Defiantone.com

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.

Tags: Balad, diesel, funny, generator, humor, Iraq, life, oil, oxymoron, photo, sign

I took a few photos of the main office before I got on the bus to head home a few days ago. In stark contrast to the night - we have sunlight - just want to make sure you all know that we have the sun over here too. I only see the sun for a few hours a day but I prefer it that way - I sweat less when I avoid the sun. Wow - the sarcasm is unbridled today -

A shot into the distance and a view of the sun - that is going to scorch the earth in a few hours.

This is our building - I can’t tell you where it is because force protection blah blah blah

I am one of the few that can drive the deuce and a half. It is loud, old, has no shocks (that I can tell), and turns like hell. But, its a turbo diesel and a 5 speed so its fun to drive once in a while.

The sad part is that the truck is as old as Jessica - ouch -

Yes, the barricade of the left reads Mortarita Vile

If you want to check out all of the Iraq photos - I’ve added a few more recently - head to the gallery.

Tags: Iraq, military, photo, truck

I have never been one to share - some things I share freely - others I hoard. For example, I will only loan a DVD to someone else if I know where they live because I’ve seen some of mine run away in the past. I’ll share food freely if you happen to drop by - I like to cook and I’m willing to use any random person that drops by as a guinea pig.

I’ve never really shared any space on my website - until now. Jessica has added some of her own photos from her trip to Las Vegas in the gallery. I turned on comments because she digs the comment love - I haven’t been able to get them working yet - if they aren’t available know that I’m working on sorting out the bugs. She had fun - alcohol fueled fun - while in the city of sin.

Wish I could have been there - oh well - less than a month left.

Tags: comment, gallery, Jessica, Las Vegas, photo, share

I’ve uploaded some photos that I’ve either taken or acquired from here or there and I’ve posted them in the gallery. Feel free to check them out if so inclined.

Here are a few from the gallery

This is not from an explosion, rather, its from the trash fire that I drive through every day. It does a number on your allergies and lungs - who would have thought?

Tags: Blackhawk, F-16, fire, gallery, Iraq, photo, Super Cobra

Lenin has fallen apart - literally

Thats all

Tags: photo, Russia

Each month of of the year brings something special to our lives - we often associate holidays with particular months. Christmas is associated with December; Halloween is associated with October; St. Patrick’s day is associated with March. Often, we tie themes to entire months - February, for example, is also known as Black History Month. Many people associate March with the NCAA’s March Madness. There is something else happening in the month of March - something so monumental - so amazing - so “photo worthy” - so painfully ugly that you wouldn’t miss one second of it - March Mustache Madness.

March Madness is overlooked by most but it is an extremely important tribute to the stache. Facial hair is something that grows with age - some of us are born with gorilla genetics that allow us to sport full beards by the age of 13. Others, like me, can grow a rockin’ ‘neard (neck beard) but little else. My upper lip is a devoid wasteland that is occasionally inhabited by as many as three unruly hairs that don’t understand that its no mans land and that they aren’t welcome. Mustaches appear in a variety of sizes, shapes, thickness, and color - The American Mustache Institute has listing of some of the most popular styles.

Many men in history have sported the stache - Presidents, terrorists, celebrities, athletes, and the average Joe. I’ve got a few photos to edit but I’ll upload a gallery of famous mustaches as soon as possible - I’ve collected a few doozies in my search of the internet.

The goal of March Mustache Madness is to get as many people to grow a mustache from 1-31 March and then take a photo that they can share with the world - or just to document the horror. If you want - send your photos to me - I’ll crop them to hide your identity but you can share your wicked stache with the world. This contest is intended for men but I have seen some women with a mustache - some of them are cheating (thank god!) others… others need to shave and lay off the testosterone.

I have a feeling mine is going to be quite gross by the end of the week - at the end of the month people will pay me to shave it off - or they may just laugh at me. High school students grow better mustaches than I do - oh well - here’s to the Madness - let the games begin!

Tags: March Mustache Madness, mustache, photo, theme

I woke yesterday and found not blue skies as I was used to but something much more sinister and disgusting. It was like the whole world was in a sepia filter and it had a strange color wash - we were in a brown world. The sky was being choked out by the dust in the air and I could stare directly at the sun at 4PM without it hurting my eyes - well, I could have stared at it if I could have found it. I took a few photos of the day and put them all together - notice how everything blends?

(you can click on the image for the high quality version)

The sky blends into the dirt, into the concrete, into my boots, into the buildings. The item that was the least brown was my shirt which is supposedly “sand” colored. Sand isn’t a color, brown is - you’re authorized to call things light brown and dark brown but there is no sand. If the color isn’t one of the 16 in the crayon box it doesn’t exist - its only a variation of a real color. Somebody had fun making up stupid names.

Its now the next day and I am still coughing and wheezing because lungs don’t react well to dust in that concentration. Why the hell would anyone want to live in Iraq when its such a brown place? The ground has got to be green where I live and the sky needs to be blue.

Tags: defiantone, desert, dirt, dust, Iraq, John, John King, photo

I had a chance to upload all of the photos from Canada - you can check all of them out right here. Enjoi!

Tags: Canada, photo, sleds

Several days ago I attempted to use an alternative operating system and things went fairly well. I only ran into a few snags (no flash support and no drivers for my scanner/printer). If I could work around those two problems it probably would have turned out that I could refrain from using microsoft. It turned out that I couldn’t get it to work so I decided to restore my computer back to the original settings. In the process, I lost everything. I’ve spent the last few days looking cluster by cluster for my documents, photos, music, and videos. I’ve recovered most of it. Its a shame they don’t make backup disks bigger than dvd’s because I took the time to backup my music files before I started and ended up with 12×9gb DVD’s.

oh well… that will learn me

Tags: photo, rain, video, videos, work

Last weekend we spent a few days camping.

We weren’t exactly roughing it as we had almost everything a person might need… well, save for the things that we forgot. Luckily, we were only 10 miles down the road from a tourist trap town and 50 miles down the road from a decent sized town. Next time I’m sure that we won’t forget as much as we did this time. We learned a few lessons (don’t buy firewood from the locals) and learned that you can take wood that you find as long as its less than 10in in diameter. So… next time we need to bring an axe… I took a few photos while we were out there along with a few videos. I’ll try to get the vids later.

As you can tell from the photos, we both had fun.

You can check out the rest of the photos here.

Tags: defiantone, fun, gallery, miles, photo, video, videos