Oh hey, a broom.

I just realized that here has been a broom leaning against the wall in the corner of my room for the last 4 months, so I think tomorrow I will think about sweeping my room out! Previously I had put it off because I didn't want to walk to the BX and buy a broom and carry it all the way back, and I also didn't want to buy a broom. But now that I have one I can sweep my room, or at least think about it. So that's good. I won't say what other items I haven't cleaned while here. But it's ok because it's Iraq and I'm at war. (I do shower, so it's not that)

On my next day off I'll probably get some boxes and pack up a bunch of my stuff to mail home. Just stuff like my winter weather gear that I obviously don't need anymore, my college books that were mailed out here, etc. That way I don't have to carry it all home on my back.

Time has slowed down dramatically as I only have a week or two left. The past week feels like four months almost. I hope it speeds up again soon.

This morning it started raining and lightning, so we called off my site working, since we were going to be working out on the flight line where there is no shelter of any kind and I would probably be the tallest thing out there for thousands of feet in either direction. So that was nice. Also this afternoon it was hailing some. Hailing. In Iraq. In 95 degree weather. Weird. Also today as it was raining, I was watching a concrete barrier and it never got fully wet. It kept raining on it, but it was never a solid amount of wetness, you could still see the individual drops. And it stayed like that for five minutes. The water was just evaporating so fast from the heat that it never got fully wet.

It is indeed getting hot here. So far it has been up to about 105 degrees, which is pretty warm when you're in a truck with no A/C or standing out on the flight line with no shade. My hands and face are tan, but that is all. I look like I have gloves on when I wear a short sleeve shirt, as normally I have to wear my long sleeve ABU top. I don't even have a farmer's tan. Well, except for the neck part.

I'm a Colonel rank in Call of Duty 4. I don't think I'm going to make 5-star General before I leave. I fixed a few of the computers on the LAN gaming network that weren't working and also fixed a mouse that someone had bent a pin on. I didn't get a medal for it though, which surprised me.

I will be getting three ribbons from my deployment here though, which is neat. I'll have the Iraqi Campaign medal, something else, and then a Meritorious Unit Award or something similar that the squadron won while I was here.

My watch stinks. It is a $10 Wal-Mart watch with a nylon canvas type band, which absorbs sweat and odors and it stinks. I think I need a new one but I don't know what kind. The plastic bands always break after a while, and the metal bands are kind of heavy. One that didn't stink would be good though.

I think I have swine-elbow. My elbows have been kind of itchy. Maybe they are just dry. Or it's Mexican Swine-Elbow. You've probably heard about it on CNN.

I haven't taken any new pictures, sorry. I tried to take a video of EOD doing a controlled-detonation, but I was too far away for it to be more than a little blip on the screen and it didn't look very impressive.

Taco Bell finally got red sauce in stock, so I've enjoyed eating there more. However they have not been as neat lately as they were a few months ago. Maybe it's a new guy working there. However he does put more cheese on it, which is a plus.

I still haven't shot anybody. Time is running out.

They opened a new dining facility on base recently and it is very nice looking inside compared to the others. The Indian/Pakistani workers all wear little tuxedo outfits and there is a lot of good bright lighting, etc. The workers are pretty bored, as not many people go to the new one yet, so they keep it extraordinarily clean. If you spill some tomatoes on the counter at the salad bar as an example, they will rush over as soon as you leave and clean it up. They are also extremely precise when putting together a sandwich or putting food on your plate. They take individual pickles and place them on the bread, making sure that they don't overlap and cover as much of the bread as possible. They put on the mayonnaise with individual droplets so that it is evenly distributed throughout the sandwich, etc. It makes me laugh to myself every time. They try really hard. Give them a couple months on the job though and I'm sure they'll loosen up. They also have Baskin Robbins Ice Cream available, which is pretty awesome. I still haven't had any.

The Iraqi's rags that they wear on their heads remind me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the books the characters always have a towel with them as their most essential travel companion. Ridiculous situations arise throughout the books and a towel ends up miraculously getting them out of the bind that they are in and is used for many different tasks. The rag is kind of similar. I've seen people wear it as the traditional hat, I've seen people wear it around their waste, one guy even wraps it up around his shoulder and around his waist into some kind of backpack/bra type thing. They also use them as handkerchiefs, picking or blowing their nose on them. Then of course you have the standard terrorist look of them wrapping them around their entire face to filter the dust out. When they add mirrored aviator sunglasses it really completes the ensemble.

I found out what the Iraqi's do with the bottles of water in the port-a-johns. Apparently they cup their left hand and pour some water in there and then splash it up "in the area" to clean it. They don't use toilet paper, just water and their hand. That's why it's an insult to do anything with your left hand here. You're not supposed to wave at them with your left hand or offer your left hand to shake, etc. Of course as soon as they get out of the bathroom they get some more water and then rub their hands together, so it really doesn't make a difference as far as germs go.

I don't think they really have an understanding of germs in general. For instance if one guy takes a drink of a water bottle after another guy, they'll first pour a small amount of the water out on the ground, I assume thinking that all of the germs are on the top of the water, so if they dump it out then there won't be any germs in or on the bottle. Either that or they really like the Dr. Evil character in Austin Powers and are repeating the part where he pours out a little alcohol for "his homies". It's probably the first one.

I try not to think about these things when I accept their "Samoon" (that weird bread that I posted a picture of before) because it's really good and I don't want to be rude by not taking it. It's like exercise for my immune system though. I wish I could get the recipe for the bread. It's really good. And even better with these little cream cheese packets they have. They come individually wrapped in either a square or in little pie shapes that look like the pieces from Trivial Pursuit.

I bought some toothpaste today and just realized I had two tubes of it in my drawer from a care package. Woops.

I still haven't seen a camel spider. I wanted to at least see one while I was here. Not anywhere near my room of course, like maybe out by the flight line or some other project far away from where I sleep and eat. If you don't know what a camel spider is, it's this horrible bug over here that is the most evil looking thing you've ever seen. They have their own web site at CamelSpiders.net. There are a lot of myths about them which are debunked on that web site, but still they are big and awful. They can run 10 miles an hour (!) and a lot of people think they are chasing them because they are trying to get in people's shadows so that they can stay cool. They became famous on the internet from that picture of the guys holding them up in the air because it looks like they are gigantic, but that's just an illusion of the camera angle. Still they are big and fast and have way too many legs.

I have seen some lizards here as well as birds, flies and some sort of dead gigantic beetle bug thing in the parking lot. I didn't take a picture of it though. I didn't want the flash to piss it off and it come back to life with a posse of camel spiders to terrorize me in my room. Also camels and dogs and coyote/fox/jackal/man/bear/pigs (Manbearpig is another South Park reference of Al Gore hunting a beast that is half man, half bear and half pig. You guys should really watch South Park) of some kind that run around. Oh, and a jack rabbit. When we saw the jack rabbit the Iraqis said "good food".

I guess that's it for now. I'm going to bed.