Time is starting to move.

Finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are now under 80 days remaining before we head back home. The morale in the office seems to fluctuate with each day; some good, some bad. One thing we have started is a "Things overheard today" board. We have placed a dry-erase board in the foyer and it has markers attached, so if you heard something funny today, you can write it on the board. So far, we have had several interesting phrases posted. My favorite today is, "I can't eat enough candy today to make me happy". How about that one?

In other areas, we have had some people from the separate brigades depart the area. One person I will miss is my photo buddy, Cynthia Roelle. We went out most weekends exploring bombed out buildings and palaces looking for the right picture to capture. Prior to her departure, we took some time to gather the best of our photographs and prepared them for a portfolio competition in B&W Magazine. Results will not be released until December.

Training, training, training. I have been increasing my running miles in an attempt to participate in a marathon in Baghdad. Now, if you are deciding to run your first marathon, why not make it a memorable place like Baghdad? We will see how it goes. The person I need to thank for that is Andie Goode, she also departed the area on Sunday. She kept prodding me to get out and run and it worked, we ran three different 10Ks and she helped me begin training for the marathon - thanks!

Below are some random pictures of cool people in our office.


Steve Hernandez - Always shares a smile.
(Another picture of Steve posted as a result of pressure applied by Belinda)


Rick McGuire and Chris Fredrikson - Ham it up for the camera.


Rina Shah - Very thankful for her new partition wall.


Sean Wilson - Wondering who took his workout supplements.


Brian Adams - Go Dawgs. A true Georgia football fan, rarely will he be seen without the football in his hands.

Bozeman Classic 10K Run

Today was another 10K run, but it was much different in that the temperature in the mornings have significantly dropped. This morning, we started at 0600 and the temp was about 75-80 degrees. This appears to be optimal running weather for us here as the majority of people who ran today were faster than their previous attempts. Andie Goode and I have ran the last two races together and today we finished at 54 minutes compared to the one hour in the previous run. We had a great time.

Time Moves On

It may seem that more of the recent posts are not as positive as they have been in the past. It might be that after 8 months of groundhog days, it has begun to wear on me. I am trying to keep outside interests such as my photography while here. I think this helps out a considerable amount. I have been fortunate to have a good friend, Cynthia Roelle who shares an interest in photography. We have been able to head out about once a week to travel around Camp Victory and take photos of just about everything interesting here. We are very limited on what we can photograph, so that adds an additional challenge. This past week, Ben Grimes joined us and will probably be joining us on all of our future photo outings until his departure. We went to the Victory Over America Palace to photograph some of the destruction that occurred a few years ago. We went there in the middle of the afternoon and the temperatures were around 115 degrees with no breeze at all. We stayed for about an hour and a half to captured what we could, but since I forgot to bring my tripod and the lighting was so bad, I have planned on going back a few more times before we leave for good. I have attached a few pictures from our recent trips there.



Victory Over America Palace


Victory Over America Palace


Baath Party Headquarters

Comedy, Traffic, and Heat

Comedy
I have been borrowing the DVD set "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and I am really enjoying it. But what I have been noticing, the people here could have been on a show just like that. We have so many characters and quirky individuals, I just know there is a story here. I know, most would say, what makes your group any different from the others? Well, I am here to tell you they you have never seen a group like this. There are about 8-10 that could clearly be considered a "character" with their normal behavior. It is just amusing to see how it all works. I guess I am very lucky to have such a great group.

Traffic Cop?
We will start off most mornings at breakfast discussing the previous day and what we are not looking forward to for the remainder of that particular day. Throughout the day, we have people coming in and out of our office with questions and packets that need to be reviewed and forwarded up the chain to our higher headquarters. We spend most of our day directing traffic.

Could someone turn on the air?
The days are getting longer and hotter. As we walk outside, we try to describe the feeling of the intense heat. The best description we can come up with is standing one step too close to that bon fire, except here, you can't back up-it is all around you. Below is a sample from today, also take a look at the 5-day forecast. Yippee - not.

Rest and Recuperation

I have been pretty busy since my last blog entry. I departed to R&R (Rest and Recuperation) in Heidelberg Germany. While there, Margi and I traveled to Strasbourg, France where we visited the historic old town where the Cathedral is located. We stayed there for two days.


Strasbourg, France


Margi and me downtown Strasbourg, France.



Cathedral in Strasbourg, France.

Upon our return, we gathered the kids and took them to a surprise destination. They did not know where we were going until we arrived in the Netherlands. We stayed on a small private island called Den Kaag. It was pretty amazing, we had to ride a ferry to the island and everything was very nice and quaint. While there we drove up to Amsterdam and spent the day walking around and sight seeing. We went to visit the Anne Frank House while there and learned a lot about what her and her family went through. After that, we walked down the main street of town and it was crazy. People everywhere and lots of those “special” coffee houses people talk about. On our way back from Amsterdam, we drove over to a little beach town called Nordwijk. We spent some time walking around the beach and put our feet in the cold North Sea. After the beach, we stopped to eat at one of the local restaurants and had some local cuisine. What we did not plan on was the drop in temperature by the beach; it became quite chilly.



On the island of Den Kaag.



Downtown Amsterdam


Downtown Amsterdam


Brittany and CJ walking on the beach of Nordwijk.

We departed there and went back to the island. The next morning, we rented bicycles and rode all around the island. I think this was the part we enjoyed the most and we even raced to the finish.

We all paused on the bike ride for pictures.

The next day was also the day I had to catch a flight back to Kuwait. We drove the 5 hours back to the house and prepared for me to leave again for 5 more months. Not something any of us were looking forward to.

Since I have been back, I have been trying to get back into the “groove”, but it is pretty difficult. I hope that the next few months go a little quicker.

The Running Club and R&R

The Running Club and R&R

You may wonder why we would start something like this, well; it was Kari Malgeri who has inspired us to get up early enough to run at 0600. As the president of our “club” she stated that the club is about showing up and running as fast or slow as you want and the distance is up to you. The good thing is that it has motivated several from our office and from other offices to get out and run. We are getting in shape and chatting it up while we run. It is also preparing us for the next event run, which we think will happen in August.

Just an update on my status. I have competed over half of my tour here and today is my last day of work before I go on Rest and Relaxation (R&R). I will be heading back to Germany for a while and do not think I will be updating the blog until I return.

Let’s Run – Again! Peachtree Road Race 10k

Today started very early for us. Me and several friends signed up for the Peachtree Road Race in association with the Atlanta Track Club. This event had over 800 runners and is the largest running event to date for Camp Victory.

We had to be at the starting area from 0430-0500 to sign up and then the race began at 0530. The event managers had the person who starts the race in Atlanta start our race via cell phone and a loud speaker. At the start of the race on the first stretch of road, there was an incredibly cool breeze and we could not explain it. The temperatures are around 85-90 in the mornings and this felt like a nice spring breeze; it was a very nice way to start. The water points on the run were manned with numerous volunteers who were working hard to make sure everybody had cups of water for all the runners as they passed. As we were running, it was funny to see very large military vehicles driving by while running a road race. We maintained a good pace until the last mile where most people picked up their pace and tried to finish strong. Upon crossing the finish line, we were given a t-shirt and refreshments. We had a great turnout from our office and we really enjoyed the run.


The Crew