Well, the time has come. Tomorrow I'm off to the recruiter's office at 1100, and from there to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS, The Most Boring Place on Earth), and then on Monday, I fly off to Basic Training. I may or may not be allowed to keep my phone during this upcoming week (08/03 - 08/09), but after that I will definitely be incomputercado for all of Basic Training, and probably the first week or two of Officer Candidate School. Expect me to be gone until probably the last week of October or the first week of November, but by this point in time I've talked to all of the players in all of my games about all of this more than once, and I plan on picking things up as soon as I am able. If nothing else, I will be able to better communicate a timeline when I return - and I might/should be able to surface long enough to say "Hey" and check in with all of you folks at the end of Basic.

I've also communicated this to the people on here I talk to on the regular, but it's worth saying here again: Thank you, all of you, for putting up with my shenanigans over the decade plus that we've been playing these silly games together, and for the nearly four years I've been running JI and Kingdom. You have all not only been great sports, but great friends as well. Everyone that I talk to on the regular is on the list to be contacted by my mother when I tell her the protocol and address for sending me letters at Basic (which should be a week from Monday or Tuesday), and if you want to find out, Reagan, Dave, or Mike, just ask Adam or Robert and they can hook you up. Out of all the things I'm going to miss while I'm at Basic Training, the ability to talk to you folks every day and simply ask how you're doing is far and away number one, so if you have time to write, just simply telling me how things are going for you would be all I need to feel connected to you all.

My life will be changing - probably, hopefully for the better - and while the next few months will be rocky, playing these games and writing with you all is #1 on my priority list to get straightened out again. I will be back, the games will continue, and I will talk to you all soon - I promise.

Vanishing time #2! I start classing up for OCS tomorrow, and on Wednesday I (hopefully) start OCS proper. The first two or three weeks of Basic Phase are pretty full-on, and there's a decent chance that I won't be around save Sundays. I'll try to get stuff up then, but I might be too busy, so no guarantees. I'll be back from November 26th to the 30th for Thanksgiving, but then it's straight back and into the field for Land Nav that week. Christmas exodus is from the 19th of December to the 3rd of January, supposedly, so I'll be back then and there will definitely be shenanigans, but then when I go back it's into the field once more for the Field Leadership Exercise, where I'll probably be completely out of contact for ten days. But! Then after that, we move up into Intermediate Phase, and things should start to calm down. More updates will come either here or individually over IM, but that's how things stand at the moment.