Wednesday, November 14, 2007

CheeseBoxes

I went to a formal ball and we had to stay an extra day due to low visibility conditions from dust. When I got back, I dropped my stuff off at the cheesebox. I use the term cheesebox because that is what they called similar living quarters when I was at Anaconda two years ago. The cheeseboxes at Anaconda were a forty foot long container with a door and a window unit air conditioner at one end. The Anaconda cheeseboxes had 5 cots in them. The cheeseboxes here at Speicher are a twenty foot long container, and have two bunk beds in them. I had heard that at one time Anaconda had five bunk beds in their cheeseboxes. I can't imagine how bad that would have been.
When I got back from the ball, I dropped my overnite stuff off there and went to the PX to get a foot locker to store my waistcoat, party hat, ballroom dancing gown and gloves, and sleeping bag for the truck so I would not have to pack the stuff out here to work every time I went dancing. When I dropped the stuff off, there were three new people in my unit, and they had the heat set to about eighty five degrees. I turned the heat down, but did not turn the unit to air conditioning. After returning from my trip to the PX, and then dropping the foot locker off and putting my stuff in it at work, I noticed someone had removed the temperature control knob, and it was back to eighty five degrees in there. I went to billeting, and filled out a work order to get stuff fixed, with a notation that the knob had disappeared in the two hour time span between my first visit, and my final return. I also checked out another sleeping bag and a pillow. My plan was to sleep on top of the concrete bunker in front of the cheesebox. I had bought a Turkish rug while I was at the location of the ball, and tried to sleep on the concrete bunker without it. After a couple of hours tossing and turning, I went back inside the cheesebox and retrieved the rug, and placed it under my sleeping bag. It was much better after doing this. The temperature was about fifty or fifty-five degrees, and the sleeping bag was plenty warm. It was definitely better than sleeping inside the hot cheesebox.
Unless things change about the temperature in the cheesebox, I plan to continue sleeping on top of the bunker. I haven't decided what to do about waterproofing when it starts raining in a couple of weeks, but I am sure I will be able to figure something out before the rain starts.
Supposedly the cheeseboxes are a temporary deal, and people are moved into the dormitory, based on seniority of time in country. However, there was a new arrival today who left Houston two weeks after me. He was placed in the dormitory today, his first day here.

1 comment:

jon lindburg said...

Hi Mike, good to read your blog, is the music better this time at the dances?