Monday

It was a mellow weekend. I took it easy Friday night and then went to training on Saturday morning. I am now a fully-armed, though not yet operational, adult literacy tutor. The 9 hours of training went by rather quickly. Kind of a bummer because I can't stare at the one womyn's enormous breasts. She recently gave birth so her mammary glands are milky swollen and ready to feed. Tangentially, they make for nice things to ogle. After class, I headed over to Lush's where we ate lunch, shot the shit, and watched Hannah while Wendy was out. Having eaten, Hannah was all tired so she was laid to sleep and Lush and I assembled a foosball table that he'd gotten for Xmas. Actually it was a multi-hoolie deal with air hockey and ping-pong in addition to foosball. It took a little while to figure out what the directions were telling us but we got it up. We played a game of foosball and then some air hockey. Finally we tried out the ping-pong bit. The table is about 3 feet high and 2'x 4' so it's more suited towards 6 year olds than we manly men. We rarely landed a ball on the table and we forced to return shots after they'd ricocheted off a wall or box. It provided amusement nonetheless. With the table finished and Hannah needing a look-see, Lush and I headed upstairs. A diaper change later, all was well and good again so we started chatting again. He and I both wanna go abroad. Obviously having a kid and another due in 5 days makes it more difficult for Lush than myself. We tossed some ideas around and thought it would be cool to try and schedule a 4-day weekend this fall for a trip of some kind. I had mentioned to him earlier that Rhubis came to mind the other day and neither of us had heard from him in a while so a reunion of drunken college cohorts sounded like fun. We'll see what actually becomes of this idea but I think getting some guys together and going somewhere/anywhere would be a hoot. Maybe Vegas...When evening rolled around, I was off as I had told Dogger that I'd help him troubleshoot his PC. I went home briefly and grabbed the CPU from my PC and headed over to his place.

His 'puter took a digger a couple months ago. The power supply was one culprit keeping it from booting. We swapped the bad one out for a known good one but it still wouldn't boot. Couldn't even get to the POST screen. So we threw in my CPU and powered up: nothing. So we knew the motherboard was hosed. I took Dogger's CPU home to see if it had blown too. Since Mel and Regan were in Milwaukee, we sat around and shot the fecal matter. Work, computers, the building craze in Madison, et al were topics of conversation. Marv commented that, although he's lived here for about 11 years, it wasn't until only recently that Madison has become his home. I think the way he put it was "being from Taylor vs. being a Madisonian" or whatever the fuck he said - you get the picture. I basically understood what he meant. It took me a much shorter time to get to that point. I never really felt like I was from Elvira. It was always more of a layby on my journey from Chicago to Madison. I went from being a FIB who moved to Wisconsin to a Madisonian who happens to be from Chicago in a short time. I had no allegiance to Hicksville but also found Chicago to be drifting further back in time so I was a bit hometownless. Identifying myself as a dope-smoking, lefty Madisonian took little effort on my part.

A bit before 9, Lenore - Dogger's mother-in-law - had returned with Mel and Regan. Marv and I bailed lest we be subjected to more than a couple minutes of Nori and headed over to Mickey's. For someone who said he recognized hardly anyone there, he sure ran into a lot of people he knew. I guess if he knows less than 6 people there, he feels surrounded by strangers. Let's see...there was Micah. I was told that we'd met a couple weeks ago at the Bou but I was too drunk at the time and didn't recall meeting him. He's a musician/aspiring audio engineer so I may call on him to remaster a boot or 4. There was a hottie named Amy, I think. She'd gone back to school I recall. Then there was this other chick with an acre of cleavage. It took a great deal of effort on my part not to gawk, lemme tell ya. Then there was David(?) who lived downstairs from Marv. He and his old lady are apparently on the outs so he was on the town trolling. At one point Marv told me that he's been dating this fraulein named Jill. I shall have to meet her to find out if she's good enough for my friend.

Sunday was a murder of a day. I felt kind of blah so I slept through most of it. However, I did get to listen to the first two parts of The Juggernauts and run a couple errands. And I caught a speech by Sam Harris on BookTV. His tome, The End of Faith concerns how religion is evil and needs to be replaced by reason. To him, religion plays a large part in the conflicts we face today - too large a part - and it will only become greater. It was very interesting and I kept saying "Preach on, brotha!" to myself as I listened to him speak. He did some religious comparisons and noted how the dogma of certain religions, especially Islam and Christianity, were very conducive to violence. Plus he went off in only the most mild-mannered way on people who take the Bible as fact. That was cool. I'll have to get his book as he seemed to be a really hoopy frood.

Today I started work an hour earlier than usual as I went over to DOA to help out. They started rolling out Office 2003 today so Mark and I headed over there in case the fecal matter hit the fan. We basically did nothing as only a handful of boxes had problems. Why they sent me over there is a mystery because I don't have a DOA account so I couldn't log onto the network and I don't have a card for the elevator/doors so I had to be with someone if I wanted to get back to a desk in DET. Not that it was busy here but at least I could have gotten on the Net or use Notepad to write. Instead I basically sat around staring at my shoes waiting for someone to have a fucking problem. At least I get to leave an hour earlier.

I got a letter from a soldier in Iraq. Back in December I sent a care package to a platoon over there and their supply sergeant wrote me back. I feel really badly for her:

Dear Tim,

Hello! Thank you very much for the package that you have sent to us. We are very appreciative for the kind gestures and for supporting us over here in this time of conflict. A little about us. WE are 184 Military Intelligence Company. Part of the 2nd Stryker Brigade based out of Fort Lewis, WA. All together our brigade has over 4000 soldiers. It seems a lot, but not compared to the amount of troops currently deployed over here right now. Our brigade is currently fighting in the town of Mosul. What an adventure that is, let me tell you. Hopefully President Bush will not let us down and we will soon resolve the conflict over here and be able to go home to your families. That is our only hope. A little about myself. I am 28 years old, married and have a little girl, Laryssa. My husband is also in the Stryker Brigade with me and is also over here, so unfortunately the little one is being spoiled with her Grandpa and Grandma. Imagine how hard that is going to be to break when we return. I was recently attached to the 25th BSB, which is a support battalion within the brigade but have since been reassigned to the 184 MI. After the Chow Hall attack on Marez we lost some of our soldiers within the brigade and some of us had to be reassigned to fill the positions, which is unfortunate. I am originally from Grand Junction, Colorado, born and raised, but have since become a resident of Oregon where my parents have retired. Well I better close for now. Once again thank you very much and god bless you and your family.

Sincerely,
SGT Carolyn Isaacs

Their poor daughter. Both mom & dad gone off to war. She could lose both of her parents. I didn't think the Army did that kind of thing any longer. I can't imagine how awful she feels. I shall have to write her back soon...