Arrival day in Afghanistan

After her stay in Kuwait, it was time to move on to Afghanistan. She has what amounts to a small apartment. They look like re-purposed shipping containers. A small bathroom, a bed, and your own little heating and cooling unit. Rather nice for Army accommodations, considering we were both Air Force and used to a certain standard of living.
(Sorry, no pics for security reasons.)

Kuwait

So I have been able to chat with Christine using Snapchat when she has WiFi.  We suspended her normal cell account since using a Verizon phone in the Middle East costs 100 bucks a nanosecond. Texts are only 50 bucks each so it is a little cheaper. Snapchat is fun since the chats disappear after you read them. This way I have a built in excuse, I never saw that text. Please keep Chris in your prayers as she is forced to hobnob with celebrities and see shows. The struggle is real.

It has been in the low 30’s here. Chris is a bit chilly in Kuwait. She is struggling with the 70 degree temps. Sunny and warm, the things she is able to suffer through.

Thanksgiving

So after my Thanksgiving feast (Thanks to the Woods’ for hosting) I drove home lickety split to make sure Sam could go to work on Black Friday. She is afflicted with a work ethic. I on the other hand got to stay home and do laundry, tidy up the house and come up with a shopping list for Saturday.

Sam was able to go to Ford Field and watch her High School team play in the finals. I was lucky enough to go grocery shopping and take the dog to the groomers. Abby loves to go places in the car but as soon as she figured out that she was being washed she wanted to go for another ride. A few hours later and she was no longer stinky, got her nails done, and had a pretty bandanna to wear.

Christine and I were able to Snapchat back and forth a bit. She was killing me with football spoilers. I had DVR’ed the game and was waiting to pick up Abby before I sat down to watch UofM get spanked by OSU. 56 to 27 is a pretty good spanking.

Sad and Judgy

Before anyone gets all sad that Christine is deploying to a war zone and must be far away from her family, blah blah blah, she starts out her deployment with a girl’s week in El Paso, Texas. I know, right now your saying “How could you let her go to El Paso unsupervised!” “Don’t you know what kind of shenanigans middle aged people get into in El Paso?” “I’ll bet right now she is at a Margareta bar trying to figure out how many she can have while still maintaining her ability to order another one!”

I get it but she is an adult and her friend Jodi is there to talk her into only having one more. And, Jodi’s daughter Megan is there to drive them both to the next bar. So, don’t worry. 

Also, Chris will be doing Army training to prepare for the upcoming deployment.

Here we go again...

Ten years later my wife is heading back to the wonderful world of the deployed Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan. So, I decided to dust off the old blog and have at it again. 

Some things have changed which should make things easier but who knows. I am about to find out. Since Jason is now a Marine and Sam can drive, I am hoping it will be smoother on the home front. 

The End

Fast forward to July 21^st.  I know, I know I am a crappy blogger.  I believe that has been well established.  I will be shutting down this blog soon as Christine is now safely home.

Jason ended his series on the winning side.  They were 12 and 3.  Not bad for the little guys.  He is going to summer camp at Schoolcraft College and is getting ready to go to sleep away camp next week.

Samantha is still cute as hell and is doing well.  She is getting ready for cheer in the fall. Sam is also going to summer camps at Schoolcraft College and getting ready to go to sleep away camp next week.

Christine is home and somewhat back to normal.  After her initial clean and purge of our house she is settling in to a routine of getting up at 4 in the morning and supporting the folks overseas from home.  Since she is home we have a bit of flexability with our schedules.

We are both on Facebook.  (Me more than her)  So you can look for future updates there.

Thanks for looking and reading about our goofy life.

Baseball

Jason’s baseball team is doing very well.  They are 3 and 1 and sitting towards the top of the standings.  It is great to see how well they are coming together.

I never really understood Baseball but I will support Jason playing until he wants to do something else.  He really enjoys it and is getting better as we go.

Jason at the plate.

I tried to snap the pic as the ball crossed the plate.

Good Stuff

I got this photo in an e-mail from Chris.

I feel ya brother!

