More about this place

Our wheels.

Our living area.

The CHU.

My side of the CHU, part I

My part of the CHU, part II

Up above are some pics of the things I will be talking about.

After landing at Speicher, we were herded onto buses and moved to where our bags would be left off, and where we would get picked up by our unit. We were picked up in a little bus, which will be our main vehicle for getting around this place. We went to our unit area and started inprocessing. Things were a little chaotic, and I don’t think they were quite ready for us. On the other hand, a couple of key people were on leave, so they were behind. After that, we went and found the person in charge of room keys and got our keys. Finally, we get to dump our bags and quit living out of them. Then we got to take a van to the PX. My roommate bought a fridge, as did others, and we all loaded up on bedding and some snacks and other essentials.

Of course, the PX lacks many essentials, like brooms, hangars, and electrical appliances that fit the outlets they have here. Of course, they also don’t have the outlet adapters, but you can damn sure buy a case of Beck’s non-alcoholic beer. Fortunately, I bought an adapter in Kuwait, and had another one in a travel kit. Later, I bought another one at one of the extra shops run by a local type. I don’t think this one is UL listed.

After that, we set to unpacking and organizing our rooms. Right now there are just two of us in my CHU (containerized housing unit). Some folks have three, which is a little tight. So far, I have no TV or radio, just my laptop with MP3s and some DVDs. Not a problem, really, as I have not been finding myself with a lot of spare time. Anyway, we each have a bed, a nightstand, and a locking cabinet. We will eventually build some shelves and desks/tables, once things settle down a little.

The next few days were more inprocessing, with some time to explore the base. We got a day off on our first Sunday here. We looked around our end of post a little. There is a small gym and MWR facility near the chow hall at this end of post. There is also a small PX, a barber shop, a coffee shop, an AT&T phone center and a Subway in this area. We also found a small internet/phone access area in an Engineer compound. So near our living area, there are some amenities, although they are kind of second-class.

Why second-class? Well, the small PX has the failings of the main one, with the added issue of being smaller. The phone center appears to have no ventilation. It is like a sauna. In the MWR facilities, the phones and internet are on a common satellite hookup, so bandwidth is often an issue. If someone is chatting with home and using the little video cameras, they hog all the bandwidth and the rest of us make do with speeds much slower than phone modems. A lot of folks in the living area have collectively worked to buy their own satellite dishes for internet. I hope to find a group to do this with. Oh yeah, and one other issue I have – the MWR gym has a floor best described as “wavy”, with a lot of equipment crammed into too little space. But then again, I am picky about gyms.

We really only saw our little corner of base. This is a big base, with a couple of runways and associated taxiways, aircraft parking, and operations facilities taking up a lot of space. Our living areas are maybe a 1.5 miles from work, as the crow flies. However, we have to skirt the runways and other aviation facilities, so it becomes a 15-minute drive, with a bunch on gravel roads that get token maintenance. The main gym and PX are also about 1.5 miles away, and about a 10-minute drive, assuming you don’t get lost on the unmarked gravel roads. Right now, the weather has been pretty pleasant (70s for highs), but I would hate to try and walk or bike to these places when it gets hot. But then, there’s no vehicles available. We are working on a bus schedule.

One other reason I would hesitate to walk or bike to these places – DUST. This is not a sandy place, it is a dusty place. Apparently this area is a former lake bed, and the upper layers are mostly silt and some fine sand. This stuff gets kicked up easily, and all the vehicle traffic and construction means there is a nice haze here. We hear that once it gets hot and the upper soil/sand/dust layers really dry out, you will be ingesting and breathing in a lot of dust. It really gets everywhere.

Well, I’m going to end this little discussion here. I have seen more of the post, and by driving the bus, learned pretty well how to get around. I will try to talk about work a little in later entries, but I really can’t give you many details beyond the stuff I posted way back at the beginning. Even some of the minor details can be useful to someone trying to collect intelligence on our operations.