and visited Hadrian’s Wall, but mostly we just relaxed and visited with Mom… and tried (and failed) to get use to driving on the wrong side of the car and road.
So, after a summer of travel, I arrived back to Alaska and had to immediately start preparing for driving The Beast on snow and ice. I called around for prices on metal studded tires, bought four, and had them mounted and balanced. The snow and ice quickly followed. Little did I know that my problems wouldn’t be traction. Meanwhile, in anticipation of in spite of the stresses of winter driving, I quit smoking. As I got out and drove I discovered that the lack of traction wasn’t a problem, and was actually quite fun in certain situations. No, I had problems with things that I never would have imagined, having never lived in a cold climate. One was ice potholes. Not potholes with ice in them… but potholes in the ice!! Some of them are 3-4 inches deep and can’t be good for The Beast. Another problem was just finding my way around. The snow tends to stick to all of the signs and roads look exactly like parking lots, fields, sidewalks, etc except for the two tracks where the constant tread of tires have compressed the snow into ice.Let’s see. Work, home, video games… umm… more work, some trips to the store, promotion to Technical Sergeant… err… more games, Thanksgiving, games, work, games, leftovers,work… Christmas, New Years, and that brings us up to today.
Coming out of the grocery store this morning, I was struck by how dirty my shoes are. They are your standard, fairly cheap, white tennis shoes. I was wearing black sweat pants, which are suppose to provide a strong contrast to white tennis shoes, but weren’t. That caused me to try to remember how old they were. I now remember that I bought them in Saudi Arabia 4 years ago! I’ve put “buy new shoes” on my to-do list.
So there ya go. Now we’re all caught up. Caught up to this very moment. In a nutshell, I’m sitting at home typing this… thinking about buying a new pair of shoes.
