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.