Good Morning America

On 8 December, Good Morning America broadcast their morning news show live on our base. I watched some of the broadcast take place (about 100 feet from my office) and took some photos of George Stephanopoulis. The news crew was in Afghanistan for about four days doing various stories.

Army/Navy T-Shirts

On 11 December, we celebrated the Army/Navy game by making up some t-shirts. The back of the shirt reads, "When Army Strong Isn't Strong Enough. U.S. NAVY!" We wore these shirts with our regular uniform pants off and on during the day of the game which was broadcast at midnight (Afghanistan time).

Me and our Civilian Leaders

Here is me with our two civilian leaders: Left of me is Frank Calestino (with the beard), our deputy director and Treasury Dept. representative. To the right of me with the reindeer antlers is our director, Kirk Meyer, a DEA agent from Chicago. Kirk has been in Afghanistan four years and will leave July 2011. Frank has been here two years (Iraq for two years prior to Afghanistan) and will also leave July 2011. Two very smart people! Frank has an MBA from Georgetown (and was also working on a PhD at Georgetown). Kirk knows everyone in Afghanistan and really needs to write a book about his experiences here. I've been in a hundred briefings with these guys and every one is still interesting and amazing.

Coworkers

Here are some people I work with that include, front left to right: Florencia and Kirk Meyer and back left to right: Mitch Neal, Jim Gehringer, Ryan McDonald, Brian Johnson, Lacy and Dominick. Our department is a mix of military and civilian employees from various government agencies including DEA, FBI, and the Treasury Dept.

ISAF Gym Challenge Shirt

Every month, ISAF has a fitness challenge where one can earn a t-shirt either by participating or by earning it via a score. I earned this one doing a bunch of exercises that included a stationary bike, sit-ups, side box jumps, bench presses, shoulder presses, box step ups, treadmill run, and rowing under a certain time. My time for this one was 21:53. It's called the gym challenge and it's held every two months.

Welcome Winter!

Well this is our first big snowfall and it is only December 5th! I caught Taylor and Turner outside as Taylor was snow blowing the driveway. Turner was happy to be out in the snow and especially happy to find something to smell. It doesn't take much to make the dog happy! Not sure how Taylor is feeling about doing the snow blowing.

Aerial View of Kabul

As you can see from these three photos, the air quality isn't too good in Kabul.