Reason for unemployment: Facebook rage!

I’ve seen quite a few people break down where I work for a variety of reasons; stress, fear, relationship issues, depression, drugs or alcohol, the list goes on. I recently had the marvelous opportunity to witness the most ridiculous breakdown/freakout session ever! It was over of all things, Facebook withdrawal.

There has been a lot of turnover here as people finish up their contracts and head back so there are tons of new faces wandering around my camp. The housing on the camp consists of several different variations of 20’ conex containers converted into living quarters. It sounds ghetto…ok it is ghetto but after living in a tent for 4 years it’s like a mansion to me. Our rooms are all pre-wired for internet access on the company network but only people with a business justification or someone who has a friend in IT actually has the internet turned on in their room. I’ve got both.

For new guys here who are waiting for their assignments there isn’t a whole lot to do so they tend to gather in bunches outside and the conversations always seem to be about the same things; stupid rumors about the war here, how much better things would go if they were in charge, sex and hookers, and the typical BS war stories that you hear from guys who have never even been shot at, much less even left the wire.

I have zero patience for any of that anymore so I usually just ignore new people or old idiots but as I was walking to a meeting the other evening, I heard the distinctive high-pitched tones of a grown man on the verge of losing it so out of curiosity I walked closer to where a crowd of 5 or 10 people had spontaneously gathered to witness an adult tantrum.

It took me a few seconds to catch up with the guy’s rant but his rage seemed to be primary directed at another guy, probably a supervisor or manager, and he was hollering about how “None of my friends know what I’m doing…I have NO idea what’s going on back home…my LIFE is on Facebook, don’t you understand??? People are gonna be freakin’ out if I’m not on there! Do you know what this is like for me?!?” I kid you not, this was probably a 35-40 year old man doing this.

Then he turned to a couple of the little guys from India who had stopped to watch the big idiot American and he started yelling at them saying, “I BET YOU’VE GOT F**KIN’ INTERNET IN YOUR ROOM! That’s bulls**t!”

Then be addressed his complaints to the crowd in general, alternately lambasting them with the accusation that they all had internet in their room and then attempting to elicit their sympathy with a few “You know what I’m sayin’???” or “Are you with me on this??” comments.

His voice was shrill and he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. After a minute or two I was so disgusted that I just shook my head and walked away. I later heard the guy quit and went home.

I’ve been thinking about this all week. In addition to how stupid it is for a grown man to throw a hissy-fit like that over anything, the fact that it was over Facebook makes it that much worse. I imagine there were a few other contributing factors but for the nail in the coffin of quitting a $100,000 job to be no Facebook in your room is to me a perfect indicator of pathetic excess and shallowness.

I understand the merits of Facebook or Twitter, or even the dinosaur Myspace. Reconnecting with old friends is great and the sites can all be quite entertaining at times but it is real easy to get carried away in. I seldom use it but to me it is beginning to feel like the potential negative aspects outweigh the benefits, that friendships become more superficial as people content themselves with posting short little comments about every inane detail of their day and then neglect the more personal and meaningful acts of communication that build and sustain friendships such as actual personalized letters or emails.

Of all the things to contemplate...Facebook. I need this R&R haha.

Ah well, I’ve got a self-imposed 10 minute time limit on bitch sessions on the computer and my time is up.

I find things and people to idolize in the strangest places




This rat is a new hero to me!

I can barely wait for fall to get here. This summer has been the coolest (temperature-wise) that I’ve ever seen over here, even the locals are saying that they can’t remember the last time they had a summer like this and it’s just made me want the seasons to change that much sooner.

It started off with 3 weeks of dust storms that blotted out the sun from the sky which naturally dropped the temperature about 20 degrees while also covering everything with a thick layer of talcum-like dust. Then we caught the tail end of that awful storm system that’s been smashing neighboring Pakistan and China.
Normally a summer here is like spending a couple of months in an oven full of dust, and the sky is always perfectly clear, endless blue without a cloud in sight. Pretty, but you get sick of it after awhile. So in spite of the misery that this weather is causing elsewhere, I have been loving every minute of it.

