The contracting company that handles the maintenance, food service etc for the camp has given us a not so subtle hint that we have a rodent problem. All of you by now have heard of or read about the camel spider incident. Since then I check my boots religiously for critters. Well, the last few days has had the aforementioned contracting company laying glue traps out EVERYWHERE. I got the idea that I needed one, or 25 of them, the other night when I was sitting on my chair and saw out of the corner of my eye, a little bugger run and take off under one of the beds. We searched, but couldn't find him. My guess is, it was a mouse, but I wont know until I find him. At this point, I went and acquired glue traps for my own room and have them placed all around. I told Bob and Steve about it, and they decided they needed traps as well. They laid the traps out last night and low and behold this morning, they had a catch! What could it be? A mouse? A camel spider? NO, better! A scorpion! WHOO HOO! The stupid thing had scurried onto the trap, gotten its front legs trapped and then with its stinger "attacked" the glue paper and managed to get that stuck too. It was pissed. Steve started to move the trap to get it outside, and the thing freed its stinger and hit the trap again. It was more stuck at this point, and Steve was squealing like a girl. He denies that, but I have witnesses. Honestly, the camel spider scared me a lot more because it was so much bigger, but this thing was nasty looking and definitely angry. Steve looked it up online and found out it's poisonous, then again, most of the ones around here are. Lets hope this was an isolated incident. Two of the other guys here caught two mice on one trap the other night, to date, mine are all free from rodents, insects or other creepy crawlies. Just thought I'd share some of the fun living in a desert!
Gary
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
KAIA Trip
Made a trip today to Kabul International Airport (KAIA). Pictures are up here. I had wanted to go and a convoy was heading there in up armored humvee's (my favorite way to travel in keeping with rule #1 - don't get blown up). Anyway, its a short trip, 25 mins or so, 10 mins if the roads here were any good. Its a massive multi-national facilty, and I only saw two American's while I was there, but a pile of French, Bulgarian, Croation and New Zealanders. Now I know where the NATO forces hang out. It's more or less a crap hole of an airport, but there were a couple commercial flights coming in for those that want to visit me ;) That is a joke, dont even try it! We got to eat at a semi-real restaurant and shop at the German, Italian, Polish and some other countries exchanges, so that was interesting. All in all, a decent trip, and now my need for seeing the airport is satisfied, so I can continue to stay holed up here at Blackhorse. :)
Sunday, July 23, 2006
299!!
As Jerry Reed put it so eloquently - We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there. I definitely have a long way to go, but I can't put the pedal to the metal and speed this up. Regardless, this is a good day! I have broken the 3xx days remaining countdown, and am into the 200's. It isn't anything more than one day closer than yesterday, but its a mental thing! Every milestone counts.
This week, as I wrote last time, has been a tad boring, but we did have a couple interesting conversations with our interpreters. Steve and I were trying to describe the restaurant Hooters, and the double entendre that it is. Needless to say they don't have anything like it here, and when they finally got the concept, you could see the shame on their faces. Then we sorta moved into other restaurants, and since it was Thursday here, and Friday is a day off, we started talking about TGI Fridays. Which, means absolutely nothing to them, one because Friday to them is called Juma, and two, they have that Allah guy. So, to them it would be Thank Allah it's Juma. TAI Juma. Not quite the same ring.
We also talked a bit about religion, which is a very touchy thing here. We were told EMPHATICALLY not to try any conversions. HA. I am not sure who would be coming here attempting to convert, but good luck to them. We actually discussed the differences between Sunni and Shiites. Both of our interpreters who were there at the time were Sunni (Saddam's chosen sect BTW), and started talking about some of the reasons they don't like the other side. One of the main reasons revolved around the fact that Mohammad had 4 sub? Prophets, and the Sunni's follow all of their teachings, but the Shiites only follow one. They both follow Mohammad mind you. They also mentioned how many times a day they pray, and the fact that they don't wash as much. To me, I couldn't find any substantive reason to dislike the other side, considering at the root of it, they are following the same teachings. I tried to explain that I being Catholic, followed almost NOTHING they did, I don't pray but once a day, and really don't care about Mohammad. I guess showering daily scores me points. Either way, I tried to get them to explain why they didn't hate me (maybe they do), but they really couldn't do it without laughing. I think at the root of all this, they have been told for so long to dislike the other side, its just part of them. Sad really. Can you imagine me jacking up a Baptist due to his showering habits? I am so glad I live in the US.
