FYI, the title means "(Hopefully) Never Hurts", not "A Little Excitement (Hopefully)".
After an exhilarating 3 days of thick dust-fog, it started to clear up only to find a C113 (I think) had crash landed on the runway right near our NOC (office). It wasn't a terrible crash, landing gear probably malfunctioned or something. It did catch fire though.
The next evening, I was dropping a coworker off for dinner and an MP (military police) flew past us with his lights going. Dropped Imran off and the MP had stopped only about 40-50 feet away from us searching the ground with flashlights.
Turns out, as Imran told me later, a mortar had landed in that area and they had closed the DFAC (chow hall) early because of it. It had landed maybe 10-15 minutes prior to us arriving.
I hope no one got hurt. I never heard whether or not there were injuries and don't think there were. Was I scared? Naw. Kinda would like to see a mortar land somewhere. Would be a cool experience, though I'd hate to be a target of any shrapnel.
Two weeks of bad dust storms on the weekend means I've had to miss going swimming on my day off two weeks in a row. The week before that, the Egyptians were working all day, so we didn't go. I'm getting lazy. Sleepy. Zzzzzz.
I'm trying to eat lighter or less often or both until I start doing something active again. This whole no activity and lots of eating thing doesn't bode well.
I have to be careful climbing (as much as I'd like to see how fast I can scale a wall and get on a roof) because of the bursitis in my shoulder. It doesn't bother me, but if I tweak my arm like I did last week, it not only doesn't feel good, but it doesn't sound good either. :)
Wow, I think this post just made me look like I was becoming fat, lazy and falling apart. Thanks brain.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Build a Sand Castle.
I'm sorry, the title is a little misleading. Read on.
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.
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.
Spiders~!~~!!
Oh no! SPIDER(s)!
Yes, the spiders have realized Gavin is in the area and have located my room. I don't know if it is because I'm so attractive, because I have food sometimes, because I have video games, or because they sense fear in me. If I had to choose, I'd pick the video games option because then we'd have something in common. Yes, I know food would be in common too, but I don't like the idea of sharing my food with spiders.
The first option was completely sarcastic in case anyone was worried ;P
I'm inclined to go with spiders sensing I fear them, so they come. If you fear them, they will come. That's almost a movie quote.
I have killed 3 spiders in the last 4 days. Various types. All small. Remember though, I am scared of ALL spiders. Daddy-long-legs too, though not really so much. I just don't like touching them or them touching me.
You can ask any of my friends and family who have seen me deal with a spider incident.
They might laugh and say fear doesn't describe it well enough.
I say Gavin doesn't fear much. Fear is like dirt, it's everywhere in small quantities. Except for me, I managed to clean up the fear-dirt in most places and now I have a mountain of dirt in the "fear of spiders" category. Arachnophobia.
I have gotten some bug bites, but I don't know where they came from. Being outside or in my room. Most likely from the mosquito-type bugs. Regardless, I need to get a tan everywhere because they like the squishy, soft pale white torso under my shirt rather than my tanned arms.
Besides the spiders, it's been busy. It'll always be busy for a good while, so I won't mention it anymore ;)
Yes, the spiders have realized Gavin is in the area and have located my room. I don't know if it is because I'm so attractive, because I have food sometimes, because I have video games, or because they sense fear in me. If I had to choose, I'd pick the video games option because then we'd have something in common. Yes, I know food would be in common too, but I don't like the idea of sharing my food with spiders.
The first option was completely sarcastic in case anyone was worried ;P
I'm inclined to go with spiders sensing I fear them, so they come. If you fear them, they will come. That's almost a movie quote.
I have killed 3 spiders in the last 4 days. Various types. All small. Remember though, I am scared of ALL spiders. Daddy-long-legs too, though not really so much. I just don't like touching them or them touching me.
You can ask any of my friends and family who have seen me deal with a spider incident.
They might laugh and say fear doesn't describe it well enough.
I say Gavin doesn't fear much. Fear is like dirt, it's everywhere in small quantities. Except for me, I managed to clean up the fear-dirt in most places and now I have a mountain of dirt in the "fear of spiders" category. Arachnophobia.
I have gotten some bug bites, but I don't know where they came from. Being outside or in my room. Most likely from the mosquito-type bugs. Regardless, I need to get a tan everywhere because they like the squishy, soft pale white torso under my shirt rather than my tanned arms.
Besides the spiders, it's been busy. It'll always be busy for a good while, so I won't mention it anymore ;)
Friday, June 19, 2009
As Promised.
As I promised, pics of Joint Base Balad.
OK, so they're not really that great and they are VERY random. :D
I was driving around to take pics of our towers and snapped a few shots with one hand while driving. Not the easiest thing to keep stable, holding a Digital SLR with one hand.
