Broken Soldier

Two nights ago, while I was out smoking a cigarette, a man in an SUV rolled by. He saw me, stopped, pointed at me and said, "You look familiar, are you a Marine?"

I walked over to him, and said "No, I am not a Marine, are you?"

We talked for a bit, he told me about being a Marine, being communications specialist in Kabul, and picking up something there the US government calls "agent yellow". He showed me the blisters on his fingers.

Now you can Wiki agent yellow and read all about it, but it is officially listed as a "fictional chemical weapon". It is also listed as being in the possession of the entities: "military, paramilitary, and terrorist organizations".

The man was disoriented, clearly tired, and hungry. I told him my wife and I have been having a hard time ourselves, but all I could offer him was a little food, some advil, a cigarette, and a place to sleep. He didn't trust me, or anyone, it appeared. It took forever to get him to trust me just that I only wanted to help him and not harm him. I told him about Homeward Bound, a local Dallas organization that helps soldiers returning home to readjust to society. He eventually let me go upstairs and retried a small piece of meat and a potato for him, and some Advil. He at first agreed to take me up on my offer to let him sleep in my room (he was clearly very, very tired), and got as far as my floor before saying he would be right back and disappearing.

He said his name was Kevin. I don't know who he was, but I do believe he was a broken soldier, and needed to eat and sleep. I did what I could for him. It was all he would accept before he disappeared for him. I will pray for him, and would ask you to do the same.

Maybe one day I will see him again. I hope he's okay. At this time I don't know.

Feeling a Bit Unsafe

This entry was originally posted on my Facebook account on 5/19. Later that day I removed it from there and placed it here because frankly there are a lot of people on my FB friends list who:

(a) have no idea what has been happening in my life since mid-March of this year and would not understand, and furthermore don't believe this sort of thing ever happens to anyone anyway,
(b) will think I'm begging for money,
(c) will ask questions publically that I'd rather answer privately,
(d) will think I'm making it up, and/or
(e) will think I'm batshit crazy.

Not necessarily in that order. ;)

I also would like to disassociate what I write here with my actual identity for the time being, and if you are a follower of this blog, or intend to follow it, the reason for this will become clear as I continue to write here. If you already know who I am, feel free to link to or tell others about this blog but please keep my identity to yourself for now. Some of what I say here is... well lets just call it sensitive information. Hi, have we met? Nope.

Anyway, here's that FB entry:

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Last night I discovered why my laptop has been acting funny. At some point someone was able to modify many of my local security policies that allowed almost any other computer on the network (here, a hotel-wide wifi network) remote access of almost my entire machine. Now, local security policies are changed through administrator rights, with the user almost certainly having physical access to my machine. And as if that isn't freaky enough, listen to this. I worked into the night and around 4AM finally got my policies redone and ICP locked down, and reconnected to the network. Approximately 5 minutes later, the telephone in my room rang once time and stopped. The trace log I set up shows he's been trying everything under the sun to get back in, INCLUDING an attempt to kill and modify the trace log itself. Not to mention this person knew what room I'm in, and clearly wanted me to know he knew. Folks, I have balls he size of apples but I don't feel safe here anymore. If anyone is interested in helping us get out of this place ASAP, I'd appreciate anything anyone can offer, including getting me in touch with someone looking to sublet an apartment, rent a room in a house, and/or assist with moving. Even old friends with an automobile willing to give a few rides would be appreciated beyond words. Msg me privately, I am unwilling to give out my cell phone number publicly. Thank you and my God bless every single one of you.

How I Found My Soul

I grew up in the deep South. My mother's side of the family recognized only two religions: Baptist and not-Baptist. I was forced to attend church a few times as a young boy and hated every second of it. This dislike grew into a dislike of religion in general. At one point in my teens a good friend of mine convinced me to attend a service at his church, and I agreed. I knew no one. At some point he and I began quietly giggling over something, I don't remember at this point, but it was something innocent and we were not being disrespectful in any way. A man behind us stood up, and as he glared at us shouted, "You disgust me!" and stormed out of the building. Everyone around us looked at us as if we had loudly announced our intention to begin eating small children. Humiliated, I left as soon as I could. never to return.. not just to that church, but to any church. I haven't gone near a formal place of worship of any kind since 1987.

That was nearly 25 years ago. During that time I have been on my own search for universal truth. I listened with a completely open mind and without judgement to all spiritual beliefs, myths, ethos, theories, ideas and speculation. I was willing to accept any belief system proposed provided it passed two tests: The belief has be be fully reconcilable with known scientific law, and there needed to be observable supporting proof available. Fairly simple rules one would think.. but in 25 years nothing I heard was able to satisfy those two logical requirements to my satisfaction.

However, like a true agnostic, I continued to keep an open mind, and applied this test not only to theistic beliefs but to atheistic beliefs as well. To this day I still consider atheism to be illogical, because to be atheist requires just as much of a leap of faith as a theist. There may not be emperical evidence that a god exists, but there is also none to the contrary.

For two and a half decades I had been on this spiritual quest, without finding what I was looking for. How surprised I was, then, when what I had been trying to find, proof... found me instead.

In future entries I will be recoding my personal accounting of this event, and the seven weeks surrounding it, in as much detail as I can remember. It is a story so unbelievable that even I sometimes have a hard time believing it all. But it's true, it's my story, and I'm willing to share it here.

Stay tuned.

Sign of the Times

levontaun: I happen to believe that part stays with a person
levontaun: the fetish part anyway
chickpea981: only if it's a fetish
chickpea981: not if it was just an experimental phase
levontaun: Yes.
levontaun: Linux enabled
chickpea981: meaning?
levontaun: eek, wrong window!
levontaun: Nerdery caught red handed
chickpea981: well I hope you didn't just tell someone abotu your leather fetish

Party? Partaay.

Last night I was walking in with a twelve pack when a woman passing by said, "looks like someone is having a party!"

"Just a small party", I replied.

"A small party is better than no party at all!"

Words to live by.

It's not what you think

A few minutes ago I unthinkingly held the door open for a gay man that I know for a fact has a crush on me. Now I keep half expecting to come back to my desk and find flowers on it.

Delicious

I once saw a praying mantis eat a grasshopper's head. This does not make me feel any better about the natural course of the universe.

Harlot

If you are in the drive-through line at the cleaners, and you offer to pay for the clothes of they guy behind you just because he's young and driving a sports car... you're not bold, you're a slut.

Just don't

If you use the term "blogosphere", someone should hold you down and beat you with a bar of soap wrapped in a towel.

My concern is limited

My mother keeps telling me to get burial insurance or else they'll bury me in a plywood box. I always tell her that that would be a terrible waste of plywood.

If people are going to remember me, it probably won't be because my rotting corpse is surrounded by beautiful mahogony.

Business 101

Someone should tell the crack dealers around here that 10:15 AM on a Sunday morning is the wrong time of day to successfully ply their trade. Don't modern drug addicts have any business sense?

Thanks, but I'll take PBS

Remind me to telephone ESPN and inform them that, during the 2006 NBA finals, no one really cares about watching the finals from 1987.

Fooooooshhhhhhhhh

In a certain city in America, I am the reason they stopped leaving the fire extinguishers outside and unattended at gas stations.

Politiki

Any society that functions through compromise will never be better than the lowest common denominator.

Yeah, well, I'm hungry

You know you're broke when someone invites you to an Amway sales function and you go for the free meal.