Morale has improved significantly since the weekend, mainly due to the increased workload. We're feeling useful and wanted again, which is an improvement on last week. Being busy has also helped the days go by a lot quicker. My movie viewing habits may have also had a bearing on my mood; it's impossible to feel grumpy after watching Megamind, Shrek and the Muppet movie!

I've also managed to get my Internet connection working a lot better. I ditched the ISP provided DNS server and went with Google instead. Suddenly everything is way more responsive now that it doesn't take several seconds to resolve a host name! I'll still be trying the other ISP out as they're much better value for money.

I think I will resolve to make these posts shorter. Yesterday's was a monster and probably suffered from tl;dr. I'll also see about copying them over to LJ.

It's been very busy lately. I had a load of work on the weekend, and to top it off the British home secretary came to see the labs and I had to brief her on my work. So nervous! She was really late and I'd assumed that she wasn't coming, so when she did show up I was busy watching Battlestar Galactica and stuffing my face with Mini Cheddars. Somewhat embarrassing! No matter; my briefing went well and she seemed to go away happy.

As I mentioned in my previous journal Proxsecure, the ISP I've been using, has started blocking all manner of websites, including FA. I've managed to stay online using a VPN, but I'm not hopeful that will last. I've also realised they're a bit rubbish as they don't run their own DNS servers, instead relying on OpenDNS. Using a free service to prop up a commercial enterprise is pretty poor show, especially one that charges its customers $90/month for 256kbps! Fortunately, there is another provider on camp, so I will give them a try next month. The new guys charge $96/month for 512kbps - slightly more money, but much better value.

The weather has heated up again. It's been 38C for the last couple of days. You really notice the difference when the ambient temperature exceeds body temperature: so sweaty. It's really not very glamorous. Neither are all the insect bites on my arms. I'm getting slowly eaten alive, either by mosquitos or sand flies at the moment - I'm not sure which. Whatever they are, I'm having alergic reactions to the bites, which is deeply unpleasant. I'm going to try using insect repllent tonight; hopefully that will keep them away.

It's not all bad news at the moment. I received an aid package from my colleagues in the UK yesterday, which included Jaffa Cakes and poki! It was really thoughtful of them and included a couple of nice letters. Sometimes it can feel like we're forgotten by work out here, so things like that really help. We had a geek-meet today as well, which is where all the civilians working for my employer get together for coffee and a chat. There's a surprising number of us which helps with the feelings of isolation.

Lastly, I had a really nice note from jazzfoxrules that really brightened my weekend up. She asked me a really important question: am I getting any art commissioned soon? It's been a good long while, so I think it would be rude not to! Can any of you recommend artists that are open at the moment, that would be willing to do a reference sheet?

It's nearly time for dinner. I've been getting bored with the food here. It's good, but the menu is pretty restricted and only a week long, so I'm eating the same stuff week after week and really starting to crave some variety. I'm going to try organise a group visit to the steak house next month for my birthday. I'm not that fussed about celebrating it, but it's a good excuse for a change of scenery and a change of menu!

Or so my ISP tells me. This is the first time I've been able to get on here in a while, by using my VPN.

A full update to follow, although I need to get some stuff cleared for release. I also need to get around to replying to all your notes!

Here's that photo of my accommodation I promised: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11616271/

Little else to report other than morale is at an all time low.

So I've started to lose track of the days. That's normal for here because nearly every day is the same. I knew it would be worse this time because it's my second tour; little to nothing has changed so it seems like no time has passed since last year. Did I get to go home for a year? Was that real?

Last night was film night. We sat outside, using the side of one of the labs as a projection screen. Open air, Afghan cinema for the win!

Other than that I've spent the last couple of days cleaning my lab. I don't think it has been done since I was last here. There was so much dust behind the units! It's a lot better, but there's still some way to go. Today I shall mop the floor.

This post may appear later than advertised as I think the Internet has just gone down again.

Cancel that. It just went crazy.

Not a great deal to report today. It's been a fairly normal day in that I've done a couple of cases and the post. The post run was fairly good because I nipped over to America to get a chai tea smoothie. OMG they are good! Only problem with them is the sugar. So much sugar.

I touched on weightloss yesterday. I'm taking my weight a lot more seriously now as I'm fed up of being overweight. I don't feel attractive and my weight has even limited the amount of physical activity (old skiing injury + mass + exercise = pain).

So what's the plan? Any exercise that puts strain on my knee is basically out until I get under 100kg. I had some success with swimming last year, until work got in the way (again). I might go back to that when I get back, but in the meantime I'm watching what I eat. I lost 2kg in a week just by reducing the size of my portions. I call it the "One Less Pasty" diet.

Eventually when I get under 100kg I will be able to start exercising again. There's a gym on camp where I can row and cycle - two exercises that aren't too harsh on my knee. I'm not aiming to be a super fit Adonis or anything. I just want to be active again and skinny enough to do some cosplay.

Yesterday was crazy busy. Suddenly I had a whole bunch of casework to do that kept me busy from 0800 to 2000. After that I had to do the sitrep which took me another couple of hours, eventually finishing at 2230. I went back to the tent, had a shower and went to sleep, getting up at 0600 this morning. I am pretty tired now!

There has been a development at work: we are losing access to the pick-up truck I've been using for the post runs at the end of the month, but we have gained access to a quad bike; however, there is a snag - none of us are qualified to drive it. So my boss has arranged quad bike driving courses for us and mine is in a couple of weeks. This should be fun! ^.^

Going back to what I mentioned yesterday, I've been interested in foam rubber costumes and prosthetics for as long as I can remember, longer even than furry. In fact, it was through prosthetic makeup that I discovered the fandom. I gradually lost interest in it over the years, obsessing over other things... However, that has been rekindled recently, due to the influence of a pair of very good friends and a sitcom called 'Dinosaurs!'.

You may have to be a child of the 80s to remember Dinosaurs!. It was a Jim Henson and Disney production aired from <year> to <year> in the US. It achieved limited exposure in the UK from, but the costumes made a serious impression on me as a child. Earl Sinclair's costume particularly so because it's so big and awkward - the body actor actually gets uninetentionally stuck in a doorway in the first episode.

But it's not just huge foam rubber dinosaurs... I'm a big fan of cosplays (I really wish I had the body for it, more on that tomorrow), and whole-body prosthetic makeup. For a good example of the latter, search YouTube for "The Making of Acri". Don't actually watch Acri; that film's messed up.

To be honest, I think I just like costumes in general. I enjoy dressing up for ocassions, be they formal events like weddings, or in-character events like LARP. Even something as mundane as a business suit is special to me, fursuits even more so.

I'm gonna shoot for now as it's nearly time for scoff. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some photos for you all of where I live out here.

~T x

No update tonight as I've only just got in from work at 2345L. -.-

Today has been an eventful day, if a short one. Sunday's in my unit are half-days where we get to catch up on sleep and start late. Given I'm normally up at 0600, it's a very welcome thing!

Late afternoon I went to do the post run as usual, except that today one of the officers had taken the vehicle so I had to walk. Commence trudging a mile in the heat and dust with a heavy sack The officer in question believed that there's no post on Sundays. That may be the case in the UK, but here the post office is open seven days a week. Because of that the post run took a whole hour and I didn't get to the American PX to look for a chair. There's always tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I've just had a big pile of evidence dumped on me that needs to be done tomorrow, so I may not be doing the post run at all. That's a bit of a disappointment for me because I do enjoy getting away from the labs for a bit, even if it's only just up the road.

Out of work I am slowly acquiring the sitcom "Dinosaurs!". I've got the whole lot on my server at home, but I'm having to fetch them an episode at a time because the Internet connection is only 256Kbps. My interest in the show isn't purely entertainment value - I've got a bit of a thing about big foam rubber costumes, more on that tomorrow >.>;

In the meantime, adieu, as duty calls.

