I'm currently attending a party in downtown Boston, held by my company to honor a member of our team who is moving on. The food here is very different, but quite good. The view, however, has to be seen to be believed. I'm up on the 42nd floor (by all accounts,) and can see most of the west side of Boston and part of south east Cambridge. It is quite a beautiful view; recommended for all who can do it.

I'm finally getting settled in to my new place here in Medford. We've been doing some gardening, some grilling, and many other fun activities. Our cable internet service is working here, but it took quite a bit of pain. Apparently, Comcast only wants you to connect a single computer running Windows to their service. Thankfully, I had a computer lying around that happened to have Windows 2000 on it. I got the service set up, and then cloned that computer's MAC address with the wireless router. (Of course, the wireless router in question was ###'s from-the-trash router. It has since …

I am now living in one of the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts: Medford. I took a job out here, and am now living with one of my good friends. The last few days (and weeks) have been quite exciting for me. I arrived in Medford late last Wednesday. Thursday, I unloaded all of my stuff, and helped my friend XXX move some of his stuff. On Friday, I took a trip down to Cambridge to check out the local shops, and purchase a few "must have" items. (Cooking utensils etc.) Shortly after I returned from Cambridge, we finally got power …

Well, I've finally finished my time in service of the Indiana National Guard. I just received my discharge papers, so now I'm back to being a full-time civilian again!

Yeah, I haven't really been doing very much for the last few... months. (Except playing Gothador, of course.) I haven't been entirely unoccupied, however.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to hang out with a few of my friends. Right now, they are in need of computer help... something that I can do quite handily. (A lifetime of experience helps in this regard.) It has been fun, it gives me the opportunity to get out of the house, and allows me to get reacquainted with people who I haven't spoken to very much over the last few years.

Right now …

I just wanted to take a brief time-out to wish you all a happy solstice, merry christmas, and all of that. Sorry for the lack of updates, I had a lot of things planned, but never got them put up... then I felt bad about not posting anything, and then, and then....

Well, I ended up not wanting to post new stuff without finishing the old stuff. I finally decided to just throw the old stuff away, so you won't end up seeing that. Sorry.

The good news is, I'm back with some actual updates... so have fun!

Well, I was supposed to go watch InuYaShu with my battle buddy. Things did not quite go according to plan...

I picked XXX up at the house, and we went off to see one of XXX's friends about a new pool cue. (XXX broke her favourite cue on Sunday... pieces flying across the room and everything.) I got to play with their cat and dog, and XXX got to hold the snake.

After that, we went to XXX's to play a few games. I figured we would stay there long enough to watch InuYaShu, but I had no such luck …

Recently, I've been playing pool a lot with my friend XXX. Tonight, I went up to McCool's in Angola, IN, where XXX was playing league (APA). After the game there was over, we went over to near-by Skips, where they had free pool.

While we were out, we ran into a few people, such as YYY and ZZZ. YYY is just learning to play pool, and XXX is giving him a few pointers. ZZZ is an old friend of XXX's who works in the area. I spent a lot of time talking to ZZZ, who had many old "war stories …

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I had a wonderful thanksgiving with my family, and am very thankful that they could make it. We had a wonderful dinner, with turkey and ham and lots of pies! I'll be posting some pictures soonest.

Lucy's note: Hello - Thanksgiving has come and gone - but you might want to check out the new blog site called optruth.com.

Editor's note: the pictures aren't coming, and the referenced blog site is gone.

I haven't been able to get this news out as soon as I'd have liked to (due to some computer problems), but I am back in the National Guard. Some paperwork was filed, some things were done at the State level, and viola my Chapter 11 discharge was undone. I will be leaving on March 22, 2005, to start my MOS25M training.