Just Another Week

Well it has been a few weeks so here is what has been happening. Nothing........
Yep you guessed it there really haven’t been any highlights to share or excitement here in the Kingdom. It is the normal everyday run of the mill. We did hire a new I.T. guy he is a local and he seems to know quite a bit but we are teaching him some things. The Saudi’s tend to embellish their Resume's just a tad if you catch my drift.

Looking forward to getting to come home in November for Kimberly's wedding and enjoy Thanksgiving with the family. We are planning a trip to Abilene and Cassie's mom, sister and aunt were invited as Lee will be away. We are hoping they will accept so we can experience our first family Thanksgiving together, well not all of the family but close. Right now our plans are to do all the cooking so Grammy can relax. Josh of course will cook his delicious Turkey and Diane, Cassie and I will make all the side dishes. As usual I am sure Grammy will make some of her wonderful pies, Mincemeat, Buttermilk, Rhubarb, and of course everyone's favorite Pecan. If Diane is sweet to her she might even make a Cheese Cake (Jeremy you will have to fight her for it).

I guess I can tell you that “my” work has increased quite a bit. We have made some small successes but not a lot. When I first got here I was asked to get communications to the warehouse and Fab Shop which are off site. The warehouse is down the road about 8 kilometers which is about 5 miles, and the Fab Shop is about 72 kilometers or 45 miles. There are no utilities so we have to survive on generator power and cell phones. With this kind of configuration the guys who really take care of checking everything in, log what is missing, check quantities, etc had to sit in our office here because that is where the network is located. The idea was to have them on their own Satellites so they could tie back into our network and access their data. Well after three and a half months we finally got the warehouse up and running. We went back and forth on design and other and I stopped a big expensive no-no from happening. What could have been a disaster turned out ok with just a few problems. The Fab Shop is coming along and we should (cross your fingers and say a prayer) have it up and running before I leave the 17th.

I also was tasked with identifying every single cell phone we have ever bought and issued. We had gone back to our client to get more phones because we had run out. They are paying the bills so we had to get their approval first before we could order them. Well let me tell you, I opened a big can of worms and am paying for it. Now I didn't do this on purpose I was just merely ordering more phones. I took over the phones after I got here and setup my system that I used in Kuwait and Iraq which worked great. I had no clue that what was ordered and issued before hand, was not signed for so no one knew who had what unless it just happened to be in their phone. So I set out to correct it and let me tell you........

Anyway we are accomplishing and moving forward daily with small baby steps. By the time we finish the project we should have issued approximately three or four hundred computers and probably close to 150 cell phones. Doesn't sound like a lot but let me tell you, in the Kingdom and this project that is a lot. Hope everyone is doing great and looking forward to the holidays, I still can’t believe it is almost here already. I will be spending Christmas in Saudi this year so you can all just send me my presents ahead of time so I will have them for Thanksgiving (grin)! Anyway keep us in your prayers and especially Diane and Kimberly as they make the final preparations for the wedding. It has been fun I can tell you because I get coming and going. Stay safe and don’t let the goblins in the end of the month, oh and tell Kimber Happy Birthday when you see her, she turns the big 20 this year. Love to all…….