There are times when I start to feel like the better times are over. Like all those great memories from the past are the last great memories that I’ll make. It seems as if each passing year gets less interesting to the point that I’m less excited about tomorrow.
That’s kind of a depressing start to this but it’s more of an awakening than a cry for help. And many of you have probably connected this feeling to why I’m leaving the country again, to seek out that excitement and color. Trouble is you can’t expect a change in the view out your window to change the view in your mind. No matter how many ways I spin it in my head, the honest truth is that I’m running away from my life. Jesus… I sound like someone who should be on suicide watch… No, no I’m fine. Please keep reading.
The catalyst to me posting this was some memories that were brought up tonight while I was at dinner with some old friends. We were part of a new hire group that joined Boeing 6 years ago, all of us fresh out of college with more money than we knew what to do with. We were all in our early 20s, single and looking to extend the college life just a few more years. It felt like every weekend was a party with the weekends bleeding into the week days. It was a time when hangovers didn’t exist and even after a 3AM bed time we could still be ready for an 8AM work out. Nothing could stop us, except time.
Time is like the tortoise, you know, like the tortoise and the hare. No matter how fast-paced a life we lead, time slowly grinds away and before you realize it, it’s caught up. And that’s sort of where I find myself right now, in second place. I’m creeping closer and closer to 30, the vast majority of my friends are married or in serious relationships and at some point people went from trying to extend college life to preparing their kids for college. The weekends are now two days to get chores done and when we do go out the recovery consumes the remainder of the days.
As we approach NYE2010, I can remember the past New Years celebrations and how they’ve evolved from year to year. How baby seats appeared in the cars and parents disappeared from the attendance list. For those parents who are still willing to come out, they’re now accompanied by the little ones. I can’t say that I mind though, kids are a lot of fun. I met a former girlfriend at a NYE party, can’t remember what year but I can tell you the person who hosted the party is now married.
So it seems now I’m chasing after that little green reptile as it slowing trudges along in the distance. I finally woke up from my little nap to realize that I’ve been left in the dust by something that, by some unknown force, is required to tick away at a constant pace. The problem now, you see, is that no matter how fast I move, no matter how much distance I make up, there is nothing that will keep that tortoise from winning. Our little analogy ends at the awakening, because in reality, the tortoise always wins.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Back to the Fight… Well At Least Back to Watching It
It’s been close to a month now since I landed at Lambert Airport in Saint Louis after spending close to 36 hours traversing across half the planet. Since then I’ve seen a lot of friends and family, spent a lot of time eating and sleeping, and probably blown a whole paycheck on gas for my car, all things that I wasn’t able to do for the previous 6 months. It’s been good to have a chance to come home, spend some time in my own bed, shower without shower shoes and have a weekend off again. The problem you see is that all good things come to an end.
It’s not as if going to the great brown ocean is a bad thing. I’m pretty excited to get back out there and spend some more time with friends and helping our guys on the ground take the fight to the enemy. But there are days when I wake up after a comfortable nights sleep and think to myself, there’s got to be another job I can do that would allow me to wake up here every night. The trouble you see is that spending time in the office has made me very aware of what I’m not missing here.
People constantly complaining about how tough they have it, how they are working over time when there are 3 days left in the pay period. When people griping about their bosses or how they have multiple bosses or how they don’t want to go to work any more. Not to forget all those other various whines and moans that people have, also not to forget that I’ve complained about my boss more than any one while I’ve been back.
Someone needs to wake up and realize that even though they’re working overtime, at least they can go home at night and sleep. At least they can spend time with friends and family on the weekends even if they have to work during the day. They don’t have to worry about being that one in a million that gets a mortar dropped on their head while they’re sleeping. They don’t jump every time there is a loud noise because the base might have been infiltrated and someone planted a car bomb outside their tent. But I’ll take all that over sitting in the office hating life every single day until I retire.
The other day I asked someone if they enjoyed their job. They responded with “At least it’s a job, especially in this economy.” So, does that mean they don’t really like their job but since there aren’t any other options, they take it? Is that like being married to someone you don’t really like but you can’t do any better so you’ll take them? I’m not down with hating life and I’m not down with accepting something that I don’t like. But ultimately we aren’t always able to choose what we want and I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do something that, despite its many drawbacks, I enjoy very much for the time being.
If you fast forward 30 days I should be sitting on a plane on my way out to the Middle East. It’ll be another whole new experience with my final destination being Iraq with a short layover in Kuwait. I’ll be there with some friends from Afghanistan by way of Oregon and New York. Flying around the world, spending time in war zones, all while getting paid… I don’t think you can beat this life. Anyone want to meet me in London or the Maldives in March?
It’s not as if going to the great brown ocean is a bad thing. I’m pretty excited to get back out there and spend some more time with friends and helping our guys on the ground take the fight to the enemy. But there are days when I wake up after a comfortable nights sleep and think to myself, there’s got to be another job I can do that would allow me to wake up here every night. The trouble you see is that spending time in the office has made me very aware of what I’m not missing here.
People constantly complaining about how tough they have it, how they are working over time when there are 3 days left in the pay period. When people griping about their bosses or how they have multiple bosses or how they don’t want to go to work any more. Not to forget all those other various whines and moans that people have, also not to forget that I’ve complained about my boss more than any one while I’ve been back.
Someone needs to wake up and realize that even though they’re working overtime, at least they can go home at night and sleep. At least they can spend time with friends and family on the weekends even if they have to work during the day. They don’t have to worry about being that one in a million that gets a mortar dropped on their head while they’re sleeping. They don’t jump every time there is a loud noise because the base might have been infiltrated and someone planted a car bomb outside their tent. But I’ll take all that over sitting in the office hating life every single day until I retire.
The other day I asked someone if they enjoyed their job. They responded with “At least it’s a job, especially in this economy.” So, does that mean they don’t really like their job but since there aren’t any other options, they take it? Is that like being married to someone you don’t really like but you can’t do any better so you’ll take them? I’m not down with hating life and I’m not down with accepting something that I don’t like. But ultimately we aren’t always able to choose what we want and I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do something that, despite its many drawbacks, I enjoy very much for the time being.
If you fast forward 30 days I should be sitting on a plane on my way out to the Middle East. It’ll be another whole new experience with my final destination being Iraq with a short layover in Kuwait. I’ll be there with some friends from Afghanistan by way of Oregon and New York. Flying around the world, spending time in war zones, all while getting paid… I don’t think you can beat this life. Anyone want to meet me in London or the Maldives in March?
Friday, November 27, 2009
Chicago Marathon 2006
I wanted to consolidate my blogs a bit. I had posted a bunch of these elsewhere and thought this quiet time would be a good time to retrieve these posts. I wrote this one after I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2006. I'll probably be redeploying early next year, which may come too soon or not soon enough depending on what day you talk to me...
Saturday morning came a lot faster than I expected. It was starting to hit me that in two days I would be doing something that few people can say they've done in their lives, run a marathon. The excitement was building, 18 weeks of training for one day of glory. I had two things on my mind don't walk and finish strong. Our flight that morning was around 11 AM, to arrive in Chicago at around noon. I got the call that morning from my friend who'd I'd been training with and who got me into this mess. He said he'd be at my place around 930 and we'd head for Waffle House for breakfast, the food for marathon champions…
Even at Waffle House there were reminders of the hell we'd be putting ourselves through. A couple eating with their daughter, the dad wearing a Spirit of Saint Louis Marathon shirt and looking like a runner, the daughter, who I thought I recognized from one of the many races I've done in the past few years. We ate our breakfast and headed for the airport. The excitement continued to build. It was a great feeling, a huge accomplishment, but the doubt was still there.
Did I train enough, I hadn't run at all that week, I'd been a little down and hadn't really moved at all. Maybe that was a good thing though, allow my legs a rest.
Maybe it was a bad thing, my legs may have weakened in the time I hadn't done anything but drink and eat poorly. It wasn't far from destroying all the preparation that I've done running up to this event. But I signed up, I paid, I was going and I was running as strong as I could possibly run. I wasn't going to be beaten by myself.
At the airport were more reminders. The guy in the security line with a pair of Brooks tired to his backpack, the girl with her 2005 Chicago Marathon jacket on. The group of guys with their Boston Marathon jackets, the loner with the Marine Corps Marathon shirt on. The powers that be weren't going to allow us to forget what was going to happen tomorrow.
The plane ride was uneventful, one hour of extra sleep that I had missed the week before. Still probably about 9 hours of sleep behind… I'd never been to Chicago, other than wandering through Midway during a lay over, so this was a cool experience. We got off the plane and headed for the L. In line for tickets were at least 50 people, most with running shoes, running jackets and looking all kinds of runner. Amazing, this many people who knew what we'd gone through to get here.
The L took us downtown and we got off, far, far away from where we wanted to be.
After a slight detour and some wrong directional walking we agreed to get a cab. Oh boy a cab ride, my first cab ride in Chicago. I was excited. The cab took us to McCormick Place, where the expo center and packet pickup were. We knew instantly that we were in the right place. No where else in the city did we see people, then around the corner a line of cabs and a mass of people. It looked like the hour prior to a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium.
We walked in to see thousands of people walking through the building, signs led us up to the area where we could get our packets and activate our chips. We jumped in line and got our numbers and chips, met up behind chip activation and headed towards the rear of the expo center to get our goody bag. So many runners, so many companies represented. Shoes, nutrition, clothing, international marathons, national marathons, everything you could imagine was there. It was similar to the facilities for the Spirit of Saint Louis marathon, but on a grander scale.
I'd never imagined seeing this many people in one place, so many people with different backgrounds, different languages, different reasons for being at this race. Some for the love of running, some for a loved one, some just out to run with a spouse, friend or relative.
We got our packets and wandered around for a short period of time, snapped a picture of ourselves in from of the count down timer. 17 hours 44 minutes 55 seconds before race time. We jumped back into another cab and headed for the hotel. We dropped off our stuff and went to lunch, an Italian beef sandwich, French fries and a cup of water. Good thing for that water or else that meal would have been completely bad for me. The grease soaked through the two sheets of wax paper that wrapped up the sandwich. Come to think of it, it soaked through the paper bag it came in. But there was something settling about eating that sandwich, it sort of calmed the nerves.
We finished up with that and headed out to town. My friend showed me around Chicago for a bit, went to Millennium Park and tried to go to the Chicago Institute for Art but it was closing. We decided to go to the ESPN Zone to watch the Cardinals Game. I wasn't going to miss that for anything. To bad we lost. We finished the game and went back to the hotel to get some sleep prior to race time. We did all our prep work, organizing everything, making sure nothing was forgotten and tried to sleep. The adrenaline was still pumping through me, the excitement still running through my mind. I sent one last text message and slept the best I could.
Sunday morning, the day that would be a life changing experience. I tried to take a picture of myself that morning but the light on my camera was too bright, I had to do it with my eyes closed. I debated on taking a shower and decided to because its better to start clean and end up dirty than to start dirty and end up dirtier.
After showering and gathering our things we hit the street. We hailed a cab a block down and it drove us as close as it could before the roads started being closed around the start line. There was a sea of people, what looked like hundreds of thousands, quite possible since there were 40,000 participants and each with an average of 2-3 people with them. It's been a while since I've seen that many people in one spot for the same purpose.
We met up with some friends from Boeing and talked for a while. I ran over to gear check and dropped off my bag before the start. As soon as I got back to the group it was time to break and head for the start. We ran up to where our pace groups were, conveniently behind a fence… We shook hands and split. My friend headed for the 5:30 hour group and I headed for the 4:30 hour group, jumped the fence and I was there. It was like all those videos you see from the Boston Marathon, just a sea of people all facing the same way, waiting for the horn to sound.
Not long after getting to the start line the gun went off. No movement. Clothes started flying, shirts, jackets, pants, plastic bags, ponchos and anything else of excess that wouldn't be needed throughout the race was shed at the start. When in Rome, I thought, so I tossed my long sleeve shirt, thinking it wouldn't be long before we started moving. After doing that I looked up a realized that the start was still a mile away. I was freezing, and I was probably an hour away from running. The wind was brutal, but hey what the hell I'm running the Chicago Marathon!
About 15 minutes after the gun sounded we crossed the start line. The 4:30 group took off, slowly, very slowly, slower than I expected. I told myself that I had to pace them so I wouldn't burn out before the end. It's a marathon, not a sprint. But running at this speed was making me more tired than I would have been if I had gone full speed ahead. After about 5 or 6 miles I removed my pace team number and took off. My heart rate was solid, I was still breathing through my nose, no problems, not even an ounce of pain. Well, 7 down 19 more to go, we'll see how long I can keep his up for.
I kept passing people and ended up seeing some 4 hour people and some 3:55 people. Could they have been just those who miss estimated their times or were they legitimately running that pace? I didn't know, I didn't care, I was running with some fast people. The miles just melted away. The whole route was lined with thousands of people, all cheering. They didn't' care who you were, what you were, they cheered for you. The feeling was amazing, the energy was powerful and it kept me going strong. Again the feeling was unreal, like a dream.
More miles flew by as the people did and as the neighborhoods did. Mile 9, mile 10, mile 11, mile 12, then over the hill I could see the half marathon mark, 2:07 hours. As I ran through I thought, wow, the first place finisher is running through the finish right about now, I'm half way there. Run strong, everyone is watching, there are people at home thinking about you, your brother is tracking your progress. I took my first Gatorade stop just after the half marathon mark. Grab, crimp and slurp, no walking.
More miles, more towns, more cheering people flew by. Little Italy, Spanish Town, Boys Town, China Town, didn't matter, they all cheered, they all encouraged. People lined the bridges, the streets, even the tunnels. I was starting to realize that they didn't care how fast you were running, they cared that you were out there, that you were doing it. I was doing it. I was running my first marathon.
I ran by someone with a sign on their back saying "I beat my brain tumor". Others with shirts saying "I'm running for my brother", "I'm running for the kids", Team in Training ran for Leukemia, everyone had a reason ranging from the love of running to the defeat of cancer.
Mile 18 was time for some Power Gel. Missed the first guy, missed the second guy, finally grabbed one from the third, cappuccino with caffeine, perfect! Rip and squeeze into mouth. Simple instructions were necessary at this point. Oh, more Power gel, grab another. Rip and squeeze, okay one more for the road, any more would slow me down. Gatorade to wash it down, grab, crimp and slurp, keep running. No stopping, no pain, no fear, no thinking.
Mile 20, the wall… there was a wall in fact, it was the wall from Pink Floyd. But where was the glycogen depletion? Where was that pain, that muscle grinding I was told about? Where was the sudden stop? No more questions keep going.
Mile 21, the Final Five, oh my god I have five more miles to go. I couldn't believe it, I had five more miles to go, 18 weeks of training down to less than an hour of running. Still no wall, no pain, no stopping for me, others all around were walking giving me more incentive to keep going.
Mile 22, completely missed the marker.
Mile 23, just a 5K left, just thirty more minutes. Don't quit now, you're so close, don't stop, do it for yourself, do it for everyone watching, just do it. No pain.
Mile 24, what's that? My calf is a tightening up. Quit thinking about it, just run.
Mile 25, I could see the city, could feel the end, could hear the crowds, the excitement, the energy.
800 Meters to go, sprint, go sprint, go, go go
400 Meters, you can do this in less than a minute, dead sprint, no pain! The crowds thickened, the cheering volume increased. What a feeling, what a great feeling! Everyone screaming, bells clanging, different languages, different people, different voices fueling. Everyone was sprinting, even the walkers. Everyone was reenergized. I hadn't ever ran like that after running so far, I didn't think I'd have the energy to go full stride, full cadence, I poured all my heart into that last 400 meters. Well all the heart I had left over after the first 26 miles. I ran through at 4:30 hour gun time, that's 4:15 chip time. I felt great! I couldn't help but smile like a kid at Christmas. It was amazing, more than words can describe.
I've likened it to a drug, now I want more, I want that feeling again. So I've already signed up for another half in November, and I'm going to sign up for the Birmingham Mercedes Marathon in Alabama. There is a possibility that I may sign up for the Vienna Marathon next April or run the Spirit of Saint Louis Full Marathon, I have the itch, I think I have a problem.
Saturday morning came a lot faster than I expected. It was starting to hit me that in two days I would be doing something that few people can say they've done in their lives, run a marathon. The excitement was building, 18 weeks of training for one day of glory. I had two things on my mind don't walk and finish strong. Our flight that morning was around 11 AM, to arrive in Chicago at around noon. I got the call that morning from my friend who'd I'd been training with and who got me into this mess. He said he'd be at my place around 930 and we'd head for Waffle House for breakfast, the food for marathon champions…
Even at Waffle House there were reminders of the hell we'd be putting ourselves through. A couple eating with their daughter, the dad wearing a Spirit of Saint Louis Marathon shirt and looking like a runner, the daughter, who I thought I recognized from one of the many races I've done in the past few years. We ate our breakfast and headed for the airport. The excitement continued to build. It was a great feeling, a huge accomplishment, but the doubt was still there.
Did I train enough, I hadn't run at all that week, I'd been a little down and hadn't really moved at all. Maybe that was a good thing though, allow my legs a rest.
Maybe it was a bad thing, my legs may have weakened in the time I hadn't done anything but drink and eat poorly. It wasn't far from destroying all the preparation that I've done running up to this event. But I signed up, I paid, I was going and I was running as strong as I could possibly run. I wasn't going to be beaten by myself.
At the airport were more reminders. The guy in the security line with a pair of Brooks tired to his backpack, the girl with her 2005 Chicago Marathon jacket on. The group of guys with their Boston Marathon jackets, the loner with the Marine Corps Marathon shirt on. The powers that be weren't going to allow us to forget what was going to happen tomorrow.
