In the summertime, when the weather is fine...

I should be running right now but it's almost 9AM and still just 62 degrees out and foggy so I'm waiting for it to warm up a bit.  Now I'm not complaining about the weather here, but it's late September and I should probably accept that summer is just about over.

It's been a pretty good summer over all.  When I first got back in March, as you might have noticed, I was a bit of a frenzied mess mentally, inexpressibly relieved to be back but slightly disoriented by the shimmer of civilization.  My brain just felt like it was overheating a bit at times.  I remember trying to fill up my gas tank for the first time, getting it all wrong - trying to pump before I slid in my card, forgetting to select a grade - and wondering how something I'd done automatically for years could suddenly require such concentration.

But the initial dither of readjustment faded within a month or two (I now pump gas almost effortlessly, thank you), and since then I've just been enjoying life in S Cali, one of the world's great places to relax.  In May my youngest brother (E) came to visit (as previously briefed), in June it was my mom, and in July the middle brother (A).

After the big Grand Canyon trip, E and I spent a day
in Hollywood looking for amazing cars.

 We found some.

Mom on the USS Midway museum
 

Mom and me at the Grand Canyon (it never gets old)

A and I went to the SD zoo.  Love animals, hate zoos.

July-August was Scorpion Fire, a quick trip to NH, some more camping, and all kinds of other mishigas.  In September we sat a bunch of drills.  Also I ran the CFT and I got a 300(!).  First time I've aced a Marine Corps fitness test, though I still have plenty of work to do to reach my personal goals.

Yuma in July is hot...

...but at least it has an A&W!!

...and good sunsets.

Me man, make photogenic fire.

Chasing the sun from NH to CA

I also stood duty a few Sundays ago - September 11th.  Like so many of you who blogged/posted on that day, I thought about how quickly those ten years had passed and how things have changed since - in my life and in the world.  If you had asked me on 9/11 what I'd be doing exactly ten years later, I would never have imagined I'd be in a Marine Corps uniform, pistol on my belt, saluting the flag, preparing for a second deployment to Afghanistan.  Globally, on 9/11 the idea of "The End of History" ended as we recognized another ideological challenger to Western Democracy and entered the fight of our generation. (Unfortunately, much of the moral clarity of that period has since been lost - a situation for which I blame hyper-partisanship and a superficial and sensationalist press...but that's a whole other post).

Anyway, that just about brings us to today, when I'm on a five-day weekend, thanks to a 96 plus a day off for my birthday.  This Thursday I'll head out to Yuma, AZ for WTI (as previously briefed), where I'll be in the field until the end of October.  Somehow, that sand and heat just isn't the same as the CA coast.  So I'm gonna go out and enjoy it while I can.  See ya!