CARE Package-palooza

Wow, what a week it’s been.  There’s been a veritable avalanche of Care packages from the home front lately.  Things started off with a package from my brother-in-law Bill, with a load of magazines and other treats from Popular Mechanics and Hearst Publishing.  Interestingly enough, one of the issues of PopMech has plans for a motorized go-kart.  And wouldn’t you know it, the Exchange here is hosting a go-kart race on the Fourth of July.  The karts can’t be motorized, have to be propelled by sheer manpower (much like Honolulu’s Carole Kai Bed Race), but we’ll use the PopMech plans as a basis for the construction.  Photos to follow as we make some progress here.

Soon after, a package from my bride with powdered drink mixes, bison jerky (yeah, I’m a jerky junkie), special laundry detergent (without optical brighteners, for the warrior’s wash-day), and other treats, including a copy of Defend the Realm, a 900-page history of MI-5.  I Bogarted the jerky … sorry, but that’s not for sharing.

Two friends hooked me up with a grunch of CDs.  One package contained copies of two CDs of Greaseman bits, one of them full of tortuously funny (and, ahem, indelicate) routines about whacking Taliban in Afghanistan.  Then Ranger Bill fired off a collection of a half-dozen bootleg CDs of Roxy Music concerts, one of which was recorded in Boston in 1976 (I saw them live in Houston in 1976, the playlist is probably very similar, if not identical).  And Amazon finally came across with a two-CD set of Cream’s 2005 reunion concert in London.  I’m in musical hog heaven.

Bolt from the blue … sister-in-law Suzanne sent a Family Guy Freakin’ Party Pack.  No sooner did I open the box than I had to fight to keep the Party Pack in my hands.  The grubby hands of fellow Family Guy fans kept pawing at it.

The Fat Boy Biggest Loser contest ends with a final weigh-in on June 23^rd.  Rumor has it that several lady sailors from Eastport Yacht Club will be doing a Cookie Night for the Troops soon, with delivery scheduled for very soon after the 23^rd.

Considering that I’m in a war zone, separated from friends and family and home and beer, life isn’t too bad right now.

Now if only that box I sent to myself eight weeks (actually, almost nine weeks) ago from Kabul would arrive …