Day 117 (64 days to go…)

Well it’s another Friday today. Unfortunately because of everything going on it seems I won’t be able to go to Eggers for the foreseeable future. At least the DFAQ here has been getting a bit better. They have steak-night on Fridays too now. Not nearly as good as getting the steak right of the grill like at Eggers, but it’s not bad. Still Fridays mean another week is just about over, and that is something to be excited about. Nine weeks from now and I will be getting ready for my trip back home the next morn. ;-)



~David

Day 115 (66 days to go…)

Today was rainy… very rainy. It has rained before, but usually just drizzling for a bit. Today was several hours of pretty hard rain. I took a few pictures to prove it below. Apparently this time of year is always rainy.

Mike, the fellow coworker from Hampton like me, left to go to Bagram today. He is taking over a Site Lead up there. It will be weird not having him around here. For a while it was me, him, and Dani that would always go to meals together. It seems like I have seen so many people come and go.

It was good to have someone out here that at least knows what in the world I was talking about when I said ‘the HRBT is a nightmare’ or ‘I usually see the fireworks at Mount Trashmore on July 4th.’ Ah well… That is one of the things you have to get used to out here, people are from all over not just the US, but around the world. Referring to ‘common sense’ landmarks or phrases doesn’t always work. It is interesting though because you get to hear stories about places all over. It really gives you a different perspective on things.



~David

Day 112 (69 days to go…)

Thought I would post some various random pictures today.

They just finished fixing up the US NSE.  It looks pretty nice now.

These lights in front of the main building they just can't seem to get right.  Apparently they put them in right before I got here, but then they stopped working by the time I got here.  They dug them up and fixed them.  Then they dug them up again to put in better piping for the wires.  Then they dug them up again to put rocks down.  Then they dug up the rocks to put little brick edging around. (Which you can see in process below.)  Every month they are digging them back up and killing all the grass which they go to great lengths to keep green.  It's just funny as it seems like every time I turn around, they are digging them back up.

 

And hey, everything is back in place again... for now...

 

Here is some more pictures around the area.  Again it is a pretty small base; not too much to it.

The volleyball court

The all important laundry services

And a couple more shots

~David

Day 109 (72 days to go…)

Well some good news, the laundry services are back operational. That is a huge sigh of relief. I was beginning to get a bit worried. I have enough to worry about here; I don’t need to be worrying about laundry lol.



~David

Day 108 (73 days to go…)

Today a memorial service was held on base for the Afghans that died in the attack a week and a half ago. It was a very touching service with many people showing up. Some of the friends and family of those who died were there as well. The kids had touched the lives of many people on base. If you ever walked between ISAF HQ and Eggers, you knew those kids. I knew at least 2 personally and probably had seen them all in passing. They will be missed.

Below are some photos.

~David

Day 106 (75 days to go…)

Today there was some troublesome news. Due to all the incidents happening with the attack and then that video on YouTube that disgraces Muslims and the resulting protests, the base laundry services were closed indefinitely. Depending on how long this lasts, things could get a bit interesting around here. The base has a couple washers and dryers, but certainly not nearly enough for the thousands of people living here on base. I went to my room to count how long I could ration my clean clothes. This could really become quite… troublesome…



~David

Day 102 (79 days to go…)

Well today was a meh day. I was up late last night, about 3am, dealing with an issue in the codebase. My colleague Stephen had found it, and we were going through what caused it. The thing was that this issue was already noticed before by Dani, our tester out here, but I had wrongly diagnosed it and thought everything was fine. Now that we are past final code cutoff, and things are proceeding through the channels to get the release certified, it turns out things are not so fine. It is not a super critical bug, but it is definitely a display issue that will impact customers. It really needs to be fixed. A couple days ago that would have been easy. Now we might have to jump through hoops politically. I made a mistake, and I VERY much HATE making mistakes.

I got up bright and early at like 6am to tell Hal, the theater lead, the news. Sometimes you’re the hero; sometimes you’re the villain. Today I’m the villain. I was dreading it all night thinking of all the worse scenarios. I explained the situation to him, and he was very understanding. He said it was code and things happen. He said we would deal with it, and we did. We got the ball rolling almost immediately to go through the channels to get the fix in. Oi took me out to breakfast as she says I was looking very gloomy. I thank her very much for that. After I came back Hal did have one demand. He ordered me to bed saying I needed sleep. He said the bug would be here when I got back, and I should be well rested so I could fix it.

