Travels and other things

I'm trying out the new camera. Its a kodak 5meg pixal. Its smaller and can do more than our other Kodak. No, the TV isn't mine, or all the privacy blankets or the chairs. You can see my blue blanket corner on the top bunk. The chair with the backpack on it is how much personal space besides my bunk that I have.

Well, I'm still here and our work at the port have been put off for at least a day , maybe two. It kind of frustrated me because I had taken off out thursday night shift because it was getting cut short so we could come in early on friday to begin day work. Well the ship didn't make it so Thur night (when I'm not there) they said to make friday a normal work day and take saturday off. I was expecting to go to work at 10 today and the shift started without me at 6:30. So I took off the short shft on thursday night, missed todays and probably will have to take tomorrow of. What a mess.

Well, first of all, my camera battery finally gave up. It has been getting weaker and weaker, but finally won't hold a charge at all. No pictures for awhile.

I am supposedly going back to Afghanistan in a couple days. What happen was, earlier this week I went in and gave a notice to leave and go back to the US. Well, the next day the boss calls me in and says that he has an offer for me but I can't say anything about it to anyone here. He thinks a lot of guys would threaten to leave also to get a deal. Anyway, He says that if I keep my mouth shut that he can get me a transfer to Bagram, where I asked to go back in the first place. This is supposed to happen in 2 days but since our last conversation he hasn't talked to me again. I guess its still on. If not my last day here was going to be August 13th. Either way I don't have a whole lot of time left here.

We are on the last couple days of the 3 aircraft we are working on and who knows when we will get more. Our hours could be cut back again. More later...

Working at night on a long shift means seeing the sun go down at about 6:45 in the evening as we are biginning our shift and then seeing this, the sunrise around 4:30 am. The wind hasn't been bad the last few days but that haze is always present (more dust than smoke I think). This is a good day. If the wind is up the whole sky looks overcast.

This little guy was found wandering around the hanger last night. Opps, someone stepped on it. As you can see, ants are now in control. My knife is about 3 inches long so he is a pretty good size for a scorpion I guess. We have a chart on what kind of things to look out for and he is at the top for scorpions. The give away was its dark color and fat tail. A week or so ago I tried to smash a camel spider, but it was faster across the floor that I could keep up. The spider was the size of a childs hand, but not nearly as thick, with pincer arms on the front like a scorpion. They are on the top of the spider list I think.

This was a group set up at the outdoor stage that I saw going to work last week, I don't know if its a military group or a traveling show of civilians. It was breezy and under that shade tarp was still over 110.

This is what work looks like this week with the 3 aircraft all in similar phases of inspection. The day shift is doing the inspections and finding the problems and we are working to fix the problems they find.
The one closest is just about ready to leave and go back north.

I thought Tucker would appreciate this nose art on a Blackhawk that came in for work today. We spent all night doing dis-assembly on it to get it to the point that we can start the inspection. Its the newest Blackhawk that I have seen, built in 2000, with less than 1400 hours on it , but those are very hard hours. It looks like a 15 year old aircraft already. All because of the enviroment that the machines are constantly subjected to. I finished my first week of graveyards and except for trying to get enough sleep, it has went pretty well.

We where asked to take the day off today because lack of parts for our helicopter. But its not all good because the dining facility seen earlier has a power outage ( generator down I guess) so we are left to eat from the fast food establishments ( KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardees) which is almost like the food in the US. It just seems wrong to me to eat that here in the desert. The menu looks the same but US high school kids aren't behind the counter and who knows if that's really beef burger or camel. I might stick with the pizza and hope that its pepperoni and not something else.

Happy 4th, the local women here just got to vote for the first time in a national election. Women make up 57% of the country. They had quite a few candidates but no winners, this time. That's what its all about, one person, one vote. Self destiny. It will spread to other countries, sooner or later. Eat a hotdog for me. Relish please.

Work has been slow the past few days, as you can see the hanger only has a single aircraft. Its a fabric type clamshell that is longer than most and both ends can be closed when it gets too windy. That large black unit on the floor in the forground is on of the portable swamp-coolers, they cut the temp close by them by 10-15 degrees if its blowing on you from a slight distance like 15 feet. We have 5 of these for the hanger.

The ramp is pretty much empty most of the time, but in the distance, where all those light towers are is the camp stockade. Better known as Jail for use civilians. It must be operating because lights are on every night.

This shows some of the small stands by the PX and Rec center, the other is the front door of the PX on this side of the camp. Abigger fancier one is on the main side of camp, closer to the airfield where I work. Its a saturday so alot of the military is in civilian rec clothes.

The last couple days we are on 8 hour shifts, so I have some time to photo and blog. This is a side view of our dining facility (chow hall for us navy) and the weather flag out front. It will tell you what the heat index is doing , not just the temperature. Black is the worst and white the least. It goes black, red, yellow and white then no flag. Yesterday with the temp and a strong wind , the flag was black, today its was red and yellow.

A couple days ago I moved out of the large tent and moved to this barracks. As you can see it has no windows and is metal so the wind and sun don't effect it much. Highly air conditioned and kept mostly dark for all the shift work we do. We are pretty packed in it though. Cubicles are made by setting up wall lockers for walls and hanging blankets for doors and such. I am in a cubicle with 2 other guys who have the bottom bunk and the new guy gets the top one. There are about 30 of these in this one area of camp. About where I'm standing to take this picture is the portable trailers that have our laundry or showers or latrines in them, ofcourse segregated for male/female.