Defiantone.com

I love thunderstorms - I love seeing the rain come down in torrents - I love seeing the sky flash with lighting and hearing the wind whip through the trees. I love hearing the crack of thunder that reverberates across the countryside. I don’t mind the aftermath because I got a great show. I love falling asleep to thunder - some find it frightening but I always sleep better during a good storm.

I hate drizzling crap rain. It rained a few days ago and I spoke of my great dislike for the mud. I thought that the worst of the crap was over and that the ground was going to finally dry up. I was looking forward to wearing one pair of shoes instead of carrying a second pair around with me. I was looking forward to not worrying about the mud that gets tracked everywhere. I was looking forward to my roommates no longer tracking in the mud - they aren’t considerate enough to take off their boots at the door. England is notorious for drizzling crap and the pacific northwest is notorious for drizzling crap. I didn’t expect to find that particular brand of rain out here.

I woke this morning to a drizzle that brought down the temperature 10 degrees and that covered every surface with a thin sheen of mud. There is no clean place left on this base. Indoors and out we live in world of slime, a world of filth, a world of muck. I say boo the mud - boo the rain. I don’t want scorching heat but I’d take it over drizzle any day. So, bring on the pain - bring on the heat.

When you get to a place like this one is forced to wonder how it could possibly get any worse. I know at least two ways to make the experience less than enjoyable - add mud and rain.

The military has had a hard time dealing with the extremely fine dirt that gets into all sorts of machinery. Its found a way to clog things that shouldn’t be clogged. Unfortunately, this dirt also makes the worst brand of mud imaginable. Its not like there is a little mud, this stuff really likes to cake onto itself. We have gravel spread almost everywhere but there is little you can do to avoid some patches of the crap. If you’re not careful your boots will weigh an extra pound with each additional step in the mud.

The conditions aren’t terrible but we’re bored more than anything else - something like this can ruin your day. Sure, its a small annoyance but its the one thats on the top of your mind so its bound to drive you crazy.

Like anyone on their day off might do I didn’t go to work (thus the point of having a day off). So, instead of my normal routine of gym immediately after getting up I went to the BX and onwards to the Iraqi Bazaar. The bazaar was quite a bizarre place. It reminded me of all of the trinket shops found off base in Korea. The only exception was that they actually want to bargain with you here. Its part of the culture and they expect you to haggle with them. I didn’t see anything that I really wanted but it was still an interesting place to venture on a day off. *for the sake of the sanity and well being of people that know me - the Bazaar is on base and not in the middle of all of the shenanigans that transpire off base* The did have a bunch of Persian and Turkish rugs but things like that really aren’t my deal. They are the type of rugs you would expect to find in a funeral home… or granny’s house.

The other interesting thing is that only here can you buy Italian gold sold by a Turkish guy in Iraq. To me it all looks like cheap crap so I don’t want anything to do with it - it reminds me of the stuff I saw at the gold souks in Qatar.

I didn’t expect it to get into the low twenties last night but it did. This is supposed to be the desert and deserts are supposed to be hot - well, the Gobi desert isn’t for the overwhelming majority of the year. Qatar was quite warm and only got into the low 60’s at night - its a shame that we are so far away from the water and there is nothing to keep the temps high at night. I spent my first night working and it wasn’t all that bad - save for the cold. My problem - well, one of my problems is that I inherited my dads ability to sweat under any circumstances. So, I have thermal underwear that causes me to sweat while indoors. The second I move outside it freezes and makes me quite cold. After freezing for a while it evaporates or gets soaked back into the thermals and I get warm again. So, in order to get warm while working outside I must be forced to freeze. Something about this seems awry but there is little I can do to fix it. They don’t like us setting our flare on fire to keep us warm - mostly because all of the other items at work react poorly to heat and flame.