Day 56 (125 days to go…)

Well I am continuing on the search work. It has to go through channels before the rest of my team can get involved, but I am trying to get a head start so it can be completed as soon as possible. With my team we estimated three weeks to a month for the whole effort.



~David

Day 54 (127 days to go…)

I got another care package today. This time it was from the McNeeley family. Mrs. McNeeley baked me some mint chocolate chip cookies (my FAVORITE) in her new kitchen. Such an awesome surprise! She vacuum sealed them so they very fresh and tasty. The rest of the office thought they were awesome too. Thank you so much! Again excellent timing while I am trying to figure out all this search stuff. She also sent a few other things including this little toy basketball/hoop. I hung it up above my desk. She also wrote me a note where she noted I messed up on my math in an earlier post in this blog. I had actually realized it pretty quickly and fixed it like the next day after I posted it. SOMEHOW she still caught it! :-P



~David

Day 53 (128 days to go…)

Well today was a fun day. It was the day of the meeting I mentioned previously. I knew we were leaving at around 9am so I woke up around 7:30 so I would have enough time to take a shower and get ready. Well it turns up things got moved ahead an hour. So just as I am getting up, Byrd comes banging on my door asking for me. I was just getting up so I was fine, but it scared my roommate to death. Byrd notified me of the time change and said to be ready by 8. Unfortunately that meant there was no time for a shower. I quickly got changed and got all geared up in my body armor. That stuff is heavy! We packed into our vehicle, all five of us, and got going. The trip was to serve several purposes – two separate meetings as well as dropping Amanda off at the airport. She is going on leave for about a month.

This is my first time out of the protected area since I arrived and was driven from the airport. I must comment again, the traffic situation is crazy. No rules. We also drove past one of the garbage piles. See we Americans (and other countries) are considered to throw away too much good stuff. So what they do is they take all of our garbage and dump it on the side of the road. People pillage through it for anything valuable. They also lead their livestock like goats to it to feed. After about a week they scoop it all up and dispose of it. It’s really kind of crazy. Below are a few pictures someone took of that and some other things while driving.

Once we got to where we were going, we all got straight to work. I went with Ryan to go talk about search. It was very informative as for the first time I saw exactly how people use the current search and how they want to use the new search. I saw what they needed, what was important and just general workflow of their jobs. I am going to have to dissect this information over the coming days, but unfortunately I think there are some issues with how certain things in the new search are currently. Certain things could be fixed easily with a database fix or training but other things will probably involve a code change. Any code change would mean things would have to go back to square one in terms of the testing and approval process. We are supposed to roll this new version in a couple weeks so I will have to make my report to the Theater Lead pretty quickly, and I doubt it will be good news. Unfortunately it just seems there was a miscommunication somewhere, and some very important features were missed in the requirements given to us. The meeting was good though, and I look forward to breaking everything down to see what path we need to move forward on.



~David

Day 52 (129 days to go…)

A care package from my family arrived today! Thank you so much mom, dad, and sis. It has honey buns and cinnamon rolls and paper towels and all kinds of cool goodies. I was just thinking I was running low on good snacks. They are hard to get out here! It is just in time to brighten my day too; I am still dealing with the whole search situation that came up Monday. I think I have wrapped my head around some of the issues, and I have ideas on what has to be done. I will find out more in my meeting tomorrow with the users. I look forward to talking with them and really see firsthand how the software will be used.

Unfortunately around midday one of our 3 AC units for the office broke. It just had to be the newest one, and thus the one that blew the coldest air. This really showed after a couple hours when it became sweltering hot. The office space we are in is about 24ft by 36ft (estimation) and we are packed in pretty tight. The main heat source though is the fact that every person has 3 to 6 computers. There are also a dozen or so test boxes scattered around. So in a 20ft by 30ft area there are about 80 or more computers. It gets hot pretty quick without the AC units. It was about 90 or 95 degrees outside… yet it was cooler outside! With the work already on my shoulders to get done, this was not fun at all… Thank goodness I got a care package or today would just really suck.



