Lazing About

On Thursday I had my first day off in a while. Slept in until 11am and pretty much goffed off the whole day. Yes!
In the evening I attended a bible study on Hebrews. I had to insert myself at Chapter 8 but the chaplain is thorough and so there will a lot more for us to cover. There weren't many there since most of the guys attending were away doing something.
Other than that, I am enjoying my Hogan's Heroes DVDs.
On Friday I move into my "permanent" tent. I'm still a little curious as to how long I will be at Scania.

4 day Update

Sorry for the lack of postings. Right after my last posting I got a flight to Talil, Iraq, where I stayed until Monday morning. Around noon Monday I caught a convoy to Scania and arrived around 6pm. The bad: sitting in a Humvee. The good: road was mostly paved and we actually hit a cold front about half way there. It was around 115 when I left Talil but probably low 90's for most of the convoy trip.

Scania is very small. Kind of rectangular. I can probably walk the two most distant points in 20 minutes. Its not too bad here. I get to wear several tech hats, in a week you have all of the network device locations known. In another week you know all the main people you'll be dealing with.

I don't have my laptop yet so my blogging will still be sporadic for a while (I am using an ITT laptop). Once I get it I will start adding some pictures.

I will be living in a tent. Not too bad. We have a good AC unit. Of course when (not it) we lose power it takes about 10 miutes to get really cooking in there. Haven't had an issue with thte critters here...yet. I have no illusions in that regard.

We got our very own post office here about 2 weeks ago! We have a "laundromat" too. The dining hall is pretty good so far. The PX is more like a nice convenience store. Maybe like a Love's for those of you in Texas.

To keep that dust down and minimize the impact of rain, there is egg-sized gravel all over. Does a number on your shoes.

Somewhere around here there is a "Hadji Mart". Kind of local competition with the PX. Haven't been there yet. When I do I'll blog it.

The joys of "Space Available"

All of the ITT guys deploying into Iraq have been shuffled from the ITT bay to the Space Available bay.
This means that if you are trying to catch a flight to Baghdad, for example, there might be 10 open places on a certain one. However, you might be the 11th guy trying to get on. If so, you wait until the next flight and try again. And again. And again.
Its like a weird Army version of Purgatory, where you are in a sort of limbo until you get selected to move out.
Baghdad isn't so bad because there are multiple flights per day. However, flying to Balad and Tilil is different. Only one flight per day. You get bumped? Wait another day to go again. One of our guys trying to get to Balad got bumped.
I don't know about my Tilil flight yet since as of this posting they have not called roll for it.
A pop-up might happen but that's a lot more likely to Baghdad than the other two.

Well, we'll see how it goes...

I Have My Camp: Scania

Heading out to Scania Friday afternoon.
I think I won't be there until Saturday.
It is near Nippur: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/nippur.htm
No other CRC ITT folks are going with me. It has less then 2000 people.
I will be in a tent, no portables. Apparently ITT is about 3 people over 100% so the tents are getting crowded. No doubt to the approval of the local vermin...
It might be awhile before I post again. I'm not getting good vibes about the internet sitch there, but maybe they have a public place I can logon to for a fee.

Lots of additions

I recently added a lot of posts but back-dated them from the 11th through the 17th. Be sure to look back through those days to see what was added.

I'll be adding more later.

Tiawuknimi

Ok, I have been in Kuwait since Saturday the 16th of April. I have been living in the ITT "bay" at Camp Doha. I'll be here another few days until all of the ITT Iraq position assignments are completed.

I am charged 5USD per hour for internet access by AAFES so I won't be bloggin regularly for a while.

HP has been woefully unreliable regarding my laptop shipment. First it was shipping on the 28th or March. Then the 9th of April, then the 16th of April and most recently the 19th of April. Ugh! I hope the quality of the product is not foreshadowed by the quality of the service.

That's it for now. I'm storing up pictures so once I get my laptop I will be able to include some with my blog postings.

BTW, timestamps will reflect local (Kuwait/Iraq) time.

Friday and Saturday: Bliss to Doha

We spent most of Friday watching all of the hundreds of bags get checked for all sorts of things that they don't want on the flights. Lots of dogs were used.
Eventually we headed out to the airport part of the base. After several briefings we boarded that plane and headed for Germany.

They messed up the arrival and we had to sit on the tarmac for 2 hours as we waited to be refueled. After that we headed on in to Doha. We got there around 10pm local time. After a quick "welcome to Kuwait" briefing, we did bag detail. Remember those hundreds of bags? We had to unload them all so that we could then wander around looking for ours. Remember, these weren't a bunch of Samsonite bags. We're talking hundreds of green duffle bags.

Mike from ITT met us and took us back to the ITT bay. He gave us a 30 minute or so briefing about the upcoming week and the things we could do that would get us fired and sent stateside.