I’m a total bad weather kinda guy, or if I can't get bad weather I'll just settle for something other than perfect. I get goosebumps when I see dark menacing clouds or hear the rumbling thunder and I get all kinds of excited when I hear the rain on the roof. I’m gonna be pissed if when this is all over, there aren’t any thunderstorms in Heaven.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was out east towards Pakistan at a FOB called Wolverine. It’s situated at the base of some small mountains that in spite of their size always seem to have some kind of weather happening. On this particular day I could actually see some rain clouds at elevation and there was a pretty strong 20 MPH wind gusting down from the mountains, and on the wind was the wonderful sweet scent of rain. That’s almost unheard of during the summer here so I perked up like a bloodhound. The pilots had idled the engines down as we were waiting on some stuff so I climbed up on the hesco wall that serves as the perimeter fence and spent about 5 awesome minutes loving the feeling of the cool, moist air blowing by. I guess that’s the Afghan equivalent of stopping to smell the roses.

Its moments like that that remind me a little bit of what home is like, both Germany and Colorado.

Speaking of home, I am definitely ready for this R&R. I wish I could stay for October as well but September isn’t a bad month at all. Just enough of the warm weather to enjoy myself at the lake and just enough chilly weather to appreciate a good campfire up in the mountains. So far on my agenda I’ve got a genealogy trip with my mom to Minnesota, a visit to one of my sisters and her new house in Provo, and building a new bathroom in my house. Other than that its camping, shooting, eating, sleeping, cooking, random road trips, flying...and getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Bah!

What a day!

I say that on those days that stand out from the blur of all the rest, but it seems that I am saying it more and more often.

The more trivial event of the day but the one that I enjoyed the most was getting to play with a little kitten. Pets are officially forbidden over here on base; dogs and cats are trapped and killed. Sometimes though, certain areas or organizations unofficially adopt a cat or two. I had a cat here several years ago that I inherited from some Air Force guys who saved it from a trap. They named it Shit-head and just like a dog will recognize its own name, Shit-head answered to that name and that name only.

I’m a guy who loves pets and I miss having a little furry something or another around to play with and take care of. Today as I was walking from my van to the laundry facility, I saw a pretty young Army captain seated on the bench outside of the self-serve laundry playing with a little kitten, he was about half grown. I don’t know what it is about Afghan cats but they are amazingly friendly and outgoing and this little guy was no exception. He was playfully batting the girl’s hands as she would sneak in and rub his belly. I had to sit down and steal some of the cat’s attention but the girl didn’t mind and we laughed and talked for a few minutes about the pets we have at home. It was good to have one of those normal human moments.

Another interesting thing happened when I was handed an envelope with about $60,000 in cash and told that someone would meet me when my chopper landed out at some faraway FOB. I just about gave the guy a heart attack when I feigned ignorance as to the whereabouts of his cash, but I didn’t have the heart to carry the joke too far. I remember the first time that happened to me back when I worked for my old company. I had a fairly respectable job title that entailed quite a bit of responsibility so one day as I was flying through Uzbekistan to come back from R&R they grabbed me and gave me $350,000 to carry back into the country. Quite a shock. One moment I was missing my girlfriend (at the time) and savoring the happy memory of a couple of weeks spent sleeping in and cruising around Germany and the next I’m paranoid and suspiciously eyeing everyone around me and checking my pack every 2 minutes to make sure it was still shut. Doesn’t happen too often anywhere else.

And finally, we were down to the final 2 legs of our mission of the day and we landed at a Marine base out in the middle o f nowhere called Delaram. I whipped out my new cell phone and called back to Kandahar to check in and my favorite ops girl told me that we were on hold because Kandahar was under another ground attack. Evidently a bunch of guys decided to kick off Ramadan with a bang and launched some more rockets and then bum-rushed the gate with some suicide bombers.

So we spent a couple of uneventful hours munching on our MRE's and baking in the sun under our birds as we waited for things to get cleaned up . Another thing pretty unique to the area here.

In other news, I’ve been working down my reading list on my Kindle, right now I’m reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I hadn’t read it since I was about 12 or 13, it is sooo good! I really liked the movie but the book has so much more that they just couldn’t put in there. More 2 sentence book reviews coming soon!