When the dust settles, I'll try for more (Hopefully on Sunday).
OK, so they're not really that great and they are VERY random. :D
I was driving around to take pics of our towers and snapped a few shots with one hand while driving. Not the easiest thing to keep stable, holding a Digital SLR with one hand.
When the dust settles, I'll try for more (Hopefully on Sunday).
June is almost gone and first post of the month.
Wow, it's June 20th and this is the first post I've done this month. Sorry everyone!
Actually, if some of you read this in the next 5-8 hours, you'll be reading about the future because it's not the 20th there yet.
So, why have I not posted in almost 3 weeks?
Some days, I am crashing as I walk into my trailer.
Some days, I finish working after midnight and need to get to sleep.
Other days, I spend 2-3 hours at night catching up from being in the field the entire day and just go to sleep after that.
In short, I've been working about 70-85 hours a week in June. It's been crazy busy, ups and downs (mostly downs) with the network. Peter left the base to elope 2 weeks ago, which happened to be the same day our lead field tech left to renew his badge. That left me with 5 Egyptian field workers and 5 Indian salespeople.
The day after Peter and Habib left, things started going down. The VoIP network went down Monday, then again on Tuesday, then the Internet network on Wednesday, both networks on Thursday. I was so frustrated and angry at different things.
Why did the network have to start dropping like that once the main guys left?? The Egyptians needed an escort and couldn't do much work because I was in the NOC trying to fix the downtimes. I was going insane.
Unfortunately, it wasn't until Luke (Peter's brother) and their dad showed up and helped out with the network issues, that I realized there was no need for my anger and frustration. There are better ways to view problems such as these and my thoughts led me to write the following:
-----
Quite often, we think that we have things figured out. Especially things about ourselves. For instance, after many years, you kind of get to a point where you've figured out the best way to learn - in regards to yourself. Each person learns in different ways and at different paces. There's always a "best" way to learn. But what you have to realize is that this "best" way to learn is not always the best way.
God, of course, always knows the best way for each of us to learn in each scenario. There are times when YOUR best way to learn just won't work and, the stubborn beings we are, we refuse to try something that isn't the way we like learning. Why? Because we figured out the best way to learn right?
Well, in these situations, do not be surprised if you suddenly go through tough times. As much as I hate going through tough times, if I look at it the right way, I see that I learn a lot in a short amount of time, even though I was frustrated and felt miserably lost or overwhelmed.
We should always keep in mind that bad things aren't always bad. Quite often they'll lead to something of greater good than the hardship we experienced. Sometimes these things happen to make us stronger and even if you think, "This isn't how I learn and grow!!!" Maybe it's how God wants you to learn and grow for that particular situation!
You might then ask, "So God inflicts pain and suffering on us to make us learn?" Don't put any blame on God. If God is behind the hardship, merely allowing such to happen, then it is likely that we wanted to do something our way. God's way is always best and He desires the best for us! Hardships can be punishment, but punishment is an awakening to a wrong done by us. If we've done wrong, we should accept the punishment due to us. We've sinned, we always sin every day. What gives us the right to complain about being punished?
Remember, hardships are not always punishment. Hardships can also be tests of faith. Hardships can be Satan's attempts to inflict pain on us or draw us away from God. We must keep an open mind, a faithful heart, and a willing desire to do God's Will. You can always learn something from hardships, as I have done recently and did not view it the way I should have, but nevertheless, I will try as hard as I can to keep my mind focused and willing to learn from the problems I face.
Hardships are a way of keeping us humble because they cause us to take a step back, realize the problem is beyond us and ask God for help. We get stuck on doing everything our way, the "best" way we know how. God knows best, not us.
-----
I didn't get a chance to proof read or fine-tune this, and I must get to sleep now as I'm passing out while I type this up. It's 2:55am now and I hope I can wake up in the morning for work. :)
Take care everyone.
Actually, if some of you read this in the next 5-8 hours, you'll be reading about the future because it's not the 20th there yet.
So, why have I not posted in almost 3 weeks?
Some days, I am crashing as I walk into my trailer.
Some days, I finish working after midnight and need to get to sleep.
Other days, I spend 2-3 hours at night catching up from being in the field the entire day and just go to sleep after that.
In short, I've been working about 70-85 hours a week in June. It's been crazy busy, ups and downs (mostly downs) with the network. Peter left the base to elope 2 weeks ago, which happened to be the same day our lead field tech left to renew his badge. That left me with 5 Egyptian field workers and 5 Indian salespeople.
The day after Peter and Habib left, things started going down. The VoIP network went down Monday, then again on Tuesday, then the Internet network on Wednesday, both networks on Thursday. I was so frustrated and angry at different things.
