Week 12

Week 12 was a very demanding one. We had a really bad storm roll through the area. The wind gusts were up to fifty miles an hour. Recovering from the effects of the storm kept me very busy. The long hours combined with the oceans of mud left me drained. I wasn’t able to get much else done, besides watching a few episodes of Alias. I bought all five seasons and am working on season four right now. Season one hooked me and so I thought that I would enjoy the rest of the seasons just as much. The law of diminishing returns seems inescapable though.

I made two trips out to the bat cave this week. The first was for monthly maintenance and the second was due to the above mentioned storm. The bat cave is very detached in several ways. There are no windows and the windows that used to be there are sealed and covered with sandbags and plywood. There is also very little incentive to leave the bat cave. There is not much to do on the base besides eat and go to the gym. Having this atmosphere of detachment, it is easy to forget that there is a world outside of the bat cave. A powerful storm could very well pass right over the bat cave and no one would no the difference. This would have happened if the powerful storm hadn’t blown over the satellite dish that provides the bat cave with its communications. This is what brought me back to the bat cave only two days after leaving it.

I was able to get everything back up and working fairly quickly. I even got my first ‘at a boy’ from the folks in Baghdad. I felt good and accomplished. I am finally starting to fall into a rhythm and am feeling more confident about my job. I hope this will only help to make my time here go by quicker.