Three ISS employees were due to come in and one to go home. None of them got their wish. Ten minutes before the plane that would drop them off and take our anxious friend home, they cancelled due to the largest dust storm reported out here in the past 5 years.
Included below are some pictures of the event. Apparently, we were hit “lightly.” Up north, they had one foot “sand drifts” forming outside of doors to trailers. Sand shovels anyone?
A message from the thick layer of dust on the air conditioning unit outside our trailer.
Ran my finger across the top of the picnic tables outside on our porch by the office.
A black leather laptop case left outside. Finger print for depth.
A Pajero that was outside over night.
A bottle left outside during the dust storm.
The storm is over. Mostly...
And as a bonus, two more pictures:
A package sent to me from my roommate with all my mail from home. The Postman put a message on there that said the following: "Thankx, we needs heroes bad come home safe -Wayne"
The crew of the Colbert Report up on stage at the palace. Couldn't take pictures while they were filming, so this is the only shot I got!
That’s all I have for an update this time, take it easy everyone!
I heard bad things in the reviews, so I avoided it, but a friend recommend I watch it anyway. Mistake.
As you probably know if you are reading this, I HATE (HATE HATE HATE) the movie Transformers on several levels. This is on the same list.
I’ll break it down fact by fact:
According to the show, for five years teenagers have been using an unregulated holographic simulator to simulate sacrifice, orgies, and other amoral acts and parents let their kids use them: she had to be “grounded” from it, implying she is allowed to the rest of the time.
Not only can they log into this system, they apparently have administrative rights to create a highly sophisticated AI with in it.
This AI is programmed by a monotheistic (which would be considered occult in this setting) teenage girl, whose very principals are in direct conflict with the creation of artificial life, as it would be “playing God.” Her entire character is a contradiction of itself.
Her equally teenage boyfriend somehow has access to military grade G-4 (remember it’s called that in Galactica) plastic explosives and detenation equipment.
Entire planets are apparently stereotyped to a few functions: Tauron is apparently the farming/mafia planet. Gemenon is apparently the religious one (again, Galactica supports this with the “Gemenese” who are portrayed as real world Christian Scientists-rejection of medical treatment). I wonder if Cancer is the Bank planet and Leo is the Amusement planet? It would have taken real writers to have all the planets be as diverse as Earth I guess.
I sat and watched Graystone and Adama not talk about anything in the street and at the coffee shop. Complete waste of time. Throughout the movie, they mostly just starred at each other.
The school headmaster knew Zoey was a monotheist, but despite meeting in private with her friend that wussed out getting onto the train, she didn’t tell her until later that she was also a monotheist. Instead she actually preaches Athena to her. This is just contrary and does nothing for the story.
Adama is apparently too stupid to realize that because he doesn’t have a copy of his daughter in the computer she is only parts and pieces so she would of course not be functioning as well as Graystones daughter who was uploaded right before she died.
A Cylon prototype tried to shoot at a clearly superiorly designed robot with advanced 360 maneuverability and much higher speed than any of the Cylons found later in the series. If you mount a gun on one of those domed robots it would be 1000x more effective in combat. Basically: they already have a good/better fighting robot. There AI was also quite advanced, as the show proved with the Graystone butler robot. Cylons are inferior in design, even in Galactica to those robots.
Computerized Paper = More advanced technology than anything anyone possessed in Galactica.
“The human brain contains roughly 300 Megabytes of Information.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! This is the stupidest line ever spoken in science fiction. Ever. EVER!
If you steal a proprietery microprocessor from another company, you can just slide it into your robot and it will work. Dumb dumb dumb…
There are no legal ramifications to stealing the microprocessor (they LAUGH at the accusation near the end) and mass producing it yourself will also not be an issue despite not having the same equipment or science team to create it in your own company.
When you upload your daughter’s consciencousness into another place, you “move” it, not “copy” it. Ya’ know, because if something goes wrong you don’t need a backup. DUMB DUMB DUMB…
Apparently Zoey Graystone has combat training, as after being uploaded into the Cylon body, she is flawlessly accurate with a machine gun in a new body. (His own programming was already proven to not be good enough to do the same, so no, he did not just ADD it himself…)
When you leave a highly complex AI in a room by itself, be sure to give it a cellphone so it can call their teenage friends…
Okay, I’ll stop.
This movie was awful. Possibly one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I’m sorry, and I really wish I could get my $14 back from iTunes. I will not be watching the series.
It all started with a LtCol wanting to train troops to use our product (CIDNE) in Kuwait. This apparently started several months ago. Three weeks ago, it was handed to me to coordinate with the military side to make it happen. This part was not without complication and frustration. After several emails and phone calls, it was clear they wanted to use the new server for training that would happen on May 19th (a date that changed twice).
Originally I wasn’t actually going on this trip. The systems guy I went to Basrah with was going to go. However now that the time table was moved up, he had a schedule conflict, and no one else was available. This sucks for a few reasons, but the biggest one (for me at least) was the pay difference. Kuwait is not considered a war zone, so hazard pay is out, and because I would be staying on military bases the whole time, I would also not be getting the “per diem” rate for staying in Kuwait otherwise. Also, I could not charge any overtime while I was there despite pretty much working with their guys from the time I woke up until I went to sleep.
Because the travel required delivering Secret material across borders and would require constant supervision while en route, I was partnered up with our Site Coordinator, Elissa. It would turn out this wouldn’t be as necessary as we thought, since the server was picked up almost immediately by the military as soon as we hit the ground in Kuwait. Her motivations for going were more simple, as she had just not gotten to travel to any of the other bases since she’s been working here, even though she really wanted to. She was really excited.
