Welcome back and greetings from Islamabad. Regretably this will probably be another short post. Things have continued to settle in. I have received all my personal property, which is nice because the cable is not working yet. It is supposed to be functional, but such is not the case. Fortunately I brought my movies so I have something to put on the TV. It was rather quiet here by myself. When I first got here there were a couple of others in the house as well (the guy I was releaving and another dude from the office). Since then they have both moved out (one to go back home and the other to a different house). So I am in this big house by myself. I don't mind too much (since I do have my movies) but since we are not supposed to drive by ourselves I have to coordinate rides to work all the time. The powers that be have decided to re-arrange the housing situation which is kind of annoying. They are giving me an assistant in the office and he gets here on the 1st and was supposed to move in here. This was going to be advantages since we would probably be on similar schedules so rides would work and he was actually born here in Pakistan so having him in the house could help with other issues if the arrive. Under the new plan though he will move in with someone else because they don't want two guys from the same shop in the same house and I will get some Army dude. I hope he is cool. Otherwise this could get old.
I have finally given in and turned to the dark side. I have resisted and resited but I just couldn't take it any more. I have finally joined Facebook. As a general principle I find all the social networking sights to be evil. I'm not exactly sure why; it's just an irrasional avertion I guess. I don't like those supermarket club things either. Perhaps it's the hermit in me. I just don't think that everyone necessarily needs to know everything about you all the time. There are just too many of my friends that are on it. I've already had the pleasure of IMing a couple of them and considering how bad I am at e-mailing maybe I will do a better job of staying in touch on a personal level this way. So if you have not already been invited to be a freind on the network it's because I didn't find you and you are cordialy invited to look me up. The big thing for me is going to be making sure I don't waist too much time on it.
The other big news (aside from selling my soul to the internet) is that I will be coming back to the States for a couple visits in February. I go to Jacksonville, Fl the second week and Oxnard, Ca the last week. The bad thing is that I will be coming back here in between the trips and my internal clock is going to he all screwed up after going, literally around the world twice in three weeks. I look forward to seeing all of you that live in those areas. Hopefully I will be able to make it down to San Diego for the weekend after Oxnard. I will be in touch with the details as I get closer.
Well that is about all for me for the moment. I know I still owe you the pictures of Bahrain and I am going to try to take some of Islamabad here soon. It's just that work takes up a lot of the day. I will try to get those to you as soon as I can. Until then feel free to look me up on Facebook and be good. If you can't be good, then be good at it.
9 comments:
much like O'Doyle, Facebook Rules!
um, yeah, that was me, sorry...
-sd
Don't the O'Doyles have some massive car crash or something?
yes. awe man! shut up! fb rules! :) when do i get my beer?
-sd
Well, I suppose it's about time I get in on this tomfoolery (yes, this is a word recognized by my spell-checker). I know I'm late to the scene, but I want first of all to comment on you're bear sighting. My comment is as follows: what the fuck (the kids might better recognize this exclamatory as WTF)? Seriously? A bear on a major thoroughfare? Does Barnum and Bailey have a significant presence in the Pakistan region? I suppose I should have guessed as much given the clowns that seem to run the place.
Other people have commented that Pakistan is one of the few countries that still participate in "bearbaiting", whatever the hell that is. "Bearbaiting" sounds a whole lot more humane than bear beating, but probably safer. What frightens me is that there just might be bears on the loose that haven't yet been baited, whatever that entails. No wonder you're supposed to travel in pairs, you might be the subject of a bear attack at any moment. I must confess that this makes your assignment overseas much more intriguing to me. You simply must let me know if you spot un-baited bears laying in wait for you in the shrubberies (I assume Pakistan has shrubberies).
But my primary comment involves the lack of cable television available at your residence. That is damn near unforgivable. I actually know people here in America (God bless America…sing along, you know the words) that have gone tribal due to a lack of cable (think Lord of the Flies). Personally, me and the missus not only have to have digital HD cable, but also the NBA League Pass just to maintain our very limited level of civility. Give us 3 days without cable and I swear we'd revert to loin clothes and face paint. OK, sorry to give you the mental image of me in a loincloth.
Anyway, hope things are stabilizing as best they can. On a completely different note, I asked you in an earlier e-mail if you knew what the original Greek word "symposium" meant, and in case you haven't looked it up yet, it means "drinking party". I have always thought that that was an odd occurrence, especially given the number of symposiums I've attended that didn't offer alcohol. The bad part about getting back to the roots of the word is that the original "symposium", which is the title of one of the dialogues of Plato, dealt exclusively with speeches about "love". That sounds innocent enough, but "love" in an ancient Greek context generally involves molesting adolescents. So anyway, leaving behind the overt homosexual connotations of the word, holding symposiums is about the best way I know to have an honest exchanges of ideas among peers. In that spirit, I hope you can have a few drinks with your compadres in country and share them with us. I think we Westerners just don't have a decent idea of the content of the mental states of those in your region, and maybe you can help me understand what the hell they're thinking. Just hoping…
Until your next post, keep it real (I don't actually know what that means, I just heard someone say it once).
P.S. I don't mean to be an ass (I just happen to be one by coincidence), but "Turing to the Dark Side" either involves a misspelling or a very deep philosophical comment. A "Turing Machine" is one of the tests that has been developed to establish the existence of artificial intelligence. As I barely recognize authentic intelligence on this planet, I'm not sure where you were going with this title. Of course I recognize the concept of the "Dark Side", but I can hardly believe that only now are your turning to it. You know what I'm talking about, don't you Darth Stephanus?
A couple quick rebutals:
The spell check thing apparently doesn't look at the title (and this part doesn't have it at all) and you know I can't spell to save my life so shut up.
On the symposium thing, you must remember that Allah does not permit the drinking of alcohol (that isn't to say some of my Pakistani counterparts won't drink) but I doubt I will have any deep phylosphical discussions over a beer.
Bearbaiting I think involves the caging of a bear and basically maltreating it then sicking on some other form of creature to fight to the death for sport. Again I think those people have a special level of hell waiting for them, but I ain't releasing any bears into a major city where the cops aren't going to be on my side.
Finally,I find that "real" is no place to keep anything. I prefer to live in a dream world. The sky is a better color of purple and the sounds taste better.
Facebook!?! What's next, a Jonas Brothers concert?
Actually MDT I looked up your name and I thought maybe you were on it. THe entry didn't have a picture and had not freinds.
who're the jonas brothers? (aka: should i be offended?) off to ask google who would never lie to me :)
-sd
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