The plane ride was uneventful, one hour of extra sleep that I had missed the week before. Still probably about 9 hours of sleep behind… I'd never been to Chicago, other than wandering through Midway during a lay over, so this was a cool experience. We got off the plane and headed for the L. In line for tickets were at least 50 people, most with running shoes, running jackets and looking all kinds of runner. Amazing, this many people who knew what we'd gone through to get here.
The L took us downtown and we got off, far, far away from where we wanted to be.
After a slight detour and some wrong directional walking we agreed to get a cab. Oh boy a cab ride, my first cab ride in Chicago. I was excited. The cab took us to McCormick Place, where the expo center and packet pickup were. We knew instantly that we were in the right place. No where else in the city did we see people, then around the corner a line of cabs and a mass of people. It looked like the hour prior to a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium.
We walked in to see thousands of people walking through the building, signs led us up to the area where we could get our packets and activate our chips. We jumped in line and got our numbers and chips, met up behind chip activation and headed towards the rear of the expo center to get our goody bag. So many runners, so many companies represented. Shoes, nutrition, clothing, international marathons, national marathons, everything you could imagine was there. It was similar to the facilities for the Spirit of Saint Louis marathon, but on a grander scale.
I'd never imagined seeing this many people in one place, so many people with different backgrounds, different languages, different reasons for being at this race. Some for the love of running, some for a loved one, some just out to run with a spouse, friend or relative.
We got our packets and wandered around for a short period of time, snapped a picture of ourselves in from of the count down timer. 17 hours 44 minutes 55 seconds before race time. We jumped back into another cab and headed for the hotel. We dropped off our stuff and went to lunch, an Italian beef sandwich, French fries and a cup of water. Good thing for that water or else that meal would have been completely bad for me. The grease soaked through the two sheets of wax paper that wrapped up the sandwich. Come to think of it, it soaked through the paper bag it came in. But there was something settling about eating that sandwich, it sort of calmed the nerves.
We finished up with that and headed out to town. My friend showed me around Chicago for a bit, went to Millennium Park and tried to go to the Chicago Institute for Art but it was closing. We decided to go to the ESPN Zone to watch the Cardinals Game. I wasn't going to miss that for anything. To bad we lost. We finished the game and went back to the hotel to get some sleep prior to race time. We did all our prep work, organizing everything, making sure nothing was forgotten and tried to sleep. The adrenaline was still pumping through me, the excitement still running through my mind. I sent one last text message and slept the best I could.
Sunday morning, the day that would be a life changing experience. I tried to take a picture of myself that morning but the light on my camera was too bright, I had to do it with my eyes closed. I debated on taking a shower and decided to because its better to start clean and end up dirty than to start dirty and end up dirtier.
After showering and gathering our things we hit the street. We hailed a cab a block down and it drove us as close as it could before the roads started being closed around the start line. There was a sea of people, what looked like hundreds of thousands, quite possible since there were 40,000 participants and each with an average of 2-3 people with them. It's been a while since I've seen that many people in one spot for the same purpose.
We met up with some friends from Boeing and talked for a while. I ran over to gear check and dropped off my bag before the start. As soon as I got back to the group it was time to break and head for the start. We ran up to where our pace groups were, conveniently behind a fence… We shook hands and split. My friend headed for the 5:30 hour group and I headed for the 4:30 hour group, jumped the fence and I was there. It was like all those videos you see from the Boston Marathon, just a sea of people all facing the same way, waiting for the horn to sound.
Not long after getting to the start line the gun went off. No movement. Clothes started flying, shirts, jackets, pants, plastic bags, ponchos and anything else of excess that wouldn't be needed throughout the race was shed at the start. When in Rome, I thought, so I tossed my long sleeve shirt, thinking it wouldn't be long before we started moving. After doing that I looked up a realized that the start was still a mile away. I was freezing, and I was probably an hour away from running. The wind was brutal, but hey what the hell I'm running the Chicago Marathon!
About 15 minutes after the gun sounded we crossed the start line. The 4:30 group took off, slowly, very slowly, slower than I expected. I told myself that I had to pace them so I wouldn't burn out before the end. It's a marathon, not a sprint. But running at this speed was making me more tired than I would have been if I had gone full speed ahead. After about 5 or 6 miles I removed my pace team number and took off. My heart rate was solid, I was still breathing through my nose, no problems, not even an ounce of pain. Well, 7 down 19 more to go, we'll see how long I can keep his up for.
I kept passing people and ended up seeing some 4 hour people and some 3:55 people. Could they have been just those who miss estimated their times or were they legitimately running that pace? I didn't know, I didn't care, I was running with some fast people. The miles just melted away. The whole route was lined with thousands of people, all cheering. They didn't' care who you were, what you were, they cheered for you. The feeling was amazing, the energy was powerful and it kept me going strong. Again the feeling was unreal, like a dream.
More miles flew by as the people did and as the neighborhoods did. Mile 9, mile 10, mile 11, mile 12, then over the hill I could see the half marathon mark, 2:07 hours. As I ran through I thought, wow, the first place finisher is running through the finish right about now, I'm half way there. Run strong, everyone is watching, there are people at home thinking about you, your brother is tracking your progress. I took my first Gatorade stop just after the half marathon mark. Grab, crimp and slurp, no walking.
More miles, more towns, more cheering people flew by. Little Italy, Spanish Town, Boys Town, China Town, didn't matter, they all cheered, they all encouraged. People lined the bridges, the streets, even the tunnels. I was starting to realize that they didn't care how fast you were running, they cared that you were out there, that you were doing it. I was doing it. I was running my first marathon.
I ran by someone with a sign on their back saying "I beat my brain tumor". Others with shirts saying "I'm running for my brother", "I'm running for the kids", Team in Training ran for Leukemia, everyone had a reason ranging from the love of running to the defeat of cancer.
Mile 18 was time for some Power Gel. Missed the first guy, missed the second guy, finally grabbed one from the third, cappuccino with caffeine, perfect! Rip and squeeze into mouth. Simple instructions were necessary at this point. Oh, more Power gel, grab another. Rip and squeeze, okay one more for the road, any more would slow me down. Gatorade to wash it down, grab, crimp and slurp, keep running. No stopping, no pain, no fear, no thinking.
Mile 20, the wall… there was a wall in fact, it was the wall from Pink Floyd. But where was the glycogen depletion? Where was that pain, that muscle grinding I was told about? Where was the sudden stop? No more questions keep going.
Mile 21, the Final Five, oh my god I have five more miles to go. I couldn't believe it, I had five more miles to go, 18 weeks of training down to less than an hour of running. Still no wall, no pain, no stopping for me, others all around were walking giving me more incentive to keep going.
Mile 22, completely missed the marker.
Mile 23, just a 5K left, just thirty more minutes. Don't quit now, you're so close, don't stop, do it for yourself, do it for everyone watching, just do it. No pain.
Mile 24, what's that? My calf is a tightening up. Quit thinking about it, just run.
Mile 25, I could see the city, could feel the end, could hear the crowds, the excitement, the energy.
800 Meters to go, sprint, go sprint, go, go go
400 Meters, you can do this in less than a minute, dead sprint, no pain! The crowds thickened, the cheering volume increased. What a feeling, what a great feeling! Everyone screaming, bells clanging, different languages, different people, different voices fueling. Everyone was sprinting, even the walkers. Everyone was reenergized. I hadn't ever ran like that after running so far, I didn't think I'd have the energy to go full stride, full cadence, I poured all my heart into that last 400 meters. Well all the heart I had left over after the first 26 miles. I ran through at 4:30 hour gun time, that's 4:15 chip time. I felt great! I couldn't help but smile like a kid at Christmas. It was amazing, more than words can describe.
I've likened it to a drug, now I want more, I want that feeling again. So I've already signed up for another half in November, and I'm going to sign up for the Birmingham Mercedes Marathon in Alabama. There is a possibility that I may sign up for the Vienna Marathon next April or run the Spirit of Saint Louis Full Marathon, I have the itch, I think I have a problem.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Welcome Home
The interaction that has stuck in my mind the most occurred when I was arriving in Chicago after my flight in from London. I was going across the border at O’Hare with my passport and declaration form in hand. I stepped to the counter and the agent took both from me and started his examination.
“Afghanistan? Are you in the military?” he asked.
“No, I’m a civilian contractor supporting the military.”
“Welcome home…”
I’ve been out of the country quite a few times now. From spending 20 days in Korea to 3 weeks in Europe, but no one has ever said welcome home to me when I came back. In all the transaction lasted less than 60 seconds but it stands as one of the most moving experiences I’ve had.
It’s been about a week since I stepped back onto US soil but those 60 seconds still resonate in my mind. The feeling is something akin to someone telling you that they love you and knowing that they really mean it. It sends a strange warmness through you, especially when it comes from a complete stranger. I feel like someone outside your circle actually does care.
I’m sure the chemical reaction that occurs in your brain when something like that happens really is like a drug. Suddenly there is this surge of dopamine that fills your brain with good feelings, minus that needles and physical addiction part of it. The closest comparison I can think of is the feeling of finishing a marathon.
It’s that rush you get when you see the finish line, hundreds of cheering people line the path to the end and suddenly there is this resurgence of energy where you’re able to push passed the pain. It’s the reason why I continue to run marathons, for that last 100 yards and it’s the reason why I want to go back out, for that welcome home.
“Afghanistan? Are you in the military?” he asked.
“No, I’m a civilian contractor supporting the military.”
“Welcome home…”
I’ve been out of the country quite a few times now. From spending 20 days in Korea to 3 weeks in Europe, but no one has ever said welcome home to me when I came back. In all the transaction lasted less than 60 seconds but it stands as one of the most moving experiences I’ve had.
It’s been about a week since I stepped back onto US soil but those 60 seconds still resonate in my mind. The feeling is something akin to someone telling you that they love you and knowing that they really mean it. It sends a strange warmness through you, especially when it comes from a complete stranger. I feel like someone outside your circle actually does care.
I’m sure the chemical reaction that occurs in your brain when something like that happens really is like a drug. Suddenly there is this surge of dopamine that fills your brain with good feelings, minus that needles and physical addiction part of it. The closest comparison I can think of is the feeling of finishing a marathon.
It’s that rush you get when you see the finish line, hundreds of cheering people line the path to the end and suddenly there is this resurgence of energy where you’re able to push passed the pain. It’s the reason why I continue to run marathons, for that last 100 yards and it’s the reason why I want to go back out, for that welcome home.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
11 Hours and Counting
It was 7 days ago that I left my site in Helmand, Afghanistan, 3 days ago I left our main hub to the north and 1 day since I left Kandahar. In the past week I’ve changed from day shift, to night shift, back to days and now I’m not sure when I should be sleeping or awake. My circadian rhythm is messed up like an MC Escher piece.
I’m in the executive lounge at London Heathrow waiting for my next flight with 20% battery left on my laptop and no means of charging it since my charger is in my checked luggage. At one point all I was carrying was my laptop, but I got tired so I bought some stuff so I could put the computer in the bag. And that’s how my little nephew became the new owner of a stuffed camel from Dubai.
I can’t say that it’s hard leaving this time around. You don’t really realize how nice it is not to be surrounded by rifles and camouflage until you’re not surrounded by rifles and camouflage. Now when I look around all I see are people living their happy little lives, taking for granted how fortunate they really are not to have real problems to deal with.
Yet, I still can’t help but smile when I catch a whiff civilization. The porta-potty stink is replaced with air fresheners, the body odor is replaced with deodorant. I just hope I’m not carrying any of that Afghan funk with me, however that would explain why everyone is looking at me all funny, although it could also be my bloodshot eyes or my messed up hair that hasn’t been cut in close to 3 months.
But I keep a sense of pride given the fact that I just walked out of the newspaper headlines. Not that they were about me, but they are about the places I’ve been. In the waning days of my deployment I started meeting some of the Marine Corps grunts that we’d been supporting, the guys on the ground actually taking the fight to the enemy. These were the guys whose friends were in the obituaries back home. They’re the ones who saw those newspaper photos first hand.
I got to talk to them about us watching them from the sky and they told me about what they saw on the ground… Battery warning, I’ll have to continue this later…
And I’m back… I’m at Chicago O’Hare, about 10 hours since I left off, waiting for my flight back to Saint Louis. I got impatient waiting for my laptop to charge so I pulled it at 33%. We’ll see if I can finish up this time…
They were as excited to meet me as I was to meet them. It’s like finding a pen pal and finally meeting them after months of writing. I could finally put a face to the little figures I watched from 3,000 ft up. I heard stories put to the videos I saw and they got to hear about what we were seeing from way up high. It was a great experience and kind of serendipitous given that I saw them while I was on my way out.
So here I sit, at my gate, the only thing holding me from my own comfy dust-free bed is an airplane ride and a baggage carrousel stop. My 90 lbs backpack is probably snaking its way through a series of conveyor belts as I type and my plane is probably rolling down some taxiway. The only care in my world is whether or not I’m going to go back for more…
I’m in the executive lounge at London Heathrow waiting for my next flight with 20% battery left on my laptop and no means of charging it since my charger is in my checked luggage. At one point all I was carrying was my laptop, but I got tired so I bought some stuff so I could put the computer in the bag. And that’s how my little nephew became the new owner of a stuffed camel from Dubai.
I can’t say that it’s hard leaving this time around. You don’t really realize how nice it is not to be surrounded by rifles and camouflage until you’re not surrounded by rifles and camouflage. Now when I look around all I see are people living their happy little lives, taking for granted how fortunate they really are not to have real problems to deal with.
Yet, I still can’t help but smile when I catch a whiff civilization. The porta-potty stink is replaced with air fresheners, the body odor is replaced with deodorant. I just hope I’m not carrying any of that Afghan funk with me, however that would explain why everyone is looking at me all funny, although it could also be my bloodshot eyes or my messed up hair that hasn’t been cut in close to 3 months.
But I keep a sense of pride given the fact that I just walked out of the newspaper headlines. Not that they were about me, but they are about the places I’ve been. In the waning days of my deployment I started meeting some of the Marine Corps grunts that we’d been supporting, the guys on the ground actually taking the fight to the enemy. These were the guys whose friends were in the obituaries back home. They’re the ones who saw those newspaper photos first hand.
I got to talk to them about us watching them from the sky and they told me about what they saw on the ground… Battery warning, I’ll have to continue this later…
And I’m back… I’m at Chicago O’Hare, about 10 hours since I left off, waiting for my flight back to Saint Louis. I got impatient waiting for my laptop to charge so I pulled it at 33%. We’ll see if I can finish up this time…
They were as excited to meet me as I was to meet them. It’s like finding a pen pal and finally meeting them after months of writing. I could finally put a face to the little figures I watched from 3,000 ft up. I heard stories put to the videos I saw and they got to hear about what we were seeing from way up high. It was a great experience and kind of serendipitous given that I saw them while I was on my way out.
So here I sit, at my gate, the only thing holding me from my own comfy dust-free bed is an airplane ride and a baggage carrousel stop. My 90 lbs backpack is probably snaking its way through a series of conveyor belts as I type and my plane is probably rolling down some taxiway. The only care in my world is whether or not I’m going to go back for more…
Friday, November 6, 2009
Tough to Let Go
Its 11:10 PM here right now, I’ve been brought back to the hub in preparation for my end of tour. Even though there are only 7 more days left before I’m getting off the plane in Saint Louis, I’m still having trouble letting go of the site I created.
I told my theater lead and my manager that Big D was my baby, and I wasn’t lying. Yes, I’m excited to go home but I put a lot of work in that site. A lot of labor, thought and planning went into making it what it is now.
Starting with the foundation that our predecessors created, we shifted a lot of things around that weren’t optimally placed. We rebuilt the maintenance pad. We installed new solar netting to keep that pad shaded from the sun. We got 2 new containers placed for both morale and operations. All those things amongst the little things we did to make the environment better to work in and live in.
I went through multiple iterations of layouts, multiple ideas for what would be best and wrote plans for attacking each advance. I relied on my personnel to know what to do and relied on luck to have everything work out the way they needed to. Fortunately, everything worked out and despite some hang ups, everything usually went smoothly.
Now that I’m on my way out, I find myself wanting to make sure that the site has continued success. Back at the hub I find myself looking for things that we need down there and working on getting those things sent down. More aircraft, more equipment, more tools are just a few of the things. Its sort of like how a parent hopes that their children live better lives than they did, I want my predecessors to have an easier time than I did.
I had my run-ins with outsiders, even once being threatened with being kicked off the site by someone who had that authority. (I came to find out that he actually requested that I be removed but that’s another long story) Despite that I’m still vested in the success of that site. Even though I’m gone, I’m still accountable for the success of that site. I’ve realized that this is a recurrence in a lot of things I’m put in charge of.
The last system I was put in charge of, I felt the same way. My manager was worried that once I left things were going to go wrong, I had other plans. I made sure that everything I started, I finished. I made sure that everything I could do at the time was done before I left and ultimately they found that there was nothing left to do. I felt accountable for its success, even though I was leaving.
So here I am sitting on my last 7 days, doing everything I can to make sure that that site is successful in my absence. I’ve given my child all the elements for success, sent it through school and now it’s time to give it one last push before it has to take on the world without me.
I told my theater lead and my manager that Big D was my baby, and I wasn’t lying. Yes, I’m excited to go home but I put a lot of work in that site. A lot of labor, thought and planning went into making it what it is now.
Starting with the foundation that our predecessors created, we shifted a lot of things around that weren’t optimally placed. We rebuilt the maintenance pad. We installed new solar netting to keep that pad shaded from the sun. We got 2 new containers placed for both morale and operations. All those things amongst the little things we did to make the environment better to work in and live in.
