Sorry, I've been neglecting this website. I've lived here for 2 months now, but really havent had the opportunity to get out much. I go back and forth between the two bases quite a bit, but not much excitement about that.

I'm deployed for the 4th time, but this is very different from the other deployments on the ship. I have a lot more freedom and I'm running a 10,000 sq ft facility. Its nice to have control of actual facilities again. This is a very different kind of job in some aspects from what I've done in the past because I am actually trying to do facility improvement and build new facilities. Working on contracts and with contractors is painful and slow, but the final product should be nice. Considering these guys and gals are living in 10 man tents, anything I can do is nice. So like the ship, I'm doing events at night like karaoke, wii bowling contests, hot dog eating contests, some fitness activities and doing trips to local places like todays trip to the Grand Mosque.

Bahrain, is much more westernized than I expected. There are many British residents here because Bahrain was owned/occupied by them until a few decades ago. Yes, they still wear the robes and head piece (not really what they are but close enough for explaination-Ahmed if you read this feel free to correct me on what they are really called) and most women wear the abayas (what you see me wearing in the mosque). But they are friendly and generally amused by me.

The weather hasn't really been bad yet, but where I live there is no shade and no real buildings so it's been about 80*F/22*C during the days and windy so you get sand blasted often. Nothing like getting out of the shower and having to walk the 15m to my room already sweating because its so humid and getting sand blown at you. By August temperatures can get 140*F/45*C (the conversion should be pretty close) . Luckily I should be out of here by mid August so I wont have to put up with it for long. I'm in a very isolated area, but we really aren't hurting for ways to amuse ourselves (thanks to MWR *Grin*)