the .: fyr :. light

Your first military terminology class is now in session.

We PCS here in about 6 weeks. PCS means Permanent Change of Station – it means we are to report to a new duty station. I know you are looking at that “we” and wondering whether I have enlisted myself … I haven’t, but the thing is, it IS we.  His is now mine and hence “we” report to a new duty station … how odd is that for the FyrFli you all knew?

It isn’t final FINAL definite, but at this stage I think it’s pretty much a done deal. The decision I had to make – the one I blogged about approximately 24 hours ago – was whether to assume it was final FINAL definite or to hang on until the very last minute in the hope that it was not final at all. Well, that was decided for me.  Word reached us last night whilst I was still agonizing, that we are indeed leaving Kentucky.

I had to tell my employers. THAT is the single most hardest thing I have had to do in a VERY long time. I don’t want to leave, yet at the same time I want to leave. I’ve made a big impression here, they have accepted me unconditionally. They “like” me. They like my style. They like my attitude. I have fit right in here … and now I have to leave before I even had the chance to do anything at all except earn their trust and admiration.  Despite all that, there is just no way I am going to be staying without hubby.

It is a complex set of emotions that plague me. Kentucky has not been kind to me – what with allergies and a lack of employment opportunities – yet it is the first place I set roots down upon my migration here last year. I’ve made friends (as well as I can make friends anyhow), I’ve familiarized myself with the land, the layout, the weather, the people … the accent (somewhat). I refer to it as “home”.

For someone who has never done “change” very well at all, THIS is a big deal right here. Change is upon me, in a VERY big way and in more ways than I even want to consider right now.

Yet, I am excited at the prospect of this adventure that we are about to embark upon. And an adventure it seems to me at this point. New territory to be explored.  The dubious pleasure of meeting new people… and I say it’s a dubious pleasure simply because I am still very much an introvert and I wonder if I shall ever change. A whole new slew of experiences awaits and I am determined to greet them all with a welcoming smile.

At the same time, I am anxious that stuff will break, or get lost … that the cats will be traumatized for days … weeks afterward. That we’ll forget stuff. That something unforeseen will happen and find us unprepared. That I will absolutely HATE the new place and spend the next 2 to 3 years yearning for Jamaica or even Kentucky…then I kick myself because I KNOW that unless I think positively, I will doom myself to misery.

All in all, it is a very confusing and dramatic time. As things progress, I will blog more about what is happening and where we are going, but  for now at least I can come right out and say it now: in just a month or 2, we will have a new home.

My wordpress installation was acting funny since I upgraded to this latest version. I’d log into the dashboard and before it would finish loading the dashboard components, there would be an error saying that the amount of memory being allocated (or being attempted to allocate) was exceeded. There was no REAL indication what was causing the error. The file that the error was reporting from was a native wordpress include. So I thought about it for a while and concluded that the problem was most likely with a plugin since my other blog had no issues at all. It took me a while to work up the energy to fool around with them since I would need to do it one of these nights when I am just home from work, not in-game and in the mood to fool with it so that I impacted the least number of readers/viewers as possible (as if there are THAT many).

Well, I messed with a few plugins … namely the ones that are NOT on the other blog and found it was the plugin that found broken links. Yes that same plugin I wrote about not too long ago on that same other blog. Now, I can’t be sure whether the situation is that this plugin is just messing with another plugin or whether it is itself buggy. I don’t really care since it’s usefulness is short-lived anyway and I was pretty much done with it. As it is, I am just glad I can see my dashboard again.

Tonight, I came to a very difficult decision. It is a decision I have been agonizing over ever since I heard we may have to move. It is a decision that while made is going to be just as difficult to follow through on. What is this decision? I want to tell you SO bad, my dear readers. Some of you may already be in the know … the rest of you … /sigh I hope you’ll bear with me until I CAN tell you.

The point is that this life I have chosen – the life of a military spouse – is one that is fraught with all sorts of stresses and pressures and each and every time I realize this, I realize again just HOW much I am fully dedicated to the life.  Folks, for someone who was once so fiercely independent, so adamantly a creature of habit and a consummate loner … this is a startling, mind-blowing realization. Love is a POWERFUL thing. And I am SO very lucky to have found it.

(EDIT: The issue does not exist on the other blog, yet the plugin is also installed there … so maybe the issue is, after all, an incompatibility with some OTHER plugin I have on here… hmm….)

(SECOND EDIT: The issue was made moot this morning (26th). I shall blog more on that in a later post.)

I have a couple of observations to share with you today … I’ve been in the doldrums for a couple of days now and it’s mostly circumstances. I have moments of pure bliss thanks to my friends and family, but it’s hard to stay bright and sunshiny … though I try; hard.