At the end of the day it seems we will be able to get it in fine. We caught it early enough so there were no complications. Still this showed me that I must be ever vigilant to not become complacent and get sloppy.



~David

Day 100 (81 days to go…)

I got a package from my friend Andrew today. It contained some much needed sleeping pills. I had just run out. It also contained a pillow (so I have 3 now), some spare sheets, and some honey buns… a LOT of honey buns lol. Thank you so much!

Today marks my 100th day out here. It has kind of seemed like forever. The days to go are slowly counting down though.

 I would also like to take this post to remember the victims 9/11. It is the 11th anniversary of that sad day. It is hard to imagine that it happened that long ago. I still remember the exact place I was when I got a call from my dad that we ‘were under attack.’ Now here I am in Afghanistan all these years later as part of the effort launched in retaliation for that attack. Back then I didn’t have the slightest idea that I would actually be over here all these years later.



~David

Day 98 (83 days to go…)

Well I managed to get myself involved in another fantasy football league. This time between a bunch of us out here, called the Afghan Freedom League. I am not that big into football but I did alright last year with my coworkers in Virginia. In fact I ended up winning the whole league after recovering from second to last place. I give credit to the fact that I don’t have much bias towards certain players. I just go off stats. Well we will see what happens this time around. Tonight is the draft that starts it all.



~David

Day 97 (84 days to go…) - A sad day

Alright… disclaimer: I am completely alright.

Today began as I was in bed, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep. I knew I should get up soon, but I was still tired. I heard my roommate get up, put some shoes on, and leave to go to the restroom. A couple seconds later I heard the blast door to the building bang shut. Later my roommate said how he had shut it after he found it wide open. Those doors should always be shut, but people always leave them open. A couple seconds after hearing the door I heard something else… another bang though this time much much louder. Additionally the entire room shook violently. It didn’t help I was on top of the bunk bed. Startled and now wide awake, I tried to comprehend exactly what was going on. I crawled down and put on my shoes as my roommate came. It was also around this time that alarms began to sound.

Explosion

My roommate had been across the hall in the restroom at the time. He said there was an explosion outside. My phone rang; it was Hal. He was doing a personal check. He told me to stay put, but also said he couldn’t get a hold of Jamie, and asked if I could see if I could find him. (His room is just a couple rooms down from mine. My roommate and I went out into the hall to find a bunch of other people gathering, wondering what was going on. I found Jamie, and let Hal know the two of us were safe.

Everyone was searching on their cell phones and tablets online to try and see what had happened. It didn’t take long for news sites to start rolling out news, though many of the early reports were all conflicting and eventually turned out to be wrong.

Eventually I got into the office and was able to get some better information.

CNN recounts what had happened:

 A suicide bomber killed six people and wounded four others near the headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said.

The six killed were civilians, said Interior Ministry spokesman Siddiq Siddiqi.

The explosion took place in Kabul's diplomatic quarters, home to a number of foreign embassies.

Among those killed in the explosion were children, Police Chief Ayoub Salangi said.

There were no NATO casualties in the explosion near Camp Eggers, said Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the international forces. He said the base is secure.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.

…

Police believe the assailant was between ages 13 and 20. 

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-violence/index.html)

So again I am completely alright. Today is still a very sad day. All this attack managed to do was to kill some civilians, most of them children. The attacker himself was only a child, no doubt having grown up around and brainwashed by the Taliban. The Taliban claim they are resistance fighters, but all I see in attacks like this is a bunch of child murderers. It truly is sad.



~David

Day 96 (85 days to go…)

I got another package from Grandma and Grandpa today. It was filled with cinnamon rolls and honey buns. Yum. She sent it with Priority Mail to see if it would get here faster. Thank you so much! Another thing that happened today is it rained. It has sprinkled before but today was pretty heavy rail, albeit only for about an hour. I took some pictures to prove it! Lol.

~David

Day 92 (89 days to go…)

Ah… today is a holiday, which means some nice time off… to relax… PSYCH! There is no ‘time off’ here! Holidays are still cool though as that means 8 extra hours on my paycheck ^_^.

