Good riddance 2011

In a little over 9 hours it’ll be the new year here in Afghanistan.  Reflecting back on the previous year, it turns out I’m glad the year is over and hope 2012 is better.  2011 was pretty good for more than half the year but the last few months were pretty much super shitty therefore killing any positivity that may have come before it.  All I can say is when getting two-week notice deployment to Afghanistan and being gone for Christmas isn’t the shittiest thing that happened in the latter part of 2011, then you know you had a shitty year.  Hoping for a good 2012.

Made it

oh, I really am late on this update.  The plane was packed at Norfolk and absolutely uncomfortable. The seats were jammed so close together, ugh. And of course I’d have to get the cranky old guard guy from NJ sitting in the seat in front of me cranking back as far as it would go.

We stopped in Shannon, Ireland and there were like four planes of military people there, you’d think we were invading, lol.  After that was a trip to Leipzig, Germany.  I swear they found the smallest airports they could land a big ass jet at.  Not much to do in the terminal at either place.  

Then we arrived in Manas, which was our final destination for that flight.  Krygyzstan was absolutely freezing!! I ended up spending three days there freezing my ass off.  We sleep in transient buildings which fit light a hundred people, no joke and we were not allowed to turn out the lights.  On top of that it was only like 60 degrees in there.  Manas sucked! After getting all my gear I just went to the little movie theaters they set up and watched a bunch of movies.  I watched, Final Destination 5, sucked, The Change-Up – it was really funny, Horrible Bosses – not bad but not as funny as change-up, X-Men First Class – enjoyed it, Captain America – much better than I expected it to be, Rise of the Planet of the Apes – actually really good, Apollo 18 – it was ok and Cowboys & Aliens – pretty good. So yup, got paid to watch movies.

Finally made it to Afghanistan.  It’s hard to believe that I first set foot at Kandahar on 27 Dec 2001 and now I’m back ten years later.  It’s still a dirty, stinky place.  The people that are born here are tough people.  I could never live in this environment unless I was born here and this is all I know, like the Afghani’s.  Tough, tough people that we will never beat and never win the hearts and minds of.  The early settlers had more in common with the American Indians than we do with the Afghani’s. Very difficult region of the world to live in.  

Anyway, my room is ok, i’ve stayed in smaller with more people so I can’t complain, although we are moving compounds soon so hopefully they be the same or better than what we’re in now.  At work I have my own office and it’s bigger than the one at Tyndall.  Living large! Work long hours, don’t really get a day off but it should all help make the time go by fast or at least seem to go by fast.  Six months is long. I’m now tired and done writing for today.  I’ll write more later. 

word.

still hate traveling

After traveling to Norfolk, with a stop in Atlanta, there I was trying to figure out a way to get to the AMC terminal I spied some other AF folk.  So we joined forces and embarked on the adventure to the terminal.  We found an airport shuttle took us there.  It took forever but we finally arrived and dragged all of our bags to the counter.  The counter person asked me where I was going and when I replied she’s like “oh, did you know the flight has been delayed until tomorrow evening?” My response was a simple “oh” with probably a look of disgust on my face.  lol.  

Two of the three of us were on the delayed flight so we now had to find transportation to the billeting office. We were told first we had to call and make a reservation before so they would know where to take us.  Got all of that done and ended up in the billeting office, where they told us we were in the wrong place. of course.  But she said she had two suites available in the building across the street but they cost a little more.  We both told her to put us in the suites.  The unfortunate thing is I have to check-out by 11am or I’ll be billed another night.  So I have to find something to do for a bunch of hours before I have to be at the terminal, oh joy.

These are the reasons I hate traveling!  Luckily my airline seatmates were not too talkative or encroached upon my space so the actual flights weren’t too bad.

I’ve attached a couple of pics.

One is the last thing I looked at before boarding the plane in Panama City and the other is the pizza I had for dinner last night and breakfast this morning.  I’m going to try to take lots of pictures on my trip so my wife and kids and keep up with what i’m doing.

Oh and on a final note, I am thankful for FaceTime.  Luckily there was free wifi and facetiming my wife was much better than just calling.  It’s awesome that I can facetime my kids too on their iPod Touches.  Best invention ever, now hopefully it will work good on the wifi in Kandahar.

I HATE TRAVELING!!!

As I sit at the airport on my first leg of a very long trip, it reminds me of how much I hate traveling. Dear people smarter than me, please invent a teleporting device pronto!

At one time I used to look forward to the adventure of traveling around the world and seeing new places, but that eagerness has since faded.  Mostly because I hate traveling.  Yes, I’m in the United States Air Force and I hate flying! loathe, despise and any other thesaurus word that comes to mind that means hate.  Maybe if I was going somewhere new I’d be a tad more eager about this trip, but I’ve been to this place before.  It was nearly ten years ago when I first arrived and I’m sure it’s more built up but it’s the same, dirty country that it was before.  Nothing against the Afghanis but good lord your country sucks!  I know you can’t control where you were born but I am thankful I was born in good ole ‘Murica

I miss my wife and kids already.

Should soon be boarding, time to pack-up my stuff.