Around midnight we all went to the chow hall to eat. Pretty good food and a decent variety.

Thursday at Bliss

Pretty light day.
We learned about NBC. No, not the network. Nuclear, Biological and Chemical threats.
We also learned how to don our gas masks in under 9 seconds.
We were issued our military equipment. After getting it all we had to spread it around on the parking lot and make sure it was all there and all in working order. Doing that in June or July would really suck.
Me and a friend got left at the PX by a bus driver. We were expecting to have to walk back to the the CRC building but some nice army types in a van gave us a ride. The bad part was that they weren't from Bliss and they weren't sure how to get to the CRC building. We had a nice scenic tour of the base but finally found the CRC building. If they were sorry they picked us up they never let on.

Wednesday at Bliss

Got my physical and dental work done.
My BP was at the high end of normal. Hopefully some exercise and weight loss will address that.
My filling repair became a root canal. Nice. Oh well, better in El Paso than Iraq. In Iraq they'd just yank the tooth.
That's pretty much it for Wednesday.

Tuesday at Fort Bliss

Morning formation was at 0515. Yes! A whole 30 more minutes to sleep in.
We did the dental stuff today. At least on Monday we could sit down while waiting. Today we stood up from about 6:30 to 12:30. Turns out I am dentally non-deployable because they feel that in the next 12 months one of my fillings will fall out. In addition to the physical I need to get that addressed on Wednesday.
We also attended first aid training. Let's just hope I'm never in the position of having to render first aid! ;-)

More On Fort Bliss

Since I found a place that doesn't charge $5/hr I thought I would retroactively update my blog before I deploy to Iraq, whenever that is.


Monday (April 11)
Morning formation was at 4:45am. I was surprisingly alert. Probably anticipation. Today we do the medical screening, including just about every vaccination known to man! :-) It was a lot of hurry up and wait, as they say.
We ate breakfast from about 5-6. By 6:30 we were at the SRP (Soldier Readiness something). We had to progress through a number of stations, each dealing with some particular part (eye, legal, medical screening, chaplain, vaccinations, etc.) We'd wait for 30-45 minutes between stations. At the vaccination station I got a total of 8 shots. 6 in my left arm and 2 in my right.
All of this went on until early afternoon.
I was deemed non-deployable in repair due to the need for a physical.
Those are the main highlights for Monday.

Day-1

Sunday has been pretty laid back so far. We had our first briefing and check-in from around 8-9:30. After that we ate at the "chow" hall and then went to the PX.

The chow hall served some nice, though not remarkable, breakfast. I bought some padlocks at the PX. Can't be too careful.

Most of the processees have come in this afternoon. Its pretty busy here now and Monday is supposed to be packed.

The ITT guys are heading back to the chow hall for dinner at 4pm and we have another general briefing tonight around 7pm. Monday starts at 5:30 with breakfast at 6:30.

Day 0: Off to Fort Bliss

Well, today I got up at 7am, finished final packing and met a lot of family at Monument restaurant in Georgetown. Around 10am Shelly and Cherokee and I headed out to the Austin airport.

We got me all checked in and hung out until about noon or so. After a pretty tearful farewell, I headed to Houston and then on to El Paso and Fort Bliss.

The winds are evil out here right now. Probably 20-30 sustained and 45+ gusts. As a result the landing was pretty weird. I was on this glorified puddle-jumper that had 2 seats on one side and one seat on the other. Our wings were bobbing back and forth and about 20 feet above the runway we dipped to the right about 3 or 4 feet. I thought we'd come down on just the right wheels but at the last second we straightened out.

The military life is certainly different. I did an ITT pre-briefing briefing at 17:30 and apparently all of the "excitement" will begin tomorrow morning. For Sunday I get to sleep in and don't need to be at the briefing room until 7:45am. After that I'll be up before the crack of dawn.

If there are any medical issues that can be controlled, like high blood pressure, that are detected, I may be delayed in my deployment. I should know about that by Wed PM.

That's about it for now. I am going to hit the sack early tonight.

Its All Arranged

Well, I got an email with my flight info from Austin to El Paso. Of course you are assuming (as did I) that they'd plop me on a Southwest Airlines direct flight. They run them all the time. But no. They've got me on Continental. In Texas, Continental's big hub is in Houston. Houston is Southeast of Austin. By about 180 miles. El Paso is a lot farther from Houston than it is from Austin. So of course that's the way I'll be going. 45 minutes to Houston. 75 minute lay-over. 60 minutes from Houston to El Paso. So what could have been about a 60 minute flight becomes a 3 hour trip.
So...this is what the next 52 weeks have in store for me...Bring it on! :-)

Oh, my email also noted that while at Fort Bliss I should be prepared to wait in long lines for "hours at a time". And that's why God invented iPods.