Everyone in the pool

The post World Series euphoria is wearing off. I am still really happy for the Cards, but honestly, I am now more curious about next year. I guess that is why Cubs fans can keep from killing themselves - next year. I realized yesterday that I have now been here for 3 of the 4 major sports finals. After the Super bowl I will have made the rounds and I should (better) be back for the hockey and basketball finals.

I got a flu shot two days ago. It's mandatory and honestly with the amount of dirty people here that can't figure out how to wash their hands before eating, or after using the restroom, I should have gotten two.

They chlorinate the water here. We have a couple guys whose only job is to ensure the water is more or less safe for us, although you still can't drink it. You can shower in it, and brush your teeth if you are brave, but no drinking. Anyway, I can always tell when they have just put a new batch of chlorine in, as it smells like the an indoor pool at a Holiday inn. Its not a slight smell of chlorine, I mean its like I am 8 years old again, and being told not to run. Smells are amazing, and although I hated knowing my hair was being bleached and my skin was being seared off, I liked the smell as it got me out of here for a few minutes.

Today is day 165, which means we have 200 to go. I blogged at 299, and I think this will suffice for the 199 entry. Breaking into the 100's is a great mental thing, and in two weeks we hit the half way point. For some reason, although we still have a pile of time remaining, just getting there will be very satisfying.

Gary

That's a WINNER! That's a WINNER! A World Series Winner for the Cardinals!

I am not even sure what to type right now. I got back from watching the first championship since I was 8 years old, and I think it could be one of the most bittersweet moments ever for me. I just can't believe that I am in Afghanistan for this. I can't believe I missed every one of the games, the clincher at home, the after party and the not yet to happen parade. Blah.

Blah.

Great win, LONG over due and lets hope it happens again during my lifetime! Enjoy it Cards fans! CELLLLLLLEBRATE good times CMON! Wait....wrong year! :)

I added pictures.

10 down, 1 to go

It's the reverse title from the first Cards win. I can't believe they are in a position to win the World Series. This after 24 years, and damnit if I am not in Afghanistan. Ah well. It was a horrid game....messy, ugly etc, but the outcome was great. It was a hard one to watch, and easily the one that frustrated me the most so far. I am seriously concerned about closing this thing out, but we have three shots at it, let's hope it only takes one.

Kara managed to get on Fox 2 news last night after the game and they gave her about 2 mins of time to talk about the fact that I wasn't able to make it due to being here etc. It was great....!!!

Bob made it back from leave....our room is much noisier now, but it's great to have him back.

Gary

Tiny little mustache

I am certain that the "white Bob Gibson" Chris Carpenter made the real Bob Gibson proud last night. Those are the sorts of games you see highlights of in 20 years. I am really happy that Carpenter's first World Series game was so successful, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. If the Cardinals end up winning this, even with the crap they went through during the year, we will likely look back on this as a very special team. With the aforementioned 2000's version of Gibson and the Dominican hitting machine known as Pujols on the same team - similar to Musial and Gibson in 59-63. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.

The mustache continues, I haven't taken pictures yet, it's just now almost respectable. :{)

We are half way through Eid so I have been off work and its been REALLY quiet around here. I like it! It's my first extended break since Qatar, and although I have been getting up early for baseball, at least when I am done, I can just hang out and read articles on the internet rather than having to rush over to work.

A clump of dirt

Baseball had a near-miss (a stupid term) Pine tar incident part du. The World Series is underway and any of you following it I am sure know about the issue so I won't belabor the point. What I will say is this: I am not mad at Rogers, I am disappointed. I just wish we could have gotten through this entire series without some goofy distraction. If Detroit wins, fine, but do it on the level, same goes for the Cards. Anyway, it matters not, the first two are in the books and the Cards are in the drivers seat. They took a game in Detroit which they had to do if they had any hope of winning, and now they head home with their two best starters going in games 3 and 4. I like our chances of going up 3-1 or at worst a split at 2-2 before game 5. The game 5 starter will be in a position to win it, or put us ahead going back to Detroit, its shaping up to be a good series. So much for all the BS I read about Tigers in 3...ha ha, very funny.

