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!

Regular life

Until now, I've had some sort of structured event or new thing to blog about. However, one thing I haven't really touched on is regular life. Since I'm finished with training and just beginning to turn over into my new job, which means there isn't a lot of other news right now, I thought I might let y'all in on what it's like here right now.



I'm still in my tent waiting to move down to my trailer with my new unit. Hopefully tomorrow but that's been the story all week. When I was in training the tent was full to bursting but as other folks have moved on to their units, there are only a few of us nomads still hanging out here. It's not too bad as far as tents go (it has very good air conditioning) and is surrounded by giant concrete walls just like everything else here (protection). As a matter of fact, in tent city it is one giant maze of concrete walls and tents and it isn't always straight forward to get to the laundry or shower trailers.



One perk of getting into my job is I finally have some wheels! Mom, see, I told you I was going to get a Hummer some day! (My mom is a tree hugger extraordinaire and thinks Hummers should be banned. I keep pointing out that the Hummer is a perfect symbol for a capitalistic society - it's fun to get her mad sometimes - he he he). My HUMVEE is one of the original non-armored trucks and is only for use on base to cart me around. I have to admit, it is a beast to drive and I'd much rather have one of the non-tactical vehicles (i.e. Suburban) rather than having to wear my kevlar helmet just to drive to the PX (that's a traffic law here - seatbelts and helmets in tactical vehicles).


Speaking of the PX, we have a few on the complex but the one closest to my tent is the largest by far. It has a variety of items but not necessarily the brand you might want. The other day I went to buy some soap and they had about a hundred bars of Dial. That was it. Dial. I bet there were 30 brands of shampoo but only one brand (and type) of soap. Such is life during war. I can't complain too much though, I did stop in at the Cinnebon trailer this morning and get a Seattle's Best Mocha Cappuchino this morning for my 'commute' to work.

That's about it for now. I'll add more 'normal stuff' in future postings along with (I hope soon) pictures of my new address.

Cheers, Pearl