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.

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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