Well let's see what's new. Last Friday, I went over and spent the afternoon at the CSSP compound with my bud Joe. We went up on the roof and I got to take pictures of the city of Kabul. It was really cool and I had my picture taken with a Ghourka. I have them posted on SnapFish if anyone wants to view them. Joe also had a friend of his pick us up pizza from Pizza Hut at Camp Phoenix and we watched a movie. I can never remember the name of movies, but this one took place in Iraq, and starred Russel Crowe and Leonardo DeCaprio - really good movie. It was nice to relax. We knocked on Beth's door to invite her and figured she must be sleeping. About 4 or so she knocked on the door and it turned out she had been in her office the entire time working on her only day off. My pick up time with MST was at five, the movie ended at 4:45, perfect timing.

Saturday it was back to work and our big big boss came in from Washington (WDC - another acronym). Bob is actually a very pleasant gentleman. Nice to visit with.

There's so much dust in the air over here, that pretty much everyone gets a sinus infection. My sinus' were so bad that my husband asked me one day while chatting on Skype what was wrong with my face and then immediately followed it up with, "Oh Honey, you can see where your sinus' are all swollen." Matt was nice enough to get me some nasal spray at Camp Eggers. Another lady here was having sinus problems too so he picked her up a bottle as well. You know, I e-mailed her and titled it Nasal Spray where do you want to meet to pick it up. She replied "How about the Rose Garden" Do you know how many rose gardens we have here? So I said, "Which garden, they all have roses in them, give me a building number." Let me tell ya, Tyler, Texas has nothing on Kabul, Afghanistan when it comes to roses - they're absolutely beautiful here and they grow everywhere.

Sunday heralded the arrival of our new Logistics Supervisor. I really like him, I think he's going to work out great too. Plus, you know, its really nice not being the new kid on the block anymore. Tomorrow, a new attorney is arriving, then Saturday another Logistic person is showing up and then at the end of the next week another attorney. Nice . . .

Sunday night one of the attorney's and I were sitting in the dining room chatting when we both heard a loud thump. I said, "Wow, I wonder what got blown up this time." She replied, "No, that didn't sound like an explosion, it sounded like the vehicle gate" I said, "Really? I live right by the vehicle gate and its never sounded like that before." Later that night, she texted me to say "You were right, it was an explosion, a rocket but they don't have all the details yet". About an hour later, I heard another explosion so I walked out onto my balcony and looked over the railing to see one of the security guys who lives here and said "Hey, did I just hear another explosion?" He replied yes and discussed what direction they came from. It turned out the first one landed on the grounds of the old British Embassy and the second one was a controlled explosion - where the military destroys contraband materials they've discovered and need to dispose of.

Monday, there was an incident out in one of the RTC's (Remote Training Centers). Still waiting on the details of that one.

Today is Tuesday, I think the IT guys have finally figured out what they did to my computer. Besides erasing all my staff ID cards and template to boot - Wow! They've spent the entire weekend and the beginning of this week recreating the template.

I had to do a run to CSSP today, so I invited Carlos (new guy) to go along with so he could see CSSP our sister compound and meet some of the folks. We, support staff, aren't required to ride MST, (armed escort) so we just have an Afghan driver. Today is the first time I wore my scarf and my maid was kind enough to show me how to wear it. I received several nods of approval from the Afghan workers female and male. Plus, I was a good woman and let the men ride in the front. Yeah, actually I thought if I rode in the back seat wrapped up in my scarf we would blend in better . . . Yeah right, up until Carlos mentioned to Hollywood, (our driver) that our vehicle didn't fool anybody did it being armored and all. All I could think then was "Well Crap, I could have rode in the front seat."

Such is life . . .enjoy it and live it to the fullest . . .to many people sit around waiting and wondering when its going to end . . .stop, get out there, take a chance . . .you really do only live once - make a difference while you can. Until later my friends. . .TTFN

Jet Lag - Kicks you in the butt!

I arrived in Kabul on the 15th, was met at the airport by Dorie and Matt, both work in the office with me. Nice people, very imformative. We leave the Kabul airport and enroute to the compound. As we drive, I'm trying to take in everything I see, ask questions and listen to Dorie and Matt point out things of interest. Like, did you know that they have wedding buildings here for weddings. So when someone gets married, they rent these buildings for the shin dig. They are elaborately decorated, Dorie says at night it looks like Vegas with all the lights - very cool. I think all the roads around here are dirt or else they're so covered in dust they look like dirt. As we're driving, I see a donkey drawn flat wagon with a little man sitting at the front bouncing all over the place holding on with his legs clamped under the front of the wagon and he's in traffic with all the cars and that donkey is running like hell. But, he's keeping up with traffic. I couldn't help but chuckle. When we get to the compound, I'm shown three rooms and get to select the one I want. Mine has a balcony. Then Dorie takes me on a tour of the rest of the compound. Then, its lunch time. They were serving grilled lobster - don't mind if I do. Dorie thought they were going to be small so she ordered us each two and they turned out to be big - darn, we had so much left over we had to have lobster for dinner too. I spent the remainder of that day being introduced to other staff as they filtered in and cleaning my room. I slept 6 hours that night.

