Day 111

Today was a great day!  I'm actually not being sarcastic, either.  I woke up to see an email from the trip planner at home, and the email was to inform me that their trip to Afghanistan had been cancelled!  So that was great news for me.  I then asked my boss if I could take Tuesday off, which I can.  And then I made an appointment for a massage on Tuesday.  So all in all, a pretty awesome way to start the day.

The rest of the day was more mundane.  My General came back from an RC (Regional Command), and he had a couple appointments.  Nothing too taxing, which is probably good for the 70 year old at the end of a long trip.  On our way to his dinner engagement, he said he'd be fine and I don't need to hang around, but then he corrected himself, because he needed me to punch in the little code to get back to his room.  The code was given to him on a piece of paper, so who's wasting resources now?  He's ridiculously high maintenance.

I got a letter from Grandma today, which was great to read.  Thank you so much for writing!  I love reading about your days.  I feel like my days are sometimes hard like yours, but we both have great days every once in a while.  I hope you enjoy Bermuda, because I don't think there's room at my vacation!

Anyhow, I'll finish with some pictures from the last couple days.  I may even try a video, but no promises that I can embed it correctly.

Day 110

Yay, another binary day.  Anyone learn binary since the last binary day?

Today started out more stressful than yesterday even.  Granted, I'm hearing most of this over the phone from an Air Force Major, but the General was getting pissed because they were sitting on the plane while they had to wait to be de-iced.  And he was pissed because they were 3rd in line to take off.  If they couldn't land at their destination and had to come back, he wanted do go a ground convoy to get there.  I actually had huge hulking armored vehicles lined up to take him if needed.  Luckily the pilots didn't embarrass themselves (AF guys), and they made it to their destination.  That was a relief for me, and he was someone else's problem!

I did a ton of work on other visits today.  I met face to face with a trip planner for a visit in a few weeks, and we started going through the details of the itinerary.  Our director, Col Fenton came back from her R&R leave today.  So it was good to see her.  She provides some protection for us when needed, and our deputy director is a rank lower than her and doesn't carry as much weight.  She actually wants me to come to her house when I get back to tell her daughter about colleges and options.  Kind of funny, but it sounds like her daughter won't really listen to anything that comes from "mom".  So we'll see.

I actually ate a couple meals today, which is an improvement over yesterday.  So that's good.  I'm also in the room at a more reasonable hour.  I did get a great email from a buddy today, Ed Beeson.  We were in the same squadron and we did our first deployment together, among other things.  He's doing well out in San Diego and I think we're each doing what we have to be doing for an end goal.

Well, I think I'll get some sleep soon.  Good night.

Day 109

Suckitude.

Day 108

SNOW SNOW SNOW!!  It's a winter wonderland here, except the country still sucks.  I will post a couple pictures once they upload themselves from my phone.

I think my General was a little schedule-challenged today.  He stayed in meetings waaay too long, making him late for the next meetings, etc.  It was quite the domino effect.  And not much fun to make those calls.

But Pumpkin got a nice can of food in a dry location, so I think she was pleased.  She always gets so excited!  It's pretty cute to watch.

I did get letters today from Lauren and Grandma.  So thank you both very much!  I enjoy reading letters still, and I picture you sitting there writing them.  It makes me smile, which is always a good thing!

Brian left today, which was kind of sad.  We had gotten to know each other a bit, and he was a nice guy.  He was tagged as a replacement for someone else at a different compound in Kabul, so we probably won't see him too often anymore.  I hope he makes the shift alright.

And I'm everyone was really on edge for this, but  .... I got the graphics card in my laptop working again, and I have an installation of Skyrim running.  So it'll give me something to poke around at for quite a while!  And there are dragons.  "Beware of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

Day 107

Ahhh, and like a boomerang, my General is back with me again.  But it sounds like his few days in other parts of Afghanistan were good.  If he's happy, I'm happy.

I got a great package from Uncle Marc, Aunt Michele, and Pepper Bruce today!  Thank you so much!  I have new flavors of hot chocolate to try, and lots of tasty treats too.  And the cats have some new treats to try too!  I miss you guys and I can't wait to come home!

I did discover tonight that instead of a male and female pair of black cats, we actually have a pair of males!  One just happens to be slightly larger than the other.  Tonight we played a game of touching paws and batting fingers.  It was cute, but their nails are quite sharp!  I was actually on the receiving end of some teeth too, but it was gentle.  One of them was trying to eat a treat off my hand, but missed.  It was ok, he still got the treat.

We had a dinner together, with some of our people from the PSD, to say farewell to Maj Brad Hickey.  He'll be heading home in a couple days.  I think he's been out here since July, so it's probably been long enough for him.  After 6 months of doing this job, he's a wealth of information, so it'll be a shame to see him go.  But I completely understand his sentiments!

Not much else going on for me.  I apparently exceeded the downloading cap on the internet services here.  However, it appears that by changing the MAC address on my router, all is well again.  Not a very robust system, but incredibly convenient for me.  Good night.

Day 106

I find myself really frustrated with people at the other RC's again.  Tonight one of them wanted me to schedule fixed wing assets to fly my party around in her RC, in case there was bad weather and the helos didn't fly.  Number 1, helos fly in worse weather conditions to start with.  Number 2, she should take care of her own RC stuff.  Number 3, there is only one field we could land a C-130 at in bad weather.  All the others are VFR only!!  Sigh.

Not too much else happened today.  Pumpkin got lots of petting this morning.  She seemed extra affectionate, which was sweet.  It wasn't so horribly cold, so she probably decided it was ok to venture out early.

We had to do the Professional Military Education tonight at Eggers, and I have no idea what it was about.  They decided not to dial us in, because "we're never there."  We're not really sure what they mean by that, because we really are tortured every Monday night with this stuff.  But by the time they connected us, it was more than half over, which was fine with us.  I read some of a chapter on Animal Ethics.  It's interesting stuff, even though it's philosophy!

Well, the days continue to pass here, which is good.  I feel a bit better than yesterday, so no sneezing today.  Hopefully tomorrow is even better.  Good Night.

Day 105

Today turned out to be ok.  I ended up being called back into work at 10:30 last night, which irked me.  And, as it turns out, it was an error on someone else's part.  Also not cool.

But today I got up, talked to Emili, and then I watched Get Him to the Greek, and then some Star Trek: Voyager.  The movie was ok, it certainly had some funny parts.  It definitely wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but I smiled.

Work was mostly uneventful.  Things are coming along with my 3rd visit in line, but not the 2nd so much.  Which is probably problematic, as it is much sooner than the 3rd.  But I can only do so much.

I did play some flash game online today, so that was exciting.  I flew a paper airplane 98 feet!  So I really felt I accomplished something today.  I did actually print out a chapter from a book on animal ethics, and I will read that soon.  It was actually written by the Chair of Emili's committee.  So that's pretty neat.

On the way home I got to treat and pet Pumpkin, and then closer to my building the male black cat.  He actually even followed me up the stairs and was crying at the door.  It was pretty sad.  I'm sure they have warm places to sleep at night, but sometimes I'm just not sure.

I seem to be suffering, along with Ella and Brian, from a cold.  So hopefully it will pass quickly.  As if the cold and dust wasn't enough, now I have a running nose and I'm sneezing all the time.  But I'm sure it will be better soon.  Happy New Years to everyone!  Only a few more months until the world is destroyed.