Letter to a friend

Dear Christian,

It's early here, a little after 6:00 am, and I've been wide awake since a little after 3:00.  I am very nearly on the verge of quitting trying to maintain some semblance of a normal sleep schedule.  It's Wednesday, the third of my "five days off" week that I get once a month and I'm at a loss as to what to do with the time.  3:00 am is a bad time to be awake.   It's really too early to begin the day, and it's a bit too late to crack open a bottle of wine to try to induce slumber.

I've not heard from you in a bit, and my assumption is you are still living your enviable life of glamour and travel, interspersed with hefting boxes of wine on The Rock.

Anyway, I thought I'd fire off a short missive this morning, mostly because Facebook crashed on me a couple hours ago and so I have been pissing away the morning surfing various RV and sailing blogs and sites.

I envy those people who have stepped away from the rat race and travel about, either by land or sea, in mobile penury.  I've also been surfing Craigslist and day-dreaming about selling off all my shit and buying a small trailer and hitting the road myself.  Alas, I've still about 1950 more days until I can attempt such a feat.  

On September 1, 2017, I shall retire from the employ of the ACSO with a small, but (if I can learn to live frugally) adequate retirement income of about $1600 a month, which I can supplement doing small odd jobs and such.  I'm also pondering a more adventurous action and moving somewhere more tropical and less first-world, with Belize at the top of the list, followed by Costa Rica, Brazil and Peru.  My Spanish is passable and I'm sure $1600 would go a lot farther there.  Baja has an appeal, but Mexico proper seems to be a quagmire of corruption and crime.  

Of course, I am not sure Stine is truly on board with the concept.  As you are aware, the goal is to travel for a few years, then find a hunk of remote land where we can build a tiny efficient cottage, have a garden, raise some critters and enjoy some clean, country living.  Stine wants horses.

I'm contemplating starting breakfast and then maybe getting around to cleaning the garage...again.  After my fiasco doing squats a few weeks ago, it has fallen into disrepair, but Stine and the dogs are still in bed and I don't want to make noise and disturb her sleep.

As for work, it is there and I am learning to just treat it as what I must do to put food on the table and wine in the fridge.  I am slated to go to SLC in June to help some guy I know set up a machine gun shoot for some rich guys.  That should be pretty fun.  Other than that, I have no plans or schemes to take any trips.  I am up for anything, assuming I can work out the financial aspects of it, so let me know.  My passport is valid and my feet are itchy.    

I hope things are going well for you as we rush headlong into summer.  It was fucking 90F here yesterday.  In April!

Let's start a war.

-mark