*blows the dust off his journal*

It hit me last night that I should use this thing more. I'm on deployment at the moment and, whilst there is Internet back at my room, there's no Internet in my lab and I've got a fair amount of time to kill between cases right now. I use that time to do a lot of thinking about stuff and this journal seems as good a place as any to record all that. As well as allowing more than 140 characters, it's slightly more relaxed than my Twitter account; posts on there are copied to my Facebook and my family, so I can't be quite as relaxed as I can be here.

So yeah, there may be quite a few long, rambling journal posts coming along, and maybe some photos around camp. I'd like to try and capture a little of what life is like out here, within the restrictions of security - for example there won't be any photos of my workplace out here, unless I can get them cleared for release.

I've been here a week and a half so far and it feels like I never left. The lab is pretty much how I left it, but the accommodation has moved to a different camp. It's not too bad, but it's older so everything is a lot more worn and only half the showers have hot water. That's not so much of a problem now as it's still really hot during the day, but later in the year those hot showers are going to be needed. It can drop below freezing during the winter, which isn't that surprising considering that we're 800m above sea level.

I'm getting fed up with everything being beige; a lot of the equipment is beige, the tent's beige, the ground is beige and the dust that covers everything is also beige. There are small pockets of green on camp outside the laundry tents or where there's been a long standing water leak, but otherwise everything is beige. When I get back I will have to do some serious walking just to remember what fields and trees look like!

Yesterday I bought an Ikea PS wardrobe to go in my pit (local parlance for a 2.25M x 2.25M personal sleeping area in a tent, shielded on three sides with curtains). It's made my personal admin a lot neater, but mostly it's helped me feel like I own the space. In the process of moving my clothes I also found my Zippo lighter that I lost last week, so double win there.

The bed in my pit isn't great, sadly. It's a really basic camp bed with a foam mattress on top. I'm worried that the mattress may have fleas or bed bugs in it as I keep getting bitten in the middle of the night. Originally I thought it could be mosquitos, but no-one else in the tent is getting bitten.

Work itself is pretty quiet. My duties have been split roughly 50/50 forensics and lab administration to keep me busy. I struggled with the admin side initially, but now I have it pretty well licked. There's a little uncertainty about getting to the post office every day next month due to a shortage in vehicles, but my line manager has mentioned getting us trained to ride quad bikes as we've got access to a few of those. That will certainly be a more interesting way to get there! If all else fails, we always have the bicycles; they're fine for small amounts of stuff, but carrying several big diplomatic sacks is totally out of the question.

This is pretty tl;dr already, so I'll leave it here for now. More tomorrow hopefully. ^.^

Love you all,
~Tryst

I'm starting to get my stuff in order ready for another tour in foreign climes. I'm not as nervous this time, but it's still a little daunting as there's always the possibility that I won't come back.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11022861/

I had the strangest dream last night and I suspect it was brought on entirely by my experiences at confuzzled followed by too much Borderlands 2 and eating too many onion bajjis.

For some reason the con is at the Union Jack Club in London and there's a big mix up during check in during which VegasFirebird stole my room key! I was too scared to confront him about this (I hold him in quite high regard), but I didn't have to agonise about that for too long because robots attacked the building!

KittenShadow led Beshon, myself and a couple of randoms to safety in the loft of the building, then went outside with mattlion, Nidonocu and LevLion to fight them off with LARP swords.

All in all, a somewhat strange start to the day.

So, I finally made it home.

I'm very sneezy and my body clock is a bit off, but I'm very glad to be back <3

I'm off on travels at the moment and I've discovered to my infinite disappointment that not only are the local ISPs aware of FA, but they've also blocked it because it's "unislamic". If you want a definition of "unislamic", look in a dictionary under "fun" or "interesting".

Currently I'm having to tunnel through SSH. Anyone know of any slightly more bandwidth efficient ways to achieve the same thing as satellite internet really blows goats...

If you haven't noticed, I kinda like the kinky stuff so this meme seemed like a bit of fun. Simply leave a comment naming a fetish and I'll tell you if it's one of my turn ons or turn offs and why. :3

Okay... Having a bah humbug moment.

No EF this year due to work.
No CF next year due to work.
No EF next year due to work.

