Latest Happenings

The smartfilter is currently inactive, so I’m taking a quick moment to post. :-)

Ocktoberfest

As part of the morale and welfare program, the base leadership threw an Ocktoberfest celebration. There was a lot of advertising for it so I figured I’d check it out. They let us attend in civilian clothes which turned out to be the biggest morale boost they could have provided. I mostly went to check out the food. I wish I could say that I’d gone for the beer, but alas! The food served was a rump steak, bratwurst, fresh rolls and dessert. Everything was wonderful. They even had non-alcoholic German beer. I didn’t think it would be any good, but figured I’d try it. If I’d never had the alcoholic version, I’d have never known what I was missing as it too was wonderful. I really had a good time and so did everybody else. Best food I’ve had since I’ve been here!

Airport Trip

My boss recently left for the US for a couple of weeks. He asked me to go along with him to the airport. We took a few other people too as it’s safer to travel with several people. The trip there was almost as interesting as the airport itself. The first thing we noticed were a lot of flourescent lights out in the middle of nowhere. One of the people with us knew what they were: people camping. Apparently after Ramadan the big thing to do is go out into the desert and camp with your family. I wish I could have stopped and taken some pictures. There were a LOT of people camping. It was really facinating to me. There were even people who had just stopped on the side of the road and were sitting on the ground talking to each other. The rest of the drive was filled with the normal ooo’s and ahhhh’s of looking at stores, residences, etc in a foreign country. The best part of that was seeing the Third Country National housing. Each building was like a mini-apartment building, but each apartment looked to be housing WAY more people than it was designed to. It was terrible. Kuwait’s population is made up of 49% Kuwaiti and 51% Other. The others are people who have come into the country to work. I guess the Kuwaiti’s really are rich if none of them need to work…

I don’t know if I’m a world traveler or not, but I’ve now been to several airports all over the world. This one was again unique though. Instead of checking your bags in as soon as you enter the terminal, you actually have to proceed to the back of it where the enterance to the departure gates is. We couldn’t figure it out and I finally asked some guys with military haircuts if they could help us. That usually works. Before leaving I stopped at a newstand and picked up my roommate a couple magazines in Arabic (he’s teaching himself the language) and also a Starbucks. For a person who doesn’t drink coffee, I’ve sure been to a lot of them. :-)

Chuck Norris

This last Sunday under the Morale and Welfare flag, Chuck Norris visited us. You heard right, THE Chuck Norris was here across the hall from my office. Since I work for the group commander I’d thought I’d get a little more face time, but really, it was very fair to everybody. He stayed in the conference room and posed for pictures with anybody who wanted one. Marshall Teague, a bit actor, came along with him. At first I didn’t recognize him, but after checking IMDb I found that he’d played Ta’Lon on Babylon 5, another bit part, but memorable. Other guys remember him as the guy who gets beat up by Patrick Swayze in Road House. Here’s me with them.
Geek Time

Ever since Sharron moved to Japan we’ve been living with one computer. We knew that it wasn’t perfect, but we couldn’t afford a second one. She recently started working on her masters degree and we got a loan to pay for that. Harkening back to college days, she got her refund check and we immediately starting looking for a computer for her. Well, really, we’d been looking already, but now that we had money it was a whole different story. On Saturday I was checking out all the “deal” sites on the internet that I normally check (got a 2 gig thumb drive for $28 shipped!) and found a deal for a Dell laptop for $700ish dollars. I investigated further and found that it was really a coupon for 30% off any Dell laptop over $1,200. Wow. I immediately went to Dell’s webpage and virtually built the laptop. I called Sharron after looking at the price and we decided to buy it. The specs are below, but the final price was $1,257. Wow.
Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo processor T7200 (4MB Cache/2.00GHz/667MHz FSB) w/17″ display
256MB ATI MOBILITYâ„¢ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory
80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with Double Layer DVD+R capability
Bluetooth
Wireless NIC with 802.11n

Missing Wife

The last thing I want to mention is that I’m seriously missing my wife. I knew it was going to be hard, but it’s been terrible. I have a hard time wondering how Ben is doing in Afganistan for a year away from his wife and thank God I only have to be here for 4 months. Today is my 56th day in Kuwait. At the most, I’ll be here for 73 more days, so not quite half way yet. Sharron and I have been able to talk on the phone a bunch and we’ve been keeping in touch over email and snail mail, but it really just doesn’t replace the face to face time we’d become so used to. I will never take that for granted again. I love you my wife, Mrs. Sharron Todd!