Dead Like Me?

Being the bad influence I am, I've got two of my coworkers addicted to the Showtime series Dead Like Me, they can't get enough of it. I have yet to tell them that it only goes for 2 seasons before being taken away by some evil reapers and sent to dead TV land. By the way, thank you hun and Lee for hooking me on the series, Sherwin and Stacey thank you too, I haven't started working on Chris

Another day in Paradise

First month is over with and most our the bugs have been shaken out. My medical team is all set on their schedule and life doesn’t seem all that bad. I’m working a swing shift so I never get to seem my room with the lights on. My rack is a cave covered with poncho liners that lets in no light (and hopefully bugs too). It has it’s good points and bad, I’m off everyone else’s schedule so I never

Rage against the Machine

Karma must have a strange balance, with all of the good things happening in my life there is also the bad. Since I've gotten out here, all sorts of electronic equipment found an excuse to die in my presence. First to go was my work thumb drive which survived less then 24 hours in my office. Came in to work one morning and the computer wouldn't read it, it said 0 bites available and wouldn't

Lucky charms and handling the heat

Throughout the history of wars, soldiers have gone in to battle carrying something on their person to bring them luck. Everyone out here has their lucky charms, me being a reading fool, my lucky charm is this picture of my wife which I use as a book mark so I'm looking at her smiling face throughout the day. It's starting to heat up and some of the people on their first trip out are complaining

Some have had it harder then me

My blogger buddy, American Soldier, has had it tough, out here for only weeks and gets blown up twice and sent home. I've been out here 3 times and have had it easy. He's posted about some of his adjustment troubles. Don't compare my job to what he's had to go through, if I were any more relaxed out here, I would melt into the floor. My biggest fears are for the safety of my wife and the

Easter in Iraq

This is my third Easter in a row in country, altogether just another work day. The only reason I noticed was because the guy on the bus said, "What in the heck are all of those people doing on the bleachers?" and I said, "Oh, it must be Easter Mass." We're already losing track of the days. I have my outlook calendar send me reminders of when I need to send in reports and such but I'm not

Rain, Dust go away come back another day

A sure way to make sure it rains on any given day is not to bring your Gortex or rain gear to work. It started raining as soon as I stepped off the bus with thunder rolling in the distance. Actually it's better out here after the rain, clears much of the dust out of the air and gives a cool welcome relief from the sun. Guess I should enjoy the rain, before I know it will be summer and there

Moving into my new home away from home

We're moving into our permanent barracks this afternoon which happens to be the same building I lived in on my first deployment 2 years ago. Wonder how much it's changed since then? We've been living in tents, waiting for the prior unit to leave. The tents were actually nice, 3 heating/cooling units per tent, real mattresses, porcelain toilets and hot showers. The barracks we're going into

rain and thunder

There will be periods of time when I'm cut off from the outside world, they call it going to Minimize, our phone and internet is cut off. It's a way to keep the rumor mill under control when something bad has happened or we're about to do something. It sucks to be cut off from our families and friends when all you want to do is let them know you're alright but I personally know of family back