Highlights: worked on notes, Blog & videos

Aside from studying aircraft systems & limitations for an hour or two today, I got some work done updating my notes from the Vietnam trip. That’s a step in the right direction to getting my official report done.

Keeping a blog going takes a healthy bite of your time,,, and the only thing that makes me feel guilty about throwing myself into it, is that I can’t use it as a work product. Trip reports are the official product I have to generate to describe all my travel,,, but the blog serves a lot of useful purposes too, besides keeping my mom in touch with my adventures overseas. For one thing- it’s more accessible to anyone interested enough to drop in. it has pictures & videos. Doug, the Marine taking my place later this summer, gets to see what his life will be like in Indonesia long before he gets here, and my predecessors Bill & Bob can see parts of Indonesia that they missed, as well as “keep in touch” with the culture they learned about last year & the year before.

Aside from that, It is pretty rewarding hearing how many Indonesians living abroad check-in with the blog to see how their home country is doing these days. Those who haven’t been “home” in a while leave me little comments on the blog to say thanks. (= My friend Destri taught her American husband what her home country is like, in part, with my blog as a useful tool. (= ha ha. the idea of opening a “window” to Indonesia for friends back home,,, to demystify an interesting part of the world many Americans know little about… it’s all worth the effort.

Anyways- so I worked on that today, since I’m not on the flight schedule. Got a break there.