What am I going to do tomorrow?

Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.

Money, money, money... Money!

there are no American coins here. it costs more to ship them here than the coins are actually worth. instead, the army prints its own money in the form of pogs. remember that pointless game that came out a decade or so ago that everyone went crazy for? the army found a use for it. all American metal coins are replace by cardboard discs. just one more weird thing to get used to.

USO

i'm gonna take another opportunity to say how awsome the USO is, especially since i'm typing this on a comp at the USO. they have their own building on post, complete with internet comps, tvs, game systems, board games, books, cards, a kitchen, and even a mini-theatre. very nice. kinda wish i had checked it out before today.

News Flash: we're in the desert

it turns out there's not a whole lot of water in kuwait. a fact the army makes clear by constantly reminding us that every drop of water in our camp is trucked in. this doesn't really affect much of our day since all the water we drink comes from bottles and all the bathrooms are portable. the only thing we really use much water for is showers, but the limited amount of it means we take combat showers.

a combat shower means you get in, turn the water on just long enough to get wet, use shampoo and soap with the water off, then turn the water back on just long enough to rise off. it's a little annoying since i do love my showers, but its still a lot better than the baby wipes we'll be using in a couple weeks.

Christmas

Christmas was pretty good considering i'm half a world away from everyone i've known for more than a year. i did have to work a few hours, but once that was out of the way i was able to mostly relax. and yes, they did serve us good food. turkey, prime rib, ham, sweet potatoes, and a bunch of other things i can no longer remember. and as much of it as we wanted.

santa forgot the middle east this year, but the army made up for it by going overboard with the decorations. giant displays were everywhere in the dfac (dinning facility). i got pics and will try to figure out a way to post them.

A Flat-Earth War

Yesterday i saw a couple of british soldiers paying a kuwaiti merchant in U.S. dollars.

Merry Christmas

it may still be mid-afternoon on Christmas eve for you, but it's the 25th here. i stayed up till midnight, but i don't think santa comes to this part of the world. maybe he's worried about RPGs. oh well.

i dreamed of a white Christmas, but it came out tan instead. i guess there's still time. we'll have to wait and see.

Reactive Armor

today we finished putting reactive armor on our bradleys. i don't know the exact details of how reactive armor works, but it is essentially dozens of blocks of C3 (younger brother of C4). the basic idea, as far as i can tell, is when an explosion comes at the reactive armor, it blows the force back out. i have two theories on how the army came up with this.

1) some officer (probably a major) sitting around the pentagon playing basketball with crumpled up paper heard the expression "fight fire with fire" for the first time and decided to see if it would work with things that go boom as well.

2) some officer (probably a major) sitting around the pentagon was having a really bad day and reverted back to a child who would rather break a toy than share it and shouted "you can't blow up our bradleys. we'll blow them up first!" this is how policy is made.

still, it wasn't too bad. it only took a few hours and we had some fun with it. and you really haven't lived till you've dropped a 120 pound block lined with explosives.

The best thing about Kuwait is...

no one says "welcome to the great place."

Barter

some kuwaitis have a little bazzar set up outside the main px(post exchange = store) at the camp i'm at right now. i needed a new set of headphones, so i figured i'd try the bazzar. and yeah, i haggled. it was fun. i said i was gonna try somewhere else, so he lowered the price. i countered, he countered, i countered, he countered, and i agreed. it was fun! i got the headphones for half the listed price. it was my first time, but i think i did pretty good.

TALTA

the army loves their acronyms

cold

it was bad enough when texas (spelled with an x) was cold. now kuwait is cold as well. that's right, the middle east is cold. i knew it would have relative cold. if the temp suddenly goes from being 120 at 8 o'clock to being 80 at 9 o'clock, it's going to feel cold even though it's really not. but i'm talking about real cold. it was in the 40's when i got here and the next day was even colder, had to be in the 30's. messed up, right?

Kuwait

it's amazing how empty kuwait is. we flew over it at night, and whereas in America you would see huge blocks of light representing our many cities and towns, in kuwait there are two basic designs. lines and squares. the couple of lines i could see were roads. the many, many squares i saw were oil depots. there are a few cities and towns sprinkled here and there for flavor, but i've decided kuwait is basically just one big oil depot that just happens to have some people as well. it's a theory.

Re: Germany

i guess i should clarify some things about my germany post. the first thing i have to say is that on german keyboards, the "y" and "z" are reversed. weird, and explains why the country was written as germanz. didn't catch that one till i looked at it again.

second, since the big focus seems to be on my innocent desire to invade poland and not, as it should be, my having stood in freezing temps while the jet was locked, maybe i should explain that. that was a joke that only one person was able to fully understand (although i think it's funny enough on it's own). anyway, i think the important thing here is that her response was obviously copied directly from the internet and she is therefore a cheater.

just know that there are likely to be plenty of times you won't quite understand what i'm talking about. all i have to say to that is if you haven't figured out by now that i'm half crazy and completely random i'm not sure what else i can do for you. it should have been clear since approx 1985.

From Germany

hey. so far so good. we finally got to the fort hood airfield around 9 and there was a nice little old lady waiting there to hug every soldier entering the building. we received our breifings, got some food, and the settled in for hurry up and wait. finally, around 11 we got the word to head out to the airplane. it's not a commerical airfield where they bring the plane up to the gate and you walk thru a tunnel. we had to walk across the tarmac to the stairs brought up to the aircraft. but for some reason the powers that be decided to park the plane on the other side of the airfield. long walk in the freezing cold. literaly freezing cold.

but we walked to the bottom of the steps where a band was playing, color guards dressed in old calvary style uniforms, and a couple majors and even a general were there to shake our hands and send us off. it was alright, until we got to the door of the plane and it was locked. yeah, it was locked. so we stood outside waiting for about 10 mins before we were told to go back inside. about an hour later we were ready for attempt number 2. they brought out the band, color guard and officers again, and this time we even boarded the plane.

it was a bigger plane then had origionally been planned, so we were able to make the leap straight to germany without stopping over in maine. now i'm just waiting in the terminal waiting while the jet refuels. being in germanz kinda makes me want to invade poland. or at least take over a polish sausage stand. whatever. anyway, i'll pick this up when i get somewhere new with a comp.

The Dalai Lama

i was driving outside fort hood today when i saw a billboard with a picture of the dalai lama with a caption that read: doesn't just wish for peace. he works for it. HOPE pass it on.

and this made me do what i believe the ad was designed for. it made me think, but probably not how the organization behind the ad wanted. i value results more than effort. over a half century later, tibet is still under communist rule. if the tibetians try to stand up to the chinese they are beaten back down. non-violence only works when the other side doesn't really want to be violent in return. now the next dalai lama will be choosen by the chinese government.

look east a little bit and you'll find taiwan. still free. still democratic. still prosperous. why? because they are kept so by the American soldier. with guns, and missiles, and ships, and jets. put my picture up on that billboard and it will make more sense. RESULTS pass it on.

testing 1-2-3

this is a test. this is only a test. in the event of an actual blog post, you would read something relatively similar in informative content.