Wow, holy sandstorm. I had to walk to the post office to mail something for my commander and ended up barraged in a tremendous sandstorm. I used some paper towels to cover my nose and face. It is tough right now because I am already working with a head cold. The paper towels actually worked fairly well though and I plan to utilize a face mask today if I have to go outside any more (which I hope to avoid)

One of the colonels that I work with is a foreign cinema buff (mostly Polish stuff). We have been talking about that a lot. I really have got into foreign films recently and my favorites are French – also like Italian, Spanish, and many British. One of my favorites is Charlotte Gainsbourgh, who looks a bit like my wife ? , and played recently in the Science of Sleep – she does both French, American, and English films. The colonel is going to give me some CD’s of Polish movies and he also has George Lucas’ first film, I think it is called THX-88 or something.

Back on to the Sopranos thing and my job here. I am sort of like Sylvio but with a slight nuance. I am not a captain. You have to bear with me because this may sound like something out of Catch-22. I am actually an army Major, which outranks an army Captain; however, in the Sopranos scenario, I am like Sylvio’s position if he wasn’t a captain. In plain English, I have to carry out some of the Boss directives to people that outrank me. However, they know it is coming from him and everyone here has actually been great so far. It takes a bit of emotional intelligence to try and read situations and react appropriately – I’m working on it!

I’ve had to take a break from soccer/workouts this week due to my cold. I had been working out every day but I guess a break every now and then is not bad. If I can make it back on Sunday, our base team plays the Kuwait National Guard so that will be interesting.

I cannot state any dates or specific locations, but I most likely will be traveling to Afghanistan sometime soon and visiting a historic place where Ghengis Khan fought – cool!