Birthday Cards from around the World!

I wanted to make a collage of these pictures and I finally did!  All 57 states and a couple of far off countries!

Birthday Cards

Boo to Navy Federal Credit Union

Navy Federal Credit Union has an ATM Machine on Camp Lemonier, Djibouti.   They have the ONLY ATM machine on camp.  As a honor of having the ONLY ATM machine on the camp, they charge all NON NFCU users a $3 dollar service fee to use their machine. 

So, NFCU get access to all the folks here on base, security, power, communications services and a Navy NEX employee services the machine. All NFCU has to do is work the magic crediting their accounts with your money and the $3 dollar service fee!  For some reason I do not see the any portion of the $3 dollar service fee coming back to DJ??

I think I am going to open up the first national bank of Nutz and only charge $1.50 and watch the profits roll in! 

Birthday Post Cards thru 8 July

Thanks again to all who have sent and have postcards in the mail!

Djibouti, Djibouit...

Not only is it Africa hot, it smells like your Djibouti!

Well it is 10:30PM and it is 89degrees outside a little cool, I might have to throw on the down comforter!  I finally moved out of the tent yesterday (10 June) and it was a joyous occasion.  Tent life although not too sucky, is sucky.  It was not a quite place.  I would much rather sleep in my comfy bed on Ocean View and hear the occasional gunshots and fire trucks as opposed to the footstep of passersby at all hours.  The roar of landing and departing aircraft, (we were only about 100 meters from the ramp) the constant drone of the “CRACKEN” snoring long into the night and the pitter patter of Mr. Jingles, the tent mouse who kept us company in the evenings.  Aside from being warm in the middle of the day and chilly in the evening, the tent was not too bad.  I guess it is all in your outlook on things and the company that you keep!  At least we are not being mortared.

Heat: I have been here now three weeks and it is only getting warmer.  The other location was warm and humid, this is just plain old Africa Hot and humid!  To add to the enjoyment of Djibouti, the base we are on is located only about two miles from the “garbage dump”.  I use that term loosely as how the whole country is a garbage dump.  Want to make an impact on the planet Green Peace, come here and clean up the joint!  Oh that is right, the US Navy was going to “Volun-told” its sailors as part of a humanitarian outreach program to go clean up the roadway outside the wire in front of the base; this place in question is where plastic bags come to die.  Anyhow, the Navy went to work to nice-up the roadway and the local government told them, the sailors to stop.  The Djiboutian populace needed a place to “acquire” building materials. 

Hence, I have digressed, the dump two miles away burns in the evenings and the smoke it produces usually wafts thought the base around 8pm.  Sometimes it really smells like a camel’s rectum, which could be because they burn camels at this dump, or so the story goes.  If it cools in the evenings to the upper 80’s life is good.  This happens from time to time around 4am!  However, as soon as the sun eclipses the horizon, it is Africa Hot, 106 degrees plus and getting warmer.  Come on August!

Food: The food on base is decent.  I would not call it “mommas” cooking by any stretch, however for institutional cooking, it is good.  We can eat all we want, drink all the sodas, milk, Gatorade, juice we can fit in our guts.  There is even an ice-cream bar with hard packed ice-cream.  I have become a fan of coffee ice-cream with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and some cherries!  There are even some fresh cherries from time to time either from Travers City or the Frankfurt area of Germany?! 

Meal times for the main dining room are generous.  However if you can’t make it there on time, there is the sandwich shop which is open 22hours every day.  From 2-4am it is closed.  I have been disappointed a couple of times.  You can make all the hoagies, hotdogs, soups and cereals you want.  There is even an island that has chips, crackers, energy bars, Pringles, Oreo’s and the like.  Least I forget, ice-cream sandwiches, and assorted frozen treats.  They also serve lots of M&Ms and candy bars.  So it is important to stay fit and watch what you eat!  To wash down a tastey dinner of surf and turf, you can wonder down to 11 Degrees, the all hands club and drink your ration of beer for the day at $3.5 a can!

Recreation: So you are down at “11 Degrees” throwing down a cold barley pop. You can watch some sports center, play foosball, table shuffle board or just surf on the wireless network.  There is also gym on base where you can pump off the calories from the double scoop of coffee ice-cream with caramel and chocolate sauce.  You can do a lap (5miles) around the perimeter and sweat off the beer.  There are big coolers placed all over the base that contain bottled water so you will not keel over and die on the run like I felt like doing one night.  Maybe it was too much inhalation of the burning camel ass smoke!  There is a pool, however, it is in a state of renovation.  Maybe it will be ready this fall. 

 

You can also leave base and get out and see things.  I have done this a couple of times so far and have been less and less impressed with this county.  We went snorkeling at a place we call “French Beach”.  Today we took a drive out to Arta and saw some Baboons.  The landscape here is difficult to explain, however imagine a gravel driveway that has a few weeds and all of it has been “once overed” with a flame thrower!  Serious, rocks everywhere and they are black!  You could not drive a jeep across the “desert” you would need a bulldozer.  There is some scrub but that looks as though it has not seen rain since 1926.  

