Oh and this place can be a bit dangerous

Oh and this place can be a bit dangerous but no more then back home. That’s what they told me when I first got the job; sometimes it doesn’t give that impression. I don’t mean the stuff you expect like the air planes taking off and landing full of bombs or the leopard tanks that share the roads here or even the occasional rocket attack. I mean the avoidable stuff.

Went down to the British area for dinner and a parking area in the middle of the camp was roped off as if it was one of the land mines fields on the edge of the camp. Turns out that the parking area every one used and I have walked across a number of times had never been cleared. Someone digging thru the camps papers looking for more land for the US troops had noticed that as no building was built there or even planned for the area that no one had ordered it to be demined.

Another fun around here is the safety glasses for the open gators. We have been told that we are required by the military to have them. If we go and ask for some from the company we are told that those are for the troops and we can’t have any. Oh and if your require prescription eye ware like myself no chance as that would require a special pare made up in Dubai. When I did ask someone pulled out something from a shop class that goes over my glasses and half my head. It doesn’t matter now as the engine in our gator well died and is only coughing black smoke and I mean more than normal for a diesel.

It’s one thing about being a support civilian here is we have no rank and so for many of the military we don’t exist on till we are needed or get in the way. I have the feeling how servants in Victorian houses use to feel. This does have some advantages as we get to hear the talk about the goings on and as we chat among our selves we are often in the know more than the military around us on the day to day stuff around the camp. As this is a rumor mill much of the information is slanted or wrong but much of it has truth to it. The one being passed around today is that we have seen very little mail come in; rumor says there is around a dozen Hercules full of mail is waiting in Trenton to be sent. For those who not been around the military Hercules is the most common transport plane in NATO and there what can fit in it in one trip is an unofficial standard unit of measure for cargo.

I’m going to have to start writing down a list of things to ask Menken when I get back home. Most are about SCA history but one not. One here who’s a huge Canadian aviation buff had given me a copy of his air craft images and one of the CF-18 caught my eye. Now you need to understand that the air force every so often will pain a CF-18 in some theme pain job for a bit for one reason or another and he has a picture of one in chequey. Any way I posted a copy of the picture on the blog.

T - 31 Days

This week ran into some hiccups like how my glovers needles will no longer hold enough of an edge to do the decretive edge without making a mess of it so I will have to do the arm holes on the jerkin without the fancy edge. The jerkin will be done soon, the arm holes are half done with only the back skirt flaps and the button holes all need to be done after that …Ya
There have been other interesting things like one of the “Canadian houses” burn down yesterday. That sucks for me as it was the equivalent to me as a local corner store as you could get pop, chips and sign out movies there. I went over there today and they have all the remains dismantled and they are looking at rebuilding it.
For me now is counting down the days till I can go home. The worst part is I get to hear people talk online about the events I so wanted to go to. 31 days till I get on a plane home.
Called my mother tonight and dates are set. On July 8th my brother Brant will go into the hospital and start a radical level of kemo. My brother Don turned out to be a perfect match so they will start taking T cell from him on the 15th and will transplant them on the 17th. All I can do is cross my fingers.
No new pictures of interest. I have seen three good size dust devils/tornadoes go through camp but I never have my camera with me when this happens.
Well that’s my life in a nutshell.

A Bit behind

My apologies to all that read this as I have not posted in some two or more weeks, but I will like everyone to know I am still here. I have found myself with little spare time. My evenings have been taken up by SCA meetings and Movie Nights.

That’s right we have a little unofficial SCA Group going here with fight practices and meetings. The fight practice mostly consists of a bit of rapier as one from midrealm has brought two SCA legal rapiers and matching daggers. Sadly for me none of the suits or masks will fit me. I do still go as it’s nice to discuss history and I help out as acting as a list marshal. We have five SCA members and a hand full of new people that may join when they get home. The funny part is no one is from the same kingdom and no ones from the official kingdom we are in.

One Girl from the out lands who is relatively new and still working on her persona was telling me she wanted to play a gypsy so she could have the colorful outfits. I looked at her and said that you know that’s a lot of the costume you’re thinking of is a romantic idea of them from after period like the pirates. She grew a bit of a frond when I said that as I’m not the first to tell her this but I have a secret weapon up my sleeve. You say you want to have loud flamboyant costume, let me tell you about the Landsknechts….

The other activity that’s been eating up my time has been “Movie Night” we have the kit to put together a little driving-in like cinema. I was helping the last person who was running it and now that his contracted ended a few weeks ago it’s fallen on me to keep it going. That mostly picking the movies from the requests and setting up and packing up the kit each night we do this and that’s about two to three times a week. We are now getting a good turnout; the problem with this is that I’ve had people try to take credit for it by dictating what movies we are going to play and other politics. This in turn has annoyed many people helping me out and I have found myself setting up and packing alone. Just got to love office politics when we can never leave the office. I have found the fix in keeping these people out of the loop and posting the movies with no one including myself taking credit.

Any way I should not complain it’s keeping me busy and this is making the time go by faster and that makes pennsic come closer. The jerkin project is moving along quite nicely the body is done with the exception of the arm holes as they need a fancy trim to be added as there sewed up, right now I am on the skirts tails and should have that done within a week. Someone can put that down on the A&S report :)

Any way I am thinking of home and counting the days till July 22 when I get on the plain. What’s going to make that sound hollow is today I signed a paper saying I will do another contract so its means I won’t be home for good till March as the soonest. But I will get 2 vacations of two weeks each one I will go home the other I decided is to visit London England, I writing up a list of places I want to go and see. I have to remember to thank Menken and Erec for giving me lots of good ideas.

Any way I will end this post with thoughts of home.