On a more serious note, I saved a life today. I don't know who's, or when they were going to die, but I am telling you, chalk one up for Gary. I was going around this month helping the Sgt in S-6 learn how to update the virus scanners, which by the way, he picked up really fast. We found the security company office, and when I walked in, I noticed that they had instead of a plug for their UPS, two wires just jammed into the wall socket. 220 through very thin wires. Nice. So, I went to supply guy for us, and asked him to get me a power strip, and he was nice enough to acquire one quickly. We went back in and unhooked the monstrosity that was their power cord, and I started dismantling the setup. What they actually had done was wrap 2 pieces of wire onto an American grounded plug through the holes in the end, and then wrapped that entire mess in a walmart blue plastic bag. It was a fire or electrocution ready to happen. Gary 1, Death 0. Take that Death! My other concern is that now that I have fixed this problem, I have a feeling they will take the power strip, sell it downtown and go back to the old way. I had to explain to the Lieutenant that was in there that if I came back and it was back to the old way, I would take their computer. He seemed to get it, we'll see.
That's about it for now, take care.
This week, as I wrote last time, has been a tad boring, but we did have a couple interesting conversations with our interpreters. Steve and I were trying to describe the restaurant Hooters, and the double entendre that it is. Needless to say they don't have anything like it here, and when they finally got the concept, you could see the shame on their faces. Then we sorta moved into other restaurants, and since it was Thursday here, and Friday is a day off, we started talking about TGI Fridays. Which, means absolutely nothing to them, one because Friday to them is called Juma, and two, they have that Allah guy. So, to them it would be Thank Allah it's Juma. TAI Juma. Not quite the same ring.
We also talked a bit about religion, which is a very touchy thing here. We were told EMPHATICALLY not to try any conversions. HA. I am not sure who would be coming here attempting to convert, but good luck to them. We actually discussed the differences between Sunni and Shiites. Both of our interpreters who were there at the time were Sunni (Saddam's chosen sect BTW), and started talking about some of the reasons they don't like the other side. One of the main reasons revolved around the fact that Mohammad had 4 sub? Prophets, and the Sunni's follow all of their teachings, but the Shiites only follow one. They both follow Mohammad mind you. They also mentioned how many times a day they pray, and the fact that they don't wash as much. To me, I couldn't find any substantive reason to dislike the other side, considering at the root of it, they are following the same teachings. I tried to explain that I being Catholic, followed almost NOTHING they did, I don't pray but once a day, and really don't care about Mohammad. I guess showering daily scores me points. Either way, I tried to get them to explain why they didn't hate me (maybe they do), but they really couldn't do it without laughing. I think at the root of all this, they have been told for so long to dislike the other side, its just part of them. Sad really. Can you imagine me jacking up a Baptist due to his showering habits? I am so glad I live in the US.
On a more serious note, I saved a life today. I don't know who's, or when they were going to die, but I am telling you, chalk one up for Gary. I was going around this month helping the Sgt in S-6 learn how to update the virus scanners, which by the way, he picked up really fast. We found the security company office, and when I walked in, I noticed that they had instead of a plug for their UPS, two wires just jammed into the wall socket. 220 through very thin wires. Nice. So, I went to supply guy for us, and asked him to get me a power strip, and he was nice enough to acquire one quickly. We went back in and unhooked the monstrosity that was their power cord, and I started dismantling the setup. What they actually had done was wrap 2 pieces of wire onto an American grounded plug through the holes in the end, and then wrapped that entire mess in a walmart blue plastic bag. It was a fire or electrocution ready to happen. Gary 1, Death 0. Take that Death! My other concern is that now that I have fixed this problem, I have a feeling they will take the power strip, sell it downtown and go back to the old way. I had to explain to the Lieutenant that was in there that if I came back and it was back to the old way, I would take their computer. He seemed to get it, we'll see.
