Well, so I lied. The postal system of Uzbekistan continues to function. The real reason I asked that you not send any more mail to me here is that I will no longer be here as of Wednesday.

The short story is this: Everyone in my group of volunteers has visas which expire on June 1st. Due in no small part to recent events in this country, the Uzbek government has decided to not extend our visas. So, we all have to be off of Uzbek soil by the 1st.

We were presented with a few options at this point. One of them, which I chose, was to transfer to another country and begin service there. So, on Wednesday, I will be flyling to Bucharest, Romania. There I will begin Pre Service Training once again when the latest group arrives in country on June 3rd.

I’ll have a much fuller analysis of the situation soon, maybe in a day or so, but I just wanted to let everyone know that this blog will soon chronicle my Peace Corps experience in quite a different place. Let’s hope for a bright future for Uzbekistan.

Well, early Sunday I’ll be boarding an Amtrak train to Philadelphia where I’ll spend two days filling out forms and getting tons of information thrown at me. Then me and the 60 others in my group will file onto a bus which will take us to JFK airport in New York City. We’ll make our way onto a Delta airliner and take off for Istanbul, Turkey. Once we arrive, we’ll hang out at the airport for a few hours, then get on a Turkish Airways redeye to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Once we get there, at this point, I have no idea what will happen.

As you can imagine, this is a nervous time for me. I’m wondering who the others in my group will be, where exactaly in Uzbekistan I’ll be placed, what my host family will be like, and tons of other more minor worries. But I’m not worried that I am worried. My high school swimming coach, for whom I have great respect, said, “It’s normal to have butterflies in your stomach, but you’ve got to make them fly in formation.” So I’m gonna go on that advice and be nervous, but be in control.

Tonight I went to see Foreign Aids at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. It was a truly great one man show. The guy is a South African performer who does costumes and personas (many of which are female.) He would morph from one to the other brilliantly. The common theme was the AIDS epidemic that is ravaging his country and the fact that the government is not addressing the issue. He told us (between the fanciful stories of his sophisticate alter egos) of how he goes to school across the country teaching about AIDS by talking about sex. It was funny, and he obviously made his presentations to the kids funny, but you could tell there was a great urgency to his message… safe sex or death. Using the themes of ignorance, timidity and fear, he cleverly connects his country’s reluctance to deal with Apartheid as similar to this current crisis. I’ve always thought it takes a very talented person to do a one man show well, so this was quite a treat.

I’ll be packing like a madman tomorrow - currently I have my stuff all over the place. But I think I have everything I need. BTW, I have a new photo gallery, and you may soon see some posts by a guest author. Plenty of surprises in the pipe although WD will be halfway around the world. I hope to keep everyone informed of both the humorous and maddening aspects of my journey, and provide plenty of photos providing I can get a decent internet connection every now and then.

So off off to Uzbekistan - off to a new challenge - and hopefully a great new chapter in my life.

A sincere thank you to everyone who helped make my little trip possible. It was truly a pleasure to spend time with you, as you have meant so much to me over the past few years. Although I’ll miss you all, thoughts of the good times should sustain me. And to those who I was not able to see but who sent their kind words, much appreciated. It’s a bummer when we are hours away rather than minutes.

I’ll try to write a few posts this week before I head out to Philidelphia, PA for my staging on Sunday the 16th. Thanks to an extremely generous offer by Kellen, I will have a laptop with me for the trip. Now, how freequently I will have internet access is another matter entirely. But, I do plan to keep the blog updated and post new pictures as I take them. I hope you will all keep in touch through this website. The “Contact” section, now part of the top menu bar, will be updated with ways to be in touch and an email contact form.

Well I just got back from my last night as a waiter at the Golf Club. Although it was a good gig for this past month or so, I don’t think I could have done it much longer. Although I won’t miss having to reset tables and bus other peoples’ dirty dishes, I will miss the perks such as brownie sundaes and plentiful leftovers. On a funny aside, tonight in one of the rooms (the masculine room which up until 5 years ago, women were not allowed in,) Will and Grace was on the TV with a few guys intently watching. Nate, I wonder what you think about this - W&G being watched by wealthy white people in a country club. Nonetheless, it was an amusing sight.

So for the next few weeks I will be preparing for my trip and visiting friends and family. It’s looking as if a New Years party might be shaping up to take place in New York (not the city.) So for those who are in the area, please write or comment if you are interested. I’d love to see those who read this before I leave. There are a few topics I’d like to touch on before I leave, one being Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. This is something that I fear people my age will not pay attention to although it is we who will be affected by any changes made now. I’m also open to ideas, and, for the next month, will take suggestions! Want to guest post on WD? Write me! Anything is possible….

