On the Road Again

Went down to Talil on Tuesday to get my CAC card renewed. It was the start of a very long day.

I got to MCT around 0930. There were some mechanical issues with the Humvees so we didn't get going until about 1030. On the way down 4 TCNs, driving 18-wheelers, had fender benders with each other that resulted in lengthy delays. What should have been about a 3.5 hour trip took 5.

Once in Talil we made it to the card renewal place around 1500. Keep in mind there's a convoy heading back to Scania around 1800. We are hoping to catch that one. So, it turns out that when we were issued our CAC cards during CRC at Ft Bliss they we sort of temporary. Part of that was manifested in the lack of privileges and Geneva Convention wording. In reality, for the time I am assigned overseas by ITT, I should have access to most anything the military provides, at any overseas base. However, since this information was left off of our original cards, the folks at Talil wanted our new cards to be the same way. Eventually they got in touch with some people at Baghdad who convinced them to make the appropriate changes. However, bacause of all the time used to get this straightened out we didn't get done until 1815.

We checked with the TNG presence at Talil and the next convoy out with two seats available (another ITTer came with me) left at 0200, with a final push to Scania at 0400. So we hooked up with KBR and after eating at the DFAC tried to get some sleep until 0100. Then we caught a shuttle bus to our meeting point.

About 10 miles out of Cedar, a TCN truck broke down and we had to wait for a KBR recovery truck to arrive and tow it or fix it or whatever it is they do. After that the trip was fairly easy. However, the toal travel time was 5.5 hours. We got back to scania around 0930 Wed.

So all said and done, in a span of 24 hours, I spent almost 11 in the back of a Humvee. Thakfully I had my memory-foam seat wedge or I would have been in much worse shape.

Oh, for those wondering, yes, Humvees have A/C. No, its not very useful. Remember, there's a big hole in the roof where the gunner is. In addition the vehicle is made of metal that conducts the outside heat inside very effectively. I'm guessing that during the daylight hours, even with the A/C running its easily over 100 inside.

I figured I drank about 140-150 ounces of fluid during those 24 hours. I porbably could have used another 20.

Hopefully I won't be doing the Humvee thing again until October.

Weekly Update

Brief recap of the last week or so:


- After power returned, our water pump broke and so the living area was without water for a couple of days. That has been resolved.

- Days are consistently topping out around 120.

- I got a memory foam (kind of like tempur-pedic) 3" thick seat wedge. It has the cutout for the tailbone. Very comfortable. Courtesy backbenimble.com.

- Watched the final season of Star Trek Voyager on DVD. Prety solid season. Finale was a tad confusing. I looked up the main actors on imdb.com to see what they had been up to since the May 2001 finale. Basically, not much. A couple have been fairly busy directing TV episodes.

- Am currently reading Ezekiel Option by Joel Rosenburg. I think it is set about 5-10 years in the future. Lots of problems with Iran and Russia. I'm about 1/5 of the way through and it has been action packed so far. Very interesting if you like Geo-political action stuff.

- I'll be heading down to Talil in the next week or two to get my CAC card renewed.

- only 78 days until I leave Scania for vacation.

Getting Old

No, not me. Rather the fact that on the last two days, around noon, the entire living area here (main tent area) lost all of its power for 4-6 hours. I guess the generators are overloaded. After sputtering for 30 minutes or so, they just shut off completely.

Now for me it isn't too bad since I am usually up by 9:30. But we have three guys that sleep well past noon. For them, this really sucks.

Also, if you saw the earlier post where I showed the white generators being taken away, you might be interested to know that the original generators are back, in addition to the new orange ones. I'm not sure what's up with that. Hopefully the electricity to the tents.

More of the grey stuff

Well, we're back to the hazy days of July...

Da Crew

Ok, here are most of the ITT folks here. Four are missing due to being out on leave.

If you want to know which one is me, look for the familiar hair cut.

Moving Day

No, not me. Several of our old power generators (white) were replaced with two new generators.

SEE: how they move big trailer shaped objects around here!

MARVEL: At the relative size of people and machine!

WITNESS: A huge power generator hanging by straps!

BEHOLD: Other things in the picture that I haven't mentioned!!!

Come, visit our campus!

Ok, I thought I would reveal Scania's massive (MASSIVE) ITT campus.

The brown trailer houses our DSSTs (military liasons for ITT) and phone guys.
The white trailer houses everyone and everything else.
We have two trucks to use as needed.
The porch in front of the white trailer has been around awhile.
The porch infront of the brown trailer and between the two trailers has been added on the last month and is still a work in progress.
The orange-y boxes are our two generators.
The buildings in the far back are areas where they work on vehicles.

Like you, I too am stunned by the massivity of our overwhelmifying presence.

Or a partial resemblance thereto. I finally decided to get 'skinned' along with my typical flat-top cut. Witness before and after. Still needs some tweaking but its not like I have my pick of barbers here... 

Ahhh, the wonders of Light Scribe. When provided with the proper type of CD, that has a special coating on the side you would normally right the label on, I can have my laptop's cd burner actually etch a label onto the cd surface. The actual cd looks better then the picture indicated. The best example of the crispness is the phrase "Live Linux Distribution". The other images are clip art I picked up and re-sized so the scaling makes them a little pixelated.