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."