Well, I was reminded yesterday that waiting for more juice is much better than having no juice. During the night we had the nastiest thunderstorm I have ever seen. Even though it was still hot outside we had to close all the windows to the house because we were getting soaked on the inside of the house. Anyway, the power was out for about 16 hours. This was long enough for our inverter batteries to die and so we spent the afternoon without fans. So next time I complain about not enough power for the AC; remind me just how good it is just to have power :)

Waitin' for da juice.....

Well here we are on the 24th still waiting on the power company. My hope is to have the upgrade done soon because it is getting really hot. The other day the heat index was a not so comfortable 117 and talking to the locals it only goes up from here. If you like thunderstorms you would really enjoy the weather here. We have one in the area on most evenings. The other night we had a couple of thunderstorms during the night that dropped over 3” of rain. There is no such thing as light rain here.

Well India as usual; I started this post several days ago but the internet died in the middle of it so I will try and pick up where I left off. Today I was going to depart for Nepal for a few days of meetings. I got all packed up and loaded the car picked up my friends and then received a call saying the road was closed at the border. The Maoist Youth (aka commie kids) were staging yet another strike. The details are a bit sketchy but 7 hours later I am here at home awaiting word for this evening or tomorrow. I think I would rather skip it. There is always the chance that we could get in and then after our meetings there could be another disturbance that could get us stuck there for a couple of extra days.

Later in the week I hope to take the family to Pelling in Sikim for a couple of days to get out of the humidity and heat. It is really a beautiful place. Here is a link http://www.east-himalaya.com/sikkim/pelling.htm It is kind a commercialized web site, but it gives you an idea. Here is another link with some pictures: http://www.shunya.net/Pictures/Himalayas/Sikkim/Pelling.htm I will let ya’ll know if we go. I was there a couple of months ago and almost froze to death (well at least it seemed like it).

Still waiting on the power company. I have a meeting with the district head on Wednesday. He is going to try to explain to me why they don’t have the materials to do the upgrade even though we have paid them big Rupees. Say a little prayer for this meeting.

May Update

Whew… as usual I have not posted in a while but hey. It was great spending a short time in the states. Unfortunately we did not get to see all of the people that we would have liked to. If we did not get a chance to see you, sorry.

Our trip back to the states was truly a blessing. It was great to see Jeff’s graduation at Camp Pendleton. We are all very proud of him. It was also a great time with family that we had not seen in years. I hope it is not years before we can all get together again. I am kind of scratching my head, I don’t remember Southern California feeling so cold, but after coming from India we froze. By the time we returned to Idaho we had somewhat adjusted to the cool climate. Now we are readjusting to the weather and the food back in India. The day we arrived back here the heat index was 110 degrees and at midnight it was still in the low 80s. We were able to get our bedroom down to 84 by morning, WOW. We do have a praise, it looks like we have come to an agreement (rather expensive) with the power company and hopefully will have enough juice within the next month to run the ac. I hope we have it going before the monsoons set in--it is already getting more humid each day.

As nice as our visit to the states was, it feels really good to be back in India. I guess I can say we are back home.