Friday, June 26, 2009

The end is in sight

I finished the screenplays section this morning. All that's left is Music and a few stage plays to make a final decision on. If I put in a long day tomorrow, and work a little more this afternoon or evening, I have a shot at finishing tomorrow. I'd still need to upload and check links but the editing would be done. A goal to shoot at.

Starbucks playing the Ray Charles / Count Basie album "Genius + Soul = Jazz." I remember this well because it was released when I was in the army in Germany and it was a very big deal to go the PX on main post and get a copy, which we then played endlessly in the billets for months. Though it was illegal, we'd drink beer in our rooms and listen to jazz until the wee hours. Indeed, our outfit felt more like a college dorm than the military, that is until a new CO came along with the idea that we should shape up. We'd been spoiled. Since we all had top secret codeword security clearances, since we were responsible to regular reports to the Pentagon, since what we did mattered, our previous CO had cut us a lot of slack -- if you do your job, I don't care what you do on your time off, was the gist of it. We could trade shifts (we had 24/7 shifts), whatever, as long as we translated the Russian and did our reports. It was a great deal -- well, until the new CO was appalled by our habits and decided to make real soldiers out of us, against which we rebelled, and when our work suffered, he got chewed out and so we reached a compromise, not quite as liberal as before but definitely not what the foot soldiers were doing. We tried to take all the advantages we could from our special status. But at work, we were damn serious. The Cold War was no laughing matter, even if the army sometimes was.


Back to sunshine, so when I'm done uploading for the day I'll do some yard work. Wish there was a ball game on. The Mariners start a damn tough road trip, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Red Sox. They need to break even at least. Their recent home stand was spectacular, 5 of 6. Ichiro is on fire, batting almost .370 for the season.

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