six hours left.

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
~ Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"Patience often gets the credit that belongs to fatigue."
~ Franklin P. Jones

"Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain."
~ Cicero

well, the time has come.
tonight i'll be departing duluth IAP on a commercial airliner towards germany. after germany i'll go to iraq via a layover in qatar. the city i'll be in is about 8 hours ahead of us, so it's early morning there.
if you want the weather in iraq, click here. (it's not the exact city i'll be in, but it's close enough.

all of my checked luggage is on a pallet at the base already; all i need to bring with me is my paperwork and my carry-on, which i haven't packed yet. i'll be bringing my ibook and a few books, but since i had trouble sleeping this morning, i'll probably fall asleep as soon as i get on the plane. i have to report at 12:30 a.m. but we don't take off until 3:45 a.m. (i hope this helps illustrate what i mean when i say that getting there is worse than being there... in the military, at least.) this inconvenient timing means that i'll have to say goodbye to everyone before i actually leave, but it will allow me to concentrate on my job. i hope it isn't raining tonight.

rose will be here at the apartment with the phone while i'm gone, so if there's an emergency or something you can call. i still don't know what kind of access to email and phones i'll have over there, so please don't worry if i'm pretty quiet for a while. it sounds like the first few days will be a lot of tent-building and sand-bagging.

i need to finish packing and take my last real shower for a long time. i'll miss you all.

"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."
~ Abraham Lincoln