That's about it for now, take care.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
2 down
Today is a pretty good day. Its the start of our third month. WHEE!! Doesnt sound like much, but it's a nice milestone. We have now been here as long as we were at Camp Shelby, and honestly, it felt like it took 5 years to get out of Shelby. In relative terms, time is flying. Been an uninteresting week at work, so hopefully I will have more things to write about in a few days!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Updated the updates
HA, try to keep up with that title! Alright, so it isnt that hard! Basically, I took my original 7 updates, and have now put them in the post that used to be titled update 8. Everything I have sent in email is now on here.
Gary
Gary
Monday, July 10, 2006
Afghan Village Trip
I made my first "real" trip info Afghanistan today and it was really incredible. The army does all sorts of public works projects to help out local villages etc. They were doing one for the village of Tangi Kalay which is about 6 miles from us here at Blackhorse. They asked if we wanted to tag along because we had been asking about going to a school. We were thrilled to be able to go, because honestly, its probably the most rewarding thing we will do here.
The village itself is pretty stardard. All dirt walls and inside are decent little small houses. We actually met the village elder in a small courtyard that the previous army units had built them. Its basically a community center. Some of the pictures (located at my picasa page, or just click the link on the word pictures)I have are from the courtyard and a couple are from one of the little rooms they have setup inside as a classroom for the girls to learn English. We had tea (of course) with them and some cookies and then we were off. The army was building a power facility for a village across the street, different name, but the elders knew each other. All of my other pictures are from that other village. Much poorer, but honestly, the house we went into for this elder wasnt too bad. They scoped out the spot to build while we played around with the kids. What a great experience that was. They are incredible. The real little ones especially the girls are just adorable. The girls are SERIOUSLY camera shy....as soon as one comes out, they bolt. I was only able to get pictures of them from a distance. They are all pretty polite, but definately curious. They want to come up and touch you and are very curious about our uniforms and things hanging from them. They want ANYTHING you will give them. They LOVE, LOVE, pens....and water bottles whether they have water in them or not. We know better for next time to bring a whole bunch of water bottles....I guess even if they arent full they make toys out of them. The elders were extremely hospitable and sat us down a couple different times to feed us watermelon and some other melon, and give us tea. It was also very interesting to see the kids scatter when he yelled. They would start crowding us, and he would tell them to back up and they would take off. The concept of respect for the elder is alive and well in Afghanistan. It was fun to be out with them, as they smiled the entire time...but it was also sorta sad to see so many of them with nothing. Again, the girls get the short end of the stick because anything you give them, a bigger boy will go take it from her. Not much we can do about that. Either way, it was just incredible to be in a real village with real Afghans and feel like you can make a difference.
Don't get me wrong, I won't be spending all of my free time there....we still were out in the open and I'm not a huge fan of being in harms way for hours at a time, but for the time we were there it was very enjoyable.
I know many of you have expressed an interest in sending school supplies etc. and the good news is that now we have an outlet for all of it, and I can tell you from first hand experience that it will go to very good use.
