Hey everyone, October is going to be over before I know it and that means that it is really close to when I come home.
Life has been pretty good, I went off base again over this last weekend. It was a pretty good trip. We didn't go anywhere new, the same mall and the souqes and some famous pearl guy.
We ate a pretty good french cafe in the mall, and then just walked around for a while.
We just hung out at the souqes as well. We ended up stopping at a cafe and getting a Hookah (grape flavored), which was pretty good.
Fenton and I were going to go off base this next week and go golfing, but our trip got canceled because of dumb base policies. We are hoping the trip gets changed to something else, such as water sports, or arabian advenutres. One is jet skiing and tubing, the other is four-wheeling in the desert, camel rides, and dinner. Either one would be cool.
It will be nice to get home and see everyone. It's winding down and that makes me happy!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Off base trip.
I finally made it off base today. We left around 12:30 pm and didn't get back to our rooms until around 10:45 pm (some of this time was spent waiting to get back on base).
Well, we left the base and drove into town and around and to one of the popular malls, we got in the parking garage and drove around it for probably 10 - 15 minutes looking for a spot, there was also lots of other cars doing the same thing. People in this country are not considerate at all with driving and it was difficult to drive around a crowded parking garage with terrible drivers all around us. BUT, we finally got a good spot and went into the mall. Eight of us were on the trip and we split up into mall groups and went our own way for two hours. The mall had 4 floors in some parts and 5 floors in other parts, it was a really big mall. It also had a Wal-Mart style store on the inside of the mall, which was weird and cool in its own way.
We wandered around to see what the mall had to offer. This mall did have a built in ice skating rink, which was cool. It was also kinda weird and kinda cool to see all the muslims in their full getups. The men wore completely white gowns and the women wore black ones. Half of the women covered their face and half of them didn't. Of the half that covered their face, you could only see their eyes and half of those women actually wore a full clothe over their entire face - you couldn't see anything. I assume it was hard to see through the black clothe, but I have no idea? They walked around fine.
We ended up going to eat at a place called "Nandos", it was a Portuguese/Mozambican type food place. We got some chicken and beef kabobs and they were delicious. It was a nice change from the chow hall food that I have eaten for every meal the last three months. After the meal we left the mall and drove to the "Souqes", they are sort of like a flea market.
This place had tons of different stores and a lot of the same stores scattered around. We saw the same candy shop about 5 different times in different areas. They had animals for sale (tie dyed chicks and bunnies, dogs, cats, turtles), burkas, shoes, cheap jewelry, cheap watches, other clothing items, and little food places. We wandered around this place for about an hour and a half before leaving to go visit "The Pearl Man", some guy who sells nice pearls for super cheap. We were there for over an hour while everybody decided what they wanted and haggled prices with him. He was a really nice guy.
After that, we drove to our last destination which was another mall. We spent a little over an hour there. Fenton and I broke off from the people eating expensive steaks and found an arabic style restaurant and had some delicious arabic style hot sandwiches. It was probably one of the best things I have eaten in a long while. I don't remember what I ate because it was some word I can barely pronounce and the restaurant was also another word I can't pronounce. All I know is that it was delicious. After that, we drove back to the base and it is my night off, so I am just relaxing in the nice cool internet place.
Other then my off base trip, everything here is pretty much the same. Work is good, the base is good, and life is happy. I am looking forward to coming home though. I hope everybody is doing well. I talk to some of you pretty regularly and the rest of you almost never, so, I hope you guys are doing good.
I posted a bunch of pictures on my facebook from my offbase trip, check them out if you want to see how awesome it is here..
~Brad
Well, we left the base and drove into town and around and to one of the popular malls, we got in the parking garage and drove around it for probably 10 - 15 minutes looking for a spot, there was also lots of other cars doing the same thing. People in this country are not considerate at all with driving and it was difficult to drive around a crowded parking garage with terrible drivers all around us. BUT, we finally got a good spot and went into the mall. Eight of us were on the trip and we split up into mall groups and went our own way for two hours. The mall had 4 floors in some parts and 5 floors in other parts, it was a really big mall. It also had a Wal-Mart style store on the inside of the mall, which was weird and cool in its own way.
