Happy New Year!

It's not really new years here in Asia. Why? Because Lunar New Year is what they celebrate around here. That's cool, another day off for GI Justin like the Superbowl (methinks there were just too many calls in sick over the years and/or people drinking at work watching it on TV anyway). I'll take it- eventhough I won't watch it, because I'd rather watch drunk people sing Karaoke (It's Norebang here) than football. And you can't even watch it for the commercials. Why? Armed Forces Network (AFN) has to edit them out because they can't endorse any product or company. So it's no good anyway. I watched it off and on last year in the Sandbox, but only because to not watch it would get you branded a commie and what the heck, I had to work that day and the other 122 I was there. 4 months I'll never get back. What's 4 hours then?
In any case, I hope 2009 is a good year. There's a lot of things going on for me and the rest of the world. If Kim Jong Il was smart, he'd attack us during the Superbowl, but I wonder if we're just going to wait them out. Let their airplanes wear out, their shells disintegrate, and their people fall apart and starve to death. I'm guessing that's their strategy, because absorbing 22 million people healthcare and education nightmares would cripple this economy even with their lower birthrate. I guess they could just absorb a few miles a year until they get it all. Just say in 2009, they'll move the DMZ to the 39th parallel and go up from there. Good luck keeping that orderly.
I've talked too much about that stuff. 2009 will be a good year. I'm working with good people, our family is healthy (despite Violet popping positive for TB), we're safe and not worried about finances and our marriage. We drive junky cars, but that's part of the adventure. Only the cool kids drive crappy cars anyway. I know I'm not compensating for something at least.
I did just finish the mini-series from 1978 called "Centennial" based on the book by James A. Michener. It was interesting, to say the least. I don't even remember too much from 1978 (I was in Kindergarten) but that show was really good. Maybe it was that sort of 'connection to the land' that convinced me to buy land in Idaho City- although none of my ancestors lived up there. I fought forest fires up there in 1992, and camped there in the 1980s for Church and Scouts, but it's not sacred land like Kirtland or Nauvoo. I'll tell you, there's no better place to build a doomsday compound- there's more backhoes and police scanners per capita there than anywhere else. I'm a fiddle-playing, SKS-owning, ham radio-operating, dirt-bike-driving, military trained Mormon-survivalist. I think I'll fit right in. But I'll have to outsource the gutting of animals, because -YUCK.
Here's my Christmas Present to myself. Get a Harley if you want to keep the midlife crises away. I'm too young for that phase of life, but now the door is open to get something bigger when/if I make it that far or Julie doesn't trade me in for a trophy husband. I'll get a cigarette boat or an airplane to be dumb in.