For now.

Hey, remember me?

It’s been a while and no good reason for it! I’ve been working on a project recently which was to build a computer. My mom’s laptop was really at the end of it’s rope, and it was time to find her a desktop replacement. I found this very cool little system called the ZPCgx by iWill, a Taiwanese company. It’s a desktop that is designed for laptop parts. That is, a laptop size hard drive and cd rom. The processor and memory are regular size, and graphics and audio is built into the motherboard.

On the front there are two USB ports and two Firewire ports. Also, there is audio in and out. The little notch you see in the front is the opening for the CD drive. On the back there are more USB ports, the monitor out, serial cable, etc. There is a small fan right below the circular opening at the top. The CPU is right below the fan. Then, there are small vents at each corner of the case so that air circulates throughout the whole case. The great part is that this thing is tiny: 7″ x 11″ x 3″ !

So I did some thrifty ebay shopping and now we’ve got a fully running system with: 2.4 GHz Pentium IV Processor - 40 GB 7200 RPM HD - 512 MB DDR SDRAM. Needless to say, coming from my old (but reliable!) Pentium II 400 with 256 MB of RAM, I’m jealous. But it was extremely fun, and at times a little frustrating, to piece together a system. I think that once I settle I’ll throw something together in a similar fashion.

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My job…. hey I have one. Actually it is perfect, if a little dull. I’m doing data entry (don’t vomit yet,) for a small sports photography company. Basically these are the people who photograph kids doing sports in grammar and middle school. I’m sure all of you have at least one plaque of yourself grinning foolishly with some type of ball or bat!! What I have to do is match up the handwritten orders with the proper photo. It’s not thinking work, but I have to be very accurate - wouldn’t want little Johnny to get his pictures back and wonder when the sex change happened.

It’s in Andover, MA, a cool town. Andover is home to the prestigious (in the Hersh sort of way) Philips Andover Academy - the kinda place many Trinity kids went to. It’s pretty classy. Nice main street with stores and beautiful public parks. So I take an hour for lunch every day and sample the food and enjoy sitting outside while I still can. Although I hope such activities do not represent the zenith of my working career, as do many others (i.e. those who paid for my education,) it’s good honest work and it’s satisfying to get a paycheck every week.

I’m loving it now although it gets dark too early. In the days it’s summery hot, and then in the night decidedly autumnal. The crickets still chirp outside my window, though perhaps a bit less loud, and the breezes can waft through open windows while I sleep. I saw a house today with halloween decorations up… seems like someone was eager to decorate, maybe they’ve been watching too much Bravo.

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Speaking of TV, I have a few new favorites. The Daily Show continues to be good, Stephen Colbert still obviously the king of the correspondents. A tall lanky guy did a segment about Kerry choking last night and was very un-funny. Another treat is on weeknights on the Sundance channel. For about an hour and twenty minutes there is a “best of” the day’s Al Franken Show from Air America Radio.

Air America, if you don’t know, is a steadily growing liberal talk radio network. Al Franken kinda started it, and has a show in the afternoon. I really enjoy, though, Mike Malloy. He’s a firebrand for the left - sensible and vocal! You’ve got to love his liberal usage of the term, “Bush crime family…” If you haven’t given it a shot, check out http://www.airamericaradio.com/ today! Be forewarned though, the commercials are cheesy to the max factor - a blend of the usual awful radio spots and little plugs by interest groups. I’m very glad that this exists. One last good show that I’m into is Real Time with Bill Maher. Fridays on HBO - one hour of political discussion with smart guests from both the left and the right (but with a heavy left bent if you haven’t guessed…)

So I’m starting to feel that it’s fun to be political and well versed in what’s up in this country and world. I think that feeling has really spread recently. I wonder though how much of it will remain after election day. The indignation by members of the left is loud and clear, but maybe we’ve learned that we’ve got to prevent so as to avoid backtracking in the future. In that vein, I’ve volunteered to join the Kerry campaign and go canvass in New Hampshire this Saturday. I really can’t believe I’m doing this, because I’ve never officially done any political stuff, but NH is close and I’d like to see Kerry do as well as he can.

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I’ve had lots of random thoughts come and go, such as: “What is/was the longest pneumatic tube ever built?” - “You know those people who try to hard to act as if they are not trying to hard to be cool in an alternative sort of way?” - “I’m not a perfect perrrrrrrrrrrrrson.” - “Why not just take the bag off the little air freshener tree? Because you are a compulsive/neurotic freak, that’s why!” - and many others.

For now.