Why did the network have to start dropping like that once the main guys left?? The Egyptians needed an escort and couldn't do much work because I was in the NOC trying to fix the downtimes. I was going insane.
Unfortunately, it wasn't until Luke (Peter's brother) and their dad showed up and helped out with the network issues, that I realized there was no need for my anger and frustration. There are better ways to view problems such as these and my thoughts led me to write the following:
-----
Quite often, we think that we have things figured out. Especially things about ourselves. For instance, after many years, you kind of get to a point where you've figured out the best way to learn - in regards to yourself. Each person learns in different ways and at different paces. There's always a "best" way to learn. But what you have to realize is that this "best" way to learn is not always the best way.
God, of course, always knows the best way for each of us to learn in each scenario. There are times when YOUR best way to learn just won't work and, the stubborn beings we are, we refuse to try something that isn't the way we like learning. Why? Because we figured out the best way to learn right?
Well, in these situations, do not be surprised if you suddenly go through tough times. As much as I hate going through tough times, if I look at it the right way, I see that I learn a lot in a short amount of time, even though I was frustrated and felt miserably lost or overwhelmed.
We should always keep in mind that bad things aren't always bad. Quite often they'll lead to something of greater good than the hardship we experienced. Sometimes these things happen to make us stronger and even if you think, "This isn't how I learn and grow!!!" Maybe it's how God wants you to learn and grow for that particular situation!
You might then ask, "So God inflicts pain and suffering on us to make us learn?" Don't put any blame on God. If God is behind the hardship, merely allowing such to happen, then it is likely that we wanted to do something our way. God's way is always best and He desires the best for us! Hardships can be punishment, but punishment is an awakening to a wrong done by us. If we've done wrong, we should accept the punishment due to us. We've sinned, we always sin every day. What gives us the right to complain about being punished?
Remember, hardships are not always punishment. Hardships can also be tests of faith. Hardships can be Satan's attempts to inflict pain on us or draw us away from God. We must keep an open mind, a faithful heart, and a willing desire to do God's Will. You can always learn something from hardships, as I have done recently and did not view it the way I should have, but nevertheless, I will try as hard as I can to keep my mind focused and willing to learn from the problems I face.
Hardships are a way of keeping us humble because they cause us to take a step back, realize the problem is beyond us and ask God for help. We get stuck on doing everything our way, the "best" way we know how. God knows best, not us.
-----
I didn't get a chance to proof read or fine-tune this, and I must get to sleep now as I'm passing out while I type this up. It's 2:55am now and I hope I can wake up in the morning for work. :)
Take care everyone.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Random Thoughts
I wonder... If I came back to America and started working a typical job, would it feel the same?
How would a 40 hour work week feel? It seems like 40 hours should be a part-time job. Those 8 hour shifts would be nice. Oh! and TWO whole days off? I wouldn't know what to do with that much free time!
We are at a busy point and have been for a few weeks and will be busy for another month, at least. Busy means 10-16 hour days, 6 days a week and then working for a few hours on our day off, sometimes that few hours turns into another day of work. If I didn't have to do service calls, talk to people, shake their hands, I wouldn't mind the field work - climbing on T-walls (concrete walls around the trailers), running around doing physical work in the sun. It's good for me since I'm not playing sports at the moment.
We are excited for the time when the network becomes fully functional and the housing area issues are solved. The time when we don't have 10-30 people per day complaining their Internet isn't working. The time when we can sit back and study how we can improve the network, rather than spreading ourselves thin and bending over backwards to fix issues that we know will be resolved when we are done with upgrades.
While a lot of soldiers understand we are in the middle of a warzone and desert, and that speeds and stability will be nothing like in America, not all tolerate the network as it is currently. We are working on getting the Internet out to a new housing area, as well as redesign an existing area to improve service, and change a few things on the back-end and also the hardware that is used to get the signal around the base.
Many, many soldiers don't care what we are trying to do, they have this mentality that it should be working and if it's not, we should be able to snap our fingers and fix it same day. Reminds me of America. Even some people who use the free Internet we provide in one spot complain that it's too slow or not stable. The free network.
Don't get me wrong, there are lots of really cool soldiers out here. Real nice guys and gals.
On another topic, I finally bought a watch so I can keep track of time now! Bought an alarm clock too, but haven't hooked it up yet.
My trimmer battery is pretty much dead and won't really charge, so my goatee has been growing a bit. Bought a trimmer today to resolve that. :)
Maybe I'll upload some pics someday. I'd like to get out and sneak some pics around the base. Just the thought of taking my camera out in the dust and heat all day makes me change my mind. I need to set some time aside to drive around, take pics, then go back to camp and return my camera to safety.
How would a 40 hour work week feel? It seems like 40 hours should be a part-time job. Those 8 hour shifts would be nice. Oh! and TWO whole days off? I wouldn't know what to do with that much free time!
