you guys are the best freakin cheering squad a fellow could ask for. but that's not always what i'm looking for out of blogging. i'm not fishing for compliments or anything. i should probably keep a journal or diary as well as this, but to be honest, i'm much to lazy to annotate stuff twice. as always there are random thoughts floating about and i find that getting them out there helps me figure out what is going on in my head. fleshes stuff out more, makes me think things through and helps me make better decisions. the other thing i like is being able to go back and see what was going on. not enough time has really passed to fully appreciate this benefit, but already i've flipped back to the beginning to get the frame of mind from iraq to help decide whether to go again or not.

anyways, the long and short of this is that in the near future i might write some stuff, but i might turn comments off on some posts. it's not that i don't appreciate the feedback, but the way some of it's written might sound like i'm fishing for "attaboys" and pats on the head when i'm really not. some of this is my own freakish paranoia. i see someone doing something i don't like and i'm super paranoid of doing the same thing. i just don't want to lose anybody because they think i'm always trying to paint myself in a certain light in order to get responses.

thanks for reading!