… and All’s Well …

[aadler]

6:40PM Central Afghan Time

It’s New Year’s Day in Afghanistan, and it’s snowing. You can barely see it, you have to look at the sky from the right angle, but yep, snow.

Everybody’s tossing out New Year’s Day wishes. Steak at the chow hall this evening. General Order #1 prohibits alcohol in-theater, but I’m fairly sure I smelled some here and there last evening. Christmas gets all the attention, but New Year’s Eve is the real party.

I’m done with “Beg to Differ”, though I continue to tinker with it, and await beta feedback from various sources before I’m ready to post. (Special thanks to bellatemple for promptly making herself available.) In response to a post by honorh, I bought a DVD of “The Producers”, but haven’t watched it yet. Maybe tomorrow. And I can now return to a steady diet of Alias episodes.

It appears that my daughter may need to take a week or so to recover from her holidays. Haven’t heard from my son lately, but he doesn’t really maintain an online presence.

I suppose I should work out some resolutions, but I tend to think more in terms of plans. I note that pretty much anybody who makes a list of resolutions includes an intention of losing weight. Whether or not I make a list, I need to do that.

So, other plans:

• Write at least three more stories while I’m here. (I did eight in Iraq, I’d like to break my record this time through. Currently I’m at six.)
• Finish the deployment, of course, and go home.
• Take a cruise. I’m serious. I intend to do that.
• Get on the list for Arabic classes at the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey.
• Score 90% on the Army Physical Fitness Test. (The two-mile run will be the hardest obstacle to overcome. I can run it, I can run it in qualifying time, but I have a hard time improving on ‘just good enough’.)
• Get a passport. No plans yet as to what to do with it, but I’m drawing motivation from bellatemple’s example. If she can jump out into the unknown, to teach in - where was it, the Czech Republic? - then I can consider doing something in that direction.
• Go to WriterCon in Atlanta in July.

Anything else will have to be determined as I go.

Having a wonderful time. Not exactly “wishing you were here” (others might not enjoy this experience the way I do), but there are many whose company I wish I could share.

Happy New Year, all.