Well, Kelley had her birthday yesterday, so if you missed the occasion be sure to wish her a happy 26^th!! birthday. I got her a LCD monitor for her computer. She bought a new Dell a little while ago, but it came with this honkin' monitor that took all the space on her desk. She barely had room for her keyboard. I thought she might appreciate that - although I must say I was unsure because, well, an LCD monitor isn't terribly sentimental. But she says she likes it, so I'll have to take her word for it *lol*

I also made arrangements for a whole bunch of people to call her and wish her a happy birthday. Not sure how many people actually did it, as I was only able to email people and ask them. I haven't heard back from Kelley yet either so I don't know how many calls she received. I'll be curious to know if she was inundated with phone calls.

On the Iraq side of things, we (and by "we" I mean me) are still working out the kinks in the new network. The IP phones we installed were conflicting with an IP somewhere else on the network which kept them from connecting. And of course the phones were all locked down so I couldn't get into them and change the IP addresses. No biggie though, as the network tech came out and fixed the issue. Turns out therre's two devices both supplying IP's for the network (which didn't entirely make sense to me, but hey, I'm not getting paid to design the network. I just supervise it.)

It's definitely getting warmer here. I can't do any kind of work outside without soaking through my uniform. Not sure the actual temperatures, but I can feel the sun much more intensely. Dad is sending a new thermometer which hopefully I won't break this time. The weather updates should be back up in the coming weeks. Although, pretty much every day is hot and sunny with wind. We had a decent little sand storm roll in the other day but even that's not really all that exciting. It's just like being in a thick fog, but instead of water vapor it's dust.

I find myself lately trying not to think about getting back home, but with the end approaching it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep focused on the task at hand. I guess I subscribe to the "A watched pot never boils" school of deployment strategies. If you don't think about it then the time goes a heck of a lot faster. But man, once you start to get within spitting distance it gets harder and harder to fight off that short timer's attitude! *lol* I keep fantasizing about what it will be like to get on that Blackhawk for the last time and watch the LZ and the mosque grow smaller and smaller as I head for Baghdad. But, soon enough I suppose. For now, I have work to do.