Yeah, I know, another long absence. Steve the HVAC guy arrived here Saturday, and I’ve spent the time since then working with him to ensure the cooling plant for our Portable (only in the broadest sense of the word) Modular Data Center, or PMDC, is up to snuff. And we have a clean bill of health. There are a few things left to tidy up, but as it stands, we have way more cooling capacity than we can use right now. And for a data center parked in metal containers in the middle of Afghanistan, that’s a very good thing indeed. I hope to go live and bring the PMDC to what we call IOC, or Initial Operating Capability, by the end of June.
As I walked back to my can, I saw a beautiful full moon ... I've got a thing for full moons, they make me howl on occasion. I'd like to have been able to write about seeing a full moon above the mountains, but the dust storms kicked up by what seem to be perennial 30-plus-know winds, obscured any glimpse of the mountains that surround us here.
In other happenings, the MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation – I know, gotta stop talking in code) folks are scheduling a go-kart race for the Fourth of July. Not really a go-kart, more a push-cart. The parameters … no longer than 3.5 feet, wheels no bigger than 12-inch diameter, steering mechanism, one driver and one person to push. That’s all we get. A new member of our team here was a welder before he enlisted in the Navy as an IT geek, and we’ve been acquiring pieces to cobble together into the kart for the race. Should be very interesting as the Afghan Bobsled Team evolves.
A major milestone … I have less than 60 days left on station. I’m amazed at the mountains of paperwork required by DIA for me to take “leave-en-route” … that is, leave taken on my way home before going back to DC for post-deployment out-processing. They apparently don’t want us doing that, so they throw up as many institutional barriers as possible. Unfortunately for them, I made all my reservations before finding this out, so now I get to deluge the bureaucrats with paperwork. I keep saying this about people I have to interact with, but … “What a bunch of dicks!”
As my time here grows short, I find myself getting more and more short-fuzed. I have less and less tolerance for people in the rear (read “back in CONUS”) who do not support the war effort. I have little patience for the program management types who insist on following a rigid process and putting everything in an MS Project chart or a PowerPoint slide deck before any real progress can be made. If it doesn’t relate to giving the grunts out on patrol the best support possible, it has no raison d'être. I know this deployment will affect my outlook on things once I go back to work inside the Beltway.
And a final note … the al-Qaeda public affairs officer has announced that Ayman al-Zawahiri, UBL’s former sidekick and straight man (and likely Osama's bitch on Man-Love Thursdays), is assuming leadership of the band of terrorists. I wonder how long it will be until some SOF lads teach him the meaning of “double tap.”
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