Blowing stuff up

This has been a pretty cool week as far as the work goes.  The military in general has a huge budget, but at the lower levels there really isn't a whole lot of money flowing; it is very much a barter economy.  The stock in trade is the hook-up.  I have something or a service that you need, so you give me something to get it or to make it easier.  Since we are the gateway to get home we often have Army and Marine units that ask for hook-ups, and the smarter ones offer something in return.

There is an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit rotating back to the US in the near future that did just that this week.  These are the guys that clear IEDs and blow up weapons that are taken away from bad guys, so they have a pretty interesting collection of stuff they want to take back to the US.  Because of the risk they don't like to bring back all of their explosives, so they blow up what they have left before it is time to leave.  These folks are smart, they invited some of us to go way out in the desert with them and blow up some stuff.  I got to take things apart, stack explosives in a pit and press the button to make it all go up in a glorious explosion.  Fun for me, and now these guys will sail right through Customs because we are helping them with all the waivers they need and mark special items to make sure they are 100% compliant and can enter the US with no problem.  It just shows the relationships my sailors build with everyone else, I have some real talented folks here.  On the way back we ran into the biggest sandstorm I have seen so far, there is a road somewhere in front of us in that picture.

The Customs job doesn't just happen here at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, we also have a company north of here at Ali-al-Salim in Kuwait and at multiple locations throughout Afghanistan.  This week the three company commanders (me, the one at Ali and the one responsible for Afghanistan) were all together here at AJ for the very first time.  It was a great get-together, I see the one from Ali all the time but I had never actually met the one in Afghanistan although we talk on the phone and send e-mails and have several common acquaintances in the Navy.  They came through the training pipeline together about a month ahead of me, so we had some fun comparing notes and bragging about who is the best.  Since they were my guests I figure I win out.

There is some chatter that this is the week we hit 100 days since we left home way back before Halloween.  There are lots of people here that focus on numbers - days since we left, days in country, days remaining until we leave Kuwait, days remaining until we get home.  I have a theory on this - the brain has trouble interpreting large numbers and it creates this feeling of helplessness.  When I ran long distances I wouldn't count minutes or miles, I would count sitcoms.  A marathon is 8 sitcoms (or 10 if you bet someone you can do it without training), it just seems easier to bite off and chew than 26.2 miles or 4 hours or 240 minutes.  We have something like 130 or so days left here (I just had to count because I refuse to track it) and that seems like a lot.  If you break it down into something easier, like 4 full moons, then it doesn't seem so bad.  The sailors try to humor me on this, but counting is an age-old Navy tradition that I don't think I will be able to overcome.

Many of us will be up watching the Super Bowl early Monday morning.  It is such a uniquely important American event that the vast majority of the base will be very, very quiet during working hours Monday morning because everyone will be in bed.  What is interesting is that no other country really cares about this spectacle.  Baseball and basketball have caught on around the world, why not the biggest sport of all?  Patrick, Melanie and Shannon don't much care to watch a game (they'll watch the Super Bowl to see commercials and dad go crazy if the Pats are in it), is it because the rules are too complex?  Is it too violent?  All I know is that most of Camp Arifjan will be watching.