Back for a moment

9:05PM Central Afghan Time

Been awhile, hasn’t it? I’m busier at my new firebase than I was at Kandahar, but that’s not the reason I’ve been LJ-absent for so long. I have a laptop. I used it for months in Iraq. The moment I landed in Afghanistan (I had been using it on the plane flying us in!), it unaccountably stopped working. I don’t mean wouldn’t work properly, I mean totally inert: no lights, no noises, no evidence that it wasn’t a big, intricate paperweight. Six weeks later, it just as inexplicably returned to life, and I used it steadily for the next four months.

On arrival at Tarin Kowt, I found it inoperative again. Annoying. There is Internet access here, but it’s limited. Where before I could work up an entry at leisure and then carry it on a memory stick to the nearest ’net terminal, I now have to use an official computer for such. Not forbidden per se, but a potentially delicate matter.

Meanwhile, I’ve stayed occupied. Seven villages in ten days, two school visits, and a night patrol. Meanwhile, I’ve done 8,000 words on my next story; odds are I won’t quite finish it before February, but I’ll try.

For now, this ganked from agilebrit and selenak:

( Ten ways to know you’re reading a fanfic by Aadler )

Hope everyone is doing well. I’m not being unsociable, I’m just logistically constricted.