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.