Gary
The village itself is pretty stardard. All dirt walls and inside are decent little small houses. We actually met the village elder in a small courtyard that the previous army units had built them. Its basically a community center. Some of the pictures (located at my picasa page, or just click the link on the word pictures)I have are from the courtyard and a couple are from one of the little rooms they have setup inside as a classroom for the girls to learn English. We had tea (of course) with them and some cookies and then we were off. The army was building a power facility for a village across the street, different name, but the elders knew each other. All of my other pictures are from that other village. Much poorer, but honestly, the house we went into for this elder wasnt too bad. They scoped out the spot to build while we played around with the kids. What a great experience that was. They are incredible. The real little ones especially the girls are just adorable. The girls are SERIOUSLY camera shy....as soon as one comes out, they bolt. I was only able to get pictures of them from a distance. They are all pretty polite, but definately curious. They want to come up and touch you and are very curious about our uniforms and things hanging from them. They want ANYTHING you will give them. They LOVE, LOVE, pens....and water bottles whether they have water in them or not. We know better for next time to bring a whole bunch of water bottles....I guess even if they arent full they make toys out of them. The elders were extremely hospitable and sat us down a couple different times to feed us watermelon and some other melon, and give us tea. It was also very interesting to see the kids scatter when he yelled. They would start crowding us, and he would tell them to back up and they would take off. The concept of respect for the elder is alive and well in Afghanistan. It was fun to be out with them, as they smiled the entire time...but it was also sorta sad to see so many of them with nothing. Again, the girls get the short end of the stick because anything you give them, a bigger boy will go take it from her. Not much we can do about that. Either way, it was just incredible to be in a real village with real Afghans and feel like you can make a difference.
Don't get me wrong, I won't be spending all of my free time there....we still were out in the open and I'm not a huge fan of being in harms way for hours at a time, but for the time we were there it was very enjoyable.
I know many of you have expressed an interest in sending school supplies etc. and the good news is that now we have an outlet for all of it, and I can tell you from first hand experience that it will go to very good use.
Gary
Friday, July 07, 2006
My Bagram adventure
Today was a first for the Navy guys here. We did our own convoy that didn't involve the Marines or Army guys. One of our guys was flying back home for his brothers wedding, so we had to convoy up to Bagram Air Field (BAF) to get him to his flight. Actually, we tried to do it yesterday, but as we left the final gate out of Pol-e-Charki(PeC), we called the command center and they informed us every road went black (meaning NO travel of any kind), so we had to turn around. That is here nor there. The roads went red again today (which means we have to be in up armored humvees, vice our Ford Rangers to leave the gate), so we packed up our stuff and headed out. A couple of the guys had been to BAF before, none of us had ever driven there. We figured we'd get there :)
Things went pretty well until we got past Camp Phoenix and needed to make a turn. Everything sorta looks the same so of course we missed it. At this point, my GPS came out and we figured out we didn't miss it by much and turned around and headed the correct direction, in this case, North. Love the GPS. I figured if only one time it got me in the correct direction, it was worth every dollar, I was right. I recommend if you ever drive in Afghanistan by yourself, have one :)
BAF is about 45 miles ish from PeC, depending on the route you take, so its really not THAT far, but it seems like a lifetime because you are typically on the road about two hours. Between horrible roads, donkey's, bikes in the middle of the road, 4 lanes of traffic on a 2 lane road and then just stoppages for no reason, its not a standard 45 mile journey. About 2 miles up on the road that we had missed, but were now on, it dawned on me: We are 5 Navy guys who don't speak the language driving to a place we THINK we know how to get to in armored vehicles carrying guns. It became surreal as I stepped back and considered what we were doing. Didn't matter at this point, we were mobile!
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, the road is straight, only one more turn until BAF so we managed to make it in. Got some pictures of the AMC passenger terminal there, some cargo sitting on the runway, and some other general parts of the base. Its SOOO much bigger than what we have here, and they have some of the cool amenities of home. Key one: I had a double whopper with cheese for lunch. Horrible for my weight loss goals, but wow was it good! I haven't had fast food in a couple months and it was a very satisfying lunch. Also made an exchange run and picked up a hair clipper, microwave and a BAF item for Kara. Gotta love the microwavable food on lousy dinner nights. We also had to pick up a couple guys coming back to PeC from leave. That is a story for another day, but we did manage to find them.
We loaded up again and headed back out the gates and made really good time on the way home. One of the guys knew a short cut and saved us 15 mins. I think all that means is that we will get lost next time trying to go the same route.
I make it a point to avoid being on the roads as much as possible. Being out there makes breaking my two keys rules much easier. Oh, my two rules.
