Five in NoJoMo 2016

Write about your siblings. How many? Where are they? What do they do? Do you get along better now than you did when you were kids?

I have one younger brother. He lives, again, in Northern Virginia. For the past couple of years, he’d been living in Texas, on account of his wife’s job. While he was down there, he was doing some data science work for a major telecommunications company, away from government. Now that he’s back in NoVA, he’s back to dealing with supporting government (what our father did for the time after he retired from the Army, and I’ve been doing for the last decade).

I don’t know, exactly, what he’s doing. His interests were always a bit different than mine. His education also far-exceeds mine. For awhile, there, my work experience made up for my lack of post-graduate education. I’m not sure if that’s true, anymore. I also really suck at Minesweeper, so I don’t have a list of initials to string after my name on my LinkedIn profile.

He and I get along a lot better than we did when we were younger. I really didn’t like his high school girlfriend, later first wife, very much. (He probably felt the same way about my longtime girlfriend from high school and college....)

There were a few contentious incidents when we were both in our teens. I also didn’t appreciate his attitude on several things. shrug

Since we’ve been apart, and he’s been away from his first wife, we’ve gotten along pretty well. Our wives seem to get along well, too. (And, M., my wife’s newfound fantasy football obsession is your fault.....she’d refused to play before you urged her....)

Since our dad died, and I quit driving (and making decent money!), it’s been hard to get together with him. When he was in TX, I think I only saw him once. I haven’t seen him, yet, since they’ve been back in VA.

Today is his birthday. I have very vague recollections of my mom being pregnant, and his birth. I was three. I remember more dealing with some of his health issues as a young kid (both at the Naval Medical Center probably about half a mile from where I now live, and at the University of Kansas Medical Center in KC).

I know I hurt him more than once. Protip: don’t put a full crock pot on a bench seat because you don’t have something free on the floor. I also did things to take care of him. (I won’t elaborate.)

He, actually, was probably the one who came closer to fulfilling our parents’ wishes. When I was in high school, then beyond, I really was intent on trying to set my own path. Varying results, there, but he never ended up working in a hellhole like I did for a few years. I don’t root for the sports teams our dad did. (And my adherence to Royals’ fandom yielded thirty years of disappointment....)

Today is his birthday. I seem to remember snow sometime shortly after he was born. It’s stayed pretty warm here this year.

I’m going to stop now, because there’s not a lot more to say, really.