Jackelopette

and, o’ course, Talk Like A Pirate Day…

we be aimin’ to pillage Chateau Ste. Michelle for the tourin’ o’ their lands and the drinkin’ o’ their grog.

Yarrr.

Where to start, where to start…

I suppose I’ll just do some bullets and explain as needed… or perhaps I’ll simply let you ask for clarification in comments and other emails.

* David forgot his passport.
* We missed our shuttle bus, so we parked near the airport and left the car there for two weeks.
* At first we didn’t get upgraded, so we hung out in the lounge.
* Got upgraded to upper business class, with the sleeper cubicles, nice blankets, free food and drink and copious entertainment.
* Saw The John Snow pub, and the pump, on our first night there.
* Rode the London Eye and toured Westminster Abbey.
* Went to Bristol and saw the Banksy takeover of the City Museum there.
* Visited Covent Garden and its lovely shops.
* Rode horses in Hyde Park.
* Saw Godot banner outside the theater in Haymarket.
* David waited in line for a few hours to get us tickets…
* Wandered the Greek and Egyptian exhibits at the British Museum, which was delightfully near our hotel.
* Saw Waiting for Godot with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. For ten pounds each, we were just a couple of feet from the stage, at eye level with it, and close enough to be spat upon. And we now have a signed poster. Magical.
* Tower of London.
* ER Visit. Then more wanderings along the river, a food faire, and more Tower.
* Packing and Covent Garden again.
* Flight to DC.
* Lunch with Bob
* The Buying of Beers. Many beers.
* Dinner with Elizabeth, Maria, and Dawson.
* Taxis, the Mall, and other shenanigans with the family.
* Katie and the Congress Members Only elevator.
* Aunt Cindy arguing with Elton Gallegly.
* The F-22 filibuster.
* The incessant photos. Also “don’t worry, everyone can tell anyway”…
* The car chase.
* 4-H people at Union Station.
* Cigars on the roof.
* Train to New York
* Burritos
* Subway riding to Ground Zero
* Meeting Heather at Times Square
* Outstanding dinner at the Greek place for Restaurant Week
* Early departure for West Point
* Confusing directions
* West Point Tour – imagination and stories collide
* Lunch on our own
* BBQ with family
* Harry Potter
* Reunion – we took Joby
* Squirt guns
* 4-square
* Web access
* Beer!
* Frisbee
* Pool
* More beer, and pizza
* Brunch with Eliz’s brother’s family
* Puddlejumper with Buffy
* Long flight with the young private
* Home.
* Unpacking
* Repacking
* Dinners
* Departures

Goodbye for now, love. See you in half a year, or two seasons, however we choose to measure the time. Help me make it go quickly?

And they’re off.

Mine anyway.

More of my friends will follow him soon. Now to fill the hours, the evenings, the weeks, and the months.

I don’t know how I would manage this without friends and family. Thanks.

Some of you may know (if you bother to check this blog, still) that there’s a thriving blogging community for servicemembers and their families. “Milblogs” have become not only the modern-day equivalent of the letters written in wars prior, but a means of collaborating and even organizing a vibrant veterans group online.

This article exhorts those who no longer update their blogs to keep them archived and available online. A bit of a wakeup call for me, as I’ve been terribly remiss in my updates, but also a reminder that I have my side of a deployment coming up. My first, David’s second, and perhaps the right challenge for me to keep writing here. After all, I’ve a decent-sized list* of milblogs that I check regularly – it seems only fair that I in turn update mine.

So, while things are going well, I’m likely to be quiet on this here keyboard. My greatest impetus to writing is strong emotion, and the absence of loved ones triggers a fair amount of introspection. Hence, the writing will probably resume with more regularity in the coming months. I’m both apprehensive and excited to see what insights I gain from this one.

Go Web 2.0 – keep everyone connected, on a variety of platforms, and pay me to make it happen. Woot.

*List (a mix of personal blogs, group blogs, and newsblogs that I check pretty regularly each week)

• Army of Dude – Alex’s account of his experiences in Iraq… and what has happened afterward.
• FOB Tacoma – the local newspaper’s blog tracking all things Fort Lewis.
• SpouseBUZZ – for military spouses, and I argue, the significant others as well.
• Stryker Brigade News – news organized by brigade, including both home front and overseas information.
• VetVoice – politics aside, it’s a pretty interesting set of public and personal blog posts by a variety of veterans. I often get some good links from these folks.
• Army Live – yes, even the Army itself has started keeping a blog. Go Army.

