Another Day in Paradise

At the time of writing, I am sitting at my borrowed desk in the U.S. Embassy fulfilling my official duty as “the guy that does stuff.” Technically I am doing stuff. Although this is an odd deployment, I am in Islamabad, Pakistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom it is a satisfying feeling to serve a cause greater then oneself. Of course this comes with great personal sacrifice.

But there are few things more rewarding than knowing that not only are you needed, but that you are wanted and appreciated. Take today for instance, we have one scheduled meeting per week, it is on Saturday. Which rocks. Since I am “the guy that does stuff” I have been attending the meeting for the guys that I do stuff for while they are away.

After the boss got done putting out the information that was important to all of us, it was each of the sections turn to brief issues and projects. So there I sat taking notes when my actual supervisor got his turn and stated the following “I will be leaving tomorrow to go the Nellis, AFB and I have briefed Captain Irish on projects. Don’t expect him to be very proactive though.”

I don’t think that he realized that I was sitting right behind him because normally I wouldn't be, however, since I am doing another person's job that would attend, I was there. It was at that point that someone said “You know he is sitting right behind you.” Which everyone in the room seemed to know except him. He then said “What I mean is that he doesn’t know what he is doing…I mean he is …….” At that point it didn’t matter what he said and everyone was laughing.

Keep in mind, I have been here for one month (of which he was gone for two weeks) and I am doing two other peoples jobs, which take priority over whatever tasks he gives me. The look on my face must have been priceless.

Once again, there is nothing as satisfying as knowing that not only am I making a difference in this world, but that I am needed (which is established by the fact that I don’t have a permanent computer or desk) and that I am appreciated (based on today’s experience and yesterdays crappy Girl Scout Cookies).

Signed by,

“the guy that sits at many desks and does stuff”

Another Battle in Life

I have been in Islamabad for one month now and every day I am reminded of how great we have it in the U.S.A. The work is challenging, long, and mostly boring. There are more people then desks and we have to "hot desk" which means that if you leave for five minutes, you had better save what ever you were doing because someone will restart the computer and go to work. One day I sat at three different desks.

In case you are wondering what my official title is, I am "the guy that sits at many desks and does stuff." It is both an honor and privilege to have that duty title. Nothing makes a person more proud to serve in Operation Enduring Freedom than hearing, "Hey Brent, I am tired of standing here and I need you to fax this to Pakistan Air Force Headquarters," and "I know that you just spend 3 hours working on that project and even though you burnt five bridges to get it done, we are going to scrap it." What can I say, "I am proud to serve."

But rather then bore you with "war stories" I would like to address a much more serious topic. Something that I believe affects hundreds of people, maybe even thousands of people. While this may seem somewhat petty to some please, don't judge unless you have worn the shoes. Today, someone received a package of girl scout cookies that were intended to boost moral. Instead it started a long and controversial debate, no doubt started by me. As many of you know, I live my life according to a number of steadfast rules and what happened today clearly violated one of them.

Today confirmed something that I have always believed to be true. In fact I believe that it is no longer a hypothesis, but rather it is a cold and hard fact; people care, however, most do not care enough to send the very best. "But they sent Girl Scout Cookies" that is so sweet. The issue was not that we were sent Girl Scout Cookies, but that we were sent the crappy varieties. In case you are wondering what the crappy varieties are, I will clarify that anything other then "Samoas, Thin Mints, or the chocolate covered peanut butter ones" are crap.

This was the basis of my argument: I am never given Samoas as a gift. Think about it, when was the last time that someone brought Thin Mints to the office? What about Samoas to a social gathering? Exactly, it is always those Lemon sandwich ones (which by the way had a recall this year, yet the ended up in Islamabad Pakistan today). Is it possible to make a terrible tasting shortbread cookie? Why yes it is, I ate some today and actually thought, "man, I didn't think anything could make Pakistan more miserable until now." Admittedly, I am a short bread snob and only Walker's Shortbread from Scotland will do, but come on man.

Once again no judgement until you have put on my custom made Pakistani Cobra cowboy boots.

While many thought it was a nice gesture, I stated "If they don't want this crap, why would I?" A perfectly good question. It was there that the debate began. At one point someone said "If they are so bad why are you eating them?" By the way, that had nothing to do with the argument. At one point somebody actually produced a box of Samoas and said "Look, I got Samoas." I said "Well every now and then someone wins the powerball and walks away with hundreds of millions, but most people lose." So the debate went on. Later that day while fulfilling my official title of the "guy that does stuff" I found the following information. A website that promotes the sales of the cookies in California, here is a snip from the bottom of the page:

Gift of Caring

Girl Scout cookies not only taste good -- they do good, too, thanks to our Gift of Caring community service project. In addition to buying cookies for yourself, you can purchase boxes and have them donated to the military to bring a taste of home to troops overseas, or to local food banks or the American Red Cross to bring cheer to victims of disaster or families in need.

Gift of Caring is simple: you purchase the gift receipt, and Girl Scouts will make sure your gift puts a smile on someone's face, whether they're far from home in Iraq or just around the corner.

This is purly Girl Scout propaganda designed to get rid of their crappy cookies. I am here to tell you, if you care and I mean really care, I want Samoas!!!!!

