R & R Prep

Well, I was finally able to take most of this Friday off, with the exception of a few minutes on email.  So, what did I do on my down day today?  I slept in!  I awoke at about 0730.  After a couple cups of coffee, I went over to the MWR area and ran a few miles on the treadmill followed by a bunch of push-ups and various forms of ab/core work.  I am feeling much better than I was last week.  I’ve run three days so far this week, not long, about 30 minutes each time, and I’ve been doing the other exercises as well.  Like I said last week, I won’t be eating at TGI Friday’s again.  A colleague of mine ate at Friday’s the day after I did and he got sick as well.  He had to go to the aid station to get treated for his abdominal discomfort.

So, Terry told me this week that she just received the card I mailed to wish her a Happy New Year!  I cannot figure it out.  It only takes about a week for packages to arrive from the US but a simple card takes two months to get back to the US.

I leave for my second R & R on Wednesday.  I’ll be travelling for over 36 hours in order to get home to be with Terry.  I’ll first fly from Kandahar to Dubai.  I have a 10-hour lay-over in Dubai.  Fortunately, I’ll be able to spend the time in an airport lounge where I’ll be able to eat a little, nap, read, and access the internet.  Then I board the 14-hour United flight to Washington/Dulles.  Since United has no flights from Dulles to Manchester on Thursday, I have to fly home through Chicago, adding a few hundred miles and 3.5 hours to the trip.  I’ll finally arrive in Manchester late on Thursday afternoon.

I plan to bring home a suitcase full of clothes and winter gear I either no longer need here or never used while I was here.  My ultimate goal will be to leave here in August with just a small backpack of belongings so I am going to start reducing the amount of “stuff” I have here.  I will need my cold weather clothes still in New Hampshire anyway.  The daytime temperatures here are now approaching 80 every day and we’ve turned on the air conditioning in my office building.

I am really looking forward to just relaxing at home with Terry during this R & R.  I suspect we’ll go out to dinner occasionally, maybe take in a show or something but just hanging out together is on top of the to-do list.  I’ll have to do our tax return while I am home and it is time for Mikey to begin preparing for his move to New Zealand.  NZ has strict animal importation laws and they still require a period of quarantine.  If Mikey’s paperwork is all in order, he’ll only be locked up for ten days, but we have to start six months before he travels to have everything together.

I will probably not post anything while I am home so you can expect my next post to be published on about April 12^th.  Until then…

On the Boardwalk

Beware the Boardwalk!  The infamous Boardwalk on KAF is a large square-shaped wood-framed strip mall.  Inside the square is a soccer field, basketball court, beach volleyball court and (street) hockey rink. There is also a quarter-mile running track with a rubberized surface that runs around the interior. The shops on the boardwalk include at least a dozen food vendors, clothing, electronic and souvenir shops.

 Here you can see the basketball court and running track.

This lower photo shows the memorial to fallen soldiers (foreground) and the corner stage where USO show are often held.

There are two sit-down restaurants on the Boardwalk; TGI Friday's and Mamma Mia's Pizza.

Mamma Mia's serves about two-dozen types of pizza and some pasta dishes.  The pizza is not quite like Naples Italy or good Chicago deep-dish, but you can get a decent pie and will not leave the meal with any intestinal discomfort.  The only discomfort at this place is sitting on the hard wooden benches they use for customer seating.

WARNING - DO NOT EAT HERE!  While hosting some visitors from Kabul on Monday, we went to TGI Friday's for lunch.  I ate the Friday's grilled chicken sandwich and have been paying for it ever since.  I had to go to the PX and purchase some anti-diarrhea medication today.

So, no running this week, except to the porta-john!  Only 12 more days before R & R!

Change and Flexibility

The weather around here is starting to change.  Winter in Kandahar is characterized by cold, windy, rainy weather.  We get these cold fronts that move through and dump an inch or two of rain turning the sea of dust into a sea of mud puddles.  I walk around thinking to myself that this rain is good, that things will grow and we’ll see some greenery in a day or two.  That’s not the case.  The mud simply dries up and becomes dirt and dust again.  We expect a dry sunny week with highs going into the 80s for the first time this year so I guess that’s the sign of spring in Kandahar.

While in Basic Training, when I first joined the Army, my Drill Sergeant told us to remember one word: flexibility.  He told us that since we are now in the government, we have to learn to be flexible because we will always be reacting to change.  Change is a certainty.  We will always have change in our lives.  Those who understand this can remain flexible and not be negatively affected by change.  Those who can find positive ways to react and adjust tend to thrive.

