Sunday, September 14, 2008




Home sweet home…for the next 115 days or so…

Directly across from my room pictured here, is a great bumper sticker: "Balad…now that's my kind of trailer park!"

Couldn't have said it better myself.
The emphatic note to "TURN OFF YOUR ALARM!!" was there when I got here. I'm not the offender in this case.

Today's my first day off…and I'm at work. Just to use the computer though…

While I brought my laptop, it's much easier to just head into work to use this to compose the post, email it to my hotmail account, and cut and paste it to blogger when I get to the morale trailer. Work computers don't have access to the blogs, but the morale computers do…another concern is the movement of computers from a/c controlled rooms, through severe heat and back to a/c controlled rooms. A female major on the trip over here fried her laptop at our staging location doing just that. I can't wait for the wi-fi to come online on our portion of the base.

Anyway, the day goes a little something like this:

Out of bed late (0530!) and I treated myself to a triple mocha from the local "Green Bean" coffee house and headed to the rec center to catch the last part of USC beating on OSU. After that was over a quick trip to the shoppette to pick up some toiletries and I was on my way back to the pod. Deciding to not waste my time here, I've ventured into a physical fitness improvement program. So toward that end I put in 12.5 miles on the bike today. It ain't running, but it's much easier on the knees. Quick shower and shave (we are ALWAYS in uniform here…so we will ALWAYS be clean shaven), then off to my weekly treat. I've decided to allow myself one guilty meal a week…Taco Bell. Five regular tacos later, my craving for TB has been satisfied.

If you're shocked we have a TacoBell, don't be…We've also got a Pizza Hut, Cinnabon and Burger King as well. Another base here in the AOR has a Starbucks, a chinese chain and Popeyes, along with all the stuff I mentioned we have here.

Americans are famous for bringing the "comforts of home" with us to war (and overseas too!). They remind us of home and are morale boosters. Knowing I can look forward to Taco Bell each weekend makes this place just the tiniest bit easier to handle.

Not that it's all that hard here…so far. I won't go into details likely to raise concern but it is definitely a war zone. This base is constantly changing and to help focus our efforts, the wing commander just outlined his three main focus areas for the year. Priority number one is fostering the "joint" atmosphere.

Joint is up close and personal here. The Army is here in full force, the Navy is around as well. I've seen a few Marines, and have been told we've even got eight Coasties running around here somewhere! Add to the mix a bunch of DoD civilians, KBR contractors, other contractors and the local/third country nationals and you have an environment that could be an advertising poster for diversity! I had lunch the other day with a Navy Ltjg who runs the customs shop here. They're famous for finding all the stuff people try to take out of the AOR…

Anyway…Off to organize my pod...

The cap to my day off will be a serving of cheesecake at the DFAC tonight…ain't life grand?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bucky! I hit your blog right after IKE came up our pooper.
It's good to see you are well! I have one concern regarding your latest blog and it's in regards to having a residence with the alpha/numeric identification of "C4"1. I'd check and see if you can find a "butter bar" and swap with him/her! We all know they are expendable! Hee Hee!

Buck said...

Nice post! Thanks!!

Be safe...

Anonymous said...

I love ya man! And be safe!

Anonymous said...

Captain: came here thru your dad. Hope you don't mind if I check in from time to time; keeping you and all there in my good thoughts.

Thank you for all that you do.

Anonymous said...

Buck,
I MUST clarify something: Americans are not famous for bringing creature comforts... the Air Force is.

Waking up at 0530? I was at work at 0500 today... get hot and be safe!

Bag Blog said...

It is to know you are well. If we need to send Q-tips to clean sand out of the nooks and crannies, just let us know. I met your dad in Portales recently - he is quite wonderful.

Buck said...

I MUST clarify something: Americans are not famous for bringing creature comforts... the Air Force is.

LOL! Jealousy rears its ugly head! LOL! (I can't emphasize the LAUGH quite enough!)

Hey Lou! Thanks for the kind words, even tho it's MORE than apparent I can't walk/sit and chew gum and/or steak fingers at the same time!


(Cryptic Comment #4. Sorry about that, Buck. Didn't mean to hijack the thread...)

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