Slow Day for Adventure

This is my second attempt at this posting. I got it all typed and then when I went to post it, I lost my internet connection. And of course it was not saved.

Not much happening today on the construction side of things. The concrete batch plant on base, run by an Afghan contractor, has not produced concrete since Saturday. The rumor from the other contractors on base is that he is not paying his bills. Funny how that works the same here as it does at home, if you don't pay your suppliers, they quit bringing the supplies. They have run out of gravel and sand at the plant. That is kind of ironic also because that is about all you see on the ground when you look around.

I spent most of the day in my office trying to figure out the other half (or better than half of my job). That is the tracking of all the projects, and requesting approvals and funding for all the future projects. Depending on the type of work or commodity needed, the cost of the work, and who is going to do the work, determines which boards have to review it and which forms have to be filled out. Of course, being in the military, every one of these boards and forms has an associated acronym. I have two pages of acronyms just so I can figure out the true meaning of the letters.

Being in the Air Force/Air National Guard for this long, I have become pretty good at making up meanings for the acronyms if I don't know them. Sometimes I'm close, but not usually right, however, mine are better. I think the Army has more than the AF does, so it has been a challenge figuring out all of the new ones.

I also forget that you don't always know the meaning of the ones I use out of habit. If you want any spelled out let me know. A couple my family has asked about so far are FOB and FET - Forward Operating Base and Facilities Engineering Team.

I know you prefer pictures over my stories, so I'll try to get some new ones in the next couple days. I missed a couple good ones yesterday on the asphalt project. The crew was sweeping the dirt off of the newly paved road with little hand brooms that look like they were made from palms. Also, the transportation of the employees is quite different, yesterday the crew was riding on top of the tank on the water truck. I'm sure there will be many more photo ops in the future.