couple things...

okay. first, i've gotta say you guys are absolutely awesome. thanks so much all of you. i really appreciate all the offers of tastykakes and ikea runs and everything else as a response to my earlier post. and i apologize, i didn't mean to sound like i was asking you guys for stuff, no guilt trips, honest. keep reading, i'm not gonna ask for collections for a new ipod (or tissot seastar), i promise.

i'm gonna tell my mom and my dad. and i'll probably tell them before i go. i just don't see the point of telling them now, or several months ago and causing my mom to worry for several months. she can't change anything, but she'll worry anyways. so i'll give her a couple more months of blissful ignorance.

so. funny story. my dad joined the navy way back when. he'd failed out of the seminary, sucked at selling insurance and his brothers had gone through the navy and done well for themselves afterwards. so he thought he'd give it a shot. at the time, if you wanted to the G.I. Bill you had to serve in a combat zone, so he volunteered for service in Vietnam. did he tell his folks? oh hells no. how'd they find out? he broke his glasses. he needed to get a radio patch to the local radio station and have them tap into the local phone system so he could get his mom to get his prescription and send it over. not as happy as they could be. especially when the next time they saw him he had a wife and two kids... short story long, he fell in love with that part of the country and didn't want to come home.