Why all the diatribe about change and flexibility?  That’s what I face every day here on the job.  There are a lot of changes taking place.  Some folks are adapting well while others have a tougher time.  Not being able to adjust and overcome adds to the stress and tends to make life less enjoyable for others around you.  But, my spirits are up!  We’ve been able to get things done around here to make life just a little better for folks and they are appreciative.

The pace of work has put a damper on my fitness (non) routine.  I’ve been lucky to get just one or two runs in during any of the past few weeks.  I am not too worried about it.  With the weather changing, it is starting to get daylight outside earlier and soon I’ll be able to get out on the road early in the morning for a run.  I just have to be able to be in the office by 0730 every morning, hopefully, showered and with a belly full of breakfast.

On another note, it is a good thing I didn’t come here equipped with my Idiot Gun.  If you’ve never seen one, it is similar to a paintball gun.  When fired at someone, it splats a big blob of bright paint on the person and includes the label IDIOT in the center of the blob.  A perfect use for one of these weapons would be in the halls of congress.  Anyway, if I came here with an idiot gun, I’d be out of ammo already.

Let’s change the subject.  I hear Corey and Katrina have set the date!  October 12^th!  I guess Terry and I will have some planning to do ourselves now since we are supposed to be in Wellington by the end of September.  No worries, we’ll figure something out.  I am excited for them.

Terry will be proud of me.  One of the guys we have here on the compound who does all the cleaning saw me dragging my three small rugs outside.  I was going to sweep them and knock the dust out of them.  He grabbed them from me and took the water hose to them.  Then he set them on saw horses to dry in the sun.  So, I have clean rugs in my little hooch now!

Until next week, or the week after that, or maybe the week after that…

A Smoked Trout and Jelly Bean Breakfast!

Since it is Friday, I slept in and emerged from my hooch too late to get breakfast at the DFAC. So, I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast consisting of black coffee, canned smoked trout and jelly beans!  The coffee I made.  The jelly beans, Belly Flops to be exact, came from the automatic candy dispenser my loving sister sent as a Christmas present.  The smoked trout came in a can given to me by Phil, one of my colleagues and friends here.  My sweet wife Terry sent me TWENTY POUNDS of Belly Flops which are Jelly Belly rejects from the factory in California.  Sometimes there are multiple jelly beans which stuck together during production, misshapen jelly beans, or discolored ones.  They all taste great just didn’t pass quality control as they emerged from the jelly bean-making machine.  So, I applaud Terry’s penny-wise ways in purchasing these Belly Flops at prices well below the market price for regular Jelly Bellies.

On the home front, we are all anxiously awaiting the news of when Corey and Katrina will tie the knot.  They have had a rough time finding an adequate venue for the reception.  Knowing the Fisher family, I am sure they are searching for a place within crawling distance to our hotel rooms.

I’ll have to cut this post short, I got distracted by work again, attended an ad-hoc meeting that lasted until after 9 pm, so I’ll sign off by saying that I ate a good-balance lunch and dinner today (so Terry doesn’t hassle me about my poor diet when I speak to her next).  Lunch was veal parmesan, tortellini, and broccoli. Dinner was curry chicken over rice with corn and lemon crumble for dessert.

Only 32 days to go before R&R and 189 days until this tour is over.  I wonder how many more pounds of jelly beans that will require?

Last but certainly not least: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

It's About Time!

I know!  It has been almost a month since my last post and I do apologize.  Life here has become kind of like that movie Groundhog Day.  I pretty much have the same routine every day now, so the days seem to be just ticking away until my next R&R and that day when I get to return home to be with Terry again.  As of today, I only have 39 days until my R&R and 195 days until the end of my tour here.  But who's counting.

I really cannot go into to too much detail about the work I am doing, just rest assured, I am putting in some long hours.  I am always up before 6. Usually about every other day, I get on Skype and visit with Terry at about 0630.  That is 9:00 pm in New Hampshire, a good time to visit.  Most folks here Skype in the evening which can slow down the internet connection so doing it early in the morning has its benefits.  I grab breakfast in the DFAC around 7 and I'm in the office by 7:45.  I have been working through the day and by 4:30-5:00 pm I am ready for a break so that's when I try to find the time to get a run or a workout in.  After a shower and dinner, I am usually back in the office until I start going cross-eyed and head back to the hooch to go to bed.  Most nights, I am snoring by 10 pm.

The kickoff for the Superbowl was at 0400, that's AM here!  We had about a dozen folks crazy enough to get up early and come over to our little lounge area to watch the game together.  I made sure we had a large supply of coffee, donuts, muffins and other healthy stuff available.  I was pleased the Ravens won and that it was such a good game to watch.  Halftime was forgettable, so was that power outage.

