We acquired a company earlier this year and I have been spending a lot of time on the road trying to integrate all things legal, hence limited blogging time. It’s kind of interesting because they are a tech company with a lot of the stereotypical traits, as in attire consisting of bermuda shorts and sandals. The parent company is quite the opposite – think IBM in the fifties. My “home” division is more business casual, but I still feel a little out of place when I wear jeans. I just love walking into the office there and announcing that “I’m from Corporate – I’m here to help”. At first everyone just rolled their eyes and thought the days of free espresso were numbered, but everyone now seems to understand that I HATE corporate crap. I’ve even been told by the Gen. Mgr. that I am welcome to come up just to “hang out”.

Throughout all of these road trips Real Wife has soldiered through her chemo treatments in followup to the lumpectamy back in June. The last one was two weeks ago, but she’s still pretty beat down. They have had a cumulative effect, with the “good” days fewer and further apart. After each treatment she received a single shot that, by itself, costs $5,000 (its for pumping up white blood cells and made by a cloning process using recombinant DNA). Thank God for passably decent insurance. How she has been able to teach school each day amazes me, but I think she should start feeling better soon. Next week the radiation treatments start – every weekday for six weeks. According to the docs, the side effects will be very minimal. We are hoping that the worst part will be the 45 mile drive each way. All in all a pretty crappy summer for all.

As to the title to this post, I took my oath for the USAF thirty-five years ago today. I was sitting on the patio in the dark last night thinking about how long ago it seems and all of the ups and downs since then. It has been unseasonably warm here, but there was a nice cool gentle breeze that brought me back to Lackland. I somehow had the good fortune of being assigned the duty of emptying the squadron trash into the dumpster each night. I say good fortune because it was an opportunity, however brief, to enjoy solitude under the starry skies – away from the TIs and the rest of the squadron. San Antonio was hot during much of my boot camp, but each night there was that same cool breeze I felt last night. It’s funny the things you remember most.