I've never gotten a day off in any of my last three deployments. I guess that's why when I came to the USFOR-A headquarters in Kabul, I was surprised to find out that most staff sections work half days on Fridays and Sundays. (How progressive!) It's not a day off, but hey, I'll take whatever time I off I can get. Fridays are the Islamic holy day, and Sundays, well of course the same goes for the Christians. The mornings are reserved for religious services, if desired, and then we come in to work by 1300hrs. I've been taking advantage of the time off to sleep, but the best thing is they serve a great brunch so you don't have to get up early to eat.
It rained pretty heavily last night, but when I woke up, the sky was clear and blue(ish) and probably the clearest I had seen it since I arrived. I went into work and started working on one of my projects. I asked a counterpart for some feedback on a database I was creating to standardize the generation of documents for reconstruction projects, and he was really excited to see the possibility of an automated system. He was so excited, in fact, that he brought out the assistant director of my shop to see what I had done thus far. He in turn was excited to see this automation progress, and then began asking me if we could add more features that basically amounted to project "scope creep". I told him I'd have to get back with him about adding in functionality that I hadn't planned on providing. Such as the ability to connect to and sync with a classified secret database. I already know that would be a no-go.
Evening recreation events normally occur on Thursday and Saturday nights. Last night we had our cigar smoking group and the camp had it's weekly dance in the DFAC overflow tent. Saturday nights is reserved for the group's movie night. Not that it's really anything so fun that you can't miss it, but it's at least an opportunity to leave the office earlier in the evening and not work.
Often I eat alone in our DFAC if I haven't left to go eat when members of the team leave the office for lunch or supper. Tonight, I left with several of them and we ate outside on the picnic tables because it was such a beautiful evening. When you're away from everything you know and love, you start to appreciate the little things that life has to offer like a good dinner with coworkers outside in pleasant weather in the middle of a war-torn country. Tonight's menu was surf and turf; not your five star dining, but steak and fried shrimp in a war zone is pretty darn good in my book.
More to follow.
It rained pretty heavily last night, but when I woke up, the sky was clear and blue(ish) and probably the clearest I had seen it since I arrived. I went into work and started working on one of my projects. I asked a counterpart for some feedback on a database I was creating to standardize the generation of documents for reconstruction projects, and he was really excited to see the possibility of an automated system. He was so excited, in fact, that he brought out the assistant director of my shop to see what I had done thus far. He in turn was excited to see this automation progress, and then began asking me if we could add more features that basically amounted to project "scope creep". I told him I'd have to get back with him about adding in functionality that I hadn't planned on providing. Such as the ability to connect to and sync with a classified secret database. I already know that would be a no-go.
Evening recreation events normally occur on Thursday and Saturday nights. Last night we had our cigar smoking group and the camp had it's weekly dance in the DFAC overflow tent. Saturday nights is reserved for the group's movie night. Not that it's really anything so fun that you can't miss it, but it's at least an opportunity to leave the office earlier in the evening and not work.
Often I eat alone in our DFAC if I haven't left to go eat when members of the team leave the office for lunch or supper. Tonight, I left with several of them and we ate outside on the picnic tables because it was such a beautiful evening. When you're away from everything you know and love, you start to appreciate the little things that life has to offer like a good dinner with coworkers outside in pleasant weather in the middle of a war-torn country. Tonight's menu was surf and turf; not your five star dining, but steak and fried shrimp in a war zone is pretty darn good in my book.
More to follow.
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