Here is an email from Darren for all you who are interested.

I have safeley made it to one of my destinations, Jalalabad, Afghanistan.  We
are expecting to be here for another two weeks before we move to our next
location (Asadabad); For the past three weeks, since departing NY, we have done
quite a bit of both travelling.  Our first two stops, for only a few hours each,
were in Shannon, Ireland, and somewhere in Turkey (I was asleep for that one).
We landed and stayed in Manas, Kyrgistan for about 5 days, waiting to get a
flight into Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. Bagram is the main Air Base and
Headquarters for the mission in Afghanistan.  It includes our brothers from
Korea, Australia, Britain and many other coalition countries.  It was very
comfortable there, with a Dairy Queen, Afghan bazaar, coffee shops, and even a
small PX.  After another 5 days of training and logistical errands, we have made
it to Jalalabad. 
The base here is much smaller, about the size of two or three city blocks, but
cozy.  It is right in the suburbia of Afghanistans 5th largest city, which we
call J-Bad for short.  To American standards, this city is small and poor, but
for the people of Afghanistan this is very rich. 
We are surrounded by Afghans that want us here.  The majority of the people in
Afghanistan are thankful for our help. There are, however, the poor military age
males that are recruited for terrorism only because they need money to live -
unfortunate.  The resistance is not coming from the Afghans, but from
extremists, that sometimes, are not even Afghan natives.
I miss home, but and proud to be here.  I feel like I am at the right place in
life.  Darren

Yesterday I realized how spoiled (or lazy) I am and how good a house wife Marie has become. In college I would cook all of my own meals and do all of my laundry and pretty much fend for myself. Believe it or not, I would actually make good well rounded meals that took preparation and a little bit of work. Marie does the laundry now. And cleans the house. And makes dinner for us every night, even when she's tired from working during the day. The past couple of months Marie has worked at Banana on Wednesday nights and leaves me to fend for myself as I used to before. What do I do? Eat microwave burritos. There's really nothing wrong with that, but last night when I was sitting on the couch watching TV and eating my microwavable, no work involved meal I realized that I've become kind of lazy. (Or perhaps I've become a real man. I don't know.) I don't ever feel like cooking any more. Just pop in some leftovers or a frozen burrito and I'm set. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, I just thought it was funny when I was thinking about it last night.

I did have kind of a easy day at work yesterday. It was pretty much meetings and seminars all day. I think I did about three hours of actual work. In the morning, the whole office had a meeting about our 401K. It wasn't all that exciting, but hey all I had to do was sit there. Then the engineers all had a luncheon where we listened to Powers Fasteners talk about their products. That one was a little more interesting because they brought a huge meal of Gate's barbeque and a little packet of anchors that we could play with while they demostrated how they work. Then in the afternoon, the Wal-mart group had a meeting where we discussed issues about the design specifications. That one was kind of boring, but again, two hours where I didn't have to do any work. I wish I could go to some cool seminars where we get to build things like Kristy does. If I do, I could post pictures and entertain you. I'd post pictures of my meetings yesterday, but who wants to see a picture of me trying not to fall asleep while somebody talks about my 401K. I don't.

Here's something kind of interesting.

Since I'm at my desk during lunch today, I might as well do an entry, right? Some of the guys and I usually play Xbox everyday at lunch, but Brian is at home with one of his sick kids and he took the Xbox with him. It's a sad day. Lunch time is when I usually take out my aggressions by shooting my coworkers (in the game). But I do have a good lunch to lift my spirits. Food always cheers me up. I have left overs from Red Lobster. Marie and her parents went out to dinner last night and couldn't finish everything, so I have a delightful assortment of pasta and seafood. Mmm.

Marie and I are going to Fort Riley this weekend to visit her parents. Her dad's birthday is Tuesday (I think) so we are going to celebrate this weekend. We'll get to see their new puppy too. It will be fun. Hey, maybe I'll bring my golf clubs and we can get a little golfing in since the weather has been relatively warm during the days. Anyways, that's all I've got. I need to get back to eating my seafood before it gets cold.

Check out these pictures. It looks like the Kansas Department of Transportation had a happy Valentines day.