Aim High

I have been extremely busy lately, in fact, I am so busy that it barely felt like a 12.5 hour workday. We have been working hard trying to get the Pakistan Airforce to the United States for a large training exercise. My contribution is trying to save the tax payers tens of thousands of dollars, and if I fail at that then my job is to spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars. It is funny to work in an environment where you round off to the nearest million or hundred thousand dollars. Anyway, my latest trip took me on a Chinese made Y 12 air craft. The picture below is what you do when the air goes out on a plane. Instead of the little round air vents, some thrifty maintenance person put these fans in and then wired them to the no smoking/fasten seatbelt signs. Don't worry, my seat belt was fastened.

Also notice that the fan is not pointed at anyone. Oh and if you are not in the first row......sorry.

The Tsunami in Action

Since I am still trying to get my act together I thought I would post a quick video of the Tsunami.

Wait until they are teenagers and the three of them are going at it. Maybe I will be deployed to another exotic location.

a very short post

This is a very short post. There will be more soon, but for the last week I have been fighting an internal battle of epic proportions. A David and Goliath story of sorts, where a small intestine is fighting a much larger opponent, the large intestine. Unfortunately, the only winners of this battle so far are the people from Charmin Ultra, Wet Ones w/aloe, and various pharmaceutical companies. If you were wise, buy stock in these companies I still have eleven months to eat off of the economy. I am no longer running an uber-temperature and can actually sit upright for more then 10 minutes. I will write more later. Thank you for your patience.

The First Week, or was it one long day?

I have been in Pakistan for a little over a week, it feels like several months. Islamabad is an interesting city. I don’t know what I expected, but it has certainly exceeded all expectations that I had. My office is like a beehive, a classified, chaotic, crazy beehive. Only instead of producing honey we produce……not honey. I have adjusted well, while many of the people that arrived around the same time as I, have gotten the Pakistan poops. I continue to order out regularly and try new things and have had no issues. Additionally, I got the two hour crash course of driving on the right side car on the left side of the road in a city where traffic laws are more of a suggestion then a rule.

Take the traffic circle for example. You go around in a clockwise fashion and you turn when you get to your street. Take a traffic circle with three lanes; you would think that it would be intuitive to use the outside lane to turn out of, not in Pakistan. Below is an illustration. I am the red line, trying to stay in my lane. The black lines are everyone else. Remember, we are going in a clockwise motion to get to our turns. Notice how the arrows go in every direction at once and nobody is driving in the 12-3 o'clock area. They take the most direct route which includes the inside lane directly out.

This particular traffic circle requires a special driving style. Close your eyes and punch the gas, hoping that you don’t get t-boned. Seriously, I left my eyes opened and I screamed. I had to recreate the "down with USA" Jersey Barrier because it is hard to drive and take pictures with my eyes closed. Of course the Simon-David is not the center of the circle, but I think it should be.

In addition crazy circles, there a ton of check points in the city which cause major jams, nothing like 5 lanes turning into one. Once again, common courtesy and traffic laws are optional at this point. Additionally, I find if particularly fun to have machine guns pointed at me while they search my trunk. Once the trunk is close it is time to go, but wait, you must look to the left and right because the motorcycles whip around. Take the following picture, when I scanned it and sent it to e-mail it sent black and white, but I think you get the point.

Nothing Like a family outing to the Dairy Queen.

They tell us to take a different route to and from work each day, varrying the times of arrival. This helps prevent setting patterns which make us easy to kill. While I think it is a great theory, I don't think it goes beyond that. Unfortunately I do not have my ODHSGPS because it is only compatible with left hand drive. Besides, I get lost so much no one could ever establish a pattern.

The nice thing about my job and the city is that you must keep moving, much like the lizard that lives inside my house. We made eye contact and then he ran up the wall and behind the curtain. I hope he eats some of the bugs that will potentially give me malaria. Not that I am concerned about malaria. No I am concerned about skin cancer since the medication I am to prevent malaria causes easy burning.

My next post will focus on my house and living conditions. Stay tuned.

Tough and Unforgiving

My wife is a wonderful woman. She has been referred to as tough and unforgiving (you probably thought I was talking about Islamabad). She actually liked that designation. Within 24 hours of giving birth to a 9lb 8oz baby she drove herself home from the hospital. Someone from church actually said that if we ever had to cross the plains with handcarts he would want her in his group.

I simply describe her as stubborn. It is possible that she is the most stubborn person in the world. I run a close second, only because I ultimately succumb to her stubbornness. My current dilemma is that I am a long ways away and I noticed that I have very few pictures of her. I have thousands of the kids and dog. The source of the problem is that she never stops moving. Seriously, perpetual motion, if I could find a way to tap that energy I could solve the world’s energy crisis and be a millionaire.

That would be cool. But it still does not solve my picture problems. Since I can’t afford those high speed cameras that allow people to photograph a frogs tongue grabbing an insect or a bullet flying through the air I will continue to be picture deficient. Vance loves to take pictures so I told Emily that she could occupy him with picture duty and she could sit still while he snapped photos. I thought it sounded great, but she is stubborn, so all I get are the memories in my mind. These are fading fast due to my current work environment.

I love you Emily and I miss you dearly. Unlike many men, I actually enjoy monogamy and family life. So this song is dedicated to you. Maybe it will inspire you to introduce beauty into my not so beautiful existence here in Islamabad.