I went through multiple iterations of layouts, multiple ideas for what would be best and wrote plans for attacking each advance. I relied on my personnel to know what to do and relied on luck to have everything work out the way they needed to. Fortunately, everything worked out and despite some hang ups, everything usually went smoothly.
Now that I’m on my way out, I find myself wanting to make sure that the site has continued success. Back at the hub I find myself looking for things that we need down there and working on getting those things sent down. More aircraft, more equipment, more tools are just a few of the things. Its sort of like how a parent hopes that their children live better lives than they did, I want my predecessors to have an easier time than I did.
I had my run-ins with outsiders, even once being threatened with being kicked off the site by someone who had that authority. (I came to find out that he actually requested that I be removed but that’s another long story) Despite that I’m still vested in the success of that site. Even though I’m gone, I’m still accountable for the success of that site. I’ve realized that this is a recurrence in a lot of things I’m put in charge of.
The last system I was put in charge of, I felt the same way. My manager was worried that once I left things were going to go wrong, I had other plans. I made sure that everything I started, I finished. I made sure that everything I could do at the time was done before I left and ultimately they found that there was nothing left to do. I felt accountable for its success, even though I was leaving.
So here I am sitting on my last 7 days, doing everything I can to make sure that that site is successful in my absence. I’ve given my child all the elements for success, sent it through school and now it’s time to give it one last push before it has to take on the world without me.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
My Venting Session…
I hope this actually makes me feel better. I’ve been walking around venting for the past hour because of what transpired this evening. Something that makes me feel a bit less secure about the intelligence level of our military leaders.
Don’t get me wrong, the past 6 months have been an eye opener. I’ve seen the poorest leadership I could have ever imagined in an area where you’d expect to see the best. I’ll tell you one thing, the great military leaders of old have long since passed.
I walked out of our maintenance connex, I’ll show you pictures when I get back, and I notice two higher level enlisted marines, one is a SgtMaj and the other a GSgt. I like the GSgt because he seems relatively intelligent and easy to work with. So anyway… I walk out and see them talking and notice the SgtMaj glance over at me and starts to go off about how our generators are not “aesthetically pleasing.” No joke, those are his exact words.
At this point, I realize he’s talking about MY site to the GSgt. So instead of waiting around for someone to come tell me to move something I walk over to their little conversation. He looks at me and starts telling me about how that is their “foyer” and if someone came down from the Camp north of us that it would be unsightly.
I bit my tongue… ohhh how I bit my tongue. I thought better about informing him that this is a combat zone and not his living room. I thought better about telling him that there isn’t a Bed Bath and Beyond down the road where I can pick up some flowers to make the place nice. I also stopped myself from asking him if he wanted me to sweep the sand off the ground too.
So anyway, I tell him that we’re working on getting heavy equipment to move one of our generators away because it isn’t functional.
“You need to push the other one closer to the container so it isn’t sitting in the middle of the (walking) path.” He said.
“We need to do maintenance on it and if it’s closer we can’t maintain it.” I respond.
“What maintenance?”
Here’s where I’m about 3 inches from losing it… “Changing the oil?” You stupid moron…
“Oh, well can’t you put these in line or something?”
“No… we’re getting the unusable one taken away…” or don’t you remember me saying that 30 seconds ago…
“What about that air conditioner that’s sitting over there?”
BACKGROUND: 4 hours prior to this little talk we pulled an a/c out of one of our containers that arrived yesterday. It fell out of the wall and we put a new one in. So it had been sitting there for… oh… less than a few hours.
“My night crew guys are going to take care of it…”
“Oh, well it’s just not aesthetically pleasing…”
I thought, well, I’m sorry that you’ve been sitting behind a desk your entire career but I’m sure the area around said desk is very pleasing. Do you own any books on fung shui?
There were a few other things that I won’t mention because it’s not my place. I’m a civilian and have always been. But I did tell one of my former infantry friends about what those things. He’s actually had to fire his rifle at the bad guy, unlike our friendly neighborhood SgtMaj. So anyway, allow me to continue…
“Just relax, we’ll get it all straightened out.” I respond.
“Don’t tell me to relax, I am relaxed.”
I’m looking this ogre straight in the eye and respond… “Just relax…” in my calm voice…
“When you say you’re going to move it I want it done now, not a month from now…”
“We’re coordinating HE (Heavy Equipment), you know how difficult it can be to get them.”
“Yeah but just get it done.”
“Okay.” I say, hoping he hears the absolute disrespect in my voice.
Then he walks away… I pat him on his back as he walks past me just for good measure and walk off… Fuming…
Don’t get me wrong, the past 6 months have been an eye opener. I’ve seen the poorest leadership I could have ever imagined in an area where you’d expect to see the best. I’ll tell you one thing, the great military leaders of old have long since passed.
I walked out of our maintenance connex, I’ll show you pictures when I get back, and I notice two higher level enlisted marines, one is a SgtMaj and the other a GSgt. I like the GSgt because he seems relatively intelligent and easy to work with. So anyway… I walk out and see them talking and notice the SgtMaj glance over at me and starts to go off about how our generators are not “aesthetically pleasing.” No joke, those are his exact words.
At this point, I realize he’s talking about MY site to the GSgt. So instead of waiting around for someone to come tell me to move something I walk over to their little conversation. He looks at me and starts telling me about how that is their “foyer” and if someone came down from the Camp north of us that it would be unsightly.
I bit my tongue… ohhh how I bit my tongue. I thought better about informing him that this is a combat zone and not his living room. I thought better about telling him that there isn’t a Bed Bath and Beyond down the road where I can pick up some flowers to make the place nice. I also stopped myself from asking him if he wanted me to sweep the sand off the ground too.
So anyway, I tell him that we’re working on getting heavy equipment to move one of our generators away because it isn’t functional.
“You need to push the other one closer to the container so it isn’t sitting in the middle of the (walking) path.” He said.
“We need to do maintenance on it and if it’s closer we can’t maintain it.” I respond.
“What maintenance?”
Here’s where I’m about 3 inches from losing it… “Changing the oil?” You stupid moron…
“Oh, well can’t you put these in line or something?”
“No… we’re getting the unusable one taken away…” or don’t you remember me saying that 30 seconds ago…
“What about that air conditioner that’s sitting over there?”
BACKGROUND: 4 hours prior to this little talk we pulled an a/c out of one of our containers that arrived yesterday. It fell out of the wall and we put a new one in. So it had been sitting there for… oh… less than a few hours.
“My night crew guys are going to take care of it…”
“Oh, well it’s just not aesthetically pleasing…”
I thought, well, I’m sorry that you’ve been sitting behind a desk your entire career but I’m sure the area around said desk is very pleasing. Do you own any books on fung shui?
There were a few other things that I won’t mention because it’s not my place. I’m a civilian and have always been. But I did tell one of my former infantry friends about what those things. He’s actually had to fire his rifle at the bad guy, unlike our friendly neighborhood SgtMaj. So anyway, allow me to continue…
“Just relax, we’ll get it all straightened out.” I respond.
“Don’t tell me to relax, I am relaxed.”
I’m looking this ogre straight in the eye and respond… “Just relax…” in my calm voice…
“When you say you’re going to move it I want it done now, not a month from now…”
“We’re coordinating HE (Heavy Equipment), you know how difficult it can be to get them.”
“Yeah but just get it done.”
“Okay.” I say, hoping he hears the absolute disrespect in my voice.
Then he walks away… I pat him on his back as he walks past me just for good measure and walk off… Fuming…
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sad Farewells
In the past few weeks the unit I’ve been working with, VMU2, for the past 6 months has been turning over to the new unit, VMU3, which just arrived. I’ve been told that it’s rare that the marines have to say good bye to the contractors. What makes things even more difficult is that most of them are saying that we are the best crew of contractors that they’ve worked with.
I came into country about a month after VMU2 arrived. Since then I’ve basically cohabitated with them, at one point even staying in the same tent. We ate together, we played together and we essentially lived together for over 12 straight hours a day. The only time I didn’t see them was while I was sleeping and that was because we stayed in different places. I don’t even think married people spend that much time with one another and thus from these long hours we developed a type of bond that very few people share.
You start sharing stories with each other that you don’t tell other people. You open yourself up more than most people do in their regular relationships. Someone will start into a personal experience and after they’re finished someone else has something similar to share. It’s like the story book opens and it’s written in 50 point font with someone.
Now that VMU2 is leaving, I guess I can equate what I’m feeling right now to losing loved ones. The days are bland and boring kind of like the days after breaking up with someone. Even though I can go eat dinner instead of going to the gym with my friend, the food isn’t even as good as it use to be because the company is no longer there. There’s only one other person who’s been here as long as I have and the change is noticeable in him too.
It’s just been an ongoing barrage of handshakes and hugs. It seems like every hour there’s someone else to say goodbye to. And despite the trading of phone numbers, facebook pages and email addresses, deep down inside you know it’s probably going to be the last time you see them. One of my friends said “You know how people say they want to keep in touch but they don’t? Well, I really want to keep in touch.” Unfortunately I’ve never had an experience where people so far apart, living such different lives have been able to successfully keep in touch without a great deal of effort from both sides.
I realized last night that more than likely in less than 2 years all the people I’ve met here and befriended will become little more than familiar faces. Those movie script clichés where you say “Don’t I know you from some where?” when you see them out in public. We’ll all go on to live our regular lives. But if we’re fortunate enough, fate will bring us together when we least suspect it and if our friendship was truly as strong as I believe it is, we won’t follow the script.
I came into country about a month after VMU2 arrived. Since then I’ve basically cohabitated with them, at one point even staying in the same tent. We ate together, we played together and we essentially lived together for over 12 straight hours a day. The only time I didn’t see them was while I was sleeping and that was because we stayed in different places. I don’t even think married people spend that much time with one another and thus from these long hours we developed a type of bond that very few people share.
You start sharing stories with each other that you don’t tell other people. You open yourself up more than most people do in their regular relationships. Someone will start into a personal experience and after they’re finished someone else has something similar to share. It’s like the story book opens and it’s written in 50 point font with someone.
Now that VMU2 is leaving, I guess I can equate what I’m feeling right now to losing loved ones. The days are bland and boring kind of like the days after breaking up with someone. Even though I can go eat dinner instead of going to the gym with my friend, the food isn’t even as good as it use to be because the company is no longer there. There’s only one other person who’s been here as long as I have and the change is noticeable in him too.
It’s just been an ongoing barrage of handshakes and hugs. It seems like every hour there’s someone else to say goodbye to. And despite the trading of phone numbers, facebook pages and email addresses, deep down inside you know it’s probably going to be the last time you see them. One of my friends said “You know how people say they want to keep in touch but they don’t? Well, I really want to keep in touch.” Unfortunately I’ve never had an experience where people so far apart, living such different lives have been able to successfully keep in touch without a great deal of effort from both sides.
I realized last night that more than likely in less than 2 years all the people I’ve met here and befriended will become little more than familiar faces. Those movie script clichés where you say “Don’t I know you from some where?” when you see them out in public. We’ll all go on to live our regular lives. But if we’re fortunate enough, fate will bring us together when we least suspect it and if our friendship was truly as strong as I believe it is, we won’t follow the script.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Another Cold Morning
The temperatures have dropped substantially in the past few weeks. The mornings are particularly frigid. The sprint from our tent to the showers has become like an Olympic event with the threat of hypothermia looming like grim death. I’m no longer greeted by the sun after my 5:30 wake up call. My focus went from getting back to the tent in time so as not to miss chow to getting back to the tent in time to so as to not shiver all my calories away. This morning the focus was different. I started to consider the things I’ve learned since being out here and the changes I’ve made to myself and hoped that those changes wouldn’t fade when I got home.
It had become readily apparent to me that in the years after college I had changed. I’d lost a lot of my social abilities, what little I had I mean. Nonetheless, I became a person who’d rather sit at home while life went on outside. Before, I was out there, meeting and greeting, making new friends on a regular basis. Then I got a 9 to 5, I became complacent with the group of friends I had and gave up on meeting new people. I recall once saying “I don’t care what they think, I have enough friends.” That wasn’t something I would say before.
I attributed this change to maturing, to becoming an adult. But that was more or less a cover for what was actually happening. I was afraid that the social flexibility I once had was gone, slowly fading away with every hour I spent sitting at home alone or sitting at work silently prodding away at a document or computer system. The monotony of the “real world” was eating away at my soul and devouring who I was. That does sound a bit dramatic doesn’t? It really isn’t that bad but that was the climax of the story and now comes the grand conclusion.
Being out here has been a catalyst for recognizing my devolution and subsequently the deconstruction and rebuilding of my self. I feel like I’ve regained my flexibility and desire to meet new people. The fire inside me that burned like a furnace as been rekindled and is burning again. Now lets see if I can keep the coals hot.
It had become readily apparent to me that in the years after college I had changed. I’d lost a lot of my social abilities, what little I had I mean. Nonetheless, I became a person who’d rather sit at home while life went on outside. Before, I was out there, meeting and greeting, making new friends on a regular basis. Then I got a 9 to 5, I became complacent with the group of friends I had and gave up on meeting new people. I recall once saying “I don’t care what they think, I have enough friends.” That wasn’t something I would say before.
I attributed this change to maturing, to becoming an adult. But that was more or less a cover for what was actually happening. I was afraid that the social flexibility I once had was gone, slowly fading away with every hour I spent sitting at home alone or sitting at work silently prodding away at a document or computer system. The monotony of the “real world” was eating away at my soul and devouring who I was. That does sound a bit dramatic doesn’t? It really isn’t that bad but that was the climax of the story and now comes the grand conclusion.
Being out here has been a catalyst for recognizing my devolution and subsequently the deconstruction and rebuilding of my self. I feel like I’ve regained my flexibility and desire to meet new people. The fire inside me that burned like a furnace as been rekindled and is burning again. Now lets see if I can keep the coals hot.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The Closing Days
As my time here in the desert comes to a close I’m forced to decide on my next course of action. I’ve been asked a few times what I’m going to be doing after this. In my mind I have a couple options, try to find another job or not to try and redeploy sometime in the near future. Initially my intentions were to go out on 2 deployments, one land based (this one) and another ship based. I’ve heard the ship based ones can be a lot of fun, a lot more fun that then desert anyway.
I had a few goals for coming out here. First was to come out here and see first hand what our brave men and women are going through. Second was to see the country that has been so ravaged by war throughout its history. Third was to advance in the company and coming here seemed like a good way to pick up a couple new skills.
Of course nothing is for sure. I have pinged a few of my old managers and co-workers about job opportunities back home. That was my “try” to get another job and honestly if nothing works out, I’ll just redeploy. I’m fine with either direction. Life out here is pretty easy and fun. My only hesitation is the fact that I won’t be working with this team again and probably not even the same marines that I’ve been working with. I’ve been very fortunate with the situation I was put in.
So, what will I do after this deployment is over? Odds are if I find another job these blog posts will end. There just won’t be much interesting to talk about anymore, not while sitting behind a desk all day. But really, in order to fulfill my goal, I’d need to get a promotion with my next job move, which is unlikely. If I stay with this job I’ll probably get promoted with my next assignment, or at least fight as hard as I can to be promoted. Trouble is, if I stay in this job to long I’ll get pigeon-holed and be stuck for good and that’s just not good. I guess this is one of those, “know when to fold’em” situations. I've pretty much reached the peak of my ScanEagle career as the lead for a relatively successful hub.
I’ve never been someone to deny a door opened by opportunity. Who has two thumbs and likes opportunity? THIS GUY! Sorry, couldn’t help it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if another program says “Hey Jeff, why don’t you come work for us?” I’d probably respond “Sure, just let me return my flak and Kevlar and I’ll be right there.” It would be tough, I enjoy this job more than any job I’ve ever had. I guess, like anything, I’ll just let fate decide for me and go with whatever happens.
I had a few goals for coming out here. First was to come out here and see first hand what our brave men and women are going through. Second was to see the country that has been so ravaged by war throughout its history. Third was to advance in the company and coming here seemed like a good way to pick up a couple new skills.
Of course nothing is for sure. I have pinged a few of my old managers and co-workers about job opportunities back home. That was my “try” to get another job and honestly if nothing works out, I’ll just redeploy. I’m fine with either direction. Life out here is pretty easy and fun. My only hesitation is the fact that I won’t be working with this team again and probably not even the same marines that I’ve been working with. I’ve been very fortunate with the situation I was put in.
So, what will I do after this deployment is over? Odds are if I find another job these blog posts will end. There just won’t be much interesting to talk about anymore, not while sitting behind a desk all day. But really, in order to fulfill my goal, I’d need to get a promotion with my next job move, which is unlikely. If I stay with this job I’ll probably get promoted with my next assignment, or at least fight as hard as I can to be promoted. Trouble is, if I stay in this job to long I’ll get pigeon-holed and be stuck for good and that’s just not good. I guess this is one of those, “know when to fold’em” situations. I've pretty much reached the peak of my ScanEagle career as the lead for a relatively successful hub.
I’ve never been someone to deny a door opened by opportunity. Who has two thumbs and likes opportunity? THIS GUY! Sorry, couldn’t help it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if another program says “Hey Jeff, why don’t you come work for us?” I’d probably respond “Sure, just let me return my flak and Kevlar and I’ll be right there.” It would be tough, I enjoy this job more than any job I’ve ever had. I guess, like anything, I’ll just let fate decide for me and go with whatever happens.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Mood Driven Playlists
Have you ever listened to music and then suddenly gotten into a line of songs that drove your mood either up or down and then continued to choose songs that further pushed that mood deeper either way? Well, that’s what I’m doing right now, driving my mood in one direction and further in that direction.
