Halfway Home

Right now I'm in the Hong Kong airport.  I've got a long flight to Chicago and then Dayton, but I can see the land of milk and honey in the horizon.

It's been seven months since I have actually seen home, and that's something that I never thought I would do.  I remember sitting in the kitchen after dinner with my mother when I was 10 or 11 years old and being totally petrified of going abroad.  I don't know why I had that intuitive inner anxiety, but I still deal with remnants of it today.  I think that some people are built for leaving home and never coming back, but my experience has shown that that isn't for me.  Although, I do enjoy leaving the friendly confines of the lower 48 every once in a while.

I arrived in Singapore around 10 PM yesterday and walked to the check-in counter for United Airlines.  It was closed and wouldn't open 'til 4 AM.  I was pissed.  Initially, my strategy was to check my bags, pass through security, and pay for a room in the transit hotel in the airport to catch some shuteye.  Plans changed.  Fortunately, I let my compulsive behavior get the best of me and I checked into the Crowne Plaza hotel in Changi Airport.  If you want to feel like a boss someday, that's what you need to do.  I had to drop a few dimes to get in, but I'll just expense it to my travel allowance.  Also, the temporarily awesome experience was nullified after boarding a United Airlines aircraft.  America has the antithesis of the Midas touch when it comes to air transit.

This trip home will be my first vacation in seven months and a welcome opportunity to decompress after a particularly turbulent year.  With my tenure abroad expected to come to a close at the end of this estival season, being home will be a welcome opportunity to chart my course for the next several years to come (as well as a great chance to reunite with my estranged family, friends, and girlfriend).

I can't say that my time in Indonesia has been the most inspiring, wholesome, or transcendental period of my life.  Truthfully, I feel like I lost a lot of myself over here and when I began to see the symptoms, I began to plan my out.  So much of what I had become in college simply vanished after my first few months here.  I was no longer creative and I no longer had a vision for what I wanted to become and what I wanted to accomplish.  A man without a vision is a lost man.  I was lost.  Some things are starting to get right with my impending return.

I was very disappointed with what happened while I was here and after taking it all in, my heart pointed to go.  Life is very short and efficiency with your days is crucial.  You have to protect your time on earth and know that you are empowered and alive at all times.  If not, then kick the can on down the road.

Alas, we gaily greet the dawn of a new day.  See you in a few hours Ohio.  Au revoir.

-Aaron

Monday

Cello,

The past twelve hours have been close to unbearable and I've had to relearn how to waste time on the web.  I never thought it would be difficult.  In that time, what have I covered?

The Macho Man Randy Savage died in a car crash in Florida

A rush of thoughts associated with my slowly disappearing childhood came over me when I first read this.  Much like many erstwhile immature adolescents, I used to religiously watch Big Time Wrastlin' religiously on Monday and Thursday nights when the NWO and the Wolfpack were competing for eternal supremacy on WCW.  This completes a long line of realizations that drain my will to live.

1. Santa Claus isn't real - always the hardest
2. Ditto the Easter Bunny - but who really cared about that one.
3. I'll never be able to flap my arms fast enough to fly.
4. Your parents don't just give you money forever.
5. There are no field trips at work.
6. Big Time Wrastlin' ain't real.
7. Big Time Wrastlers are mortal.

I Want a Typewriter

I've been on a Hemmingway kick lately.  I get into a lot of different authors for different reasons at different times, but I normally migrate back to him to rebase my reading.  Anyways, Hemmingway was Hemmingway, a damned fine badass (a troubled one).  Thinking of Hemmingway made me want to get a typewriter.  Maybe I'll never use it but I like the look of them.  Check out the link.



Super Cool Typewriter Link

My Palacial Estate

I want a cool bookshelf.  I found a cool bookshelf online.  Could you imagine how awesome it would be to have this in your house?



In my house, I also want a man garage and a sensory deprivation tank, a wurlitzer electric piano and a permanent hog roaster/meat smoker outside.  I want a beer brewing "laboratory," and a fine liquor "collection."  I want a shower that would make Patrick Bateman jealous, actually, I take that back - he'd kill me with an axe.  I want a super-computer center with a team of imported scientists and I want their powers to combine to develop and crack an algorithm to tell me how to take over the world; although, that may be a little far fetched.

Photo Browsing Led Me to This

I think that good habits start young, like counting money, brushing your teeth before going to bed, and always wearing a life jacket when you go fishing.  Notice the USA olympic symbol on the box? Thanks Chive.com

I guess that's it for now, check back later. 

Au revoir

The Return of the Babbling Brook

Hello again everybody,

After a four month break from exposing my dark inner thoughts to the greater public, I have decided that it is now time that I resume my self-deprecating ritual.  If I haven't been in touch with you since I last posted, then I hope the past several months have been filled with joy and success and that you now have lots of money to shower upon your friends and loved ones (me included).

