New post from Kelly in Qatar...

Not Much Has Changed

Nothing new to report. I'm getting more familiar with my new job. I'm getting to know all the new people that I'm here with, since we spend most of our time together. I think I'm getting used to the heat and humidity, if that's possible. And I've developed a pretty set routine for my days and weeks. So that's what I'll tell you about today.

A day in the life of me:

2200-alarm goes off to wake me up, sometimes I'm already awake

get up, put on PT uniform and head to Cadillac (bathroom) to shave and brush teeth (this requires walking about 100 yards to a separate building)

2230-back at my room, get dressed in DCU's (desert camo uniform), say prayers, make bed, straighten up a little, make sure I have everything I need to take with me to work

2250-leave my room and head for the the chow hall (cafeteria). Get a bite to eat (breakfast foods like eggs or pancakes or left overs from dinner) and a cup of coffee.

2315-get on the bus and ride about 10 minutes to the other side of the base to work.

2330-get to work, get turn over from the off going shift, start 12 hour shift

Now here's where it can vary quite a bit. I'm not going to lie, it's not all work and no play. Some days are but most days are not. We may be busy or we may have nothing at all to do for 12 hours. In that case we help out the other sections where we can. We play cards or dominoes, watch movies.

We spend a lot of time launching and recovering airplanes. I won't go into too much detail about times or procedures. There is some inspection and preventive maintenance that we do on the engines. And of coarse if one fails to operate as intended or at all, we fix it if we can or replace it with another one.

0500-the chow hall on the other side of the base opens. We try to get a hot meal, but are not always successful, depending on work load. If we do get to eat it's breakfast, so more eggs (I'm so tired of eggs). If not we get box lunches which are sandwiches, chips, snacks. They're OK.

Back to the flight line. Finish up whatever work we are doing or helping with. Maybe wash the truck, fill the coolers with Gatorade, water and ice, clean the building. Depends on the day.

1130-the next shift starts showing up. Time to inventory tools, and get ready to turn over any unfinished work.

1200-get on the bus and go back to my room

1215-change from DCU to PT uniform

1230-work out at the gym. I usually do a little weights and then cardio.

1315-back to the room, grab stuff to take a shower and head for the Cadillac to shower and change clothes (clean PT uniform)

1400-back to the room. Bag up dirty laundry, take it to the laundry drop off. Pick up clean laundry next door to dirty laundry drop off. (The laundry is done by an off base contractor

and they are pretty efficient, no complaints)

1430-maybe go to the chow hall for dinner (depends on if I got to eat lunch and how tired I am and what they are having)

1500-log on to my personal computer in my room, which is finally set up and running thanks to Drew. I use mt camera to make a quick 10-20 second video of myself saying hello and

talking to Candace and the boys, then send it to them in an email.

1530-get ready for bed. Read bible, say prayers, maybe watch a little TV. Before I know it it's time to do it all again.

*The times in this post are in military time so as to confuse civilian readers

**All times and schedules are subject to change without notice or refund