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Well, one down, five to go. As of tomorrow, I will have been away from my family for a month, and in Afghanistan for three weeks. It’s more comforting to know that a month has already passed than it is discouraging to think that I’ve got five left til I head home. I take that as a good sign. I’m just hopeful I don’t wear down too quickly.

As I write this, I’m sitting in the office. It is 9:30 at night, and I’m waiting for my boss and a colleague to get back from a meeting I was supposed to go to so that they can review the work I did for an urgent RFI for information to put in a brief to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Sen Levin, D-Mich.) My work day started at 8 this morning. I was up at 5 to go work out, shower and eat breakfast. Rinse and repeat six times a week, (we get the morning off on Friday), and you have a typical work week. Needless to say, when my head hits the pillow, I sleep like a rock.

So what is there to do when I’m not working 13-14 hour days? Really, not a whole lot. But, considering how little free time I have, it seems like quite a bit.

First, you can eat. You can ALWAYS eat. Hot food is served for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight chow. Sandwiches are available 24/7. There's two chow halls to choose from, both with mostly the same food. Marshall dining facility (DFAC) is a permanent structure with a large outdoor patio, and an enormous grill area. The Goat (yes, that's its actual name) is a tent, and has a bigger salad bar and fruit selection. All the fit people eat at the Goat, cuz the Marshall grill will make you fat, and its just safer to stay away than to try and have discipline.

The grill has a set schedule every week. (The normal food still rotates unpredictably, just the grill is set). Monday is Mongolian barbecue night. Build your own plate of noodles and veggies, pick your sauce and meat off the grill. Delicious. Friday is Big Burger for lunch, surf and turf for dinner. The surf varies. So far we've had catfish, fried shrimp, and lobster tails. The turf is an average quality steak, but hey, its a real steak. I'm not complaining. Other nights feature grilled chicken, fried catfish, stir fry, and jumbo sausage. See, I told you it was safer to just stay away.

Second is exercise (PT). I'm sure most of you are thinking I'm nuts for mentioning PT as a form of entertainment. I would agree. However, remember the audience here is 95% soldiers. Most of those soldiers are of at least average fitness. Exercise is part of the gig. But in order to make it as enjoyable as possible, a wide variety is available.

There's two gyms. Robinson is where are the free weights are, and where the meat heads hang out. It used to be a fairly nice building. The treadmill room here has a spiral staircase right in the middle of the machines. Warrior gym has machine weights downstairs and treadmills, elliptical machines, rowing machines, and some stationary bikes upstairs. There's also an aerobics room. The atmosphere here is much more relaxed. Warrior is where you come to run off job stress for an hour or so. Robinson is where you go to show off your muscles.

There's also a wide variety of classes you can take. There's several sections of spinning (stationary bikes), a martial arts class, hot yoga (they make the room as hot as possible while you're working out), p90x, Insanity, Crossfit, and aerobics. I'm a week in on p90x (at 0530 - that's why I wake up so early), and it's been kicking my butt. One thing we don't have is a courtyard to play any sort of sports. Not even a basketball goal. There used to be a "soccer field", but they built housing on it.

Third, there's scheduled Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) events. Movie night is every Monday at 2000. Last week it was Iron Man 2, this week was the A-Team. There's a monthly poker tournament, with three nights of play. There's Dari language classes. There's guitar lessons. There's basket weaving (kidding!). The problem with most of these (for me at least) is that they're often during the day or early evening hours, making it difficult to attend. I plan to get to Dari classes in the future if possible. Would be nice to know some of the local language.

Last, there's the places to just hang out. (There's also the Bazzar, but that deserves it's own, forthcoming, post.) Ciano's is an Italian restaurant in the middle of a "Chinese" garden. You can buy pizza or a calzone and sit out amongst the gazebos and flowers with some friends. It's a pretty nice setting. A couple weeks ago I had tea here with two Irish police officers in country to train the Afghan police forces.

The other main hang out joint is the Green Bean. Think knock-off Starbuck's, open 24/7, on a nice open courtyard that's close enough to the wireless hub to surf the internet while you sip your drink. This is the place I most enjoy going. The people who work here seem to actually like their job, unlike some of the other service employees here, and create a very friendly atmosphere. The espresso is pretty good, too, which definitely helps. And the area is always fairly crowded, making it easy to go by yourself and still find someone to have a conversation with.

For the middle of a combat zone, I don't think all that is too bad. The soldiers seem to agree with me. Compared to all the guys out at the forward operating bases (FOBs) in the middle of nowhere that don't get a shower or a hot meal for weeks on end, this is practically paradise.

Of course what I spend most of my time doing is calling home or writing to you, my readers. I try and call home twice a day, once right after my PT and once in the afternoon. There's a 9.5 hour time difference, so morning my time is almost bed time back home, and afternoon here is early morning for the family. If I'm ambitious, I also try and Skype home once I get back to my tent at night, which translates to midday in the States. Skype happens about four times a week. It takes a chunk out of my sleep time, but it's worth it to get to see my family.

As for the blog posts, I probably spend about two hours planning and typing for each post. My laptop battery hates it. The topic is loosely planned ahead of time, but my writing is all off the cuff. I usually don't edit except for typos and grammar, as I'm of the belief that the first take is the most honest. Hopefully that comes out as you're reading.

*****

I'm missing my first big event tomorrow. Before I was informed I was going to Afghanistan, the family and I had made plans to go on a church mission trip to Colorado. This was to be our first real family vacation, and the first time the girls will have ever seen mountains. Thankfully, even though I'm away, Amanda and the girls decided to still go, and tomorrow is the day they leave. I wish I was able to be there for the trip, but I'm pleased that they are going to be doing something fun without me.

If anyone out there has anything they'd like me to write about, please let me know in the comments section. As I said earlier, I've still got five months to go. If I update twice a week, that's roughly 40 posts. While I've got some topics planned for the future, I don't have THAT many. Help me fill in the spaces by letting me know what you're interested in and I'll do my best.

That's all I've got. Until next time. Out here.