words

Tuesday November 18, 2008
Hello all, its Tuesday and we are headed to the gate 1, the tension in this region is starting to build again and there is some confusion now as to whether or not the UN mission will be ending. The Kosovo Government has rejected the EU because the EU is not recognizing Kosovo as a independent nation, Of course, Serbia has agreed to this because they too do not recognize them. So now you have IPO’s from all over the world confused about there futures. I worry about this; I do not like not knowing what is next. I don’t do well with surprise when it deals with my income. I do not mind being unemployed, I can find a job, what I do not like is the uncertainties of when!

Therefore, the rumors are flying, the tensions are rising, and the families of so many are in limbo. So with this off my mind I feel better, the weather here is getting colder, May get to see some snow before heading home! Lets see whats new, hmmmmm! Nothing. Just trying to figure out what to do, worried about Punks mental status, the girls and who of course seeing Mark Martin Driving for Hendrick at Daytona! The air pollution has been really nasty here lately, the clouds are out and the pollution is riding low in the sky and everyone is dealing with upper respotory issues.

This country is rebuilding, but the threat of unrest and chaos still looms, everyone wants to be in control and no one knows just who has the biggest stick! You can drive around and see the progress even in the short time I have been here but then you have the violence spreading through the north Mitro area, then the bombing in Pristina. I was talking to Ray the other day and he said after the bombing if you see a bunch of EU people sitting together in a restaurant or bar, stay clear. I take his advice he works intelligence! The People of this country feel the EU has turned there back on them and they are unhappy about it. The radicals and there little bombing of the building the other day was not a one time event; it was a warning to the UN and the EU that they will not tolerate the EU! So again limbo, what to do!

Ok well I am going to go for now, more lately! Love ya
So now, I am at the gate and waiting for Mimish to do whatever it is mimish does while we are here. I am seated in the office with 3 German officers and a French officer. It is funny to sit here and listen to them speak, I have no understanding of the words coming out of there mouths but I understand exactly what they are saying. It is strange how when you are around people long enough no matter what language they speak you understand them. It is even funnier when they realize they are speaking German and I am sitting here, they immediately apologize and start speaking English. The Germans are very sensitive about offending people. The weather up here is beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, cold crisp mountain air. It’s an amazing difference from the bowl in Pristina.

November 25, 2008

Ok we had snow! Wow it was cool for about a day and a half then I realized why people who live in snow areas don’t get so excited.. its messy, slippery, friggin cold and just a general pain. However, I did build snowman, HEHEHE! Yes, the big goof from Texas building snowmen like a little kid, it was great. Therefore, I am at gate 1 again and all is quiet. We have been having problems with the water in the diesel freezing and bursting the fuel filters. The problem is the fuel depot are supposed to deliver winter diesel and they are still trying to get rid of there spring diesel so we are getting water diesel instead of treated! However, you know what; I start check out at the end of the week and do not really care! I am lying of course, I do care but when you are up against a monster such as culture its hard to change the way of thinking! I am so excited, I will be home on the 12th and cant wait to hug my wife and girls. I cant wait to read a story with them where I don’t have to make sure my camera is at the right angle or the lighting is correct. I am faced with finding a job, I know Tomball has an opening but I am not so sure that’s what I want! I know at 35 I should be settled on a career but only God knows what my future holds. I am just concerned about being a patrolman for the rest of my life. I want to do more in law enforcement then drive around, answer calls and write tickets. I want to investigate and find the bad guys, and I don’t mean the little ones. I want to chase the big ones. After being here and working with some of the most amazing investigators in the world, I think it will be hard to hop in a patrol car and just do what we do day in day out,but again, only the Lord knows what I am supposed to do!

Tuesday November 4, 2008

Hi yall, I have been busy and well a little confused and not in the mood for typing. I miss my family, friends and a normal life, but I have some many new friends here and the rumors about what’s going on with the end of mission I have so many mixed emotions. Don’t get me wrong I am ready to go home but I am scared of being unemployed and job hunting and all that stuff. I have so many thoughts in my mind and they are so scrambled, and then there’s punk and the girls and there emotions and Dixie with school and there are days I feel like I am going to crack up! But anyway, lets see, things here are a little unstable, the Serbs and the Albanians are at it in the north and we are not allowed north of the Ibar with out UN Security permission and I still have to go to the gates in the north 3x a week so that’s been fun! Um Tim and Eldar got into it big time the other day, and that little weasel Tim, was talking bad to Eldar, and when I say bad, I mean I was shocked that My Russian buddy didn’t drag the little Bulgarian across the table amd stomp him. Tim was trying to make a big scene in front of Eddie, Wu And myself. It was very unprofessional and rude. Eldar held it together better than I would have I believe. Tim just kept pecking at him about crap, Eldar just walked out hoping Tim would follow, he too felt this was a matter that needed to be discussed in private. So Tim in his goofy way walked over and yelled at Eldar like a mother would a child and said, I am not done with you yet! Ha, if he wouldn’t have turned at that moment Eldar was reaching for him and I believe he would have drug him across the parking lot and set him straight. It was an act of total disrespect and it didn’t help how the rest of us viewed Tim! Reminds me of a Chief I had once.

I sent an email this morning of the funniest cartoon I have ever seen, and its so realistic! Hope yall I sent it to get it. Heard Pops is hunting and Lord knows I would love to be there! Things I want to do when I get home: Go to church, I want to have a party and see everyone, ride my motorcycle in the country with David and Adam! I want to play golf, and then I guess I have to find a job, Dang it. I want to go back to the PD! That is the best place I have ever worked, and now with the new Chief its even better! I haven’t heard anymore about Bitzy and how he is doing so as soon as I get home I need to go see him and Becky.

I honestly think if I could make a living here I would like to live here and open a business, there are so many business opportunities here, you could make a small fortune, just don’t open a car wash or a coffee shop, Lord Knows they don’t need any more of those! I would open up a Hot dog restaurant with all the trimmings and maybe a BBQ house! Then we would start an Off road and motorcycle club and open a motorcycle shop with real motorcycles, not scooters. Bring the big four-motorcycle company’s here and make some cash. You know four-wheeler’s are street legal in Europe. Its crazy, but cool I guess if you wanna take that risk on the street with a four wheeler!


Not much else going on, they say the Americans who don’t have ULex Jobs will be out of here no later than the 18 Dec so we will see. Ok, Love yall! I am out!

October 26, 2008
Hi yall, I’m backkkkk! Yes ladies and gentleman I am back in never, never land! So Punk and I had an amazing week in Germany and Austria. So I show up at the Hotel on the 18th about 10 PM and I am greeted by this cute blonde American girl who is apparently having a bad day, more on that in a minute. I arrived at the airport, get through customs and find a Police officer to direct me on where I am headed; Munich has an amazing under ground and above ground transportation system. Any who I ask this feller to guide me. He just said take the S8 to, oh I can remember the name of the station, so I do and when it is time for me to exit the train I get up, stand at the door and, and, nothing freaking happens. The doors would not open, ok, I am in a foreign country and do not speak the language and I am stuck on the subway, Yeehaw! So right as I am ready to give up this women is trying her best in German to tell me to push the light on the door and it will open, so I reach for it and just as I make contact the light goes off. HMMMMM! What to do? So I exit with the rest of the trains passengers at the next stop! Ok, now I really have no idea where I am. Therefore, I follow everyone else. Now mind you I am dragging a fifty pound box, fortunately it has wheels, so I carry it up the stairs, to the street and my first obstacle is a ¼ mile hike up a hill, oh yippy, so I make it to the top and I stop in front of a DVD shop, oh wait it’s a XXXXDVD store! Great, So now I am looking for a cab, and looking, and looking. So finally one pulls up, I wave and he said no, what just cause I am in front of the store don’t mean I am buying, but wait, he parks and he goes in. wonderful, lose a fair for porn, what a dumbass! So this nicely tanned man obliviously not from Germany then walks out of the store and said do you need a cab, I said yes and he called for me one! So I get a cab and he takes me to where I need o be!

