Out of the Office

Got a chance to take an over night trip to visit one of my teams and interact face to face with the Task Force on the ground.  It was only a short trip, but it was great to get out of the office and a change of scenery.

You'll notice that there's three flags in the pic. The furthest left is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, then Australia, and finally the US flag.

I really do enjoy dealing with the Aussies, as every one I've had to deal with has been very upfront, and doesn't beat around the bush at all. They've been extremely helpful in accommodating our soldiers and helping with the needed essentials to accomplish their mission.

The best part about every trip is checking out how good the food is. The rule of thumb is that the food quality varies inversely to your living conditions.  At this base, the rooms were small, not much room for anything really, but the food was fantastic. They had lots of fresh fruit as well, most of which I haven't seen since coming to Afghanistan: strawberries, grapes, and lots of bananas to name a few.

Other than that, not too much has been happening lately. I have about a month left in my math class and another 2 1/2 months until I'll be back home (give or take).

Updates

Well, I am not 3 weeks into my second math class. All of the things I am learning now are completely new to me. It makes it much harder that I have to learn it out of a book and with the help of guided online homework. Thankfully, math is one of my stronger skill sets so I can manage to figure it out.  Having to do the overnight shift at work almost once a week is nice. Since I don't really have any work I can do that late, I can do my homework instead!

Time doesn't seem to be going much faster, but we are over halfway through, and almost down into the double digits of days remaining.

Fingers crossed that I can make it home for the CC/DU hockey game the first weekend in November! I'm ready for hockey to start again!

I've been lazy....

Jillian informed me that I need to update my blog.

She's right. It's been a while!

So... since my last blog, my roommate moved up north, so I now have an entire room to myself.  Most of the time anyways. I'll sometimes get other soldiers from within the unit staying in my room when they are here visiting for whatever reason.

On to some pictures!

This is along the back wall of my room. It's so nice and open now. Walls are pretty bare and drab, but that's ok. Couple of my best purchases so far are in this picture. 

In the corner is a chair by Kijaro is so much more comfortable tan a regular folding camp chair. The seat is actually flat, and STAYS flat when you sit on it. You don't sink into like the normal ones. It's a bit heavier, and bigger, but still folds to a manageable size (and even locks open and close). I got it from Amazon for about the price of a decent regular folding chair. It came in a ridiculously huge box (think 55" TV size box) and 90% of it was packaging material!

Hung on the door is a Lifeline Jungle Gym suspension trainer. I had never tried one of them before, but wanted some way to work out so I didn't have to go to the gym all the time.  Very happy with it, and it definitely gives you workout. Difficulty is based on how long the straps are, how your position the straps, and a couple other factors. So far, I'm enjoying it, and a quick 30 min workout really wears you out!

This is looking towards the back of the room. I may, or may not, have quite a few pairs of boots under my bed. My favorite pair of footwear is the bright pair you see in from on my wall locker...

I picked up these shoes to help with staying planted during squats, but they've actually far exceeded my expectation for everything and are great for running as well as lifting. They are no nearly as tough on your feet as the Vibram FiveFingers are.  They are a minimalist design, weigh next to nothing, and feel like a sock. Unfortunately, the Army requires me to wear a sock in my physical fitness uniform so these are about half size bigger to accommodate my socks.  They are actually meant to be worn without a sock, so I can't wait for next summer to buy a proper fitting pair for when we are out exploring in the mountains!



My only other thing to note is that I finished my first college course in over 2 years. I finished Math 111 through Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a 97%, and I've just started the follow on Math 112. I will keep you up to date, as there are probably going to be some changes in my degree plan!

Skywatch Monday?

First off, it's been a while since I've posted. I'm not being lazy. Believe me when I say that I wish I lead a more interesting, but unfortunately the mission for me has been relatively slow lately, with the exception of some knucklehead folks I have to deal with on the phone for mission related issues. And outside of work, there's not a whole lot to do.

A run down of my day in general includes:
Go to the gym.
Shower.
Talk to Jillian briefly
Breakfast.
Go to work.
Check email.
Check daily reports.
Shake my head that people don't report.
Call those people and tell them to get it right.
Facebook.
Look at car parts, check the news, etc.
Lunch (sometimes. I eat a pretty good breakfast).
Stare at my computer screen.
Mission sync.
Dinner
Go to my room.
Talk to Jillian.
Go to bed.
Repeat.