I have been on two trips, my motivation being getting a job done and checking Black Hawk ride off the list. My excitement was…limited.
Time to Go
Just getting the flight setup a pain all around. Scheduling a flight down there was confusing, as we applied for a flight on the 16th and instead got scheduled for one on the 22nd! Elissa tried to setup a flight through another service and ended up with a flight for Sunday the 17th, which was really cutting it close to our deadline install date (a date which now that I’m back is comical).
I am currently scheduled for the night shift, so because this would all be happening during the day. This of course added to the complication of coordinating travel and talking to the people we were meeting in Kuwait because everyone sent emails and made phone calls while I was in deep sleep. I had to depend on people during the day passing information on to me or hoping that I would get the information I needed the next day from the email I sent the previous night.
The day of the trip I slept in and came in early in the morning. That’s when the adventures really began.
First, the server wasn’t working 100%. There was a strange error that it was getting that no one seemed to be able to solve, and we were just going to box it up without fixing it and just deal with it on the ground. Second, the network guys on the Kuwait side had still not sent us IP addresses for the new server. Having this information ahead of time would make things much smoother for the install because we could test all the components with the real settings already configured. There wasn’t enough time to do anything about the error and we had to wait on the IP addresses from the network guys in Kuwait, so there was nothing to do but pack it up, and worry about it on the ground on the other side.
Quickly, I did my most important task of the day: setting my Facebook Status. I shut down my laptop when my SIPR (Secret) machine dinged. It was an email. With our damn IP addresses. That’s just great. The server is already duct taped in the box! I wrote down the IP information on an index card as fast as I could and we hopped in the car. Just not enough time to get everything just right.
Loading the server into the car before heading to the airport.
Elissa and I with the server in the armor we had to wear on the plane to Kuwait and back.
This is where the story gets a little funny. Everyone jokes about how easy my flight schedules are and how I never have delays or removed from a flight for military priority. Well of course, today would be the day that I get bumped and have to sign up for “Space Available.” I had to be there in two hours for the next flight. Two hours eh? That’s right, my luck with travel continues! Although I got bumped from my flight, it gave me an extra two hours to fix my server and configure the IP’s. Perfect!
We floor it back to the office carry the server BACK into the server room, hook it back and up, and get cracking. When the pressure is on, the system team really seems to pull it together and get it all done, as we got all the IP addresses assigned and configured and resolved the error we were getting (which turned out to be a damn check box). Relieved, I got back in the car with the server and went back to the airport to catch the flight.
The Trip
The flight was on a C-130 again. Again, this is always a lesson in discomfort. It was also too loud to talk, so Elissa used her iPhone Notepad and handed it to me to communicate with me while we were in the air. Eventually she fell asleep and I stole the phone for a while (my PSP was in my bag, unreachable) and did some Sudoku. Thankfully it really helped make the time go by, and it seemed like we landed right around the time I finished my puzzle.
A Night to Kill
Once we landed, the first part of our mission was to get our visa, as we had to leave Ali Al Salem Air Base to get to where we were installing the server: Camp Buehring. Unfortunately, this is a 12 hour process. They apparently have to take our passport, drive it all the way to Kuwait City, get it stamped, and drive it back. So, we would have to stay the night there in transient housing. That is, a tent with bunk beds:
Lovely.
This tube was our AC Vent. It had velcro flaps or, as some people did, you just cut a hole in it with your knife...
Our second mission was to find the military contacts we had so they could take the server off of our hands and coordinate with us when to pick us up the next day after we got our visas. This ended up being really easy, because they found us at the counter where we went to get our visas. This is most likely because Elissa was easy to pick out, as females are in short supply on most military bases. Not being a military guy myself, I didn’t really understand who these guys were, and it was later explained to me that having a Sergeant Major escorting you around and helping you lift a server into his truck is kind of a big deal. Thankfully, he was a really cool guy when ended up helping us out several times throughout the trip.
SGM DeBauge pictured here with the first Ronald McDonald I've seen in 9 months.
They took the server, had dinner with us at the chow hall, gave us a number to call when we were ready to get picked up, and headed back to base with the server, so the heavy lifting part was pretty much over. Now it was just a waiting game for our passports. I decided to spend the time exploring the base a little. Amusingly, there were some things to see around the base:
"Golden Arches" have a better ring than "Golden lower case j looking letter," so they kept the logo in Kuwait.
A soccer game in the sand. Don't know if it was a league or just a pickup game.
USO Show happened to be going on. Some B-Rate Comedians, but still helped pass the time.
Don't ask me why, but the closest place I could find cold water to drink was at the laundry trailer. I think I went there about 5 times.
The Easy Part
Early the next morning Elissa and I met up and got our passports back and called to get picked up by the Sergeant Major DeBauge and Sergeant McCoy again. I ate some more unhealthy food for breakfast (I’m going to be on a treadmill for hours this week making up for this little trip) and they got there right around the time we were done.
For breakfast: A little taste of home.
Oreo McFlurry. Closest thing I've had to an Oreo Shake in a long time. Elissa claims she has never seen me so happy.
They gave us a mini-tour of the surrounding area and we tried to go to a couple shops, but we didn’t get to see any camels along the road up close and we got up too early to hit the Kuwaiti shops (which Elissa was particularly excited about). The ride there was like driving through Nebraska and/or Kansas except, instead of fields on both sides, it was just sand, as you can see:
Yeah. This is what all that fuss was about. Saddam invaded this. Lucky this is on top of a sea of oil.
Wait, I think I see something! Oh. A junk yard. Awesome...