It also had some photos of her in her office and her office mates. 

I understand how they feel but I can offer no advice on how to counter the crazy.

Good Luck.

Quotes

I took Wednesday off since we had a Union day or something at school.  The kids had off and I didn’t feel like going in for a half day.  Since I had a rare day off Chris decided to have me meet two concrete guys and get a quote to replace the driveway and do some other work.

The driveway quotes were uneventful but eye opening.  Cement is not cheap.  We need it done but maybe we will budget it in for the future.

Of course Jason has baseball practice the night I have the yearly cheer meeting.  Luckily he was practicing near the house so I could run over to the meeting and still beat him home.  The meeting was almost the same as last year.  I just found out that cheer camp is during the day when we are working.  Evidently it was coordinated by house-fraus forgot that folks work.  Oh well, we will see what can be done *sigh*.

Done

Done. 

Finally. 

The bathroom that has been haunting me is finally done.

I could go on but frankly I am tired and I don’t want to.  

I do have pics. 

Enjoy!

Just can't get back far enough.

Add caption

Yes, those are Monkeys.

My horn, its a tootin!

Sam helped pick out the shower head.  Then when I went to put it on it did not fit.  The arm wouldn’t let it.  So I swapped the downstairs one with the new one.  I cleaned it up and Viola! Problem solved.

This is what I do instead of goofing off at random Toby Keith concerts.  (USO, Kandahar, etc.)

Finished tub stuff

Full View

Typical Wednesday

Things are pretty quiet at the moment.  I know it will explode at any moment but such is life.

We have Musicfest at Churchill High School for Jason on Wednesday.  He brought home a paper on Tuesday that said no jeans.  I thought he could wear the suit pants he wore to my dad’s funeral.  Wrong!  They wouldn’t even button and they hiked up to his knee!  Darn kids keep growing.  I raced to Target and got him some pants and a belt.  I am sure it already doesn’t fit.

He was one of 6 schools represented and the youngest group.  It turned out to be a really cool evening.  The music was pretty good and I got to see Jason play.  He looked confident.  When they had to clear the gym for the last performance he was a whirlwind of help.  He assisted everyone moving stuff out of the way.  Good to see in his non-home setting.

The last group was the marching band and flag corps.  I thought of Christine when the flag people started their routine.  Towards the end one of the band members ran around the front of everyone, took off his jacket, grabbed the sign and flowers he had hidden and asked one of the flag girls to the prom.  Very cool.  It was a neat performance.  They looked like they enjoyed themselves.

Venting

I know I probably shouldn’t but I need to vent. 

Sam just yelled at me because I won’t buy her any pants.  I don’t want her wearing long black pants to bed because I know she will wear them to school. 

“You won’t buy me any jammie pants!  You are always mean to me.”  I had to stop her and let her know she was wrong.  I most likely didn’t approach it right, but I am me and I like me.  I explained sternly, no yelling, that I have been trying for a couple of months to buy her clothes and she said no.  She told me very matter-of-factly no.  I explained that I have looked for clothes for her in several different stores and she does not want them due to all of the pants she has.  I have been throwing out the ones with holes.  Eventually we are going to have to go shopping as most of her pants have a hole.

For one so small, she can push all of my buttons.

Enough about me how was your day?

Sam's Birthday Party

So today was Sam’s birthday party.  I ended up with 7 girls and 2 boys at Zap Zone.  It almost didn’t happen.  I left the house at 11:00 am to pick up Sam and Jason’s friend and swing by the bank.  I went to Sam’s friend’s house.  She was heading to our house.  I went home.  No one there.  Sam calls her and she is at home.  We go back to Sam’s friend’s house.  On my way to Jason’s friends house I realize we do not have Sam’s cake.  Back to my house.  Off to Jason’s friend’s house.  Bank is on the way so I swing through there first.  After he gets in the van I realize the 2 minutes I have left is not going to be enough to get me to Zap Zone on time.  I call to let them know and all is well.  I will jump on the freeway and I will be there in no time.  No such luck.  Of course the freeway is being worked on.  When is it not.  (That is a whole other rant!)  I pull a movie maneuver and swing off the freeway on to surface streets.  Now I am going to be really late.  Sure enough, my 11:45 party is now a 12 party.  The Dad’s that were there all looked at me and said “275 is a bitch huh?”  The mom that dropped off just looked at me funny.  None of the kids seemed to give a damn.  So our first game came up quick and the girls loved it.  No women in combat!  I need to get a bunch of generals into Zap Zone.  Those girls are nuts!

