Just after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

I was 11 years old and every night in our hotel room, my family would watch the news together and my father would explain in far too detailed of a manner how night vision works and why it looks green. That would become a long-standing inside joke among the four of us.

As it got later, we’d turn off the T.V. and my father would read us excerpts from George Carlin’s Brain Droppings to unwind before we went to bed. A typical bedtime reading for our family, however odd it would undoubtedly be for most.

It’s funny which memories stick with such vivid detail.