Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Half Tech, Half Student, Half Soldier.......


Starting the second of three weekends in a row of drill weekends, with this one running Thursday through Sunday. On top of the multiple call-back weekend for work before the drills, and the weekend of being on-call after the drill weekends are over. Given that I have been given the designation of "shit-magnet" by my coworkers for my unparalleled ability to draw long, complicated cases and unpleasant patients almost every weekend on call for the last six months, I'm guessing I'll be at work for the that last weekend also. AKA, six weeks of work with no days off. I had more free time in Iraq in 2003 than I've had in the Midwest since getting home from deployment #2. And if it weren't for having to be away from The Wife, I'd actually be grateful to be going on deployment #3 at this point. Makes me wish we'd bring back the tradition of camp followers.


On an up note, the local hotel I stay at for drill is down the street from a Goodwill store. Which has a fair number of used book racks. Based on past experience, and input from those who've already been to Afghanistan, Internet access can be spotty, especially if you're attached to infantry, who don't spend much time doing the REMF thing. But mail rates for bound material are cheap, and I used to read for actual entertainment or personal interest back when I had personal time. So, it's time to start stocking up on books for $3.88 (hardback) and $0.50 (paperback) for the time when I settled in somewhere, and The Wife can ship a box over for diversion. Two good finds this time around; a large, good-condition hardback of Rand's Atlas Shrugged and a decent paperback copy of Asimov's Prelude to Foundation. Never gotten around to reading the first, and read the other over twenty years ago. A brief perusal of Prelude serves to remind me why I enjoyed it back then; it actually requires attention and thought to follow the story line. Looking at what passes for entertainment currently, I'd wager there's a larger segment of the population that would find this frustrating or uninteresting. Perhaps I'm wrong, but looking out at Facebook and Twitter, I rather doubt it.

1 comment:

Mark Horning said...

Atlas Shrugged is a good read, especially if you get "into" it. I think it would be a rough book to read in bit's and pieces as might happen in the 'Stan.

But it's the kind of thing one is supposed to read when one is 19 or 20. I remember reading it sophomore or junior year of college and forgetting to eat.