Sometimes when I get depressed I’ll listen to music to drive myself further into a depressed state, instead of doing the logical and listening to mood lifting tunes. When I’m lifting I’ll listen to songs that drive me to push harder or that drown out those voices that want me to quit. When I’m running I’ll listen to music with lyrics that distract my mind from my screaming legs, songs that take more mental horsepower to comprehend. I want to push my limits until I break, whether mentally or physically.
This may sound a little odd, but I use to create playlists and use the date as the title. That way I could go back and see how I was feeling on that date. When reviewed that playlist I could feel those feelings again and know how I was feeling at the time. It’s like creating a lyrical time capsule for me to open a year later and delve back into my own head. Unfortunately I gave my old Ipod away and lost most of my playlists from the year before.
At the moment I’m kind of at a loss for what I’m thinking. I’m sitting in the corner of our maintenance/MWR conex listening to an interesting mix. I started with some Ingrid Michaelson, then moved on to some Seether, followed by Kings of Leon, then back to the Kings, which I’d like to see in concert when I get home. Now I’m listening to Ludacris…
I think what I’ve taken away from my music choices while I’ve been here is that they aren’t very much different from my music choices back home. I have my down days, like I always have, I’ve had my up days, like I always have and I’ve had my status quo days. Other than a different location, different situation and different people, life goes on like it always does.
It might be a stretch, but I also believe musical selection reflects a person’s ability to deal with various situations. It’s just a matter of determining how you feel when you prefer one song to another. I’m willing to wager that if you ride with me somewhere when I get home that there will be a lot of up beat music playing.
Sometimes when I get depressed I’ll listen to music to drive myself further into a depressed state, instead of doing the logical and listening to mood lifting tunes. When I’m lifting I’ll listen to songs that drive me to push harder or that drown out those voices that want me to quit. When I’m running I’ll listen to music with lyrics that distract my mind from my screaming legs, songs that take more mental horsepower to comprehend. I want to push my limits until I break, whether mentally or physically.
This may sound a little odd, but I use to create playlists and use the date as the title. That way I could go back and see how I was feeling on that date. When reviewed that playlist I could feel those feelings again and know how I was feeling at the time. It’s like creating a lyrical time capsule for me to open a year later and delve back into my own head. Unfortunately I gave my old Ipod away and lost most of my playlists from the year before.
At the moment I’m kind of at a loss for what I’m thinking. I’m sitting in the corner of our maintenance/MWR conex listening to an interesting mix. I started with some Ingrid Michaelson, then moved on to some Seether, followed by Kings of Leon, then back to the Kings, which I’d like to see in concert when I get home. Now I’m listening to Ludacris…
I think what I’ve taken away from my music choices while I’ve been here is that they aren’t very much different from my music choices back home. I have my down days, like I always have, I’ve had my up days, like I always have and I’ve had my status quo days. Other than a different location, different situation and different people, life goes on like it always does.
It might be a stretch, but I also believe musical selection reflects a person’s ability to deal with various situations. It’s just a matter of determining how you feel when you prefer one song to another. I’m willing to wager that if you ride with me somewhere when I get home that there will be a lot of up beat music playing.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
57 Days
According to my little deployment counter I have 57 days left here before I’m sipping an umbrella drink on the top floor of my hotel in Dubai waiting for my business class flight back to the US to be greeted by the open arms of all my friends. It doesn’t seem like I’ve been here for 133 days already… Well unless I really think about it.
57 days… Can you believe it? It feels like it’s just around the corner. I’ve come a long way since that first day, stepping off of the C-130 on a strange airstrip in the middle of the desert. I’ve met a lot of cool people, who sometimes like to remind me that they have fewer days left than I do.
It’s been quite an adventure getting to where I am now. I remember that first day… Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I was a naïve operator, fresh out of school and ready to make my big break into the UAV world. I was so eager to get started that I didn’t even want to sleep, despite the fact that I should have been more jet lagged than I’ve ever been in my whole life.
Of course after a couple weeks I kicked on the cruise control as my interest level decreased and my frustration level grew. Not long after coming into country, I was sent to set up a spoke as part of a three man team, which brought a whole new set of challenges.
Covered in hydraulic fluid, I stepped off of a CH-53 on a strange helo-pad somewhere even further into the middle of the desert. Even more lost than before and even more sleep deprived. After spending a week setting up the spoke and living in sub-livable conditions we were asked to stay an additional 2 weeks before heading back to the hub. It was my first real taste of hell on earth.
It was hot in the days, unbearably hot by my standards, and the nights weren’t much better. We didn’t have air conditioning for the first week we were here, which made sleeping difficult. Plus the camel spiders found their way into our tents on a nightly basis. After the first week, the marines installed the a/c units, which made it bitterly cold in the tent but I wasn’t complaining. I was rotated out of that site after 3 weeks because I was closing in on my R&R date.
As you can imagine, after spending a week at home I had no desire whatsoever to return to the life I had chosen for myself. It was like giving a child candy and then taking it back after they got one lick. Since I don’t give up I reluctantly returned to the desert to serve the last 4 months of my deployment.
I spent about a month back at the hub before being asked to lead a new hub being set up at the site I had set the spoke up at. Most of the set up work was completed by a team of guys who came down to do the site survey/construction. I took the opportunity because I’d never pass up a chance to shine. And this is where you find me today, in the middle of the desert at a site of my own design and crewed by operators of my choosing. Life is good.
57 days… Can you believe it? It feels like it’s just around the corner. I’ve come a long way since that first day, stepping off of the C-130 on a strange airstrip in the middle of the desert. I’ve met a lot of cool people, who sometimes like to remind me that they have fewer days left than I do.
It’s been quite an adventure getting to where I am now. I remember that first day… Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I was a naïve operator, fresh out of school and ready to make my big break into the UAV world. I was so eager to get started that I didn’t even want to sleep, despite the fact that I should have been more jet lagged than I’ve ever been in my whole life.
Of course after a couple weeks I kicked on the cruise control as my interest level decreased and my frustration level grew. Not long after coming into country, I was sent to set up a spoke as part of a three man team, which brought a whole new set of challenges.
Covered in hydraulic fluid, I stepped off of a CH-53 on a strange helo-pad somewhere even further into the middle of the desert. Even more lost than before and even more sleep deprived. After spending a week setting up the spoke and living in sub-livable conditions we were asked to stay an additional 2 weeks before heading back to the hub. It was my first real taste of hell on earth.
It was hot in the days, unbearably hot by my standards, and the nights weren’t much better. We didn’t have air conditioning for the first week we were here, which made sleeping difficult. Plus the camel spiders found their way into our tents on a nightly basis. After the first week, the marines installed the a/c units, which made it bitterly cold in the tent but I wasn’t complaining. I was rotated out of that site after 3 weeks because I was closing in on my R&R date.
As you can imagine, after spending a week at home I had no desire whatsoever to return to the life I had chosen for myself. It was like giving a child candy and then taking it back after they got one lick. Since I don’t give up I reluctantly returned to the desert to serve the last 4 months of my deployment.
I spent about a month back at the hub before being asked to lead a new hub being set up at the site I had set the spoke up at. Most of the set up work was completed by a team of guys who came down to do the site survey/construction. I took the opportunity because I’d never pass up a chance to shine. And this is where you find me today, in the middle of the desert at a site of my own design and crewed by operators of my choosing. Life is good.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Life of a Site Lead
Is rather mundane… My main priority throughout the day is to send situation reports every morning to our theatre lead. It’s actually a very easy task, which one of my counterparts found a way to spend an entire day working on. It takes me about 5 minutes to clean my SITREP up and send it off since I spend the day adding and deleting changes.
Of course being a lead I get to deal with the people too. It’s a lot of fun right now because we have such a good group of guys but I can only imagine how it could be if I didn’t. I really have no power to tell these guys to get off my site if they aren’t making the cut. I can ask the theatre lead to bring them back to our mother hub but that doesn’t satisfy me. Some of the ones I’ve encountered shouldn’t be in this line of work.
Right now I’m sitting on our preflight pad. The weather has started to change, but the days still get hot. Our night crew complained to me about how the A/C unit in our tent wasn’t working and how it was 130 degrees while they were trying to sleep. I wish I could help them more but since I have no vehicle to drive over to talk to anyone, my hands are for the most part tied.
I never noticed it before but communications is a huge issue, particularly at my site. It can be rough here at first but when you get use to it, it isn’t so bad. There is a mile walk to work every morning through the desert. The sand, which is more like fine powder, can be shin deep in some places. But the worst part of the day continues to be the boredom. Trying to find any little bit of busy work to make the day go by faster.
After work and our evening turn over I go to the gym with one of our intel analysts. We jog about a mile to get to the gym and run on the treadmills and then jog back. She’s really cool and it gives me something to look forward to after spending the day at work. Sometimes I wonder why people join the military, not because it’s bad but just because some people don’t seem to like it, and she seems like one of those.
Along those lines, I’m wondering myself whether I want to do another deployment. I’ve really become accustomed to working with this group of marines and my next deployment probably won’t be with them. Although, I’ve often allowed fate to direct me through life and I just focus on following the path, so that’s what I’ll continue to do. I’ll keep my eyes open for opportunity and if it doesn’t come then I’ll continue doing this. I just hope my performance here as site lead will not go unnoticed.
Of course being a lead I get to deal with the people too. It’s a lot of fun right now because we have such a good group of guys but I can only imagine how it could be if I didn’t. I really have no power to tell these guys to get off my site if they aren’t making the cut. I can ask the theatre lead to bring them back to our mother hub but that doesn’t satisfy me. Some of the ones I’ve encountered shouldn’t be in this line of work.
Right now I’m sitting on our preflight pad. The weather has started to change, but the days still get hot. Our night crew complained to me about how the A/C unit in our tent wasn’t working and how it was 130 degrees while they were trying to sleep. I wish I could help them more but since I have no vehicle to drive over to talk to anyone, my hands are for the most part tied.
I never noticed it before but communications is a huge issue, particularly at my site. It can be rough here at first but when you get use to it, it isn’t so bad. There is a mile walk to work every morning through the desert. The sand, which is more like fine powder, can be shin deep in some places. But the worst part of the day continues to be the boredom. Trying to find any little bit of busy work to make the day go by faster.
After work and our evening turn over I go to the gym with one of our intel analysts. We jog about a mile to get to the gym and run on the treadmills and then jog back. She’s really cool and it gives me something to look forward to after spending the day at work. Sometimes I wonder why people join the military, not because it’s bad but just because some people don’t seem to like it, and she seems like one of those.
Along those lines, I’m wondering myself whether I want to do another deployment. I’ve really become accustomed to working with this group of marines and my next deployment probably won’t be with them. Although, I’ve often allowed fate to direct me through life and I just focus on following the path, so that’s what I’ll continue to do. I’ll keep my eyes open for opportunity and if it doesn’t come then I’ll continue doing this. I just hope my performance here as site lead will not go unnoticed.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sacrifices
You don’t ever really realize how much you’re missing in life until you start paying attention. You start looking at pictures or reading messages and things start to come into focus. A lot of time I operate out here with the assumption that the rest of the world has stopped. But it hasn’t and we’re all missing out on a lot of things back home.
I was looking at some pictures that my friends have posted and I got a little sad. All the activities that I could be part of, all the changes that are occurring in other peoples’ lives that I’m missing out on, all to be out here.
I have one friend who just had a baby and is preparing to move away from Saint Louis. She was like my workplace sibling. I was there for some of her pregnancy and was one of the first in the office to learn about it. I missed out on my nephew’s first birthday and probably his first few words. I saw him briefly while I was on leave, but only enough for him to remember who I am. I’m sure next time he will have forgotten again.
I nearly missed out on a best friend’s wedding. I made sure that every site lead or manager that I spoke to knew that I was leaving that weekend and to not try and stop me. There are a lot of things that I’ve almost missed or am currently missing. To keep things in perspective though, my situation isn’t near as bad as some.
There are guys out here that are missing the birth of their own children. Others who are missing their own children’s first birthdays, first words or first steps. All the people out here fighting the war are going through tough times. For some, under other circumstances, would potentially be starting their freshman year in college, are instead missing out on their civilian lives. What’s worse is most of them are going through some type of relationship problem. I’m fortunate not to have to deal with that, but it’s hard to talk with them about what they are going through.
It’s all relative, but it’s always difficult. Whether it’s my nephew or someone’s own son or daughter, or it’s hanging out with my friends or someone else hanging out with their friends, it’s difficult for all involved. You see life play out through email, the news, pictures or if you’re lucky a webcam. I guess the truth is that life continues, it’s us out here that are frozen.
I was looking at some pictures that my friends have posted and I got a little sad. All the activities that I could be part of, all the changes that are occurring in other peoples’ lives that I’m missing out on, all to be out here.
I have one friend who just had a baby and is preparing to move away from Saint Louis. She was like my workplace sibling. I was there for some of her pregnancy and was one of the first in the office to learn about it. I missed out on my nephew’s first birthday and probably his first few words. I saw him briefly while I was on leave, but only enough for him to remember who I am. I’m sure next time he will have forgotten again.
I nearly missed out on a best friend’s wedding. I made sure that every site lead or manager that I spoke to knew that I was leaving that weekend and to not try and stop me. There are a lot of things that I’ve almost missed or am currently missing. To keep things in perspective though, my situation isn’t near as bad as some.
There are guys out here that are missing the birth of their own children. Others who are missing their own children’s first birthdays, first words or first steps. All the people out here fighting the war are going through tough times. For some, under other circumstances, would potentially be starting their freshman year in college, are instead missing out on their civilian lives. What’s worse is most of them are going through some type of relationship problem. I’m fortunate not to have to deal with that, but it’s hard to talk with them about what they are going through.
It’s all relative, but it’s always difficult. Whether it’s my nephew or someone’s own son or daughter, or it’s hanging out with my friends or someone else hanging out with their friends, it’s difficult for all involved. You see life play out through email, the news, pictures or if you’re lucky a webcam. I guess the truth is that life continues, it’s us out here that are frozen.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Last Man Standing
A couple days ago I started a post that I wasn’t able to finish. By the time I started it the time was nearly midnight and after about 15 minutes I decided that I was too tired to continue. Given a few days to let my mind stew over the intended contents of the prior post, I think that I understand better what I was trying to put down on paper at the time.
It was a beautiful night in Afghanistan. The temperature was probably around 65F and a cool breeze blew over us. This was a departure from what had been the norm, 90F with a blow dryer-like wind blowing dust into your face. We were sitting outside our tent on the last night for the last original member of our cigar group besides me.
I remembered when I first arrived in country when he and the site lead at the time stood waiting for us near the airfield. As we distanced ourselves from the engine blast of the C-130 I looked over and could tell they were Scan Eagle guys. He asked me how I knew, and I responded that we all dress alike. He laughed and said he could tell we were the ones they were looking for because it was all military guys and two dudes dressed in civilian clothing, one being an out of shape, pale white guy. It was a funny conversation, maybe one of those that you need to be there for.
But it was conversations like those that have been few and far between in the past few weeks, maybe even months. Those light-hearted nights when we talked about women and food have faded into something far more morale busting. Our nights are now more or less venting sessions where we gather in our small circle and complain about this person or that one. It’s these times that make me miss home more and more with every given day.
Before, the day felt like it ended. I felt like I was able to escape the country and all the frustrations encountered in the job. Now our days drag on late into the night. We get pounded during the day for various reasons and then we complain about it at night. The only real escape we get is when we crawl into our respective bunks and start a movie on our respective laptops. I always think it’s funny when you look around the tent after lights out and there are gentle glows coming out of every occupied bunk.
Then there was the night we had a few days ago, which was nostalgic. I haven’t laughed about stranger things since my first week here. Don’t get me wrong, we still had those moments where we vented but most of the evening was spent reminiscing about old times. I can’t say that I was surprised since it was one of our last days and no matter how bad things are the end is only one restful night of sleep away for him.
Now that he’s gone I find myself the last remaining member of the team that I started with. I have one other person who will sit out with me during the nights and smoke but he prefers cigarettes to cigars. The nightly anger sessions continue as they’ve always occurred and my only escape continues to be my own personal movie night while lying in my bunk waiting for my last night.
It was a beautiful night in Afghanistan. The temperature was probably around 65F and a cool breeze blew over us. This was a departure from what had been the norm, 90F with a blow dryer-like wind blowing dust into your face. We were sitting outside our tent on the last night for the last original member of our cigar group besides me.
I remembered when I first arrived in country when he and the site lead at the time stood waiting for us near the airfield. As we distanced ourselves from the engine blast of the C-130 I looked over and could tell they were Scan Eagle guys. He asked me how I knew, and I responded that we all dress alike. He laughed and said he could tell we were the ones they were looking for because it was all military guys and two dudes dressed in civilian clothing, one being an out of shape, pale white guy. It was a funny conversation, maybe one of those that you need to be there for.
But it was conversations like those that have been few and far between in the past few weeks, maybe even months. Those light-hearted nights when we talked about women and food have faded into something far more morale busting. Our nights are now more or less venting sessions where we gather in our small circle and complain about this person or that one. It’s these times that make me miss home more and more with every given day.
Before, the day felt like it ended. I felt like I was able to escape the country and all the frustrations encountered in the job. Now our days drag on late into the night. We get pounded during the day for various reasons and then we complain about it at night. The only real escape we get is when we crawl into our respective bunks and start a movie on our respective laptops. I always think it’s funny when you look around the tent after lights out and there are gentle glows coming out of every occupied bunk.
Then there was the night we had a few days ago, which was nostalgic. I haven’t laughed about stranger things since my first week here. Don’t get me wrong, we still had those moments where we vented but most of the evening was spent reminiscing about old times. I can’t say that I was surprised since it was one of our last days and no matter how bad things are the end is only one restful night of sleep away for him.
Now that he’s gone I find myself the last remaining member of the team that I started with. I have one other person who will sit out with me during the nights and smoke but he prefers cigarettes to cigars. The nightly anger sessions continue as they’ve always occurred and my only escape continues to be my own personal movie night while lying in my bunk waiting for my last night.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
From 35,000 Feet With Love
I’m sitting in an airplane somewhere over Canada at around 35,000 feet on my way back to the sand. I would have been over the US but I wanted to wait for everyone to go to sleep so I wouldn’t offend anyone with the half naked woman on my desktop… Anyway…
Part of me wanted to stay in the relative safety of my home, where I could sleep in my own bed. But a far stronger part of me is excited to get back out there. It’s not the same excitement that I felt the first time. The time before was like anticipating your first kiss. The adrenaline courses through your body and you wonder what it’s going to be like, what you’ll feel, how it’s going to be. A million thoughts running through your mind, except you have 30 hours of travel time to think about it. This time it’s different, I know exactly what to expect, I know what I’m in for and I know how tough it can get.
The monotony is what will drive you nuts. The seemingly endless cycle of days, strung together like a never-ending strand of white Christmas lights. Every day you’ll wake up to the same cycle, no weekends to break up the weeks, and no option for a vacation. Lights on at 0730, leave for work 0745, arrive at work at 0800, eat lunch at 1230, eat dinner at 1830, go home at 2000, go to sleep around 2230 and wake up the next day and do it all over again. I probably couldn’t tell you the day of the week most days, nor could I tell you the date. And at any point your day could go south and your lights put out, along with the rest of the strand.
By the way, I haven’t mentioned today how much I hate flying coach on international flights…. I’m going to take a little break before I go on a senseless tirade about the person in front of me…
Alright, I’m back… Don’t hate me, I’m going to be spending the next 5 months sleeping in a 20 man tent in the middle of the desert, I think I have the right to fly to hell in comfort. Unfortunately upgrading was going to cost more than I was willing to pay. Continuing on with what I’m actually writing for…
So I bet you’re wondering why I’m so excited about going back after all those bad things. The best way to sum it up is that I want to be there with the people. If you watch the news you get a view from 35,000 feet of the war, but if you’re there you get to know the people and you get to befriend the people. I come to love people pretty easily, not like “I love you, I want to marry you” love but more like “I love you man…” kind of love. If you love someone you don’t want them to be in harm’s way alone, and I’ll be damned if something happens to them while I’m gone.
So there you have it. I might be completely delusional but at least I mean well. Now all I have to do is survive the next 24 hours before I’m finally done travelling and back in the relative safety of our base in the middle of the oceanless beach…
Part of me wanted to stay in the relative safety of my home, where I could sleep in my own bed. But a far stronger part of me is excited to get back out there. It’s not the same excitement that I felt the first time. The time before was like anticipating your first kiss. The adrenaline courses through your body and you wonder what it’s going to be like, what you’ll feel, how it’s going to be. A million thoughts running through your mind, except you have 30 hours of travel time to think about it. This time it’s different, I know exactly what to expect, I know what I’m in for and I know how tough it can get.
The monotony is what will drive you nuts. The seemingly endless cycle of days, strung together like a never-ending strand of white Christmas lights. Every day you’ll wake up to the same cycle, no weekends to break up the weeks, and no option for a vacation. Lights on at 0730, leave for work 0745, arrive at work at 0800, eat lunch at 1230, eat dinner at 1830, go home at 2000, go to sleep around 2230 and wake up the next day and do it all over again. I probably couldn’t tell you the day of the week most days, nor could I tell you the date. And at any point your day could go south and your lights put out, along with the rest of the strand.
By the way, I haven’t mentioned today how much I hate flying coach on international flights…. I’m going to take a little break before I go on a senseless tirade about the person in front of me…
Alright, I’m back… Don’t hate me, I’m going to be spending the next 5 months sleeping in a 20 man tent in the middle of the desert, I think I have the right to fly to hell in comfort. Unfortunately upgrading was going to cost more than I was willing to pay. Continuing on with what I’m actually writing for…
So I bet you’re wondering why I’m so excited about going back after all those bad things. The best way to sum it up is that I want to be there with the people. If you watch the news you get a view from 35,000 feet of the war, but if you’re there you get to know the people and you get to befriend the people. I come to love people pretty easily, not like “I love you, I want to marry you” love but more like “I love you man…” kind of love. If you love someone you don’t want them to be in harm’s way alone, and I’ll be damned if something happens to them while I’m gone.
So there you have it. I might be completely delusional but at least I mean well. Now all I have to do is survive the next 24 hours before I’m finally done travelling and back in the relative safety of our base in the middle of the oceanless beach…
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Jeff the token Asian, the Operator, and the Builder, oh and the IT Guy
Somehow I got myself branded the local carpenter by my cohorts. Not only that I’ve also been given the title of computer guru given the fact that I have a computer science degree. Neither title is unfounded however since I did build some furniture around my house and I spent the past 5 years working on computers.
The day I got back from setting up the new spoke, without even being given a couple days to readjust, I was asked to fix one of the computer systems. I didn’t even know how the damn thing worked, let alone know how to fix it. Of course since I like little challenges and I don’t like to give up, I tinkered with it for a while. Finally by some stroke of magic it started working again. For the moment I was the hero… Until the other one stopped working, then I was the monkey again. Go fix it monkey… Luckily this monkey is smart. I did just what I had done before and ALAKAZAM! It worked too. That’s how I got the official brand of computer whiz.
Then there was the wood construction. I have an attraction toward using tools, so when I found out we had a whole set of Dewalt tools here, I got to work. I started by building a bench out of an old pallet. The bench probably weighs close to 100lbs and is as solid as concrete. The nice thing about building stuff in the field is that a.) wood is free, and b.) function comes before form. After I built the bench, I was asked to build a table for one of the marines to use, then I was tasked to build another table for our new site lead. Most recently I got stuck building 2 stands to hang cables, and a series of shelves for storage. This has most certainly gotten out of control.
I spent the entire morning hammering, sawing and sweating my butt off out in the 130 degree heat trying to build something sturdy enough to hold the spare computers. Then I spent a few hours rummaging through a wood pile on the other side of the airfield, probably disturbing some camel spiders in the process. That sucked because pretty much all the wood had nails sticking out and the pile of wood was on top of a heap of moon dust, which dominates the landscape here. Moon dust is like really fine dirt, kind of like talcum powder but brown. Anyway, there isn’t sand in this desert, there is moon dust.
So, alone, I piled all the wood in the back of our pickup truck and drove it back to site. Leaving a few pieces behind along the road, which I had to drive back to retrieve. Since I spent 15 minutes trying to get one of them out, an 8 foot 4x4, which will come in very handy, I didn’t want to just leave it in the middle of the road. Now it’s all waiting for me outside, in the 140 degree heat, to hammer some nails into it to create something awesome.
The day I got back from setting up the new spoke, without even being given a couple days to readjust, I was asked to fix one of the computer systems. I didn’t even know how the damn thing worked, let alone know how to fix it. Of course since I like little challenges and I don’t like to give up, I tinkered with it for a while. Finally by some stroke of magic it started working again. For the moment I was the hero… Until the other one stopped working, then I was the monkey again. Go fix it monkey… Luckily this monkey is smart. I did just what I had done before and ALAKAZAM! It worked too. That’s how I got the official brand of computer whiz.
Then there was the wood construction. I have an attraction toward using tools, so when I found out we had a whole set of Dewalt tools here, I got to work. I started by building a bench out of an old pallet. The bench probably weighs close to 100lbs and is as solid as concrete. The nice thing about building stuff in the field is that a.) wood is free, and b.) function comes before form. After I built the bench, I was asked to build a table for one of the marines to use, then I was tasked to build another table for our new site lead. Most recently I got stuck building 2 stands to hang cables, and a series of shelves for storage. This has most certainly gotten out of control.
I spent the entire morning hammering, sawing and sweating my butt off out in the 130 degree heat trying to build something sturdy enough to hold the spare computers. Then I spent a few hours rummaging through a wood pile on the other side of the airfield, probably disturbing some camel spiders in the process. That sucked because pretty much all the wood had nails sticking out and the pile of wood was on top of a heap of moon dust, which dominates the landscape here. Moon dust is like really fine dirt, kind of like talcum powder but brown. Anyway, there isn’t sand in this desert, there is moon dust.
So, alone, I piled all the wood in the back of our pickup truck and drove it back to site. Leaving a few pieces behind along the road, which I had to drive back to retrieve. Since I spent 15 minutes trying to get one of them out, an 8 foot 4x4, which will come in very handy, I didn’t want to just leave it in the middle of the road. Now it’s all waiting for me outside, in the 140 degree heat, to hammer some nails into it to create something awesome.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
FOBbin'
It’s been almost a week since I left our hub and moved to one of the FOBs, or Forward Operating Bases. My mission was to come down and install a new system and start operating to make sure everything worked correctly. It was a pretty big honor to be given the opportunity to do this and it says a lot about how my site lead felt about my abilities. Most of all I’m lucky to be far away from all the drama of the hub.
Life here isn’t exactly a vacation but I love it. We don’t have A/C in the tents and temperatures average around 120 during the day. It wasn’t affecting me until I volunteered to work at nights, which means I’ll be sleeping during the day when it’s like trying to sleep in an easy bake oven. My shower is an Igloo cooler strapped to the side of a wall, which sounds awful but is probably the best shower I’ve had since coming out here. In fact I might create one when I get home.
The more obviously positive things include the fact that work is within walking distance of our tent, which I share with the officers. I have time during the day to go to the gym, which is comprised mainly of handmade wooden weight benches and a potpourri of random metric weights. I’ve probably worked out harder here than I have in a long time. I’m eating better here than I eat back home, and I’m better hydrated since bottled water seems infinite. I shower with it (the Igloos), I brush my teeth with it, and I’ve even washed my clothes with it.
Life here isn’t bad at all. The people here are all very cool. I pretty much spend the entire day with the same 5 people and there’s always a story to share. Like I’ve said before, tossing a bunch of people in a seemingly negative situation acts as a catalyst for developing good friendships. We’re pretty relentless with each other, cracking jokes at each other’s expense and it only draws us closer.
I’m only here for a short period of time before heading back to the hub and then I’ll spend another few weeks there before heading back to the states to be in a wedding, which I’m looking forward to. I won’t be able to post this until I return to the hub since I don’t have internet access here, which is also a plus.
Life here isn’t exactly a vacation but I love it. We don’t have A/C in the tents and temperatures average around 120 during the day. It wasn’t affecting me until I volunteered to work at nights, which means I’ll be sleeping during the day when it’s like trying to sleep in an easy bake oven. My shower is an Igloo cooler strapped to the side of a wall, which sounds awful but is probably the best shower I’ve had since coming out here. In fact I might create one when I get home.
The more obviously positive things include the fact that work is within walking distance of our tent, which I share with the officers. I have time during the day to go to the gym, which is comprised mainly of handmade wooden weight benches and a potpourri of random metric weights. I’ve probably worked out harder here than I have in a long time. I’m eating better here than I eat back home, and I’m better hydrated since bottled water seems infinite. I shower with it (the Igloos), I brush my teeth with it, and I’ve even washed my clothes with it.
Life here isn’t bad at all. The people here are all very cool. I pretty much spend the entire day with the same 5 people and there’s always a story to share. Like I’ve said before, tossing a bunch of people in a seemingly negative situation acts as a catalyst for developing good friendships. We’re pretty relentless with each other, cracking jokes at each other’s expense and it only draws us closer.
I’m only here for a short period of time before heading back to the hub and then I’ll spend another few weeks there before heading back to the states to be in a wedding, which I’m looking forward to. I won’t be able to post this until I return to the hub since I don’t have internet access here, which is also a plus.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The Basics of Life
Being in an environment where you don’t have all the comforts of home you start to realize what you need to survive and the excesses that you lived with believing that they were necessities. In a song by Donavon Frankenreiter there is a line that goes:
“Try to sell something that just can’t be bought, say that it’s the latest and greatest but I know that it’s not, be somebody that you don’t want to be, didn’t even exist last year but now it’s what we need.”
It holds very true that there are a lot of things that society deems necessities that aren’t really needed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to go home and sell all my things and live on the basics, I enjoy my lifestyle more than anyone and with my new salary I won’t have to worry about not having things I want.
But, believe it or not, I didn’t take this job for the money. It was for the learning experience and in the 3 weeks I’ve been here I’ve learned more about me than my entire 28 years has allowed. I’ve learned that all I really need to live is good friends, good conversation and good stories, everything else is perspective.
I don’t need the finest food or living arrangements or newest technology. I’m living in a tent with 10 other guys, eating food that’s below the grade given to prisoners in Mexico and I don’t have a television. But from my perspective I’m probably the happiest I’ve been in a while. We share stories over cigars every other night. War stories, stories from home, stories about past relationships, even stories from the day have more color than any shared back home. These people are truly interesting and, more importantly, interested.
Conversations flow like rivers, going from one topic to another seamlessly. We can start on politics and move on to women (we’re all guys) and then somehow we’ll start talking about which showers are the cleanest. I don’t know how it happens, it just does. (From this I realized what I want in a relationship, someone who I can converse with.) Few of us have the same background, or interests, but we get along just like peas in a pod.
We’re free from cell phones, daily news and, for the most part, office politics. We work hard throughout the day and my reward is sharing experiences and ideas with others during the night, which is by far the best reward I could ever ask for… and I had to go to a war zone to get it. It’s been the most enriching experience I’ve had so far in my life and I hope that it will continue.
“Try to sell something that just can’t be bought, say that it’s the latest and greatest but I know that it’s not, be somebody that you don’t want to be, didn’t even exist last year but now it’s what we need.”
It holds very true that there are a lot of things that society deems necessities that aren’t really needed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to go home and sell all my things and live on the basics, I enjoy my lifestyle more than anyone and with my new salary I won’t have to worry about not having things I want.
But, believe it or not, I didn’t take this job for the money. It was for the learning experience and in the 3 weeks I’ve been here I’ve learned more about me than my entire 28 years has allowed. I’ve learned that all I really need to live is good friends, good conversation and good stories, everything else is perspective.
I don’t need the finest food or living arrangements or newest technology. I’m living in a tent with 10 other guys, eating food that’s below the grade given to prisoners in Mexico and I don’t have a television. But from my perspective I’m probably the happiest I’ve been in a while. We share stories over cigars every other night. War stories, stories from home, stories about past relationships, even stories from the day have more color than any shared back home. These people are truly interesting and, more importantly, interested.
Conversations flow like rivers, going from one topic to another seamlessly. We can start on politics and move on to women (we’re all guys) and then somehow we’ll start talking about which showers are the cleanest. I don’t know how it happens, it just does. (From this I realized what I want in a relationship, someone who I can converse with.) Few of us have the same background, or interests, but we get along just like peas in a pod.
We’re free from cell phones, daily news and, for the most part, office politics. We work hard throughout the day and my reward is sharing experiences and ideas with others during the night, which is by far the best reward I could ever ask for… and I had to go to a war zone to get it. It’s been the most enriching experience I’ve had so far in my life and I hope that it will continue.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Looking for Light
It was two nights ago that I had my first nightmare since being out here. In fact, it may have been my first nightmare in recent memory. It wasn’t a big deal, nor was it anything I’d consider foreshadowing, but it was terrifying nonetheless.
I woke up in my bed, freezing cold, confused and still in shock of what I’d just experienced. Not knowing whether it was real or not I started looking around the room for light, but it was pitch black. I thought I was dead, that a rocket hit during the night and took out our tent. I continued to scan the room until I locked on a small green light from someone’s laptop. I took that as a sign that I was still alive. (As if there aren’t green lights in the afterlife…)
I was still a little freaked out. A lot of doom and gloom thoughts raged through my head. My heart pounded like a cluster bomb fell inside my chest. I tried to clear things up with positive thoughts, to regain my composure. I started singing comforting songs to myself to quell the storm. It took about an hour before I had calmed down.
Afterwards I drifted in and out of sleep until the sun started shining through the vestibule of our tent. It was a real sign that there wasn’t anything wrong. But for a while there I thought to myself, well the afterlife really sucks, it’s cold, dark and scary… Have I really done that many wrong things in life?
AAANNNDDD Fast forward 2 days. I’m glad I didn’t post this yet because I found some irony in the third sentence of the first paragraph because last night we had a bit of a scare. It was around 1030PM and the lights were out. Suddenly there was a rumbling, whistling sound that roared from outside that shook our row of tents.
“What the fuck was that?” Someone said.
“I think I pooped my pants.” Someone else responded.
I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I got up and went outside. I found a group of others who were also awakened by the sound.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Rockets.”
Someone thought it was a good idea to set up the rocket launchers 100 yards from the living quarters. What we heard was outgoing munitions. Unfortunately for someone else it was incoming…
I woke up in my bed, freezing cold, confused and still in shock of what I’d just experienced. Not knowing whether it was real or not I started looking around the room for light, but it was pitch black. I thought I was dead, that a rocket hit during the night and took out our tent. I continued to scan the room until I locked on a small green light from someone’s laptop. I took that as a sign that I was still alive. (As if there aren’t green lights in the afterlife…)
I was still a little freaked out. A lot of doom and gloom thoughts raged through my head. My heart pounded like a cluster bomb fell inside my chest. I tried to clear things up with positive thoughts, to regain my composure. I started singing comforting songs to myself to quell the storm. It took about an hour before I had calmed down.
Afterwards I drifted in and out of sleep until the sun started shining through the vestibule of our tent. It was a real sign that there wasn’t anything wrong. But for a while there I thought to myself, well the afterlife really sucks, it’s cold, dark and scary… Have I really done that many wrong things in life?
AAANNNDDD Fast forward 2 days. I’m glad I didn’t post this yet because I found some irony in the third sentence of the first paragraph because last night we had a bit of a scare. It was around 1030PM and the lights were out. Suddenly there was a rumbling, whistling sound that roared from outside that shook our row of tents.
“What the fuck was that?” Someone said.
“I think I pooped my pants.” Someone else responded.
I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I got up and went outside. I found a group of others who were also awakened by the sound.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Rockets.”
Someone thought it was a good idea to set up the rocket launchers 100 yards from the living quarters. What we heard was outgoing munitions. Unfortunately for someone else it was incoming…
HOOKED!
Is the best thing you can hear coming across the headset from your ground crew when you’re doing a retrieval and the only visibility you have is what you see on the computer screen inside a little metal box. I’ve done about 6 retrievals, or landings, so far and about 50% of them have had me on the edge of my seat. Praying that this retrieval isn’t going to be the one where the bird bounces off the rope and hits the dirt. So far my prayers have been answered and I haven’t had one quit on me. The adrenaline isn’t just reserved for retrievals though, launches are just as hair-raising for me as one of the “new guys.”
A number of things can really screw you on a launch. One of the other new guys had a launch go bad and a bird hit the dirt. We’re not sure exactly what happened during the launch but by the time it came back to the site it wasn’t in one piece anymore. I’m trying to avoid the situation because I’d be pretty hard on myself if that happened, even though nearly everyone has had at least one crash. Mistakes are easy to make if you’re not diligent during your preflight, especially when you’re getting hammered over the radio by 3 guys trying to push you to get the bird off the ground. I’m usually pretty good about keeping my cool and doing all the initial prep work and knowing what to skip and where to skip to save time.
Missions are pretty easy. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have had any emergencies during flight yet. So it really is just like playing a video game. You just have to make sure that it doesn’t screw itself in one way or another, like flying into a mountain or something…. You’re aircraft does what you tell it to do from your little metal control box in the middle of the desert.
I have to say that this is probably the best job I’ve ever had, as promised by everyone I spoke to before taking it. We function independently from the corporate world, in our own little microcosm, sharing stories from past deployments, experiences in the military and experiences back home. We talk about what we miss, everything ranging from food and beer to women (all the operators here are male.) I could really go for a pizza and a pale ale right about now. Although having some girls around couldn’t hurt either…
I’m about a quarter of the way through the time before my R&R. The first thing I want to do when I get back is to go get some Black Thorn pizza, a pitcher of Schlafly Pale Ale and talk about normal life for a while. Although I’m sure I’ll be unhappy until I get to come back out here. Life out here is great, despite knowing that at any given time you’re time could be over, but that’s an awesome feeling in itself.
A number of things can really screw you on a launch. One of the other new guys had a launch go bad and a bird hit the dirt. We’re not sure exactly what happened during the launch but by the time it came back to the site it wasn’t in one piece anymore. I’m trying to avoid the situation because I’d be pretty hard on myself if that happened, even though nearly everyone has had at least one crash. Mistakes are easy to make if you’re not diligent during your preflight, especially when you’re getting hammered over the radio by 3 guys trying to push you to get the bird off the ground. I’m usually pretty good about keeping my cool and doing all the initial prep work and knowing what to skip and where to skip to save time.
Missions are pretty easy. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have had any emergencies during flight yet. So it really is just like playing a video game. You just have to make sure that it doesn’t screw itself in one way or another, like flying into a mountain or something…. You’re aircraft does what you tell it to do from your little metal control box in the middle of the desert.
I have to say that this is probably the best job I’ve ever had, as promised by everyone I spoke to before taking it. We function independently from the corporate world, in our own little microcosm, sharing stories from past deployments, experiences in the military and experiences back home. We talk about what we miss, everything ranging from food and beer to women (all the operators here are male.) I could really go for a pizza and a pale ale right about now. Although having some girls around couldn’t hurt either…
I’m about a quarter of the way through the time before my R&R. The first thing I want to do when I get back is to go get some Black Thorn pizza, a pitcher of Schlafly Pale Ale and talk about normal life for a while. Although I’m sure I’ll be unhappy until I get to come back out here. Life out here is great, despite knowing that at any given time you’re time could be over, but that’s an awesome feeling in itself.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Boots On Ground - 2 weeks late.
It’s been about a week since I arrived here in Afghanistan and by the time I post this it may have been two weeks. Getting into the country wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, but not without its perils. I can honestly say that the view of the country from 30,000 can be described in one word, “wasteland.”
The first base I arrived at was on an elevated alert due to some information they had received. Everyone was ordered to wear their body armor and helmets anywhere on the compound. Needless to say, the impression of my new home wasn’t great. It was hot, dusty and shortly after we got off the plane something exploded. It wasn’t an attack and since no one else seemed worried, I wasn’t either. But there I was, on an airfield in the middle of a war zone waiting for more transport to take me further into a hostile country. It was a good feeling.
I traveled in with one of the guys I was in training with. Neither of us knew what plane to get on, where that plane was, where we were going nor who to talk to about getting on a plane. Luckily a guy walked by wearing one of our shirts and, fortunately for us, knew we were coming. He drove us across to the other side where our next form of transportation was waiting… Soon we were back on the move to distant places.
When I finally reached what I like to call the “Oasis”, I was pretty pumped. New people, new experiences and good times awaited me. Again, I was fortunate enough to have a couple guys waiting on me to arrive because, again, I had no idea what to do from there. The two guys were the new site lead and his right hand man, both of which were pretty cool guys that I’ve since gotten to know pretty well.
The first day was pretty easy. More of a watch and learn kind of day than anything. I was a bit eager to get started and really felt like I knew enough to do the job right off the bat. I would come to find out that for the most part I did know nearly everything operationally and it was the unique things that I’d have to learn. The people here were all eager to teach though.
I have really come to enjoy working with these guys. They are from all backgrounds, but all share a military background. I’m probably the only guy out here who hasn’t served in some form or another. The only real reason it draws these types of people is because they know how it is out here and know what to expect. I had plenty of heads up before coming out and felt pretty secure.
This morning we were flying surveillance around a point of interest when there were very large explosions in succession. The container our control station is in shook from the blast. I got out of my seat and ran outside while at the same time a couple of our military counterparts made their way out as well. We determined that it was just controlled blasts that another unit was performing to destroy some undetonated explosives. So we weren’t being mortared like we all thought we were. But that was my first taste of the excitement I was looking for.
Other than a brief scare, everything has been pretty regular. Wake up in the morning, go work out, go eat breakfast, go to work, lunch and dinner are brought to us at the site and then go home. The job is really fun, and the people are all great. Every situation is unique, every launch and recovery has its own characteristics. Today was my first “oh shit” moment when I was bringing a bird in with a large crab angle. I called off the approach, corrected my heading and brought it in safely. But the ground crew noted my reaction when they told me the bird was on the ground… Everyone heard me say “Oh Thank God…”
The first base I arrived at was on an elevated alert due to some information they had received. Everyone was ordered to wear their body armor and helmets anywhere on the compound. Needless to say, the impression of my new home wasn’t great. It was hot, dusty and shortly after we got off the plane something exploded. It wasn’t an attack and since no one else seemed worried, I wasn’t either. But there I was, on an airfield in the middle of a war zone waiting for more transport to take me further into a hostile country. It was a good feeling.
I traveled in with one of the guys I was in training with. Neither of us knew what plane to get on, where that plane was, where we were going nor who to talk to about getting on a plane. Luckily a guy walked by wearing one of our shirts and, fortunately for us, knew we were coming. He drove us across to the other side where our next form of transportation was waiting… Soon we were back on the move to distant places.
When I finally reached what I like to call the “Oasis”, I was pretty pumped. New people, new experiences and good times awaited me. Again, I was fortunate enough to have a couple guys waiting on me to arrive because, again, I had no idea what to do from there. The two guys were the new site lead and his right hand man, both of which were pretty cool guys that I’ve since gotten to know pretty well.
The first day was pretty easy. More of a watch and learn kind of day than anything. I was a bit eager to get started and really felt like I knew enough to do the job right off the bat. I would come to find out that for the most part I did know nearly everything operationally and it was the unique things that I’d have to learn. The people here were all eager to teach though.
I have really come to enjoy working with these guys. They are from all backgrounds, but all share a military background. I’m probably the only guy out here who hasn’t served in some form or another. The only real reason it draws these types of people is because they know how it is out here and know what to expect. I had plenty of heads up before coming out and felt pretty secure.
This morning we were flying surveillance around a point of interest when there were very large explosions in succession. The container our control station is in shook from the blast. I got out of my seat and ran outside while at the same time a couple of our military counterparts made their way out as well. We determined that it was just controlled blasts that another unit was performing to destroy some undetonated explosives. So we weren’t being mortared like we all thought we were. But that was my first taste of the excitement I was looking for.
Other than a brief scare, everything has been pretty regular. Wake up in the morning, go work out, go eat breakfast, go to work, lunch and dinner are brought to us at the site and then go home. The job is really fun, and the people are all great. Every situation is unique, every launch and recovery has its own characteristics. Today was my first “oh shit” moment when I was bringing a bird in with a large crab angle. I called off the approach, corrected my heading and brought it in safely. But the ground crew noted my reaction when they told me the bird was on the ground… Everyone heard me say “Oh Thank God…”
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Jeff's European Adventure Part 3
Eventually I had to say good bye to my friends from the Paris H3 666 Hash. For me it was a very sad good bye since I was off to another city where I, once again, had no plans and this time truly no contacts. But that only meant more adventure and another set of friends to be made.
I arrived in Rome via RyanAir around 10PM local. I had no idea where the airport was in relation to the city and even if I did, I had no idea where in the city I was going. Somehow I made my way outside the airport and on to a bus that was headed to the main subway terminal in the heart of Rome. No idea how I knew where the bus was going, but it was a bus that was going somewhere so I got on.
Now I was in the heart of Rome, it was around midnight and I still had no idea what I was doing. There were plenty of bums around though and the city was a lot dirtier than I imagined… So keeping with my usual mode of operations I started wandering with no particular destination but determined not to sleep on the streets.
Around 3AM sleeping on the streets started to become a reality. Things weren’t going well for me at this point and I had a decision to make, sleep in a corner clutching my bag with my ninja grip or walk until sunrise and find a hostel. The decision was made to continue walking until sunrise and continue looking for a hotel in the meantime.
It was around 4AM that I saw a man in the doorway of a hotel. I walked up to the door and he opened it. I spoke what little Italian I could mutter, again from high school, and managed to talk him into allowing me to stay one night. Since I was alone he didn’t want one person taking up a double room, which made sense.
The next morning I started hunting for a new place to live. I tracked a group of English speakers, I think they were actually Canadians, to a hostel about 5 blocks from the hotel I stayed at the night before. The place was very nice compared to the other hostels I had seen and the number of people reflected that. I finally got up to the counter to find that they didn’t have any beds available at the time and directed me to another hostel down the road.
At the other hostel I managed to secure a bed but wasn’t able to go in because they were cleaning, a good sign I thought, so I left my backpack in a locked closet until the room became available. It made me a bit nervous at first but while I was waiting I got to talking to a couple of guys from South America, who were also staying and also had their things locked in the closet.
Since I was alone the guys told me I could go tour around with them. Miguel was from Buenos Aires, Argentina and Juan was from San Paulo, Brazil. Once again, I had managed to survive one night alone in a foreign city to be rewarded with some new friends for my self-induced troubles. After getting checked in we grabbed an archaic map of the city that sat at the front desk of the hostel and hit the streets.
Miguel was an economics guy who was working for a company in Argentina and it’s been so long I’ve forgotten what Juan did. Both of them were very friendly and only spoke English around me, even when speaking to each other. Unfortunately they didn’t speak Spanish, so I couldn’t even begin to understand their language if they spoke it. They even took me to Vatican City, even though they’d gone earlier in the day. We toured as much as we could before it was time to go back to the hostel to get our stuff and put it into the rooms.
My room had more cultures than the UN. There was an Aussie, who’d been on holiday for nearly 8 months, an Italian-American girl with her French boyfriend, and another lone traveler from Argentina. Carlina, the Argentine, was in Rome for a few days before going to Spain to spend the following few months with family. Since she was alone and I was hanging out with others from South America I asked her if she wanted to come around with us and she accepted. So I spent the remainder of the trip with my new group of South American friends.
Finally my time in Europe was about to come to an end. I was flying back to Frankfurt for a day, then back to the US the following day. Once again I said goodbye to my newfound friends and left behind the greatest, well, only European adventure I have had. I had lucked my way safely out of Germany, I had made my way out of Paris and Rome by making new friends and now I was back on my own for a day before getting back to the comforts of my own home.
In hindsight I’m really happy that I didn’t make any plans. I forced myself into situations where I had to meet new people and do things regular tourists don’t do. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it didn’t matter, I had to figure it out either way and making it more difficult was a good experience. Life can be easy but why make it so when it’s more fun the other way.
I arrived in Rome via RyanAir around 10PM local. I had no idea where the airport was in relation to the city and even if I did, I had no idea where in the city I was going. Somehow I made my way outside the airport and on to a bus that was headed to the main subway terminal in the heart of Rome. No idea how I knew where the bus was going, but it was a bus that was going somewhere so I got on.
Now I was in the heart of Rome, it was around midnight and I still had no idea what I was doing. There were plenty of bums around though and the city was a lot dirtier than I imagined… So keeping with my usual mode of operations I started wandering with no particular destination but determined not to sleep on the streets.
Around 3AM sleeping on the streets started to become a reality. Things weren’t going well for me at this point and I had a decision to make, sleep in a corner clutching my bag with my ninja grip or walk until sunrise and find a hostel. The decision was made to continue walking until sunrise and continue looking for a hotel in the meantime.
It was around 4AM that I saw a man in the doorway of a hotel. I walked up to the door and he opened it. I spoke what little Italian I could mutter, again from high school, and managed to talk him into allowing me to stay one night. Since I was alone he didn’t want one person taking up a double room, which made sense.
The next morning I started hunting for a new place to live. I tracked a group of English speakers, I think they were actually Canadians, to a hostel about 5 blocks from the hotel I stayed at the night before. The place was very nice compared to the other hostels I had seen and the number of people reflected that. I finally got up to the counter to find that they didn’t have any beds available at the time and directed me to another hostel down the road.
At the other hostel I managed to secure a bed but wasn’t able to go in because they were cleaning, a good sign I thought, so I left my backpack in a locked closet until the room became available. It made me a bit nervous at first but while I was waiting I got to talking to a couple of guys from South America, who were also staying and also had their things locked in the closet.
Since I was alone the guys told me I could go tour around with them. Miguel was from Buenos Aires, Argentina and Juan was from San Paulo, Brazil. Once again, I had managed to survive one night alone in a foreign city to be rewarded with some new friends for my self-induced troubles. After getting checked in we grabbed an archaic map of the city that sat at the front desk of the hostel and hit the streets.
Miguel was an economics guy who was working for a company in Argentina and it’s been so long I’ve forgotten what Juan did. Both of them were very friendly and only spoke English around me, even when speaking to each other. Unfortunately they didn’t speak Spanish, so I couldn’t even begin to understand their language if they spoke it. They even took me to Vatican City, even though they’d gone earlier in the day. We toured as much as we could before it was time to go back to the hostel to get our stuff and put it into the rooms.
My room had more cultures than the UN. There was an Aussie, who’d been on holiday for nearly 8 months, an Italian-American girl with her French boyfriend, and another lone traveler from Argentina. Carlina, the Argentine, was in Rome for a few days before going to Spain to spend the following few months with family. Since she was alone and I was hanging out with others from South America I asked her if she wanted to come around with us and she accepted. So I spent the remainder of the trip with my new group of South American friends.
Finally my time in Europe was about to come to an end. I was flying back to Frankfurt for a day, then back to the US the following day. Once again I said goodbye to my newfound friends and left behind the greatest, well, only European adventure I have had. I had lucked my way safely out of Germany, I had made my way out of Paris and Rome by making new friends and now I was back on my own for a day before getting back to the comforts of my own home.
In hindsight I’m really happy that I didn’t make any plans. I forced myself into situations where I had to meet new people and do things regular tourists don’t do. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it didn’t matter, I had to figure it out either way and making it more difficult was a good experience. Life can be easy but why make it so when it’s more fun the other way.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Jeff's European Adventure Part 2
I might just be delirious but sometimes I look back on my life and laugh on how much stupid stuff I’ve been allowed to get away with.
After Germany my “schedule” had me traveling by train from Frankfurt to Paris. Once again, I had no plan and no idea where I was going. I was waiting for a train to show up, but not entirely sure what train it would be. Eventually one arrived that matched some of the numbers on my ticket, just like the lotto. So I jumped on and when they didn’t kick me off I decided I was on the right one. Also keep in mind, I’ve never been to Europe before and certainly had no idea what a Parisian train station looked like but I figured it would be the one that a lot of people would get off at.
Soon the train ground to a halt, a little sooner than I thought but it was a high speed rail so I figured I must have lost track of time. I jumped off and looked around… Silence… No one was around and only about 20 people got off. So I turned around and got right back on before something bad happened to me… You know like getting stranded in the middle of nowhere France. So, sure enough 3 hours later we pulled into a bustling train station with banners saying Paris everywhere. I prayed that they didn’t just hang up Paris banners in France for kicks and hopped off.
Okay, made it to Paris physically unscathed… Now what? No idea, no plan, no hotel, no contacts and no clue. Only logical thing to do now was to wander around aimlessly until something fun happened. In a matter of 6 hours I walked from the major train station to the Louvre, Le Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. By now it was around 6PM local and I hadn’t eaten or found a place to sleep. Luckily I wasn’t completely without a plan. I scouted a hostel in the area and made my way for it…
NO BEDS AVAILABLE!? What about floor space? Couch? I’ll sleep with her… No? Okay…
Plan B, the row of hotels down the random road outside the hostel…
Hotel number 1, NO VACANCY
Hotel number 2, Doesn’t like English speakers and doesn’t speak mandarin apparently.
Hotel number 3, BINGO! 62 Euro a night works for me. I had a bed now, albeit a crappy little one with a crappy little shower, but who am I to complain.
I guess I wasn’t being completely honest when I said I didn’t have a plan. At this point in life I was doing something called hashing. It’s not what you think, it’s actually a running group called the Hash House Harriers. Basically we’d drink beer, run and do all kinds of faux ritual stuff. I discovered and made contact (I guess I lied about not having contacts too) with the Paris Hash House Harriers and found that they were having their 666th hash the weekend I was there. So the second night I was in Paris I went to a bar and found them.
Hashers from England, Scotland, Australia, Canada, all over Europe and even a few American were in Paris for the hash. I got to chatting with one of the locals, who was actually from Canada and spoke English and French. He had an apartment in Paris and offered me a spot there to sleep. He also had another hasher from Switzerland staying with him so he said one more wasn’t any inconvenience. I happily accepted the offer and the next night I packed my stuff, checked out of the hotel and moved in to the apartment.
The following day I was supposed to leave for Barcelona. I decided that I had a place to live, a fun group of new friends and for once a bit of comfort. Therefore, it was in my best interest to change my flight and go directly from Paris to Rome and skip Barcelona. Besides, the Aussies warned me that everyone gets mugged in Barcelona, so it was probably safer for me. Odds were good that I was going to be wandering around quite a bit looking for a place to stay. Actually that’s exactly what happened in Rome, which was probably the scariest part of the entire trip.
After Germany my “schedule” had me traveling by train from Frankfurt to Paris. Once again, I had no plan and no idea where I was going. I was waiting for a train to show up, but not entirely sure what train it would be. Eventually one arrived that matched some of the numbers on my ticket, just like the lotto. So I jumped on and when they didn’t kick me off I decided I was on the right one. Also keep in mind, I’ve never been to Europe before and certainly had no idea what a Parisian train station looked like but I figured it would be the one that a lot of people would get off at.
Soon the train ground to a halt, a little sooner than I thought but it was a high speed rail so I figured I must have lost track of time. I jumped off and looked around… Silence… No one was around and only about 20 people got off. So I turned around and got right back on before something bad happened to me… You know like getting stranded in the middle of nowhere France. So, sure enough 3 hours later we pulled into a bustling train station with banners saying Paris everywhere. I prayed that they didn’t just hang up Paris banners in France for kicks and hopped off.
Okay, made it to Paris physically unscathed… Now what? No idea, no plan, no hotel, no contacts and no clue. Only logical thing to do now was to wander around aimlessly until something fun happened. In a matter of 6 hours I walked from the major train station to the Louvre, Le Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. By now it was around 6PM local and I hadn’t eaten or found a place to sleep. Luckily I wasn’t completely without a plan. I scouted a hostel in the area and made my way for it…
NO BEDS AVAILABLE!? What about floor space? Couch? I’ll sleep with her… No? Okay…
Plan B, the row of hotels down the random road outside the hostel…
Hotel number 1, NO VACANCY
Hotel number 2, Doesn’t like English speakers and doesn’t speak mandarin apparently.
Hotel number 3, BINGO! 62 Euro a night works for me. I had a bed now, albeit a crappy little one with a crappy little shower, but who am I to complain.
I guess I wasn’t being completely honest when I said I didn’t have a plan. At this point in life I was doing something called hashing. It’s not what you think, it’s actually a running group called the Hash House Harriers. Basically we’d drink beer, run and do all kinds of faux ritual stuff. I discovered and made contact (I guess I lied about not having contacts too) with the Paris Hash House Harriers and found that they were having their 666th hash the weekend I was there. So the second night I was in Paris I went to a bar and found them.
Hashers from England, Scotland, Australia, Canada, all over Europe and even a few American were in Paris for the hash. I got to chatting with one of the locals, who was actually from Canada and spoke English and French. He had an apartment in Paris and offered me a spot there to sleep. He also had another hasher from Switzerland staying with him so he said one more wasn’t any inconvenience. I happily accepted the offer and the next night I packed my stuff, checked out of the hotel and moved in to the apartment.
The following day I was supposed to leave for Barcelona. I decided that I had a place to live, a fun group of new friends and for once a bit of comfort. Therefore, it was in my best interest to change my flight and go directly from Paris to Rome and skip Barcelona. Besides, the Aussies warned me that everyone gets mugged in Barcelona, so it was probably safer for me. Odds were good that I was going to be wandering around quite a bit looking for a place to stay. Actually that’s exactly what happened in Rome, which was probably the scariest part of the entire trip.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Jeff's European Adventure
Have I ever told you about that one time I went to Europe for work?
During the spring of 2007 the working group, which I represented Boeing at with a co-worker, decided that they wanted to have meetings in Germany. Our program manager was only allowed to send one of us over for the meeting (boondoggle). At this point I was 2 years on this particular job and had never been to Europe before so I was selected to go.
Our office assistant set up all my travel arrangements to Germany and after a lot of deliberation I decided to extent my trip beyond the week in Germany and take a stroll around the entire continent. Of course the company wasn’t going to pay for anything other than my trip there, my expenses while on the clock and the trip back, so the rest was on me.
I purchased a train ticket from Frankfurt to Paris, then airline tickets from Paris to Barcelona, Barcelona to Rome and finally from Rome back to Frankfurt where I was back in business class on the company dime for my return trip. Each leg of my little journey was to be 2-3 days. I didn’t book any hotels rooms, preferring to figure it out when I got there. Yeah, like it or not, that’s what I do…
The beginning of my trip was as planned out as our assistant could have made it. I had a flight overseas, a hotel and a rental car. So here I was, some guy who’d never gone to Europe before, about to fly to Germany by myself, rent a car and drive 2 hours to my hotel, which I wasn’t completely sure the location of, but I knew once I met up with all the other contractors I’d be in with familiar faces again, so I wasn’t worried. Luckily I ran into one in Detroit, who was on my flight to Germany. Did I mention that I wasn’t really sure where the town the meetings were to be held in was? HA! Yeah, no idea…
I told him while we were waiting for our flight to leave from D-town that I didn’t know where I was going. He said that it was okay because he’d been there and knew exactly where we were meeting… I was on his tail from Detroit, MI all the way to Kaiserslautern, Germany.
In my Opel (Ford) I had the pedal down to the floor trying to keep up with his BMW 5 Series… But this was life or lost, so I redlined that little 4 cylinder until, I’m sure, it was about to explode. When we got to Kaiserslautern he took me passed the base we were meeting so that I’d know where to go the next day. Then I followed him to his hotel. This is where the problem reared its ugly head, my hotel was nowhere near his, nor did he have a clue where it was at. We asked the front desk at his hotel and got a bunch of Deutsch and some scribbles in response. So I told him that I’d find it, and I was fairly confident that I would. It might just take me a while… A long while…
I must have driven around for 2 hours, with no particular logic or any idea where I was at. I’m not smart but I’m diligent… Something possessed me to follow a random car, which had proven to work in the past. He took me down some narrow streets with no curbs and people eating within inches of my rearview mirror. I followed him down an alley and… whoops, right into his driveway. I threw that little compact into reverse faster than Kobayashi at an eating contest. The man got out of his car and started waving at me.
“OH CRAP!” I thought.
He was smiling, which was a good sign, so I rolled down the window and pointed at the address of the hotel and spouted off some high school German in hopes that he would understand my plight. He gave me the international sign of wait a minute and went to his wife, who by now was standing outside too. When he came back he told me to follow him. Strange, I thought, if this were the US I’d either have the cops on me, I’d have been cussed out or shot by now. But this guy wants me to follow him? Well what do I have to lose besides another hour or two?
Sure enough, 15 minutes later I was driving to the front of my hotel. He pointed at it, waved and then sped off without even stopping to let me thank him. You always hear about relying on the kindness of strangers, but I never really experienced it until then. I threw the car into park, went in and didn’t leave for the rest of the night…
Minus the first day the remainder of the trip was rather uneventful. If you don’t include the five hours I spent walking around downtown Kaiserslautern trying to find my car or when I accidentally found the restaurant that everyone was meeting at without directions. And this was just the first part of my trip, somehow I managed to survive Paris and Rome too…
During the spring of 2007 the working group, which I represented Boeing at with a co-worker, decided that they wanted to have meetings in Germany. Our program manager was only allowed to send one of us over for the meeting (boondoggle). At this point I was 2 years on this particular job and had never been to Europe before so I was selected to go.
Our office assistant set up all my travel arrangements to Germany and after a lot of deliberation I decided to extent my trip beyond the week in Germany and take a stroll around the entire continent. Of course the company wasn’t going to pay for anything other than my trip there, my expenses while on the clock and the trip back, so the rest was on me.
I purchased a train ticket from Frankfurt to Paris, then airline tickets from Paris to Barcelona, Barcelona to Rome and finally from Rome back to Frankfurt where I was back in business class on the company dime for my return trip. Each leg of my little journey was to be 2-3 days. I didn’t book any hotels rooms, preferring to figure it out when I got there. Yeah, like it or not, that’s what I do…
The beginning of my trip was as planned out as our assistant could have made it. I had a flight overseas, a hotel and a rental car. So here I was, some guy who’d never gone to Europe before, about to fly to Germany by myself, rent a car and drive 2 hours to my hotel, which I wasn’t completely sure the location of, but I knew once I met up with all the other contractors I’d be in with familiar faces again, so I wasn’t worried. Luckily I ran into one in Detroit, who was on my flight to Germany. Did I mention that I wasn’t really sure where the town the meetings were to be held in was? HA! Yeah, no idea…
I told him while we were waiting for our flight to leave from D-town that I didn’t know where I was going. He said that it was okay because he’d been there and knew exactly where we were meeting… I was on his tail from Detroit, MI all the way to Kaiserslautern, Germany.
In my Opel (Ford) I had the pedal down to the floor trying to keep up with his BMW 5 Series… But this was life or lost, so I redlined that little 4 cylinder until, I’m sure, it was about to explode. When we got to Kaiserslautern he took me passed the base we were meeting so that I’d know where to go the next day. Then I followed him to his hotel. This is where the problem reared its ugly head, my hotel was nowhere near his, nor did he have a clue where it was at. We asked the front desk at his hotel and got a bunch of Deutsch and some scribbles in response. So I told him that I’d find it, and I was fairly confident that I would. It might just take me a while… A long while…
I must have driven around for 2 hours, with no particular logic or any idea where I was at. I’m not smart but I’m diligent… Something possessed me to follow a random car, which had proven to work in the past. He took me down some narrow streets with no curbs and people eating within inches of my rearview mirror. I followed him down an alley and… whoops, right into his driveway. I threw that little compact into reverse faster than Kobayashi at an eating contest. The man got out of his car and started waving at me.
“OH CRAP!” I thought.
He was smiling, which was a good sign, so I rolled down the window and pointed at the address of the hotel and spouted off some high school German in hopes that he would understand my plight. He gave me the international sign of wait a minute and went to his wife, who by now was standing outside too. When he came back he told me to follow him. Strange, I thought, if this were the US I’d either have the cops on me, I’d have been cussed out or shot by now. But this guy wants me to follow him? Well what do I have to lose besides another hour or two?
Sure enough, 15 minutes later I was driving to the front of my hotel. He pointed at it, waved and then sped off without even stopping to let me thank him. You always hear about relying on the kindness of strangers, but I never really experienced it until then. I threw the car into park, went in and didn’t leave for the rest of the night…
Minus the first day the remainder of the trip was rather uneventful. If you don’t include the five hours I spent walking around downtown Kaiserslautern trying to find my car or when I accidentally found the restaurant that everyone was meeting at without directions. And this was just the first part of my trip, somehow I managed to survive Paris and Rome too…
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Good Morning Dubai
Right now I’m sitting in my hotel room at the Grand Hyatt Dubai. The hotel itself is nothing out of the ordinary in a city with more cranes than any other place in the world. From my window I can see over twenty cranes and I’m sure if it were a clear day I could see more in the distant skyline. The city and it’s people are a conglomeration of old world and new school all set against an ocean background.
We took a day to tour some of the cities more touristy destinations including the Mall Dubai, Emirates Mall, the Burj Al Arab and the Palm Island. All three are a testament to the power and immense wealth of the city. Imagine building a whole community on an island shaped like a Palm tree where less than a decade ago there was only ocean.
Despite the extensive westernization of Dubai, the old world is still very much in power. While eating lunch at the Emirates Mall, I had Chinese by the way, the muezzin announced the time for prayer over the PA system. There were LCD displays notifying people to respect the local custom and dress located at the entrances of the mall.
I think it’s interesting to see so many people dressed in traditional clothing walking amongst western tourists dressed in shorts and flip flops. Groups of women in burqas walk passed women in mini-skirts and men in robes meet with men in suits. It’s not at all the culture shock I was initially expecting, but I guess I wasn’t really expecting anything.
Looking out from the window of my room, which is the entire northern wall, I have to remind myself that I’m not in San Diego anymore. There is green grass, palm trees and a swimming pool surrounded by jogging paths and a water park. Cell phone towers are cleverly disguised as palm trees surrounded by palm trees. That’s another characteristic of this city that really amazes me, how everything is kept so perfect.
Everything from the overpasses to the road barriers are painted to match. While walking around the mall I noticed more people sweeping and cleaning than in any mall stateside. There were even people sweeping the sidewalks on the streets. I guess money can buy cleanliness and there is A LOT of money around here. Where else can you find a city that’s exploded as much as Dubai in a very short period of time?
Part of me would like to know how it was before the big bang of Dubai. Before all the companies moved in and started constructing their skyscrapers and luxurious hotels. How different was it from other parts of the Middle East? I’d like to talk with someone who was here before and continues living here to know what the local perspective is. Is there even anyone left here from those times? Most of the people I’ve talked to are Indian, Filipino or African. Maybe I need to get to the outskirts of town to find the ones who know, but I’m leaving tomorrow so I guess it’ll be left for another time.
We took a day to tour some of the cities more touristy destinations including the Mall Dubai, Emirates Mall, the Burj Al Arab and the Palm Island. All three are a testament to the power and immense wealth of the city. Imagine building a whole community on an island shaped like a Palm tree where less than a decade ago there was only ocean.
Despite the extensive westernization of Dubai, the old world is still very much in power. While eating lunch at the Emirates Mall, I had Chinese by the way, the muezzin announced the time for prayer over the PA system. There were LCD displays notifying people to respect the local custom and dress located at the entrances of the mall.
I think it’s interesting to see so many people dressed in traditional clothing walking amongst western tourists dressed in shorts and flip flops. Groups of women in burqas walk passed women in mini-skirts and men in robes meet with men in suits. It’s not at all the culture shock I was initially expecting, but I guess I wasn’t really expecting anything.
Looking out from the window of my room, which is the entire northern wall, I have to remind myself that I’m not in San Diego anymore. There is green grass, palm trees and a swimming pool surrounded by jogging paths and a water park. Cell phone towers are cleverly disguised as palm trees surrounded by palm trees. That’s another characteristic of this city that really amazes me, how everything is kept so perfect.
Everything from the overpasses to the road barriers are painted to match. While walking around the mall I noticed more people sweeping and cleaning than in any mall stateside. There were even people sweeping the sidewalks on the streets. I guess money can buy cleanliness and there is A LOT of money around here. Where else can you find a city that’s exploded as much as Dubai in a very short period of time?
Part of me would like to know how it was before the big bang of Dubai. Before all the companies moved in and started constructing their skyscrapers and luxurious hotels. How different was it from other parts of the Middle East? I’d like to talk with someone who was here before and continues living here to know what the local perspective is. Is there even anyone left here from those times? Most of the people I’ve talked to are Indian, Filipino or African. Maybe I need to get to the outskirts of town to find the ones who know, but I’m leaving tomorrow so I guess it’ll be left for another time.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Chicago Skyline
The Chicago Skyline is clearly visible from my seat in the American Airlines Admiral Lounge. Also from here I can see all the airport vehicles busily buzzing around, moving airplanes and hauling luggage. I can only imagine how things will be different when I reach my final destination.
Within the borders of our nation we are so sheltered from what happens across either ocean. Famine, illness and violence plague much of the world. I don’t imagine that I’ll see many of the locals when I finally get to base. But I do imagine that their situations are a far cry from what our citizens face, even those who are destitute.
I imagine a world with no infrastructure, a world where it’s dangerous to walk the streets even as an adult let alone a child. A world where violence happens so regularly that it has become common place. A place where things as simple as running water, which most of us take for granted, is a commodity left only for those wealthy few who a can afford such luxuries. Of course at this point I haven’t even left the States, so for now I can only imagine based upon media reports.
In reality I’m not sure what to expect. As with most of life’s experiences I try to have little expectation. As for the expectations I do have, I try to keep them as negative as possible. I’m not a fan of being disappointed and I do my best to avoid it. Of course I sound like a pessimist right now, but for those who know me that is far from the truth. I guess I like to look at experiences as a road.
You’d never expect a road to be perfectly smooth, otherwise why have tires. But no matter how bumpy the road the destination should always be the focus. I’m not explaining this very well… It’s actually been about 7 hours since I started writing this. I’ve since left Chicago and am over the Atlantic somewhere. It’s around 1 AM CST and I haven’t really slept, but I’m working on becoming an insomniac so this is good practice… Sorry, back to my little analogy.
