Don's Donut
Most of the folks that were here when I arrived had a little calendar program on their computers that tracked the days left of their deployment as a partially filled in donut. I never was really excited about putting a donut on my computer when I first got here. Too harsh a reminder everyday of how much I had left to go. Now that I have something less than 7 weeks left, it seems like a better idea and maybe I'll ask Don for a copy of his donut program. Don is going home on Saturday, actually, starting home on Saturday. He won't arrive at the CRC at Fort Bliss until Sunday late. Then a few days of silliness checking out his gear and getting medical checkups, then home. We listened carefully to his advice today on how to make our retreats. Don's donut is completely filled in.
I passed around a sign-in sheet to our crew to tour the Ziggurat with a guide next week. Hopefully we'll get about ten people out there. I haven't been out there since Jerry took us out on our first day in camp, except to drive Iraqi contractors by the site. Ironically, Iraqi nationals without business on the base cannot tour the Ziggurat.
I had another Iraqi contractor pre-construction meeting today for a police station southeast of Nasiriyah. After a few days of missed connections on our Iraqi cell phones text messaging each other, it was good to put this behind us. Terms of the contract, scope of work, how to get paid, can he stay on the right side of the police chief and out of jail? It was a good meeting and I gave him a Notice to Proceed from the KO (Contracting Officer). He expects to get one building refurbished, another new building up and rebuild 300 meters of perimeter walls in the next 90 days. Those are the terms of our contract. I was impressed with the CAD (computer aided design) drawings he brought with him, not only for the one site, but also on another he was bidding on. That one I had assessed with the Italians last month and his drawing looked much better than my pencil sketch. "And it's exactly to scale," he said in very good English.
Tonight, ten of us brought Don over to Camp Mittica for a steak dinner at the Albanian pizza place. It's kind of an Italian enlisted club, I've never seen an officer in there. Don, we'll miss you. Have a safe trip home to New England.
I passed around a sign-in sheet to our crew to tour the Ziggurat with a guide next week. Hopefully we'll get about ten people out there. I haven't been out there since Jerry took us out on our first day in camp, except to drive Iraqi contractors by the site. Ironically, Iraqi nationals without business on the base cannot tour the Ziggurat.
I had another Iraqi contractor pre-construction meeting today for a police station southeast of Nasiriyah. After a few days of missed connections on our Iraqi cell phones text messaging each other, it was good to put this behind us. Terms of the contract, scope of work, how to get paid, can he stay on the right side of the police chief and out of jail? It was a good meeting and I gave him a Notice to Proceed from the KO (Contracting Officer). He expects to get one building refurbished, another new building up and rebuild 300 meters of perimeter walls in the next 90 days. Those are the terms of our contract. I was impressed with the CAD (computer aided design) drawings he brought with him, not only for the one site, but also on another he was bidding on. That one I had assessed with the Italians last month and his drawing looked much better than my pencil sketch. "And it's exactly to scale," he said in very good English.
Tonight, ten of us brought Don over to Camp Mittica for a steak dinner at the Albanian pizza place. It's kind of an Italian enlisted club, I've never seen an officer in there. Don, we'll miss you. Have a safe trip home to New England.
posted by Bob at 11:43 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home