Defiantone.com

I had to stay late at work today - joy of joys! They provided me and my car a ride home because driving tired is as bad as driving drunk. Imagine staying up until 3AM - yeah - that’s the level of tired I was experiencing. I had consumed copious quantities of caffeine but the net result was a frantic heart and a barely functioning brain. My body was trying to stay awake but my brain had already hung its hat up for the evening. Jessica’s parents came out and made some “modifications” to the dog kennel and the back yard while I was asleep. I knew they were coming but I was unaware of when they arrived and when they left - when I’m asleep the red army could overrun our country and I wouldn’t have a clue.

The yard is now completely surrounded with hot wire - Texas had old sparky - Washington has dogcatraz.

Try and get out of that one Lick - I dare you.

I’ve dealt with it in the past and I didn’t expect to deal with it again - but - its happened. I have a spastic dog. Fireworks are illegal in the state of Washington - save for a span of about 36 hours around the fourth of July and new years. Despite the fact that fireworks are always illegal in the city of our residence, it doesn’t deter the ingrates that live here.

One of our dogs doesn’t react well to the explosions and he tends to freak out. On the third of July - when fireworks were illegal in the entire state - we had our first jailbreak. Lick had pushed the gate open and took Duke along with him for a run. Luckily for us, they ran into a yard a quarter mile down the road and were wrangled by some extremely nice people. They were just pulling into their driveway when they saw them. They stopped and opened up the rear door and the dogs hopped right in. They called the numbers on the tags and eventually we got the word from Leanne that our dogs were out. When we pulled up we saw two stressed but extremely happy dogs. We had only been gone for an hour or two so we were obviously concerned as to how they escaped and whether they would escape again.

We left again on the fourth to go down to a BBQ. Prior to leaving we locked the dogs in the kennel complete with a 7 foot tall fence. We also shut the front gate so if they made it past the first line of defense we hoped that they wouldn’t make it past a second. A few hours after we left we received a phone call from the same nice people that caught our dogs on the third - they had Lick but didn’t have Duke. We left immediately and Jessica dropped me off at the front gate where I found my dog in the back yard alone and distressed that he couldn’t get out. I took at look and couldn’t find any spot where he dug to get out - he jumped the fence - he jumped a 7 foot fence. Jessica returned with Lick and we stuck both in the back of the car and took them to her parents house where they had kennels complete with floor to ceiling fences. They made it through the night without issue. When we returned home I added another three feet to part of the fence to prevent further jailbreaks.

We brought them back today and stuck them in the yard hoping that the majority of fireworks were over. We had to run out to the grocery store to grab a few things and came home an hour later to find only one dog in the back yard. Jessica didn’t react well to the discovery. I put Duke in my car and started driving around the neighborhood. She drove off in her car and started searching all of the side streets in a two mile radius.

I couldn’t see anything from my car so I dropped it off at home and started by walking streets with Duke in tow. I gave up after a few miles knowing that the odds of finding him were low - really low. I came home and looked up the animal control and humane society phone numbers. I called both only to receive recordings. Jessica came back after some time and was still stressed because we had no leads - there was nothing that we could do.

Luckily someone found him. We got a call and drove a few miles away to find him in the car of a pair of extremely nice people. The guy, who was much larger that I am, was quite surprised by how hard it was to control Lick. He didn’t think it was dog - he thought he had a pony.

At the moment, both dogs are sitting at my feet and are quite happy to be in such proximity to us. Tomorrow I’m going to fully enclose the kennel - we’re going to hope that the fireworks stop and that I can contain our spastic dog.

We traded dogs - yet again. We thought that Violet was going to be happy out here but it turns out that she only thrives when living in the pack. We packed the two dogs in the car the other day and took them down to her parents house while we were at Kayla’s birthday party (Jessica’s niece). The closer we got to her parents house the more we could see the change in Violets behavior. By the time we got to the house the dog was as happy as we had seen her in weeks. At our house she simply hid out in the kennel and wouldn’t come out - I guess she was so used to the kennel with the rest of the pack that when she was given the opportunity to roam alone in our yard she freaked out. We ended up with Lick (Licorice) - he’s a little bit bigger than Duke and he knows how to play fetch. He looks like he is going to be a pretty good fit. We haven’t brought the dogs in the house for any amount of time but we will when Jessica finally puts the rest of the stuff in the living room in its place. There are times when I think that she is stalling so that I’ll take care of it. (she denies this vehemently) She knows that it drives me crazy when stuff is out in the open - I think she is plotting my demise. She isn’t on my life insurance policy yet so I don’t know why she is trying to get such a big head start.

It is quite hard to find humor in my life here but there are a few things that make me laugh - daily - in Iraq. I took a few photos today of some things that make you laugh or just say huh? So, without any further delay, here they are.

This is a random bumper sticker stuck on a random room - and it makes me laugh every day. Its a shame this isn’t a real trailer park because we’d have overweight slobs sitting in kiddie pools drinking PBR all day long.

This sign has always seemed a little odd - as if we didn’t pay quite enough to the contractor to get it right. I thought about it for a while and the angle of the walker makes it look like they are trying to sneak across the road. Caution - people sneaking across the road! BEWARE!

For reference - here is a normal crosswalk sign

I looked a little closer at the image and noticed why he was sneaking

Damn, that guy is some brand of mutant! Look! He’s got lobster claws for hands! It’s no wonder he’s trying to sneak across the road - I now know why we should exercise caution - you don’t want to piss of a guy with lobster claw hands!

Look! It’s an oxymoron. You’ll see a sign that says “high noise area - hearing protection required” within two feet of “Silent Power.” uhhh…. yeah…. This is one of the MANY diesel generators spread across the base. I’m sure that most of the middle east gets their power in the same fashion and I’ve got to wonder what happens to them when they run out of oil - solar power?

Here is a shot of the sun setting - finally! It can also be used as a metaphor for my trip finally coming to an end. I’ve got less than 2 days left here and then I start the long trip home - I can’t wait to get back.

Action - reaction - inaction - overreaction

We are offered with three basic choices in response to any given event. Many of use will react appropriately to any situation and move on with our lives. A common occurrence we can all relate to is driving down the interstate and fighting traffic when someone cuts us off intentionally or unintentionally. Most of us will react by thinking or saying something negative about the habits of that driver. The insanely calm among us will fail to react and will treat it as unavoidable part of the drive. Some will overreact - they will tailgate the driver or worse yet, chase them and threaten or use physical violence against the driver that offended them.

What gives me concern that we, as a nation and as a race, have begun to overreact more often than not. In the past month there have been a series of shootings that have left high school students dead in South Chicago. Most of these incidents were gang related and were caused by pride. If this person belongs to one gang and I belong to another they are my sworn enemy because I am proud of my gang. Members of the gangs are willing to kill to show their pride regardless of the initial action. If they were to egg cars randomly and yours was hit the proper response would be to wash it off and possibly call in a complaint to the police. The choice for inaction lead to washing off the vehicle and continuing on with their lives. Instead of the first two choices we saw overreaction that brought as violence against those who initially engaged in the vandalism.

In Iraq overreaction is seen on a daily basis. Sectarian violence exists because of the pride one sect of Islam feels for their beliefs. Instead of keeping their beliefs and sharing with those who are willing they instead kill fellow Iraqis.
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