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!

Get That Dust Off My New TV!

I want to start this week’s update off with saying how proud I am of my wife’s recent post on her blog.  She made a great statement about why we should also honor our local police officers; the men and women who work every day to make our streets and communities safe.  Go check it out at :Switzerland and Beyond .

This week, as with all the others, seemed to fly right by.  My first R&R is only 4 ½ weeks away!  I also passed my two-month mark here in Afghanistan.  Some days it seems like I just arrived, and on others it seems like I’ve been here forever.  I am finally beginning to see the change in seasons here.  The days are shorter and, while the dust is cooler, it still tastes the same when I am running around the base and a big MRAP passes in a messy cloud of brown, gritty haze. 

I am having a decent week of running with one exception.  I was not able to get the 16-miler done that I wanted to run this morning.  I woke up before 5 am and had to take a colleague to the other side of the airfield to catch a helicopter flight.  I planned to start my run when I returned.  Well, even though I had a cup of coffee with me, my body kept telling me to get back in bed, so I did.  Next thing I know it was 9 o’clock and I was hungry!  Okay, I thought I could adjust and go out in the afternoon and get the mileage in.  Well, I figured I would run two laps of the 8-mile loop around the airfield.  Bad plan!  At 3 pm the sun was shining and it was above 80°F.  I made it one time around and called it a day.  I guess my body needed the rest.  I will still be able to get the 36+ miles I wanted during the week, just won’t get a real long run done.

I guess the highlight of this week was the installation of a television in the office.  That’s a pretty big deal.  I noticed that we had a TV antenna attached to the side of our building.  So I tracked down the cable feeding off of the antenna.  I discovered that it came out of the ceiling in the conference room next to the wall just opposite from where my desk is located in the next room.  So, after some trial and error at trying to extend the cable through the ceiling, we simply drilled a hole through the wall and ran it into my office.  My office-mate, Kevin and I put our meager funds together and went to the PX to buy a small, 21” flat screen TV.  Now, as we enjoy that first cup of coffee in the morning, we get to watch the end of all the stateside night games like Thursday, Sunday, and Monday night football as well as the World Series games right there at our desks!  Don’t worry taxpayers; you are still getting your money’s worth out of us!  We aren’t wasting all of our time watching the thing.  I refuse to watch all of the talking heads on the various news channels until after the elections!  But, you never know; an occasional soap opera or Judge Judy show may be in our future!

A little Art, Food Fun, Running, and MWR

The Embassy in Kabul has featured one of RC-South’s (my organization here in Kandahar) own. Skip Rohde was a State Department District Stabilization Team member in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province.  Skip spent one year in country advising Afghan leaders, military officers and State Department staff. An accomplished artist, he would often take out his sketch book during meetings and encounters with local Afghans and do portraits of them.  See the video that features Skip Rhode’s art work at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWjY9FlnJ8I

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the DFACs here on the airbase.  Well, I was just introduced to another blog that deals specifically with our DFACs.   Just DFACs Ma’am is a pretty humorous blog that really gets to the meat of DFAC eating here on KAF (pardon the pun).  Enjoy it at this link: http://justdfacsmaam.wordpress.com/ 

I had another good week of running, capping off a 34 mile week with a 14.5 mile run this morning.  As I set out, the sky was overcast and it had just rained, for the first time here in Kandahar!  The low cloud ceiling held in all the noxious mix of fumes from the local trash incinerator, the pooh pond and all the vehicle exhaust which made the air pretty raunchy.  As time went by, the sky cleared and the breeze kicked in to cleare the air.  The rain kept the dust down so it turned out to be rather nice with temperatures in the low 70s when I finished up.

Terry knows that I have been working on little projects to help raise morale and provide some leisure-time activities here at our little compound on the base.  Called Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) by the military, these items have been well-received by the folks here.  Terry actually sent me horseshoes and a dart board!  The next few pictures capture some of the work.

Two new treadmills!

An elliptical machine and stationary bike.

The dart board Terry sent to me!

A little TV lounge we created

A Half Marathon and the Pooh Pond

This week sailed right by.  The job is keeping me so busy that I seem to lose track of time and don’t know what day it is sometimes.  Keeping busy also makes the time here pass faster which is a good thing.  It just means that I’ll get home that much quicker!

So, today is Friday, my day off and yet I had to work today.  My goal for the day was to get a 13 mile run in and to go out and take some pictures of our famous “Pooh Pond.”  Well I awoke at 5 am and was on the road running at 6.  I decided to make this morning’s run a full half-marathon distance of 13.1 miles or 21.1 km.  I took my time and ran the distance in about 2 hours and 15 minutes which means I am on a 4:30 marathon pace.  It is pretty neat to run around the airfield because I get to see a wide assortment and variety of aircraft taking off and landing.  From small helicopters to large cargo jets to commercial airliners, this place is always busy with aircraft coming and going.

Now for the Pooh Pond.  The infamous Pooh Pond is actually an open sewage treatment pond.  When the wind is blowing in the right direction, it really adds to the ambiance of this lovely place.  People over the years have placed humorous signs and various things along the edge of the pond, as the pictures will show.  I thought of starting the Pooh Pond Swim Club as something to do in my spare time but, alas, I have no spare time, yet.  When I do, I’ll probably volunteer to be president of the club.  Our uniform will consist of gas masks, hazmat suits, and Speedos pulled over them!  Okay, here are the pictures of the Pooh Pond: