Today was eventful although not very productive. I woke up to the sound of my new roommate spraying what sounded like aerosol hairspray. It stopped then it started again, and again. I laid in bed baffled as to why she would possibly be spraying so much hairspray. It turned out to be spray starch. She was ironing her uniform! I remember those days. Once upon a time I might have considered it. Heck when I got here it even crossed my mind, but then I realized that dropping to the ground during a rocket attack in a freshly pressed uniform just doesn’t sound right, so a warm dryer and my hands is as close as I'm going to get.
The morning started as usual as did lunch on the lunch wagon. I had a taco which was an exciting change. I had to cut up sliced tomatoes and lettuce to put on it, but hey, it at least tasted good.
After lunch I walked over to the Bazaar only this time I actually brought money. I ended up getting three movies for $5. Now, what I find fascinating is that these are clearly bootleg copies. We are bringing these vendors onto the base and allowing them to sell these copies. The general consensus seems to be that we are helping the economy and it helps moral, but I still think it is odd. However, that didn’t stop me from getting Salt, Letters to Juliet and Yogi Bear. Two out of the three played well. I'm guessing the Yogi Bear isn't on DVD yet so the copy I bought is a camera in the theater copy. I walked over and asked to exchange it and he said ok. I haven't checked this one yet but if it is bad, of well. I am not about to argue over $1. They are real good about exchanging bad copies but I don't think it was the disk as much as the method.
Then I tossed my laundry into the machine and headed back to work. I had only been working about an hour when we got an email message that they were going to take down our .mil to reposition the satellite link. That was the beginning of the end. I went and moved laundry then headed back. Three of us were chatting in the office a few minutes when the admin realized that my coworker and I had not been on a base tour yet. So we jumped into the truck and off we went.
Wow this base is huge. We circled all the way around the back side of the airfield. It was really neat to see all the different areas...all brown of course. We were driving along perimeter road where the admin told us we might be able to see camels. There was quite a bit of traffic and the speed limit is 12 MPH (no that isn't a typo) so we were just relaxing looking out past the wire for camels. All three of us were so focused outside the wire that none of us realized we were at the end of the runway and that there was a fighter taking off. While we were clear to drive where we were, the noise of the afterburners scared us and we all grabbed our ears and ducked. I swear I thought the plane was having issues and was going to crash right into the side of us... it was that low. I quickly grabbed my camera and managed to get a quick photo of the second one taking off right after him. We all got a good laugh out of that. And we never did see any camels.
That spec is the second plane. The smoke you see is from the burn pits.
Typical military lodging. Stacked RLBs.
After we wondered back to the main part of the base we swung by the "Poo Pond". There is construction under way for a new waste water treatment facility but until then, it all goes into the Poo Pond. Some days we can even smell it from our compound. I can't even imagine what it will be like in summer.
The "Poo Pond"
Back at the compound I put away my laundry and managed to get back to work. Then the alarms went off. As I was lying on the floor I thought, "I am just not going to get anything done today." I grabbed my jacket and dashed off to the bunker outside for some more "bonding" with my fellow Corps employees. I had only been back at my desk a few minutes when the admin asked me if I wanted to walk up to chow. Why not?
Once I finally made it back to the office and got back to work I was tired. I’m guessing the last few days working past midnight are starting to catch up with me so I decided to call it a night. Hopefully tomorrow will be less eventful and I will feel like I am actually making a dent in my mountain of work.
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