Unexpected things

Bats, foxes, and bands. Never imagined I'd encounter these here in Baghdad.

There is a man-made lake here where I like to run run. When I first arrived it was way too hot to try and do any exercise except in the early morning. Lately, we've barely cracked 100 degrees during the day and so it is cool enough to run in the evenings (I know it's hard to imagine 100 feeling pleasant but temperature is quite relative when you've been living through 120 degree days). Anyway, the evenings are quite pleasant and it makes for any enjoyable jog. One of the things that I particularly enjoy is watching the bats come out just before the sun sets. They silently flit around, diving and swirling, eating dinner (breakfast?) and keeping me from having to deal with any bugs - a double win for me! It is facinating to watch them as they fly around, but the other evening I saw something even more beautiful. Right as it was almost too dark to see, a fox came running out of the vegitation next to the lake right past me. (One of the reasons I like running around the lake is it is the only green area around with vegetation along the shore and fish jumping to get bugs the bats miss). The fox didn't even really give me any notice and we just passed jogging in opposite directions. He/she was deep auburn/brown with a big, bushy tail with a white tip, stereotypical fox markings as if it had been drawn by Walt Disney.

Another unexpected find here is dinner music. It is not unusual, especially over at the Division dining facility (DFAC) where the big staff eats, to have some small combo band playing during dinner. I've heard everything from jazz, to winds, to electric rock (the last play outside but rest assured you can hear them just fine in where we are eating). I've never been able to find out if these are just soldiers who want to keep up their musical skills or if they are over here as part of a military band and their job is to go around playing these gigs. I would like to think they are playing just for the fun of it; I can't imagine being a piccolo player, deciding to join the Army, and finding out that my piccolo skills are needed most in Baghdad. But, then again, I can't imagine joining the Army and not expecting to spend a tour or two or three over here.

But, I wasn't expecting to be over here with a U.S. Navy tape on my Army uniform either so what do I know!

In and on

Yippee; I'm in my new quarters and online again! Life is good! My room is the far door. As you can see, I have a lovely view of one of our ubiquitous concrete walls but still, I'm in a place I can make somewhat permanent. I've added a couple of small area rugs to cover up the grey tile floor and will work on getting something to put on the bare, panel walls. The big coup was getting internet established but again, my Chief came through and now I'm online to the world. One of the other O-5s has the near room and we share a small bath in the middle. Oh Mom, in the small world category, he is a graduate from Appalachian State and he has a relative who works at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.



Speaking of my Chief, he's been here a little longer and has done some extensive modifications to his quarters. We grilled steaks there again tonight and it is such a nice break from the DFAC. Having just a few of the guys over in a relaxed atmosphere makes for a great change of pace to everyday life. The only thing missing was a cooler full of cold beer; guess I'll have to wait until I throw my, "Back in the World" party when I get home and can enjoy my deck again.

Life is settling into a good routine now. I'm getting comfortable in my job and now I've quit being a nomad for a while. The job is rewarding and there's nothing quite like giving a live demonstration of our equipment to a soldier and having him say, "Wow! Your stuff really works!" Makes them feel safer and takes away one more thing they need to worry about while on mission. Like I said, life is good.

Cheers, Pearl

PS - I've added a new link - Gritty Kitty Blog. "Toonces" is a junior officer with whom I went through training and is over here doing the same job I am. I was checking my statistics for the previous blog and saw I was getting referrals from her blog. I thought I'd return the favor. Quite the blog network we have going.

500!

Right now I don't have internet access in my room so I'm trying remote posting through e-mail. On government internet systems I can read blogs but I cannot log in to make posts or edits. Hopefully this remote posting works, or even better, hopefully my room internet is connected tomorrow and I'll be back to normal operations.

In blog news, I'm over 500 readers! Unbelievable! That means that over 500 times y'all have had so little to do that you've checked in to see what, and how, I was doing; simply amazing! My goal when I started was to have an easy way to send news back to a few folks at home. Selfishly, I just didn't think I'd write enough e-mail to everyone to stay in touch and thought that if I had one central news location I could keep folks at home informed with the least amount of effort on my part. And now, my site has had over 500 hits!

The polite response I suppose would be a simple, "Thank you" to everyone who is keeping up with my adventures in Iraq. As the one over here, I don't always see the interesting story in what we are doing here on a day-to-day basis. I certainly don't find my personal day-to-day life that exciting. But one thing I will admit, it is unlike anything I have ever done before!

Happy Birthday Bro!

Well, another year has passed and my little brother is still trying to catch up to me. Happy Birthday there little Bro! I sure hope you skipped work and went fishing or something equally frivolous today. Your birthday present is on the normal brother timeline which means I'll probably buy it and give it to you when I get back from Iraq next year. I wouldn't want to set any new standard and get you something on time or any nonsense like that! Seriously, I do hope you have a great birthday and next year we can celebrate with two lines in the water and a cooler full of cold beer.

