Stay classy, Afghanistan!

So before I left from Afghanistan, I had a company tell me that they wanted to fly me out to Cali to meet me and interview me for a job. It's no lie, I had been perusing job postings because of the looming fact that when it was time for me to return my job in Suffolk wouldn't be there anymore due to government budget cuts. However, my company assured me I would have a job....somewhere....doing something....

That being said (and erroring on the side of caution) I thought it best to seek employment in the event that the promise was worth the paper it was written on. I stumbled across a job posting for a Sys Admin in the DC area and answered the ad. I got a response that they were interested in me.

After returning to the states on leave, I was contacted by them and they told me that the job wouldnt be there when I came back after my year tour. I jokingly told them if they threw enough money at me I'd stay and not go back. They asked how much and I threw a number out. They said that "It was in the realm of possibilities." Flash forward a week I find myself interviewing and the next day accepting their job offer. I was not going back to Afghanistan!

I had planned in the eventuality that this might happen, prepping my stuff in the sandbox to be shipped back and leaving a 100 dollar bill to ship the stuff back. I contacted my friends there and they arranged to ship everything back. Bought a new car, my wife and I found a new place to live and we'll be moved in next month. What a whirlwind!

I tried to be the bigger man and attempted to leave my company gracefully giving them notice etc...but it got a little ugly. There was something that had happened between them and another employee who I considered a good friend that left a bad taste in my mouth anyway, so there was no love lost between us.

In the meantime, I get to stay in the states with my family, got a new car and place to live out of the deal and a decent job with a decent salary. I don't know how much more posting I'll do on the blog, but this is TTFN (ta ta for now)!

Please, make it stop

Wow, I've been super busy with schoolwork this semester. Although I have my xbox here, and I've been starting to draw, I had to put them all on the wayside for my schoolwork. This is probably the most time I've spent on my schoolwork since I started my graduate classes.
But, this post isn't about my schoolwork, its about respecting your neighbor. The place where I "live" in Afghanistan is super-awesome. It's a room to myself, in a hard building. However....I have a neighbor above me who is only separated by a piece of plywood and some honeycomb cardboard. My neighbor to my left originally was only a locked door away. I've since put up 3 layers of Styrofoam and a 1" piece of plywood. For the most part, we all got only fairly well. There was once I had to leave a note for my upstairs neighbor who left his TV blaring at 3am while he went to the bathroom and I woke up...and couldn't get back to sleep. He apologized profusely and has since been better about the noise level upstairs. My next door neighbor, once I put up the barriers, was pretty good. Generally he kept normal hours and I didn't hear him much after hours. While I still have the same neighbor upstairs, my next door neighbor has changed. UNFORTUNATELY I believe he sold him his stereo. The first night he was in the bass was playing so loud I could feel it in my teeth while I lay in my bed at 11pm. I politely knocked on the door, and brought him into my room to exhibit just how loud his stereo was. This was a couple of days ago. This morning, however, I did not wake up to my alarm clock, but to the sound of his music blaring away and a way to early hour. I grumpily got up and got ready to start my day much earlier than usual and had breakfast. While at breakfast, I just happened to sit down to the senior NCO for the division I work for. I happened to mention my rude awakening and he immediately asked for the soldier's name. I told him I didn't know it, and I asked him not to intervene just yet...that I wanted to see how it played out try to encourage my neighbor to respect some quiet hours that are supposed to be followed where I live anyway. The Senior NCO nodded but told me that all I need to do is ask and he would step in. "Too many times do I see young soldiers not caring about their music and I've had to put a bunch in their place here and back in the states."
So this whole rant is really about respecting other people. If you want to blast your eardrums out, how about getting a pair of headphones? If you want to ride around in your pimp mobile blaring your music to extreme levels and cause yourself to go deaf, make sure it's not being done at odd hours. I can't stand the kids these days and how they just don't care about others and feel it's their right to blast their music as loud as they want without courtesy to those around them. In other news, I go home in less than a month for R&R leave, and that's very exciting :)

Scribblings

So, as I sat today in the latrine, I looked over the myriad of scrawlings and scribblings of the future generation of America as I usually do. I look at the horrible misspellings, incorrect grammar, pictures of women with men genitalia, phallic symbols, how one unit sucks more than another, how a certain person on base is easy.....and I weep inside. Of course there is always a well minded person who tries to correct spelling and grammar, just as on forums but it just adds fuel to the fire.