~David

Day 50 (131 days to go…)

Well remember what I said about Mondays? That even though I work’s 7 days a week, Mondays are still as dreadful somehow? Well today proves my point. It was just a hectic day with a bunch of crap going on. Chief among the issues was the fact that one of our primary user groups had some major concerns with the new search effort going into the new version of our software in a couple weeks… the new search that I was a primary designer and programmer of. (This is in fact one of the reasons I am out here - to make sure everything goes smoothly.) Some of the issues were just educational ones where things worked a bit different from the old search. These will be solved with proper documentation and training once the version is rolled out. One of the main concerns though was in fact something we (the search team) had previously identified but everyone was led to believe that it was a nonissue. That is a bit frustrating, and even more so that it is only getting identified now. Well, being that I helped design it, it’s now my job to help figure out how to resolve everything. Hal, the theater lead, wants me to go over and meet with the users and discuss things with them face to face Thursday. That should be fun…



~David

Day 47 (134 days to go…)

Another person from the Hampton office arrived today, Mike. He is one of the senior systems engineers. It is good to see a familiar face. He is a pretty cool guy, which is good since he will be sitting right next to me in our nice tight seating arrangement. He has been deployed several times before so he is used to things out here. He will probably be staying a year this time around.



~David

Day 45 (136 days to go…)

Had some annoying bank issues today. Usually I log into my bank while connected through the company VPN so it looks like my IP is U.S. based. Well a few days ago I tried to log in and I wasn’t connected to the VPN. Since my IP was weird (coming from Afghanistan) I guess the site thought I may be an intruder. In any case it prompted me with my security questions. I HATE those questions. You never know how a site is going to use them, and half the information you can find out by doing some searches around the web about the person. You hear about celebrities’ accounts getting broken into via this method all the time.

Anyways, because of this I usually will fill in the questions with garbage as I don’t forget my passwords, and I take proper security precautions (like using very strong random char strings for my passwords). Well when the site decides to do what my bank was now doing… you kinda get screwed. I couldn’t answer the questions so it locked my account. I called in (via my flaky internet connection) to get my account unlocked. After being bounced around I finally ended up at the security department. The woman I was talking to said that everything looked fine on my account and she didn’t even see the trouble ticket. I tried to log in to my account again, this time through the VPN, and voila, it worked. I hung up and thought that was it.

Fast forward to today. I get an email saying my entire bank account had been locked for suspicious activity. I again call in to see what the heck is going on now. It turns out that for whatever reason when I talked to the security department, my help ticket hadn’t made it over yet. When it did make it over they tried to call me on my cell number. Now I am in Afghanistan; of course my cell phone number doesn’t work. When that didn’t work they waited a couple days and tried again. Since they couldn’t get a hold of me they decided to lock EVERYTHING. So after finding out what HAPPENED, I asked how I can get it all unlocked. The woman wants me to come into a branch office. I explain that this is impossible. After going round and round a bit she finally comes up with a solution where she goes through some system that asks all this personally identifying information. She warns that you can only do this once though and if we screw up, there would be no second chance. Luckily I got everything right, and she was able to reset my account, including my security questions. How troublesome…

So I have learned 3 things:

1) Be careful when dealing with security questions for important things like banks

2) Use VPN out here

3) Notify your bank you are traveling oversees… might make things a LOT easier >_<



~David

Day 43 (138 days to go…)

25% Done. WOOT! Well I’m 1/4th done, 3/4ths to go. It has been an interesting ride thus far. Let’s see what the next 25% holds…



~David

Day 42 (139 days to go…)

Since Chuck is leaving, we decided to have a goodbye party over at the embassy. Finally I get to eat there since I missed out last time! The food selection was kinda like being at Golden Corral. I had some French Toast sticks with syrup, some doughnuts, a biscuit, and all sorts of stuff. They had tons of fruit and a good selection of food. Everything was absolutely delicious. We took our food and ate right by the pool. It was definitely a nice change of scenery. For a moment I couldn’t really tell I was still in Afghanistan. It was quite nice.



~David

Day 40 (141 days to go…)

Today, being a Friday, I went over with a group of people to Eggers for steak. It was really good as usual. What made the trip interesting was having Chuck along. Chuck actually just got back a couple weeks ago from leave but is being recalled for some important work back in the States. This is his last Friday here.

