Well, I'm back at Zoo Station after an absence of nearly three weeks; considerably shorter than my last deployment, which lasted close to a month. Here are a few things worth noting.
Today on my flight back I finished
Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden, perhaps best known as the author of
Black Hawk Down. I enjoyed reading "Guests", although my main criticism would have to be that Bowden's anecdotes about the treatment of the American hostages and their experiences tend to be very repetitive. He writes frequently that the hostages were depressed, or defiant of their captors, or that they lost a great deal of weight during their ordeal. Perhaps it would be difficult to document such a situation in any other way, particularly in semi-chronological order, but the end result for me was a sometimes-tedious narrative.
Bowden does an excellent job of describing the complex international political situation, making it clear that the situation was not a mere standoff between the States and the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran; indeed, it happened during (and sometimes as a direct contributor to) such events as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the beginning of the Iran/Iraq War in 1980, all of which was happening under the backdrop of the height of the Cold War (which both professional and armchair historian alike seem to take less and less notice of as the years pass since the fall of Communism). Bowden's analysis of then-President Jimmy Carter is fascinating and detailed, though his measured defense of Carter in the epilogue fails to effectively convince me that Carter was anything other than the greatest failure ever to hold the presidency in the twentieth century. Also, while Bowden goes into detail concerning Carter's political failings regarding Iran, and their influence on the deposition of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, he omits Carter's cultural blunders and public relations mistakes that also contributed to the Shah's downfall.
Overall, it was well worth the year and a half wait that I endured before it was published. If you're interested in reading it for yourself, it's being released
in paperback in a couple of weeks. As for me, I immediately transitioned into
Doctor No by Ian Fleming, and hope to finish it within the next week or so. After having read "Guests" and "Rainbow Six", I need to read a few thin books over the next couple of months to catch up to my goal of reading twenty books in 2007.
* * *This deployment was my first trip using my new
Echo Pack, and I must say that I'm pretty satisfied with it so far. I hope to have an opportunity to use it for some actual
backpacking at some point this year; getting clothing through an airport isn't exactly the finest test of a ruck, and since I was going for three weeks and for work I had to take a second suitcase and a briefcase anyway.
* * *This is the first year that I'm really,
really on the hook for taxes. I have to admit that I'm a little bit nervous; I did some rough numbers on my own, and I have the money to pay things off it there are any issues, but I don't like the uncertainty of waiting on my returns to get back to me, particularly with the possibility of moving at some point in the next couple of months.
* * *Wait, wait, wait... That's the Fray? I absolutely thought it was
Switchfoot!
* * *Isaac: You know, Dana, my nephew Christopher is a trauma surgeon at a city hospital in Detroit. Whenever he loses somebody, it usually takes him a couple of weeks to get up off the mat. I tell him it's an overcrowded, under-funded hospital. He doesn't listen, though, he usually talks about ditching medicine and opening up a restaurant in Albuquerque.
Dana: Why Albuquerque?
Isaac: I don't know. But it's always Albuquerque. At best you had maybe two-thirds of the budget needed to do the job in a market that was over-saturated when you got there. If it goes down, you get up off the mat, you go to L.A. with Dan and Casey, and you try it again.
Everyone who reads this blog frequently knows that I'm a devout Christian, and a more-than-casual student of philosophy. However, part of the character of my faith is keeping myself grounded: I don't speak in tongues, I don't pray for unrealistic miracles, and I understand that sometimes good or bad things happen that are beyond our capacity to explain them.
That having been said, the lead-up to my current situation was an experience that I can only describe as mystical. The way everything fell together, almost effortlessly, and the timing involved, convinced me in no uncertain terms that my transition from a part-time employed recent university grad to a full-time defense contractor was nothing less than pro-ordained. It's a tough situation to live up to, because it leaves me with the unrealistic expectation that my next transition will be every bit as obvious as this one was. There are certain situational changes at work that lead me to believe that perhaps the transition is coming sooner rather than later; well, maybe *
A* transition is a better way to put it.
I thrive on routines, and stability, and the prospect of being spontaneously driven to find another job through no failure or mistake of my own is annoying, terrifying, and frustrating to me. I also have less-than-fond memories of spending four or five months applying for jobs and only ever getting a single call-back; I'm not eager to repeat that experience, hence applying early and often for other jobs "just in case". In searching, I accidentally found a company that I'd heard of last year that's based near Hometown/College City; I might attempt to put in an application with them. If I could get a job anywhere in my home state, or in Wyoming or Montana, I'd probably pursue it with extreme prejudice. I also wouldn't mind going to Colorado (to hang out with Peter!), or even Nevada or Utah.
Can you folks imagine me, your intrepid blogger, in Utah? That would be so extremely entertaining as to probably warrant a second blog altogether.
* * *Well, it feels good to be blogging again; and stay tuned, because there's a back-log of news stories from the last couple of weeks that I'll try to post tomorrow, just to get caught up.
Thus saith the Fly.
