Well, it's been forever, and I'm still here. Kinda at least.

Well, I will be moving to the DC area in November, and I'm looking forward to it. The job looks cool, and the area seems pretty nice. I'm not quite sure what my living conditions are going to be like, but it can't be bad.

School is going well, finally done with Cisco, and now we've started math. It's amazing how much math a person can forget in 10 years, or so. I do remember now why I hate trig.

Well, I'm headed out for the night, if anyone actually stumbles across this, leave a note, I am morbidly curious if anyone actually reads this.

Well, I've finally made it to Augusta. I'm trying to unpack, and it's annoying as hell. There are boxes everywhere. I don't know the area very well, but I've found a couple of possible hangouts. I have to go in to work tomorrow, but then I'll get another 2 weeks to get settled. I hope it doesnt' take that long. I am already enjoying having my own place.

I am going to be landing in Kansas in about 5 days. After that, 5 days of out processing then I'm done, and I'm off for quite a while. After that, I am going to be traveling cross country to SC. If you are anywhere close to on the way between KS and SC, let me know, I'd be more than happy to stop off and say hi.

I will be in SC sometime early February. If you are going to be in the area, let me know. Then off to Augusta.

I am so ready to get the fuck out of this God forsaken country.

I sit here, on the morning of the new year, thinking, I should be excited. Everything so far seems to be going my way. My replacements came in last night, which means, while the next couple days are going to be busy, it's really close to being over. I have 2 weeks before I get on a plane to head back to the states. Then I get my dream assignment, and it's close to home. But for some reason, I am depressed, lonely and anxious. My year can't be any worse, I mean I spent the entirety of 2007 in Iraq, 2008 won't be that bad, right? well, it's getting harder to convince myself of that for some reason. Well, all those in the states, drink something for me, and i'll pay you back when I get there.

I just finished watching the movie version of Rent, again. I was struck by several things as I watched it.

- It is a pretty crappy interpretation of the original stage production, which I have seen many times, and been in love with since it originally came out on stage. I know this has probably been beaten to death, and this is not the point of this rant.

- After, what, 12, 13 years, this show still has something to say, at least to me. I know, at this point it's probably become cliche, but I love what it says about friendship, and loss.

- It made me very nostalgic. I miss the friends I had when I first heard this show. I don't do it all that often, and I'm sure that the fact that it's the holidays and I'm still in Iraq isn't helping, but I've got this pit of my stomach feeling, I don't even know how to describe it.

I could go on to pick apart the movie, but that wouldn't help. I love the show, and I will continue to watch the movie every time I forget how bad it is.

Ok, so my replacements are now in the country. This is a good thing. They have some training left to do and then in about a week they come here to start the relief process. Everything is ready for them, except somebody stole the HMMWV trailer from the motorpool. I mean, who steals a damn trailer? So I had to run around trying to get the paperwork straight to get it off the property book, and no one seems very interested in helping. "It'll turn up". well we don't have time for that shit, so fix it now. I just don't want to piss off the wrong people and end up paying for it.

On a different note, we left our last location about a week ago, and I have heard from several sources that the team that replaced us is insane. The team chief has taken away the TV room and moved the tread mills outside so that everyone can have there own desk, and they have to sit at there desk from 0600 until 2200 every day. The XO expects the NCO's to stand at parade rest for him, and no one is allowed to sit in there rooms during said duty hours. If we had run our team like this, this year would have been worse than it has been. I know those of you not in the military have no idea what I'm talking about, but believe me, these guys are wound so tight that they are going to start shooting each other with in a month. Even the battalion that we were attached to has asked us to come back, as they are sick of the new guys. but that would mean staying unitl atleast March, and that is unacceptable.

20 days.

Let me know if anybody reads these things. I know I'm kinda knew, I'm just curious.

It's Christmas.

It doesn't really feel like Christmas.

To me, Christmas is family, Christmas is presents, the birth of Jesus, that kind of stuff.

This year, Christmas is just another day. It is not the first time this has happened, but hopefully its the last. I'm sitting, alone, in a trailer in the middle of thousands of trailers just like this one, in the middle of a huge camp in the middle of a this God forsaken country that can't seem to stop fighting itself long enough for me to go home and be with my family for Christmas.

On a brighter note, my replacements got into country yesterday. I only have about three more weeks before I can come home. and then I'll get to celebrate.

I hope everyone out there is having a Merry Christmas.