Dear Cody, 08/24/2011

Hello son. I missed last week so my letter streak is now restarting. Hopefully your last test went as well or better than the previous tests. Based on your past tests I am sure you did well. Of course we would not know since ….. NO CALL! Call your mom. We want to know how you are doing.

We have been pretty busy the past couple of weekends. Two weeks ago Deema and Deepa came down for a visit. We had a good time. Nothing too exciting just good family bonding stuff. Last weekend we actually did not leave the house except to hike around the lake a couple of times. We have been getting stuff ready for the paperwork for the Qatar assignment. Your mom is getting excited about Qatar. This will be her first international living experience and she seems to be looking forward to it.

How is your relationship with your room mate going? You have mentioned the last couple of calls that you don’t care for him too much primarily because of his incessant Wii and Xbox gaming. I bet you have not missed the irony of his behavior and how much it annoys you. It was not long ago that you had some severe consequences for the very same problems. Your particular issue was WoW as I recall.

Speaking of WoW, your mom got your latest bank statement. In addition to a repeat of last months Blizzard gifts to David and your sibs, it appears that you have activated your own Blizzard WoW subscription. Are you aware that you are now spending ~5% of your monthly bring home pay on WoW? Just a dad engineering geek analysis of the cost of WoW based on your bring home pay. Aren’t you glad you have me to point this stuff out to you?

Please do not let your historical WoW problem cost you yet another great opportunity. Your mom and I have some concerns about this and wanted to remind you to keep your head in the game of life and not let storming cyber castles and killing two headed sharp fanged slobber trolls cost you opportunities in real life.

Have you put any thought in to the car question? We need to know what you want to do because I will need to get the car you do not choose sold in the next 4 weeks or so. If you can not make up your mind I will sell mine and we will drop yours off or you can come get it when we visit or you get a weekend leave. Your Uncle Bruce is going to buy the Touareg for Carly. It is currently in the shop getting the transmission rebuilt and will be ready in a day or two.

In addition to an answer on the car question you also need to send your mom and comprehensive list of your stuff that you want to keep. We are going to empty the house and get rid of just about everything before we leave for the Qatar so whatever you want you need to tell your mom and we will box it up and save it for you. We are either going to give all of the furniture to Dana’s parents or your mom, Deema and Deepa are going to take a U-haul road trip to Oregon and give it to your mom’s family. Pretty much all we are taking to Qatar is our clothes and a few personal items. Everything else is gone …… soon.

So, how is school going? Are you getting in to the whole network administration training thing? Do you have any idea what additional training you will get at Goodfellow? From our talk a week or so ago it sounds like you are still enjoying your training and the USAF. Any idea on when you will qualify for visitors?

Well, I have to kick out an agenda for an all day meeting with IBM tomorrow so I will sign off for now.

I love you son. And …. CALL YOUR MOTHER. Really dude, call her.

Today is her birthday btw. It is not a good thing to forget to call your mom on her birthday.

Love,

Dad.