LET'S GO RIDERS!! (Clap, Clap, ClapClapClap)

Game time is about 24 hours away and I'm the only person within a 1000km radius that is interested in watching the Grey Cup. Not even the Canadian Embassy wants anything to do with it. I hear they are showing the game at the Kandahar base, but our military has some stupid rule about not being able to transport civilians in the Chinook. But I have my beer, my pizza, and, most importantly, a live streaming connection of the game. You know you really love a team when you wake up at 3am to cheer them on.

And here's a little hello for all my Alouette friends:


Update: WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!? I guess the Riders just sick of holding a lead for 60 f*cking minutes. On a positive note, they did beat the spread and Vegas will be cutting me a small cheque to wipe away the tears.

Boom Boom Pow

Shit turns on a dime here. I was in the middle of writing a new post on our security and how safe we are in Kabul. Then a bomb rips through a UN guesthouse killing 6 foreign workers and a rocket lands in the lobby of the Serena Hotel scaring the crap out of hundreds more. This is the same hotel I was just in 36 hours prior for government meetings and awesome cheesecake. I guess the Taliban either have poor aim (they keep hitting the Serena instead of the presidential palace behind it) or they have a jihad against delicious desserts.

So due these recent events, I go from booking a party weekend in Delhi to being given 12 hours notice for evacuation. Sorry, our company calls it a “relocation”. I call it “getting the f*ck out”. Now I’m 35,000 ft in the air over Greenland and coming home for a bit while things cool down. It's just another typical week at the office.

A positive spin on this “relocation” is that I now get a chance to buy my first digital camera and post up pics. This should hopefully increase my blogging frequency as I now won’t have to struggle with writing a full paragraph to describe the craziness that I see on a daily basis. Oh look, there’s a dude commuting to work on his mini steamroller. Click. But he’s stuck behind a donkey pulling a cart filled with other donkeys. Click, click.

Only 7 hours left until landing and 7.5 hours until sushi.

103 Weeks to Go

Week 1 in Kabul is done. And it’s like nothing I ever would have dreamed.

Welcome to the DST CHRNCLS.

The goal with this blog is to document my time here for the next 2 years and to show a different side to Afghanistan. This is not what you see on CNN. This is not what you read in the Globe and Mail. This is not what you hear on NPR.

Life here is relatively simple. You eat, work, play, and sleep just like you would at home. Except your food is now served with naan at every meal, your work is now protected by AK-47s, your play is now limited to bootlegged liquor, and your sleep is now in a surprisingly roomy container.

Let the adventures begin.


PS. The DST CHRNCLS is a wholly owned subsidiary of SABA Inc. Big thanks to my good friend with the matching singlespeed and kicks for helping me come up with the blog name.