Almost a month since my last blog…I’m becoming such a blog slacker! It’s just hard lately to find the time to sit down and do it. Ya I know it’s not rocket science, I write bad jokes and whine about being tired, blah blah blah…but that’s just the problem. I am running out of bad jokes and the “me being tired” thing must be getting old by now, so that leaves me with nothing!
Let me say this…rain in the desert sucks. The first time it rained I was ecstatic, anytime you can get a change it’s a good thing. But after nearly a week of solid rain, I want the sun back. This place has been miserable. It hasn’t even been a hard rain, just a light constant rain but it has nowhere to go and the ground has no permeability so it just sits on top and turns all the moon dust into a paste like substance, kinda like soft serve ice cream that sticks to your boots like glue. After walking around in it your feet feel like you have concrete boots on. There is also a smell to the rain, not sure what that is all about, the best I can describe it is a musty smell. I am guessing it is from the rain literally washing the dust out of the air. The base was pretty much flooded for days at a time after it rains. You find yourself having to park wherever you can find dry land and walk to get to most places. The past few days have been sunny, which has been great, it feels like spring, minus the clean air, grass growing, trees blooming,……
Today weather was straight out of a movie, nice and sunny all day right up until around 6pm when a storm blew in. A bunch of us were outside talking when in the distance we could see dark clouds rolling in and even a bit of lightning. Within minutes the skies turned black and the wind picked up. We had a full sand storm blowing through before you could even react to it. I ran to my room to shut my window before everything in it was covered. Thankfully the sand blew through pretty quick and just left the wind and rain….again. I took these pictures. The first was right as the storm was starting, and the second was just a few minutes later. The 100 yard run to my room to shut my window was enough to have the taste of sand choking me. I dread the day when a real one comes in, the type that last for days. I hate to even imagine it.
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| start of the storm |
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| 1 minute later |
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Our guys up in Kabul had a bit of a shake up a few weeks ago. You may have seen it on the news. There is a “western style” grocery store just a few blocks from out villas (we now own 3). It caters to all the westerners that are working and living in Kabul. A man wearing a suicide vest walked in, starting shooting, and then blew himself up killing 9. Our guys are in that store frequently and I guess a few of them had just driven past it within a few minutes of the explosion. The Taliban released a statement that they were targeting the owner of a western security company, but from what our security team has learned, a very prominent Afghan family was in the store and they don’t think it was a coincidence. It's more reason why I am happy to be here at Leatherneck.
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| missed it again |
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| dirt berm, firing range on the other side |
As I’ve said before, KAF was a constant incoming of rockets, and though I don’t have it confirmed yet, we did just hear that one landed on the base recently and killed 1 injured 18. It landed right up the street from our camp. But here it’s only outgoing. These rockets have taken the place of the F18’s in KAF for me. I never stopped looking up when I saw those jets. Here when I hear the rockets take off I always try to get a glimpse. But like the F18’s I can never seem to get a good picture, I always end up just getting the smoke trail. But here is a video of them launching, obviously not by me, but at least you can get a look at these things that go screeching over my head from less than a mile away. They launch from the far side of the firing range that is located about 200 yards away. After my marathon run yesterday I was walking by the gate to the range and stopped for a few minutes to watch the boys and their toys. All I can say is wow. The range is separated by a large dirt berm that stands about 10 feet tall, so you can’t see over it, but right at the gate that they go in and out through you can get a decent view of part of it. The sound waves come over that berm and even though our camp is 200 yards away, and there is another camp between us, we still get our windows rattled on a daily basis. IF you are on the perimeter road by the berm when they fire…holy cow, the sound “pings” off all the metal containers that pretty much make up the landscape here and puts a ring in your ears. The guys in the tower at the gate seemed to be tolerant of me gawking for a few minutes, but I guarantee if I ever take my camera over there they will let me know real fast how they really feel about us civilians!
It’s always funny to see the faces of the new people when they first hear the firing range, it’s kind of that “I’m really concerned by this but I want to act all cool as a cucumber” type face. There is a guy here from the internet provider who is installing some new equipment in our fancy new office that will be opening soon, yesterday as I was heading out for my run he was standing in the middle of the basket ball court and right as I walked by the range started up. I stopped, turned around, and said “it’s just the range”, he said “ohhhh, ok, thanks”. He clearly thought that the world was about to come to an end. Now when they get their first look at the rockets, that more like the face of a little kid on Christmas, what can I say…it’s so cool.
So I ran 2 miles yesterday, is that enough to be ready for the triathlon? Anyone want to team up and do the swim, bike, and first mile of the run? I am excited for it, just wondering if I am going to even finish! By the way, I guess I should clarify something; I am NOT being forced to do it by my wife. I guess people are thinking that my time at home is going to be like the movie Misery. That clearly won’t be the case because she would have to break my ankles, and if that happens I can’t do the triathlon. See…problem solved! I will state for the record that I said I would do the triathlon with her. You guys are a tough crowd.
Just 16 days left before I start my long journey home for R&R. I can’t wait. That extra 5 weeks is killing me. I can mark on my calendar the day that I started becoming a monster around here..the day when I should have left for home. It is true what everyone here says, your mind knows when your 90 days are up and any extra time just sucks the life out of you. It was nice to book my flight last week, at least I have the travel plans figured out which makes it all seem like it is really going to happen soon. Admittedly the time has passed pretty quickly all things considered, but the extra time has been rough for the whole family. We have plans to head out to the mountains for a few days, a friend of ours has a great house out there that we used last year as well. It will be a perfect place to get away and spend time with the family away from everything.
I was on a call the last week with my boss and a few other higher ups, we were talking about the new projects in Iraq that we (I) am bidding. It was 8pm and the next bid was due the next morning. I explained to them that I have been so busy that I hadn’t yet even looked through the bid documents, that lead to my boss saying that if I was at my max capacity I needed to raise my hand and ask for help. Well being the company wiseass (a position that is desperately needed in this environment) and being a tad bit on the irritable side, I turned on the video on my skype and put both hands above my head and waved them frantically. Point made. It still didn’t help the immediate need though and I had yet another all night bid preparation, the second of the week for an Iraq project. There is a point in the middle of the night though when all is finally quiet, that I do sit back and think that I have a pretty cool job. Not many people will get to say that they sat in the middle of Afghanistan, in the middle of the night, and came up with a price for a project in the middle of Iraq. I just wish the middle of the night part could go away.
Oh, by the way…my warlord buddy sent one of his guys to see me today. They want me to come out to see him again, he wants to talk about supplying me with more materials. Personal invitation by a warlord to talk business….check.
No story on this one, just more of my people over here in the desert.
