It's Dusty Out There!

See that Dot in the middle of the picture?  That is the sun!  Completely blocked out by dust.  It wasn't even that bad a day, either.  Just about 110 degrees and dusty air.  Oh, how great it was to breathe, though!

Good news, though.  It appears I may be home by the end of August!  Not official yet, but pretty sure that anything I say will change, so don't get your hopes up too much for my early return...I'm not.  It seems like our headquarters is a day early on planning all the time, and their headquarters is a day behind on issuing guidance all the time.  Makes for lots of circular planning and wasted effort - not to mention getting everyones hopes up along the way.  I don't know what they could be doing differently, but it does make for some entertaining (not to mention colorful) conversations around the cigar-smoking circle.  At least I can say that I made some good friends here...mostly some good cigar buddies.  We inherited an awesome back porch behind my CHU, and we sit out there every evening smoking cigars and drinking our near-beer.  I finally settled on Becks Non-alcoholic.  Not that it is any good, but it tastes the most like REAL beer.  It is really weird to drink a beer and not feel anything.  Really weird.

I finally got to a gym to do some work on the elliptical runner.  It felt good to sweat, if even for a few minutes.  There was air conditioning there, so the sweat actually becomes visible.  It is so hot here that when you sweat it evaporates almost immediately, so you don't even realize that you are, indeed, sweating.  It is not even that unpleasant in this heat.  It is definitely worse to be in 90 degree Alabama heat with 100% humidity!

I just thought that this picture was funny.  Thought that I would share it.  Sometimes we all kind of feel like we are riding a "Dead Horse."  Just remember, that when working with the government, No Horse is EVER too Dead to Beat!

Later...

From Mudhole to Dustbowl

Another Friday, and another day off that won't really be a day off.  Lots of work to do.  And decisions to be made.  Like, do I want to stay beyond 31 Aug for 30 or 90 days?  I guess that the decision needs to be made today.  I don't think that I am going to do anything positive to stay (like fill out some silly paperwork).  If they force me, so be it.  How do you justify being able to come home early to your family and then doing something to stay?  You can't, especially as we draw down to the point that things will just get more and more dangerous.  We should not be drawing down our forces right now...quite possibly the worst military decision I have ever heard of.  Just wait for it...time will prove me right.

When it rains here at Club Taji, everything turns to sticky mud and mush.  When it doesn't rain, the stuff blows EVERYWHERE!  It gets in your eyes, your ears, your nose, mouth, and hair.  It blows through cracks in your walls that you didn't even know that you had.  It can't be good for the air conditioners that we depend upon...anyway, I played cards last night through a mild dust storm, the cards were forever getting more and more coated in dust.  If I left my phone out, it would be unreadable in minutes from the layer of dust that would attach to its screen...must have been some sort of electrical attraction.  Just going to the latrine and washing your hands you could see the dirt in the sink, usually after only about 15 minutes outside.

Well, I need to get back to work.  Break's over, back on my head!

Later

Up Early Again...

I am up early again watching the Hawks' game.  Got up and showered at 0400 so I could watch the game uninterrupted.  So 22 minutes into the game they are tied 0-0.  By 23 minutes into it they are up 2-0.  What a turn-around!  Then they add a short-handed goal to go up 3-0.  Niemi is on FIRE!  All they need to do is play a stingy 3rd period and they should win it.

We are getting a visitor today, so I have everyone assembling earlier than normal.  Only problem is, I hope the game is over before then.  I have spent the better part of the morning fending off flies and mosquitoes.  These things are BOLD!  They will land right on you...I think that I even heard one of them laughing.  And these Mosquitoes somehow leave these bites that stay around for weeks.  I still have a scar on my arm from one last month.  I swear these things have door gunners that get you without even landing on you.  And the flies won't leave you alone.  They love to land on your nose, ears, arms, legs, hair, you name, they land on it...except, of course, if you have your fly swatter in hand.  They seem to hide when that happens.  Why is that?  They can't be that smart.  They haven't been alive that long.  What is their lifespan, like 48 hours or something?  As far as I can tell, the only thing the fly is good for is to solve crimes on CSI with their larva.

That picture of me was taken a few days ago in front of our new school sign.  It says "Marqez al-Tedrib al-Mushtareq.  In English it is roughly Joint Training Center.  Not sure what that means yet as far as what we will be doing.  Time will tell, I suppose.

