Sunday December 26

It's 4 pm the day after Christmas.  I worked the first half day at our Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) work site.  [Photos exist but my loaner computer doesn't have adobe reader.  Go figure.]  This is the first DLA distribution facility deployed to a war zone and run by a contractor called Safe Ports.  They are a small, woman owned business making a valiant go of it with their staff of expatriates and foreign nationals from India (they are the hardest working team I have ever watched).  Part of their contract is to incorporate process improvement into their implementation. That's what I do. 

Already, I baselined existing government DLA throughput in preparation for a 1 January contractor assumption of responsibility.  The site is operated 24x7 with meetings at7 am and 7 pm (the normal work day).  So far, the days come and go pretty fast.

Enough of that silly stuff, what's the food and weather like? 

The food is generous and really quite good with multiple selections of prepared main courses and fresh and cooked side dishes, soup and all the drinks you guzzle.  Pallets of bottled water are distributed throughout the tent city area.  As you might imagine, meals are the training highlight of the day.  [Sounds like camp, doesn’t it.]  I really like Cliff bars for the taking.  Therefore, lunch can be deferred for a workout.

The only difference from church camp and Kandahar Air Field (KAF from now on) is that there are bad guys just outside the gate.  On Christmas Eve at 1900 (7 pm), a couple of rockets made some distant noise.  Afterwards, we enjoyed standing in the outside concrete bunkers, they call T (for Texas) blocks. The weather was a brisk 34 degrees and I’m surprised no one started singing carols.  [Considering the ethnic and religions backgrounds of our team, I really not surprised.]  A young Jordanian and I were discussing the poor quality of Nike shoes made in China and sold in the mid-East and that they cost the same as the higher quality ones sold in the US.  Go figure, again.

Speaking of carols, me and 20,000 of my closest armed friends enjoyed singing Christmas Carols to the 10^th Mountain Division band on Christmas Eve.  There wasn’t that many people gathered together on the Kandahar Boardwalk (where all the pleasures of TGIF, KFC and one lone ATM await a lonely GI’s pleasure) but there were a bunch of folds from all allied contries.  Why, even Lance Armstrong was here two days before to MC a rock and roll band that I never heard of.  [I missed that highlight.]


Photos are coming once I figure out how… 
Happy New Year is next.