Gun went off a rootie-toot-toot

Well, Memorial Day has come and gone, and of course we didn't get to enjoy many cookouts or good beer. We did, however, get to enjoy yet another iteration of everyone's favorite class: Counter-IED. It was the same class, with the same powerpoint slides, and even the same videos that we saw in both Kuwait and Texas. It didn't help the fact that we had to have it after work, and it ran a little long and made its way into our sleep time. We got over it, though.
A cool thing happens here every once in a while. They fire off the "Phalanx" weapon. It's essentially a 20mm gatling gun that's used to shoot things out fo the sky. It works in tandem with the AN/TPQ-36 "Firefinder" Radar to detect and intercept incoming objects. It first was used on ships in the Navy, but the Army learned that it has many benefits for land-based air defense, and is now in places all around Iraq and the US. You can read all sorts of good info on it here or here. Anyway, to make it brief, when they use it at sea, they use tungsten penetrators to knock down the projectile. Obviously, when used over an urban environment this isn't a good idea since the penetrators would fall to the ground and possibly hurt people. Instead, they use exploding bullets that detonate after a certain distance, and they don't leave much residue to deal with. This makes for a pretty cool lightshow when they fire it off. Anyway, the benefit of wotking where we do and when we do is that we can see the whole thing go down. I shot off a few pics of the event for you to see:







It's a little fuzzy, only because I had to shut off my flash and the camera can't stabilize itself without the flash on.
Anyway, if anyone happens to stop by Arnold's, tell Brett and Ronda "thank you" for me for sending the nice package. Everyone should be getting either nice hand-written letters or very nice typed and printed letters on some fantastic paper they sent me. Hooray! I also got some nice photo paper, so when I get home and get a nice photo printer I can print off a few of my more favorite pictures from here in a larger format. I'll need to get a few more good ones, first!

Ain't nothin' left here partner, just the dust of a plague that has left this whole town afraid

Well, not too much of anyting new is going on here in lovely Iraq. We're getting the yard graded and covered with limestone, to help with the mud problem when it rains. This is good, but not too practical, since it may not really rain again until October. Instead it just creates dust, and a lot of it.

The dust gets just about everywhere, too. Sometimes, when people come in from out in the yard, they are completely beige, head to toe, with the exception of their hair and eyes, since they were covered with hat and glasses. I'm glad I work in the office.

In other news, I have an update on the kittens.

First, I'll say that my desire to keep them was vindicated the other day when we had a mouse running around the trailer. It took three days to get him caught in a trap, and I'm sure that he's not the last one we'll be seeing. Therefore, on to the kitens:

The one that I was going to name Dusty died. I still haven't gotten the straight story on it, but some say that he ran out in front of a truck, and others say that one of the hillbilly guys here "accidentally" killed it. Either way, it was a waste.

As for the other one, which was the one that got wounded, he is doing quite well. The civilian KBR employee here, Jamie, told me that he's living with a bunch of third-country nationals and they play with him and he's getting a lot bigger. That makes me happy to know that his wounds are most likely healing up well and he's doing fine.

Oh well, that's all for now.

Happy Birthday, Kristen!

you can't strike camp without camp striker

Well, the "surge" is beginning, I think. I haven't really seen too many new soldiers around yet, but they've been solidly working on a new pad over by the gate to Striker. A pad is part of a LSA, or life support area. Essentially, it is a small piece of the pie that forms this ghetto that we live in. Seriously, it's a ghetto. We are blocked into a small part of the city, unable to go out, we are completely self sufficient, all of us have a shared commonality and we're forced to wear an identifying symbol. Let's not forget that we're in a war zone, also.
Anyway, rumor once had it that we were going to move into this new pad, but I'm hoping that we don't. Even though we're technically living below standard (a prisoner at Supermax gets more space than I do), it's better where we're at than in the horrid little housing units on the new pad. Right now we live in three unit "CHU's, " or containerized housing units, with three people to a room. It's not too bad. Actually, it's a lot like college, except we have guns. Unfortunately, we don't have the parties or the booze.
The units that are currently being built are nothing more than shipping containers with a door and a window. I'm not even sure that they are the usual size of eight by twenty. So this is where I live now:

And hopefully they don't make us move here:

crapland

And this is my current room:

note the improvised computer table

all my worldly possessions, in this one little box

This is why they call it Camp Striker (I think):

Stryker Combat Vehicles

And this is a shot of our dining facility (hence the DFAC sign):

it's a really big place

In other news, I guess Ruby is up to his usual shenanigans, what with him denying OJ a table over the weekend. That even made news over here. I'm waiting to see if it pops up in "Stars and Stripes," our daily circular. Even some people over here that know where I work have asked me, "hey, isn't that your boss?" And I reply, "yeah, that's Ruby, alright." Speaking of, I found this on the net not too long ago:

PS, this was really cute:

medicating in the sun, pinch doses of laudanum

Well, summer is officially starting to come on in central Iraq. We've entered month three without much of a hitch, with the exception of the monotony, it's not all that bad. It's getting rather warm here on a daily basis. Since we're working 11:30 pm to 11:30 am, we get to experience a bit of the famous Iraqi sun. My hands and face are starting to get a bit of sun. I imagine by the time I'm home on leave, I should have a pretty swell "army tan."
Anyway, it starts getting warm here by about nine o'clock in the morning. Lately, it's also been a touch humid. We're on the tail end of the rainy season, so on occasion it will spit for a few minutes and then quit. That makes it positively miserable. I can't wait for the real heat of summer. Not that I'm anxious for it, but I've never quite experienced 130 degrees before. It'll be a "life experience," or whatever I decide to call all the little milestones in this collective rock pile.

In other news, we got a new copier at the CRSP. I know, in the real world that's kind of hum-drum, but here that's monumental. It makes my life a thousand times easier and a million times more efficient. Instead of laboriously researching and printing off the convoy commanders' paperwork, I can now quickly fire out my approvals, and make copies for them, so they have records for their higher-ups. Yaaay!
We also had to call the fire department because the KBR forklift driver punctured a drum of hydraulic fluid. Nothing really cool happened, except for the fact that a fire truck came, and you all know how much I like fire trucks. The KBR data entry clerk, Jamie, was positively enamored with one of the firemen. I guess it made her day.
Aside from all that, I guess the only news is that my promotion packet went winging its way to Cleveland last week, in hopes that the promotion board convenes sometime soon, and I haven't missed it. Not to worry, though, because my First Sergeant is working dilligently to get me promoted, so I'm not worried. If I have missed the Cleveland board, then we'll be seeking someone's approval here. The Army's promotion system is whack. I won't go into great detail here, that's for another rant. OK, I'm going to go soak up some AC and take a nap. It's going to hit 108 this weekend.