Top Ten

it sort of sneaks up on you.  you’re going through your day, things are rolling along nicely, and then WHAM!  you have an apostrophe.  also known as an epiphany.  lightning strikes your brain.  and if you’re me, it leaves a little lump on your head, which will be revealed, along with other terrain features on your head when you lose a bet and have to shave your head.  in light of my revelation about the inadvisability of making the contours of my skull visible to the (apparently) aesthetically sensitive folks i work with, i offer the following “Top Ten things I’ve learned in my first 4 months in Iraq”:

 10) don’t shave your head.  ever.  if you are ever again tempted to shave your head, don’t.  seriously.

  notice the relief map of Chile on the back of my head…

9) working in a building full of blue velvet cubicle walls is only soothing for about the first 20 minutes of every day.  after that, there isn’t enough near-beer in the world to soothe me… 

there are few things more soothing than throwing fruit against a concrete barrier wall after you’ve been in the office for 14 hours. (soft peaches are (so far) the most satisfying)

7) it was much easier to get out of bed in the morning before i got that 3.5″ mattress pad.

6) an “orlop” is the lowest deck on a ship above the water line.  (thanks, stars and stripes crossword)

5) tall bald guys are cool.

 me and kevin with the outgoing CPATT Commanding General, after we got through making fun of him, and he threatened to send us to Iraq.

4)there are very few situations where this look is inappropriate. by trial and error, i think i have found almost all of them.

 

3) there is no shortage of people who think they know what the Iraqis want.

2) there is no shortage of people who systematically fail to ask the Iraqis what they want.

and the #1 thing i’ve learned in 4 months in Iraq:

1) on most days, my job could be done by an Interceptor Body Armor Vest with a volleyball head.

up next…not really sure.

cheers.
                           

baby steps

so it’s been more than a month, and that means i can’t just jump back into the banter i prefer to fill these pages with.  so this post will be picture heavy, and wit light.  just like the diet cokes over here, which are called coca-cola light.  somehow seems less emasculating to grab a “light” drink than a “diet” drink.  go figure.

 i have been promising pictures of the room for some time, and these pictures come part in parcel with a short discussion of the paradox that is our trailer.  the following are pictures of kevin and my room.

                                                                   

the first picture is from the doorway, looking at kevin’s bunk bed.  the second is one step inside the doorway, looking at my bed.  the third is from the doorway, looking at my locker, with the view partially blocked by kevin’s locker. 

 while the quarters are somewhat cramped (think : all the chinese people in the boat in lethal weapon 4) the furniture is normal-sized, the beds almost long enough, and the wall locker can almost hold 1/4 of the gear i brought with me.  given furniture for normal-sized people in the room, the innocent reader of this blog could be forgiven for assuming that the rest of the trailer would be conducive to life as a normal-sized human being.  the innocent reader of this blog would be wrong, as the following pictures illustrate:

picture standing in the bathroom. mirror is only useful for shaving if i am a) a hobbit or b) shaving my chest. and fixtures for short people could even be forgiven, if only there were some consistency. alas, it is not to be:

picture of shower fixture (ladder needed to reach shower fixture not shown).

end result of location of mirror = my back hurts after shaving, and i cut myself frequently. 

end result of location of shower head = faceful of water and near-drowning incident the first time, and only slightly less dramatic goings-on since.

at the end of the day, we do have a roof over our heads, and running water, so i can’t complain too much. 

next time: top ten things i’ve learned in the first 4 months here. 

 cheers.