DOWNEASTER HOME

It's 11:00 pm and we just boarded the last train back home to Maine - the Downeaster. We'll get to Portland at 1:45 am and then need to drive another 45 minutes north to Bath. It will be a late rising in the morning.

Today we went to the Yankee-Oriole game and the O's won 4-3 in front of 46,000 mostly Yankee (the evil empire) fans. (Things were not cheap there.....popcorn $7 a bag which I bought, beer $9 a bottle which I skipped.) Sadly we had to leave in the 7th inning in order to get back to Manhattan in time to get the train from New York's Penn Station to Boston. Once in Boston we had a two-hour wait for this last train north.

We had a nice time visiting my son Julian. When we arrived Saturday in Jersey City, New Jersey he was nearly finished unloading his U-Haul into his new apartment. I helped him pull off his bed and his motorcycle and then we began unpacking and helping to clean his place. It's a nice apartment in an ethnically mixed working class neighborhood. His landlord is an Italian couple who have tons of tomato plants growing in the back yard.

I'd never been to Jersey City before - it is right across the river from Manhattan and only takes a few minutes to get there by train from the city. Next door is Hoboken, New Jersey which seemed like a lively place. I think he will enjoy like living there. Julian is teaching debate at a Korean school and seems to be enjoying it.

Julian has been in New York city for the past year after 10 years in northern Texas. Quite a change of scenery as you can imagine. Much more to do in New York and much more intellectually stimulating for him.

While on the train I read an article that quoted Secretary of War Robert Gates saying, "The U.S. is spending over $100 billion a year in this fight in Afghanistan."

I had been using the figure of $7 billion a month in Afghanistan so I am going to have to revise that upward. The real question though is how much is "over"? Is it really $105 billion or $120 billion or more? I imagine that Gates, Obama, and the Congress are reluctant to say but I'd like to pin that down. It makes a big difference. For now I think I will say more than $8 billion a month. If any of you see more on this please let me know.