Chuck has an interesting relation with the Afghan kids here. He is known for giving them lots of stuff so they absolutely love him. With Chuck around a huge group walked with us to Eggers. On the way back he told one of the older ones, kinda the one in charge, to line them all up nicely. He then handed out a bunch of 20s to them, one to each. I am sure he really made their day. Below are some pictures of the whole event. They are sure going to miss him.

~David

Day 38 (143 days to go…) - Problem Solver

Well today began early, around 2am in fact. My new roommate, a military guy, works nights. He had left his phone in his cabinet… his LOCKED cabinet. An alarm on it started going off at 2am, and proceeded to go off every 15 or 20 minutes. This was in fact not the first time this had happened, but the second time. It happened last night also. It was loud and would go off for about a minute before stopping, only to go off again in like 15 minutes. Since the cabinet was locked, my only recourse was to jam some earplugs deep in my ears and try to get as much sleep as possible. My sleep was pretty spotty until I heard my roommate come in. I told him about the phone and expressed my aggravation that it had happened again. He apologized and assured me he now completely turned off the phone and that it would NOT happen again. With that I rolled over and tried to at least get a couple hours of sleep before waking up at 10ish to go to work.

Work started out as typical day. I was tired from two days of spotty sleep so I loaded up on caffeine and a 5 hour energy drink. I love those 5 hour energy drinks; they are like a stamina potion from a game. Good stuff. When Jamie, now the Tech Lead, got in he alerted me that we may have some issues later on. It turns out he was correct and we had to deal with an emergency issue that had to get done today. It was now about 9pm. I got to work on what needed to be done, even though the caffeine was now starting to wear off. It was hard but we got everything done and deployed, and it worked. I was dead tired at this point but happy that we solved it. I solve problems; it’s what I do. I felt good and satisfied.

It was now after 3am and I headed back to my room. I quickly change and climb up into my bed. By this point I am at my limit. I lay down and close my eyes. I feel my mind wandering, quickly slipping into a subconscious abyss.

Darkness…

Peacefulness…

Sleep…

…

…

RING!!!

I open my eyes not wanting to believe what I just heard. I lie there for a moment trying to convince myself that I was imagining things. The sound was unmistakable though. It was the same sound I had heard countless times the previous two nights. It was the alarm on my roommate’s cell phone. I continued to lay there as it turns off for a while. My mind starts filling with possibilities of what to do. Some naive part of me hopes… PRAYS that somehow, some way it won’t go off again. It of course does, right on schedule. I sit up and start to figure out what must be done. It would seem my problem solving is not done for the night.

I examine the locked cabinet and determine what must be done. I march all the way back to the office to get some tools. I look in the outside cabinets but I can’t find a Philips screw driver. Luckily when I asked my 2 coworkers still in the office (our office is staffed 24 hours a day) for one, they handed one to me. They were kinda surprised and confused why I was still up. “You’re not doing to stab someone in the neck with that are you?” Jamie asked. I assured him that would only be my last resort.

Back in the room I got to work on the cabinet. It was a standard cabinet that had a latch screwed on the door. On the latch was a Master Lock. Although the latch had four screw-holes, only two were used. Lucky for me it was the outer two. I was able to pry and bend the latch enough to gain access to those screws. With a bit of difficulty, and much care not to strip them, I slowly unscrewed the two screws. The latch finally gave way and the cabinet opened. Now all that was left was to wait for the phone alarm to go off. It did, and I found it. I ripped out the battery and placed both right in front of the cabinet along with the two screws. Silence. Problem Solved! I got back up in bed and fell asleep. I woke up when I heard my roommate come in. I rolled over and told him that his cell phone had gone off yet again. He apologized but I told him not to worry; I needed sleep so I solved the problem. He wasn’t quite sure what I meant until he went over to his cabinet and noticed the Master Lock still locked around a now dislodged latch. He expressed dismay on how I had destroyed the cabinet. I reiterated that I needed sleep so I solved the problem. I rolled back over and went back to sleep.


~David

Day 35 (146 days to go…)

Hey, what’s up? I have some good news! I just passed the 20% mark. 1/5th of the way done!

