<p>Yep, don't count on a birthday phone call. May get an email though.
AOL IM is the preferred messenger service around campus. Most of the midshipmen will have it so instead of having two different messaging services everyone will just use AIM. </p>
<p>As for the stenciling kit, he can buy one in the ship's store. If for some reason he can't seem to find one there you can check a uniform store around town or try looking online. Military exchanges will have them, but not sure if you have access or are near one. It is simply a kit with a rubber stamp that can be personalized and a black ink pad. Not much else to it.</p>
<p>Not a problem. Every once in a while I post useful information... (I'm sure this comment will come back to haunt me in copy/paste fashion sometime down the road.)</p>
<p>I don't know about anyone else, never got the phone call, but we have a facebook account and have been talking all week between 9p.m. and about 10p.m</p>
<p>KP2001 I took your advice and signed up for AIM, thank you again, so much we've have had the opportunity to catch up and feel much better about the direction our S is heading!</p>
<p>No problem on the AIM advice. You would be amazed at what gets accomplished over that little program.....now the fun begins when your sons and daughters realize they can be "funny" with their away messages. I think Jamzmom's son came out with some doozies not too long ago.</p>
<p>2nd the fun of away messages. Also, if you have a cell phone that has AIM on it, that's a good tool as well...that way when your child is available you will be too. I wish I'd kept an archive of the away messages because they truly are a hoot!</p>
<p>Used to love 'em. Boss & I used to compare notes & it was a hoot. Academy kids are very similar come to find out. I did learn real fast & in a hurry never to bother him when the away message said, "KP hates life". Whowwee, would I get my ears burnt on those days. Mommy mean-ness! LOL</p>
<p>We also received our call today and talked for about 30 minutes! Mom & Dad now feel better. S really is enjoying KP, academics are ok and he has a positive attitude. Thank you to all the experienced parents that said our sons and daughters were in good hands! You were exactly right. Now it's time to tape up the box of stuff needed to be shipped this week.
Thanks again.</p>
<p>We only had five minutes today and at five minutes the phone went dead! Ugh, my son also e-mailed that the CTO came back and has them doing 5:00am pt this week for illegal movie watching! Of course 5:00 am is fine with me but 5 minutes! Hopefully this is a temporary situation. I heard that CTO'S do have their unique personalities. Any other information on 4th company?</p>
<p>Don't hold your breath. I think the entire plebe year I talked to my son a total of 20 min on the phone. And his company did not even get their cell phones for regular use until this past April. Your kids are at a miitary school, which is something that us parents have to get used to. The fact that they illegally watched movies less than a week out of indoc is not a good thing. If they keep that up the parent's of 2012 may not talk to their kids much at all :D</p>
<p>My S is in 4th co. (he's 3/c) and didn't mention anything out of the ordinary. He has two plebes. One is from Albequerque (sp?) and one is from Chicago. If any of you plebe parents are from there, PM me and I can keep you posted on their progress.</p>
<p>We also only had 5 minutes today. The computers are going to be a huge temptation. I assume they have been told what they have permission to do on the computer at this time. So we know movies are illegal, what other activities are not permitted? What about myspace and facebook?</p>
<p>So far facebook seems to be fine. My son and I talked all last week. My son told me yesturday the only people that needed to be deleted from it were upper classmen, if your were previously friends with them. He said if anyone had an upper classmen sibling they had to be deleted. No fraternizing.</p>