Ladieeeeeeeeeees and Gentlemennnnnnnnnnn

Soooooo as a follow up to yesterday, I go into work today and guess what? That second ticket that I still had in for the unclassified phone? They configured it. Yup, so the phone they said they couldnt put on the network is now on the unclassified network. As for the other phone, I was able to trade it with someone and get our other phone up and running, so the office is DONE. Woot! I'll be sweeping and cleaning it tomorrow morning and I should be able to work in it all day. I'm pretty excited.
As for the Kandahar help desk.....once I understand the inner workings I'm becoming accustomed to the way they do things. I snapped a group photo of them, as you can see above.

Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays

Wow, I couldn't figure out why today was so sucky before I realized....it's Monday.

It actually wasn't going too bad earlier in the day. I wrote some new batch files that will make my ever exapnding job much easier. I was able to get a lot of work done today too. But then, things started to go downhill. The brand new phones we just got in and that I've been working on the last couple of days to get up and running...are now no longer allowed on the network. Even though the phones we currently use on the network are the SAME EXACT MODELS they are no longer allowing those particular units to be added to the network. Now, when I had called I was asking about the classified network. So, just to make sure I call back to make sure its the same for the unclassified network. The help desk rep on the phone is talking with the "Networks NCOIC" I can hear him in the background saying "No, No, No, NO, NO! WE ALREADY SAID NO, PUT THAT GUY ON SPEAKER PHONE....PUT THAT GUY ON SPEAKER PHONE." The tech thankfully didn't and asked if I had any other questions. Disgusted and defeated I replied no and hung up.
20 minutes later, its now time for dinner...and I get a phone call. It's from one of the software guys that work with us. Some SGT at one of the units is having problems with her IP address. Oh, and it's been going on since before lunch. So not only did she NOT call the hardware guy (me) but she decides to wait until the end of the day. Grumpily I go over there and fix the problem. By the time I finish and get to the chow hall, the line is HUGE. I sigh, and go to the back of the line.
Finally I get up to the place where I can get my tray or a takeout box. I grab the takeout box and excuse myself out of the line because what I plan to eat is up in the "fast line" Some snot-nosed little soldier (who looks like he has to wait 3 days before having to shave between shaves) snidely says "hey, there's a line here you know." I turn to him and inform him that I'm not getting food from the normal chow line, I'm moving up to the "fast line" so I can get my spaghetti and be on my way. He shrugs and says "whatever you tell yourself man, its still a line." Meanwhile, other people are moving past me and have done so for the 2 months I've been here. It still annoys me a bit an hour later. what's funny is as I was leaving his officer friend who was standing next to him had somehow magically caught up to me and was getting his drink when I was. Either he stepped out of line or a crap ton of people flew by me when I wasn't looking. Punk. I hate to take an elitist stance but....at least I'm here by my own volition...and getting paid very well. He's not.
I've been putting off coming up with the thesis for the 15-20 page paper I have to write this semester...but I have to submit a draft abstract in 2 days so I"m busy downloading PDF white papers on the topic. Joy.
It's been getting cooler here, and I may actually need to start wearing my sweats to the shower in the morning. The days are still pretty warm, but there is a definate chill in the air that started about the middle of September.
The internet is still pretty crappy here. The guy that I'm going through for internet service promises me it'll be better soon...but I keep hearing that over and over. He said that there are some new wireless antennas we'll be using and they are supposed to be in any day. Until then, it's crap internet for me when everyone gets home from work and is sufing/skyping.

"The word sir?" "The word? Is no. I'm therefore going anyway."

So there is a place here called "One stop" where you can put in a work order for things to be built. We have a new office conex that was delivered a couple of weeks ago so I drew up plans for desks to be put in the new office. I handed in the plans and they told me the approval would come back in a few days.

Flash forward to today, and I stop in to find the work order was denied. The excuse was that the labor is too busy. So, I knew of a few places where there was scrap wood and began my scavenging. I had told my boss some times the way I scavenge for things here I feel like a Jawa.