The best I could currently hope for is FC next year, but I can't afford it so that's very unlikely to happen. The bottom line is my next con will be CF in 2013. After going from running a con and attending two others to zero is pretty weak.

I really shouldn't be going to work today as my chest infection (the one I picked up on the boat trip) is back with a vengeance. It never really went away and working in the rain last week got it going again

However, work beckons. We're now critically short staffed and we won't be getting any newbies under 2016 at the earliest. With most of the remaining staff (me included) working 50 hour weeks, I'm very concerned that I won't get the time off for Eurofurence, or worse my health will continue to suffer.

I know that the easy answer is just to quit and find something else - this job's just too important to me. Over the years I've been able to make a Real Difference ™ and I hope to continue to do so. What I worry about is that they'll take advantage of that sense of duty that myself and a lot of my colleagues share.

Pykied off  muzz =3

Start with 100% and subtract 1% for everything that you've done.
Then repost as your __% Virgin Innocent. Lowest number you have the more you've done!

100%

(x) Smoked.
(x) Drank alcohol.
(x) Cried when someone died.
(x) Been drunk.
(x) Had sex.
(x) Been to a concert.
(x) given a handjob.
(x) gotten a handjob.
(x) given a blowjob.
(x) gotten a blowjob.
(x) Been verbally/sexually harassed.
( ) Verbally/sexually harassed somebody.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 89%

(x) felt someone up and/or been felt up.
(x) Laughed so hard something came out of your nose.
(x) Cheated on a boyfriend/girlfriend before.
(x) Been cheated on by a boyfriend/girlfriend.
(x) Been to prom.
(x) Cried at school.
( ) Gotten lost in a WalMart or a department store.
( ) Went streaking.
(x) Given or received a lap dance.
(x) Had someone of the opposite/same sex in your room.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 81%

(x) Had someone of the opposite sex sleep over.
(x) Slept over at someone of the same sex's house.
( ) Kissed a stranger.
(x) Hugged a stranger.
(x) Went scuba diving.
(x) Driven a car.
(x) Gotten an x-ray.
(x) Hit by a car.
(x) Had a party
(x) Done serious hard drugs.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 72%

(x) Played strip poker/darts.
( ) Got paid to strip for someone.
(x) Run away from home.
( ) Broken a bone.
(x) Eaten sushi.
(x) Bought porn.
(x) Watched porn.
(x) Made porn.
(x) Had a crush on someone of the same sex.
(x) Been in love.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 64%

(x) Made out.
(x) Laughed so hard you cried.
(x) Cried yourself to sleep.
( ) Laughed yourself to sleep.
(x) Stabbed yourself. (Accidentally =( )
(x) Shot a gun.
(x) Trash talked someone and then acted like their best friend the next day.
(x) Been online for 9 consecutive hours.
(x) Watched TV for 9 consecutive hours.
(x) Watched an animal die.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 55%

(x) Watched a person die.
(x) Kissed and/or messed around somewhere with at least 1 person.
(x) Pranked somebody.
( ) Put somebody in the hospital.
(x) Snuck into someone's room and/or your own room after being out.
(x) Kissed somebody of the same sex.
(x) Dressed punk.
(x) Dressed goth.
( ) Dressed preppy. (wtf's preppy?)
(x) Been to a motocross race.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 47%

(x) Avoided somebody.
(x) Been stalked.
( ) Stalked someone.
(x) Met a celebrity.
(x) Ridden a horse.
(x) Cut yourself.
( ) Bungee jumped.
(x) Ding dong ditched somebody.
(x) Been to a wild party.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 40%

(x) Got caught stealing something.
(x) Kicked/punched a guy in the balls.
( ) Stolen a boyfriend/girlfriend from a friend.
( ) Gone out with your friend's crush.
(x) Got arrested.
( ) Been pregnant.
( ) Made a girl pregnant.
(x) Babysat.
(x) Been to another country.
( ) Started your house on fire.
( )Had an encounter with a ghost.

