a last day

chef morning
for the section breakfast, i started the day shopping for chocolate milk and cheese - two of the only items that i personally wouldn't be able to enjoy. the chef met me outside, and my "usual" ride dropped him off at the entrance to the base.

smelly ride
we then picked up a couple of guys from our base. one of them has apparently failed hygiene 101; his "scent" made it difficult to breathe and caused me to feel nauseous.

"thursday's a shit movie"
the breakfast was great, and satisfying. my automatic response to the above shared sentiment was "and you're shit people"... i wasn't kidding when i told them that that wasn't a disproportionate response, merely me sharing how i feel regardless of their attitude towards the movie itself :P

seriously, though - i don't get how such a great movie has such a low rating.

the only tough thing about the breakfast was cleaning up afterwards - i'm fairly certain that more damage was done to my hearing by the vacuum cleaner than by any of the parties i've been to this year :(

bit drawing
primary job for the day: translating bit masks to pixels using mspaint and lots of patience. it was... grounding.

voicemail
sorting out my voicemail was a mission this morning, as is everything with the sat-phone company. once they had finally connected me, i called in and set it up. then i tested it. it didn't work. it turned out that the person who had set it up for me initially had forgotten to check the options that determine when a call is transferred. brilliant!

late lunch
lunchtime conversation revolved around israeli culture and the problems inherent in it being such a young country. i settled on the concept of global social stagnation: for the past hundred or so years, cultures have been merging non-stop and those merges have left gaping holes. the religions of money and warfare have pretty much closed off most avenues for the majority, and caring for the weaker of the species, a noble enterprise, has also become a really costly one for the strong and sensible.

for israelis specifically, it's simply always been that way. it's no wonder, then, that attitudes remain childish and that holocaust mentality (the perpetual fear of being victimized or taken advantage of) still reigns.

the western concept of sanity has been eroded to its inverse. who can we look to for comparison?

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youth in politics: i believe in two improvements to democracy.
1) transformation to meritocracy, requiring qualifications and performance to be factors in postings to government positions
2) that a significant portion (preferably at least 50%) of any governmental body must be young and unmarried. when one gets married and has children, he is physiologically obliged to place his family's situation and interests ahead of everyone else's. this is unavoidable, and we need people in charge who actually care.

we need idealism in our leaders, not the bitterness that comes with having risen through the ranks of corrupt or useless nobodies. let the advisors share their experience, but the hopeful and invulnerable should do the pushing and pulling.

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ecstasy disinformation
this being the week celebrating the war on drugs, that pillar of human stupidity that burns us all by carrying an insatiable demand for our resources and denying something that is inherently a part of our lives (everyone gets their fix somehow, whether it's sex / love, religion, money, sport, food or chemical), a presentation was sent around to upset me.

you see, about 85% of the information presented was accurate. the rest was fear mongering disinformation, slipped in in a manner that will easily distort the surrounding text. i don't think this is a good idea - i've always maintained that this provides a perfect pretext for exaggerated drug use: "well, they lied about that, so how can i trust the rest of what i was told? screw 'em!"

that's just my opinion. one specific thing that bothered me: psychotropic does not mean hallucinogenic.

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actually useful
the last part of the day was covered by a fairly productive meeting and a short code review, both of which gave me the sensation that i'd actually done something on my last day of the year. i've now gone through what was undoubtedly my worst year (in the military, everything else was awesome), and i'm really, really glad it's over.

laundry
not wanting to leave my house-sitters with a pile of laundry, i found myself in a quandary. then it hit me - laundromat! the guy did me a favour, and assured me that it would be ready to go by tomorrow afternoon :)
i also discovered that bleach is not the answer to my penny arcade hoodie's problems, i need to dry-clean it. i'll do that when i return.

monkeying
i got it together to put the waterproofing on my roof, which was quite fun and terrific exercise. i felt super-skilled (and heavy; i'd forgotten how heavy i am) clambering up the burglar bars fairly nimbly, holding myself up with one hand while securing cable ties with the other. my timing was perfect - it began to drizzle just as i was finishing up!

i don't have any way of knowing that this is the right solution, and i'm praying that the impact of the next serious shower will be deflected...

rained frisbeer
five minutes after i was done, i was meeting scrapper with a frisbee and two beers in hand. we went to rabin square, and had a few throws before the rain came bucketing down. we rushed to the tree in the centre, put on our jackets (my bright orange ye-olde troop jacket was perfect!) and carried on, and i was thoroughly and happily immersed in a session that i would've been proud of even if we hadn't been in an extraordinary situation ^_^

now i have a couple of super-sweaty items that won't be cleaned by tomorrow... oh, well :P

sammy twists the knife
sammy arrived, bearing a gift that i'm extremely pleased with ^_^
we sat at coffeeholic (i needed the lentil soup), passed by the ilke (it was too crowded for sammy, i squeezed through to say hi to ta2 for a couple of minutes and then rejoined him), and then sat down to munch at michal's (haven't been there in a while).

the night went on a little later than was wise, because i was going to get all this down before going to bed anyway, and now i have to be up in less than five hours on my holiday :P [one last hectic day to sort everything out, and then it's time to fly!]

103 - the office is the other excuse ;)