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Hello William,

So what’s new? Have you recovered from you trip to the desert? So how is the internship gong?

Not too much new on the home front. I’ve been home sick the last couple of days with a stomach bug, and a nasty Skype virus. I’ve recovered from the stomach bug, but it is still unclear if the Skype virus has been cured. If you get a strange chat messages in Skype do not open a file to which the chat message refers, or click on the path that is mentioned in the chat message. The Skype virus does not do much damage except in Skype but it is a bear to remove. It also seems to interfere with my McAfee antivirus program. In fact, it even kept me from opening a Washington Post article on the virus. I could open any other article but when I tried to open the Washington Post article on the virus it shut Forfire down.

I got the virus from a woman outside of Barcelona, an intercambio friend; it spread like a wildfire, just about everyone I know has it. A man I know in London has had forty incidents of it. It is a worm virus. Anyway, I hope that you don’t get it.

Andrew is still plugging away at school. He has to go to English Plus this semester but is cleared for extra curricular activity; which reminds me I have to call Monte to set up an appointment to make sure that Andrew is all straight for graduation. He has tried out for the school play. I think he’ll get a part. He got a call back. He was originally going to just work sound crew but the lure of the footlights were too much. I hope he does get a part; he’s been in no-extra-curricular hell for most of his high school career, the excitement will be good for him.

He also has SAT prep class. He said that it is helping. Now that he has his cast off, he can start work again. He’s excited about his senior year.

Troop 463 is cranking up for another year, I can’t say that I am very enthusiastic – in fact I missed the parent meeting and the picnic, first time since you joined. Andrew has submitted his Eagle project to James. James replied but I haven’t seen his comments.

I finally gave up on getting Andrew to get his computer fixed. I called and they will come and put a new mother board in it later this week. Anyway they will come to my office to make the repair. The next thing we have to get him on-track with is driving. Once he renews his license, he can start to practice again. Who know if he agrees to get up early on the weekend, maybe he’ll even have it by the time you get back.

I watched Volver, Almodóvar’s film with Penelope Cruz, yesterday. It was brilliant; I’ll always remember it. Penelope Cruz was a delight, the entire cast was remarkable. The storytelling was the highlight of the film. Almodóvar does a brilliant job weaving the different story threads together at the last minute. It’s only close to the end that you realize what is going on. It makes the intertwining of the story lines in Crash seem crude. I loved the way he plays off the superstitions of the village against the modernity of lower-class Madrid. On the face of it is a sad story, but that’s not how I reacted, it was a delight. If you haven’t seen it, see it, if you have let me know what you thought about it. I have to see more of Pedro Almodóvar.

Well, once again it is time to say.

Love you, miss you, and take care down there.

Dad