Once we got there, they took us to where we were staying. Again, not really knowing who I had with me, we walked into a tent full of MP’s who I would be staying with. All of them looked very surprised and a little worried. First of all, there was a female in the tent with them, so the Sergeant Major said “I don’t think you are supposed to be here.” Oops. Also, they were all just killing time until they got a flight out to Baghdad, so they were not really put together.
They gave me a cot, and answered all of the Sergeant Major’s questions at attention. They soon sorted out that the girl in there was the only MP in their squad that was a female and she was in a tent by herself next door. This was a concern because of the attempted sexual assaults and kidnappings that have been reported on several different bases, so they kept her close. He forgave them for the situation, but said to come to him next time so he can resolve it properly. Around that time I grasped that I was probably dealing with someone with more authority than I realized.
Tonight of course, Elissa would be staying with the female MP. I felt bad that the guys I would be staying with that night kind of got busted because I happened to be sharing a tent with them and was being escorted by a high ranking guy, so before we went to install the server, I tried to make piece by asking “You guys seen the new Star Trek movie yet?” None of them had, so I tossed them my thumb drive and said “Take it!” and pulled out my portable hard drive “and these too.” (Piracy FTW!) They were really excited and told me they would hook me up too and copied some movies for me to my hard drive after I left. Of course, their gratitude would continue after I got back in a hilarious manner.
But first, I had to install the server on the rack and get things moving. They took us to a pretty nice building and I met one of the guys I exchanged several emails with about where I was installing the server and what I needed. He showed me where to put the server, and Elissa and I put the server in there, despite the rack being pretty old and actually not being the right size for our server. It stuck out the back, and we had to take down some of his power strips in order to fit it in there, plus we had to bend some of the metal of the front posts just to screw in the railing system. But it got in there dammit.
See, it fits. Kinda.
Now all we have to do is plug it in -”oh yeah you guys still aren’t authorized to be on the network, you’ll need to talk to 581st.” The guy he hooked me up with at the 581st was the one who gave me the IP addresses about 5 minutes before I left. The end of his email said “You are not approved for the network yet.” I thought they just needed to ask me a question or verify some paperwork or something. Oh how wrong I was.
The Brick Wall
Our contact at the 581st wasn’t available, so we ate lunch to kill some time. I was eating 3 meals a day while I was out there, which is odd since I’ve really only been “eating” 2 meals a day and kind of snacking/drinking 4 others a day for my whole diet/workout thing. My metabolism probably still hates me right now as I’m writing this.
We finally got to meet with the 581st network guy and he delivered us the bad news: he isn’t the authority that can give us network access. The conversation ended up leading us to find out that despite all the reassurances I got in my emails about it “not being a big deal” to get IP’s and approval for the network, it was a huge deal. There is some great big authority in Kuwait, either called the RNOSC or ARCENT, or both, or I don’t know because the whole damn thing is confusing, but they insisted they had to have a meeting about it on the 21st. Wait…what? I’m supposed to have this server installed by the 18th, and you want to have a meeting 3 days AFTER our deadline? Suddenly our two military guys started pulling some rank and talking about how this whole project got started but it was concluded that their hands were tied and we’d have to deal with these new people.
By deal with these new people, I mean continue to get stonewalled. It was like no one on the network side knew that we were coming, even though this project was set in motion 5 months before I was even a part of it. “How did you guys get this far without talking to us about the paperwork involved?” How the hell were we supposed to know you even existed?
Obviously, there was a breakdown in communication between this 581st and the actual authority that let them do their job, which again, is just hilarious. Pretty much we had to send the same paperwork we already sent to the local network guys (the ones actually in Camp Buehring) to these God-like network authorities who had to give it their blessing. My boss, being who he is best, included the document from General Petraeus saying that our product is one of the ten programs necessary to do the job we’re doing out here (in simple terms: A BIG DEAL). Surprisingly, this actually prompted a smarmy response basically saying “That’s great that you are obviously well established, but we have a more important job of making sure you system isn’t redundant.” WTF!?
We gave them as much paperwork as we could and made all the phone calls we could for the day, and finally just had to say “Okay, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.” We ate dinner (what a concept!) and then they dropped us off at our tents.
How to Kill a Guy Trying to Rob You at the ATM
You probably think I’m joking about my subtitle there, but as I explained, the MP’s were suddenly big fans of mine for hooking them up with movies. In return, they decided they wanted to teach me how to defend myself from someone holding a gun up to my head, stomach, side, and back. Also a couple of tips for what to do about someone with a knife. It was a little nerve racking at first actually, since they took one of their actual side arms, took out the clip and checked the chamber and gave it to me and said “Hold this up to my head.” All in all, it was pretty interesting and informative, however who knows how my nerves would actually hold up with a mugger holding a gun to my head. Will I remember all the steps they taught me?
The other part that was funny was them trying to show me how some of it worked on each other. The reason is, they know all the counter moves and the proper way to stand and protect themselves from their own moves, so they kept telling their partners to “stop doing it properly,” so that they could show me. Of course, they all talked about what they would do in situations that were a little more advanced, and argued about the proper way to handle those things, which included interesting topics like “Ranger Knife Fighting,” and “Blocking a Knife with your hand.” Nice.
A while later, the guy sitting next to me, a big fella from Kentucky who the guys several times quipped with about being a “country boy,” showed me pictures of his family and just chatted with me. He also gave me some expensive sunglasses, explaining that they were sponsored by Oakley and they sent them new pairs to stress test all the time, so he didn’t need them anymore. Awesome.
Once I finally tried to get some sleep, I realized it was going to be rough. I didn’t bring a sleeping bag with me, as I figured I’d just rough it and use a borrowed blanket from one of our friends at the base. My big friend poked me later and said “you’ll freeze to death tonight if you don’t take this.” He gave me his sleeping bag, as he already had his cot setup otherwise. Him being a big guy, I actually fit in it. I slept great considering the cot. Elissa of course, told me the next morning, she didn’t have such luck and was freezing.
A surprisingly much better place to rest than the bunk beds. This was my tent that I shared with the MP's.
Those MP’s are supposed to get stationed at Liberty, so I’m hoping to run into them again, but it is a big base, so it might not happen. Cool guys though.
Still a No
The next morning, we met for breakfast, my MP buddies of course were already up and gone, and actually spotted me on the way back from the shooting range and shouted “My man!” from across the way. I guess I made an impression.
The next few hours we basically just waited. We waited in Sgt McCoy’s office, stopped by Starbucks, we waited at their MWR facility to kill some time, killed the battery of my PSP…
Starbucks in Kuwait.
At the MWR Facility. Gamer chairs with LCD's hooked up to Xbox 360's. Hour playing limit. The line went out the door for this and computers with Internet access.
Finally after lunch, and patience started to really wear thin, we started making phone calls to check the status.
The status was they still wanted to have a damn meeting on the 21st.
Things started to get ugly. Suddenly General officers were being brought up to fight battles to make things happen and apparently the stakes were raised to that level on both sides. This was getting way out of my hands now. Two Generals were going to call each other and argue over turning on a port of a switch for a server I just installed. How the hell did it come to this?
It was concluded there was no way it was going to be resolved today, and probably not even this week. Now the trainer and Sergeant Major looked to us and said “So are you going to wait here?” I told them I would call my boss, and thankfully I got the answer I wanted to hear: “Nope, come home. I’m not going to have you sit around and wait for them to get their shit together.”
We had them drive us back to Ali Al Salem and now had to do the same process over again, because of course Kuwait requires an exit visa too. I killed time with my PSP, and we signed up a for a Space Available flight in the morning. Without a hitch, or delays, I once again got the flight I wanted and made it home. Also, for a change of pace and also for much more comfort, it ended up being a C-17 with actual passenger seats. Without the server to worry about anymore since we left it in Kuwait, hoping they would come to their damn senses and turn the port on, the trip home was easy.
I stopped by work and explained to them more than what I could on the phone. They understood, which was a relief to me, as I felt like I had been put in charge of something and somehow didn’t come through, but it is obvious that someone on the military side didn’t do their part, and now we were going to have to deal with that.
Rest
They didn’t need me for anything else, and pretty much wanted me back on nights, so I decided to just go back to my room and pass out. Of course, this is what I found when I got back:
That hole in the wall is where my AC used to be. Dammit.
They were doing maintenance on all of the AC units on my row. I had to wait a couple hours before they brought it back. It was not pleasant to be sweating in my room just sitting there, but once they gave it back, I slept like a baby.
Aftermath
Followup emails were lists of demands that included so many acronyms for paperwork they wanted filled out and so many explanations that I really didn’t know what to do. All of this was sent to me, and they were asking for meetings during the day, so obviously I got a little stressed out.
This problem is currently still on going, and unfortunately isn’t simple either. They are asking for several things that may even require us retrieving the server, so “we” may have to go back and get it. We also have a manning problem out here, because our Site Lead had to take emergency leave and we had no one to replace him, and we are pretty much functioning under new leadership. This may turn out fine, but not having the original folks that worked on setting this up will probably make things harder. Elissa loved the trip, so she volunteered to go back, which might work, since if they can ship the server and she can just go back and retrieve the hard drives (the only part that is technically “Secret”), we can avoid having to send me down there…
Unfortunately, this problem has also taken a back seat, as this week we have had a crisis and a software upgrade. The crisis involved part of our database being deleted accidentally, and having to coordinate a restore of backups on all of our servers in theater. To put things in perspective, our product is basically a webpage that interacts with the database. No database, no product. Thankfully, it worked and we are back online. Software upgrades always have complications, however this last one didn’t have any problems during the upgrade, only code issues after that had to be resolved.
So, again I apologize for how long it took to update you all on my trip, but needless to say, between my trip to Kuwait and the issues we’ve had to take care of here, I’ve been pretty busy. Let’s all hope there isn’t a Part II to this story and they just turn the damn port on though…
The systems guy I share a shift with at night is leaving on Friday after being here for a year. Before he left, his brother, who is in the military, came out to see him before he left from Talil. He offered to take him and his friends to check out the garage of Cougar JERRV’s he works with. Um…hell yeah!
Behold! The Cougar JERRV (Joint EOD rapid response vehicle) 6x6
The garage had several in there, including the 4x4 variant.
Though in the pictures below you can see how big they are relative to me, the interior is quite cozy. The glass windows are about 10″ thick. Most of what these things are made of is pure armor.
They used to carry spare tires, but decided changing 800 lbs. tires on the side of the road was unlikely.
Up by the turret. While climbing up there, I tried to be careful until I was assured "there isn't anything you could break on this thing if you tried."
We were given a quick run down of several sophisticated systems they use to find mines and IED’s. There are more screens and specialized computer equipment in these things than at my computer desk at home (FYI, that is actually saying a lot). They can also turn off all the lights and drive in complete darkness thanks to the sensors around the vehicle. In short, these things are badass.
Our tour guide grabbed something on the shelf in back and handed it to me. C-4 for controlled detentions to destroy unexploded ordnance and the like. Um…hell yeah!
Two sticks of C-4. The shelf inside was full of the stuff. Thankfully, usually when I hear a big boom outside, it is these guys blowing something up before it hurts any of our guys.
Each vehicle also has two robots, one for doing the big dirty work and another one for more precise work. Apparently, the “precise” robot is designed by the same guys who make the Roomba. “Why don’t you go ahead and pick it up, it isn’t that heavy.” Um…hell yeah!
Remote controlled robots for clearing explosives.
Needless to say but it was a nice surprise to get out of the systems shop and see something different today.
This shrine has several example of ordnance they clear. The logo in back is the EOD Crab. (Click picture for details)
If you are curious about the guitar shaped like a gun…you’ll have to talk to this guy:
Click picture for his Facebook Profile. Don't say I didn't warn you though.
In other news, I’m all caught up on Chuck, leaving me completely helpless to the waiting game of the Season 2 Finale. It’d be nice if I could watch the damn playoffs too.
I tried to stay awake. I got through about one game of hockey, and fell to sleep in my chair. It didn’t matter.
*KNOCK KNOCK* “KBR!”
That’s right. After I posted my blog and passed out from pure exhaustion, those bastards woke me up one more time: for a signature about all the fantastic work they did.
So a few days ago I started giving into a little peer pressure and playing Castle Crashers with a couple of mycoworkers. We did it immediately after work which all kinds of screwed up my gym schedule, which probably pissed off another coworker. In any case, I kicked my own ass so that I would only play on my days off from the gym with them, and got to sleep on time yesterday.
By some fluke, I woke up 4 hours earlier than I should have and felt fully refreshed and ready to go. Expectedly, after hitting the gym and having a fun filled 12 hour shift, I started to crash. Great! I’ll be back on my good schedule tomorrow right? RIGHT?
*KNOCK KNOCK* “KBR!” It was next door, but they might as well have been standing on my bed. Despite the fact that most people work during the day, they decided they should do this at least three times before going inside.
Okay fine. They are probably just fixing his A/C or something, they’ll be really quick and move along. It has happened before. Did I hear a drill? Whatever…zzz…
Maybe they noticed something about my door. See about three days ago, they did a fire inspection while I was gone. Some proactive KBR person probably thought they were being super helpful by noticing that my door had a “Day Sleeper” sign on the front, but because it was clearly 0840 when they visited my room, obviously that wasn’t true! My sign was removed:
The less dirty spot is where my sign used to be.
I get home at 1000, and sleep until 1800. Does that qualify as “Day Sleeper” to anyone else?
Anyway, obviously it must be something important right? So they knock on my door three times, and begin unlocking it themselves while I’m still stumbling to find some clothes to throw on. I open it, much to their surprise (they probably expected a “Day Sleeper” sign on the door) and explain they needed to install a hook. What…the…fuck…
That’s right, take a really close look here, because something about this is really fucking important. It is important enough for them to wake me up and install it in the middle of the day at least:
This is the hook for the old fire extinguisher they removed eleventy weeks ago for reasons they never explained.
This is the new hook that will actually hold up my new fire extinguisher.
Questions include: "Why can't it just stay on the floor where it is?" and "Aren't you going to take down the other one you lazy bastards?"
The Result: My Fire Extinguisher now is hanging up two feet off of the ground...exactly in the same place it was before next to a useless hook for the old one, and I only got 4 hours of sleep.
Okay, fine! It isn’t the greatest way to wake up, and having them drill into your wall will be hard to get over, but you can hop right back into bed and crash now. I mean it only took them a few minutes. Just crawl back in…get all situated again…start to drift off and you’ll be…
*BEWwwww…* (Power goes out.)
Now normally, you wouldn’t think that this would matter for someone trying to sleep. In this case, it effected things three-fold.
First, my A/C unit turning off is like an alarm clock to me. When I come home from Iraq (hm…someday!), I will tell everyone right now, the hardest thing I am going to have to face is sleeping without a whirring fan making noise. I work in a server room with whirring fans, my A/C unit is NEVER shut off, and outside, well, I live in a war zone-so it ain’t quiet. Needless to say, I woke up (if I even went back to sleep) immediately.
Second, apparently, the fire extinguisher hooks were just Phase 1 of a plan, because shortly after that, what sounded like 18 KBR people went into the room next door and started hammering and drilling…something! I had no idea what they were doing, but again, with my A/C unit off and unable to drown out any other sound, they might as well have used my head as a step to reach the ceiling where they were, at least in my imagination, installing a hockey arena scoreboard. I mean, it required the same sized team that it would take to install one of those at least.
Thirdly, I had the privilege of hearing who shut my power off. See KBR uses Walkie-Talkie technology to communicate how to terrorize us sleeping folk. So I got to hear all about how they shut down power…TO ONLY MY TRAILER. That’s right. My trailer is 271, where I live in Unit B. Apparently since my neighbor was getting his rink installed, they needed to shut down the power. Isn’t that special? So I got to hear all the updates on how and when my power was going to be restored via the loud radios attached to the team of 18 people next door installing whatever the hell it was blaring while they responded in broken English.
Surely this can’t take forever and I can get back to slee-*KNOCK KNOCK* “KBR!”
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
I open the door to a new team, this one also surprised to see me, as surely there should be a sign on the door or some such shit, indicating if someone were sleeping inside during the day. They explained, mostly through sign language and the only recognizable word they said from the English language: “light,” that they were here to install a new light.
By now I was so defeated. I knew I wasn’t going to get any more sleep. I shrugged and let them in. I asked them if they could fix the outside light since it was broken a while ago. They said they were replacing them all. At least a small victory. Hey maybe the new light will be nicer for my room or something. Maybe it is “greener” too. Wait, that isn’t a new light, that just looks like some extra pieces and some long screws. What the…
Had I known what was going to happen I would have been able to take “Before” pictures, but this is the result of their “new light” install:
Apparently, the light being flush against the ceiling is what was at issue here.