I got a letter from Mrs. McNeeley today. That was a nice surprise. Thank you very much for your kind thoughts. I like your two scenarios. Can’t wait to see you when I get back. BTW you still need to get back on Skype!



~David

Day 90 (91 days to go…) - A Month In Review

Well it is that time yet again, a month in review. This basically marks my half way point. ^_^

Well first things first, it doesn’t look like I will be extending. Now some of you are like ‘wait, what is this extending business?’ Well I haven’t mentioned it on here, but there was a good chance that I would have been asked (and probably accepted) to extend. The reason I haven’t mentioned it is the possibility has gone back and forth from before I ever left to come here. I felt pretty 50-50 on the idea of extending. On the one hand it would mean more money (and a nice 95,000 deduction off my taxes for staying 330/365 days out of country). On the other, after coming home for Christmas (which I would be doing regardless) I am pretty sure I wouldn’t feel like going back. Plus I would be missing another 6 months of my life back home.

Being out here has never JUST been about the money. A lot of it has to do with finally actually getting to meet some of the customers and see how they use our product. It has been about being on the front line of our software and really understanding life out here. It has also been a personal adventure. One of my possible paths career-wise WAS to join the military. This is probably the closest I can get with my current career choice. I really see the sacrificed that these brave men and woman of the military make. Being out here also makes me very much appreciate everything I have at home… like say an actual STABLE INTERNET CONNECTION! (I say this as I glare at my pings to Google with only half going through, and with many of the other half in the 1000ms to 2000ms range… Oh hey look! A 3175ms ping! Internet has been absolutely horrible lately. It takes me sometimes hours to upload all those nice happy pictures you see on this blog. And for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about… a ping is a small packet of data sent to another location, in this case Google, timing how long it takes to get there and back. A 500ms ping, or half a second, is generally considered too long and bad. Over a second is insane. Anyways sorry off topic. /rant) I am very pleased at my decision to come out here. But I have done all that now and I fear another 6 months will burn me out.

Still if my company really wanted me out here I would probably stay. It was really a 50-50 decision. But finally now it was decided that 1) they want me back home on some really exciting cool new stuff and 2) that they want to get as many developers out here for the experience as possible before things really start winding down. I am cool with this and it means I will be back home in December for good as planned.

Well another piece of good news. One of the restaurants on base here, Tora Bora, is changing so that now you can use your meal card (the prepaid card I use to eat at the DFAC without personally paying) for meals. Now they changed their menu to downsize the portions, but still it offers a nice free (for me) alternative to the DFAC. Meals include subs, ham sandwiches, and even a little hamburger. I ate there today and it was pretty good. I foresee me eating here a lot in the next few months.

As for things going on here, there isn’t too much new. Sometimes it is actually a challenge to think of stuff to write about. Sure there is always new coding challenges that come up, but I doubt you all are too interested in that. Otherwise things are pretty routine. I get up, shower, and get changed. I head to work, dropping off laundry every other day. I get in around noon and work for 30 min to an hour before heading out to lunch, usually with a few coworkers. Meals last about 30 minutes. I get back and work till about 4pm or 5pm. It is at this time that my roommate who works nights has left our room, and I can go pick up clean laundry if I have to and go to my room. It is this one brief moment where I get a tad bit of privacy. Just standing there, alone, it’s quite a feeling. I have to hurry back to work though. Somewhere between 5pm and 6pm I head out to dinner with some coworkers. After I get back I work till about midnight or 12:30am (though many times I stay later). I head to my room and get changed to go to bed. I usually chill up in my bunk bed for an hour or two either watching shows (like Big Bang Theory) or watching anime (like Fate Stay Zero) or playing on my 3DS (Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time). I try to switch it up. Then I get some rest, usually woken up a few times by roommates coming or going throughout the night. It doesn’t help that the lock on our room is like a puzzle to open and is almost impossible to do quietly. After that it starts a new day, and I do it all over again lol.

So that’s about it for now. On a side note I know I have been VERY behind on this blog. I am trying to catch up… honest. On the other side, only one person, Dave McNeeley, has been reliably leaving me comments on these posts! I think Aimee left one. Did you all know you can leave comments? Well you can! And should! It’s easy, you just click the title of one of these posts which opens that post up. The comment section is on the bottom. You can post your own and read other people’s comments too! It’s Awesome! ;-)

Till next time,



~David