Back on line, back on duty

Wow, what a change in the blog since I last checked in!! I've been offline for a while, not just because I am lazy and let Autumn post updates while I was on R&R in LA, but even after the traveling, I just didn't call, didn't write, didn't post ... I didn't even write my customary letter/postcard/something to Kaitlin and Ashley for a couple days. I guess it's just my nature to do that.

I'm back to work again, coming off about a week of night shifts to attend some training given by people who only work at night. These guys do computer defense work, and a lot of their techniques use a lot of network bandwidth, making them really unpopular during the day. At night, even in a place that is 24x7, activity decreases, so these guys can work unencumbered. They train us on the actual equipment and procedures they use, so it only follows they would do it at night too. I previously was day shift, so I started acclimating myself to days here (nights in LA), only to go back to nights here, and tomorrow will be a day shift. Ugh. Good training though!

The trip over here was a miserable one, even compared to the couple of times I had done it before. I was a little sick starting the day before I left LA, and it didn't help that I was stuck in Kuwait an extra day. I did not realize how quickly dust storms come up and how much they impact things, but I walked into the movie/board game/cushy couch tent in Kuwait at 10 AM, and by noon it was like a blizzard of sand outside. Passengers for my flight were supposed to gather at 3 PM, which we did, and we got delayed until about 7 PM, eventually loading up onto a C-130 and taking off for Baghdad. There isn't an intercom on a C-130 like a commercial airliner, but when the hour and fifteen minute flight was still in the air at 2 hours, then 3 hours, we all put it together: we couldn't land. We finally landed, and I remarked to someone next to me, "hey, the only thing that could make this worse is if we turned around and went back to Kuwait!", to which he replied, "Chief ... we ARE in Kuwait." Two hours later, we were back at the tents with instructions to show up the same time the next day for another attempt. The dust had died down by then, and there wasn't a problem with that flight.

I find myself not really having the heart to work anymore. It's not that I don't think it's important, but I am exceedingly sad to have left LA. It was a great two weeks - seeing Loretta, Matt and Autumn every day, seeing my dad more times than I had in the previous 10 years, seeing my brother more times than I had in the previous 15 years, getting to spend at least an afternoon each with my family and Autumn's family, and of course, eating at Tolteca! That's the problem, though: it was the life we can never have until Autumn gets out of the Army in 11 years, being around family, living in LA, seeing the people and the things we love. Matt met a lot of people he had not yet met, family and friends, and he's already had his first birthday! I think about the 7 months or so I have left here and I know it pales in comparison to the years I will spend in places that aren't LA, and it's really that which takes the heart out of me. The deployment is only the beginning, it seems. My friends in the unit here sympathize, and they say I'll get my mojo back, but it's a hard reality to ignore, and one I guess I successfully buried for all these years. Maybe that's why I never call, and never write ...

I take solace in what everyone told me when I saw them: "I've got your back." I also could not tell that Loretta and Matt had only been living in their apartment for two days by the time I had gotten there - what unbelievable generosity everyone has shown making a temporary home for Loretta and Matt! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! If there's anything that keeps me going here, it's that I think my friends and family love me, and I can safely say there is no doubt in my mind I have nothing to worry about in that regard, much less whether Loretta and Matt will be ok.

Time for bed, if I can get to sleep after screwing up my Circadian rhythm this much ...