Somewhere, someone is patting themselves on the back for this three inches of clearance from the ceiling to protect me from...something.
They also installed this important plastic piece to cover up the old hole where the wires came out of and ghettoly hooked me up with a small piece of plastic pipe to cover the new wiring job.
As I watched the two “electricians” install my “new light” and tried to establish what the armed African security guard was so interested in reading on the back of my Brett Favre jersey, I accepted that I wasn’t going back to sleep.
I made one attempt to make a second small victory for myself and asked if they had any tape to fix the cover to my A/C unit, which kept falling off and getting dust all over Jason’s now completely dirt filled bed. I didn’t understand a damn word they guy said, but he yelled down the row. Apparently this was going to be the third guy that would have woken me up later to check out my A/C unit. I got it out of the way early. Lucky me.
I have no illusions that no less than 80% of the structural integrity of the room I live in is probably held together with this magnificent tape.
So if you need me, I’m going to kick off my shower shoes under my fire extinguisher and I’ll be on Xbox Live for the next few hours trying to get achievements in NHL 09 under my “new light,” and enjoy the rest of my morning. Hope everyone is just swell!
According to my day calculator, that means 8 months have gone by since I landed here.
Recently, things have been coming together. Well, at work at least.
I don’t have a life outside of work, so this is some of the only excitement I have. I got a server up and running that has been down for a while, I made a friend via email that helps me convert files for work so I can use them and got all caught up with that, I got all my maintenance projects into an easy nightly routine, and now we have all our new servers in to start replacing the old. We’re getting some imaging software to make it really easy, then it will just be a matter of sending them to each site and getting them hooked up. I guess it is just a stress reliever to know that you don’t have any projects hanging out there or any continuing nagging problems that you aren’t sure what you are going to do about them, like I have been feeling like for a while. Now I just follow my routine and everything is coming together pretty nicely. Even the things that have been popping up unexpectedly aren’t stressing me out.
But yeah, outside of work, meh. I go to the gym, but in order to have a gym partner, I have to go before work, so I don’t have enough time to do cardio now, so I’m worry about that. I got my “consume something every 2 hours” diet thing going again pretty strong, with some new multivitamins and supplement. Another compliment sprung from out of no where, when a coworker of mine said “seriously, your arms look massive today.” (and not the sarcastic bullshit that the naysayers I work with mockingly say either). I did just come into work after being at the gym, so I was all pumped up still, but, no one has ever said anything like that to my skinny ass before, so it was a big deal to me at least.
I’m thoroughly disappointed in all of you. Yes you, you and even you. Especially you. Why did no one on the planet inform me of the TV show Chuck and how extremely awesome it is? Seriously, the show basically has Theo written all over it and none of you said anything? When Heroes came out I had to tell several people several times that I had seen it because they would ask me everyday. But not Chuck? WTF?
With most of the other national coalition forces are moving out of Iraq, their positions are being taken over by us. A major location is in Al Basrah, in the south east corner of Iraq (near Kuwait). Though our company provides our software to the British Coalition forces (<-that link provides background information on the move), their servers are on a different network due to the classified information that we do not share with other nations, so a new server had to be installed for the US forces moving into the region.
With mostly new folks on the systems team other than myself and the Tech Lead, I was selected (along with one of the new guys) to install the new server in our Basrah location. This was my first trip out here, so I was a little nervous, but also excited. I was a little disappointed at first that it would only be on a C-1 30 since I’d never been in a helicopter before, but it would still be an adventure. As it turned out, it was a very short one.
To prepare, because I work nights, the day before I left, I took 4 Atro-phex after I got off shift, and I beat Resident Evil 5 (only my first play through, lots of achievements left to get…). This kept me up all day so I could get on the plane that evening when we were getting on the plane, and pass right out as soon as we got our temporarily beds. John and I ended up in Tent 57 in cots. I took a photo of it, as this is a good example of how my other room is such a privilege compared to the tents:
We got up the next morning pretty early, but we took care of getting the server setup with only a little complication (which usually isn’t the case, there is almost always a huge obstacle) and ended up not needing to stay another night. We were all done by lunchtime, and got chow hall there, and then we got signed up for a plane ride home. The base was unremarkable, and really there wasn’t much for me to take photos of otherwise. It was much flatter and dustier there, and the flies were horrible. But, since we only had to stay for a short time, it wasn’t too bad of a trip I think.
On the way back, I had John snap a photo of me on the C-130 in my armor and all:
Maybe you can tell in the photo, but I was really tired. We really only got about 4 hours of sleep, and that was after I stayed up all day the day before. Sleeping on those planes is problematic with the armor and the size of the seats, so I’m not sure I could even if I tried. They didn’t have guys my size in mind, especially not guys my size with armor on.
When I got back, I immediately did the reverse of what I did before to get myself back onto nights. However, I ended up biting myself on the ass on this one. Turns out we needed to send someone to Mosul and Balad as well. Because I knew how close Balad was and knew that it would be a helicopter ride, I volunteered. But, that meant I had to go back to days again. Ouch.
I figured because I was only doing maintenance on the server, if I left in the morning I should be able to make it back the same day if I took care of everything fast enough. People in the office were joking that it would never happen because I would get delayed, there wouldn’t be space on the flight, or weather would stop me from making it back that fast. With how smooth my last trip went, I figured I could do it again.
So, I finally make onto the Blackhawk, and got to fly over Baghdad during the day.
