Surf's Up!

After I'm done here in Iraq, I plan to travel the world. For how long, I have no idea. Maybe just a few weeks. Maybe a few months. I have an itch, and I don't know how long it'll take to get to the point where I'm not waking up every day wishing I was waking up in a small town in Europe, a beachside resort in Asia, or on a wildlife preserve in Africa. But I do know I need to get out and travel, and I can't stop thinking about it.

While doing some research into traveling cheap, I came across a pretty awesome concept -- communities of travelers that are willing to take in others for a night or two on a couch or spare bedroom. There are several websites out there that support this, but the best I've found is CouchSufing.com. I've already created an account there, and looking forward to seeing what the community has to offer.

The photo above is of yours truly, and was taken by one of the Local National Program Managers (they manage all the Iraqi citizens hired as linguists for GLS) while I was teaching her about depth-of-field and aperture in photography by the pond on our compound.

Guess who's back...

Theres a few ways to interpret that question... the first is that I'm back. I've finally caught up enough on work here to refocus on my photography and blog, so for those of you that havent completely abandoned reading this you should expect to see me back to my regular tempo.

Someone else who's back -- the Pittsburgh Steelers. They won their sixth Super Bowl around 6am this morning, right around sunrise. It was a marathon night, but worth the time spent. And of course I'm happy for the Steelers fans out there, especially Amanda and her family. I figure that my vacation home later this month stands to be a lot more pleasant with the Steelers winning.

Lastly, our rodent friends have made it back as well. The last week or so we've seen a few of them wandering around our building, at it turns out that its most likely the result of some poor decision-making by someone here. Apparently they didnt like the cats that had been making a home here, so they had the cats removed. Of course now that the cats are gone our rodent population is going to explode. Lovely.

The photo above is one I took of Eric (foreground) and Steve during a game of pre-Superbowl pingpong.