So, life is like a road, expect the road to be bumpy but at the same time expect the destination to be wonderful. I think that makes a bit more sense. I’ve done a lot of road trips. Alone I’ve driven from Missouri to Colorado 9 times. I’ve driven with friends from Columbia, MO to Mexico and Utah and from St. Louis, MO I’ve driven to Key West and San Francisco (thanks to my big Hawaiian friend for letting me join in the night before they planned on leaving). At no point did I ever think the ride there was going to be puppy dogs and candy (I picked that one up from DB) but I knew the destination was going to be worth the pot holes.
I think I finally realized what the “road” is. The road is this entire chapter of my life. My “destination” isn’t Afghanistan. It’s what I’ve gained after this experience is over.
But to get to that reward I need to spend most of the rest of this year in hell.
Within the borders of our nation we are so sheltered from what happens across either ocean. Famine, illness and violence plague much of the world. I don’t imagine that I’ll see many of the locals when I finally get to base. But I do imagine that their situations are a far cry from what our citizens face, even those who are destitute.
I imagine a world with no infrastructure, a world where it’s dangerous to walk the streets even as an adult let alone a child. A world where violence happens so regularly that it has become common place. A place where things as simple as running water, which most of us take for granted, is a commodity left only for those wealthy few who a can afford such luxuries. Of course at this point I haven’t even left the States, so for now I can only imagine based upon media reports.
In reality I’m not sure what to expect. As with most of life’s experiences I try to have little expectation. As for the expectations I do have, I try to keep them as negative as possible. I’m not a fan of being disappointed and I do my best to avoid it. Of course I sound like a pessimist right now, but for those who know me that is far from the truth. I guess I like to look at experiences as a road.
You’d never expect a road to be perfectly smooth, otherwise why have tires. But no matter how bumpy the road the destination should always be the focus. I’m not explaining this very well… It’s actually been about 7 hours since I started writing this. I’ve since left Chicago and am over the Atlantic somewhere. It’s around 1 AM CST and I haven’t really slept, but I’m working on becoming an insomniac so this is good practice… Sorry, back to my little analogy.
So, life is like a road, expect the road to be bumpy but at the same time expect the destination to be wonderful. I think that makes a bit more sense. I’ve done a lot of road trips. Alone I’ve driven from Missouri to Colorado 9 times. I’ve driven with friends from Columbia, MO to Mexico and Utah and from St. Louis, MO I’ve driven to Key West and San Francisco (thanks to my big Hawaiian friend for letting me join in the night before they planned on leaving). At no point did I ever think the ride there was going to be puppy dogs and candy (I picked that one up from DB) but I knew the destination was going to be worth the pot holes.
I think I finally realized what the “road” is. The road is this entire chapter of my life. My “destination” isn’t Afghanistan. It’s what I’ve gained after this experience is over.
But to get to that reward I need to spend most of the rest of this year in hell.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
A Long Road Behind and a Longer Road Ahead
I feel like I’ve spent every week in a different city since I started working on this program. Now that I think about it that’s not far from the truth. My first 4 weeks was spent in Savannah, TN where I did my formal training. Following this I spent a week in Bingen, WA where we had our evaluations and the maintenance exam. Then I was back in Saint Louis for 2 weeks completing paper work for military deployment processing. Now I’m headed home for a day after spending a week at Camp Pendleton where I was processed and issued my ID card, body armor, gas mask and helmet.
That doesn’t seem like a lot of stuff, but the body armor and helmet alone took up my whole suit case, fortunately I brought a duffle bag just for such an occasion. I went from carrying a 15 lbs piece of luggage to carrying a 50 lbs roller case and a 10 lbs duffle bag. I was waiting for someone to ask why my suit case was so heavy and sure enough the woman at the American Airlines counter asked
“What do you have in here?”
I responded “Body armor…”
She laughed.
I wasn’t sure if she believed me or not. After all how many people dressed in civilian clothing roll through with a black Samsonite filled with body armor? Probably more than I think… Although I’m sure the people doing the X-Raying had a good time trying to figure out what it was… Oh yes, and there was the gas mask too, which was an interesting acquisition. I hope I don’t have to use it while I’m out there, especially with TRNG ONLY painted on the filter… Please President Obama, don’t upset the Pakistanis or Iranians…
Well besides all that good stuff, I also got my military ID card. That has become my de facto form of identification for everything. Anytime I get carded I pull that bad boy out and wait for them to figure out what it is. I’ve gotten a lot of long strange stares, but I continue to use it because it’s more easily accessible than my driver’s license since I have it in the front pocket of my wallet. Sometimes people will recognize it and are really appreciative since they know where you’re going or where you’ve been. The card itself is pretty cool too. It has a functional smart chip with all my information encoded on it. Unlike the smart chip on my Boeing ID which has nothing encoded on it. I still sort of wish I brought it with me so I could have more easily accessed the Boeing facility in Seal Beach. I had to make some copies and fax some documents to reserve my flights overseas. I have a friend who recently transferred there. We were going to meet for dinner anyway, so I decided to give him a ring and see if he could get me in the facility to use the printers.
He had meetings in Huntington Beach so he let me sit in his office, which had a view of the ocean. I’m not sure I can go back to working in the windowless boxes at the Saint Louis facilities after being there. The entire building seemed so much nicer! On top of that the entire area was nicer than the area the Saint Louis site is in. The first bit of evidence was the signs that said “MAY 15 BIKE TO WORK DAY.” It’s like a dream of mine to be able to bike to work, especially on my birthday! A few of you know that I’ve tried a few times but finally gave up. It was always either too hot, too windy or too dangerous. Seal Beach is always between 70 and 85, winds usually seemed calm and drivers are courteous and accustomed to bikers. In fact, I saw more bicyclists, joggers and walkers out in California than I saw in Oregon and that was why I was so impressed by Oregon!
So of course I’ve fallen fast for another city, the downside is that it’s just as expensive as Oregon... But of course I won’t let something like that stop me. I’ve always said that I wanted to move out to San Diego, even though I had never been. When I got to Hood River, I thought I found everything I’ve ever wanted… Then I spent time in California and found more than I could ever ask for. Reality check, it doesn’t matter since I’m going to be spending the rest of the year on a 6 month camping trip. It’s my birthday today and by this time next week I’ll be in a tent surrounded by miles of nothing.
We’ve been in contact with one of the guys that’s there now. He’s been giving us the heads up on travel, what to bring and the conditions at the base. It doesn’t sound as bad as I imagined. We have air conditioned tents that work “most of the time.” Well… I guess that’s really all I know about it, but that was a big deal to me. If you know me, you know that I hate heat. 120F isn’t my idea of a good time unless I’m checking the internal temperature of a piece of meat. I was joking around with one of the guys and said that I can’t wait to throw on 50lbs of body armor and go for a 4 mile run. I was joking but I can also see myself really doing something like that. I really don’t think I have all the nuts in my head tightened to specifications, should have used a torque wrench.
Anyway, I’m on the plane back home right now. I have some “birthday gifts” from Boeing to pick up from UPS tonight. It’s actually all the gear that I was supposed to have before I left for Pendleton. I’ll probably spend part of the night opening boxes and deciding what I want to bring with me overseas and the other part celebrating my 28th. Tomorrow will be a fun filled day doing expense reports, completing whatever paper work I have left and, weather permitting cutting the lawn. Then Sunday I’ll be hanging out in the business class cabin with the high rollers on my way outbound. Things started rolling really fast all of the sudden, who knew that things could be so efficient!
That doesn’t seem like a lot of stuff, but the body armor and helmet alone took up my whole suit case, fortunately I brought a duffle bag just for such an occasion. I went from carrying a 15 lbs piece of luggage to carrying a 50 lbs roller case and a 10 lbs duffle bag. I was waiting for someone to ask why my suit case was so heavy and sure enough the woman at the American Airlines counter asked
“What do you have in here?”
I responded “Body armor…”
She laughed.
I wasn’t sure if she believed me or not. After all how many people dressed in civilian clothing roll through with a black Samsonite filled with body armor? Probably more than I think… Although I’m sure the people doing the X-Raying had a good time trying to figure out what it was… Oh yes, and there was the gas mask too, which was an interesting acquisition. I hope I don’t have to use it while I’m out there, especially with TRNG ONLY painted on the filter… Please President Obama, don’t upset the Pakistanis or Iranians…
Well besides all that good stuff, I also got my military ID card. That has become my de facto form of identification for everything. Anytime I get carded I pull that bad boy out and wait for them to figure out what it is. I’ve gotten a lot of long strange stares, but I continue to use it because it’s more easily accessible than my driver’s license since I have it in the front pocket of my wallet. Sometimes people will recognize it and are really appreciative since they know where you’re going or where you’ve been. The card itself is pretty cool too. It has a functional smart chip with all my information encoded on it. Unlike the smart chip on my Boeing ID which has nothing encoded on it. I still sort of wish I brought it with me so I could have more easily accessed the Boeing facility in Seal Beach. I had to make some copies and fax some documents to reserve my flights overseas. I have a friend who recently transferred there. We were going to meet for dinner anyway, so I decided to give him a ring and see if he could get me in the facility to use the printers.
He had meetings in Huntington Beach so he let me sit in his office, which had a view of the ocean. I’m not sure I can go back to working in the windowless boxes at the Saint Louis facilities after being there. The entire building seemed so much nicer! On top of that the entire area was nicer than the area the Saint Louis site is in. The first bit of evidence was the signs that said “MAY 15 BIKE TO WORK DAY.” It’s like a dream of mine to be able to bike to work, especially on my birthday! A few of you know that I’ve tried a few times but finally gave up. It was always either too hot, too windy or too dangerous. Seal Beach is always between 70 and 85, winds usually seemed calm and drivers are courteous and accustomed to bikers. In fact, I saw more bicyclists, joggers and walkers out in California than I saw in Oregon and that was why I was so impressed by Oregon!
So of course I’ve fallen fast for another city, the downside is that it’s just as expensive as Oregon... But of course I won’t let something like that stop me. I’ve always said that I wanted to move out to San Diego, even though I had never been. When I got to Hood River, I thought I found everything I’ve ever wanted… Then I spent time in California and found more than I could ever ask for. Reality check, it doesn’t matter since I’m going to be spending the rest of the year on a 6 month camping trip. It’s my birthday today and by this time next week I’ll be in a tent surrounded by miles of nothing.
We’ve been in contact with one of the guys that’s there now. He’s been giving us the heads up on travel, what to bring and the conditions at the base. It doesn’t sound as bad as I imagined. We have air conditioned tents that work “most of the time.” Well… I guess that’s really all I know about it, but that was a big deal to me. If you know me, you know that I hate heat. 120F isn’t my idea of a good time unless I’m checking the internal temperature of a piece of meat. I was joking around with one of the guys and said that I can’t wait to throw on 50lbs of body armor and go for a 4 mile run. I was joking but I can also see myself really doing something like that. I really don’t think I have all the nuts in my head tightened to specifications, should have used a torque wrench.
Anyway, I’m on the plane back home right now. I have some “birthday gifts” from Boeing to pick up from UPS tonight. It’s actually all the gear that I was supposed to have before I left for Pendleton. I’ll probably spend part of the night opening boxes and deciding what I want to bring with me overseas and the other part celebrating my 28th. Tomorrow will be a fun filled day doing expense reports, completing whatever paper work I have left and, weather permitting cutting the lawn. Then Sunday I’ll be hanging out in the business class cabin with the high rollers on my way outbound. Things started rolling really fast all of the sudden, who knew that things could be so efficient!
Friday, May 1, 2009
The Bullpen
I’ve been back in Saint Louis for a little more than a week now. Like a good corporate citizen I’ve been coming in to the office to help out wherever I can. Thus far I’ve spent the majority of the days getting poked and prodded by physicians and nurses though. I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty invincible right now with all the vaccinations I’ve gotten in the past few days.
There are various others in the office and we spend the mornings fighting for open desks so we can set up camp for the day. The others are in town from various places and for various reasons. Some are waiting for medical clearance to return, while others are in between deployments. One of the best parts of having these guys around is hearing the stories they bring back from the field.
Most of the stories are about good times. Even the bad stories come across lighthearted when thought about in hindsight, although at the time it was far from it. Occasionally the seemingly random mortar fire would come a little too close for comfort and bring the reality of war back to the forefront of one’s mind. Other times it was far enough away to be heard but not felt. Despite what the media shows, it seems that these types of attacks on a base are rare and furthermore rarely accurate.
I’m very excited to get out and experience it first hand. I might be naïve but even hearing the bad stories aren’t a deterrent. I’m going out there to do something important for a lot of people and from my perspective it’s something that’s going to be a lot of fun no matter where I end up. It’s a good thing I’ve heard plenty of negative comments about my destination to lessen my expectations.
Multiple times my friends have advised me to try to go somewhere else. The danger level is high, the facilities are terrible and the people are subpar. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to start with the worst and work my way up to the best. My only hope is that the people aren’t as subpar as I’ve been told. I don’t mind the danger; it’s what I’m here for. I don’t mind the facilities; I can eat anything and sleep anywhere.
Now the wait continues. My scheduled deployment date is the week of May 11, but things change daily around here. I could leave tomorrow or I could leave in a month. My final destination has probably changed a dozen times and will probably change a dozen more.
There are various others in the office and we spend the mornings fighting for open desks so we can set up camp for the day. The others are in town from various places and for various reasons. Some are waiting for medical clearance to return, while others are in between deployments. One of the best parts of having these guys around is hearing the stories they bring back from the field.
Most of the stories are about good times. Even the bad stories come across lighthearted when thought about in hindsight, although at the time it was far from it. Occasionally the seemingly random mortar fire would come a little too close for comfort and bring the reality of war back to the forefront of one’s mind. Other times it was far enough away to be heard but not felt. Despite what the media shows, it seems that these types of attacks on a base are rare and furthermore rarely accurate.
I’m very excited to get out and experience it first hand. I might be naïve but even hearing the bad stories aren’t a deterrent. I’m going out there to do something important for a lot of people and from my perspective it’s something that’s going to be a lot of fun no matter where I end up. It’s a good thing I’ve heard plenty of negative comments about my destination to lessen my expectations.
Multiple times my friends have advised me to try to go somewhere else. The danger level is high, the facilities are terrible and the people are subpar. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to start with the worst and work my way up to the best. My only hope is that the people aren’t as subpar as I’ve been told. I don’t mind the danger; it’s what I’m here for. I don’t mind the facilities; I can eat anything and sleep anywhere.
Now the wait continues. My scheduled deployment date is the week of May 11, but things change daily around here. I could leave tomorrow or I could leave in a month. My final destination has probably changed a dozen times and will probably change a dozen more.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Moving Right Along
Seven days after arriving in Hood River I’m now on my return flight to Nashville, TN where I’ll get my car and drive back to Saint Louis, MO. My reason for going to Hood River was to successfully complete my training and demonstrate to an evaluator that I am capable of operating our UAV. Now that that’s done the job really starts.
Through the course of this training I’ve encountered a lot of stressful situations and many more rewarding experiences. I’ve taken more tests in the past month than I took though any given college class. I’ve been challeged by instructors to correct inflight emergencies during our simulations and challenged by mother nature to make sound judgements during actual flights. I’ve been vaccinated for all sorts of illnesses and have more lined up. The experience has not only given me job skills but it has also given me the opportunity to meet some very cool people.
People from Washington, Kentucky, Tennessee, California, Georgia, Indiana, Arizona and Hawaii. The majority of them have already seen the war first hand and experienced things that we’re all fortunate enough not to have to experience. One of my friends said that you don’t really know someone until you’ve had a beer with them. If that’s the case, I know a lot of people very well now. We’ve spent entire days together, working from dawn to dusk and then dinner. We’ve driven hours just to find a decent place to eat. I know I say how lucky I am a lot, to have met these people and I’ll continue to say it. The people made this great.
Last night we went out and celebrated our success over dinner and drinks. It was great to sit around and talk about whatever, as long as it didn’t involve work. Afterwards I said good bye to everyone, knowing that I may not see them again. That’s the most difficult part of meeting new people in this environment, saying what could turn out to be the last good bye.
So here I am, in the plane looking down at the patchwork farms, breathing recycled air ;-) shooting back towards the midwest. School is over, now lets start the next chapter.
Through the course of this training I’ve encountered a lot of stressful situations and many more rewarding experiences. I’ve taken more tests in the past month than I took though any given college class. I’ve been challeged by instructors to correct inflight emergencies during our simulations and challenged by mother nature to make sound judgements during actual flights. I’ve been vaccinated for all sorts of illnesses and have more lined up. The experience has not only given me job skills but it has also given me the opportunity to meet some very cool people.
People from Washington, Kentucky, Tennessee, California, Georgia, Indiana, Arizona and Hawaii. The majority of them have already seen the war first hand and experienced things that we’re all fortunate enough not to have to experience. One of my friends said that you don’t really know someone until you’ve had a beer with them. If that’s the case, I know a lot of people very well now. We’ve spent entire days together, working from dawn to dusk and then dinner. We’ve driven hours just to find a decent place to eat. I know I say how lucky I am a lot, to have met these people and I’ll continue to say it. The people made this great.
Last night we went out and celebrated our success over dinner and drinks. It was great to sit around and talk about whatever, as long as it didn’t involve work. Afterwards I said good bye to everyone, knowing that I may not see them again. That’s the most difficult part of meeting new people in this environment, saying what could turn out to be the last good bye.
So here I am, in the plane looking down at the patchwork farms, breathing recycled air ;-) shooting back towards the midwest. School is over, now lets start the next chapter.
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