We wandered around to see what the mall had to offer. This mall did have a built in ice skating rink, which was cool. It was also kinda weird and kinda cool to see all the muslims in their full getups. The men wore completely white gowns and the women wore black ones. Half of the women covered their face and half of them didn't. Of the half that covered their face, you could only see their eyes and half of those women actually wore a full clothe over their entire face - you couldn't see anything. I assume it was hard to see through the black clothe, but I have no idea? They walked around fine.
We ended up going to eat at a place called "Nandos", it was a Portuguese/Mozambican type food place. We got some chicken and beef kabobs and they were delicious. It was a nice change from the chow hall food that I have eaten for every meal the last three months. After the meal we left the mall and drove to the "Souqes", they are sort of like a flea market.
This place had tons of different stores and a lot of the same stores scattered around. We saw the same candy shop about 5 different times in different areas. They had animals for sale (tie dyed chicks and bunnies, dogs, cats, turtles), burkas, shoes, cheap jewelry, cheap watches, other clothing items, and little food places. We wandered around this place for about an hour and a half before leaving to go visit "The Pearl Man", some guy who sells nice pearls for super cheap. We were there for over an hour while everybody decided what they wanted and haggled prices with him. He was a really nice guy.
After that, we drove to our last destination which was another mall. We spent a little over an hour there. Fenton and I broke off from the people eating expensive steaks and found an arabic style restaurant and had some delicious arabic style hot sandwiches. It was probably one of the best things I have eaten in a long while. I don't remember what I ate because it was some word I can barely pronounce and the restaurant was also another word I can't pronounce. All I know is that it was delicious. After that, we drove back to the base and it is my night off, so I am just relaxing in the nice cool internet place.
Other then my off base trip, everything here is pretty much the same. Work is good, the base is good, and life is happy. I am looking forward to coming home though. I hope everybody is doing well. I talk to some of you pretty regularly and the rest of you almost never, so, I hope you guys are doing good.
I posted a bunch of pictures on my facebook from my offbase trip, check them out if you want to see how awesome it is here..
~Brad
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The end of August.
Another month has come and is just about over. I haven't posted anything lately because their has been nothing to talk about. My life has been just about the same everyday. I work, sleep and work some more. My days off consist of usually seeing a movie, I saw "The Sorcerers Apprentice" today, "The Last Airbender" two weeks ago and a couple other movies that I can't remember. Tonight the UFC fights will be on tv here, so I will be watching those at this Fox Sports Lounge they have here, they have tons of big screen TVs and air conditioning, so that is nice.
I still haven't got off base yet, I was planning on doing a Camel ride but they canceled those because they said it's "too hot", and currently it is Ramadan, which is a muslim tradition/observance where for one whole month from dawn until dusk they do not eat, smoke, drink or have sex. Because of this, if we go into town and we are caught doing any of those things, we can be arrested. They don't want us going into town unless it's after dark. Plus, because the Muslims are fasting all day long, it makes them really irritable and I guess they are more prone to attack us if we irritate them in anyway. Ramadan ends sometime around Sept 11, so I will HOPEFULLY make into town after that.
Last weekend they had some comedians on base, they performed several times over a few days which was pretty cool. I was able to watch them on my day off last week and it was entertaining. Kind of nice to be able to sit back and relax and watch the comedians. It's also nice that these guys volunteer to come over here to entertain us, it keeps people happy.
We are almost to our halfway mark of being here, i'm looking forward to this day. Counting down from the halfway mark is a lot better then counting up to the halfway mark.
