31 October 2006

October, Part II

Well. How about one more October picture?

Self-referential humor is never as funny to other people as it is to you, but this is my blog darn it and I'm going to poke a little fun.
October is still my favorite month, although this has been an... unusual month. I was praying for a great October. What I got was... well, let's just hope I got what I was praying for.

I changed jobs. The new job is a vast improvement over the old one, but the manner in which the change occurred... left a bit to be desired. No discussion has ever arisen related to that and it seems as though all those involved in the entire affair would just as leave never mention it again. Fine by me. As I said, I'm enjoying what I do now, and though it means less idle time I'm thrilled that I now have a job where I can see the purpose of my work. That's of inestimable value.
So that was good.

Then, of course, my cat was diagnosed with cancer and I learned and had to make peace with the fact that one of my best friends for the past sixteen years wasn't going to be there when I got home. This wasn't easy, but what must be done must be done. I passed one very hard night, and the next morning I woke up and knew that I'd said goodbye. I'll miss the old boy. Incidentally, here's a little picture of him and my folks' cat, Hobo, taken in the last couple days. He's certainly gotten skinny, but he looks just fine.

And then there was the incident of the other night. I won't go into any detail but you may have noticed a number of changes here on the blog. Let's just say that in my lack of concern about my career (which I'm expecting to end shortly) I let myself get carried away with thinking I could say just about anything I wanted. This is not the case for people in the military. It has never been the case, but two years of doing it was certainly enough to help me forget the fact. Turns out a few people found the blog and decided there were some things there that were A) inappropriate for a military officer to be saying, even if not in an official capacity, and B) too close to an operational security violation for comfort, even if nothing crossed the line.
So I turned out to be damn close to some lines that, if crossed, could result in let's just say some really unpleasant consequences. I'm not into that. For the remainder of my time in the service we'll just keep this to largely non-political observations.

Now, I'll point out that for example the recent series on issues in the Horn of Africa that I had started did not contain any facts that you couldn't find on the BBC or Wikipedia (I use both resources to check my facts, actually), along with my own interpretations and some gut feelings based on a decade of paying close attention to what people act like when they're up to no good. But again, this was a bit close to the line, and as I said I've no reason to go putting my neck at risk. So I won't.

It turns out that apparently there are more readers of this blog than I had suspected, including quite a few of my colleagues and several people I don't even know out here. The topic came up just a couple days ago in a conversation with someone I've seen a handful of times and who I wasn't even sure what service he was in. It felt... odd. But good. But I had to wonder: why the hell don't you people comment? Come on. Show some love.

This afternoon after lunch I was talking about the episode with a couple of people, one of whom I knew and one of whom I've never seen before but who apparently was not only aware of the blog but was a reader. I'll let you stay nameless. This person said to me, "All great writers are persecuted for their writing."

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time, as it would have come out my nose (ever done that with milk? You can't get the smell of sour milk out of your nose for days). I'm not sure either "great" or "persecuted" apply to my situation, but the notion certainly put a smile on my face.

So maybe it was a great October, and maybe it wasn't. But following an August and a September of drab, unbroken sameness (and hot weather), it's certainly been a memorable month.

5 comments:

Lucky Bob said...

Oo. Oooo. I to post. You can tell who's bored at work.
I was kind of wondering if we were going to find out what that was about. I had noticed the page felt different, but I couldn't put my finger on what happened to it. The removal of content definitely explains it, and now it seems obvious. I'm sorry to see the large political postings go. I always learned from them, even if they made be feel sorely uninformed. Did you have to completely delete the posts, or are they in limbo until a time they can be reposted?
And I was so sorry to hear about Cinders. He is probably the most lovable, annoying alarm clock I've ever seen.

Unknown said...

The posts are in limbo with all the dead Catholic babies (actually I think I read the Pope was going to do away with limbo... I wonder how the Jamaicans will feel about that).
Most will be resurrected once I'm no longer in the service and thus free to have opinions and express them. I'll be careful with my editing of the rest, to make sure anything that might have seemed like it was sort of close to being a security violation doesn't get reposted, not because I'd be liable for prosecution but because it would be the right thing to do. This whole time I've maintained that in the face of all this I've kept my integrity intact--after all, the great thing about an anonymous blog (or at any rate one I thought was anonymous) is that I could tell the truth without repercussion. Having the truth now spilled out for all to read, it's sort of liberating. The comments about my boss, about my job here and at home, about politics... hell, if everybody's already seen them there's no sense covering up, is there?

Perhaps that's the good part about October.

Anonymous said...

*snip* But I had to wonder: why the hell don't you people comment? Come on. Show some love.

Here's the love - here's the love!

I too wondered what had happened to that blog... I tried to read it, but being as politically and worldly naive as I am, my head began to hurt -- I figured I'd come back to it at another time and try to understand it better -- but then it was gone!

Eh.... tis okay I suppose - I enjoy reading anything you have to blog about.

Sigh... I must be bored, eh? LOL

Anonymous said...

How interesting that there are many people reading that you couldn't have even predicted -- and I can understand how unsettling. I'm certainly not surprised your blog attracted attention, what with the relavent topics that could come up in a search. What I'm not sure about, though, is how much ridiculous 101 question thing attracted the attention of a 16 year old girl in the UAE.

You should ask my Brad how to track who visits your site. He loves to see who's been poking around.

--Ayzair

Anonymous said...

Well I read your blogs frequently but the long in-depth political blogs started becoming like banter in a Charlie Brown episode. I really had to focus on them. Kudos for having such a fan base though. The power of the internet being that once you post it out there it is available for all to read, including the people who say that they speak for the good of the country(and are oblivious). Email when you get a chance.

"The now retired Air Force desk Jockey"