I knew I was messing up somewhere.  So, here you go:

Office 3

NOW it’s a worthy writer’s study.

Well, aside from missing out on the classic creative powers of alcohol, what have I been up to?  This last weekend was Memorial Day, so I celebrated it in the standard fashion:  beer, BBQ, flags, remembrance, and totally unbridled patriotism.  It was also the end of my grace period at The Job, so I had the entire four-day weekend off.  I have been unreasonably fortunate in my Navy time, in that my jobs have all been shore or ship-side.  I’ve been assigned to go to the big sandlot three different times, but each time Fate intervened to call me onto a different path (and those are three stories for a different day).  That being said, the wars have touched my career and life.  My brother-in-law has deployed to both AOR’s numerous times, and we were overjoyed to hear that he is on his way back early from this latest deployment.  I also remember when I was posted to a shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and saw the USS Cole brought in atop a Norwegian heavy-lift vessel, with a great, gaping hole in her side.  Our shipyard eventually put her back together and she steams across the seas today, defending freedom . . .  but when they brought her in, they were still finding remains of the brave crewmembers who died aboard her, including a local son of the community.

I admit I don’t remember to pray every day for my lost compatriots, my fellow sailors, my brothers and sisters in harm’s way, but no one should have gone this last weekend without a long period of reflection.

Well.

In other news, I have finished a re-write of my short story “Strategic Deployment” in the form of a short film script and it has gone on to better hands than mine to perhaps lead to something new and different.  If you have not read the original story, I urge you to try it out over on the pages here, or head to the link and see it in its original published format.  Either way, I think it’s an awesome read, and I am pleased by the changes made to get it ready for a more dramatic format.

Night all.  I have some single malt to drink.