More on Kosova

I decided to do a little Internet surfing to learn more about Kosova and Gjakova yesterday. What I found was this report detailing what happened before the U.S. and other countries stepped in to try to resolve the conflict. It's not reading for those with a weak stomach. You'd think you were reading a report of something from World War II detailing German atrocities towards the Jews. But this was just a few years ago. In some ways, it makes the attacks on September 11th pale in comparison. I know that won't sit well with some people.

Matt and I talked about it during dinner last night. He said that Sam (Jamestown's mayor) was talking about how there were some turnovers in this past election and the city council was going to re-organize the first of the year. The Mayor of Gjakova said they went through something similar several years ago except they had to re-organize a city council because all the council members had been killed. All this information is still taking awhile to sink in. The crazy thing is when you look at pictures on-line of Gjakova or other cities in Kosova, you wouldn't know that bombings had caused wide destruction. The people in those communities worked very hard the past two years to re-build their homes and businesses. Currently, the government is parliamentary even though the Mayor of Gjakova would eventually like to see a democracy. It just wouldn't work right now. The other scary thing is this: if President Bush pulls U.S. Troops out of the Balkans to fight in Afghanistan, the chances that all the work done to rebuild Kosova in terms of structure of government going backwards is great. Pretty grim in fact.

Drive Out Today

The weather forecast improved for my journey home for the holidays. I'm pumped up about going back to Rochester. I'm going to miss seeing Anne and Sean Thanksgiving evening since they will be out of town, but I'm hoping to see some friends tonight. It's one of the biggest bar nights all year (unfortunately), but I'll put up with that to hang out.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, you have to go look at pictures from Matt B.'s Red Neck/White Trash Thanksgiving Party. I laughed my ass off at some of them, mostly because of what people were wearing. Ok, specifically, what Matt and Aaron S. were wearing. I wrote comments under those pictures if you can find them *grins* Oh, note: you'll have to sign up to Ofoto to look at the pictures, but it's cool and all. Especially since it's affiliated with Kodak.

Quiet Day at Work

Ok, so I'm using company time to write for my blog. I would normally feel guilty about that if it weren't for the fact that it's been so quiet this week. Yesterday we received probably about 5 phone calls. Nothing really work related either. It's days like this that I actually attempt to do the crossword in the paper.