Other then all that, Life is good, it's still hot and humid and sandy. I've been reading a lot lately to pass the time, so, if anybody has any books to recommend, I am all ears. I hope all is well with everyone at home, I'm looking forward to getting home because I will be getting a season pass to Brighton and snowboarding a lot. So, if anybody else likes Brighton, student passes are only $500 dollars if you get one before Sep 15th. I recommend it.
Anyways, Miss you all. Seeya.
I still haven't got off base yet, I was planning on doing a Camel ride but they canceled those because they said it's "too hot", and currently it is Ramadan, which is a muslim tradition/observance where for one whole month from dawn until dusk they do not eat, smoke, drink or have sex. Because of this, if we go into town and we are caught doing any of those things, we can be arrested. They don't want us going into town unless it's after dark. Plus, because the Muslims are fasting all day long, it makes them really irritable and I guess they are more prone to attack us if we irritate them in anyway. Ramadan ends sometime around Sept 11, so I will HOPEFULLY make into town after that.
Last weekend they had some comedians on base, they performed several times over a few days which was pretty cool. I was able to watch them on my day off last week and it was entertaining. Kind of nice to be able to sit back and relax and watch the comedians. It's also nice that these guys volunteer to come over here to entertain us, it keeps people happy.
We are almost to our halfway mark of being here, i'm looking forward to this day. Counting down from the halfway mark is a lot better then counting up to the halfway mark.
Other then all that, Life is good, it's still hot and humid and sandy. I've been reading a lot lately to pass the time, so, if anybody has any books to recommend, I am all ears. I hope all is well with everyone at home, I'm looking forward to getting home because I will be getting a season pass to Brighton and snowboarding a lot. So, if anybody else likes Brighton, student passes are only $500 dollars if you get one before Sep 15th. I recommend it.
Anyways, Miss you all. Seeya.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
July is almost over!
Well, July is just about over. It's a nice feeling knowing that a full month will be behind us. I don't really have much to say this week, work is still good, life is good, and I have a trip planned into town, so I will post pictures of that soon. This week I took a few pictures, One was of the sun. It was about 2 hours after sunrise and it was so dusty in the air that you could stare at the sun and the sun looked more like the moon because of all the dust/sand in the air. It was a pretty cool site, and weird to be staring at the sun without my eyes hurting. 
The next picture is just a picture of the base, I was driving in a truck and snapped the picture. This is what 90% of the place looks like. The last picture is me after 12 hours of work, in my room, ready for bed.
I hope all is well back home.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Battle of the Bands!
Hey friends and family,
Another few days down, they were good ones. Last week on Friday I had my day off (Swapped with somebody else, since my day off is usually Saturday), Friday night they had a battle of the bands on the base. Fenton and I were going to play together but they only had one acoustic guitar available so we both ended up playing separate. It was a lot of fun, neither of us won. It came down to two people, some marine who beat boxed (which isn't really a band?) and then some guy who played a cover of "Simple Man" (he was really good). The guy who did the cover song won and that is about it, no prizes or anything. I had somebody take footage of the video, so, here that is.
Hopefully they have a few more talent show type stuff on base, it's fun to participate.
I stole these pictures from another person in my unit who is deployed with us, she took them for her blog. They are of the buildings we live in. They each have about 30 rooms in them. Every room has it's own Air Conditioner and it makes life really awesome. Last week the power went out in the middle of the day 
(which is when I sleep) and it didn't take long for my room to heat up, 45 minutes later the power came on and I could not have been happier, I got back to sleep pretty quickly after that and life was good. I've learned to like a few of the meals here a lot, Mondays are "Mexican Mondays" and they have some delicious enchiladas and burritos that I really enjoy, the chicken parmesan is really good and Salisbury steak in gravy was really good. Last week we had to do flag duty, we were responsible for putting up the flags for USA, England and Australia, each different shop gets it one week at a time and rotates, we should get flag duty two more times before we leave. It's pretty interesting how differently we all fold the flags, Australia does an accordion fold and the British roll their flag, we have to fold/roll all the flags to each countries specifications.
