Well it has been a while since my last blog as usual. It is actually kind of hard to think of what to write about, all of the days seem pretty much the same and they meld into one. I work 6 days a week, 11 hour days but the work I do is not hard but can be tiring. Right now there is not a lot of electrical work to do so I keep busy helping the builders and utilities men (plumbers). My main duties have consisted of keeping the a/c units maintained (very important in this heat) keeping the generators running (with out those, no a/c) and when I am not doing that I am the mail rep for Delta company. Mail is the most physical demanding part of my job due to the volume of packages flowing in on a daily basis. We are talking over a hundred a day if not more. It is great to see the love flowing in as it boost the morale so much getting a little love from home.
On my one day off a week which is Sunday I get to sleep in a little bit before heading to work to turn on the generator and then off to breakfast and back to my room where I try to decide what to do for the day. Sometimes I may do nothing, I may take a trip to the PX for goodies or supplies, I may go to the boardwalk for a smoothie or watch the Canadians play roller hockey. Now that we have a new general in charge maybe we will get back the fast food choices and shops that McCrystal took away. Mostly I like to send emails home now that I have Internet hooked up in my room. I was finally able to post some photos on my smugmug page so check it out when you have time. www.dfouts.sugmug.com and click on "deployment 2010" for all of the latest and greatest.
I suppose I am getting used to being here now. The first few weeks were the toughest, getting acclimatized to the heat, dust and work schedule. Now that my work schedule is pretty much set I can plan my evenings a little easier be it Skyping or hanging, making phone calls back home and so on. We do have days that go a little bit longer due to needing to finish up a project or extra training. The days here are HOT and average between 100 to 108 degrees. When it gets down into the low 80s at night we tend to get a little chilly. The forecast is calling for lows in the mid to upper 60s next week. I will have to dig out my sweatshirt!! We are all looking forward to cooler weather and would even like to see a rain drop or two. Maybe that will knock down the dust a bit but i doubt it. I experienced my first dust storm a couple of weeks ago. It was like a dark wall coming at you and all of a sudden the winds kick up and swirl and you cant see the sky or across the street. Its pretty nasty and gets in every nook and cranny due to how fine it is, finer than baby powder. Other than that nusense there are the rocket attack alarms that go off. They usually go off at night but if you are Lucky they are before you are asleep. It was quiet for over a week but then the bad guys decided they wanted to try and get inside the front gate and when they couldnt they drove a suicide bomber into the front gate and a couple rockets over onto the flight line. No good guys were killed but a couple injured including one from our battalion who was working on the other side of the base during the attack. He is okay and back to work but it really hits home when it is someone you know.
Well its been just about two months now and I am ready to get home, ready to see trees and grass and lakes and river and all the beauty you tend to take for granite. Being here has really given me a new prospective on a few things, mainly how good I have it back home and how poor these locals here are. I couldnt even come close to imagining it all but from what I have seen I am a millionaire!!
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