However, being in a contemplative mood today, a thought struck me. What if this is natural? What if this is the product of thousands of years of instinct? What if the cave drawings that archaeologists have been pouring over for centuries are nothing more than scribblings of cave people taking a dump and not having anything better to do, while they do their business?

It's a shame that our waste is biodegradable, we'll never know...until someone invents a time machine.

OCD

Ok. I admit it. I can be a bit OCD at times. It's not horrible, but when it hits...well.....

As you may have read, I have a spiffy projector that I use to project my computer (and now my xbox) on either the wall at the foot of my bed, or I can move it to above my desk and project it on the far wall if I have guests over.

Another friend of mine got himself some plotter paper that he uses, but he said that it's slightly reflective. My walls are white, so it turns out I really didn't need the paper.

However, my walls are littered with holes from...who knows what. Pictures, hooks, you name it. So, I decided I would get some spackle, flat white paint, a putty knife and some sandpaper. Well everything showed up quick enough.....except the putty knife. Great. So after waiting an extra week or 2 weeks (I forget) it finally showed up today. So I went around and happily spackled up the holes in the two locations I project the screen. Then I look around the room. Hrm. There are more holes. I look at the rather full spackle container. I make my decision, and spackle every hole I can find in my room, which actually was quite a bit. I still have some left, so when I sand down the walls and look over the projector walls for any other holes that I might have missed I can hit them up. It's not that the projector looked bad on the walls, but this will make it look better ;)

In regards to my previous post, I have had a hot shower every day. It's phenominal.

Hallelujah!

So there I was, minding my own business taking a leak in the bathroom that was just fixed....the one without any hot water because they didn't have the fuses to run the water heater.....(why would you order fuses for it if it wasn't functioning...even though it was due to be fixed). I went to wash my hands and.....nearly burnt my hands! What was this? HOT WATER. When it was time to take my shower, the blessed...blessed hot water came flowing from the shower head freely. I took a navy (aka combat) shower where you turn the water off inbetween shampoo and soap and still had a massive amount of hot water which I left for whoever came in after me.

I don't know who brought the fuses....and when....but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

He's baaaaack

Wow, so much time as passed, and so much has happened.

The internet provider I was using in the tents where I lived was shut down, and the people that shut them down were horribly unreliable, not to mention not always taking new customers....so that pretty much left me without internet for quite some time.

Honestly, I really didn't mind much. I was able to get to my college website at work, so I could work on my schoolwork on breaks or after hours, and a friend of mine lived on the Special Ops compound and had a wired internet to the provider so it was pretty quick. Between those two, I was able to finish up my school. The government unclass network does not allow people to go to blog sites (like this one) and I really didn't have the time nor inclination to post when I was at my friends house becuase it was usually late at night and just wanted to do my schoolwork and be done.

BUT

That was then, this is now.

I spent about 5 months as the Regional tech out here in Kandahar, before they decided they wanted to switch people up and put them in different spots. The guy that was coming in to be my boss in the south was a raging...feminine cleaning product. I don't know if they had planned to move me or not, but I requested to fill in the Special Ops compound spot since the guy there was leaving soon and I didn't want to be stuck with this new boss. Thankfully, my move was approved and I was allowed to move. It wasn't until it was a done deal that the feminine cleaning product was moved elsewhere and wouldn't have been my boss they they had considered me becoming the lead here. I thought long and hard about it, and although it would have been sucky I decided that if they wanted me I'd do it. Fate stepped in, and I found out they already had another person who was coming into theater in mind so I moved to the Special Ops compound.

That's not to say I'm not living the good life now. If I had stayed as Regional Tech, or the Regional lead I would have still been in a tent. However, as a tech over on the SOTF compound I live the good life. I'm in a hardened room that measures about 12ft by 12 ft with a small extra area for a foot locker and storage space off that room. The guy I replaced used to live in this room and it even had a couch! Not bad...not bad at all.

As time went on, I managed to make some upgrades. First, there is a door that joins my room to my neighbor....a neighbor that likes to play loud music until well past midnight. He's a soldier, I'm a contractor....I didnt' want to bug him too much because it's probably one of the few things he gets to do over here that he enjoys...but I needed sleep. I asked once if he could turn it down, which I'm sure he took down 1/500th on the dial, because I didn't notice a difference. So, I scrounged big sheets of styrafoam and layered 3 sheets deep on the door. It still wasnt enough, so I cut a custom piece of 1" plywood I found and stuffed foam in the cracks. It muffles it enough now that it's tolerable and almost always isnt that bad.

My upstairs neighbor is pretty nice. He likes to mix music during the day on his off time, and for now I don't need to sleep during the day because of a weird schedule so it doesn't bother me at all. When and if I have to start working wacky hours tho....it may become an issue. However he told me when I was moving in if I have any problems to let him know. He's a contractor too so he understands.

Overall life on the compound is good. It's within the confines of Kandahar, so I'm not on a little FOB somewhere. The food is pretty damn good. Mondays is meatloaf, tuesdays taco night, wed ital night, thurs surf and turf, fri pizza, sat soul food (my least favorite) and sunday bbq (awesome ribs!). Breakfast is good, and lunch is....ok. Saturday's lunch is mongolian bbq, and we get to pick food and veggies and they will grill it up with teriyaki, soy sauce, or sweet and sour.

Christmas here was pretty uneventful. My wife sent me a 2 foot tree with lights and ornaments, and my mom sent me some xmas decorations too so I was able to decorate my room a little to help with the christmas spirit. I was also able to watch my wife and kids open their gifts via webcame (in stutters, but it worked at least) so it wasn't horrible.

I picked up a projector to plug my computer (and my xbox that my wife just sent me) into, and project a 48" screen at the foot of my bed.

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-K11-Portable-Pocket-Projector/dp/B003LX8E1K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1295008740&sr=8-1-catcorr

It works surprisingly well. I chose it because it was an LED lamp projector and had a much longer lamp life. It's not as bright when the lights in my room are on, but I can still see it. When I turn the lights off it's PERFECT. My only gripe is that there is a little tiny speaker in it, and there is no audio out port. So when I hook up my xbox to it with my HDMI cable, I cant port the audio out to headphones or speakers. So I use the PC cable with it and swap between my computer and xbox depending on what I want to use. Perhaps I'll get a switchbox one day, if I want to be really lazy.

Throw in a wireless keyboard and mouse and it's pretty spiffy. If a friend comes over, I can move it to one side of my room and project a 7' diagonal on my far wall which makes for a good movie screen. I really can't complain too much about the living here. There is one eensie teensie annoyance tho. Showers.

All but 1 shower I've ever had here has been cold. There are a lot of people here, and the sinks and washing machines share the same water so there is rarely any hot water. I commuted a few times back to the place where I lived so I could take a hot shower, but that kind of got old. One of the bathrooms here had pipe problems so they closed it down and opened up one of the female shower trailers for us. There was hot water there all the time, because it had it's own hot water heater...unfortunatley they fixed it yesterday and opened ours back up. Welcome back, cold showers. Thankfully, being the innovative person I am, I decided to try something. I picked up a camping solar shower for 15 bucks when all we had was cold water before the issue with the pipes.

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Elements-Gallon-Summer-Shower/dp/B000J2KX88/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1295008452&sr=8-6

It was delivered while we got to use the female showers so I didnt need it. But, since we're back to cold water, I decided to give it a test run today. Now, I have a hot water beverage heater that can fill it about halfway with scalding hot water I then top off the rest with the cold/luke warm water that the sinks provide and voila! A hot/warm shower. I was pretty happy at how it worked. It takes a little effort, but a hot shower is definately worth it. When I came out of the shower someone asked if the water was hot and I replied "Hell no, but I cheated so I had a hot shower."

Besides the hot water heater, I also have a small college fridge and a microwave that I picked up...so I live like a college kid. I can heat up food when I want, I have cold water, hot water, and some food that I bought here and had sent from home.

With 7 months left on deployment here, I consider this living the high life. Hopefully now that I have stable wired internet and more time on my hands, I'll be able to start posting again on a semi-regular basis.

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.