After dinner when we were coming back from the DFAC, we noticed the kittens were out playing. Dani decided to go up and watch/play with them. They were very jumpy and playful. Below are some pictures.

Unfortunately I was taking still pictures; I wish I was shooting a video. You can see that she is using her badge holder as a string to play with the kittens. She got the idea from a guy that walked out and did it. Well RIGHT after the last picture was taken, the kitten in it grabs hold of the badge string and takes off running through the hole in the building. LUCKALLY the badge got snagged on the side of the building and the kitten left it there. She was able to retrieve it. She almost lost her badge, her passport, her CAC card, and everything else she keeps in there. That would NOT have been a good ‘lost report’ to file… We were all so thankful that it got snagged. Otherwise she and I would probably be trying everything we could to dig under the building and reach for it. We got a good laugh at it and found out how NOT to play with the kittens…


~David

Day 33 (148 days to go…)

Today when I came into work, there was no one at the office. The office is staffed 24/7 so it was a very weird site. The reason was because the whole building was without power. They were doing electrical work on it. We, being a technology company, couldn’t really do our work with no power. It’s kinda important lol. It did give me some rare time off to mosey about though. The power finally came on about an hour or two later.

Later in the day our company had a cookout of our own in celebration of the 4th of July. We had reserved space and a grill in the gardens to cook at. It was really fun. Even though the meat was technically the same stuff served at the mediocre DFAC, when we grilled and spiced it, it tasted really good. We all had a fun time. Today was a good break from everything.

 

~David

Day 31 (150 days to go…)

Happy 4th of July everyone! Hope everyone has a good time. It was pretty cool here. Some coworkers and I went to a celebration in the gardens area. It was all decorated and everything. The balloons didn’t like the sunlight though and many popped before stuff even began. Below are some pictures.

Apparently there was an earlier event where Senator John McCain spoke at. I missed that one; was way too early for me. At this event, one of the generals spoke and gave a good speech. It was about how other nations came and helped the US during out fight for freedom, and how in the same way we are now fighting together to give the Afghan’s their freedom. There was also a small band that played some songs. Afterwards there was cake and later on there will be steak. Below is a cool picture of Dani and me.

~David

Day 29 (152 days to go…)

Hey.  Here are some photos that I have taken in the last month.

These are various ones around the base.

One of the cats on base went ahead and had kittens, even though all the cats are supposed to be fixed. The moths was taken away so the kittens are having to fend for themselves.  They are really playful and live in that hole under the building.  Many of my female coworkers love them.

I have far to much of THIS crap.  Euro!  Since this is the ISAF NATO base, everythign is the European standards (like outlets and money).  Places accept both Dollars and Euro but Euro is the base for everything.  I hate coins and Euro is all about coins.  The lowest bill is 5 Euro, or about $7.  You say 'keep the change' with dollars and you loose around 50 cents on average.  With euro you would loose several dollars each time. >_<

As mentioned before, many people smoke here.  They can't drink so I guess it's the next best thing.  A lot of people smoke cigars. One reason is, since again this is not a US base, it means you can get Cubans.  Below is an expensive set of Cuban Cigars one guy bought for the office.

 

 

Here are just a couple pictures of the Green Zone between ISAF HQ (where I am)) and Camp Eggers (the US base).  As mentioned before, it is patrolled by Afghan security forces.  There are not many children in the photos, but I assure you they are around and will swarm you for money and food.

Here is my totally awesome setup.  It's pretty tight in here, not much room.  I have to pull my chair up every time someone wants to walk past. The monitor on the right is hooked up to my unclassified laptop.  The one on the left is for the other machines. There is a KVM switch under the monitor on the right that controls what is viewed on the left monitor.  Yes that is a Horo mousepad... :-P  I bought it off eBay and it just arrived here. (NOTE: I blacked out the screens on the right EVEN THOUGH they are displaying from unclass machines.  They are rated 'SECRET' though and I don't want to get in any kinda of trouble O_o.  I also blocked out the clock because you know... that's secret too lol.)

One of my coworkers, Dani while a group of us were eating at the lovely DFAC.

~David