DAY 36 / JAN 3

DAY 36 / JAN 03, 2006

Another day with no meetings! I treasure them greatly. This morning, I dodged a work bullet consisting of inventorying all of the sensitive items and am grateful for it because it would have consumed my next two days entirely. Remarkably, I didn't even have to pawn this task off on someone else because another someone else volunteered. You have to love the volunteer Army.

So, that being taken care of I was able to submit the request through Brigade for a building for my JNN and was also able to recover a vehicle from the "sterile yard." The sterile yard is where vehicles go when you are giving them to the Iraqis or they are damaged and cannot be repaired – its like a scrap yard. The vehicle I recovered was not scrap and was on our books, so I was instructed to get it back – which I did. Now, I plan on using it as my Fob Hopper until someone takes it away.

There really isn't anything different today than there was yesterday. At night we walk around in FRB just is case something should fall out of the sky and blow up.

Once the people we are replacing finally leave, we can really begin to take over and put our own special mark on our areas. Until then, it just feels like we're in their space, in their way, and we can't really change anything until they go. The sooner the better, and once our replacements come, I will be the first to say, "Here ya go, have a nice time." But, that day is still far in the offing.

Tomorrow is another meeting day and after that we have more patrols to go on in the upcoming weeks to recover some equipment and personnel from other sites. Once we get settled, our patrol rate should drop considerably.

I really wish I had internet in my room, I have so many things I'd like to look up, to research, but I always forget them when I'm actually at a computer I do it at. Also, my time is so limited on those connections that I have to do the important stuff first – check email, reply to email, check news - and by the time that's done, I've forgotten what I wanted to research in the first place.

We are supposed to be bringing in another piece of equipment soon that could help out the snail slow (worse than dial-up) internet in our offices. That won't come online until later in the month, though.