1. Don't get shot
2. Don't get blown up.
I am very pro my rules, and like to follow them at all times. I will ideally make very few trips to BAF in the future, but at long as they go as well as this one, it will be fine!
Take care! Ill add pictures from the trip later tomorrow!
Gary
Things went pretty well until we got past Camp Phoenix and needed to make a turn. Everything sorta looks the same so of course we missed it. At this point, my GPS came out and we figured out we didn't miss it by much and turned around and headed the correct direction, in this case, North. Love the GPS. I figured if only one time it got me in the correct direction, it was worth every dollar, I was right. I recommend if you ever drive in Afghanistan by yourself, have one :)
BAF is about 45 miles ish from PeC, depending on the route you take, so its really not THAT far, but it seems like a lifetime because you are typically on the road about two hours. Between horrible roads, donkey's, bikes in the middle of the road, 4 lanes of traffic on a 2 lane road and then just stoppages for no reason, its not a standard 45 mile journey. About 2 miles up on the road that we had missed, but were now on, it dawned on me: We are 5 Navy guys who don't speak the language driving to a place we THINK we know how to get to in armored vehicles carrying guns. It became surreal as I stepped back and considered what we were doing. Didn't matter at this point, we were mobile!
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, the road is straight, only one more turn until BAF so we managed to make it in. Got some pictures of the AMC passenger terminal there, some cargo sitting on the runway, and some other general parts of the base. Its SOOO much bigger than what we have here, and they have some of the cool amenities of home. Key one: I had a double whopper with cheese for lunch. Horrible for my weight loss goals, but wow was it good! I haven't had fast food in a couple months and it was a very satisfying lunch. Also made an exchange run and picked up a hair clipper, microwave and a BAF item for Kara. Gotta love the microwavable food on lousy dinner nights. We also had to pick up a couple guys coming back to PeC from leave. That is a story for another day, but we did manage to find them.
We loaded up again and headed back out the gates and made really good time on the way home. One of the guys knew a short cut and saved us 15 mins. I think all that means is that we will get lost next time trying to go the same route.
I make it a point to avoid being on the roads as much as possible. Being out there makes breaking my two keys rules much easier. Oh, my two rules.
1. Don't get shot
2. Don't get blown up.
I am very pro my rules, and like to follow them at all times. I will ideally make very few trips to BAF in the future, but at long as they go as well as this one, it will be fine!
Take care! Ill add pictures from the trip later tomorrow!
Gary
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Monday, July 03, 2006
update 10
I'd like for these updates to be a bit more exciting, but since we have settled into a daily routine, something really outstanding has to happen for that. Come to think of it, anything really exciting is probably bad, so you all just have to put up with boring updates.
One interesting occurance this week was my first dust storm. Afghanistan is in what is known here as the "120 days of wind". Just what it sounds like, the winds can be intense at times. In Kabul, especially out where we are in the mountains, we are isolated from most of it. Some of the regions down south experience 40/50 mph winds almost daily. Either way, I walked outside yesterday and I couldnt see 25 yards in front of me in any direction. Kinda scary actually. I am so used to seeing the moutains that surround us, having the dust block everything was very odd.
I haven't seen Commander Banana in two weeks, because surprise, he is downtown all the time picking up food. Today I got word he was on the base, so I took my interpreter and we headed over to find him. He was in the Afghan DFAC (chow hall) so I got to take a little tour behind the scenes. I wish I wouldn't have. There were guys cutting vegetables inches from their feet, dirty shovels everywhere and some smell I couldnt quite place. Either way, we found him and spoke to him for a few minutes. I invited him back to his old job, time will tell if he shows up.
Speaking of our interpreters, we are starting to get a little more comfortable with them. Like any new co-worker, you dont really know what you can say and what you cant say when you first meet. We have been here long enough now that we have figured out some of their character traits and things about them. The one guy we found out is REALLY into Joe Pesci. He loves all of his movies and keeps asking us to bring him more of them. He is down to the Home Alone series. It's really quite funny to hear him impersonate him. I don't know where he learned about Joe, but I find it interesting that he has latched onto that actor.
