Search for a routine

I am still getting into the swing of things here in the desert, trying to develop a routine.  I am very fortunate that I am responsible for multiple locations not just here at Camp Arifjan but also two out along the Arabian Gulf - Ash Shuaybah and Kuwati Naval Base.  That means I can be out and about, and I have been taking full advantage of that.  I also get a vehicle, a Pasaro.  Kuwaiti drivers are not the worst I have ever seen, that title belongs to Neapolitans, but they are up there.  Because Kuwait is this vast, flat desert there are few/no overpasses, so if you have to get to something on the left side of the highway you drive past where you need to go and make a u-turn.  The u-turns are official, but the left lane here is the same as the left lane in America except fast here means about 100 mph, so every time you make a u-turn you have to cross a lane full of crazy people to get to the middle or right hand lane.  When there is a wreck (and there are lots of them) the Kuwaitis tend to leave the crashed car(s) along the side of the road for a few days or weeks.  It makes driving around here exciting.

Then there is the desert.  This is the season when Kuwaitis take to the desert, they build these huge tent camps right alongside the highways because it is too godawful hot to go out in the spring, summer, and fall.  These camps are their weekend getaways; they have huge blowup castles for the kids, the older ones have four-wheelers to tool around in the desert and the extended families have cookouts and light off fireworks at night.  We have been getting lots of rain lately (we even had hail last night, who knew that could happen here?) so the desert is blooming a bit but it can't hide the incredible amount of trash everywhere left by the people in the camps.

There isn't much in the way of Christmas spirit.  Everyone tries - our tent workareas are all decorated and the leadership has given everyone that doesn't have a watch both Christmas Eve and Christmas off, which is very cool.   However, there is cargo moving through and so many of my folks have to work.  If they work, I work, so it will be just another day.  Besides, you can't put lipstick on a pig, this is a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas like the US does (come to think of it, no other country wonderfully commercializes Christmas like we do and that is why we rule) so it really doesn't have that electric Christmas vibe that I hope you are all experiencing right now.  The kids are all out of school and counting down the days, all the houses are decorated, stockings are hung by the fire with care, and on and on.  Not that this is at all depressing, it isn't in any way, it just isn't Christmas.  Maybe it is like Christmas in the Australian Outback might be, it is turned down about 15 notches or it is like a single candle trying to illuminate a dark empty barn.  Something like that, anyway.

On the bright side it is a good crew here, from the top down.  I am fortunate to have few personnel problems so far and the other officers, chiefs and sailors are fun to be around.  I am trying hard not avoid being biased towards the folks I brought from Ft Dix, but boy are they doing well.  It may be the fact that we are all bright-eyed and bushy tailed as we are the latest "wave" of sailors here.  There is the November crew, not that they came in November, they were the "N" Customs iteration and the military phonetic version of N is November.  They came in March and some left in September, some left this month and some leave in March.  The first "Oscar" wave arrived in mid-November and is here through May, then our wave, Oscar 2, got here in mid-December and is here into June.  There won't be another wave, Papa, until April or May.  Anyway, maybe we are all eager or maybe we just have a very motivated group, but it is nice to see them all excelling.  

My routine has switched up a bit, I am working out in the afternoons now.  All my life I have been a morning guy, figuring that those hours are mine to manage and the first thing to go is always the afternoon workout, either because of work or family obligations.  Here we have a critical mass of folks that do this crazy workout in the afternoon from 3:30-5, so there is peer pressure to not miss it.  Thursday we did, among other things, 150 step-ups, 100 reverse lunges, 50 squats, 5 minutes of push-ups, 10 x 30 seconds of pullups and a couple other things.  My predecessor is a physical fitness guru and has devised these workouts and now I ache all over.  Of course this fouls up my plans to call home as I am no longer getting up at 4:30 am, so we have to figure out that end of the routine.

That's it for now, off to a softball game.  Gotta keep busy...