Another month gone!

Well, it’s a General Conference Sunday back home, and it’s been a few days since I wrote an entry…surprising how time flies. Tons of stuff has changed in the last week. To start off with, two more of the guys on my team Chief and Sgt. D both went to Bagram. That means that I am now with two new team mates- Sergeant A and Lawerence. Sergeant A is a staunch Utah fan, and a BYU hater, but he knows the job, which is good. It is a little tough to have your team change so much, but what do you do. But things should stabilize once everyone gets back from leave. Something else that happened this week is that I got back on a serious study/workout schedule. I’m doing a couple hours of Arabic/Iraqi and reading Harry Potter 4 in Arabic. I’m also reading a military history of Afghanistan from Alexander the Great to America’s invasion in 2001. It’s amazing how much you can do when you work 8-10 hours a day and have nothing else to do. There’s rumor that they might put in satellite TV, but nothing so far. The food has continued to impress. Last night we had BBQ ribs and chicken wings. Tonight we’re having steak marinated in non-alcoholic beer. (they don’t allow any alcohol in country, for obvious and entirely non religious reasons.) Another crazy thing happened this week, and I’m not sure that anyone noticed, but it is now OCTOBER. It’s hard to believe, but last time General Conference was on we had already been at Fort Lewis for over a month! I started doing some basic Christmas shopping on the internet, mostly to try and keep things simple for Deeanna, this year. Deeanna and the kids went down to Lyman to visit her parents. In other news of life here in Afghanistan, still no mail. Apparently, our unit forwarded our mail to Orgun-E, but then OE forwarded it to the wrong COP. Trying to get mail from the Army can be terribly annoying. Trying to get a straight answer can be like talking to Pinocchio in Shrek the Third. Prince Charming asks him where Shrek is and Pinocchio responds, “Well, I definitely don’t know where he’s not…unless that’s where he isn’t.” BYU continues to win. I’ll be very impressed if they can win out, but they have a couple very difficult games left.