12-31-09

I woke up to early today, I rolled out of bed about 9am. I poked around a little bit, went and took a cold shower. You tell yourself it will be ok but when you get under the water it literally takes your breath away. You wind up turning it on for a few seconds and getting wet, turning it off and soaping up, then rinsing off. I got cleaner, but I did not get really clean.

I walked down to the boardwalk and found a flushing toilet on the way! It’s all about the small miracles in a place like this. I check out the NATO gym which was super nice. I got myself a little speaker at the computer store so I can listen to my iPhone at work. Then I went to the Danish restaurant which is just off the boardwalk and bought a 25euro wifi card. I couldn’t get it to work on my computer. I tried a dozen times to fill in my info and then it kept telling me the page couldn’t be displayed. Si took it back up to the lady at the counter and told her it wasn’t working and she said “this is Afghanistan”. I told her that if I wanted my wifi to not work I would go across the street (to the boardwalk) and have it not work for free. She told me she couldn’t give me my money back without her manager there and she didn’t know when the manger would be back. I left there and walked back to my tent and had some dinner with Josh. We got ready and went to work.

We caught a ride tonight. We worked on this huge truck tonight. I am totally amazed at the way you can stretch out work, people start getting ready for lunch about half an hour before its time to take it. It seems to me that the key is to always be doing something. Weather its taking a flashlight and inspecting the Hmmwv or taking a tire off and reinstalling it. As long as you are not sleeping or being a problem for somebody you are doing well.

What a long night! The big bosses came in about 6:30, it seems like just to make sure nobody is sleeping. The shitty thing about it is, when you have been working for 11.5 hours already you are pretty much just trying to look busy and not attract their attention.