The flight started out very silly. We flew from the airport to another pad on the same base we were on. That’s fine, maybe we had to pick someone up, etc., I can understand that. But what was weird is we then transferred everyone from one helicopter to another for reasons that were never explained. Everyone looked confused about it, I wasn’t sure if it was some kind of security thing, but, in any case, I was in two different Blackhawks in about the span of 5 minutes.
I was told that I would be able to take pictures on the helicopter after takeoff, however this became a problem. Two of the people on my flight had enough baggage to fill the whole space between our feet, and I could barely move. No one was friendly and just seemed to be annoyed to be there, so I wasn’t going to push it and just hoped I would be able to on my way home instead.
The coolest part, and pretty much the only interesting “window” part of the flight was the very beginning when we went from Liberty Base to the International Zone, because I could see Baghdad below. After that, I came to discover that there is actually a worse desert out there than the Nevada and Utah deserts I’ve driven through so many times. It was just sand and farms the rest of the way.
When I landed on base, the new guy I traveled with to Basrah knew some of the systems folks up at Balad and gave me their number. I gave them a call and they picked me up. They were…interesting characters. The ride over involved a conversation about how one of them was going to pay for the KBR people to build a house for him out of the extra wood that gets scrapped around the base. It was amusing.
They realized they would have to escort me into the building to get to the server room because the military division in charge of the building required special badges. When I got there, the complications began.
First of all, they didn’t know the combination to the server room they thought it “had” to be in, which ended up not being a server room at all, but just a networking room with switches and no servers at all. Then we finally get to the server room and a Major (<- get it?!) comes in and starts berating both of us about how everything in that server room is “his” and there is “no possible way” that the server is in “his server room.” As I tried to continue looking for it, he just got louder and more insistent that I leave because “it isn’t here!”
Luckily, the systems guys I were with had the hookups, and I gave them the IP address back at their shop and they determined without a doubt that it is in fact hooked up to the switch in that server room and gave me the port number. I also called the office back in Victory to confirm the model of the server. Armed with this information, we went back and found it almost instantaneously. The Major came back. He didn’t apologize, and simply said something along the lines of “I had no idea that server was here, it must have been put here before I got here.” I guess so huh? All the systems guys had several names for the Major in question, and none of them were nice.
The server had memory issues, and I could only fix one of them, even though we suspected two sticks were bad. We also hoped that one of the power supplies was just unplugged, but as it turned out, it was also burnt out, so it couldn’t be repaired. We also suspected that one of the hard drives was bad, but after looking at the system itself, it did not appear to be the case, and our other tests, we hope, were just giving false positives because of the memory issue, which usually causes unpredictable issues with machines. I dusted and reset all the memory, and said “let’s head back to the helipad!”
I was told that the signup sheet for rides back to Baghdad would be put out at 1700. It was 1715 when we left the server room. I got there, signed my name and then sat down and waited, hoping they would have space and I would get called. I did get called, but it was early. It turned out to be news that there would be no more flights to Baghdad that night for the waiting list folks. Damn. But, just when I thought I wouldn’t end up making it, they explained that in my case though, they don’t know why I signed up for the waiting list, because I’m already on the list as a planned passenger. I didn’t argue. I guess originally I mentioned to our office admin that I wanted to come home the say day, and she signed me up, but they didn’t let her know that it was confirmed, so she didn’t think it was. In any case, I made it home the same day, and gloated to my coworkers back at the office.
So the trips were quick, but I got to experience a couple new things to break up the same routine, which is nice.
Other news here, I fixed all the image issues my blog was having by redirecting the photo links to another location on my website, putting some of the links to point to Picasa, etc., and just did some over all editting. Most notably if you are paying really close attention, I removed two entries from my blog. Namely a depressing entry that I want to put behind me and a blog that explains plans that never came to pass about turning this experience into an academic one, which with the amount of time I have to myself, simply isn’t possible. Certifications will have to wait until I get home.
Anyway, I’ll continue to edit and update my blog and get it looking the way I want, and let you know of any new cool happenings. Also, check out Christina’s Blog who I added to my links on the right. She blogs about her time in Iraq too, much to the entertainment of several ISS employees as it turns out.
I’ve been asked by damn near everyone what I think, and I’ve been giving neutral answers, which I think is actually pissing everyone off, so I decided to make a post giving my breakdown of how things ended.
The Good
The Rescue Operation - I didn’t think they could make a cooler action sequence than the rescue on New Caprica. The Galactica dropping down toward the surface and launching Vipers while burning in the atmosphere. It was awesome. They managed to find a way to impress me by having the Galactica execute a really cool plan, using Cylon technology against them and then just ram the frakking thing to get troops inside. The action was great.
Roslin and Adama - Their story ended perfectly. She didn’t miraculously get cured, he didn’t give up, he got to say goodbye to his ship (which I was also very glad never got destroyed in battle), and their story was actually touching and did it without all the religious undertones the rest of the characters in the show did.
Romo Lampkin - Including him in the end was a great service to the fans. I don’t think anyone that has seen the show didn’t think his character was awesome. The fact that he was President of the Colonies for about 12 hours was a nice touch too.
Anders - No miraculous recovery for him either, he got what he wanted and we got what we wanted out of him.
Dr. Cottle - Great character to the end. The President’s final line to him about “just grumble something and go smoke” was priceless.