So why the name of today's post? I know Ellen and Yogi both do their Skywatch Friday, but I'll make an except for Monday. I managed to get back to my room in time to catch this monster rolling in today.

These pictures were taken during about a 5 minute time frame. There's actually a mountain behind that cloud of dust...

Those speckles are actually dust. This picture doesn't really do justice for the color outside.

Just to show the color, this is about a foot inside my doorway. No, my lights in my room aren't super bright. Just regular fluorescent bulbs.

Even as I finish this up, it's still nasty outside. Looks like I'll be trying to stay inside as much as I can tonight!

Updates

So I haven't posted in a while and Jillian says I need to post again. So I'll do some updates.

Started a math class through Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University a few weeks ago. It's pretty much a combination of trigonometry and calculus that have applications in aviation. If I had taken this class directly after high school, it probably would have been incredibly easier.  Not to say it's hard now, but it took a while to pull some it out of the back of my head and re-learn it.  I am, however, doing extremely well as of now, with a 94.5% and 100% on my first two tests. I'm also over a week ahead in class, which leaves me free to trouble about the country, should I ever need to.

Still taking part in crossfit as well.  Unfortunately, I haven't stepped up past the fundamentals classes, but that's soon to change. They recently revamped the fundamentals class to cover more of the exercises used, in a much shorter amount of time. I'm looking forward to stepping up to an actual class later this week, or early next week. Just a matter of which one I want to go to. Thinking earlier morning will be best since the temps are now starting to hit triple digits (summer is going to be extremely hot!).

We are now more than 1/3 of the way through this tour (ask Jillian and I'm sure she would LOVE to tell you the exact percentage), and things are picking up. More missions, more places for my teams to go, and that means more planning on our end.  We've accomplished a lot here so far, and really have streamlined a lot of systems and have made things much more efficient.

One of these days I'll take some pictures. I just have to remember too. Hopefully I'll get a chance to visit a few more of my teams and go back to Salerno, where I was stationed in 2006-2007.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Microsoft Excel

I got a taste of Microsoft Excel before I deployed. My boss loves spreadsheets. Especially colorful ones. Previously, I took a class through Embry-Riddle on the Microsoft Office Suite of products. That was a while ago. Guess I managed to dump all that knowledge into the 'not going to ever need that' portion of my brain.

Well, that came around to bite me in the ass.

I use so much Excel these days that its ridiculous. I've also never used the 'Help' feature in a program so much. Man, is that feature good to have.

I manage a total of 12 teams. So that's 12 spreadsheets I have to look at daily to track and analyze a variety of data and see how we can reallocate personnel and other assets based on how much work they do, have, or don't have.

But I'm lazy. It's a pain to open all those spreadsheets, nested inside of our database of files. Click here, log in, open this, wait, wait, wait, finally loads, check. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat...

Laziness brings about inventiveness and creativity. I'm a firm believer in that. So I got ambitious, and creative.

After a lot of time searching the Help feature, and even more time experimenting, I finally achieved my goal. One single spreadsheet, with a column for every single team, for every single day, linked to pull the data DIRECTLY from the online the spreadsheets. Sure makes life a lot easier for me, and anyone else that wants to quickly view all the data from the week.

Unfortunately, I didn't do ALL the formulas to add the cells right. I didn't do the formulas originally, but I've found some errors (brought to my attention from others).

So guess what I'll be doing tomorrow? You got it, combing through every cell, making sure the formulas are correct. Believe me when I say that some of them are super long.

Looks like another long day as desk jockey.

Staying Busy

The last week or so has been pretty busy. Lots of stuff going on, a few new changes (some good, some bad), and that's on top of the every day work I do.

Finally got that giant container handler out of here. After having to re-weigh and re-measure the dimensions, it was finally accepted as cargo. You never really realize how big something is, until you put something gigantic such as the RTCH in it. There was plenty of room to spare. That's one HUGE aircraft.

Diesel decided to take an adventure in the Claremont Ranch earlier this week. So glad that everyone pitched in to help Jillian find him, especially the owner and other customers at Aspen Meadows that went out looking for him. I'm glad he's back home safely!

