Countdown to R&R!

Okay, so I didn't post anything on Friday!  I could hear every complaining from here.  I guess I'll try to make up for it by posting now.  I only have about 40 hours before I am wheels-up and on my way home for a three-week break.  The trip home will be long, about 35 hours in all.  I have a 3-hour flight from here to Dubai, a 9-hour lay-over in Dubai, then a 14-hour flight to Washington DC.  I have a six-hour layover in Washington where I hope to link-up with Corey and go eat some breakfast.  Then finally, I have the 90 minute flight from Washington to Manchester.

Our Thankgiving celebration here at KAF was unspectacular.  About 20 of us piled into 3 diferent vehicles and drove to a DFAC on the other side of the airfield.  After waiting in a 30 minute line, in the rain, we made it into the DFAC to enjoy our turkey dinner with all of the fixings. Here is a poorly-cropped shot of me with a mouthful of food near an authentic-looking turkey decoration hanging from the ceiling.

I tried to Skpye with Corey on Thanksgiving Day.  He was celebrating Thanksgiving at Mom & Dad's house in GA.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the timing right.  I wanted to amaze them with our ability to communicate with video and sound over Corey's cell phone from thousands of miles away.  Well, Corey had a weak cellular signal from their house but we finally made it work for a few minutes on the day after Thanksgiving.  That was all worthwhile!  Chris actually tried using his cell phone to Skype with me first.  He called me from his police car one Sunday morning and it worked pretty well, both audio and video!  Modern technology is amazing.  In some respects we are living with technology that most folks back in the 60s and 70s thought of as science fiction.

I am talking with Terry almost every day through Skype.  We've discovered that the best time for both of us is 7:00 am here in Afghanistan while it is 9:30 pm the night before on the east coast of the U.S.  I just have to schedule the calls so that they aren't interupted by any alarms going off!  And, it would be nice if the fighter jets delayed their take-offs until after I am done.  The noise tends to interfere with our chat!

Finally, here is a picture of my colleague Kevin and the young fellow we call John, who is from Sri Lanka.  The company John works for has the cleaning and maintenance contract for the buildings on our compound.  John wanted me to take this picture so he could send it to his family back home and show them who he worked for.  He is a great guy and, contrary to the photo, is always smiling and humming a song.

Okay, get ready for a three-week lapse in posts to this blog.  When I return, I may be able to post some more pictures of my time with family!

Killing the Enemy

I’ve killed four of the enemy already today and it is still only 10:30 AM.  This week, our maintenance folks turned the HVAC units for our office building from AC to heat.  That’s a good thing because the morning temperatures are now in the 40s.  But, this is an arid environment and in the afternoons, despite being a comfortable 70-75 degrees outside, the inside of the building gets pretty warm because of the abundant sunshine.  The afternoon warmth causes us to open the windows and doors to get the cool comfortable breezes flowing through the offices.  Well, opening these windows and doors allows the enemy to infiltrate our workspace.  Those damn flies are quite a nuisance.  So, as I have been working a few hours already, these Taliban infiltrators have been buzzing around my workspace, trying to drive me crazy.  As I type this, there are two or three of the enemy still probing my perimeter.  At the end of the day the body count stood at 12.  A few of the victims were female so I was able to prevent the potential birth and subsequent recruitment of hundreds! 

I had a busy and productive week.  Two day trips by Blackhawk helicopter out to sites where we have Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to meet with the new commanders there.  I went through training in Indiana with all of these new guys so it was good to see them again and welcome them aboard.

Our small group here at KAF celebrated Veteran’s Day with a little cake and coffee after one of our meetings.  I made all of the folks who had ever worn a U.S. military uniform stand up to be recognized.  We gave our vets a big round of appreciative applause, and then we dug in to the cake.  It was a chocolate cake with white frosting.  One of the DFACs made it for us.  Here is a picture of the cake and of me taking a stab at it to begin serving.

Finally, just before sitting down to finish this post, I completed my longest run before the marathon.  I ran, on a treadmill for three hours!  During that time, I was able to log 18 miles.  So, now I consider myself ready to complete the Honolulu Marathon on Dec 8^th with Chris and Marissa.  I am really looking forward to that.  It goes without saying that I am excited and anxious to begin my R&R and be back with my wonderful bride and see my kids again.  This week I have to hit the shops on base for some little gifts to give everyone.  You know: samples of water from the Pooh Pond, maybe some extra fine Kandahar dust to share with folks, just a little something to represent my experience here.

18 Days!

Only 18 days until I am wheels-up on my first R&R from this place.  I am really looking forward to it.  Close your eyes and picture me in an airliner seat with a Heineken in each hand and a smile on my face!

I was having supper with a colleague this evening saying how crazy I must be, trying to get ready for a marathon while being deployed in a war zone.  We have a mental health professional coming for a visit soon.  maybe I should see him?  What do you think?  Even though it is a Friday, again another "day off," I've spent most of the day working.  I did sleep in until 0800!  But, I have another busy week to prepare for.  I'll be traveling on a couple of day trips by helicopter, and we are preparing for a Veteran's Day celebration for Sunday.

I'll be running in a Veteran's Day 5km race Sunday morning.  I am going to try and run a long 17 miles later in the day around 4-5 pm so I'll take it easy in the morning race and just try to stay loose.

After having my Yahoo email account for over 12 years without problem, I think my account was attacked by a Trojan horse this week.  Now I've seen emails come my way with strange links in them and I recognize them as being bad.  So, I've been careful not to open them and delete them immediately when I see them.  I don't remember ever opening a link like that in the past but, my account just sent out a bunch of these emails in the past 24 hours.  If you received one of these emails, I apologize.  I guess I'll have to change my personal email address.  If you want to get in touch with me from now on, use my gmail account: Richruns2@gmail.com.

Sorry this is a short post.  I guess I've just been too busy to really plan and create an entertaining post for this week.  18 days!

The Highs and the Lows of this Job

The high included a nice flight by U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter out to one of our Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to participate in a change of command ceremony.  The weather was great and I really enjoyed the ride out and back.

The low had to deal with a sewage backup on our compound.  I am responsible for the facilities on our small compound to include all the buildings and everything associated with them.  Well, as I sat in the DFAC to enjoy my lunch today, I received a call from one of our employees that the bathrooms in our buildings were all backing up and not draining.  Lucky Me!  So, I wander back to the compound, call the plumbers from one company who discover that the compound septic tank was beyond full.  That required a call to yet another company to come bring the infamous SST out.  SST is the acronym for $hit-$ucking Truck.  On my second call to the company that runs these SSTs, I was told that they had a problem with emptying the trucks, that the facility to empty them was having trouble and all the trucks were full.  Okay, I made signs to put on all the bathrooms asking folks to use the porta-johns on the compound.  Finally, about 4 pm, the SST showed up and we were back in business.  It’s a crappy job, but somebody has to do it! 

What a week.  Again, Friday morning rolls around and, since I have no real reason to get out of bed, when the alarm went off at 0530, I just turned it off and rolled back over to continue sleeping.  I finally got up at about 0830 to start the day, thinking that I have all day to go out and get my long run in.  As I was sitting on an outside staircase, waiting for the SST, I was yawning and our Chief of Staff walk by and said: “why don’t you go to bed?”  I told him that I don’t know why I am so tired today, and he said it’s no wonder you are tired when you are putting in 80+ hour weeks.  Busy days and marathon training make Rich a tired dude!  Good night!