TGIF?

Is it Friday already? I guess so. The past few days have gone by quickly, and I'm surprised to realize that I've been in Balad for a week already. I thought time was moving fast during the training, but it's /really/ flying by now. I just hope that pattern keeps up. I'm definitely ready for the "breather" worked into the schedule on Sunday morning. Each day brings a new technological toy. Today I got a program installed on my computer that lets me participate in a collaborative conference... a big three-way call with people at bases all over Iraq. That's nothing new, really, but this is software I hadn't seen before. One of the neat toys was a little graphic of the speaker and the audience with different colors you could click if you were confused, or even a little purple color to click if you wanted the speaker to go faster. I liked that one. Thanks to technology, I also now have a huge, and I mean HUGE map of Iraq on my wall. It's about six feet tall and six feet wide. I'd take a picture of it to show you if it wasn't classified! Anyway, I just need to figure out what to do with it now. I'm working on getting approval to move to a different hooch. There are some units closer to where I work, which would be nice. And it would be nice not to have the people on either side of me blaring TV or music past midnight on one side, and as early as 5am on the other. Good thing I brought earplugs with me (and even those don't always help). Maybe I'll get lucky and get an "end unit" next time. That's it for today! The weekend approaches.