Muddy, Minus the Waters

It rained not too long ago. This normally would seem like a pretty trivial event, but it throws a few wrenches into things here.
I'm not too sure about you, but when I think of the desert, I tend to think of one of two things. First, I think of the obvious: something like the Sahara, the Kuwaiti desert or the Anbar desert to the west of here. Secondly, I think of the high desert, like the Chihuahuan or Sonoran deserts in New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico. Baghdad, on the other hand is neither of those. We have trees, and some vegetation, but mainly we have dust. Nothing but dust. We call it moon dust, due to its resemblance to the fine powder that coats the surface of the moon. It gets everywhere, and it's not even the hot and dry season yet. Back to my story, however. It rained here.

proof of life

When a fine powder gets wet, several things can happen. You can get too much water, and a slurry is formed, which is what happens when there is a lot of rain. You also can get lucky, and there will be so much water that all of the powder will dissolve and run off. Not likely, but ti could happen. lastly, which seems to be the occurence here, is you get a very dry mud. Sticky, gloopy, smelly mud. Now the military, in their infinite wisdom, decided that it would be a good idea to put gravel down everywhere. Seems sensible enough, until your boots get muddy. You might as well put on five pound ankle weights at that point, because the mud causes the gravel to stick to your boots and then you walk funny. It kind of helps get a little bit of the mud off, though.
You all have seen a picture of the CRSP yard, where we work. It is all dust and dirt. When it rains there, it gets gross. Mud gets everywhere, and we just don't care. It's kind of cool, actually, to just be able to stomp your feet as you walk in the door, knowing that you're making a huge mess, like this one:

only part of it is mine

It's neat! I've also got a few pictures of the muddy CRSP yard:

it's kind of soupy sometimes, too

this thing is worthless

In other news, we went back to twelve hour shifts, because people can't follow simple instructions and relay messages between the three shifts. Hopefully it's just temporary until we get some standards set. It's not as though we're working hard, it's just that twelve hours takes a lot of time out of the day, for things like PT and getting stuff done. So, speaking of work, I have a few pictures of where I work:

my desk

what i see each night

this is what the customer sees

the view from our "chariot"

And lastly, since Kristen was chiding me for not having more pictures of me here, here's a shot of me "hard" at work:

workin hard, hardly workin, hey man, you know me

Well, I think that's about it for now. Oh yeah, I am at a critical low on hot sauce. I like the more flavorful sauces, not the vinegary ones, like Tabasco and Crystal. Send sauces like Cholula or Melinda's, ok? Bye!

AFN doesn't stand for Awesome Fun Network

Yeah, I know I said that I wouldn't wait a week to post, but I'm in a conflict zone, and I can do what I want. Anyway, there have been a few new developments here. We've gotten some "assistance" at the CRSP yard, so now we are down to eight hour shifts. I say "assistance" because most of the people are lazy bums. We still do most of the work, but it's getting better. I don't think that active duty army likes getting bossed around by reservists. Especially not when they outrank me, and I'm doing the bossing! Ha!
So we went down to eight hour shifts, which is nice. I now have time to work out, which I have been doing more of, and time to do absolutely nothing, which is even nicer. My main sources of entertainment are my PSP (the best investment I've made in a while), books (obviously), and the pitiful Armed Forces Network. We get something like eight channels, but they're not very predictable. Imagine having all the channels currently available on TV, selecting one show at random from each channel, and placing it somewhere in a lineup on a small variety of networks. We get Bill O'Reilly back to back with Wolf Blitzer, Katie Couric next to Sportscenter, and AFN Movies has the worst selection ever. They played The Big Chill the other day. Most of the people here weren't even born when that movie came out, I think. Anyway, at least we have some variety, but it's still a propaganda machine. You should see some of the commercials.
Well, I digress. I was talking about work, which is going ok. We seem to be having one technical glitch right after the other. About two weeks ago, our database crashed. As soon as it seemed as though we were going to get things running like normal again, some yahoo goes and runs into a telephone pole, thus knocking out all internet to a better part of the Seitz Annex part of Camp Liberty. This wouldn't be too problematic, except for the fact that our database is hosted on a network drive, and all of our phones are VoIP. Hence, no internet=no working CRSP yard. But, the show must go on, so we've been doing everything on paper until the lines are repaired and we get service back. It should happen soon. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that pretty soon I will have a phone number here, so if you want to call me, I am usually around between 1:30 and 3:00 am eastern time, or 10:00 am to 2:30 pm eastern. My number is (513)407-9295. I'll let you know when it's working. It's Vonage, so I get local calling anywhere in the world that there's an internet connection. You people had better call me, because the internet here is $65 per month!!
Last but not least, I have a few pics of the lunar eclipse that happened about a week and a half ago. They're not great, but then again, my digital camera's not too hot about taking nighttime pictures of something that's 230,000 miles away. My lens only gets 3x optical zoom.

early on

a little further on

it's eating all the moon cheese!

totality, the coolest part

CRSP-y Critters

Hello, everyone! As I'm sure you can see and have heard, we've made it safely to lovely Camp Striker, Iraq. It is part of a compound called VBC, which stands for Victory-BIAP Complex. It's nothing more than a fancy name for all the camps that surround the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). We are in Striker, which is the more remote of the three major camps here. The other two are Camp Victory and Camp Liberty. I got to see them in my quest for a Playstation Portable, and are they nice.
I understand that it's been a week since my last post, but trust me, things have been busy. We had a little "incident" regarding the database at work and that's had me working like mad to get it caught back up. Now, back to the story...
Liberty is where the biggest PX and Bazaar are, so it's more of a shopping destination than anything else. (I got the PSP, by the way, but I had to order it from Amazon, stupid PX.) Either way, both of the posts have trees and vegetation, where we have concrete and rocks. I guess that's because we, at Striker, live about 300 meters away from "the wire," or the external boundary of the Complex. Apparently, the last unit that was here said that mortars used to get shot over their heads towards the airport, but fortunately no live rounds landed here. They had one dud hit the ground, though. All in all, I guess it isn't too bad.
We work at what is called a CRSP (pronounced crisp) which stands for Central Receiving and Shipping Point. My platoon also runs a Class I (sustenance items) warehouse. I work at the CRSP. We deal mainly in containers, large loads and Class VII (major end-items) stuff. I work in the office. I practically run the place on many occasions, being the principal data clerk for night shift. Since we work with class VII, we usually get in new vehicles that are going somewhere in this general area. Alot of what we get are up-armored Humvees, but occasionally we get really cool stuff, like this Bradley Fighting Vehicle that I drove around a bit:

grrrrr!

It was neat. Oh yeah, this is what the CRSP looks like:

that's cargo section. guess what goes there?

It's not too much to look at, but it's something to do.
The other day we had to go to Victory for a short class on CMST (it's a container management system... more work stuff) and the class was held inside of one of the buildings of the Al Faw palace complex. The entire complex was built as a hunting and relaxation retreat for Sadaam to commemorate the Iraqi victory over Iran in the Al Faw peninsula. That's down south, where Basrah and Umm Qasr are, on the water. In order to "faithfully" recreate the feel of being coastal, there are several man made lakes here, and the palace is sitting smack in the middle of one of them. Here are some pictures:

the water smells

i think that's a mosque

yes, that mural's of their entire army

al faw palace, it's on a small island

hey honey, i bought us a house!

Anyway, that's about all I've got for the moment. We had a pretty cool total lunar eclipse here the other night, and I got some ok pictures of it, but I really could've used my 35mm to capture it perfectly. Oh well, I'll still put up the pics that I have.
Oh yeah, I promise that I won't wait a week to post anything new, ok? Check back soon!