The Bad
All the Final Five except for Anders - Okay, so they stick there hands in this goo and get all their memories and connect with each other and learn all the truths. Hm, wait a minute: Didn’t Tyrol help get Hera kidnapped in the first place? How about the eleventy-billion sexual encounters Ellen Tigh had behind Col. Tigh’s back? How about her essentially killing his baby by confronting Caprica Six alone? Why the frak is the only person upset Tyrol with Tory since she killed Callie (who he didn’t actually love) and save the baby (which wasn’t actually his)? Tyrol should have been strung up for getting Hera kidnapped (basically getting them into the mess they are in) and Ellen was evil, even when she got her memory back. She killed Col. Tigh’s baby! Tigh and Anders were the only ones of the final five that deserved to live. Col. Tigh and Adama needed a scene for closure between the two of them.
Gauis Baltar - Gauis is a terrible person, who plays a big part in the annihilation of the humanity, and despite every thing that even begins to look like redemption, he never, even to the end, ends up doing anything that deserves forgiveness. He was evil for the whole show. The last speech could have been said by any of the characters in that room. He should have received justice. He wasn’t a hero in any capacity.
The Head Baltar/Six - WTF? They are angels? Seriously that means that an angel encouraged Gauis Baltar to give a nuclear weapon and kill a huge chunk of the existing population of humans, and several other acts that basically hurt humanity. Those are some frakked up angels. Oh well, no wonder, look who the next angel turns out to be:
Kara Thrace - There was a really good SciFi way to go about doing this, and they took the spiritual route instead, which is what I expected from these writers and directors. But dammit, a blackhole, time/space properties, there are several ways to explain why there is a body of hers on the planet yet she flew back out of the black hole safely. The angel thing was pretty much just a lame cop-out. So was she the “harbinger of death” for the Cylons only basically? By the way, that angel is a dis-respective slut.
Apollo - Meh. He should have ended up with Starbuck, but they made her a slutty angel instead. Without other characters to interact with (i.e. Starbuck, his father, the president, Romo, Dualla, etc.), his character isn’t interesting. I honestly found myself not caring what he did afterward.
Athena shoots Boomer in cold blood in front of her child. You remember that episode about two weeks ago where Hera was begging for Boomer to come back since they were connecting emotionally. Yeah. This whole scene was frakked up.
Helo, Athena, and Hera - So, Athena left Helo for dead (but he didn’t die, no explanation), they rescue Hera who serves…what purpose now? They risked everything for this girl and got nothing for it. Hera represents absolutely no solution to anything. The new earth had a population that was already compatible with both species. Hera’s significance was absolutely lost in the very episode that it should have been pivotal.
The Opera House - Weak. Galactica being the Opera House is weak. The only cool thing was Gauis looking up at the Final Five in formation. The Opera House sequence was a huge buildup for seasons of the show and it was just so weak when it was finally happening. The significance of that event were minimal at best.
A couple more WTF’s
Seelix?
Daniel?
I seem to recall Gauis Baltar running a “Cylon Test” on Ellen Tigh. In fact, the episode ended with him smirking and saying he would “never tell” whether or not she was a Cylon. He knew she was the fifth of the Final Five since season one. I’m serious. What the frak?
Overall - I give it a 6/10. They did what I expected, they did some really cool things and at least tried to touch on every character that was left. It just got a little too spirity.
So an old friend of mine from high school messaged me via Facebook chat and we did some catching up, but he also pointed out to me that I hadn’t updated my blog since late last year. The fact that he knew that, and I barely did, pointed out to me that A) someone out there is actually reading this, 2) time continues to go at a rate beyond that of normal time and space while I’m here, and III) I should correct the issue immediately.
So what have I been up to? Testing varying degrees of facial hair (finally settling on none) and hitting the gym pretty hard since I’ve been out here too, following the lead of my buds Jason and Cyril. I’m now on the full BSN stack of products, meaning that every 2 hours I’m either drinking a proteinshake, eating, taking a pill/multivitamin, or consuming something. Measuring results wasn’t as much of a priority to me in the beginning. As it turns out, I’m not sure that was a great idea, as it would have been interesting to know how far I’ve come. For the most part, everyone I work with is either too homophobic or unable to comment comfortably about whether or not it is making a difference. However recently, a few of my friends saw one of my recent photos and assured me, it is working. But I’m not done yet, so expect more “after” pictures in the future.
I’ve visited a few new places not too far from where I am, but had no idea where they were, how to get there, nor did I have a real reason to go until Colby and Christina dragged me out of my cave and into the light. We visited “Bedrock,” a playground for Saddam’s grandchildren which has since been made a graffiti masterpiece by the United States Armed Forces. I’ve also been inside the “Perfume Palace,” which according to the stories was a brothel, and seen some of the other lakes around the base. Pictures are limited because of OpSec, but if you recall any of my other pictures of the palace (which you can see here), imagine that, just smaller and “rounder.” But I took pictures of “Bedrock.” And yes, it is even on Flintstones Road. Check it:
So as I’m drinking my second of four protein shakes tonight, I’m trying to think of other notable events that have been going on with me out here since last I wrote. As I’ve said many times before, I never thought being in a warzone could be so boring, even if I’m just a computer administrator. But most days are pretty uneventful unless you are excited by computer issues and software bugs. I think that is why I haven’t been writing much here. I guess I’ve felt obligated to talk about things going on in Iraq since I’m here, not about nit picky things going on with me going to the gym (this is not my gym by the way, just a good picture) and the cafeteria or the like, but, as I’m writing this, isn’t that what blogs (and even the Internets) are for?
So, I’m going to make a true effort to write more, not only about what is going on with me on a more simple level, but also open discussion and critique things, and even keep my damn promise about those other articles I threatened to write about so long ago.
So, stay tuned, because I’m writing the next one, right now!
Oh yeah, I’m also going to work to make this site not so obviously Wordpress-y and fix some of my broken links to pictures and point them to the right/new places I store pictures (namely my Picasa site).
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