We are under a mission essential travel only order. The end of Ramadan was yesterday and now we are into Eid (a three day celebration that last for 5 days). For some reason they have decided to increase the already increased for Ramadan attacks on NATO forces. Thus, we are told to stay home for a few days. Christians should go on bombing runs during Christmas....wouldn't that just put you in the holiday spirit?

Not sure if I have mentioned that we are trying to get the Garrison Commander fired. I know I have mentioned he is a crook and his crookery continues so our press to get him ousted continues. We are having to quietly figure out which ANA officers are on our side and which ones he has on his personal payroll. We think we have the dividing lines drawn and its going to be interesting to watch play out. If we screw this up and go after him and fail, the officers that turned on him will end up paying for it. I am not worried though, the body of evidence is great, and the senior leaders at the Ministry of Defense want him gone.

I think I mentioned our office / lounge was being moved to a B-hut and we finished that move yesterday. Its not bad digs, we will deal with it. Our only hope is that they don't move us again before its over.

Bob is officially on his way back from leave. I am sure he is going to come back pissed cause now he has 6.5 months left and nothing to look forward to leave wise. Steve and I have decided to kill him if he starts complaining right away! :)

Gary

The playoff mustache lives on

I think I said it would be a coin toss and damn if it didn't seem like that all game. Again, not pretty by any means, but it was emotional and gut wrenching which makes for good baseball. Add in unexpected hitting performances and it turned out to be a pretty good Game 7. On to the World Series with Detroit where all sorts of interesting story lines will play out and hopefully the Cards don't embarass themselves. I don't expect a win out of this, so anything they do is above getting swept is gravy. They have been playing with house money since beating the Padres, might as well put it all on the line.

As the title states, my measly playoff mustache gets to continue growing. Maybe it will end up respectable before the series is over!

The S-6 went downtown yesterday to get food, and on the way he ran into a mob scene. There were a couple hundred guys in the middle of the road fighting about something. His vehicle was stopped, and he was told to wait until they were done and then he could pass. At some point, someone noticed he was ANA and threw a rock at him and hit him in the leg, and then threw one and hit his driver in the head. At this point, he got out his gun and stood on the roof of the truck and told anyone that threw a rock at them again was going to get shot. Unbelievable. Please don't take for granted that you can drive around in the States with very little fear of some sort of attack. Its amazing how a small thing like driving from here to downtown can turn into an event. Hopefully someday these people will learn.

Gary

5 Months down

As usual, first the Cardinals. One good, one bad game, I guess it's to be expected. It's amazing how tired I feel after those games when they lose, and how good I feel when they win. The good thing is that I am pretty much a zombie and its making my days go quickly!! One more win to get to the World Series.....its a coin toss at this point I think.

Today marks the 5 month mark here. Not much excitement involved in that but it's one step closer to half way. It will be nice to be on the down swing of this fun.

Camp construction continues, pictures are here, check them out. I will keep updating those as they get closer to being finished.

Gary

Waving

Two Cards games, two very different outcomes. A shut out and a blow out. Ah well, can't win them all and I knew were were vulnerable in game 4. Game 5 is a crap shoot, but of course, I'll be up to watch it! I have been getting up at 4 and heading over, but tomorrow its 330 for me because its Monday Night Football and first come first serve on the TV. I have to claim the spot early. :)

I am not exactly sure when but at some point in the recent past, I have started waving like a jackass. Its not the standard, put your hand up and shake it around wave, its the two fingers in a peace sign with the thumb extended wave. I have NO idea why I started it, or even when, but I caught myself doing it today, and once I started paying attention, I realized I do it every time - I can't stop it. My theory is that I didn't like doing the standard wave to all the Afghans, it just doesn't feel right for some reason, so I adapted to an acknowledgment of their existence, but not a full on "Howdy Do" sorta wave. Don't ask me why I am analyzing this, I must have excessive free time.

