On Mon, Tue, Wed and Thu, I was out in the sun working/hiding in the shade every 2-30 minutes. Some might say 2 minutes in the sun, 30 minutes in the shade. I scoff and laugh at that! It was more like 4 minutes in the sun.
Just kidding. The actual time spent in the sun or shade was anywhere between 2-30 minutes at a time. Yes, I was working, not just supervising. I get too bored supervising.
Monday was fine. Myself and three Egyptians set out to dig trenches thru the dorms area.
No, not WWI trenches. These were 6-10 inch deep trenches so that we could lay 1 inch cable conduit in between the dorms in order to provide Internet service to the troops in the dorms.
Digging wasn't a problem. I enjoy digging, somewhat. I always loved shoveling snow as a kid, teenager, college student. I prefer shoveling snow. It's an excuse to work out some muscles.
The problem was getting under the sidewalks. The dirt was packed hard and we could only dig a few inches under it before having to use a sledgehammer to hammer a metal pipe thru the rest of the way. This process took about 45min to an hour for each of 8 sidewalks and was very tiring.
Oh and yes, 105-115 degrees at midday, you better believe I was drinking fluids. I was going thru about 1 bottle of water an hour (32oz or more) plus a Gatorade or energy drink here and there.
On Wednesday, I almost injured a couple of our guys when my tired arms tried swinging the heavy sledgehammer at the pipe to force it thru underneath the sidewalk and it slipped out of my hands (ok, I missed the pipe because I was trying to show the guys to hit it dead on instead of on top). The hammer flew over the sidewalk and landed a couple feet past it. Luckily the two guys behind me were paying attention and dodged it (barely). We had a laugh, as I'm sure the few Airforce guys at a bus stop did too.
The Egyptians are crazy workers. One of the guys who dodged my sledgehammer toss (no, I wasn't pretending to be Koopa either) was swinging the hammer and ended up slicing his finger somehow and was bleeding all over, but insisted that he not stop working. I argued with him a bit and made him come to the bathroom and clean it up, then to Housing to get bandages. It wasn't too bad, but it had been bleeding pretty bad.
Anyways! Today I was pretty dehydrated. After all that liquid, I was still dehydrated. I didn't even have to go to the bathroom any of those days until evening, even with drinking what I think was easily over 200oz of liquid. No wonder I am gaining weight - liquid retention!
I slept till about noon. Fun stuff. Tomorrow is supposed to be over 115 deg. I should be fine though.
Posted picture below, farmers tan - Arm vs Stomach, Round 1:
It must be the lighting in the bathroom or the angle the picture was taken, but to me the tan looks darker in actuality than in this picture. Maybe I had the settings on the camera incorrect. Who knows.
Big difference Gavin… that’s too funny. We miss you!
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