Update on me: 

Right now, I am sitting in a logging unit on a swamp barge in Indonesia while waiting for the mud engineer to get the formation fractures plugged so that we can quit losing mud and continue drilling.  Until then, I'll listen to Van Morrison and get all artsy fartsy on the web. 

Funny things about oil rigs:

1.  Everybody is politely addressed as boss or chief; so much so, that when I get back, my poor mother will now be addressed as such.
2.  The common image of an oil rig is one of a bunch of dirty men with filthy minds in a completely oppressive environment, I think.  Although that may be true in some places, there is a lot of peace out here when you can watch the sun rise and set out over the water every day.
3.  Remember snack time when you were a kid?  That's exactly how I feel at 5:30 in the morning when it's time for my morning coffee and croissant.  I love croissants, not as much as McDonald's french fries, but close enough.  Someday, I want to bake baguettes and croissants and have a super thick mustache and have a little bakery in Cincinnati where I only speak french and pretend that I can't speak English. Oui Oui!!

Moaning and Groaning

If anybody that reads this blog is into environmental activism or anything, then I suggest you check out what is going on with the Mahakam Delta here in Indonesia (east coast of borneo).  I flew over the delta in a helicopter last week when I came out to the rig and the destruction was appalling.  From the air, you can see what used to be a massive biological hotbed that has been "plowed over" to create a shrimp farm.  I'm not the regular crusader for green, but there's an SUV with a V8 and then there's AN ENTIRE RIVER DELTA completely razed to nothing for the sake of shrimp paste.  Here's a nice link on the issue.

Mahakam Delta Paper

Fun Fact o' the Day

How do you think we find oil underground?  Caves right?  If you thought oil  was in a cave underground then you are stupid and you should hate yourself.  Actually, don't.  A large portion of the public believes that oil is stored in caves under ground; however, oil is actually resident in the pores within rocks.  We drill to reach the rocks where the oil is stored (i.e. limestone and sandstone) and then fracture the rocks to allow the fluid (oil, gas, water, whatever) to flow to and up the wellbore.  When the hydrostatic pressure within the well is no longer great enough to support a column of fluid to the surface, we can force it up by pumping a fluid with a higher density into the reservoir rock in order to provide more hydrostatic pressure to the fluid - this is called artificial lift.

Poetry

I'm hesitant to do this, but I think I will share one of the poems that I wrote a few weeks ago.  I had just gotten off of the rig and was feeling more peaceful than usual.  Peace brings out what little creativity I have inside of me.

There is faded paint making lines and shades
On the old basketball court behind the building.
The concrete is cracked
Some are big, some are small.
Ants run with frenzied fervor
Connecting the dots both here and there.
I find myself staring off,
Not to look, but to think.
But the boring drum of the air conditioner
brings me back to reality... or the illusion.
There are trees and grass to one side,
On the other stands a wall with a crown of barbed wire.
To a stranger watching from the window
I might seem quite strange.
But to me, the concatenation of these otherwise ordinary images
becomes a grand moment to witness.
Nothing special has happened.
To dwell in the here and now
Brings soothing peace.

It's probably crap, but it was nice at the time.

Thoughts

1.  I started dreaming again.  I can't remember the last time that I remembered my dreams, but things are vivid now.  Although each detail can't be listed verbatim on a log, I can say that my dreams have given me a new urgency to live - and to live hard.  At one point, I found myself saying to someone that I was scared that I would wake up tomorrow to see that life had passed me by.  It is strange to me that at 24 years of age, I am worried that I'll blink and miss anything.

2.  Point #2 is slightly related to point #1.  I decided several months back that I was ready to get a tattoo.  It took me several years to get to that point, but I knew that it would take me several more til I would decide what the tattoo would be.  I thought about maybe getting the state of Ohio tattoo somewhere, but decided against it.  My new kick is on an hourglass with wings.  Some historical references say that the image represents the fact that life is fleeting.  I figured that would be cooler than getting a tramp stamp on my lower back (joke, haha).

3.  Life is lovely.  Loving those who love you might be the finest joy achievable by (wo)man.

4.  The longer I live and the more people I meet that think they have it all figured out (I can be guilty on occasion), the less I believe that anyone knows anything.  I think that we can be victims of temporarily applied value systems being placed on our otherwise primitive brain.  After spending my short time here on earth drawing thought after thought to its' total logical conclusion, I no longer thing that I can trust the logical faculties endowed on myself by the great creator.  I do think that we can find truth in the emotions coming over us at any given time.  Emotions are a primal reaction to external stimuli that are instant and free from the ever-changing logic and perspective of man.  Summed up, I think that it would be a healthy experiment for people to look at things for what they are as opposed to attempting to apply a value of good or bad, right or wrong (maybe even the art of Delta Destruction). 

I suppose that'll be all for today.  I may start writing again on a daily basis, but that dep ends on whether I'm worth reading or not.  Sometimes, displaying your inner thoughts to the public on the web becomes uncomfortable.

Til next time, take care.

-Aaron