Random pics

Here are some random pictures I took today and a few days ago.
At one of the sites that I work at there is a bunch of Turkish guys working and they break for tea in the morning and afternoon. This is what it looks like. It smells like a horse barn to me for some reason. I think it reminds me of the hay or the grain or something. It tastes just like it smells. We usually just take it to be nice because they seem so happy to bring it out to us on a little tray and everything, but then we just dump it out later. When it's cold in the morning it's nice to warm up your hands with though.
This is the shack where they have their breaks. There is one guy that stays in there. His only apparent job is to make the tea and clean up the little shack after their breaks. He never works out with the others. Weird. The shack is on wheels so they can roll it down the road as they progress. Funny.
This is me sitting in my truck. This is what I do all day. Unless I'm standing outside of the truck doing the same thing.
These are local guys (Iraqis) building a building. They are putting up that heavy metal awning thing on the side of the building. They stood up the poles yesterday. They mixed the concrete on the ground, which was odd. Just a big pile of concrete on the ground that they then put in wheel barrows and moved around. They tried to get a front-end loader to pick up that metal awning and hold it up there but it wouldn't go high enough. So they came up with this rig of scaffolding and ropes and things. I was pretty sure someone was going to die during the process so I was thinking in my mind what I was going to say on the radio when it happened.
Miraculously they did it and the only thing that happened was that board the guy is holding fell down and hit someone in the back, but he was ok. I'll save my radio speech for another day.
It's hard to tell what's going on in this picture, but basically the guy on the scaffold is welding. With sunglasses on for protection. So he's probably going to be blind soon. And the guy squatting on the bottom, from what I can tell, is holding a wire to the metal pole to ground the welder, I assume so someone doesn't get electrocuted. Good thing I prepared what I was going to say on the radio when someone dies. Also, the welder doesn't have a normal plug on it to plug into a wall socket, it just has two bare wires that they attach directly to a huge diesel generator. Awesome.
This is the inside of the truck. It's dirty. There's really nothing you can do to help it. If you clean it it'll just be like this again in the next few days.
Flag. And loud speaker. And sky.
Me in mah truck again.
This is what I feel like doing all day. But I don't. This was simulated by a professional, not dereliction of duty! Don't arrest me!
We wear these things on our arms so people know we are FORCE PROTECTION. Super cool. It'll look good in my Iraq Deployment plaque. I attach mine with a safety pin from the inside of my sleeve so that you can't see the safety pin, only awesomeness. Other people are dirt bags and have safety pins hanging out all over the place, or little alligator clips or it just slides down their arm all the time. I guess they forgot how important it is to look sharp when you are at war.

*Update!* I just went to turn in my weapons and saw a guy in there with a 2 inch long safety pin on the OUTSIDE of his brassard AND an alligator clip hanging out the top. Classy.