sobo

Oh, I will. Trust me... Oh, it will. Trust me... You'll have to do much better than that to get me to leave Afghanistan. Like better than twice that...

And the problem with this is what, exactly...??

Watcha doin' in PR, rob? You gonna be able to hit the most awesome BVI?

dougd, Thanks for the sentiment. Appreciated. dd, Piss off, ya blighter! ivan, ivan... uhhh, just keep being ivan...

Having tired of the DFAC (dining facility) food by the end of the week, I decided to take in dinner on the Boardwalk tonight. It being Friday and all, the choice of venue seemed obvious... What I hadn't counted upon was "beer" from Saudi Arabia, of all places. Well, it looked like beer, it smelled like beer, it tasted like... Well, I don't think it really had any taste at all, other than being bubbly. Dinner was pretty good, and I certainly appreciated the change, but I guess I'm gonna have to get used to O'Doul's... Source Only one pic today. The up/download speeds are so horrendously slow here that I just don't have the patience to upload much. The only place that's really cool around here is the flight line, but since taking pictures of activities there is strictly verboten, there just isn't really much else here that's worthy of immortalization in digital media. Oh, and no rocket attacks today. Take care and stay safe, y'all!

D- I'm really sorry that I missed out on the chance to have a belay slave that could also provide up-to-the-minute weather condish prior to leaving home. Sadly, there's just not much climbing here in Kandahar...

BLTs... Ar!

It would appear that someone has already beat me to it...

Quiet today. We had one more attack after last night's frivolity, at about 0130 this morning. Drug myself out of bed and down to the shelter, waited around for the AC siren, then back to bed around 0200. Nothing at all today. Pretty pleasant, with a high of 81F and an expected low tonight of 64F. Chance of rain, believe it or not! Got my suitcases delivered today, so now all the stuff that I brought for the entire year has finally caught up with me, even my climbering shoes and chalky bag. The Grand Adventure continues...

It's still a big concern over here. We were warned about it in training in Fort Worth, shown pictures of it's results ( ), and were told that 100% DEET was the best way to prevent getting bitten. That, and nets over your bed at night. I haven't seen any of the little blighters yet. Hope I never do... Regarding regular flies, haven't seen many of them either, but it's warming up a little bit more each day and the Poo Pond in camp is starting to get ripe...

Requesting once again for y'all to leave my update thread spray-free. Y'all can take your pontificating and navel contemplation to another thread just as easily as you can shit on this one. Thankyouverymuchinadvanceagain.

I would have to agree.

No shit! True story... We were a party of 4 in 2 vehicles returning on New Year's Eve from a bust of an ice climbing trip in the Kicking Horse several years ago. We had drunk "a few" pitchers before hitting the road late that night, and the RCMP were out in force with road checkpoints. About an hour down the road, the two guys in front of us decided it would be "fun" to mess with us... They roll up to a checkpoint and greet the RCMP guy, who asks a few simple questions about drunk driving on this NYE... Our friends pass the talk test, and the cop sends them on their way. Just before they leave the checkpoint, our "friends" tell the cop that he'd "...better check out those guys behind us. They've been on our tail for miles, and weaving all over the road and stuff..." Sure enough, we stiffen our upper lips as we approach the checkpoint, and roll down the window to address the cop. He eyes us warily, looks in all of the windows with his flashlight, and walks around my truck and back up the driver's window, where he says to me... RCMP: "You blokes been drinking tonight?" Me: "Well, yes we have. But it was only a pitcher between us, and that was hours ago." (bending the truth a little) RCMP: "Let me see your identification. Both of you..." I hand him my passport, driver's license, and my partner's papers... Now, my partner was a true-blue Brit in Washington on a work visa from England, and he had a passport and his UK driver's license. The RCMP guy is eyeing these documents and bends down to talk to Mark through my window... Cop: "So you're really from the UK, eh?" Mark: "Yup. Just here for work." Cop: "Really..." The RCMP guy grills us a little bit more, pages through our IDs some more, and he's obviously not quite convinced about Mark. Without warning, he dips his head into my window and loudly questions Mark: "Who was the football coach that survived a plane crash in 1958 in which several of his players were killed?" Without missing a single beat, Mark confidently spurts out, "Oh! Matt Busby, of Manchester United!" Cop: "Right! Off you go!" And so we did!

Wow, that really is a suxor policy. I've had renter's insurance for years until I bought homes. And now, of course, I carry hoemowner's insurance. There's a $500 deductible and it's FULL REPLACEMENT VALUE, man.