This is my last week before I get back into the books for my upcoming college course. I'm a bit nervous and excited at the same time. It's been over 2 years since I've taken a class, but I'm ready to get into it again, and hopefully continue on with it this time! We will see how I feel about that when the class actually starts! But on the up side, the Army has reinstated tuition assistance again, so I will only have to pay a small amount of the fees when I do continue.

I am however, incredibly upset that I will not spend my summer in Colorado. I'm going to miss an entire summer of being outdoors with Jillian and Diesel, riding the ponies, getting up into the mountains, and most of all, going to watch the Rockies and exploring LoDo with Jillian.

Which leads me to my next point...

Happy Birthday Dinger!

On this day in 1994, Dinger was 'hatched' at Mile High Stadium. Rockies are off to a pretty good start this season and I wish I was home to go to a few games. I guess watching SportsCenter on AFN at work will have to suffice for all my Rockies updates.

In the Sunlight

So the last couple of days I've had a chance to step out of the office and work on some HAZMAT and transportation related issues. Things rarely go smoothly when you set out to do one specific task. For example, we went to drop off 8 sheets of plywood a couple days ago. Pretty simple task. But we get to the yard, and now we have to move this giant piece of equipment, along with all the rest of the wood for it, to a different area.

This is what we are sending. Via airlift. And yes, it somehow does fit into an airplane.

All that wood is needed to keep it in place on the aircraft. And none of it is light. So moving that around, and then having to fill up two tires in the back (you can't see them in this picture) too much longer than anticipated. But I got to spend some time outside, and even got a little color. So life is good.

In case you are wondering, this thing is used to move 20' and 40' containers around. It can lift 53,000 lbs. It's called a Rough Terrain Container Handler. And the one we weighed, clocked in a 118,644 lbs.

In other exciting events, I finally got to sample another one of the dining facilities here. We took a walk to the British dining hall and got some fish and chips for dinner. I'm not a huge fish eater, but it was pretty darn good. Definitely something different from the other 2 dining halls near us. And best of all, they had bananas! I've been looking for them since we got here, and this is the first time I have seen.

Other than that, life goes on, and the weather gets even better. I'm just hoping we've seen the last of the rain!

Changes

Everyone goes through changes, especially at work. But you don't expect it after only 2 months (not even actually).

This week, my OIC got pulled to do a different slot within the CMRE mission, leaving me as the only CMRE subject matter on Materiel Redistribution. The last few nights have been spent dealing with the changes and really revamping some of the processes I already did. My previous OIC and myself worked on a lot of things together, but some of things the previous unit left behind weren't the easiest or best ways to do things. I took what they started, and made something of my own (with help and ideas from other sections).

I should add though, that it will not be last time I work with my former OIC. I'll still be helping with the shipment of HAZMAT out of his new workspace.

 But enough about work (even though that's one of the only things I have to talk about here).

The rains picked up again this week. And we've had quite a few storms. This place is a wreck. Worse than before. I didn't think that was possible. Pretty sure if we get anymore rain I'll have to use a boat to get to work. Yes, it's that bad. First time I haven't been able to get back home without getting feet wet.

Can't wait for the rainy season to end!

I do also have to say, I've been talking to a lot of Australians lately. Talk about some of the nicest people I've had to deal with in my mission. Always so happy and polite over the phone. Proud to have one as a brother-in-law!

On Wisconsin!

My first tour to Afghanistan in 2005, I had an extremely bare section of a plywood hut that I shared with about 6 other people. I needed to decorate and decided nothing would be more fitting than University of Wisconsin Badgers flag.

This flag has been with me ever since. All over the US as I changed station and to every deployment I've been on since I bought it. It's currently on it's third tour of duty.

And it's even better now than ever.

The USO does many tours, from bands and comedy acts, to celebrities and athletes. It's a great organization and does great things to build troop morale to Soldiers separated from their families and loved ones.

Today, a group of NFL players came to our base to do a meet and greet and sign autographs for fans. Among those that stopped by were Champ Bailey and Von Miller from the Denver Broncos and J.J. Watt from the Houston Texans.

Enter my Badgers flag.

