I'm currently at COB Speicher in Iraq (been here since 21st of September). Presently, my internet access is considerably limited, but I'm doing alright other than that.

There's just one day left between now and deployment.

Circumventing firewalls with SSH tunneled SOCKS proxies a la ssh -D localport user@sshproxyhost

I'm in the Army (yeah, I know, what was I thinking?). I'm about to do a 15 month deployment to Iraq. I have about a month left before I go. All I can think about is what kind of Internet connection I'll have and how long it will take to run apt-get...

It really annoys me when people talk about money without taking into account things like inflation and socio-political circumstances.

<Mom> Do you know a soldier whose last name is NORTON? ... His dad said he is "cavalary?"
<Me> No. There are over 40,000 soldiers on Fort Hood...
<Mom> He also is a medic so was wondering if you knew of him
<Me> Do you know a nurse named "Smith" in Raleigh? :)

Part of Army life is doing stupid details -- for instance, picking up garbage in a given area. Today I was on a detail to do just that down a stretch of road and found a black 36C bra. Not quite an every day find on a military post...

Apparently driving a humvee during a road test at 50 MPH in a 40 (or was it 30?) zone, rolling through a stop sign (even though there was no traffic), not pulling over for passing emergency vehicles, and coming to a sudden stop when told to "pull over on the side of the road," are all grounds for not being approved for a military driver's license. Go figure.

Side note: I'm from NYC and never had to drive until I got stationed in Texas. I only got my civilian drivers license on July 11th. Sadly, I still drive better than a lot of these Texans even though they've all got years of experience c