Tue May 19, 2009 11:54 am (PDT)
The sandstorms seem to have calmed down. Haven't had one now for a couple of days.
I am now working days for a while. Once all the tents were up and the air conditioners working, we shifted to working days, except for a skeleton crew who are there at night to keep the equipment from wandering away.
The schedule that was worked out by the chaplain who will be in charge of the ministry team in the command post will take effect about May 25, and it will put me on a 3:00 pm-to-midnight shift. We'll see how well that works out. It's a bit of an odd schedule for me, but maybe it will work. At least I won't have 12-hour shifts (which is very common in a deployed headquarters).
When I got to the command post this morning the air conditioner was not working in the tent where I work. The fan was blowing but the air that came out was not cold. Apparently it had not been down for very long, though, because the tent was not terribly hot, just moderately hot. Later, "they" turned off all the air conditioners for maintenance. It's amazing how fast you can feel the difference when that happens.
It definitely makes you appreciate the air conditioning. and the air conditioning is not just luxury for people who are too weak to adapt to harsh climates. If we didn't have the air conditioning, the computers would overheat and stop working, and that would definitely cramp our ability to function. It wouldn't stop us completely, but it would certainly cause lots of problems for us.
Computers in the command post are running very slow today, and they cut in and out of contact with the network. Very frustrating and slows all our work down drastically. Still, I suppose it's better than the bad old days of plastic overlays and alcohol pens on maps. and photocopying pounds and pounds of paper to publish operations orders.
Fr. Jonathan Landon +
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