Unfortunately, I was unable to make the meet and greet time do to my work hours, but a friend from another shop took it with him (he's a die hard Broncos fan born and raised in Colorado), and he took my flag with for J.J. Watt to sign. He told me J.J. was quite surprised when he pulled out a UW flag to sign.

For those of you that don't know, J.J. is a Wisconsin native and played for the Badgers in 2009 and 2010 before entering the NFL draft before his senior year and going in the first round to the Houston Texans.

Needless to say, I'm a bit sad I wasn't able to go and have it signed myself, but still ecstatic that I'm lucky enough to have his John Hancock on my Badgers banner.

On Wisconsin!

It Could Be Worse

It seems when I'm deployed I do a lot more reading. I enjoying reading, and I'm not sure why I don't do it as much stateside, but I don't. Lately, I've caught up on a few Michael Crichton books that I've never read, including his final book in which he passed away while writing, 'Micro.'

A good book indeed, but I really like reading non-fiction. In a way, that's why I like Crichton's books. They all seem to be based in some sort of scientific fact, or what could actually be possible (think Jurassic Park).

By far my favorite reads are those that involve World War II. These stories are all so inspirational. Normal men rising up to meet to fight for not only our nation, but other countries halfway around the world. Let me share a few of my favorites with you:






Fighter Pilot - Robin Olds

An ace in World War II, and continued to fly through Vietnam, choosing to NOT becoming a double ace during the Vietnam War so he could continue to fly. Also, a former commandant of the United States Air Force Academy.












In With the Old Breed - E.B. Sledge

For those of you that have seen the miniseries The Pacific, you will know what this pertains too. Eugene 'Sledgehammer' Sledge and his memoirs as a Marine on Peleliu and Okinawa. Probably the most intimate of all the books I have read. It's not all about the battlefield, but about his personal emotions about everything around him.













Flyboys - James Bradley

This book really brings to light the mentally of the Japanese in the Pacific. It's very unbiased, as Bradley doesn't just talk to the U.S. airmen, but to surviving Japanese as well. Most of this book revolves around Navy airmen captured and taken hostage on Chichi Jima after being shot down (two of which ejected from former President George H. W. Bush's plane).





And finally, what I'm reading now...

We Who Are Alive and Remain - Marcus Brotherton

It's a collection of stories, told by surviving members of E Company, 2d Battalion, 506th PIR, or as many of you will be familiar with the 'Band of Brothers.'  Not your normal book, as it's not in a story format. It's stories, told by those who were there, of where they were December 7th, how they enlisted, what the training was like, and stories throughout the European theatre as elite Airborne troopers. An incredible book, and a great read for anybody that wants to know more after watching 'Band of Brothers'.



Reading these books is an absolute eye opener. Our current war on terrorism has nothing on what it was like then. These men spent years away from their families, lived in brutal conditions on the front lines, against a determined enemy.  All too often we have young Soldiers complaining about being deployed, being away from their families for 9-12 months. I only wish I could force them to read any of these books and realize how good they actually have it now. I wish they could understand that it could be so much worse.

Feeling the Effects

Sequestration.

I don't know a damn thing about it. However, I do know they sent the Army into a frenzy when they decided to give less than 48 hours notice before suspending all tuition assistance until further notice.

Personally, I haven't done so well with taking online classes. In fact, I don't like them at all. But since my job isn't too demanding, I had decided about a week ago to start taking some classes again. And then all this with TA popped up.

The education site was down due to all the activity with people trying to register for classes before the suspension went into effect. After a half day of hitting the refresh button, I finally got the site to load, and registered for my first class since 2009 (told you I was slacking). Mathematics for Aviation.

Hopefully by the time this class finishes, everyone will have their TA back, and I'll be able to take another class before returning home. And keep taking classes, with some proper motivation.

Mail

One of the best things that can happen when you're deployed is getting a package. Nothing brightens your day like being told you have mail. Luckily, I have a wonderful wife and family that sends me lots of goodies. I've been really excited for mail call lately, especially since our office (known as the ROC, Retrograde Operations Center), pitched in for a Keurig coffee machine. Unfortunately, that didn't arrive today, but my K-cups I ordered and a box from JP arrived.

 

 

It's always good to get some sweets in the mail. There was a bag of Reese's peanut butter eggs in there, but I passed those around the office (after I froze them to get them back to a solid state). If I keep a whole bag of those, I WILL eat them all.

 

And yes. That's a pink ped-egg for my feet. My feet get pretty rough on the bottom from walking around all the time!

 

Most importantly, I'm ecstatic to have a new par of shoes. I already have 2 pairs here, but due to the mud, they are not in the greatest shape. This pair won't see the light of day until it dries up out there. I don't want to step in a mud hole again at night. Don't need my new shoes to look like this guy:

 

 

 

 

Last but not least, JP sent me a digital camera. I use to have to take them with my phone and pull them off that via Bluetooth. What a pain. Much easier with a real camera!

 

Thank you JP for all the wonderful surprises! I love you!



Crossfit

So now that we have taken over, sent the last unit on their way, and settled into our schedule, it's time to try and accomplish a couple goals.

First and foremost, it's time to actually put some effort into getting in shape.  Sure, I can pass the standard Army physical fitness test, and I do a lot better than some people, but there's always room for improvement right?

Every guy comes to a contingency environment with the thought of 'I want to get big' in the gym. That's not me. I don't want to take additional supplements and just sit in the gym lifting weights to the point where it becomes a monotonous routine. Boring. I tried it my last tour in Iraq, and it just didn't do it for me. So it's time to try something new...

Enter Crossfit.

In Iraq, the mechanics in my unit did Crossfit daily, but I worked too hard in the yard to actually feel the need to engage in such a challenging workout, or have my work performance lifting heavy crates suffer. Oh, but how the tables have turned. I now sit behind a desk.

Here we have a gym that dedicates itself explicitly to Crossfit. Kandahar Crossfit. It's staffed completely by volunteers that are ready and willing to teach you the basics and the proper techniques of the exercises. These volunteers are from all branches of services, several different countries, and include civilians as well. They teach you the right way, what it puts emphasis on, and take the time to help you out individually (at least in the intro classes they teach at night).

My first impression: I hate it.

Go ahead. Take a look at the link and look at the Workout of the Day (WOD). It's no joke. It's strenuous. It pushes you to your limits. But I sure as hell bet it's going to get me into shape.

I'm a firm believer in training to standard and not time (Irv has probably heard that several times in his career but it tends to happen the other way around). And that, to me, is the appeal of Crossfit. You either get a set amount of time, or a set amount of rounds. If given a set amount of time, you do the round of exercises as many times as possible. If given a set amount of rounds, you try to complete it in the least amount of time possible. And you record your times so you can reference them later when this same WOD turns up again.

And you should see improvement.

Hopefully I will and I'll keep you updated!

The Rain...

...it just doesn't seem to end. Going on 3 days/nights of off and on rain.  This place is muddy. There are giant puddles of muddy water everywhere. It's absolutely ridiculous. Luckily, I now have 2 more pairs of boots to wear because...

...our BOXES FINALLY ARRIVED.

 After being sent to the wrong destination, our containers we packed at home station finally arrived. Was very happy to get home after work and be able to go through them. I'm especially excited that I have proper bedding now and not the cheap stuff they sell at the PX.



Not much to look at outside. The area in the bottom center is all mud. Much worse after the recent rain!

 

View looks a lot like Colorado. Mountains in the distance.

Blankets! Finally! Dinger has done pretty well this far!


One of the few things that we have here that I really enjoy is the laundry service. No more taking time to wash it yourself. Just turn it in and pick it up 2 days later! They even fold it for you. Makes life a lot easier, especially when you work longer days like I do.


Fresh and clean. Too bad these uniforms look like crap after a few washes.

Why We're Here

Figured while I'm sitting here listen to the CC Tigers play (a game that seems to be riddled with terrible calls), I would update everyone on what I'm actually doing here.

You can find everything on Wikipedia. Including CMRE, the mission I'm involved with. It highlights the basics of what we are doing. From the looks of it, the outgoing units set this up, so I figured I would share it all with you.

CMRE on Wikipedia

And just for some entertainment, one of the most memorable moments since we've become Colorado College Tigers. A huge game winning penalty shot in overtime in World Arena against WCHA rival, against the University of Denver.

Krushelnyski Penalty Shot Game Winner

The Driver's Seat

So I'm finally trained up and ready (hopefully) to take on this mission. I think I've managed to get a hold on updating all the spreadsheets and pretty PowerPoint slides to make the bosses happy. Of course, once we take over complete responsibility, I'm sure things will change. But for now, it looks like a cakewalk, as far as my primary duties managing our teams through Afghanistan.

My secondary job on the other hand has the possibility of being the biggest headache of this tour. Shipping hazardous materials isn't necessarily a difficult process, but if you jack up the paperwork, your stuff isn't going to get moved. And if your inspector is a hardass, the process takes that much longer.

Luckily, my predecessor made a whole bunch of templates for the most common things he has shipped (mainly used cylinders for compressed gases). But it will be the odd ball items that will throw a wrench in the gears. Batteries, empty fuel tanks, and other things will require some research on my end.

All in all, I'd much rather have these two jobs than some others. My primary job may not tax me as much mentally, but shipping HAZMAT will give me the change of pace that's needed.

One Week

Made it through the first week. I'm not one for countdowns or anything like that, but just ask Jillian about her Miserable Donut App? Glad I got a chance to Skype with her tonight and my four-legged son.

Been a busy couple of days. Some of it has been enjoyable. Other parts of it, not so much.

Yesterday:

I love to shoot. It's the reason I have a few firearms at home. It's really a skill that's only perfected by doing it. And sadly, I don't think we do it enough in my profession, which is why people do so poorly at ranges when we have to go. One of the requirements when we get here is to confirm our zero on our assigned weapons. So that's what we did (or some of us did and others tried to do).

The weather was less than ideal. Overcast, windy, and a bit chilly, but I still managed to confirm my weapons zero with the 10 rounds allotted to me. As the unit Small Arms Master Gunner, I take lots of pride in my ability to consistently hit my targets.

By far not my best grouping, but I really didn't want to stay down on the cold ground longer than I had to. Overall, not bad though, considering all are touching or inside center mass.

 



That's where the fun ended yesterday. I went back to work and went to a meeting.
Then another meeting.
Then another meeting, only this time the dreaded online PowerPoint presentation.
And you guessed it, another meeting.

Yes. About SEVEN hours worth of meetings. I've had my fill of them already.

Today was slightly more productive. More mandatory training in the morning. Very informative stuff, but doesn't really apply much to a desk jockey such as myself. But I enjoyed it nonetheless, even if it did start at 6 a.m.

Thankfully, no more meetings today. But I did get a chance to sit down with my counterpart to start learning about my job a bit more. Mainly focusing on daily tasks and other things that need to be done weekly. Next week it'll be my turn to get in the driver's seat and take on these new things and have him watch over me. I don't feel like this will be overly taxing job, but I can tell the boss already has new things on the horizon for us...

I'm happy to have some down time tonight after working late last night. Feels good to be a lazy bum for a little while and having a chance to see Jillian on Skype. Once I'm in a routine, I'm looking forward to getting to the gym most days and get into better shape. I'm especially looking forward to not being at 6000+ feet in elevation like back home.

And as promised, some pictures of my living quarters. Not much I'm afraid but still a very comfortable living arrangement compared to what others have to deal with in other parts of this country.

PowerPoint

First of all, Happy Valentines Day!  Unfortunately, I'm unable to spend it with my lovely wife. But I'm sure she'll hardly notice with the two needy four-legged animals in the house. I wish I was home, but I love you lots darling!

Learned quite a bit about my new job today. I guess when nobody actually grasps the concept of what you are going to be doing, you put yourself in the mindset for some labor intensive job that is going to force you to work long hours and just wear you out physically and emotionally.

Boy, was I wrong.

Seems what I will be doing will be more docile than I thought. I'll hesitate to call it administrative, but I'm not sure what else to call it. After previous deployments of being at the lowest level of a unit, I often forget that I'm now higher in the food chain. The change is nice, and I'm looking forward to a different kind of tour.  Along with tracking and updating the status of those underneath me, I'm sure I'll wear a couple additional titles while I'm here. Most notably, I'm qualified and able to do the proper documentation to ship and certify hazardous materials. AMMO-62 (Technical Transportation of Hazardous Material) is one of those classes I took mid-year in 2012. Never did I think I would ever use this qualification.  Guess I better brush up on my skills!

Up to this point, you may be wondering why this post title is 'PowerPoint.' Well, I've found my new least favorite thing.  For those of you not familiar, we receive a lot of training via PowerPoint slides. I understand it has to be done. I can deal with that.

But have you ever had to log in to an online PowerPoint presentation? As if getting one in person isn't bad enough, imagine doing it while wearing a headset and staring at a computer screen. But it gets worse. Someone asks questions. ABOUT EVERYTHING. All you can do is stare at the slides. And hope they shut the hell up and move on to the next slide (eventually making it last slide after almost 2 hours).

Well that's my rant for the day. Sure glad this is only a once a week ordeal.

On the up side, everything is going really well here. I'm looking forward to getting into a set routine, but most of all, getting my feet wet and learning the task at hand.

Halfway Around the Globe

The time finally came to pack up all of my crap and head off to the other side of the world. And by crap I mean all the random useless stuff they make me pack that I'll most likely never, ever use. I don't enjoy packing 200+ lbs of gear, clothing, and other items into 2 bags that I have to lug around for 4+ days before I get situated in my permanent living quarters.

Coming out of Colorado we flew to Anchorage, AK. I was very excited to stop in Alaska for a couple reasons: I've never been there and I've always thought about being stationed there. My first impressions are positive ones. It wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it would be for February and the view of the mountains are breathtaking. They certainly seem to dwarf the mountains on the Front Range.

Our next stop takes us to Kyrgyzstan, a not so pleasant country in Central Asia where we wait for a flight to our final destination. There's not a hell of a lot to say about this country. It's cold, it's miserable, the overall appearance is just grim. I guess as a part of the former Soviet Union you expect it to look this way.

Finally from Kyrgyzstan we go to our final destination: Afghanistan. This will be my home for the upcoming months along with my brothers and sisters of what basically becomes your extended family.

This will be my second trip to Afghanistan, but this time in a new location, with new people, a new job, and thankfully, for a shorter amount of time.

Unfortunately, all this traveling has some set backs. I still can't get on a proper sleep schedule for this time zone. I go to bed at a normal time and still wake up to early. Hopefully once in the swing of things this will sync up and I'll get back to normal.

All those bags full of crap I mentioned before? No more carrying those around! Once in Afghanistan, we went directly our permanent billeting and I've been able to arrange and unpack everything. I share this room with only one other roommate. Our area is roughly 20ft x 6ft, so it may not seem that luxurious, but it's much better than some billets I've had in the pasts. I'll get some pictures up as soon as I dig out my phone to take some (I unpacked everything but I don't remember unpacking that. Hmmm....) After a quick stop at the PX for some essentials (garbage bin, air fresheners, area rug, etc) the room is well set up to suit our needs.

So what is like where I'm at you ask yourself? Well, without divulging too much information I'll give you a brief description. Here's a few things that I think are important:
- It's noisy. Very noisy.
- It smells. I did not miss the burn pits. There's also a sewage pond. It's winter now, but I'm sure I'll have complaints about that in the summer...
- There's POLICE. Yes. They pull people over. You can hear them chirp the sirens.
- Everywhere I need to go I can walk to. No more than a 10-15 minute walk. That includes the PX, Troop Store, dining halls, work, etc.
- There are 3 dining halls in close proximity to my room. So far, the food hasn't been half bad.
- I have internet. In my room. Obviously this is what I'm using to post this. And if you aren't on it during peak hours, it actually works quite well.

That's about it for now. I'll get some pictures up of the room when I get a chance. This is only the beginning, but I'm looking forward to what lies ahead, including the challenges and the headaches. But most of all, I'm looking forward to the reward at the end: coming home!

The Basics

So I thought I would start my attempt at a blog to let everyone know how I'm doing and catalog some of my everyday aspects of living in a foreign country. Besides how hard can this be? (Unless of course your my wife and you have a blog and never post...)

I'll try to keep this as up to date as possible as I spend the better part of the year with my extended family in this foreign country. There may not be a lot of pictures (you never know who might be watching this and what they can take away from it), but I'll get some on here from time to time.

I hope you enjoy it and helps the time fly by, not only for me, but those expecting my safe return back home.