I stopped in the shop where they actually build the items when it comes through from one stop. One of the workers was nice enough to cut down a bunch of 4x4 scrap to the exact size I needed. Next, I went to a site where some Seabees are building an office and scavenged some 2x4's and some plywood. I went to another place where they had a bunch of woodscrews. I went back to the carpenter shop and asked if it were possible to have 2 2x4s (I didn't want to be greedy) but the woman there was like "Oh, well since we couldn't build this for you what do you need?" I was able to get 4 2x4's and 3/4" ply for the desktops. They even cut the plywood to the exact size I needed.

I phoned a friend and they were able to loan me a cordless drill and circular saw so I set to work.

I'll have to take some pix but the desks/workbench came out pretty decent. Tomorrow I'm going to build a hutch part that will have a shelf. I also had a lot of fun building it.

A Vacation! (well....sorta...)

I know it's been quite a while so I figured I'd take my spare time I have today to update the blog. It's exactly 1 month since I left home and boy oh boy did it go by quick.

I was really busy when I got here, but things have slowed down a little which I'm thankful for. I ended up finishing my finance class with an "A" so I'm excited about that. However, looking over the material for my next two classes, I can see I've been spoiled in the last couple of classes I had. One of my classes wants a 15-20 page paper (yuck) and the other wants an 8 page paper (not bad!). We'll see how difficult it is to keep up on the work since both classes expect posts and replies to other student's posts.

The other day I was forced to play pizza delivery guy. I had to take some hard drives out to a FOB (forward operating base) by helo. So I got up at 4 am, caught the flight a couple of hours later, flew for a bit and landed, met up with a tech at the helo pad to hand him the drives, then get back on the helo and fly back. It wasn't too bad, but I was pretty tired for the rest of the day.

My supervisor's boss (the guy who was supposed to be my boss in Bagram) came down last night so I've been showing him around today and we brought a server online. Right now I'm back at my "home" chilling out on the internet. Why you may ask? Good question! Apparently some time last night the generator that runs the tent where we work went down. It's been down all day and it's still down right now. Soooo no power = no computers & AC so yeah, nothing to do there. I went to one of the units I support to check my email but my boss and the govt PM basically went to their homes and my supervisors boss wanted to be let off at his temporary home so.....here I am at my home :)

It's a welcome little break after working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day every day to be able to be 1) awake enough to compose something more than 2 lines 2) enjoying said time on the computer because generally by the time I get home from work...I don't want to login to my computer at home. It's an odd feeling...people I know have told me that it happens to them but I always logged on to check email etc when I got home in the states. Here....not so much.

Enjoy the sunrise pic at the helo ramp :)

Time to make the donuts

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while, been really busy with work and my final exam, which is now done and over with.

Also, I finally have a fairly stable internet connection so things are looking up a bit. I don't know how much I'll be writing (certainly not day to day as before) especially since it's the same thing now, day in and day out.

I do a lot of walking these days, as vehicles...well, reliable ones....are pretty scarce here. I've definately lost some weight by the extra walking and watching what I eat. The meals here are better than navy chow on ships, I'll say that. I've had to get creative occasionally...like tonight I had to make my own tomato sauce for my spagetti. (ketchup, some italian dressing, a little bit of water....voila!) I can hear my mom saying "ewww gross" but hey, you do what you can around here. There are 5 different DFACs (or dining facilities) here and they kinda-sorta cater to the different nationalities. There is: american, german, asian, english, and french. They usually have a meal or something that harkons back to home at each meal. I generally eat at the asian or american as they are the closest to where I live and where I work. I have tried food in all the rest and....it's ok. Nothing really stands out.

There is a KFC, TGIF and an italian resteraunt here, but I've only been to the italian resteraunt. When you can get food for free, one tends to be not as picky. Perhaps I'll hit up TGIF one day just to see how it is but we'll see.

Oh, and today was "Bazaar day" so I got to visit the local's bazaar. They had carpets, pirated DVDs, pireated software, marble statues, wood carved items, etc. There wasn't really anything that caught my eye there.

Thats all for now.

ho-hum

I should have probably waited to write something when I'm not tired and annoyed at my net connection. I typed up something before but when I went to post the net crapped out and I lost all of it :(

I've been busy at work, and the net has been crappy so I havent really had the urge to post. It's sad that we pay the equivalent of 90 bucks a month for a crappy net connection because there is no other choice. I may not renew, I havent decided.

It's a bit strange here in kandahar, in that sometimes my macguyver skills are really put to the test. When I arrived and my boss and coworker came to pick me up, they were in a white toyota 2000 suv that had to be hotwired to start. I'm serious, they just non-chalantly reached down, twisted a couple of wires together and touched another wire to it to start the vehicle. I managed to scrounge some desk legs and a piece of plywood and when the person who lives below me goes to an outer base, I'll rearrange my living space and put the desk together, which will be really nice.

Not much else to say now that I'm here, really. Yes, there is a "poo pond" the way the septic system works and yes it smells but it reminds me more of the swampy areas in brick on certain days.

Here's to hoping this actually posts.

Home sweet home?

Well, they cancelled the evening flight so they only had the morning flight to KAF. Even though I was pretty far down on the list, I actually made the flight. So a C-130 flew me over and I'm now in Kandahar.

It's dusty.

No, really dusty.

The site lead here is really cool and helped me get a lot done today. For example, I'm writing this blog post from my rack. I have wireless access. It's not super, and its slow in the evening, but it works.

Right now I have a top rack, but next week I'll be moving to the rack below me and I'll be able to go nuts with customizing my new home. I can't wait.

Somone in my class was nice enough to not only type up the questions for the final, but he scanned in the pages from the book. I thanked him for his quick service!

Anyway thats all for now.

Rain?

So last night when I was leaving work it was raining...and thunder and lightning. I had heard that it rains out here, but first time I saw it. Cooled everything down, was nice.

Checked the flight schedule for today and there is a possibility I'll be flying today, we'll see how it goes.

The food here...isn't spectacular, but it isn't as bad as the food I remember from the Navy so that's a plus.

I talked to the guy who's going to be my supervisor down in KAF. He's super excited that I'm coming down there and is chomping at the bit. Yay. He also said that right now due to the short staff everyone is super busy. Yayx2. Not that I don't mind being busy, it helps the day go by quick...but I just got my final exam and have a few days to work on it. I'm sure I'll get the time I need, but we'll see.

Today's going to be a busy day since I'm flying Space A. I'll have to go to the terminal for each "roll call" to see if I'm a lucky winner and get chosen for a flight.

Type at you guys later.

p.s. Just had to come back and add this little tidbit. My final exam isn't due until aug 20. Cool. I had told the professor that my book went missing and she said I wouldn't need it. HOWEVER the final exam is based on 3 questions in the book.....WTF.

Thanks, professor.

I posted on the forum and asked if someone would be nice enough to scan the page/type up the questions for me. We'll see how that goes.

Meh.

Numb

Yesterday was pretty uneventful, by comparison of the last few days. Had some training, went to the BX, ate my meals and went back to the place I'm calling home for the day.

I'm still miffed about the change of plans, but really....there is nothing I can do about it. It could be worse I suppose, I could be stuck at one of the FOBs (forward operating bases) for 6 months.

I'm signed up for Space "A" travel, and will start camping out at the terminal on friday, trying to get a flight. The lead down in Kandahar is chomping at the bit for me to get down there to help, because he's short staffed down there and they just had to send someone home...which is part of the reason for my reassignment.

Oh, got my hair cut really short yesterday to help with the heat. I now have the haircut I had when I was in the Navy. Looks kind of weird with the goatee since I never had one in the navy (except during no-shave weeks).

Anyway, that's about it.

Adapt and Overcome

Remember what I said about be careful what you wish for?

So Tuesday morning I didn't get to the chow hall in enough time for breakfast so I grabbed a blueberry muffin before our muster. An hour and a half after that it was time to muster to see if I made the flight to my final destination. I actually made the cut! Bad news though, didn't have enough time to grab food, just pack my stuff and muster for final roll call. We then find out we have another hour to go but can't leave the tent. There's a mini-pizza hut there and I managed to get the last pie, but could only stomach 1 slice. I gave out the rest to the soldiers.

Anyhow, we board the bus and head to the airfield were a KC-17 is waiting to take us to our final destination. We board, then proceed to sit for an hour due to some issue that we didn't hear about. So there I am with a LOT of soldiers sweating our you-know-whats off before we finally take off. The flight was uneventful, and we finally arrive at Bagram. I had finally made it!

I call my office to let them know I'm here and so they can pick me up. On the ride back my new coworkers are chatting it up with me and mention something about be not staying here.

Excuse me?

They then realize I have no clue as to what they are talking about and become tight lipped and say that the site lead will be talking to me when we get to our office.

Great.

So when I meet the site lead, I'm smoldering but keeping as straight a face as possible. After introductions are out of the way he lays it on me. "I need you to go to Kandahar." There it was, plain and simple, no pretense. Welcome to Bagram, don't get comfy because you are leaving again.

I was annoyed, upset, I don't like getting caught flatfooted like that. However, after a few minutes I'm over it and all is ok again. If there is one thing the Navy taught me is "don't get to comfy because things can change in an instant."

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow...again!

So by this point, when I wake up in the morning I keep hearing "I got you babe" by sonny and cher on the alarm clock radio (in my head, I don't have an alarm clock radio).

I'm sure it's going to be one of those situations where I didn't know how good I had it until I get to my final destination, but we'll see.

When I go to the latrine (yes, another part of the military has to rename the damn bathroom) I find myself choosing different stalls. Why you may ask? Of course to view the artwork and literature on the walls and doors. Much like school there is a varying degree of.....art.......and philosophical scribblings in various bad grammer and misspellings strewn all over the walls. Now, I don't pretend to be an english major but some of the common words being misspelled....sigh. These are the future leaders of America, folks.

Last night I decided to start making some modifications to my living space, now that I'm on a bottom rack. I took some of the parachute cord I brought with me and strung 2 pieces across the metal latticework of the track above me. I then hung my laptop from it and watched some of my tv episodes I have ripped to my laptop while I relaxed in my rack. I think I may start listing items that I brought that I've used for the next guy that comes through.

Sleeping Bag
Camping Pillow
Sunglasses
Hat
Underarmor shirts
Tru-spec cargo canvas pants
Boots
Shower Shoes that can hold up to walking on gravel
550 Cord (parachute cord)
A knife
Fanny Pack
ID holder that hangs around your neck.

Most are obvious, but something like the fanny pack (or as we used to call them in the 80's a fag bag..not very PC by today's standards) was very useful. It's not considered a bag per se so I was able to get away with wearing it in the airplane. I kept all of my small electronics in there (phone, DS, Nano, headphones) so I didn't have to keep opening my huge laptop bag to get at the stuff. Also, when we had our layover I was able to leave my laptop bag on the plane and walk out with just the fanny bag.

A final note: The BX here is open 24 hours a day, so no matter what time you get in, you can hit up the store for essential items. They have all your basic staples...socks, underwear etc. They even have Wiis, Xboxes, and games. While I was perusing the games I noticed they had a total of 3 DS games: Icarly, Barbie and the three musketeers, and hanna montana. Can someone tell me what genius made that purchasing decision for a base full of army soldiers?

Holding pattern Beta

So here I am, stuck in Kuwait....trying to get a flight to my final destination.

