Just a quick post to say that I am home in the U.S.  It’s currently Monday night, about 7:25pm EST and I’m at my mom’s in Georgia.  I left Vietnam on Thursday morning, September 25th, and flew from HCMC to Taipei, Taiwan, onto Los Angeles, and then finally to Atlanta.  A very long flight – as always – made to feel a little longer this time around because I managed to slam the index finger on my right hand in the door of the taxi as I exited the taxi at the HCMC airport and badly smashed my finger.  I had to get a doctor at the HCMC airport to clean and bandage up my finger, then had to have the bandage replaced at the Taipei airport.  Finally, because it continued to bleed through the bandaging, I had to rebandage it myself using paper towels and adhesive tape on the flight from Taipei to LAX.  Here’s a photo my buddy Aaron (Mexi-Nugget) took of me and my finger at LAX – he met me for a cup of coffee during my layover:

Anyway, I got into Atlanta about 11:20pm Thursday night and my sister picked me up at the airport and drove me to her house in Auburn – about an hour and a half away.  I surprised her kids Friday morning – they didn’t know I was coming home early – and then we all surprised my mom again.  We have a videotape of her being surprised this time, but haven’t yet gotten it uploaded.  Once I get it uploaded, I will post it and tell the story.  I rode back with my mom and stepfather to their house in Thomaston, Georgia on Friday afternoon.

Saturday morning, I got up early and picked up my friend James (who visitied Vietnam with his wife, Erin, recently) and we drove over to Athens, Georgia for the UGA vs. Alabama game.  We hung out with my friends Will and Ashley and some other friends and then went to the game that night.  UGA got hammered by Alabama and the game was not that enjoyable, but we had a nice time in Athens anyway.  We spent Saturday night in Athens, then on Sunday I drove James back to Atlanta then went to visit my friends Dave C. and Jamie and their daughter Emily in Norcross.

I drove back to Thomaston last night (Sunday night) and went to bed about 9:00pm.  I ended up sleeping until about 11:00am this morning.  I am obviously still not adjusted to the time difference and am still being affected pretty strongly by jetlag.  I’m going to try to watch Monday Night Football tonight and stay up until at least 11:00pm.

Tomorrow I’ll continue hanging out in Thomaston, then it’s back over to Auburn to spend some more time with my sister’s family.  This weekend, I’ll be going over to Mississippi for the Ole Miss vs. South Carolina football game, and I’m also going to stop over in Demopolis, Alabama to visit my grandmother, Cacak.  I don’t have any firm plans after this coming weekend – I need to get up to Atlanta to see some people but I don’t think I’m going to make any more long road trips – gas is too damn expensive!

Today it’s been nice just hanging out and relaxing – I am enjoying being home a lot.  I just wish (a) I wasn’t so damn tired; and (b) the weather was a little cooler.  It’s cooler here than in Vietnam right now, for sure, but not as cool as I was hoping it would be.

I chatted with Thao over IM earlier today.  She’s apartment-sitting my place while I’m gone and said everything is going fine there.

More later after I wake up a little bit more and have a little more energy!