Well, I haven't actually seen it or been given the key to it yet, so nothing's for certain. Right now, I'm living in an 8 x 8 cube that I can barely fart in without driving myself outside.

I'll be sure to send you some pics from my latest adventures at the PX...

Well, the latest news "from the front" is that I survived my second thru sixth rocket attacks this evening, after being in country only 3 days! That first attack a couple days ago was nothing. I never even heard or saw anything from it, and it was all over in about 2 minutes. However, tonight's attacks started ~2030 hrs when we were at chow. Two barrages were closely spaced while in the dining hall, then after the "all clear" we headed back to the office for the evening shift. On the walk back to the office, another attack. This time, I distinctly heard 3 dets in camp, but they weren't close enough to us to see what happened/where they hit. After that second "all clear" (AC), I was at my desk for about half an hour when the siren sounded for the third attack in less than an hour. So back outside we went to play another round of "Hunker in the Bunker." We barely got the AC and were heading back inside when another barrage entered camp, so we all scurried back to the bunkers and waited for another 15 minutes or so. After we got the fourth AC and got settled in at our desks again, we got another warning siren, so back outside we went. We just got back in about a half hour ago after the 5th AC. All in all, 5 attacks in about 1.5 hours, with three distinct impacts somewhere. Definitely a more exciting time than the first day's attack. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway... My temporary digs here at KAF (Kandahar Airfield) sort of suck, but I'm only here for one week, then I move to a FOB “hub” to oversee the construction on my bases, of which I will be assigned eight. Add in the hub where I'll be living, and it's a total of nine bases. I will still be pretty near to KAF, less than a half-hour chopper ride away. Everybody's told me that the FOB I'm headed to next week is the very best one, cuz it's "all Army" (KAF is a NATO base, so it's multi-national) and the food at my new FOB is universally recognized around KAF as being top-notch. Prime rib once a week, lobster once a week, etc. I should get my own CHU (pronounced "chew") once I get there because of my job responsibilities. CHU is short for Containerized Housing Unit, or a shipping conex like the ones you see on ocean-going freighters. They outfit them with a sleeping quarters, an office, and a "sitting room" of sorts. They panel the walls, add a door with a window, weatherstrip everything to keep the dust to a minimum and (most) of the venomous critters out, and wire it. My total living and working space while not moving about will be about 8' x 20'. It will have AC, heat, power, and internet. All phones are mobile here, except the landlines here at the office. All the comforts of home! Plus, I’ve figured out my AT&T international calling plan, and I can call the states for $0.10/minute (plus I get the pleasure of being buttraped at the rate of ~17% in taxes per call). I’ve already called several people to check out how it works, and then checked the website for the running bill. It’s righteous! I'm currently "cold bunking" in a smaller CHU (8’ x 8’) at KAF while the regular inhabitant is on his quarterly R&R. The plan is for me to be at my FOB (I can't tell you the name of it here) before the other guy gets back here. At least, that's the plan. Some people still call them hooches (typically the older guys that have served in Vietnam), but the newbies like me call them CHUs, because that’s what the military calls them. So everything's cool. I made it out of Dubai to KDH, and I'm feeling really healthy and eating well. I avoided jet lag by making my “half-world tour” in stages (5 days in TX, 2 days in VA, 5 days in Dubai, and now AFG). They say that you need 1 day for every hour of time change to recover from jet lag, so if you look at how I worked my way across the USA, then the Atlantic, then the Middle East, and finally western Indonesia, you can see that I covered the 11.5 hours in 12 days. And I feel FABULOUS! I haven't gotten sick yet, but everyone tells me that within the first month, I will. Different (gut) flora here than at home, and the air is full of a dust as fine as talcum power. So you either get the screaming shits for 3 or 4 days, or an upper respiratory infection that lasts for 3 or 4 weeks, or both. Something to look forward to, I guess... Happens to everyone, they say. That's all for now!

Hi guyz, Been in-country all of about 32 hours now, and already had my first rocket attack yesterday, after being in KAF for all of about 5 or 6 hours. Nobody hurt, it didn't last long (according to the old timers), but some did come over the wire and impact in camp, but not near me. Pretty wild place here, lemme tell ya... Reminds one of the Old West. Military folks of both genders and all nations walk around on the Boardwalk (large square with shops on all four sides connected by wooden sidewalks) with all manner of firearms slung over their shoulders or ridin' their hips. Locked and loaded, too, depending upon the partiuclar individual's unit function. You almost expect to see someone get thrown out of a saloon and then get challenged to a duel. I keep listening for the riff from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the background...

Typical army protocol. Hurry up and wait. Have now been told that we'll leave at 0300. I drug my ass out of bed and got ready 2 hours too early...