So I go in and get a key and head up to the room, I knock as to not scare my wife and she opens the door and grabs my neck and then starts crying, dang babe, glad to see you too! Then she starts telling me how ugly people were to her after she landed, Bubba not happy man now! See she didn’t find the exchange place so she still had US Dollars and not euro, when she got to the hotel, the staff was not assisting in anyway, then my Punk who hadn’t eaten went to find some food but no-one would take her Dollars. So she was very relieved when I showed up! So after kissing her hello, I took my baby to eat. The rest of the night is private! HEHEHE!

Sunday through Saturday was a whirlwind, we walked a lot, we ate a lot of Italian food, we drove to Austria and saw King Ludwig the II castle, we had a ball! My favorite part besides seeing my wife was going on the Beer Tour! My beer drinking comrades would have loved this! We started out at Marineplatz (center of town) then we walked and listened. We ended at the Haufbruer House! this my friends is the pinnacle of Beer drinkers paradise. This is one of if not the oldest beer drinking establishments and they serve beer by the mass, this is a large glass approximately 1 liter at a time! Oh darn is that for me! Yippy! There was some much and its hard to think of it all, we did meet some neat folks from Florida, New York and Australia on the tour! Gene and Don ward, Gene is his daughter and they were on holiday, cant remember the other folks names but we all had a good time!

I know this is short and I will add more later! Love yall and it looks like I am coming home in December for good!

Going to Germany to meet the PUNK. I will try to keep yall updated as the week progresses, But I make no promises! Have a great week!

Friday October 17, 2008

Alrighty then, I am in the back seat of this4-runner by choice, the Bulgarian nightmare is driving and I am typing so as not look up, he drives like crap! There are not many people in the world that I have ridden with that I would prefer to start a day earlier and walk the 150 k to where ever it is we need to go! I think my real problem aside from the fact that I need to take motion sickness pills when he drives is I just don’t like, trust, or give a darn about him and I think that’s what bothers me because I generally like everyone! So anyway imagine and I will convert speeds for you best I can, imagine seated in the front seat of a tin can at 55 mph and just enjoying the ride and all of a sudden you here the engine rpms go through the roof! You look up and you see a line of cars with no space in between in front of you, yet this doof-wad wants to pass them all, oh wait did I mention the large passenger buses lumbering down the road towards you, did I mention we are in his lane! So we wait until a fly cant fit between us and the bus and he forces the vehicle next to us to swerve off the road so we can fit in. guys I was curled up in a ball in the front seat and cussing him as if he was a rabid dog. I called him every name in the book! He is an arrogant, insecure little psychologist! Anyway, tomorrow is go day. Punk will fly to Germany, I will meet here there, and we will spend 6 ½ days together doing who knows what and really who cares as long as I can hold her hand and kiss her face! I really miss the chaos of home! Working extra jobs and coaching and begin awake more than asleep really doesn’t seem that bad when you miss the ones you do it for. Not saying my intentions were always for others when I was working but hey, I am human! At least when I want something I will work for it! So we are almost to Mitro and I am just babbling but it is keeping me from looking at the road and throwing up or hitting him in the face. Oh I need higher intervention, I cant stand him! Lord grant me the patients and the knowledge to deal with Tim, Lord he ha good intentions but I feel as if he is just immature and ignorant to what he does. Lord please place your hands on this vehicle for I would like to see my family again! Also lord I ask for your guidance in dealing with him.

Ok so we left Mitro and now we are at gate 1, the drive up wasn’t that bad because of the big trucks that followed us, they cause him to drive like a human instead of some wanna be race car driver! One thing I have learned is, in Bulgaria, to shake your head side to side means yes and up and down means no! Go figure, they are backwards. Also My little buddy likes to make horse sounds and tick tick noises when he has to stop and think, this frustrates me beyond belief.