I started growing a mustache. Its only 2 days so far, so its literally nothing to write about, but since I didn't get to grow a playoff beard for baseball, I am doing what I can. I've never had one before and I seriously doubt I will keep it past about day 3 once it comes in, but it should make for interesting pictures.

That's about all I have today, construction continues and now I find out they are going to start building 24/7 and remember - one of the construction sites is literally outside my window. Wonderful.

Gary

I love the smell of re-bar in the morning

What a fantastic win for the Cardinals. It wasn't particularly well played, nor pretty but it got the job done. It sorta made me think of a street fight between two amateurs using rusty pipe wrenches and broken glass. Gritty, but a classic game none the less. I wonder what the Vegas line would be on So Taguchi having a slugging percentage of 4.000. Just amazing. Again, I was up at about ten minutes to 4 to get ready and watch the game, and giving up that sleep was well worth my time. Let's hope for three more good ones at home.

I think I have mentioned before that we are expanding here at the camp. We are like that neighborhood everyone wants to move into and the ones where you see houses going up in every direction. We have B-Huts (basically wooden structures that can hold people or office spaces) going up all over. They have re-bar spread out in the rectangular pattern to lay concrete for the huts at every turn here in the camp. We have one going up right outside our window, and then an entire row out back. This was a tiny little nothing of a camp, and we are doubling in size before my eyes. It's a bit disconcerting though....I'd like to think we are succeeding in our mission and that they will send more guys home, not bring more in!

I've spent my week configuring the ANA command center for internet. We finished today, and I can only imagine the mess we have to clean up in the next week as the ANA get their first taste of the world wide web. I have to get some controls in place I think.

We have an office here for just us Navy guys. Well, we got kicked out and they are moving us to an existing B-hut. I am going to spend the next couple days re-wiring our computer and phone lines, as these huts have never been used for an office before. Our next door neighbors in this hut are the French(insert white flag joke here). They are VERY new to the camp, and I don't know them very well, but they seem nice enough. At least in moving for the third time we get to keep up international relations!

Gary

Waking up at 330am

The Cards made it interesting for a few innings, but in the end put the hurt on the Padres and got back into the NLCS for the third year in a row. Maybe this year being huge underdogs will help. All it really means for me is that I have to wake up at awful times of the day to go watch the games on AFN. 330am arrives quickly when you aren't used to being up that early. I am going to doubt there will be a huge rush for the TV! Also, I found out its not really playoff baseball if you are watching while eating breakfast. There is just something about a game at night vs one with the sun rising! Either way, baseball has been a great distraction for me lately and I am thankful that I get a least one more week.

Muhammad Ali (my ANA counterpart) was gone yesterday. Zakz(my interpreter) explained that Ali was basically out shopping for women. Evidently his parents (Ali) found him a couple of different girls and they were going to go over and check them out. I sorta knew the answer, but I asked anyway - what happens if she doesn't like him. The response - "Doesn't matter" - as long as her parents are happy with him. More fun for the girls here!

Our weather has had an upturn....its gotten warmer. I was promised that it was going to start getting cold here in October and it would remain cold. Well, it started, but then has over the last few days been in the 80's again. Who can figure this place out. The number of dust storms has increased though, so something is definitely happening weather wise.

The shoes, toys, bears etc have started rolling arriving in droves! I have about 10 huge boxes of stuff so far and I know there is more coming. Thank you so much for all of you that have donated and spent your time and money getting it here. We are working setting up a time to get to the school, but with Ramadan, its a bit harder. I will certainly let you know when we make it over and get you pictures of the day!

Are you trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?