• It sucks pretty bad when a work colleague says to you they like you, that they are going to miss you being around and that it’s a damn shame that you’re leaving … and then you realize that you have no choice in the matter.
• It sucks even worse to not know whether you WILL be leaving even up until almost the last minute. It especially sucks because I don’t know what to tell people (employer).
• I REALLY need to find a way to earn and be occupied using the internet as my commute – I KNOW I won’t be able to do this separation every 2 or 3 years without totally falling apart each time.
• Pain is something that has been a staple in my life for years … and I am only now (these last few weeks) noticing just how much pain I am in, have been in … more too, that pain is not only joint pain but muscular as well and it isn’t particularly predictable either. Makes me wonder just how much of this was contributory to the quality of my last days at Digicel.
• There are stupid people everywhere; picture this: thunderstorms and heavy rainfall today, sprinklers set to go ALL night and ALL day tomorrow. Yea … that happens here.
• I miss being able to blog about every aspect of my life with openness … there is so much I can’t say about my here and now that feels stifling.
• This is month 3, and still nothing … and I hope I can stave off the desperation and frustration and just keep at it. Sorry, can’t say anything more about that – see what I mean?
• There aren’t too many people who understand my life as it is now and that creates such a vacuum in my life … makes me feel isolated and alone.
• I am still addicted to WoW but I try to stay away and do other things more often than I used to – I think that’s progress.
• I have the best husband on the face of this earth … yes, I know … I am biased and expected to be that way, but I still have to say it.
• And finally, I miss being connected to the geek world and knowing about stuff. I had a good friend ask me “Where have you been?” when I didn’t know what a SSD was.

One day, I may be able to provide enlightenment for some of these observations, but until then … bear with me.

/sigh

I’ve not posted for a LONG time, so lemme catch you all up:

• I’ve been working hard and long and I am mostly exhausted, except when I deny myself sleep and play my warlock again like I never stopped.
• We got a truck bed cover for the truck so that when we move, we’ll be able to pack stuff into the truck without fear of them blowing out, getting soaked or being exposed to eyes everywhere.
• Oh yea – we’re supposed to be moving … although there is no real way to know whether we are or not, so we wait.
• My WoW account got closed for a violation of Blizzard’s Terms of Service (TOS) but was actually an accident, or so Blizzard told me a week later. Go figure. I blame them for my re-addiction.
• Finally, iPhone 3.0 is out and this is what I wanna talk about today:

You see, I been waiting for it for MONTHS. Anxiously anticipating it’s arrival, was MAD when I had to go to work early today so I missed the actual release time … but now that I am home and have downloaded it and installed it, it feels anticlimatic. Why? I am still trying to figure it out. Probably because I haven’t yet had a chance to share it with anyone … or maybe it’s just that I STILL can’t zoom my camera for closeups … or maybe it’s because AT&T officially does not offer MMS until “the end of summer“… I see no difference in the “improved calendar” (maybe it’s because somehow I had those features before with third-party solutions) …  and I, personally, have NO use for voice messages yet … it was a pleasant surprise to find my iPhone notes in Mac OS X Mail … but the best part of it so far was that  I DID manage to FULLY enjoy being able to cut, copy and paste stuff … and THAT I still have yet to test extensively.

Aside from all of this, however, I DO notice that the interface and response is snappier .. although I may need to REALLY stress it to see for sure because in order to hack my iPhone to show the MMS option, I had to restart the phone to take the settings – so maybe it’s not as fast as I thought it might be.

What pisses me off about this mixed tragedy and blessing iPhone 3.0 software was that they burned all of us “old” iPhone users by giving the new guys stuff that this damn phone should have had YEARS ago and for people like me to get the upgrades, I have to fork out anywhere from $400 to $600 – which I think is ridiculous. Just like with Blizzard, I wonder everyday WHY we give our money to these people.

Like everything else in this country, I am beginning to realize that this whole “customer is king” spiel is a farce. There is no way *I* can be king when what I want costs an arm, a leg, and two whole eyeballs – in so many more ways than 1.

I keep saying that Jamaicans bitch and complain about stuff – how people “fight ‘gainst” … an’ I’ve been here less than a year and already I see where I had it good there … GOOD I tell you. In Jamaica, want a new phone, buy it. It might be expensive in Jamaican money terms, but: (1) the prices are still subsidized and work out less than you would get overseas – never-mind the limited varieties … and (2) none of the providers tell you that you can’t upgrade because your contract is still young.  They don’t even care if you upgrade so long as you pay your damn bill. /sigh

Anywho – it’s late, I am tired (and very disappointed) and I am going to bed.