Weather

It's still pretty hot here. I thought it was going to mirror New Mexico weather and start getting colder. I guess not. One of the interpreters here said that it can snow almost 3 ft around here. It doesn't look like there will be any snow here anytime soon.
There hasn't been much else new, but I'll try and update the blog more often.

Nothing New

Not much going on here to report. Back to working 8 hours, going to the gym, and eating. That's about it.

Ramadan or Ramazan (however they spell it) is finally over. Pretty much all that means is that I might get my laundry quicker. I guess they have another holiday right after Ramadan called Eids or something. I guess it's their Christmas but lasts 3 or 4 days.

Here's a picture of me at the project site saving a puppy. I single handedly stopped the backhoe from crushing it... Right...

Office time

We finished our project and now I'm back at the office. Not much else going on, just counting down the days. I guess we have 150 or something close. Not too bad I guess. They say if you sleep a lot, you'll cut your deployment in half. I might have to try that...

Cool Project

We're almost done with the culvert project. It's actually pretty cool, we had to lay some pipes under some hescos and under a road. Hescos are these wire and cloth barriers that surrounds pretty much all U.S. bases. They're easy to put up, and all you do is fill them with dirt and you're done.

It's nice since I've been able to get out of the office, mostly. I learned to drive a backhoe, bobcat, and a roller. Most of the equipment is pretty easy to learn, but hard to master. I doubt I'll be getting a construction job when I get back though. I'll put some pictures on after we're done.

New Projects

It has been a little while since I updated, but it's because I've actually been busy. We've had a bunch of people go on leave so I've had to take over there jobs. One job I do is loading jingle trucks with stuff that needs to go to different FOBs in Afghanistan. It's pretty easy, but if you don't have a translator it can be a little confusing. Using hand gestures only goes so far.

I've also been in charge of a construction project. There's some government agencies here (they won't tell us which ones) that needed a culvert put in. When it rains here, it usually pours and ends up flooding areas of the base. So we've been making a big ditch and laying down some pipes. It's a nice change from staring at a computer and getting carpal tunnel. We've also made some friends as you can see in this picture.

Also our cellphone service has been down for a few days. Service here is still better though then what I get in New Mexico.

Here it is

It's getting much colder here at night. I still need to post a picture of that last hailstorm we had, it was pretty amazing. The other day some paratroopers jumped near our FOB, that was pretty cool to watch. I guess they were practicing, if you're on jump status you need to do so many jumps a year to stay current.

I've been investing more into some mutual funds, hopefully the stock market keeps going up. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll have enough money saved that I can just retire and live on a beach after I get back... haha.

I'm trying to get our translator to find a cheap motorcycle for me to buy. A lot of the hadjis here have one and I'd think it would be pretty easy to get one. I'd like to just take it a part and put it back together again, since our maintainance is right here and have all the tools I'd ever need. Maybe I could lower it and put a giant aluminum spoiler on it too, just so I'd have the coolest motorcycle in the Paktika province. We'll see...

Address

Not much new to report; we had a huge hailstorm the other day. I'll post a picture of it later. Some people wanted my address in Afghanistan, so here it is:

My name (hopefully you know what it is)
920th EN CO
FOB Orgun-E
APO AE 09311

That's all there is to it. I don't want to post my whole name on here for security reasons, but I have full confidence that you can fill in the blank.