So I am sitting here listening to dream weaver and thinking about meeting punk. My sister sent me an email about CHOW. That is the universal greeting of goodbye here. It becomes a habit after awhile. My Buddy Giovanni from, ANYONE? Italy! Yea yall. He is so funny, he is me with an Italian accent. He loves to tlk to me because of my thick draw, I explain to him where I am from I don’t have a draw, he just has a hearing problem. I have however learned that when I speak I most speak slowly, these folks just don’t understand Texan! I tried to explain it but they cant get it. Giovanni has learned how to say Howdy mam. Its so funny!

Now you might ask yourself if gate 1 is my responsibility why am I sitting in the truck, well I shall explain. See we are on a mountain and there is a really good drop off here and I am extremely tempted to throw Tim over the side so here I sit. No, really its because the workers are doing there jobs and Tim is out there sticking his nose in every butt crack he can find. I have spoken to the people I needed to and now I am letting him do whatever it is he does. See when he is here he wants to run the show, when he is actually supposed to be supporting me but he thinks because I am an American that people are intimidated by me or that I am rough because I asked direct questions, they believe you should beat around the bush and I aint got time for that. If you wanna sit over coffee and pump each others ego’s enjoy, I wanna know what I need to know to get the job done. Example: I saw JURJI this morning, I walked over and said good morning, we shook hands and he said, I am sending this group to gate 1 as promised and I don’t know when I will be able to go again, I responded with Jurji, you told me you would do this and now you are. I understand you have a bunch of things going and I promised I would not bother you and I haven’t, he said yea you are right but that one and he pointed at Tim, that one has been bothering me constantly! I just smiled and said I apologize for that but I understand your position and when you can you will. He smiled, nodded, shook my hand and said thank you! Now I ask was I undiplomatic, rude, or intimidating! Sounds to me like Tim is the pain and not the Big American!

Oh well, I will just sit and talk to yall. I am so excited, tomorrow and I am out of here! I am going to another country and chilling out for a week. Something else I have noticed is all the people from cold area’s are wrapped up as soon as it gets cool, but the Americans from the south continue to dress for summer, what’s up with that? They are used to it being cold and we are used to the heat yet when the temp drops they are wrapped up like Eskimo’s, I don’t get it.

Ok so before we leave I ask if I can drive, he said why, I said to be honest your driving scares me and its only a matter of time before you cause a major accident and I don’t wanna be riding with you when you do. He got pisses, Guess what? I drove! HEHEHEHE!
Bye
Biggen

Oct 15, 2008 Wed

So today has been interesting so far, I was supposed to go to gate 1 today for the delivery of the passport booths but the Bulgarian nightmare wanted to go so I stayed behind and had to go to a meeting in his place. I arrived at this meeting with absolutely no knowledge of what this was about. I greet everyone and I sit, they began talking about holding cells in the different regions and I had no clue what or where these places were. Then they asked my opinions on the subject, I politely stated, I am still new to this and I am in the process of learning so I will keep my opinions to myself until I am more knowledgeable on the subject matter. Well it turned out that these engineers and those engineers and the FMU specialist and everyone in the room was as lost as I was because, ANYONE? Nobody talks to anybody until there is a mandatory meeting! Gee what a concept. You and I are in charge of the same project from different angles and we cant sit and have a conversation about this until the UN orders us to, come on. Lets meet once a week and discuss this in stead of every three months because we have too.

So now I am sitting in a class room at PTC awaiting the lecture I am so excited to hear. My friend Andy the investigator is going to fill our heads with awww inspiring information! I will let you know how it goes. OH, I talked to Jason Reel and his son does not have cancer but has lost the site in his eye. Pleas continue to pray for him!

Ok, that was very interesting. I will spare you all the boring details but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I e-mailed Jason and he said there is no cancer its something else and he will be blind but they are going to try to save the eye. There are three days until I leave for Germany to meet my beautiful wife. Yea, 7 days, the only way it could be better is if the kids came too!

Ok guys I am out for the night! Chow

Oct 14 2008
Ok so again I am behind, what do ya do? So some interesting things have happened since I last wrote, the big issue on the table right now is the European Union taking over the Un Mission, yet the EU is not prepared finically, logistically, or equipped with the man power. There was a meeting at the CPI House and they discussed the EU package, and announced the 6th call for contributions, now the moneys not bad, less than what we are making now but the over all package is not favorable for Americans with family, the work schedule will be a Monday –Friday at 2pwith weekends off, cool right, no, you will earn leave at a rate of 1 ½ days a month, 1.5 X12 18 days off. Now for a single person that’s great but the married folks aren’t real interested in this. Now that doesn’t mean you cant take time off with out pay and go home but you will be strongly urged not to do this because if you are off the company is not maven money and above all, isn’t that what they are in business for. So the head of the CPI house Director of Kosovo operations, called and asked why I had not submitted my EU app. I explained to him prior to the package coming out I was interested, but after seeing the package and the lack of time to go and see the family, I would not be submitting one. He respected that and understood, I did say however that if the UN mission carried on I would stay and fulfill my obligation, though I really miss my comfy little patrol car.

Let us see, we had Escort training and let me tell you, Ii did not know you could thrash a Toyota 4-runner like the one we did. It is a very stable vehicle in a slide or J-turn. Its really amazing what you can do in 4-wheel drive backwards, man that was fun. We also had a shooting day; we went out to the range and shot a 25m 15 m 10m 7 m and 5m course. I shot well from the first three all in the black, Thank you to my shooting instructors at Tomball PD, Cliff, and Jeff. But on the reaction shooting at 7 and 5 meters I threw one and pushed 1 on the first double action shots. Oh well, it was fun and I was glad to know I could center mass shoot with this dang Beretta. Every time I look at it I think about ole Stach back at the PD. I am not real found of the Beretta but its what I have and what I have to shoot so I might as well be good with it. After shooting the course, we did a escort scenario and we had to bail out, take cover and engage two targets. I was on the drivers side, so I bailed out rounded the back of the vehicle hit the ground barricading myself, well as much as I could lying on the ground and engaging my two targets. Ten rounds and the whole scenario last about 10-15 seconds but its really a rush because it happens so fast and its basically reaction shooting. For people that doont shoot reaction shooting is point and shoot, not taking time to aim. I went10 for 10 so I was pleased, Now there were some folks from all over the world and I will say that the French and the Turks were the best shooters aside from the Americans of course! Hehe.
Some of these folks were limp wristed and stove piping every other round, others have been issued these weapons and never fired them. Others are issued these weapons and are not allowed to carry them loaded. Scary! There was one Turk with a six shot 9mm revolver and, well, umm, never mind, Scary!

After we finished the course they broke out the bad boy, YES APPLAUSE! THE MP-5. ahhhhh, now I have been waiting since we arrived to play with this fine piece of machinery. I was impressed with this weapon and fell in love with it. It was so smooth and accurate. When we shot the burst and the full auto it rose a little at first but no so much that you couldn’t control it..
Lets see what else has been going on, I was speaking to the Bulgarian nightmare about some things and his English is not so good so he misunderstood 90% of the conversation the runs to the Director Of KP FMU and starts telling him what I told him and the director exploded and called me a liar and told tim he wished for a meeting with my bosses and he would call me a liar to my face! Ok Pal, Big mistake, If you are gonna call me a liar you damn sure better be ready to back it up. So his wish for a meeting was granted. And at 3pm on the 13th of October 2008 I Mark D. Hannsz exercised diplomacy and patients. I walked into this meeting and Warren my big boss, said you look mad, I said your damn right I am. He said I know I heard. I told warren if this guy raises his voice at me or accuses me of being a liar we were gonna have a big issue. Warren said hell if he yells at me I’ll punch him in the face. So anyway the meeting starts and warren opens, he goes through the formal BS involved and then he asked if anybody had anything, I jumped right in, lets talk about gates, I don’t receive any of the request and you don’t let me know anything so how m I supposed to do my job if you want do yours. Now this guy is just dumb founded because I just called him on the carpet in front of his bosses. So I continued firing questions and he kept backing into the corner. I started to enjoy it. So I backed down until the big question. I started like this, I understand there was a conversation earlier today that involved mention of my name and I have been accused of lying, I folded my hands on the table, leaned in chest resting on my folded hands, staring him right in the eye, causing him to lean back a little and I said I would like to explain something to you. Now mind you there is a translator and she too was uneasy but to her it was like OMG what is this guy going to make me sy to this high ranking KPS officer? I said Zenol I do not know you and I do not have any reason to lie to you, for you about you or anything else. I take my honesty very seriously and I am not found of people accusing me of being a liar. Now if you would like to be as bold to call me out as I have you I am here and waiting. If not, let it be known to anyone in this room that if you think I have told you a lie, I would be happy to discuss these issues right here right now. Now from what I understand there was a little bit of lost in translation on the part of Tim and when he was made aware of his mistake he took no action to correct that, now I can not speak for him and his lack of action to correct this opinion of me you have formed but I assure you I did not lie to you. When the translator finished, there was silence in the room and it was like a tennis match. Eyes left to right. No one in the room spoke and they were extremely shocked I had called him on the carpet. Finally Zenol responded and said that is not what I said and I don’t think you lied, that’s when the meeting shifted to Tim, now Tim was accused of using a KPS worker to do duties at his accommodation on the KP dime. Now this is getting interesting and there was all kinds of craw fishing going on. Man I have never seen Warrens head whip around so fast. And Tim just sat there smug look on his face and tried to explain it but I believe it was falling on deaf ears. Anyway, I walked out of there quite satisfied with the impact of what I said. I was also impressed with my diplomacy, tactical approach and demeanor during this time, I never lost my cool and Tim stepped on himself!


So I haven’t spoke much about my friend Scottish friend and his Italian roomy Fabreeshio. Andy and Fab live about 3 minutes walk from my flat and Andy is a World renowned Detective from Scotland yard. As a matter of fact Andy could be making 5k a week lecturing about financial crimes, terrorist and corruption. Andy is an amazingly talented person and last night we got into a discussion about the differences of who you are and what you do. I said to him I admire you and your talents and I like hanging out with you because I learn so much, he then began the whole that’s not who I am, that’s what I do. But in the end we had a beer and said cheers, I don’t care what he said, he is a hell of a nice guy and an amazing person. He is doing a lecture on Wednesday and I am going to go. I would Love to hook him up with the PD back home and bring him to TX to teach us what he knows. I think someone like Brandon would benefit from this greatly. Did I mention he is a damn good pool player too!

So I am in the backseat of the truck headed to gate 1 and I am listening to my itunes on the puter and typing this. All I can think about is how I need to update this cause of my few faithful followers. Speaking of, I need to call Jason and check on his son. I heard Bitzys Benefit was a huge success, I have been trying to call him and see how he is but I keep getting his voice mail. I will continue to try. I also need to try and email Rob. Anybody that has never met him I would encourage yall to meet him. The California kid is a trp. He is such a neat guy and he really cares about his people. He has been very nice and carrying about anything my wife would need while I am gone. You know he is not the only one that has offered. I am truly Blesses By the hand of God to have the friends and Family I have. You guys are everything to me. Thank yall for being there for my family when needed. It’s the little things that mean so much. Like steve going over and fixing the ice maker. That is a huge favor when you are 6000 miles away from your true obligation. If I have learned anything with this adventure is that aquatints will say anything to make you smile, and friends will do anything. You know Marcus, we have been friends for 30 + years and he isn’t talking to me because he is mad about something that has nothing to do with me. You know I have done so much for him over the years and he wants to act like a little kid about this and I am pretty much washing my hands of it. But mark my words, when he is ready or in need he will show back up or call and all will be nice. Whatever. I have all I need in my Wife and kids. That is what matters to me! Ok, we are almost there and I am gonna close for now, smoke I am trying to get ya updated dear. Since I got my skype its hard to type when I am wanting to talk on the phone with Punk! Love you guys
Mark