Why make a blog? This is why....

Hey everyone. For those of you who don't know, I'm in Afghanistan right now. Anyway, a guy I'm here with made a weblog, and about 5 minutes into me making fun of him, he mentioned that it was more efficient than posting emails. I guess I can't disagree with him on that, so I figured I'd eat my words and make one of my own. I guess I'll make little postings on here, and try not to be too cheesy in an attempt to avoid being made fun of myself. If you want to see pure, unadulterated cheesiness, you can check his out. He has some good stuff in there, and stuff that I wouldn't bother putting in there, I,e. Nepalese food recipes, and waxing poetic about our trip into Little Uzbekistan (I made that up, and he didn't give me credit). First thing's first: check out my pictures page - by clicking here. I make updates every so often, mainly when I go bananas with my camera and decide to take pictures of kids or something. So here's a summary of what's been going on: I got here about a month ago; May 28thish or something, after a 12 hour layover in Vienna (which rocked) and being relieved of $210 in Azerbaijan (which didn't rock.. No one told them they're not commies anymore). So Azerbaijani airport workers are now #2 on my pantheon of international jackasses; North Koreans being in a huge lead at #1 and Canadians at a close #3. I guess I'll be here for a few more months; after that the sky's the limit. Maybe I'll come back? Maybe I won't? If you're 100% opposed to me staying here, then I'd suggest you assist me in some sort of employment, preferably in Japan (not teaching English, thanx). Anyway, things are goin good out here, and even if they weren't I'd probably tell you they were anyway, cuz announcing the loss of a digit or a limb on a weblog is a breach of etiquette as far as I know, so I'll keep my maimings to myself. To continue, I'm in Kabul, which is kinda cool. Like I said, I'll be in the states mid-septemberish, cuz I'm going to a wedding and then to my 10 year highschool reunion. That oughtta be interesting.

So what am I doing here? Nothing snazzy really. But we're very safe, we never cruise around by ourselves (which is how people get kidnapped), never walk anywhere, and we carry weapons so we're not exactly a soft target. We also avoid the regular places where internationals go (like the plague), so we're doing everything we can and never becoming complacent. That's about all we can do, and it's nice cuz everywhere we look there are people who ARE complacent and unsafe, so the idea is that they're much juicier targets if someone decides to get frisky.

So why am I here? It's good experience, and the pay's good. Collecting Iowa unemployment was cool and all, especially that part about sitting around and waiting for the DC folks to get their shit together, but this is better. And I obviously have enough time to myself to where I can sit around and write stupid weblogs.

Anyway, stay tuned for more madness as it comes. I don't expect anything really, but you all will be the first to know. Feel free to email me whenever about whatever, or post comments on here. More later--