I think I mentioned in the last update, that most days here are the same. Not much changes. We as a group sorta talked about things we need to do keep sane and improve ourselves. We all have decided that the gym is a great place, and I have been in there 6/7 days a week. Its a good way to kill an hour. I did seem to hurt my knee yesterday, so I think I may have to take a day off once in a while. We also have decided that we need to get smarter. I have started taking classes from Navy Knowledge online, and am going to get certified in MS Office and hopefully either finish or at least be ready when I get home for MS certified systems admin. It's good to have goals, and honestly, it makes the days go a bit faster knowing you have things you have to accomplish.
Not much else for now, take care!
Gary
One interesting occurance this week was my first dust storm. Afghanistan is in what is known here as the "120 days of wind". Just what it sounds like, the winds can be intense at times. In Kabul, especially out where we are in the mountains, we are isolated from most of it. Some of the regions down south experience 40/50 mph winds almost daily. Either way, I walked outside yesterday and I couldnt see 25 yards in front of me in any direction. Kinda scary actually. I am so used to seeing the moutains that surround us, having the dust block everything was very odd.
I haven't seen Commander Banana in two weeks, because surprise, he is downtown all the time picking up food. Today I got word he was on the base, so I took my interpreter and we headed over to find him. He was in the Afghan DFAC (chow hall) so I got to take a little tour behind the scenes. I wish I wouldn't have. There were guys cutting vegetables inches from their feet, dirty shovels everywhere and some smell I couldnt quite place. Either way, we found him and spoke to him for a few minutes. I invited him back to his old job, time will tell if he shows up.
Speaking of our interpreters, we are starting to get a little more comfortable with them. Like any new co-worker, you dont really know what you can say and what you cant say when you first meet. We have been here long enough now that we have figured out some of their character traits and things about them. The one guy we found out is REALLY into Joe Pesci. He loves all of his movies and keeps asking us to bring him more of them. He is down to the Home Alone series. It's really quite funny to hear him impersonate him. I don't know where he learned about Joe, but I find it interesting that he has latched onto that actor.
I think I mentioned in the last update, that most days here are the same. Not much changes. We as a group sorta talked about things we need to do keep sane and improve ourselves. We all have decided that the gym is a great place, and I have been in there 6/7 days a week. Its a good way to kill an hour. I did seem to hurt my knee yesterday, so I think I may have to take a day off once in a while. We also have decided that we need to get smarter. I have started taking classes from Navy Knowledge online, and am going to get certified in MS Office and hopefully either finish or at least be ready when I get home for MS certified systems admin. It's good to have goals, and honestly, it makes the days go a bit faster knowing you have things you have to accomplish.
Not much else for now, take care!
Gary
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Hunting
I just returned from a hunting expedition. I THOUGHT I was going to the head - I was sadly mistaken. As I opened the door, the air pressure under the door, sucked this little fellow out into the hall, and pretty much onto my feet. I thought, oh how cute: a cross between a spider and a scorpion! I used said facilities, and as I was leaving, I saw "it" get sucked back out into the hall. I thought two things: 1. Photograph it. 2. (and this one was overwhelming) Get a boot and kill it. I grabbed the camera, my roomate grabbed a boot and we went back out to nab our quarry. At this point a Canadian officer walked in from outside and offered to shoot it. I must admit.....tempting. This thing was probably 4/5 inches long, and from what I am told, Camel spiders are very agressive, at least when they get bigger (oh yeah...venomous too). Killing him now was doing us a large favor later on! Anyway, we got the flashlight out, lit him up, and I took some pictures. He was dead seconds later. We gave him a proper burial by hurling his little body outside. Gives me the creeps. Blah. I havent encountered to much stuff here that truly reminds me I am in the desert.....this DEFINATELY did. Oh yeah...if you notice the time, its Midnight. All the fun stuff happens late. 
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