The title is a quote from the Movie - Major League - if you haven't seen it, its a must watch. It's appropriate because obviously the San Diego Padres, despite the name, do not have Jesus in their line up. The Cards threw curve ball after curve ball into the warm Southern California sun and watched as the Pads swung helplessly. These same pitchers that merely a week ago couldn't figure out how to get one out, completely shut down a fairly well balanced offensive team. Great to watch. Good thing was that even though I was once again up until 4:30am, it's my day off so I was able to sleep in. I watched the Yanks lose the first game, which was great, and then saw the improbable Cardinals take both games in San Diego. Should be a fun one to watch them close out.

I picked up a cold or something the other day. I woke up with a sore throat, which has stayed about the same, and then have added a small headache and fever. For those House watchers out there, what's the differential diagnosis? I am thinking Polio or Leprosy. That show always has a twist. I think its the first time I've been sick, at least the first time I remember being sick, so I consider myself lucky. Most of the guys have had week or two long battles with the Afghan crud that goes around. I have missed it to this point. If some of these dirty people around here would just wash their hands once in a while, I don't think I'd get sick either. I use that hand sanitizer stuff like it's water, but I guess you can never be clean enough.

We are losing one of our guys...he is heading to the Kabul airport to work with the Air Force in teaching the Afghans to fly. For some reason when I wrote that, I pictured them throwing guys off a building. See, now you just did! I digress. He is an aviator by trade and they are really short out at the airport so the Navy let him go. We will get a replacement at some point. We have a HUGE group of Navy folks coming in country soon, haven't quite figured out what they will do yet. Good news: they are here a year, someone is leaving after us! We are quickly becoming the old men of the camp...the Marines leave in a month and at that point, the 7 of us have seniority here. That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee, but its a positive sign of progress.

1 down, 10 to go

I was up LATE last night. I found out the Cards were going to be on AFN TV, which is usually a bad omen. They have lost all but 1 game I got to watch on AFN, but this is the playoffs and I wanted to see it. The game started 1230am local time, so needless to say, I was alone in my playoff watching adventure. It was a great game, well played on all aspects and was great to watch. It's just that 430am bed time was a killer. 10 more wins for the World Series. Fortunately for me, Zak had a doctor's appt or something and had to leave early, so it was an early work day!

Speaking of Zak, he does a strange thing. If he bumps into your foot with his foot, he has to shake your hand. I THINK its an Islam thing, but not all of them do it. It's really funny though because out of the blue, he will come up and shake your hand, because you didn't even realize he bumped your foot. Sometimes I kick his on purpose to see if he notices. Most of the time he does and its like OCD until he gets to shake your hand. He says it's basically so that whoever you kicked doesn't hold a grudge and then one day start a fight with you.

Tomorrow he is taking off because he is going shopping. He has to buy presents for his Fiance for the post Ramadan celebration. Until you get married, every Ramadan you have to buy her presents, and give them to her within 2 months after Ramadan is over. He said he will spend 200-300 dollars, and he makes about 700 a month. Quite an out pouring. Getting married is prohibitively expensive, to the tune of about 10000 dollars after bribes and presents and parties. I realize that's about the starting price of one in the States, but remember, the average income here is about 300 bucks a year. Takes a long time to save it, or you have to borrow it.

We explained divorce to them the other day, and they are just stunned. Here, only the man can initiate a divorce, and even then, he takes everything, including the kids, and she isn't allowed to re-marry. We explained that there are some questionable women in the states who marry as a profession, just trying to get the rich guy's money. It's amazing how different we really are.

Congrats Cardinals!

They may have backed into post season play, but they are there again as Central division champs. Going in as the favorite hasn't worked the last couple years, lets hope going in as an underdog helps!

The rest of the guys took Bob up to BAF today to get him home for leave, it will be strange without him around. We discussed last night how amazing it is that as much time as the three of us spend together, that we haven't completely snapped on each other. I think it helps that none of us are really that uptight about stuff and there is a lot of give and take. It makes it easier because if I had to put up with this place, and crappy roommates.... I don't even want to think about it.