Third period is starting, must concentrate concern-rays on the Hawks.

Until next time...

The World is right again!

Yesterday I finally got the DVDs I ordered...none other than seasons 5 and 6 of 24!  I cannot believe that I bought all of season 5 JUST to watch the last 1 and 1/2 hours of the season.  At least the commercially produced DVDs a.) work, and b.) have the prequel to the next season.  So the world is now right...I have completed season 5 and I am working on season 6.  And my disk did, actually, work for season 6 (because I tested it) but it was missing the whole last episode...so before I even got myself hooked I just decided to spend the money and get season 6.  Seasons 7 and 8 are good, I checked them already, and they were not done with the same amount of compression.  So the world will continue to be right.

Now for last night's "Not quite Right."  Why can the Hawks not win at home?  4-1?  OK, 3-1, I hate...let me repeat HATE when coaches pull their goalies with a two goal deficit.  Does anyone out there know the amount of times that a team has come from behind by two goals by pulling there goalie?  I have never, personally witnessed it.  I have seen teams come from two goals down by NOT pulling their goalie, though.  But who am I?  And for the Cubs...is it too early to say, "Wait until next year?"  They just need something to get them going, like a 20 game winning streak or something.

And while I am commenting on 24... where in LA are these yayhoos, anyway, that can get from point a to point b in under an hour?  I DON'T THINK SO!

I need to get back to episode 2 of season 6 now.

Later all...

I'm UP! Stop trying to wake me...

I got to take a trip to Camp Liberty this weekend.  It is nice to see how the other half lives...by that, I mean the privileged few that get to live on the Victory Base Complex (VBC).  There are actually things to do there.  Also, there are several bases within the complex.  Funny thing, though, since the place is so big, some people that work long hours actually don't even get a real feel for all that the complex has to offer.  I kind of understand.  If someone was to ask me if a Bus went somewhere here on Taji, I wouldn't have a clue.  When you have a vehicle, you don't bother to take buses anywhere, you just drive.  So you wouldn't know where a bus stop was, or what its schedule was.  Such are the woes of the visitors to VBC.  It seems that a preponderance of the Bus riders are non-English speakers, low ranking soldiers (who are way too nervous to give directions to a LTC like me), and visitors who are as clueless as you are.  We were trying to go to a Mediterranean restaurant somewhere on that place, and no one, I mean NO ONE at the unit that we were visiting seemed to know what Bus would take us there.  So we took a Bus as far as we thought we could, and then walked the rest of the way (about a mile).  When we get there, we spy a Bus stop right there where we were going.  It was a different bus line than we were originally on, but it would have changed where we got off in the first place.  So I guess a bus does go there, you just have to wait a half-hour for every bus there.  Buses stop every half hour at the various stops.  The problem is, if you miss a bus, it is only about 20 minutes to walk anywhere...so why wait?  Because it's HOT, THAT'S WHY!  Only we didn't wait, we walked, BOTH WAYS.  Then one of the guys that was staying near me couldn't find where we were staying, so we walked an EXTRA two miles.  And, because we were traveling, I had my leg holster on.  I had a very bad "Heat" injury to a sensitive region by the time I returned to my CHU.  Thank Heavens for Gold Bond.

So I set my Alarm for about 0230 so I can shower and watch the Hawks game.  It starts at 0300.  My alarm goes off and I decide that I can shower at the first intermission.  But I don't want to reset my alarm for 0300, so I hit snooze (which only goes for 10 minutes).  Has anyone ever fallen back into a great sleep in like 3 minutes...just to get woken to that $#%$# snoozed alarm?  Damned the thing...like 4 times.  Then the game doesn't start right at 0300, so I keep going down this path until it does start. All the while becoming more and more annoyed and more and more tired as time goes on.  Anyway, the Hawks aren't getting the thing in the net tonight, so I guess we are going to game 6 on Tuesday.  What is it about 1st game at home?  The Hawks are just not winning their home games, especially the first one after being on the road.  I am afraid that if they don't win it in Vancouver, we may be in for a little trouble.  There are about 8 minutes left, so maybe they can at least leave on a high note and score a few goals.

It was Mother's day yesterday.  I was so busy traveling that I almost forgot.  Good thing that my end of day, is the states start of day...Mom and Wife successfully called.  I love you both.  Hope that you enjoyed (are enjoying) your day.

Time to send my full concern rays to the Hawks.

Later...