Twice I thought I was going to roll out finally but more people came in more important than me and I got pushed back. Granted, it's not so bad being stuck here...but all we do is muster, eat, muster, eat, find stuff to do, sleep. Yes, I'm still getting paid, but I'd rather be doing my job. The other perk about being here is the food. I had subway for lunch and grabbed a strawberry smoothie on the way to the tent for mustering. For dinner I missed going to the DFAC (cafeteria) so I had to suck it up and have some mcdonalds. I did make it to the DFAC this morning for breakfast and had french toast, turkey bacon, hash browns and a bannana. I'm stuffed.

Oh, and it's hot here. No, really hot. I mean HOT.

I will never again question the power of underarmor golf polo shirts. They ROCK seriously. I'm an underarmor convert. I generally stayed away from them, being a rather....non-slim kinda guy.......but the polo shirts aren't form fitting and don't embarrass me too much. They truly are amazing and wick away my sweat. I'm now rocking my tru-spec canvas tactical pants and they are definately cooler and a step up from my eddie bauer khakis.

There is a really good chance I won't make it out today so I'm planning on being here another day at least. This will be my third night sleeping here, but at least I got a bottom rack today since some people left.

Hoo-boy

Where to begin?

Friday I got to Atlanta's airport at about noon-ish and had some lunch. Went and checked in at the military desk then got to sit around and watch tv for 7 hours. It was only supposed to be 6 hours but a storm rolled in and they delayed us. Finally they had us board the plane and we were off. The flight to our first stop was pretty uneventful. I watched Avatar (not the Airbender one) on the in-flight movie then decided to try and get some sleep. I think I've been flying long enough that I'm getting the hand of catching sleep on a plane because I got more sleep than I anticipated.

We landed in Ireland and had a 2 hour layover. Then it was once again off we go, this time to Kuwait. Originally I had thought we were going to land in the military base, but we didn't. We landed at the city airport, got to sit around for a couple of hours then were transported to our final destination (for this leg of the trip). Took a while to check in, called the wife to let her know I was ok and to spread the word that I was safe on the ground. Got to bed about midnight and had a rough sleep on the top bunk of a good old military bunk bed. There were no sheets and no pillow. Thank God that I had my sleeping bag and camping pillow otherwise I would have been up a certain fecal matter creek without a paddle.

It's morning now, got up about 6am ish and will have to muster in a while to see about getting a flight to my final destination.

Final note: when I went to pick up my Sea Bag I noticed that the flap had been opened. I took initial stock and while I only found one item missing, it's an important one. My textbook for my college class :( In 2 weeks I'll be receiving my final exam so it will make things more difficult if I don't get it back. We'll see how that goes :(

$#!@*%$

After getting delta's short flight to atlanta, I get my swiss army laptop bag with on busted shoulder strap. Delta doesn't cover straps so I get a "sorry" and 25 bucks towards a flight. so now the broken strap is double knotted and that'll have to do.

Got through security after checking in the military desk about noon. Muster is a 6pm so I have 5 hours to kill, and no free wifi. Good thing I've got a ton of movies.

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No soup for you!

Last night was fun. Couldn't sleep on my right side due to the shots in that arm so my back is feeling wonderful this morning.

Fayetteville Regional Airport...is more rinky dink then Atlantic City Airport. I got here nice and early (forgoing the free breakfast at the hotel) so I could eat there. Do you know what resteraunts there are here? None. Nada. Zilch. Buuuut they have vending machines. Ok not bad, unless you spent all but 1 dollar yesterday when the genius at Jersey Mikes hit "cash" instead of "credit" and basically drained all but that one dollar.

So, got to have a small bag of vending machine muffins and water from a fountain. Nice.

From what I've heard I'm going to be in GA airport for almost the entire day, at least they have resteraunts.

Oh, one reedeeming quality of Fayetteville airport. Free wi-fi :)

Owww :(

So today started out easy enough. Wake up at 4:50 am :( (havent been up that early in a while) run to Womack Medical Center for my smallpox and anthrax brief so I can get my shots. Turns out that, since I had eczema when i was younger I don't get the smallpox shot (darn!) and the annoyances that would have followed.

