R&R

I am currently on my way home for R&R. The past few days have been extremely long and tiring. But it was good to be able to spend some time with my buddy Filkins, while I was at Bagram. I miss hanging out with him. He needs someone to be there for him right now. He's going through some tough times. Thursday morning I left my FOB and started my way back to Bagram so I could go on leave. I got stuck at Jalalabad Thursday night because of a sand storm. But I made it back to Bagram on Friday morning. Spent two days there and flew out on Saturday night. No one thought we would get out so quick but we did. Now I am in Kuwait, stuck here for a little longer. I got here around 10 Sunday morning. I would have gotten to fly out last night had I not had any checked luggage but for some reason I brought way to much stuff with me and I wanted to bring some home. I'm ok with it though. I didn't want to be home before Tuesday anyway. This way I have a couple days after the cruise to get ready to go back. Kuwait isn't to bad of a place. It's really hot here, but they have Pizza Hut, McDonald's and KFC. I'm glad that we don't have anything like that at my FOB. I'd go broke and put on a lot more weight. I now am just waiting out the morning and will be put on lockdown this afternoon. If all goes well I will be home very very soon.

12 Oct 2010

Time seems to be moving a lot faster now. Since Ramadan ended we have begun training in both the mornings and afternoons of Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Sunday and Wednesday we train in the afternoon only, because the ANA have cultural and religious training in the mornings. Thursdays we observe the PMCS that the ANA does on their vehicles. PMCS is Preliminary Maintenance Checks and Services, basically checking over the vehicle and looking for damage or problems so they can fix it, so that it won't brake down while on a mission. They are still learning how to do that properly. Right now they just dust off the vehicles and clean the windows. That apparently is good enough for them. We try to get them to at least start the vehicles so that the batteries do not die, but that can be difficult at times. Thankfully we have not had any type of attack or attempt of attack on our FOB in over 2 months. I hope it stays this way. In September I had to fill in on tower guard a few times for people that were going on convoys, so I was not supposed to have any type of guard duty from the beginning of October until I get back from leave. Unfortunately things have changed and I have had guard duty Saturday, Sunday, today, and will have it possibly Thursday, and for four hours on friday. Luckily though I will be leaving soon enough and going on leave. I look forward to spending as much time with Cassie as I can.

I did not reach my weight loss goal that I had set. I think it's cause I keep getting such good treats sent to me, like this chocolate and marshmallow thing I'm eating now that my Grandma sent. But I have been very good about going to the gym every day, sometimes twice a day. I had a pt test last Friday, and had mainly been working on running because I thought thats what I would struggle on the most. About a week before the test I ran my 2-miles and timed myself at just over 19 minutes. For my age I have to run it in 17 minutes. I stopped working out about 5 days prior to the test to let my muscles recover and I ran the 2 miles in 16:58. Unfortunately I spent most of my time working on running and neglected to work on my sit-ups and push-ups. I did pass the push ups but not the sit ups. But I will be ready for the next one.

I am now on the downward side of 6 months, hopefully these next few weeks will go slow while I am on leave and then the months fly by when come back here.