Figures

Every time that I get a chance to write something in my blog - I feel inspired, I have a few minutes, I find an open computer - the internet connection doesn't work. So I'll just start emailing myself until I get a change to do a SUPER MEGA UPDATE!!!!!!

So I got my first parcel of deployment mail today - excellent - and inventorying the contents I was inspired to trace the life of Tim the Papaya (Thanks, Dee).

Hi, I'm Tim and I'm a Papaya. I'm very tasty and just sitting here growing, waiting to be harvested in sunny Thailand. I get picked, I'm shaved, sliced, and processed (with some sugar I think) into a tasty treat called "Papaya Spears." Then I get sent to a health food store in the United States, packaged up, bought / sold, and then boxed up into a care package bound for a strapping young father of two afloat on the open ocean. I am received and enjoyed by said dude who, coincidentally,is bound for the land of my birth where I will complete my life cycle exactly where it began.A lot of traveling for a little Papaya, isn't it?

Life's good for me, by the way - finished up stuff in East Timor -that's where the pictures were from down below. I don't have any idea how to put a caption under any of those pictures, but they were all from E.T. The statue is the second largest statue of Jesus in the world behind...that's right, dad, RioDJ. (I abbreviated it that way because I have no idea how to spell it and lack the motivation to look it up)which reminds me. I brought an actual paper dictionary and thesaurus on the boat and everybody made fun of me. But when it takes minutes to load up www.dictionary.com and that book is just sitting there on my desk - yeah - it gets used by a lot of people.

Speaking of getting used by a lot of people - also enclosed in my care package was an issue of "Huntin' Fool" (Thanks, Ron) probably my favorite magazine outside of Foreign Affairs because I'm a nerd. Oh that reminds me too - my nerdiness - I was trying to make a list of: "if you think you might be a nerd" more on that later - so I had said magazine sitting on my desk today beckoning me away from my work. I refrained because I had things to do, but almost every pilot that passed by at least leafed through it - entertainment is in short supply on the boat apparently - including my commanding officer.

"Hey L-T, this magazine yours?""Yessir""You working now, aren't you - mind if I borrow it""Nosir"He takes it and sits down in a chair and reads it almost cover to cover over the next 30 minutes, places it back on my desk, sighs, and departs.I think we just bonded.

So back to the nerd-list-thing - I was typing some things up for work and not to brag or anything, but my typing has gotten to the point that a couple of times every minute my computer beeps at me because it's having trouble keeping up - and I thought there's got to be more of this- if you know what a "dihedral angle" is - or if you think a Power Point presentation is just a crutch for the briefer - or if you know what"etc" stands for and means - or if you pick out the aerodynamicdiscrepancies in the movie Flyboys: "That bi-plane just pulled 9 Gs around that tree if you were wondering...not possible" - etc etc etc I'll make a more formal list in the future - actually, no, I won't, I'll just add some more as they come to me.

And lastly, for two Quotes of the Day:For the procrastinators out there:"Plan early...plan twice"And spoken last week with reference to E.T:"You know your country is in trouble when you need assistance from the Bangladeshis."