Still scanning in pics and typing up my notes. (Yes, I actually took notes for most of the trip.) In the meantime, I bring you…. The Jason Arc In Five Minutes.

I love Te so very much right now…

Back in the states. Notes on the trip, pictures, and random blather coming soon.

In less than 24 hours, I’m going to be on a plane for Ireland. For every single person who has asked if I’m excited, well boy howdy - I’ve only ever had two lifelong goals, and this is one of them. I’m getting to do something I’ve dreamed about since before puberty, and I’m doing it *before* I’m thirty. Good buggering god, I’m more excited than a kid on christmas eve.

That being said, I’m going to thwack the next person who asks upside the head, ’cause I’m just so damm sick of the question. The people who actually know me? Don’t *need* to ask.

‘Cause it made me smile. Thanks Doug.

Our Father, who 0wnz heaven, j00 r0ck!
May all 0ur base someday be belong to you!
May j00 0wn earth just like j00 0wn heaven.
Give us this day our warez, mp3z, and pr0n through a phat pipe.
And cut us some slack when we act like n00b lamerz, just as we teach n00bz when they act lame on us.
Please don’t give us root access on some poor d00d’z box when we’re too pissed off to think about what’s right and wrong, and if you could keep the fbi off our backs, we’d appreciate it.
For j00 0wn r00t on all our b0×3s 4ever and ever, 4m3n.

If anyone’s thinking of trying to get in touch with me June 17-25, I’ll be on vacation. In Ireland. That sound you hear? Less than frantic last minute preperations. I plan on taking lots of pictures and *hiding* whenever Bill pulls out the video camera.

In spite of planning this thing for the last six months, (getting a passport is a pain in the ass, but not so bad as renewing a dirver’s license) it still barely seems real to me that in less than a week I’m going to be in a foreign country. ‘Course, being a huge european history buff and having wanted to do this *all my life*? Has nothign to do with the hamster running around in my head going “eeeeee!”.

Reagan is dead. And, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last five years or so and missed the bi-yearly news updates about the ex-president slipping ever farther away… sheesh.

As when Nixon shuffled off this mortal coil, I’m torn between a complete blase “eh”, not wanting to speak terribly ill of the dead, and wanting to stand up and smack all the posthmous ass kissers.

The sainthood of the recently dead is a puzzlement to me. If I cared about them when they were alive, I am saddened by their demise. If I didn’t care one way or another when a person was alive; chances are, I won’t care one way or another when they kick off.

That all being said, I wouldn’t wish the the slow dissolution of a loved one one *anyone*, but that’s as far as it goes.