Ooh look, the temperature on my thermometer has dropped to 110, must be in the shade now!  

Mail:  Mail is pretty quick from the states.  I think the big “What if” concerning delivery speed is when the mail gets to the stateside FPO.  Does it arrive right before the flight here or right after?  A week to 10-days is not unusual.  I got some brownies, thanks mom, the other day, 12 days from West Palm. They were still fresh and moist.  I told Crackerz that I would like for my birthday, a postcard from every state in the union.  So at a minimum, I would like to have 57 postcards hanging in my box by the end of July!

Job: My ground job keeps me busy and I have to pull myself away from it in the evenings. There is always something to be done!  As the assistant operations officer, I am always collecting data, building PowerPoint slides or playing with schedules.  As a self inflicted pain, I am using my SharePoint and MS skills to streamline the collection and distribution of data.  It drives me crazy when we enter in the same numbers on 6 different trackers and none of the products talk to each other! "Data Fusion Specialist"  That is what I am calling myself.   The nice thing is that my group is new and all the processes and procedures are “new” and we are looking at ways in which we can work smarter and not harder.  My biggest challenge is to sell the whole SharePoint aspect and try to migrate way from shared drives.  A big sell.  However, Office 2007 and SharePoint blend well together and there are some really neat features which helps sales aspect.  As for the primary reason I am here, well let’s just say that doing that job in particular keeps me busy as well. 

On the Road Again

Well I am off again to the Sand Box for a good amount of time (When this posts, I will be somewhere east of the GMT line cruising along at 35,000ft).

Aside from missing family, friends and every single holiday, birthday and celebration, time for which cannot be replaced. (Like good guidance in college, you can always retake a class, you cannot relive a great party!)   The crappy, fine print side of the contract for selflessly serving our great nation.

Looking back at past deployments I have a short list of things in no particular order that I will miss:
 

1. The Outback Special 12oz, loaded baked potato, Caesars Salad, Shrooms, bloomin onion and washing it all down with an oil can!

2. In-and-Out Burger #1 Animal Style, (Fill in 5 Guys, Wendy's, McD's Fries, basically a good old American fast food hamburger!)

2. Carpet!

3. A sofa!

4. Being able to carry a gun because I want to, not need to.

5. Cogans Pizza.

6. Walmart (Super Target) at 11pm to buy  ice cream and toilet paper (and people watch and carry a gun ORF is rough)

7. Chip Dip

8. Taco Night!

9. Ribs on the back porch.. Not beef ribs either, they are a little too smokey!

10.  The White Trash Party!

11. Dialing whoever whenever I want via cell phone.

12. Immediate access to the best medical care world wide!

13. Cigar Night

14. "Crazy crumbs who is on at 5pm?... CC: Glenn Beck!"

15. Driving!

16. High Speed internet

17. Cable TV  aaah the History, Discovery, Military Fox news channels!

While you stroke your check to Uncle Sam today, you can sleep a little easier knowing that a very tiny portion of your taxes is going to support me and my family... Thank you...

Be good America and I will see you all in 2011!

Days 9, 10, 11, 12

So I am a little behind on the updates so here goes:

Sunday Day 9 Off day yippee! We slept in late as to the "spring forward" Went to the Officers club for an awesome $13.95 sunday brunch. Farted around at the exchanges and had to come back for a 1600 briefing. Then it was back out to the Mall where we had 5 guys for dinner and a little time at books a million.

Monday Day 10 Medical Stand Down: So we slept in a little, had a medical briefing and those that needed it got poked and prodded by the medical Staff. Thankfully for me, I only had to do the brain trauma pre-examination. In short, a test that examines brain function prior to an injury. We had a couple of classes on first aide in the afternoon and were done early.

Tuesday Day 11. M16 Pre-qualification
Today was a 0445 wake up were we went to the rifle range to shoot the M16 more. Lots of ammunition is being expended to the get the sailors up to speed for shooting the weapon. We shot 160rnd apiece. Came back, cleaned out weapons and had a very aggressive SGT from Egypt give us a middle eastern culture brief. As a bonus the USO van came and handed out free pizza, wings and soda!

Wednesday, Day 12 M16 Qualification: Shot the M16 on the pop up range. I shot 35 out of 40. Not too shabby. We came home, cleaned our weapons, were issued our NBC (Nuke Bio Chemical) over garments, had a class on battle field stress and were out early.

Gear Issue

My first batch of "Gear" aka software that I will be getting!  Washed and ready to be packed up for the trip!

Hats, boots, trousers, shirts, socks, rain coat, rain pants, boonie hat, sweat pants, hoodie, fleece, flash gear, misc pt gear stuff!