Cigar Night

A few weeks ago we had a cigar night after Havdalah at our friends over at the US Army Corps of Engineers compound's cigar porch.

Welcome to The USACE compound!

I'm not an expert in virtually any vice, but the peer pressure got to me and I'm told they were very good cigars.

Welcome to the porch!

Frank is a phantom.

Tobacco is basically the only permissible vice on KAF.

 I realize the irony of my making comments about Mike Self way back in the day and how he looked like Fidel Castro. I am fully aware that in these pictures, with the big beard, and especially with the cigar, I resemble Fidel Castro. Just wanted to get this out there in the open, so nobody else thought they could point it out to me.

I'm telling everyone about this glorious revolution I once led.

Curse the infamous glare off of reflector belts!

Cigar night was also a good opportunity for some great looking pictures of good deeds being done. Benari had lots of comic books, and Avi knew of lots of people who had little time on their hands. Supply and demand at their finest.

Transaction complete.

Karaoke

Monday night at KAF is Karaoke night at the MWR tent. They draw a regular and decent-sized crowd. On one of the last nights Mike Champion was in town a bunch of us went to see what it was like.

Pretty legit with the whole stage thing.

Lyrics for all to see.

Taking pictures with the flash on has a very predictable problem associated with it - note the reflector-belt.

Glorious Cuba can only benefit from watching others sing popular songs.

...Also I really love Karaoke.

Did you know Karaoke means empty orchestra? Isn't that hauntingly poetic?

Go Michael!

Michael is kind of a celebrity at Karaoke night. He even had a request one time. The best chance I have at having that sort of notoriety around here is being known as beard guy - and there are plenty of those. There's even a guy with a handlebar mustache walking around... How can I make my mark?

Helicopters!

Recently, Major Kraus, friend of the Education Center offered to have the Ed Center team over to his side of the base for a tour of the Army helicopters and a movie night in their rec room. It was a fantastic experience. Took a whole bunch of pictures. First we walked around the hangar where the skeletons of helicopters sat waiting to be put back together.

Helicopter skeleton.

Explaining things.

You see, after every so many hours of flight time a helicopter needs to be completely taken apart and put back together.

Looks like this one's got some sort of steam-punk rocket booster on the back.

Nope, it's just the engine uncovered.

Chinook helicopters have a lot of trunk space. Great for families.

From the hangar we went to the vast expanses of helicopter fields. Must've been hundreds of them spaced far apart - so it covered a couple square miles.

Looks like a helicopter version of Russian dolls.

We were there right around sunset, so it made for a good picture.

Ohhhhh.... ahhhh...

That little unicorn horn thingy there? That's in case the chopper flies through a place with wires - to cut them.

Wire cutter up close.

Castro reviews the troops' performance... Acceptable.

Fields and fields of helicopters.

Then we watched the sunset from their second story deck. Sandy sunset.

If anyone was on the edge of their seats waiting to find out what movie we watched afterwards - it was Bad Teacher. Just as funny the second time (I saw it in theaters). I guess working at the Education Center has some advantages - you meet people from every part of the base, because someone from any part of the base is trying to get an education - and in doing so you have some sort of a connection with the whole base.

Happy Birthday Mike. You're a Champion.

So last week was Michael Champion, the tester here at Kandahar Education Center's, birthday. A plot was schemed to kidnap him by luring him into one of the Ed. Center's classrooms that is under construction and covering his head and ensnaring his hands in one of those zipper handcuff thing all in honor of his birthday.

I was pretty uncomfortable with this plan. After all, there are plenty of people walking around with weapons, and you never know how people are going to react when they see two people with Keffiehs around their heads struggling to force someone into a car..., but it was my first full week, so whatever I agreed to be the getaway car driver. The full plan was for him to go out to the room where Christian and Michael Self (another Michael - this one works for University of Maryland) would attack and subdue Michael and put him in the car where I would be waiting with Afghani music or talk radio blasting. Then we'd drive around for like five minutes until we got to the pizza place on the boardwalk where we'd have a birthday dinner in his honor.

Here are some pictures.

This is Michael Self. You can't tell me he doesn't look like Fidel Castro.

"Let me tell you about the glorious revolution I led..."

Christian helping Mike to appear very intimidating.

So here's what ended up happening. While I diligently waited in the get-away car, Mike (Champion) came out of the Ed. Center... went towards the classroom as planned and instantly saw through the master that was the kidnapping plan.

The game is up.

Let's just do it anyway!

This is what it should've looked like, but with a lot more struggling.

So apparently there are a couple more sit-down restaurants than I originally thought. There's a Dutch restaurant and a pizza place. Pizza was the destination of choice for this occasion.

I'll have the "my co-workers are incompetent at surprising me, please"

Pretty sure they said a big jumble of sounds instead of his name when they sang "happy birthday" and that's what's so funny.

 Happy b-day Mike!

One more picture of Mike Self as Fidel Castro for good measure:

Ok one more: