No Hills

My friend Matt sent me this link: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/anti-powerpoint-rant-gets-colonel-kicked-out-of-afghanistan/

It amusing because I'm usually at work until 2300-2400 working on ppt briefings. And ISAF is just down the street. I often walk there for meetings or to have lunch with Walter.

Walter left for leave a couple of days ago. I hope he's made it home to his girlfriend. He deserves a break. His job is more frustrating than mine. Consumed with meetings and he rarely (if ever) has the chance to work with afghans. Working with afghans is not more frustrating than working with our government. True, some of the frustrations are different. Especially now during Ramadan.

I wouldn't say my command suffers from the ppt problem that guy describes. That is more of a headquarters problem. But it is the nature of headquarters to be inefficient and confused. They have too many people trying to understand too many things. At my level it's easier because we can focus on a smaller subset of the problem-space. Ppt briefings force us to clearly articulate our ideas. Or at least display cloudy ideas that we are unable to clarify. If you can't develop a good presentation for a project, then you probably shouldn't be doing it because you haven't thought through the problem thoroughly. Without a doubt, I hate making a set of ppt slides. The only thing worse is tweaking someone else's slides.

I had an afternoon meeting with the afghans. They are pretty wiped out by afternoon time. The sun comes up around 4:30, so I assume they eat right before then. I kind of like the idea of fasting for the day. However, it seems like going to work as usual defeats the purpose. It seems like one should go walking through hills pondering life and whether our species will survive to be a galactic superpower.