Busy Monday

Rocket Status: None tonight.

Running: Had the normal three runners show up, well, one was still in bed, so we went and got him.  I took them all to FOB Lindsey for breakfast and it was pretty funny.  They'd never been for breakfast.  They stayed away from the scrambled eggs and each got a hard boiled egg.  They all got American Coffee, which is terrible in our dining facility, so it was funny to watch their face as they tried to drink it like us.  Then they all picked up some little peel off cups of maple syrup...none of them had pancakes and weren't familiar with what pancakes were, but anyway, the next thing I know they opened the maple syrup and were drinking it from the little cup...too funny, then the same with the packets of jelly.  They really enjoyed coming for breakfast.

This morning I received an email saying the buildings we're living in were slated for a military construction project and they want them moved to a different base by September....not the best way to start the day.  So I had to stay in the office and do some research to try to hang on to our living quarters.  Then I received a call that the sewer truck was at the front gate and needed an escort...one of the guys went to escort him in....then I received a call that the guards weren't going to let him in even with us escorting him unless he had a gate pass...frustrating.  Then I turned around and there were two visitors in my office that wanted to discuss the process of logistics, so we talked for a good 20 minutes.  I had another person that borrowed our vehicle that called and said he was leaving it over on the other base for us to pickup, so that was another trip to make.  Then we received a call from the personnel that manage the interpreters and they wanted to meet as soon as possible.  We decided to just meet over lunch, so we met from 1145-1300.  Somewhere in the morning I did manage to meet with the ANA Colonel for about 20 minutes and again in the afternoon for about an hour.

The ANA Colonel is really practicing his English.  He was asking me questions in English and asked what the meaning was of the word "of?" Never thought I'd be discussing English...not my favorite, but happy to since he's making the effort.  Another piece of good news today was I was contacted by the Defense Language Institute by email to let me know the English training contract is almost in place; they asked how many days of instructions I wanted for the ANA and times...the timing was perfect.  The ANA Colonel said he'd like to send all his guys to it that can go.  I even talked him into at least considering 1:30-2:30pm, which is usually part of their lunch/prayer/siesta of 11:00-2:30pm...isn't that a nice schedule.  Anyway, he was going to discuss having the class during that time, since the warehouse is normally closed and the students would be able to attend...I really hope it works out.

This afternoon, I also received a call that I need to pickup some badging paperwork on main base Kandahar sometime today, so I drove over at 6pm and had a Tim Hortons' Iced Cappuccino too.

Okay enough about the day...it's time for some 1960s pics of Afghanistan...