I was only busy at Bragg for about 3 hours then I was done. I'm very happy I did SRC as opposed to CRC....I hear CRC can be really brutal.

The reason for the Oww is the 5 shots I had to get which basically left my arms feeling like when the best man in my wedding and I used to play the "punch each other in the arm" game until we were numb. Ah, youth.

Day 1

Well, today was the day that I left my family behind and began my adventure. No, I'm not in the sandbox yet, I'm just down in North Carolina. I won't leave for the sandbox until Friday.

After a month of waiting, my letter finally came in my army mailbox letting me know I could renew my ID card. Nothing like waiting for the last minute....anyway the ID place was pretty quick and I was able to get in and out in about an hour. Now at least I don't have to worry about my old ID which was set to expire this month.

Managed to find a Japanese resteraunt that had Japanese owners. I had some of my usual Gyoza and Shoyu Ramen. It was quite yummy. The resteraunt is called Matsuri and they are on Skibo road. They had Miso Ramen and a few others that I haven't seen since I left Japan. I spoke with the owners a little bit in regards to Japan, they were very nice.

Thats all for now :)

Tick...tick....tick....tick....

Not much time before I leave. I've been prepping everything, making sure I have all the supplies I need. I've managed to keep ahead of my schoolwork because next week is going to be a little nutty and the week after that is going to be downright batty. I ended up registering for 2 classes instead of one next semester to keep me on my toes and to occupy my spare time with a useful endevour as opposed to playing games or watching movies. I can always drop a class if it's too much but I'm trying to keep the momentum.

Supplies

Made it up to a camping super store today - REI. They had a lot of what I was looking for, and I was able to try out the sleeping bag I picked up to see how it fit my body. I ended up getting a Big Agnes Encampment
http://www.bigagnes.com/Products/Detail/Bag/Encampment.
Hopefully it will serve me well. I'm still debating getting a sleeping pad for it for some extra comfort.

In other news, I've crested the hill and am on my way down...I've just about done encoding Stargate season 6 and heading fast towards season 7. Of course MGM decided to start putting a delay in if you rip the episodes off the DVD so I have to fix it with a program called AVIMux. It's not a huge deal because the process is quick, but it's an added annoyance.

Entertainment

So when I got back from my trip to NJ, I had a 1TB laptop hard drive sitting at my desk waiting for me. I installed it, got everything up and running, and began ripping all the movies that I enjoy from my collection to my hard drive. I have over 30 movies now, and have finally (today) found my stargate tv series DVDs. So, I've begun the arduous process of ripping all the episodes to my laptop and will surely go through them in my downtime overseas.

Testing various blogging techniques

Testing various methods of keeping people informed by linking my accounts.

4th of July

Had a really great time with my folks and my sister's family. I had brought a bunch of fireworks with me to their place and shot them off with my assistant (nephew).

Wife and I had a long talk on the way back, making sure we were on the same page about what should happen if, God forbid, something should happen to me while I was away. Between my life insurance from the military that I'm still paying into and my company she and the girls will be well taken care of. Let's hope it never comes to that.

On a lighter note, my daughters still continue to make me laugh every day and just putting my oldest to bed and have her hug me tight and say "I love you da-yee" makes my heart melt every time. I am savoring every moment as the countdown moves to "less than a month".

Ugh, and here I thought I'd never make a blog

So we'll see how much I keep this up to date. I decided to create one mainly to chronicle my little jaunt to the sandbox aka Afghanistan.

So far, my days have been filled with bloodwork, filling out papers, shopping and preparing my family for my departure. I've tried to do as much research as I can so that I'm as prepared as can be. Some may say I'm overpreparing...but I'd rather be overprepared then under.

Anyway, had to think a while on the log name etc. I've always loved Godzilla, and grew up watching his movies every sunday. Unfortunately some *deleted* people have taken up godzilla, gojira, oldgodzilla (which is my xbox handle), and haven't posted to them in 9 years....but fortunately not oldgojira. So there it is.