Thanks Joe, I saw that on the news here in DXB. And the big prison break in Pakistan, too. I just learned this evening that my flight is being moved up a whole day. I was supposed to fly in to KAF on Tuesday morning, but I was told tonight at muster that I'm leaving on the 0100 private chartered flight from Dubai into the base at KAF in about 4 hours. And just so you know, Joe, all of our flights in and out of Kandahar are on privately chartered flights (Gryphon Air) that go directly in and out of the base at KAF. No landings at Kandahar Int'l Airport, and no flights on any Middle Eastern airlines, either. Too easy to be kidnapped at commercial airports and become TV fodder for the Taliban. The next time you guys get an update from me, I will be on the ground in-country in KDH. I missed the camel ride today, but I'm sure glad I got my shred on yesterday! The Grand Adventure continues...

Kurt, Just in case you missed the link above the first ski photo, here it is again for more pics of the interior. Scroll down to External Links for a rudimentary "time-lapse" of the ski hill under construction. Just click the right arrow.

Since it became a whole fuq'n lot easier to get beer in Dubai than it was to get all of the required ingredients for PKs in Dubai, that's when. It was a fuq'n bitch locating a cocktail shaker, too. Arabs don't know what one is, and I couldn't really explain it in my pidgeon Farsi. Closest I got to a shaker was a blender, and there was no way I was going to lug that POS to KDH in a few days. So I just gave up and settled for beer. Nope. Gene was wondering what had happened to Spray, so I was just logging on to fulfill what I saw as a need. Not really a Sobo Update, nor a Hey Sobo, What Time Is It? response, so it seemed appropriate to post it here...

It's damn near 2:00 in the morning here. I'm pounding down beers and spraying about my most awesome day on the slopes in Dubai, cuz the Indian bar/nightclub on the floor below me is still it so I can't sleep anyway!

More tourista action from Saturday... The Burj Al Arab, billed as "The World's Only 7-Star Hotel" and the 4th tallest hotel in the world. This sail-shaped thing is constructed upon a man-made island about 1,000 feet offshore, with a graceful curving bridge from shore to access the hotel. Ski Dubai, the indoor ski hill at Mall of the Emirates. Contains one each of "black-diamond", "blue-square", and "green-circle" runs; a bunny hill; a terrain park; luge and toboggan runs; and a kiddie play area. Runs are served by a Magic Carpet for the kiddies, and a slow-speed quad chair and a poma lift for the blue and black runs. It's cold enough in this place that I had to buy gloves!!!1 Parveen, more affectionately known to us Afghanistan-bound types as Miss P. Never having set foot upon snow before, Miss P decided Dubai was the place to learn to snowboard. After buttplants too numerous to count, she switched to skis. After faceplants too numerous to count, she switched to beer. Quite the trooper. View behind me down to the bottom of the hill and the lifts. "The Turn" (the only bend on the whole hill) on the "expert" slope. HA!!!1 Note the poma lift along the left wall. View down to the mid-slope lift station and the Avalanche Bar and Cafe' at The Turn, where Miss P spent a fair bit of time after deciding snowboarding and skiing weren't for her. The Turn is on the right. Poma lift on the right side of frame. Self-portrait of Mall Shredder... Approaching my station on the Green Line of the Dubai Metro. It's that armadillo-looking thing just left of center frame. If you look closely, you can see two more down the line in the distance at center frame. This elevated light rail is the most stupid simple, cleanest, fastest, easiest, and cheapest transit system I have ever had the privilege to ride. For less than $4 USD, you can ride anywhere in the city, all day long, with no limit on the number of ons and offs. Puts the London Underground, the Paris Metro, BART, etc. to shame. Just for you, Kurt: The vertical is probably about 200 ft, and a lift operator told me that the longest run is 400m from top to bottom. I bought 2 hours of slope time for about $50 USD, which included the skis, boots, poles, and shell gear to wear over my street clothes. Socks were included, but you have to purchase hats and gloves separately if you want them (or bring yer own). I went for the gloves, and was glad I did. The chair runs painfully slow so that no one falls off during loading or unloading, and it takes over 7 minutes (I timed it) from start to finish to cover the 400m, or about 3 feet/second. GAAAH! I was back down in the lift line in less than a minute. Got in 15 runs in the 2 hours I paid for, for an average of 8 minutes per round trip. Definitely not world class skiing, but that wasn't the point. The point was to ski indoors, in a mall, in the desert. Mission accomplished! Next up on my bucket list... camel rides!!!

Man, you really are jonesin' for that shitheap, ain't ya?