Weather outside is breaking

The weather has started to break a little. We are still reaching above 100 degrees, but the nights are a little cooler and you can tell that it is not as bad. We will have about 1-2 months like this and then it will get really chilly at night while still getting warm during the day. It makes such a huge difference to not feel an oppressive weight on your shoulders all the time. Don’t get me wrong, it is still very hot during the day, but getting bearable.

Seem to have caught up on some things this last week. We had our Management Assist Visit by the unit we are working with over here and it went very well. They inspected four different camps and looked at our project planning, execution, and management abilities. They had a couple of small hits, but it was nothing that can’t be fixed. Overall I was very pleased with the hard efforts by every project and team in getting ready for the visit as well as the willingness to learn better ways to do business.

Today, I am going to start introducing some of my co-workers. Hopefully I can get through them all over deployment. Even though most are married with families, while we are deployed we become our own family and really rely on each other for support. Today’s introduction is my Assistant Operations Officer – LT Ben Wainwright. Ben is (unfortunately for him) the one that works the closest to me on a daily basis. He sits at a desk right beside my office and we even installed a slide window so we could talk easier without getting up EVERY five minutes. The job ranges from just compiling reports to truly being my second when I am not around. It all depends on the individual and Ben definitely falls into the second group. We have worked very well together (he was a big unknown we I selected him) and he has learned so much. He pretty much knows what I am thinking or what my recommendation for particular situation would be. He still has to suffer through all the reports that never seem to stop being required, but he knows the expectations and gets them close to final before I even see them. I fully trust him for any meeting that I normally go to and he speaks for me when I travel. Enough good stuff about the guy. He is originally from Michigan and went to the University of Toledo in Civil Engineering. He was on a swimming scholarship so needless to say I am irritated every time he talks about swimming. He is married and his wife is back in California working as a nurse. He is very tall so I started calling him the Jolly Green Giant. He has been in the military almost six years and spent his first couple years in South Carolina (Parris Island) and Rhode Island (Newport) doing Public Works and Contracting kind of jobs. He has been a great addition to our team.

Last thing for the day is our Wardroom pictures. The Wardroom is all the officers and we have a small tent that we use for watching TV, hanging out, reading, or just getting away for a while. We built some benches in it and we also have some of the folding camp chairs. Nothing fancy, but it is where I can watch my LOST episodes on DVD or catch a football game in the middle of the night. The Junior Officers repainted the pink wall with some camouflage the other night and we continue to make funny pictures of each of us. This started as a joke with using cartoon characters for our pictures. I was awarded mine last week and you can check it out below. There is a runny Spongebob joke since I used Spongebob stickers on our ID’s during our last Field Exercise. It was so the guards would know people were assigned to our unit and not someone trying to sneak in.