Found out yesterday that a cherished 4-H friend passed away earlier this month.

Ross was a Nevada Collegiate 4-H’er and camp volunteer whom I first met at the 2004 National 4-H Technology & Leadership Conference while working on 4-HUSA. Since that event, I’d kept in touch with him and often called on him for his insights while working on other tech and leadership projects for 4-H. Everyone in the 4-H community who knew Ross spoke highly of his sense of humor, unquestioning commitment to the 4-H program, and overall classy personality.

He was someone I could (and often did!) call up for an impromptu ski trip or advice on a presentation. We even survived a trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras together, as well as road trips to San Francisco and San Luis Obispo. For the Collegiate 4-H, he was a mature and stabilizing influence who refused to fall into the notorious drama of that time period, but still someone who would happily mediate everyone’s differences so we could all go out and celebrate afterward. The guy had incredible integrity and a great smile.

Here’s to you, Ross. May you find peace wherever you are now.

I have had a busy, busy month.

I’m now living in a 1-bedroom apartment, in Davis, with my beloved cat and my very own bills. While I have the basic furniture, I’d really like a couch. The bedroom, kitchen, and dining room are all functional, but I have no place besides the floor to crash and watch movies.

That said, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to contemplate the lack of couch. The first weekend back in Davis I spent arranging all my many boxes of stuff and acquiring more stuff to store said stuff and basically settling in to my revised life. Then there was Picnic Day – I entered one of the Alumni Association drawings and ended up with a new duffle bag filled with stuff. Not bad, but more stuff to arrange.

I left for San Francisco the Monday after Picnic Day for the Web 2.0 Expo with my colleagues. Not a bad trip in the least, but it did mark the first of several overnight trips away from my new nest. We spent the majority of the time in meetings with our developers and ironing out bugs… but the eating was good and the company enjoyable.

Two weeks ago Grammy passed away.

I had just returned from San Francisco when I heard, and was looking forward to a trip to Seattle. I ended up heading back to Ojai instead. I won’t say the weekend was easy, but it was surprisingly relaxing in many ways.

I sang Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus at the funeral, and spent most of the weekend reconnecting with all the family members I haven’t seen in a year or more. It felt a little strange at first, but the overall consensus was that Grammy always wanted to be in the middle of wherever the family party was taking place, so it was our duty to give her a good party. There were a few who missed the proceedings, but I think we gave Grammy a good send-off.

About 30 minutes after I returned home, I started a lovely bout of digestive upset. It knocked me out for the bulk of Monday and Tuesday of last week. After a frenzy of catch-up work, I headed up to Seattle for the first purely relaxational weekend I’ve had in a long time. Oh, it was lovely.

Now I’ve returned to Davis once more, and perhaps this will be a normal week. No, in fact it won’t.

I’ve come down with a cold.

If you haven’t yet noticed, the link to the left will take you to Flickr and my photo albums there.

Enjoy.

So a couple of weeks ago, as I was in the throes of my homesickness, my boss (who is awesome) offered me the chance to return to California. Specifically, Davis.

So all my plans got tossed in the air, I’m moving in less than two weeks, and I have the joy of coordinating all the ACCESS stuff plus packing and finding an apartment and dealing with the moving of all my stuff between Ojai and Davis (again), aaaand oh yeah. Steven and Allison are getting hitched on the 5th of April. I depart DC with all the stuff I’ve accumulated here on April 3. On April 8 I head north from Ojai with said stuff, plus all the stuff from my previous residences.

Yup.

Color me busy.

On my wish list:

1. Sweaters. Lovely warm sweaters. Loose turtlenecks, pullovers, layer-able sweaters… it’s cold here.

2. A Garmin or similar device … since I’m planning to drive out here in April and will be exploring the east coast in the spring and summer, seems like a smart thing to have.

3. Friends for exploring and hanging out here. I dearly, sorely miss my people back in California, but if I’m going to make this work I need people here, too.

4. Travel vouchers for Sacramento, Seattle, and Burbank/LA. Those are my ports of call and I intend to visit them as often as possible.

It is February.
I am sick.
I am lonely in a town that does not feel like home.

I am doing my best to focus on the hopeful things – my benefits paperwork is mostly done, my cell phone works again, I have a job, I have people who love me – but as is often the case in this recipe for despair, I need more and more support from those people to get through the day.

The lack of human contact with the people I love is debilitating. I miss you, I miss all of you. Please call me.