June 12, 2007
Well, my well mechanical efforts were not enough. The water went out four times in the last two days. Each time I used the card trick and restarted it, but it kept going down, so I finally broke down and called Beeman Brothers Drilling. Billy A. and an assistant showed up this morning and replaced the pressure switch ($40 for part, $80 for labor, house account). Billy confirmed that the points were worn out, so I don't have too much Man Guilt (if this happened to Dan the Man, he would have gone to Home Depot and fixed it for $12).

Started a new sketchbook last night. I really roughed up the last one. Both the cover and back fell off from abuse. When I travel, I have to jam the sketchbook into a carryon bag and going through security and in and out of hotels really wears on the poor sucker. More red and black. Keep coming back to this color scheme. Not sure what it means but I'm just going with it:



Speaking of travelling and hotels, I just want to say a few words to the hotel shower industry. We are at war and like most Americans I am thankful for any distraction. Fortunately, trying to figure out the thousands of variations on the shower controls in the hotels I have stayed in recently really takes my mind off the current state of affairs. It's really kind of amazing, but each hotel's shower controls are completely different from any others. The shower industry must pay thousands of dollars in bonuses to reward engineers for making each one just a little more difficult to figure out. In one hotel I searched for fifteen minutes before I found the magic ring hidden underneath the bath spicket, which unleashed the shower water. It's kind of like playing dungeons and dragons, except you're naked and late for a meeting. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when I say—Thankyou Hotel Shower Industry for taking our minds off of Iraq.

First Report From T. Bell In Peru
dudes,
can´t find the shift button so you´ll have to do without caps. so peru has a lot of similarities with every other latino country however i was unaware that lima is the second driest capital in the world. the town i'm in is tucked up a steep canyon and is surround by huge, bone dry mountains of rock. it´s really quite a sight to see. the valleys are filled with trees and that´s where most people live but i´m in a smaller off shoot.

my host family has a good sense of humor thank god so i´ve been joking a lot. it´s the mother julia, the daughter consuelo and the son luis. i´m one of the few volunteers with hot water and they even have a dvd player and a play station 2. i believe this is because much of the family now lives in madrid and sends money back. anyway, i got my own room and a drawer i can lock for my valuables. the food consists of lots of rice and potatoes and from what i´ve had so far i like it. they do use spice but it´s like a salsa they keep on the side that you can add but that was good news for me. it´s called aji and the stuff my mom made was hot as hell and delicious.

training is kind of annoying so far but it should get better. annoying because so many people are asking questions that i think you just gotta feel out on your own. one guy from a married couple asked if there would be a place to wash up after having sex. what? who asks that? his wife was pretty embarrased. were finally getting into the youth development specific stuff which is interesting. also we only do formal training classes at the center a couple days a week and the rest is fbt, field based training. lots of acronyms in the peace corps. i came up with one today called the pcps. a stall in hacky sack is when you hold the hack somewhere for example the back of your neck. well this one guy michael kept going for a chest stall and it was hitting his penis so i dubbed it the peace corps penis stall, pcps.

tomcat

btw the other people in the program, not that i really care about them, are pretty cool. we all come from similar stock. no hotties though which is the down side to having dope values. come on universe, can’t we get a little of both?


More Short Shots
You've been receiving interesting comments on your retro-shorts. My first thought when I viewed that picture was "Good God! WTF is he thinking?!" I think you need to find some other comfortable shorts to wear or get some red socks & black Converse high tops and an ABBA concert t-shirt to finish off the package with those shorts!

"I was thinking that Phil Spangenberger could use those shorts to show people what kind of pattern shotguns have. For instance, a flintlock smoothbore loaded with period shot into one a-s cheek of the pants and a shotgun like Doc Holliday used into the other. I think that would be an interesting test. I think doing it in that wash where that hideous picture of you in those awful shorts would be the perfect place - and the perfect finale - for those ... things..."
—Harold, Maniac #23

Classic Onion Headline de Jour
Chinese Factory Worker Can't Believe The Shit He Makes For Americans

"All that is due to us will be paid, although not perhaps by those to whom we have lent."
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach