I'm...dreaming....of a beige Christmas...

HO HO Hold on a minute…..it’s Christmas already?? It sure doesn’t feel like Christmas. Might be the lack decorations around here. Though my room is styling thanks to two of my sister’s sending me a package last week. Some of the guys somehow tracked down an actual Christmas tree, I have no idea where they found it, but they put it up in the recreation building, made some ornaments and put some lights up. I’d say it might be the best Christmas tre I’ve ever seen. So unexpected, and such a nice reminder of home. 

We had a cookout tonight with all the guys, well and the 1 girl….imagine being the only woman here in a camp with 4-5 dozen men!  Talk about needing a thick skin. The guys somehow got their hands on a massive amount of steak and chicken. Rumor has it that the chicken was so fresh that they had been clucking merry Christmas to each other this morning…..I didn’t ask for details. Myself and 1 other guy did all the grilling, I think it took us at least an hour to finish cooking all of it. It was a fun day, a bunch of us grabbed some gloves and played catch for a bit, we took our lives into our own hands when letting some of the guys jump in with us, might have been the first time some of them have ever thrown a baseball, or at least it looked like it. We all gathered in the recreation building for food and after a bunch of the guys fired up the karaoke machine. That was my time to exit! It’s such a great group here, no one is better than anyone else, and that showed today when you looked around and saw managers doing dishes while the lower level guys hung out in the other room drinking beer- well non alcoholic beer. This may not be my chosen family, but they do a pretty good job of making each other feel welcome. And after all, nothing says Christmas quite like a guy from India dressed in a cheap Santa suit!

Last night my family called me from my mom’s house as they were all gathered for the traditional Christmas Eve gathering. For those who don’t know my family, we need our own zip code. 10 children, all married, and 24 grandkids that range in age all the way up to their late 20’s, so the crowd quite literally is still growing. Well they all paraded through my mom’s spare room where her computer is to say hello. I felt like the circus freak inside the computer! Although I bet the majority of them would tell you there is some truth in that! It was great though, made me feel like I was part of the night, even if I am in the middle of the Afghan desert.

Work has been a bear. I’m completely fried. Is it wrong to be thankful for Jesus’ birth because I got to sleep in? It seems like every day my workload grows, it’s almost like I am treading water and the waves keep getting bigger, but I maybe my legs are getting stronger too since I haven’t drowned yet. Tuesday night was another all nighter putting together a proposal. Went to bed at 6am, back to work around 7:30. Seeing the sun rise over the desert can be a gorgeous sight, but I recommend waking up early to see it, not catching it out of the corner of your eye as you leave the office. I basically was a zombie all day. Told my boss after dinner that I was going to bed early and not to look for me, but of course I found myself staring at the ceiling until past midnight! My body clock is so out of whack right now, I’m not sure if I have fallen asleep on the same day as I have woken up more than a few times. That can’t be healthy. But I guess you can just add that to the list along with lack of time to exercise, excessive coffee drinking, poor eating habits, stress….so ya poor sleep habits doesn’t mean too much. I have so much going on during my days right now that I can’t even process it. It’s catch up all day long. I usually mark emails that need me to either respond to or are an action item with that red flag you can check off….what does it mean when my entire inbox have red flags? I need to figure out a color coded flag system now.

A friend of mine put it perfectly in an email to me yesterday…this might simultaneously be the fasted year of my life and also the one that drags the most. It’s so true, time is flying, but is comes to a screeching stop when I get a chance to think about what I am missing back home. I can’t believe I wasn’t with the boys for xmas. Such a bummer. Hearing them jump out of bed and head for the stairs when they wake up as we jump out of bed to get to the bottom of the stairs in time to turn the lights on the tree and see their faces as they stumble down the stairs. Those of you with kids know exactly what I am talking about. I want to be there to help them put their stuff together, watch their brains go into overload as they try to play with 5 new things at the same time, and I even missed the stress of making sure that they don’t cross pollinate each other’s piles with the numerous small parts that inevitably will be lost within 24 hours. But what makes me missing all that worth it is that Jolie and the boys were able to travel north so spend time with both our families. That has been something that we haven’t done since moving to NC over 4 years ago. Either not having the vacation time, or not having it in the budget for holiday travel has made being home for the holidays difficult. So if me being over here has taken both those hurdles out of the equation, sign me up. Even though it tore my heart out to not be there with them, seeing them on skype all excited about being at grandma’s house and talking today about all the fun they had with their cousins made it all worth it. 

Happy Holidays to everyone, I love and miss you all....well most of you.

Left Kandahar With A Bang

New location, same dust. It's been a busy few weeks since I last blogged. Lots of packing, working, packing, working, and finally another military flight with no movie or refreshment cart. I did get to sit next to one of the bomb sniffing dogs though, not such a good flier by the way, but considering that it was my second flight in a row that had people getting sick from the turbulence, I'm just glad he didn't puke on me. I was a bit nervous though, having this trained machine with fangs literally tucking his head against my leg made me hope that he realized that I am one of the good guys.

The big move finally happened on Saturday, just 3 days after I started trying to get on a flight. The windy season is starting to come and the dust wreaked havoc on the flight schedule. I was booked on a noontime flight but got delayed an hour due to a "Ramp Ceremony" taking place. It is a ceremony where they honor a fallen soldier and load his/her casket onto a plane for transportation home. I had heard about them previously, but this was my first time seeing it. I was able to stand at the fence line about 50 yards away and watch. There were about 100 troops present, 8 were in their formal dress with the casket. The ceremony lasted only about 30 minutes, it was an amazing site to watch them walk the casket up the ramp and onto the plane. It was another one of those moments here where I felt honored to watch, but saddened immensely by the subject matter.

Kandahar must have known that I was leaving, each day seemed to provide me with some sort of a wish goodbye. Monday night we had the most rockets come in during my time there, I lost track at 10. As funny as it sounds, there was a rumor that Obama was here, obviously he wasn't, but I wonder if they were showing their cards just in case. I had spoken with an Afghan sub contractor that I know earlier in the day and the word outside the wire was that he had stopped in Kandahar after his appearance in Kabul. He was probably coming to meet with me and have his picture taken for the blog....darn dust must have canceled his flight. Tuesday night we lost power around 3am, seeing your breathe is not a great way to wake up in the morning!

Wednesday as I was talking with a client out at one of the maintenance yards, there was a massive explosion just outside the wire, shook us to the bone. It literally took my breath away. I'm still not sure exactly what it was, but clearly it was not a planned explosion as they announce over the speakers if they find something that needs to be detonated. Whatever it was, it sent a mushroom cloud into the air that seemed to hang for an eternity.
Thursday night was nearly sleepless as the activity in the mountains was echoing across the desert. Explosions, helicopters, A-10's doing some damage with their massive guns....lots of money being spent out there. Seemed like every time I was about to drift back to sleep it started up again, and I just don't know how to roll over and go back to sleep with that going on.
Friday was another day without power, lost it for about 8 hours....I think I got out of there just in time.

Things at Leatherneck have been happening at warp speed since I got here. It's been a slightly difficult transition to this point as the personnel changes are not clearly defined yet. In time they will fall into place, but for now I am in an all hands on deck mode. I showed up to find out that I am now the lead PM on a large fuel storage project that starts construction on Thursday. So I have been cramming like I have an exam as all the contracts need to be sorted out ASAP. I've also taken on the lead PM role on pretty much all the other work we have going on as well, luckily they are projects that I was involved in bidding, so at least I have some background info on them, but throw in the 4 bids that are also on my plate right now and I am not missing the fact that I haven't gotten my TV set up yet...I'm lucky to even remember where my room is at night!

 I went to one of my job sites this morning to see what was going on, I got there just as the daily safety meeting was getting underway. I stood there staring at the group of workers wondering if any of them even understood a word that was being said. All of them (about 30) are direct employees of ours, including about 6 Afghans who work for us but live outside the base. It was the usual safety meeting, make sure you don't get run over by a roller, don't fall in the wet concrete, report any ammunition you find on the ground.....huh? It's not uncommon around here to find a few bullets here and there that fall out of a soldier's pocket. One of our guys found 8 bullets the other day and innocently put them in his pocket to turn in later when he was over at the job trailer, well he forgot, and when he went to dinner they were discovered on him- all TCNs (third country nationals- meaning they are not from Afghanistan or a NATO country) and all locals, must get a body scan before entering the cafeteria. He was arrested on the spot....not good. Our security had to go work the system to get him released. Needless to say we are expecting to be raided by the military anytime now to have our compound searched. I'm picturing masked men banging on trash cans as they throw our mattresses out the doors and tear up the flooring. Ok probably not, but if that happens I'll be sure to get a few pictures for the blog, right before they hit me over the head with a billy club.
Back to that safety meeting, after the ammo talk, my site manager kindly reminded everyone to remember their personal hygiene....that's the one thing that I still have not gotten used to, the smell of some of the locals hits you like a brick. I'm not trying to be mean, but yikes it can make your stomach turn if it catches you right. I climbed up into the crane today to ask the operator a question and when the door opened I had to climb back down and yell up to him.
 
One thing that has me spinning a bit is my next R&R. I was scheduled to be home the first week in February. Was is the key word. My boss, another manager, and myself are all pretty much on the same rotation schedule, which doesn't work well. Last time we were scrambling and coverage wasn't good. So I knew that we would have to rework the schedule a bit to alleviate that. Long story short, I am now not on R&R until the first week in March.....argggg. That was a kick in the privates. An extra month here. I'm now about 80 days from being home instead of about 50. Here would be where I would insert one of those frown faces if I didn't think those things were created by the devil. I guess it's time do the only thing that makes the time pass quickly here....work my ass off. Although at this rate I may have to move on to another body part once that one has worn away.