Day 10 - Nug work in the lab

Not a lot to blog about. My day was devoid of cultural significance. I spent most of it setting up the English training lab. While I enjoy this level of work, it doesn't make for very interesting blogging. We've got two pallets of Language Learning Lab gear from Tobyhanna (the Army's big communications and computer depot) that we're trying to set up. It will eventually be two 15 seat advanced language labs. One here at NMAA, and the other at the Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC, the location I blogged about two days ago). It is a really nice setup with user workstations and a centralized teacher's console. All the participants wear headphones with microphones and the teacher can selectively enable conversations with and between students to work on specific language learning objectives.

Our problem is, the machines were supposed to be pre-configured and plug and play. Well, that didn't work out. There is a bright spot in this whole thing though. I tracked down a general purpose customer support email from Tobyhanna on the web and sent a shot in the dark email to them about 1630 local. Well, I've already got a reply from the lead tech engineer for the language lab system and we're working through the problems as I blog this. Awesome customer support of the folks in the field! Kudos to the Army.

We did have one nice social event today. Four members of our team from Westpoint are heading back at the end of this week after four months working at NMAA. They are all awesome individuals that have taught me a lot about maximizing my effectiveness mentoring the Afghans in the 10 days I've been here. Our Turkish counterparts that are also providing mentors gave them a nice going away get together today and we spent a bit of time having coffee and tea complimenting each other. That's how these things must go. It's all about fostering good international relations after all...

Just got another email from my new best friend at Tobyhanna and we may have a solution for the morning. If so, I'll take some pictures of the lab and include them in tomorrow's post. It won't be as compelling as the Kabul photos yesterday, but if you're a geek you might appreciate them.