We ate and went right back in.  I got swarmed by little girls.  They are vicious.  I smoked Jason though.  He kept trying to hide from me and then ambush me.  Didn’t work well for him.  He He.  After the girls ran around and played games.  We opened gifts and Sam seemed to love everything.

I had told Jason he could have his friend sleep over.  I was relucticent to let Sam have a sleep over on the same night but by 7 pm since they were playing nice so I told her if she wanted to have a sleep over she could.  It must have been because I had just eaten or was distracted.  What was I thinking?   Now I have 2 9 year old girls, 2 11 year old boys and 2 dogs. 

Holy cow.

Two kids was definitely the right choice.

Home show people lied to me.

Saturday started out with a fun coughing fit.  I hate colds.

I need to grout today so I can seal the grout Tuesday.  I want to place the fixtures next weekend.  If the timing works out the sink and stand will be here by then.  Sam wants me to take her back to Walmart to see if those shoes came in.  I want to veg in front of the computer until the coughing is under control.  Grouting won.  I uber-medicated and feel much better now.

I have never grouted or done tile work of any kind.  It has been two decades since I did any cement work so all of this is new to me.  I had to figure out how to mix the stuff in a 5 gallon pail.  The drill mixer I picked up was useless.  It splashed the stuff all over my pants and shoes but mixed almost nothing.  I used a garden trowel and a big paint stirrer stick and viola! It was mixed. 

Trying to grout a wall is much tougher than it looks on TV.  Sam said I was doing a good job.  I asked her how she could tell.  She said I was doing it like the people on the home shows.  That was very nice of her but home show quality it was not.  I think as much dropped on the plastic as got on the wall.  As luck would have it I only needed one bag of grout.  I was able to get the wall and floor done in roughly an hour.  Fewer grout lines, the only good part of using huge tiles.

I ended up taking a shower and running the kids back to Walmart.  Sam found her size and decided she didn’t like how the felt on her ankle so we didn’t get her shoes.  We did mini-grocery shopping and went home.

I just finished washing the tiles and walls.  Hopefully I was able to clean off all of the left over grout.  It is not as easy to clean up once it starts to set.

I am not going to look for shoes for Sam tomorrow.

Threshold and floor tile.

Overview

Tub Surround tiles.

Laundry, Tiling, shopping oh my!

So I took Friday off as it was the last day of the kid’s spring break.  I went to Walmart to get the kids and myself some shoes.  Jason and I got a pair but Sam liked the shoes that did not have her size.  Of course.  Sam asked the worker if they had any in back.  She looked it up and said they would probably get them Saturday in different sizes.  So we went to Target to look and didn’t find any there either.  We picked up some milk and headed home. 

I needed to put the trim tiles up in the bathroom.  I am battling a fun head cold so I medicated up and dove into the bathroom.  The little tiles along the wall went up fairly easy.  I used painters tape to keep them from sliding and the little pluses to keep the proper space.  I figure if I give them until Saturday to set then I can grout.  Oh boy.

I started doing laundry and realized that many of Samantha’s pants have holes in the legs in various places.  I told Sam we could get new ones and she told me no because, “these are so comfortable!”  She flat refused to go and buy new pants.  She told me her clothes are fine and she didn’t want to get any new ones.  Man, if only I could get that attitude to stick around.

Back to laundry.

Spring Equinox festival day

Sunday came in with a list of things to do.  As I was picking up Jason from his friends house I heard the front brake grind.  A trip to Auto Zone was in my future.  I forgot how many stores were closed on Easter.  Costco and target were out.  Lucky for me Auto Zone, Kroger, Home Depot and Lowe’s do not have the same religious leanings.

