Nothing

     Not to sound like a George Costanza, but this is a report about nothing. Of course, in the middle of a war zone, reporting about nothing is good. Very good.

     Let’s see—I haven’t escaped from the Gulag for 5 days. The weather is great—80s during the days and probably low 50s at night. Clear, sunny, no humidity—just delightful.

     You know nothing is happening when I start talking about weather (which I gave up worrying about after 4 years of Portland winters). So here’s a weather story. Back in the day, I decided my grandma would think it very cool if I were to call her from the airplane phone. So I call her from 35,000’ at 9 pm, and my grandma goes to the default conversation: How’s the weather? I responded that it was dark, clear, and very cold. I am not sure she got it. (For this my mother calls me a shit. I plead guilty).

     I have connected with some high school classmates on my Facebook page, and several have grandchildren. In retrospect, it is clear that I must have been a good 5-8 years younger than anyone else in my class. No wonder I was 16^th man on the junior high basketball team. I imagine at my next reunion there will be a lot of talk about the weather from those older guys.

     So we are going to have another presidential election in Afghanistan. It seems that Oregon’s convenient vote by mail system has gone one better—you don’t even have to vote to vote here—someone will do it for you. If the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then Exhibit 1 for the prosecution is Afghanistan. I sure wish Karzai would take his zillions and go back and hang out at the family restaurant in Baltimore, but it just ain't going to happen.

     A major city in the region is Herat. Every time I spell it, Word changes it automatically to Heart. I don’t know how to make it stop. However, it gave me an idea—I am going to make bumper stickers with “I Heart Herat.”

     We are moving to new offices/residences tomorrow. I am hoping the shrieking water heater will not follow. Nor the mice.

     See, I told you…this was a story about nothing.