My grandma and grandpa had their 50th wedding anniversary over the weekend and my mom had a laminated picture of me (Courtesy of the family support team on base) and had me in a picture with every single one of my family members, it was pretty funny to get on facebook and have 40+ notifications that I was tagged in a bunch of photos. Here is a picture of my sister Haley trying to look like me, Anyways, Happy Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa!! I hope it was a fun party.
Another few days down, they were good ones. Last week on Friday I had my day off (Swapped with somebody else, since my day off is usually Saturday), Friday night they had a battle of the bands on the base. Fenton and I were going to play together but they only had one acoustic guitar available so we both ended up playing separate. It was a lot of fun, neither of us won. It came down to two people, some marine who beat boxed (which isn't really a band?) and then some guy who played a cover of "Simple Man" (he was really good). The guy who did the cover song won and that is about it, no prizes or anything. I had somebody take footage of the video, so, here that is.
Hopefully they have a few more talent show type stuff on base, it's fun to participate.
Work is steadily staying the same, I am getting some good reading in, watching a few new tv shows (It's always sunny in Philadelphia is my new favorite show), nothing else really exciting or new. Next week I will be taking off base drivers training so that I can drive off base if I ever want to take a trip into town, I guess the drivers here are really terrible and you need to learn to drive terrible like them so that I don't get in a huge accident and wreck a government vehicle, so, hopefully that does not happen, I am looking forward to going into town soon though.
I stole these pictures from another person in my unit who is deployed with us, she took them for her blog. They are of the buildings we live in. They each have about 30 rooms in them. Every room has it's own Air Conditioner and it makes life really awesome. Last week the power went out in the middle of the day 
(which is when I sleep) and it didn't take long for my room to heat up, 45 minutes later the power came on and I could not have been happier, I got back to sleep pretty quickly after that and life was good. I've learned to like a few of the meals here a lot, Mondays are "Mexican Mondays" and they have some delicious enchiladas and burritos that I really enjoy, the chicken parmesan is really good and Salisbury steak in gravy was really good. Last week we had to do flag duty, we were responsible for putting up the flags for USA, England and Australia, each different shop gets it one week at a time and rotates, we should get flag duty two more times before we leave. It's pretty interesting how differently we all fold the flags, Australia does an accordion fold and the British roll their flag, we have to fold/roll all the flags to each countries specifications. Any who, Life is good, I have no complaints. Just enjoying the heat/base day by day and week by week until I come home. We have a guitar on our site that I play throughout the night and I wrote a new song last week, Hopefully I can get it recorded soon, I know of at least one person who wants to hear it back home.
My grandma and grandpa had their 50th wedding anniversary over the weekend and my mom had a laminated picture of me (Courtesy of the family support team on base) and had me in a picture with every single one of my family members, it was pretty funny to get on facebook and have 40+ notifications that I was tagged in a bunch of photos. Here is a picture of my sister Haley trying to look like me, Anyways, Happy Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa!! I hope it was a fun party. Anyways everybody, Keep on enjoying life in the states, I hope to hear from you guys as much as I can, it's nice getting emails, letters, post cards etc... from anybody and everybody. Love you all!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Another few days down...
This is a stop sign here, sorry it's not very good quality - I had the night off and cameras don't take very good pictures of things that reflect and their was not enough light to take a picture without the flash, so this is it.
It's pretty cool seeing different things in arabic, also it is confusing. I can't read the ingredients on any of the sodas I drink. But, that's okay, I don't need to know what is in my mountain dew, I only need to know that it's delicious.
Having the night off was pretty nice, I got to sleep in an extra two hours, then my room mate came back from his shift and needed to sleep so I grabbed my laptop, iPad and camera and left for the next 9 hours.
drink, smoke huka and relax. I did this for a while until my buddy google texted me and he came and hung out with me for about an hour and gave me some downloaded tv shows, which I watched after he left. I then read, played online, made a few skype phone calls and then it was time to head back to my room, which I did and got on my running gear and went running at 4:30 am, I was super hot and tired after 30 minutes, that leads me up to now.
