Time is short. We are now at my parents house. I report Monday morning and we fly out later in the week. This may very well be my last post for awhile. It is 20 degrees hotter than normal here. Since it is near triple digits back home we were hoping that it would be cooler here, but no such luck.

We added 17 more movies to the hard drive. It is an external hard drive that is reasonably portable. I wonder if I will be the only soldier with movies like "The Emperor's New Groove" and other cartoons. I don't care what other people think, I like them.

I still don't know if we will have connectivity in Wisconsin. That remains to be seen. We are going to get a four day pass towards the end of our training there. I don't know what I will do but I should be able to find time to post then if I can't any earlier. The rumor is we may not even have electricity for the time we are there. That means I will be able to use my cell phone for a week and then will have no way to recharge it. Rats!

We plan to attend church with my parents tomorrow. We tried to do that last week but things did not work out.

I've checked out...

so says my wife. My body is here but my mind is somewhere else. hmm...

On a side note there is so much to do and very few days to do it.

stuff but not too much of it

OK, I've been back from training since Thursday and every time I think about posting I feel like I don't have anything to write about. I've tried to catch up on all the sleep that I missed but of course that is not working out all that well.

Last Wednesday the Governor came and addressed all the troops at Yakima. You might have missed it, there didn't seem to be a lot of press coverage.

The Olympics are going on. If only we could forget all of the strife and have the spirit of friendly competition more. For those following at home, the Iraqi team is there...mostly. The had previously been banned from competition (politics?). I am trying to watch all that I can but it seems like the coverage is botched. I woke up this morning expecting to watch the US mens basketball team only to find out that it was only broadcast live on the east coast. (it wasn't even really all that early, 7:30 AM)

I was going to post a bunch of links to news articles that I found interesting but that seemed so impersonal.

I was gone for just about 30 days and now that I am back I find that I am not accustomed to the noise that small children make. Having trouble dealing with it and not sure what it will be like after a year but it is very clear to me that I am going to have to find some kind of mechanism to cope.

Watched the new Batman last Friday night. Left me wanting more, which is what a movie is supposed to do. The Joker was totally believable that there were some mental issues going on. That's all I'm going to say, don;t want to give out any spoilers.

Wrote some poetry while I was gone. I was really surprised that one of them took up a whole page and was just not some short 2 or 3 line poem.

I report back on the 18th. I should be able to get a couple of more posts off before then.

We are considering going back to the east side of the mountains for a few days before I have to be back. That's a lot of driving.

Just saw the new ad for the TV series "Heroes"- I was just thinking the other day that it had been so long since it was on that I would bag watching it anymore but the ad really sold me, I will probably have to wait until I get back and watch the whole season all at once.

NEW POST!!

• It's been hot here in Yakima. Not as hot as some of the other places that we're going but still hot enough.
• I haven't posted, the internet is about two blocks away and I still haven't done it.
• My cell phone is broke. Just broke enough to piss me off. It will only work if it's plugged in and even then sometimes not. I actually suspect that I need a new battery but we'll see. I don't know if I can justify getting a new one before I leave.
• Things have gone fairly well but .....
• Everyone thinks that they know how to do my job.
• Doesn't look like I'll be getting the promotion I was waiting on. The frustrating part is that I have had the situation explained to me and I still don't really understand why.
• 2 more days until I get to see my family. I am pretty excited about that.
• We only get one carry on bag for the flight later this month. Not sure what I'll do but I'm sure that I will figure it out.

I can't think of anything else to say that would be interesting. I've just been doing Army stuff.