This Old House

I've made it one of my goals while being deployed to make it a point to complain as little as possible, both in my blogging and in my day to day business. That being said, I'd like to preface the following blog (and hopefully all others to follow) by saying that I attempt to write somewhat tongue-in-cheek if you will, because otherwise I'd be even more bored with my own writing than I already am. So what follows is not meant to be a complaint, but rather more of an observation of the way things are in these parts.

To begin, several people were requesting pictures of the living conditions here. Not finding the outside of a plywood box all that interesting to photograph, I skipped any outdoor pictures and elected instead to just to put up a few of the inside of my little hut. The space is small, about 8'x10' or so, but it holds everything I brought with me, plus a little extra floor space, so I'm pretty darn happy with it. And other than sleeping and maybe reading a book or surfing the net, I don't spend much time here since I share the building with 7 other dudes and it's quiet hours around the clock to accommodate our different schedules. So without further ado, I give you, "El Palacio Del Amor"

The Front Entrance

The decorations were left up by the last occupant, so just in case I'm here until this Christmas, no decorating required.

The South Wall

Reppin' strong for P-Town. Purple Pride.

 The West Wall

Not much to say here.

The North Wall

Where I lay my head at night.

So there you have it. Not much to shout about but I'm pretty stoked up on it. Word is we'll be moving into a more permanent type living space pretty soon, but apparently they've been saying that for a long time, so we'll see what comes of that.

I know in my last post I wrote about the horrors of not actually having unlimited soft serve available which was a major morale blow. All in all though, the chow hall has provided a decent selection of food. However, there has been some major slip-ups in recent weeks. In particular my inability to speak the Pashtun or Dari has left me unable to communicate to the omelette/scramble man that he needs to learn how to turn up the heat on the grill. Since I'm a newbie still, I'm flying the early lines in the morning, which means that midnight meal is usually my breakfast. Due to the lack of breakfast options available at midnight meal, I usually elect to get the ham and cheese scramble from the alleged grill-master they've got working here. I've taken to the scramble since the omelette choice was usually left with the inside of the omelette still undercooked. But even with the scramble, there's still always some amount of undercooked egg left in the scramble. Its obvious that the grill isn't hot enough, made evident by the lack of "sizzle" whenever the man lays down more egg batter. So if anyone learns how to say "Please turn your grill up hotter because the eggs are undercooked" in Pashtun or Dari, please let me know. I'd be most grateful. But more than just the egg situation, they attempt to be just downright sneaky in the service of some of their food. Case in point, last week, due to the lack of ice cream, I was in search of some other dessert treat to satisfy my sweet tooth. Lo and behold, what did I see but a nice young server with a platter of what looked to be cupcakes with a bit of whipped frosting on top. Full of joy and happiness at the sight, I snagged one as a finisher to my meal. Now I may be young-ish still, but I've been around the block a few times and I know when someone's trying to pull a fast one with my baked goods. You can imagine my horror as I bit into said cupcake to find that the cake portion of this cupcake was not just your standard cake. Call me crazy, but they can't look me in the eye and tell me that they didn't unwrap the individually plastic wrapped Otis Spunkmeyer muffins from breakfast, smear it with a bit of frosting and pass it off as a cupcake! I was shocked. I know what a chocolate Otis Spunkmeyer muffin looks and tastes like and here they were, trying to pass it off as a cupcake. Sigh......war is hard.

On a much brighter note, a highlight to my week was connecting with an old buddy/roommate from college out on the flightline. Ol' Ryan Dewey (or Ry-Ry as I prefer) has been in and out of my base multiple times in his 130 and we had been trying to figure out a way to match up. I felt like a clown, walking up to other airplanes out on the ramp that looked like his model, asking the crew if there was a Ryan Dewey flying their plane. Just as I was about to give up and head back to my hut the other day, there I saw that sweet sweet C-130 coming in on final in all its glory. With hopes raised again, I waited on the taxiway for it to roll on by. Sure enough, as it taxied on by, there was my boy Ry-Ry, waving at me from the left seat. They continued to taxi to their parking spot where, once they were shut down, a reunion nothing short of magical commenced. All the way from the Villa Maria 2C days, to the epicness that was the Haggerty 214 team, to hanging down in the dirty Del Rio, and now in the glory of Afghanistan. Epic.

Well that about does it once again. Time to hit the gym before hitting the hay. Until next time...