Welcome back to the story & the blog.
Quick note - Back in Chapter 24 I commented on coin operated pool tables, and how I had no idea how it figured out what was a cue ball. Well, one of my readers knew! There is metal in the cue ball and a magnet routes the ball into the correct track to the cue return. Simple and brilliant. I never would have guessed that. Thanks.
There were a lot of interesting ideas tossed my way about what Carl should do next in his life.
• The CIA will want him as a Spec Ops warrior. (As I said, before, he’s just a busted-up company grade artillery officer. They can hire any number of perfectly good Special Forces or SEALs for what they need.)
• The NSA will want him for code breaking or crypto work. (This actually made a fair bit of sense. It’s not going to happen, but this was really an interesting idea. It could be made to work.)
• The Army will want him as a civilian contractor. (Doing what wasn’t made very clear and sounds pretty far-fetched to me.)
• Building a computer or software company. (This also made a certain amount of sense, although a lot of the big names had already started by then. It could be made to work.)
In chapter 62, we finally learn what Carl is going to do in the future - venture capital. Of all the guesses I got, only one person mentioned this! Keep reading for more on this.
There were several comments that Carl shouldn’t have had to move his own stuff. The Army has a duty to ship your possessions from your last duty station to your last civilian address of record at their expense. This is true. However, my experience with my son, who is in the Navy, is that the military moves you at their convenience, not yours, and by their mover, not yours. My son lost several reserved apartments on his last move and would have had to deploy to his next duty station ahead of his wife, by over two months, because the Navy’s movers were booked. He ended up getting a PODS and moving himself, and then getting reimbursed later. As another point, Carl’s last civilian address of record was in Troy, NY, not Lutherville, MD.
Enjoy!