Special Deliveries

Earlier this week, the 10th Mountain Division Band received some items we had been eagerly anticipating. The first happened on Tuesday, when the furniture arrived. A while back, we had placed an order for some office furniture--office chairs, folding chairs, shelves, desks. We had been relying on leftover or unclaimed chairs and derelict office furniture for a while. In fact, the carpentry shop had actually built some quick makeshift shelves and desks for us to tide us over for a while. The chair shortage was especially problematic, as people found themselves sitting on plastic crates and metal containers in lieu of functional chairs. (On occasion, I would use a substitute instead of an available chair because the chair would be more uncomfortable.) So we were happy to receive notice last week that our shipment was on its way.

It was my job to wait for the call that our furniture truck was at the gate so I could escort the driver into our office area, and that call came Tuesday afternoon. I was a bit dismayed to see that the boxes in the back of the truck looked a little beaten up, but that wasn't too surprising given that the bed of the truck had no top. (I am really glad that the delivery was made before the heavy rains we've had the last couple of days.) Some of the boxes had started to fall apart and we had to have people fish furniture parts out of the truck bed. In the end, though, we got all the boxes out and started assembling our furniture. In a matter of moments, our office went from looking like an office to looking like some kind of miniature mutant central-Asian IKEA store. The desks and shelves turned out to be a bit flimsy, mostly particle board, but functional. The office chairs, however, are surprisingly comfortable, a big improvement over what we had. The folding chairs are in good condition also, so we're happy that the seating issue has been resolved.

The other big delivery showed up at almost the same time. Last summer, we shipped most of our instruments and equipment to Afghanistan in large metal containers, which arrived before we did. We sent one additional container of stuff right before we left Ft. Drum. This container had a few more unit items, such as some additional guitars we had ordered for the rock band, a crate of toilet paper, a few folding chairs, and so on. It also had some personal items--clothing bags, personal guitars, video game consoles...you get the idea. We anticipated it arriving in December, but it never showed up. We sent requests numerous times trying to locate where our container had vanished. But Tuesday, we got the word that it had been located and was on its way to KAF. Wednesday morning, it was delivered and place right next to our rehearsal tent. I was glad to see it there, as it contained one of my guitars, as well as my DVDs of season one of Bones seasons one and two of Chuck, plus a copy of Stephen King's The Gunslinger, the first book in his "Dark Tower" series which I've wanted to start reading for a while. It's so nice to have a few more comforts from home, especially now that I can unwind from a long day by pulling out my guitar and strumming for a bit. Whether or not my roommates find that relaxing is another matter....