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 45%

( ) Donated your hair to cancer patients.
(x) Been asked out by someone that you never thought you'd be asked out by.
(x) Cried over a member of the opposite/same sex.
(x) Had a boyfriend/girlfriend for over 3 months.
(x) Sat on your butt all day.
(x) Ate a whole carton of ice cream all by yourself.
(x) Had a job.
(x) Gotten cut from a sports team.
( ) Been called a whore.
( ) Danced like a whore

PERCENTAGE SO FAR: 38%

(x) Been mistaken as older than your own age.
(x) Been in a car accident.
(x) Been told you have beautiful eyes.
( ) Been told you have beautiful hair.
( ) Raped somebody.
(x) Danced in the rain.
(x) Been rejected.
( ) Walked out of a restaurant without paying.
(x) Punched someone/slapped someone in the face.
( ) Been raped.

FINAL PERCENTAGE: 32%

So the space race turned out to be more like an endurance race. Nearly 10 months on and I'm still working 50 to 70 hours a week.

In all honesty, I just want my life back now.

I was really thrilled at work today to take custody of two Iridium Subscriber Units - or satellite phones to you and me. I was so excited that I immediately dropped one on the floor and broke it =(

Cue spending the rest of the afternoon fixing it. After taking one of these bad boys apart and seeing its guts all laid out on the bench, I have to say that I'm actually pretty underwhelmed. They're so simple inside! Really no more complicated than your average mobile phone. However, the price for one of these things is still totally astronomical, which seems odd when the networks are having trouble attracting subscribers.

That got me thinking about a lot of other things too. Anyone who has my phone number knows I never answer the thing. That's simply because I don't normally carry it with me. My job precludes anything with a transmitter in it, so I just leave it at home all the time and rely on the old-school combination of a pager and a calling card. It worked well enough in the eighties and still works now. It's also really, really cheap.

There have been a lot of communications fads through the years... CB radios in the 70s. Pagers were pretty big in the 80s and early 90s; I remember Swatch getting in on the action and making a numeric pager in a watch. GSM mobiles in the 00s. For the 10s, who knows? Personally I'm predicting global IP connectivity =)

Work. Rain. Work. Rain. Rain.

If there's any signal that I should be giving up smoking again, it was the oak tree outside my office dropping a fat drip right onto my lit cigarette *fssssssss* Me::Sadface. Once my current pouch is out I won't be able to afford any until March anyway which is a pretty good incentive.

Pay day can't come soon enough.

Good stuff has been happening of late, though. Had a good weekend in Woking with Beanie and Heraldez. I'd only come to fix the gate and ended up staying for the weekend and having a lot of fun. Thank you both for being awesome company.

RBW is also gearing up. We're working towards opening registration on the 1st of March. I'm pretty optimistic about ticket sales this year as we had a good year last year and the UK is officially no longer in recession. Huzzah.

And finally, it looks like I might be in line for a promotion at work. Well, I've been told I'm no longer level 3, but I've not been told I'm a level 4 either. So I'm kinda stuck in limbo at the moment. We'll see what happens over the next couple of months.

Just a quick note to say I'm still about.

I've got a lot to write about, but it will have to wait until tomorrow 'cos I've got to be up in 5.5 hours >.<

Finally getting the MDDP out the way. It hasn't been amazingly interesting, but it has at least given me a chance to do a little more graphic design which I will upload in a bit.

Late night scary animé keeps me company whilst I slave over the research group's group work.

Must remember to go to the poster people first thing in the morning and get the poster done A0 and not A1 'cos I'm a cleft and asked for A1 by mistake.

LiveJournal has been irking me recently. I don't feel like posting much to it unless I have something massively public to say - like it's some kind of soap box in the street. That's not really what a journal is about.

So I'm going to keep my thoughts here for a while. Thoughts and arty stuff on the rare opportunities I get to play with my sewing machine. Mental note: Must pick sewing stuff up from Kent.

In the mean time, I dunno what to do with the old LJ... The signal to noise ratio is just so low and the feeling of public scrutiny makes me wary to post anything that's actually me. Everything else is just some thin veneer of publically-facing-Tryst or moody posts full of bitterness or anger.

I think a bacon sandwich will cheer me up.