In 1970, on this date, I was discharged from the United States Air Force after serving for four years. Then, four years seemed like several ice ages and this magic date is forever burned into my memory from the many thousands of times then that I wished it would hurry up and get here so I could go out into the world and do what I wanted with my life. Given that I spent most of the last year and a half of my time in the service under threat of court-martial also gave me strong incentives to move on. But, that’s a story for another day.
Things are progressing here in preparation for my departure to New Zealand on November 10th. I’m down to 20 days or so now and I’ve drawn up a day-by-day calendar which I can use to allocate my time and measure how much I have to do vs. how much time I have to do it in. Someone should do a study about how much pleasure people get from drawing up lists of what they have to do vs. how much pleasure they actually get from doing the things on the list. . I know which I like better.
There’s been a flurry of articles appearing on Perfect Storm issues the last few days. I’m going to post several this morning after I finish and post this one.
Cheers!
There’s an old saying that we gather pleasure from a trip in thirds: planning, doing, and recalling. I wish I could remember who said that first. It’s interesting to note that your lead-in to anticipating your trip to NZ was in recalling your adventure, such as it was, in the Air Force. The same with me. Vietnam was my coming-of-age experience. I didn’t appreciate it at the time for where it would direct me in the future. Now it’s in integral part of who I am. Later, when I went to college, its impact on me was not as great as it should have been. I had already experienced something more grand, if we disregard the morality issue.