Whoa whoa da di da dam dam baby...

...whoa whoa da di da dam dam baby,
I close my eyes
I tell you how much I care
then you smile and say to me 'let me be your destiny'

Latest music addiction is techno - managed to score several gigs of music(and more pr0n than I care to discuss in a public venue) from a friend on the ship, and I've been rocking out on a regular basis lately.

So, here's a new milestone in my blogging 'career' - I'm sitting on the signal bridge, the second highest deck of the ship, in what is easily ninety degree heat, never mind the fact that it's 8:30 at night out here. I'm hooked into the local USO wifi net, which despite being at Shed 66, probably a quarter mile from where I'm sitting, still reaches us. The connection's a bit wonky, unfortunately, which means the fistful of vouchers in my pocket, each supposed to last an hour, probably won't get me through the next forty minutes... but I'm online, on my own computer, with a decent connection rather than the snail-like ship's comp.

The UAE apparently has a bias against Flickr - I can't access the site, instead getting bright red warning labels telling me to turn back, for the love of Allah.

Okay, I'm being hyperbolic - but man, am I happy the ship lets me e-mail photos in, 'cause otherwise you happy people would be without visual reference on my oh so exciting journey.

So, as you can probably tell from the context clues, we're back in Jebel Ali... just another sprint of loading cargo and carrying it back to the fleet. I'm still waiting on a couple of packages, one from home and one from ThinkGeek, but I highly doubt I'll see hide nor hair from either before September... the fleet Postal Service just doesn't move that quickly. Funny, how I can beat a package across the Atlantic, even though I'm on a ship and it's (presumably) being flown.

Was contacted by an old friend on Facebook, a school chum I haven't talked to since she moved to Hawaii our junior year (Hi, Laura!)... hopefully she'll still be in the area when I make it home, I remember her being pretty fun. Admittedly, my exposure was sitting next to her in Oceanography class, so I might simply be remembering everyone who wasn't the teacher (with his Ben Stein monotone) as being bright and entertaining. Speaking of Facebook and old friends, another person I haven't talked to in forever tracked me down, presumably by looking for old classmates - Micki, my friend(?) Rob's ex-girlfriend. Haven't talked to her since she and he called it quits, which made seeing the friend request an odd thing - but since Rob and I haven't talked to each other in almost a year, now, I guess there's no reason not to.

A year ago. Last time I talked to Rob was when I moved into my 'new' place, living on my own for the first time...

A year ago today, I was on the USNS Apache, somewhere off the coast of Monrovia, Liberia. We'd recently put out a fire on the MV Tahoma Reefer, rescued a half dozen Liberian fishermen who'd capsized in rough water, and generally kicked ass and taken names. I missed home, but I was doing pretty well - holding my own, holding a turn. In five days, I'd get the word that my best friend and roommate had killed himself. Four days after that, I'd be sitting in a hotel room in Ghana, waiting for my flight home.

It's hard to believe it's been a year since Joe died... I still miss that boy so fucking much. I dream about him, sometimes... he never seems to know he's dead, but I always do. I'm torn between telling him and just enjoying the moment, knowing that I'm going to wake up soon. He's always happy... I hope he really is, wherever he might be.

I think my main reason for believing in life after death is because I can't stand the thought that this is our only chance at things. Reincarnation or afterlife, I hold onto the hope that I'll see old friends again.