I'm Back

by Michael J. Totten

I’m back from my consulting job. As you can see from the photograph I spent most of my time in Iraq, in the Kurdistan region. (Jeez, it is hot there in July!) I wasn’t misleading you when I said my work was non-writing related. I don’t have nearly as many stories as I would have had if I went there as a journalist. Unfortunately I can’t tell you what I was doing or who I was working for. For now, though, I will say that I was not there working for any government. My gig was a temporary private sector one, and maybe (I don’t know yet) I’ll be able to explain it sometime in the future.
Getting out of the Middle East during the Lebanon/Israeli conflict was a lot more…interesting than being in Iraq. War and the flow of refugees put the kibosh on my travel plans home, and I had to route through Tel Aviv at a time of war to get back. This was totally unexpected and — I imagine this goes without saying — unpleasant. I will explain when I recover from exhaustion and jet lag.
Many thanks again to Callimachus for filling in for me when blogging just wasn’t possible. Many thanks also to those of you who sent Pay Pal donations while I was away from regular email access. I will try to send individual thank you notes as soon as I can, late though they may be.