I heart dirt

Yeah, it's been like months. I know you guys have been checking daily, wondering when I was going to post something, and I know that I have been daily shattering your fragile dreams and hopes by refusing to post anything. It's hard, I know. But please bear with me. I will post new things now and again, so you're just going to have to keep checking back.

So, updates. Let's see, what are the big ones? Jen and I are still married, mostly because I never seem to come home long enough to annoy her significantly. Gigi is still too cute for us to kill (although she's apparently pushing the envelope with Jen. More later). I am still in the army, and got promoted to Captain. That's right, Cap'n G. All that means is that I am doing the same work I was doing before, only now I'm just underpaid, not criminally underpaid.

Another update, for those of you who may not know, is that in the beginning of 2008 I will be deploying to the middle east for about 15 months. We're going to Qatar or Kuwait, so it's not going to be too dangerous.

As a result of the upcoming visit to the sandbox, we are spending significant amounts of time in the field. Luckily, since I manage all the communications, I have hooked myself up with email service and am able to write stuff. Also luckily for me, all the other communications stuff is working now, so I have time to post something.

I feel like I'm rambling because the six hours of sleep I got yesterday are making me delirious. I love my cot and tent.

Back to being in the field... All the time we are spending out here in the field is what drives the title of this blog. I heart dirt. Not only do I heart dirt, I heart it in my nose, ears, eyes and mouth. I heart it in places that we don't mention in polite socitey - places that a wet wipe will just not clean effectively. I heart it in my food and in my clothes, and especially all over my computers and phones. Dirt is really great.

One great thing about dirt is that when you get it wet, it turns into mud. We have had some pretty significant rainstorms out here this past two weeks, and let me tell you, that mud is really something. I mean, dirt is awesome, but when you add water, it just turns into this viscous slime that sticks to everything and turns into cement when it dries. Oh, and when it gets saturated, it forms puddles where mosquitoes breed (in 24 hours or less - seriously) and then come into our tents and bite us in our sleep. And let's not forget, we just had the first case this year of West Nile virus documented in El Paso... not five miles from where we are camped. So at least I've got that going for me.

And the greatest part of the whole thing is that I am going to be living in this same dirt for at least two weeks out of every month between now and October, and then fly for 18 hours to go live in foreign dirt. Yeah, it's dirt on an American military installation, so it's technically not Foreign per se, but it's close enough. I will fill requests for foreign dirt for anyone who wants some. Heck, I will send you some of our fine local dirt if you want some too, just so you can see why I heart dirt so much. I heart dirt.