58 hours straight, 1 hour sleep, 3 countries across the Middle East, 12,000 miles, and using a port-a-potty at -4ºf. I may not know exactly what my limits are, but I now have a better idea.
Training and hanging out with friends in Kuwait was great, trip home was hell. I got home took a shower, and then promptly passed out for around 13+ hours straight. Back at work now and getting back into the swing of things.
It’s been a busy week or so, and I haven’t had a chance to update; now I’m sitting around with nothing but time on my hands. No Internet where I’m camped out, and the Air Force blocks “Personal Websites†which it classifies mine as over where I can get a connection.
On the way to Kuwait, I ended up crashing in Bagram for the night; I got to stay in basically a circus tent with 200+ of my closest friends on cots. It was below 0 and there was a big flap all the way around flapping all night. I did get some boots… wait didn’t I already mention that, must have made an update I forgot about, and can’t check on at the moment.
I ended up finally making my way to Tom and Heather Eisele’s pad to crash for the duration of the class. It’s still a dam nice place. Heather’s new Toyota Fortuner (overseas only model, bigger than a RAV4, smaller than a 4runner) is pretty nice. Although it’s no where near as nice as Tom’s new Porsche. I was lucky enough to ride home with him the night we picked it up from the dealer. It’s a 2004 with next to no mileage on it and the previous owner was Kuwaiti royalty.
Later when heading out to a Lebanese restraint I decided to fold myself into the “back seat†rather than ride in the Fortuner. It required some gymnastics to get back there, but wasn’t too hideous once I was in place, other than the not enough headroom. The ride is stiff like you’d expect from a sports car, but not nearly as harsh as I was expecting. I must say I really like that car and I’ve started contemplating the possibility of one myself down the road. Who knows if it’s just a flight of fancy, or something I’ll still think about down the road.
Waiting to catch the flight back to Bagram, show time got pushed back twice, then put on standby, which is basically sit on your thumbs at their whim and we kept getting told there was a big list and limited number of seats. The guy next to me decided to run for dinner, which of course instantly triggered a quick roll call and one of the fastest palletizing of bags I’ve seen. So of course the guy ends up getting bumped off the roster and being pretty upset about it… of course I now think he may end up there sooner that us, depending on how things go, oh, and of course less than a third of the seats ended up being filled.
We are now sitting in Quatar, after flying all the way to Bagram, only to find a pile of snow on the runway. So here I sit just chilling in Quatar with show time for the 2nd try of our journey constantly getting pushed back and various people saying the snow just keeps falling.
The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy calls the towel the most important traveling tool you can have… it is wrong. It’s actually a T-shirt. You can take a shower and use a T-shirt as a towel, but towels are only acceptable to wear at the beach or toga parties. Always cary a pair of shorts, underwear, socks and of course a clean T-shirt in your caryon. Throwing back on the same pair of pants isn’t great, but being able to scrounge up a clean pair of skivvies and a make shift towel when you are delayed for pushing days and can’t get to your checked bags is priceless.
Movie review: Crank
Somebody popped it in while we were waiting, and I wasn’t expecting much. However once it kicked off, it turned out to be a frantic little ball of entertainment. Not very high brow, but very entertaining action flick with a good amount of humor thrown in. Probably one of the funniest sex scenes I’ve ever seen and very appropriate for the movie, not just thrown in for the token gratuities sex scene.
I finally read the book Kite Runner. Glen was highly reccomending it and had a copy to loan me. I finished it in less than 36 hours on my way to Kuwait here. It’s a very good book, all the more ponient given that the parts of the kid growing up in Kabul are near where I live. A very brutal book, but that seems to be the lot of the Afhganis over the years. I’d highly reccomend it if anybody is curious about Afghanistan or looking for a good book.
Kuwait is a wet muddy mess, who knew it rained in the desert. Catching the shuttle to class tomorow and taking all my gear with me. I’ll be riding home with Heather and crashing with her and Tom at Hacienda de Heathen. She’s taking some class at the New Horisions too, so that makes the commute easy, and we can party it up at their place after class tool.
After trekking all over the Middle East, I’ve finally found a good pair of boots. My Nike shoes weren’t cutting it in the slush, although they were barely keeping up thwarting frostbite on by toes. I initially got a pair of Converse combat boots when I was in Kuwait last time they were a bit thicker and looked warmer than the normal desert combat boots, but they ended up blistering my heels. The Camp Eggers was fully stocked with combat boots if you were sasquatch or a midget, even a thick pair of socks to make up for the lack of insulation wouldn’t have gotten any of them to fit. When Tera went over to Camp Phoenix to take some test, I rooted through there PX. However the only thing close they had was fur trimmed, and I really didn’t want to get my ass kicked for wearing girl’s boots.
Bagram’s small outdoor store actually had a huge pile of boots, mostly Colombias. Not quite combat boot height, but a little taller than hiking boots, all a bit overpriced, but when there’s only 1 place in maybe upwards to a thousand miles you can try em on… I picked a pair of all leather ones thinking that they would be a bit more slush proof than the leather and nylon one. However they left my toes cold. I returned them this morning and got the leather and nylon ones that had tags dangling off of them saying they are rated down to -25f and so far they have been nice and warm and not yet mauled my feet.