In addition to it being my brother's special day, I received a key to my permanent trailer today! Whoo hoo! I should be moving in tomorrow and I'll post some pictures once I'm settled in. It might be a few days before I can post though as I don't think the Internet is working there yet and posting to blogs is blocked from my work computer. But, regardless, I'll work something out before too long.



Finally (it was a banner day today) I received my first mail - another whoo hoo! When I came back from my morning meetings there were four boxes on my desk. Three were from Elizabeth and one was from Margaret Anne. Thanks so much! I left almost all of the candy and munchies in the office so others could help me graze. I'm glad the U.S. Postal Service doesn't charge postage by the calorie!

A pretty fantastic day for a Monday I must say. And again, Happy Birthday Bro!

Cheers, Pearl

Sunday musings

I hadn't realized it had been over a week since my last posting (my Mom e-mailed and subtly hinted that I was overdue for some new posts). Sorry 'bout that, the time just got away from me. I've been busy this past week but I think things have evened out so I'll work on getting more frequent news to y'all.

Sundays here are the one day of the week that has a different feel. We try to have a more relaxed morning schedule and come in later to make it more of a half day of work to give folks a chance to go to church and have a little bit of a break. I really enjoy having that break in the week and making time for God in a place where I sometimes have to be very deliberate about finding Him. Tonight will also be a special time as some of us Navy guys are being hosted by my Chief to grill some steaks and drink some near-beer at his trailer. He and his roommate have really made their place homey and even have a small deck out front. Speaking of trailers, I should be moving into my new digs early this week and can really settle in for the long haul.

It was a good football weekend except for brother Chris' Tigers. Auburn can't seem to get it together this year (and for your birthday weekend too - bummer there Bro). But my Memphis Tigers won handily against Jacksonville State and Troy beat up on Oklahoma State. In case you didn't know, history was made at the Memphis-Jacksonville game where the first female official in a Bowl Subdivision (Division I) football game (Sarah Thomas, a veteran high school official in Mississippi) served as the line judge.

Finally, I just finished my latest book, "Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain. Yep, that Mark Twain. I have found it to be a wonderful read (written as a first-person observer by one of Joan's closest friends) and Twain felt it was his best work. In his words, "I like 'Joan of Arc' best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation and got none."

Cheers, Pearl

A young people's war

I don't think that I'm unique in having a mental age of being about 25-ish. I imagine most people who are over 25 have a mental age of being about 25. I think I'm pretty young and certainly don't feel like time has passed, or is passing, me by. But, occasionally, the young people give you their opinion of your age...

Today I was in a brief about different kinds of imagery that was available for our use in planning and executing missions. It was pretty interesting, some was new information, some I already knew. When we got to one collection platform the briefer said, "Fortunately, they don't usually use the wet camera system - it's too slow and not real-time. You know, wet film that has to be taken out to be developed. I'm sure your parents all had a camera like that when you were a kid."

What?! My parents might have owned one when I was a kid? What does that mean if I owned one? Am I suddenly old?

Then I glanced around the room. All of us LtCol types had hurt expressions on our faces and all of the other soldiers had no expression - they took the briefer's statement as fact, as if they were all thinking, "Wet film. Hmmmm. Isn't that a lot like black and white TV? I've heard of such a thing, but never actually seen it."

I think I'm going to head down to the PX and see if they have any Geritol.

Cheers, Pearl

A new home and other Sunday news

Well, the Army came though an I'm out of my tent. While I'm not in my permanent trailer (another three-ish weeks or so), I am in a trailer. Whoo hoo! It's not too bad and I have plenty of room (no roommate - it's good to be an O-5!) It is not quite the plush luxurious quarters I had on Diego Garcia, but considering I'm in Iraq during a war, my humble abode is just fine. The best part is the only person snoring is me. Ah, the good life.



I also have an office over with my unit and the commute is about a three minute walk (my permanent quarters will be about a 20 second walk). I have a Navy Chief Petty Officer as an assistant although right now he's really running the show while I learn the ropes. He's been here a while and knows who's who in the zoo and just where to go for just about anything. Gotta love the CPO Mess! I have him to thank for my new quarters more than the Army. They didn't see anything wrong with tent living - go figure. Anyway, Chief has been a Godsend and life is pretty good right now. Now that we finally have our computers and phone hooked up, I guess I'm going to have to earn my pay. I must add though, it sure feels good to be part of an operational unit again. Too much staff work gets old.

I began attending the Anglican service here on base today. It was a small crowd for service (about eight or so) but it was nice to be using the Book of Common Prayer again, even though we used Rite I. It felt very comfortable and familiar to be back in a regular worship environment after so much travel and unsettledness. I think we even had wine for communion although I'm not quite sure if it was bad wine or bad grape juice. It sure wasn't what we use at home! But, our little congregation sang and celebrated and enjoyed our afternoon fellowship (service is at 1PM).



With all of the new happenings there are still somethings that never change. The University of Memphis lost a heartbreaker to Ole Miss yesterday in football and it's still about a thousand degrees here. It's always important to be able to count on some things in life.

Cheers, Pearl

PS - I think I'm going to have to root for Appalachian State this year as well - Go Mountaineers!