We are at a busy point and have been for a few weeks and will be busy for another month, at least. Busy means 10-16 hour days, 6 days a week and then working for a few hours on our day off, sometimes that few hours turns into another day of work. If I didn't have to do service calls, talk to people, shake their hands, I wouldn't mind the field work - climbing on T-walls (concrete walls around the trailers), running around doing physical work in the sun. It's good for me since I'm not playing sports at the moment.
We are excited for the time when the network becomes fully functional and the housing area issues are solved. The time when we don't have 10-30 people per day complaining their Internet isn't working. The time when we can sit back and study how we can improve the network, rather than spreading ourselves thin and bending over backwards to fix issues that we know will be resolved when we are done with upgrades.
While a lot of soldiers understand we are in the middle of a warzone and desert, and that speeds and stability will be nothing like in America, not all tolerate the network as it is currently. We are working on getting the Internet out to a new housing area, as well as redesign an existing area to improve service, and change a few things on the back-end and also the hardware that is used to get the signal around the base.
Many, many soldiers don't care what we are trying to do, they have this mentality that it should be working and if it's not, we should be able to snap our fingers and fix it same day. Reminds me of America. Even some people who use the free Internet we provide in one spot complain that it's too slow or not stable. The free network.
Don't get me wrong, there are lots of really cool soldiers out here. Real nice guys and gals.
On another topic, I finally bought a watch so I can keep track of time now! Bought an alarm clock too, but haven't hooked it up yet.
My trimmer battery is pretty much dead and won't really charge, so my goatee has been growing a bit. Bought a trimmer today to resolve that. :)
Maybe I'll upload some pics someday. I'd like to get out and sneak some pics around the base. Just the thought of taking my camera out in the dust and heat all day makes me change my mind. I need to set some time aside to drive around, take pics, then go back to camp and return my camera to safety.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wrinkle Fingers
All week I had been looking forward to Sunday (usually do, expecting that it will be a day off), planning on actually waking up early enough to get to church. But before the day rolled around, ended up having to make a service call around church time, unfortunately. Next week I'll make it though.
After lunch though, the Egyptian crew and I went to the outdoor swimming pool. I delayed our leaving slightly so it would be 1430 (2:30pm) when we got there. Not a fan of the midday sun on my chalk white skin and don't trust sunblock to protect me.
It was my first time swimming that I can remember in the last 6-8 years or so. Ever since I get foot cramps while swimming, I've rarely gone. I love swimming though. Still remember how to do it too. ;)
While we were just treading water and talking, I remembered being able to hold my breath for a long time under water when I was younger. I guessed maybe 45 seconds or more back then. I was curious to see what I could do now. Let's just say I am quite out of shape for holding my breath under water. First time, 5-8 seconds would be accurate. I improved, but was pretty disappointed.
I had a blast though. We swam for about 3 hours. Wrinkled my fingers. Dove off the lowest diving board twice (about 2 meters above the water?) and the 2nd tier diving board once (4-5 meters high?) and messed up on my angle and ended going straight in instead of slightly angled and my legs flipped back behind me and tweaked my lower back a little bit. I stopped diving after that to avoid serious injury. Good stuff. Shoulders were sore for a day, too. I think I'm starting to tan...not sure though. And I didn't get sunburned!
In other news, the Firestation crew invited us to a BBQ they were having last night, but we all forgot about it and missed it. They are some nice guys. Bummer that we missed it.
After lunch though, the Egyptian crew and I went to the outdoor swimming pool. I delayed our leaving slightly so it would be 1430 (2:30pm) when we got there. Not a fan of the midday sun on my chalk white skin and don't trust sunblock to protect me.
It was my first time swimming that I can remember in the last 6-8 years or so. Ever since I get foot cramps while swimming, I've rarely gone. I love swimming though. Still remember how to do it too. ;)
While we were just treading water and talking, I remembered being able to hold my breath for a long time under water when I was younger. I guessed maybe 45 seconds or more back then. I was curious to see what I could do now. Let's just say I am quite out of shape for holding my breath under water. First time, 5-8 seconds would be accurate. I improved, but was pretty disappointed.
I had a blast though. We swam for about 3 hours. Wrinkled my fingers. Dove off the lowest diving board twice (about 2 meters above the water?) and the 2nd tier diving board once (4-5 meters high?) and messed up on my angle and ended going straight in instead of slightly angled and my legs flipped back behind me and tweaked my lower back a little bit. I stopped diving after that to avoid serious injury. Good stuff. Shoulders were sore for a day, too. I think I'm starting to tan...not sure though. And I didn't get sunburned!
In other news, the Firestation crew invited us to a BBQ they were having last night, but we all forgot about it and missed it. They are some nice guys. Bummer that we missed it.
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