I picked up brakes at Auto Zone, Food at Kroger and I swung over to Home Depot to grab a blade for the jigsaw that would cut my floor tile.

The brake job was pretty straight forward and a short time later I was setting up to get my floor finished.  I was hoping it would be the last time for a while I need to set up the tile saw.  I got my last two tiles cut to size and then I marked the circle I needed cut out.  It was mostly a half circle out of both of them.  I grabbed the blade I just picked up and set to work.  I might as well have been cutting with wet spaghetti.  Off to Lowe’s I go.  I needed a diamond blade for porcelain tiles, not a carbide blade.  

Now I have both. 

On the up side the floor is done.  With the tile work behind me, grouting the tiles is next.  Something to look forward to.

Wall and floor tile - check.

Floor tile with the threshold.

My ever present companion.

The toilet flange.  Those two circle cuts took 3 hours of my life.

Saturday

I was working on the bathroom Saturday morning.  I didn’t like the threshold I had. It looked awesome and had cool color variations but it was natural stone and it had natural stone imperfections.  I didn’t figure this would fly with Christine so I went to the tile store and Sam helped me pick out a better one.  Got it home, cut it, dry fit it in place and it looked really good.  I put a floor tile down and they looked good together.  I had Jason help me get the toilet flange in place.  Since the floor is going in I am not worried about breaking the flange.  Jason came in the bathroom to help/watch me glue the PVC together and he stepped on the threshold.  Since it was not glued in place it snapped right down the center. 

I did not yell at him.  I wanted to.  I should have picked them up.  I knew it was fragile until it was installed and I told Jay not to step on it, but I should have moved it.  So I took Sam and Sofia back to the tile shop and picked up another one.  It is installed now.  The floor is not as easy as I thought it would be.  You can’t step on the tiles so I got almost the entire floor done.  4 whole tiles and 3 cut tiles.  The last two need to be cut and then have holes cut for the toilet flange.

 

That is tomorrow’s project after grocery shopping.

Work stuff

So in the continuing saga of a giant work remodel, we shut off power to the building on Saturday.  Not just a little power or sections of the building but all of it.  It was scheduled to be off for 10 hours.

I came in at 5 in the morning to power down my equipment so the power spikes as it came on wouldn’t ruin it.  Detroit Power and Light already puts out crappy power so the last thing I needed was spikes taking out my servers.  The switchboard folks had to stay there.

Nothing like a high rise with limited power (Elevator and emergency lights), no AC, and a phone system powered by back up batteries to entertain a person.  I received a call around 9 am saying power was back.  This seemed fishy so after a couple of other calls I discovered it was partial power.  Around 5 pm I received official notification that power was back on.  It took 45 minutes to properly shut everything down.  I spent 3 hours trying to coax my servers back to life.  I was not a happy camper. 

In the end all is well.  I just hope it doesn’t need to happen again.

Wow!

Holy cow.  I didn’t think one person could be so busy at work.

I probably shouldn’t say that for fear my boss might read this but hey, it’s true.  We moved the folks from one floor to another temporally while we are undergoing renovations.  We were able to do it with a minimum of down time and no disruption to any of our services.  We spent months prepping for this but it paid off.  I spent a weekend at work getting all the phone extensions punched down to the new floor.  I brought Sam with me and she absolutely loved it.  She was my funny little helper.  She also did crafts, drew pictures, played on the internet, read a little, and played on Chris’ phone.  When we went to the new floor I need to install lots of patch cords.  They were individually wrapped.  Since I had to open lots of bags Sam gave me a hand.  She sat on the floor and opened all the cords and took off all the twist-ties.  She would hand them to me and I would install them.  It was perfect.  I finished that part of it quicker since I was able to dodge those pesky child labor laws.

I thought Monday would bring one or two items of interest, not a whole freakin’ day!  I ended up hiding on Tuesday just to catch up on everything else. 

I couldn’t believe I was happy for an admin day.