But, this place is still going good, the days are long but I think the time will go by pretty quickly for me. I've already got lots of awesome plans for when I get home. Fenton and I have gotten into a groove of walking to work everyday and changing into our uniforms there and running back after work, it's about 1.8 miles, and that has been good for me so far. We are also playing in a Battle of the Bands next Saturday night, should be good a time, I'll see if I can get him to record it on my camera while I play.
But, life is good, I am happy, I am staying positive and just enjoying my time here. I am thinking I will be going off base here in the new couple of weeks on one of my days off, my friend Ned has the same day off as me, so we might try and see what we can put together. We need to find a driver though, because you have to have special driver training to drive here (because apparently these guys are crazy insane drivers), I might take the driver training, who knows, we will see. Also, no awesome fourth of july plans for me, I will be working/sleeping through all the stuff they are doing here, which I think is some games and that is about it. Anyways, That is all I have for you guys this week, I hope everybody is doing great. Love you all.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
My first week here
I've been here about 5 days now and it hasn't been bad at all. I've been able to get enough sleep, i've gone running, I eat three meals a day (which I might cut back to two because the food is already getting old) and I am able to shower/brush my teeth daily.
Work isn't all that bad either, I work the night shift here it's sunny when I show up and sunny when I leave, I am told that once we get settled in that we will be able to work out on shift (which will be nice, since I would much rather run at night then during the day). I work 12 hour shifts and again, as soon as we get settled I will be getting one day off a week. The work is a bit different then what I do at home, but it was easy to catch onto and learn, we've already done a lot of what we need to do without the help of the people who have been here for 4 months already (they leave soon and it will be just us in a couple of days). It's still really hot and it will stay hot and get hotter as the time goes on, I'm hoping to get to go off base soon and get into town and check it out, I hear it's a really cool experience.
I just bought a camera (I didn't have one before), so I am going to start getting some pictures up in this blog and probably on facebook too, I have wireless internet in my room, though when I am in there, I am usually sleeping.
We have a dart board in our tent that everybody plays on when we are bored, so, I plan on being a dart throwing expert by the time I get home, anybody up for a dart challenge in four months?
All in all, the job seems fun, the base is nice and the people I work with are awesome. Should be a good deployment for us. Hope everybody back home is doing good. Keep me updated with everything Utah, I find myself browsing KSL news just to see what's going on. (mostly murders and accidents and stuff, pretty boring) Anywho, love you all.
Airman Brad.
Work isn't all that bad either, I work the night shift here it's sunny when I show up and sunny when I leave, I am told that once we get settled in that we will be able to work out on shift (which will be nice, since I would much rather run at night then during the day). I work 12 hour shifts and again, as soon as we get settled I will be getting one day off a week. The work is a bit different then what I do at home, but it was easy to catch onto and learn, we've already done a lot of what we need to do without the help of the people who have been here for 4 months already (they leave soon and it will be just us in a couple of days). It's still really hot and it will stay hot and get hotter as the time goes on, I'm hoping to get to go off base soon and get into town and check it out, I hear it's a really cool experience.
I just bought a camera (I didn't have one before), so I am going to start getting some pictures up in this blog and probably on facebook too, I have wireless internet in my room, though when I am in there, I am usually sleeping.
We have a dart board in our tent that everybody plays on when we are bored, so, I plan on being a dart throwing expert by the time I get home, anybody up for a dart challenge in four months?
All in all, the job seems fun, the base is nice and the people I work with are awesome. Should be a good deployment for us. Hope everybody back home is doing good. Keep me updated with everything Utah, I find myself browsing KSL news just to see what's going on. (mostly murders and accidents and stuff, pretty boring) Anywho, love you all.
Airman Brad.
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