Day 2: Got up and got dressed, went down stairs and discovered Melinda and Marsha in the rec room doing the 4 mile walking tape and joined in. Then went to breakfast and over to the office. Dorie spent the majority of the day showing me some of my job tasks. We went to lunch and then back to more learning. That night, we went to dinner at an Italian Restaurant. Willi took the entire staff to dinner so the Afghan cooks could have a evening off during Ramadan. The food there was delicious! For an appetizer, I got a clear chicken soup and Willi recommended the Filet of Sol - YUM! Both were delicious. During dinner, Willi asked if I liked to play Monopoly and I said "yes". LOL - Monopoly game Saturday at 1900 hours, be there or be square . . .he says he's the reigning champ. When I told my daughter Heidi that we were playing Monopoly Saturday night, she laughed and said "Geeze Mom, he doesn't know how competitive you are when it comes to monopoly - even as kids you wouldn't let us win" - Ah, she makes me sound mean huh? LOL - she's telling the truth. Honestly, I don't know who's more competitive, me or my son in law Sam. We love to play monopoly.

Day 3 - Thursday. Got about 4 hours sleep - thank you jet lag. Went down stairs and did the 4 miles then breakfast and off to work. Cleaned my office, put together two binders for two dignataries out of Washington, D.C. (WDC is the acronym of choice - everything here is an acronym) learned how to make ID cards for new staff. Pretty cool actually.

About a quarter to 12 decided to go over and get a diet pepsi from the dining room. When I entered the Dining Hall, there was a male attorney in there making himself a cup of hot tea, we said hello and he started telling me that we were having hamburgers for lunch and how much he enjoyed hamburgers. As I reached in for my diet pepsi, I thought someone had slammed the dining room door. I looked around to the door and saw it was bouncing/rattling a bit. Didn't think anything of it and the attorney was still talking. So I headed out the door and back to my office, as I walked out, the four Afghan cooks came out of the kitchen in a hurry and went into the Rec room. Then I noticed a female attorney enter the side door and go into the rec room. I kept going out the front door and met Dorie coming from the office and she asked if I heard the blast and I told her I didn't know it was a blast I just thought someone had slammed the dining room door. It turns out that a suicide bomber had ran his vehicle into an Italian Military convoy near the US Embassy and about 4 km from our compound, killing 6 military personnel and 10 civilians. Over 50 civilians were injured. One of the men who works in our Finance Dept lost his cousin in the blast. Very traggic.

I went back to my office and did some more cleaning and thought about how I want to rearrange my office (its currently set up for a right handed person and every one knows I'm a lefty) and monitored CNN in my supervisor's office.

Last night, we went to CSSP (Corrections Compound) for a BBQ. Really good food, steak, chicken and spare ribs. Came home about a quarter to ten.

Day 4 - Friday - Today is the recognized and practiced Holy Day. Everyone is off. We work six days a week here with Friday's off. I got up, did my laundry, had a brunch breakfast and then came up to my room and talked to my husband for about an hour on Skype. Then I took a nap and slept from 2 - 7. Missed dinner so I settled for a english muffin w/peanut butter, a yoguart and a small piece of cake. Its one in the morning and I'm wide awake. I have to be up in six hours to go to work. Jet Lag sucks! Well, I'm going to try and go to sleep. I think I'll turn on the TV and gets lulled into lalaland. Wish me luck!

Wow! I actually just combined two things into one - totally awesome! I'm so proud of myself. And I'm within airline measurements. I started out with a small carry on packed to the gills and my computer bag - also packed to the gills. Told my husband, hey check this out and plopped one over each shoulder and thought I was gonna die. After a fast trip to Wally World, we picked out a carry on with wheels - Wha La! everything fit into one and my shoulders are happy campers. Now I can give my son in law back his computer bag.

Prep Time

So here we go, last minute everything - its just crazy. My mind is swirling. Everyone says "Oh my goodness your going to be so exhausted by the time you get to Dubai." Honestly, I'm so exhausted right now - the chance of getting to doze at my own convenience sounds rather inviting. Of course I'm not going to be thinking that when I board the plane at 0630 this Sunday. Wow! Talk to ya'll later.