Since today was Friday (my weekend!), I only worked about six hours.  We have a construction crew working every day in our residence building repairing all of the bad drainage and replacing the floors in the bathrooms, especially the ones on the second floor.  They have a habit of providing an unwelcome shower to the folks using the facilities in the bathrooms below.  That had to be fixed.  Well, those workers have to be escorted while they are on our compound so a colleague and I took turns keeping an eye on the workers today while the rest of the folks here could enjoy their down day. All the work they are doing is going to take a couple of weeks.  Since they cut the plumbing off on one side of the building's second floor yesterday, the washing machines in the second floor laundry don't have water.  That pissed some folks off since Friday is also laundry day for most! I keep reminding folks that it could be worse!

So, while I am not cross-eyed yet, I am getting a little tired so I'll save some of my rambling for next week.  Until then...

Flu Season and the Pooh Pond Song!

We are all hearing about the flu epidemic taking place in the US now.  Well, it looks like we have it here but not in epidemic proportions.  Three of our folks are sick and are staying in their rooms.  It certainly worries many of us and the hand sanitizer, masks and disinfectant wipes are all around.  I am personally thinking about germ transmission every time I touch a door handle, telephone, etc.  Nobody needs to be sick with the flu.  It is especially miserable having to be sick here in Afghanistan away from family and a comfortable environment.  I feel for the guys and we are doing all we can to help them get through it and prevent the spread of the disease.   Terry is getting over a nasty case right now.  The poor thing even had her flu vaccine shot back in November but still came down with it.  I felt bad for her because even though she needed to stay in bed, she still had to take Mikey, the wonder dog, out three times each day.  Thankfully, the worst is over and she is beginning to feel better. 

This week, I had the pleasure to visit with Peter Miller, Chris’ best friend during his time in high school.  Peter and Chris were almost inseparable in Giessen Germany back in the late 1990s.  Peter has been cashing in on the war effort by working over the past ten years in Iraq and Afghanistan for one of the defense contractors.  He currently runs a helicopter shipping operation here at KAF.  While he is located on the other side of the airfield, I usually get over to that side of the airstrip once or twice a week so we’ll be able to see each other and chat occasionally.  My fond memories of Peter in Germany include his ability to hang around wearing just a T shirt, even in the dead of winter!  He and his brother John were often hanging out with Craig and Chris at our home in Butzbach.  They are both fine young men. Here is a picture of Peter and me taken during my visit with him.  Terry says Peter looks a lot like his father who is retired and living in Colorado now.

It is really warm today.  The temperature is in the low 70s.  Humidity is high and we are covered in a dust-fog.  The dust-fog is an unusual experience.  It is like walking in a normal fog but you can feel the dust crunching between your teeth.  I do all I can to try and breath through my nose when I am outside. We are expecting a cold front to move through tonight with thunderstorms and after the rain stops, we’ll experience a good drop in temperature with evening temps in the 20s and daytime highs in the 40s and 50s.

Well it was only a matter of time.  Someone has written a country and western song about the Pooh Pond and placed it on YouTube.  Marissa discovered the song on the internet and sent me the link.  I almost fell out of my chair when I saw it!  Here is the link to the song.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoqc5ZE8L6E  Enjoy!
Until next week…

Happy New Year!

This is a short post because the day got away from me.  Even though it is my day "off," I ended up working all day and it is getting late.  We have a farewell dinner for one of our employees tonight that I have to attend.  The dinner is at our TGI Fridays restaurant on the base's "boardwalk."  I'll do a post on the boardwalk soon but to describe it concisely, it is a large strip-mall like area surrounding a sports field.  The boardwalk has a number of restaurants and other shops that feature souvenirs, electronics, takeout food, coffee, etc.  Even though the inside of TGI Fridays looks like the restaurants in the U.S., the food has a long way to go before it is anything like what you can buy in the U.S. It is also overpriced for what you get. They are often out of a number of the selections on their menu and if it wasn't for this event, I would not eat there normally. 

I am back running regularly now.  I've been hitting the treadmill most every day and knocking out push-ups and crunches.  I don't have any races planned this year (yet?) so I'll run about 20 miles this week and try to maintain that momentum throughout the winter.

Through the internet and social media, I discovered that one of Chris' good high school friends is actually here at KAF working for a defense contractor.  Chris and Peter were classmates and friends at the high school in Giessen, Germany back in the late 1990s.  One thing I remember about Peter is that he didn't seem phased by cold weather.  Even in the middle of winter, he would show up at the house without wearing a coat, only a t-shirt.  I've called and talked to Peter and hope to get over on the other side of the base to visit with him some time soon.

Well, its time to go gnaw on some food!  Until next week...