Hiatus

Finally Over, Thank God

Nothing like being deployed overseas to sap the fun out of Christmas. I don't particularly care much for New Year's Day, being (1) an arbitrary date, and (2) a holiday whose sole attraction seems to be heavy drinking. At least it means another four-day weekend for me. Or at least it did.

Getting packages from home, while great, really didn't do very much to dampen my realization that for the last 7 years running I was home for Christmas. A pretty good track record for eight years of service. Thank the mercifully short deployment cycles. Now I'm stuck on this damned rock on Okinawa and riven from familiar people and places.

Tomorrow it's back to work; keeping busy helps suppress my morosity, so maybe it's a good thing.

One of my sources of fun has dried up in the bargain; my Nigerian and Togolese spammers must have realized I was toying with them for sport and backed off. Guess I don't play gullible too well.