Sorry for the delays in checking in, we're pretty busy.

The weather is pretty monotonous here these days, clouds and chilly gloom, mud squelching everywhere and the sun periodically saying hello before napping again. Been working longer hours for some reason, which is tiring but it makes the time go by faster – hard to believe it is almost February.

Haven’t done any travel since the Kuwait trip, so no real news – lots of changes in the air, but I should miss most of them, so the next three months ought to be uneventful. One huge positive note though – they are finally sending me some help, another reservist Sailor from DC is arriving soon, so these past three months of 7-days a week, 12-hours a day thing is gonna end, which will be nice.

I’ve attached three unexciting pictures, a close-up of the plastic matting we use for walkways over the mud; a picture of our shower box and an exterior shot of the alley behind my pod.

Haji is still hitting us with rockets on a regular basis, which can lead to some funny scenes in, say, a chow hall. It is pretty amusing to see a crowd of 100 people all try to take cover at once. I should say no one has been hurt here - we take cover no matter how far away they land, which is often very far. Sometimes less so. Hey, at least there are no traffic accidents here - your commute is a lot more dangerous than mine.

I’ll probably take the new guy down to Kuwait in March, to give him a change of pace, but no travel plans besides that.

Tim

Fair Winds and Following Seas!