People Pictures

What a LONG week! It’s always hard to follow a holiday weekend (granted, we don’t have weekends here – every day is a Wednesday), but I’d dare say this has been the longest week I’ve had in quite some time. For one, I expected to be out FOB-hopping by now but there’s a hold up until we hear back from the home office with further direction. Second, I’m sick again. Caught some sort of head cold right after finally getting over my nagging cough. Third, and this is just a guess, I’m in the middle of Afghanistan! However, 84 work hours later, my week comes to a close and all is well. Mostly. I still have the cold, but I’m certainly better off than many others I’ve seen around here.

Friday is payday and that immediately improves even the worst of days. I just had an epiphany related to my taxes; seriously, this is a bit alarming. Quick segway…one perk to working overseas for a year is that you can exclude from income up to $91,400 (don’t even ask how the IRS arrived at that number) of your foreign earnings. That’s fantastic. No Federal Taxes owed on this portion. I can definitely live with that! Here’s the kicker. A glance at my check stub indicated that over the course of the next year I’ll end up paying nearly last year’s salary in Federal Taxes. I was dumbfounded. Then I realized what was happening. Our payroll system isn’t set up to account for the tax exemption. Consequently, I’ll end up drastically overpaying and get a nice refund and/or forced savings account. Perfect, hello Ducati!!

I imagine you can tell it’s been an uneventful week when the only real highlights include getting a cold and tax talk.

Inside Delta Force is a great read and only gets better page-by-page. Having never been in the service, I have absolutely zero ability to relate on a personal basis. Yet, in some uncanny way, it seems to make perfect sense. My theory remains that seeing and hearing all the military activities on a daily basis provides this mysterious connection.

Never would’ve imagined the day when running and reading would become events I eagerly awaited on a daily basis. Aside from a few days off from the gym to cope with this cold, I’ve maintained a steady routine. I’m just past the halfway mark of my book. Anyone have good suggestions out there? Figure I might as well get my fill while I’m here and in the practice. Besides, I’ve confirmed a suspicion of mine – we cannot access any sort of streaming media. No Hulu, YouTube, or anything. Since I can’t keep up with my TV shows, why not read?

Finally, here are pictures of some coworkers and me. Everyone appreciated the first album I posted but wanted people pictures. Ron is the guy I mentioned last week. He reminds me so much of my late Uncle Dan. It’s nice having a reminder of him around, especially since Dan had such a thoughtful, clever, entertaining personality that was ever so contagious!