So I’m struggling to write a post here, and I think it’s largely due to my negligence to do so in a while. There’s been a lot going on, as well, so that doesn’t help to narrow it down. I think I’ll grab a couple of photos and expand upon them. I’ll find some that have yet to get posted anywhere else… in the meantime, if you want to follow my one photo/day entries you should do so on my twitter account.

We’ve seen a lot of good people head out on us this summer. This is a shot taken on the last fire drill that Ollie Peet would ever lead us (Fire Team 2). He’s headed back to the UK to finalize adopting his daughter.

Ben Calvert and I had a good last walk through Freetown before he left to get married. It was my introduction to street meat. I got some tortillas in the mail a week or so later, and have been trying to get out and make a street meat kebap ever since. It has yet to pay off. They’re so easy to find when you’re not hungry and impossible to locate when you are. Street meat is a good source of spice though, and probably various parasites.

I’ve been telling people lately that it’s going to be a miracle if I come home alive. It’s only been in small steps, but I’m steadily becoming an adrenaline junkie. I’ve taken to climbing very high, very exposed structures. I pierced a friend’s ear last week with an 18 gauge IV needle (right through the cartilage). Driving around here doesn’t even phase me any more…

The last few weeks in particular have been insane. I released my first book, White Shores (the first in the Vitalis Chronicles trilogy), had a launch party/reading, had my birthday, and had the Goins family visit me from the States. All the while I continued climbing and piercing things, though never at the same time.

This is the swag the Goins brought me all the way from Spokane. Note the high density of cats and half-naked men. And a pig loofah. My friends seem to remember me in a really interesting way. Granted, I expect half-naked men from Miller so that wasn’t a HUGE surprise. Thanks guys for thinking of me and sending that stuff along! It was a real blessing to be remembered like that.

And yes, those are stickers of the crucifixion. Four pages worth.

I’ll try to do better with staying on top of all of this. I’m just a little overwhelmed with life at the moment. Things are calming down though, thankfully, and I’m headed on vacation soon. Originally I had thought I would be able to make it the whole field service without a vacation. But that was before they decided not to go to Tenerife for shipyard, and before I really knew much of anything. I’ll be headed to France for a few weeks next month, and am making it my goal to finish the second book in the Vitalis Chronicles while I’m there.

Filed under: Personal Stories by Jay