The sweetest victory ...

is the first one. Congrats to the Irish! I sat up on Saturday night until 7:00 AM Sunday morning listening to the game via web radio. I don't know if we'll win another game this year, but we at least avoided the goose egg.

Sorry I've been away for a few days, but immediately after I listened to my Irish beat UCLA, my internet went away. Apparently the local LAN on my pad (area where they have a group of trailers) has one chokepoint - it all starts from my next-door neighbor's trailer and branches out to all of us. Our best guess is, the guy next to me went home on his mid-tour leave and turned off all of the powered devices in the trailer upon his departure ... including his router. I don't blame the guy for killing the power - things in Iraq have a tendency to catch on fire due to faulty wiring. I can't tell you how many times I've either heard of or seen a wire melt and explode into small flames around here. It's happened in our office twice in the last month. We buy our extension cords from the Hajji mart, who gets them from China ... you do the math. Either way, our old LAN is kaput (at least until the guy gets back).

So how, do you ask, are you posting right now? Once again my friends at Magic Island came through. When hit with a rash of service complaints this morning, the powers that be at my local internet provider decided to install a new LAN that is located on the OUTSIDE of the trailers (much easier to maintain). My friend, the install guy, promised it would be as reliable and speedy as the old one (where my wireless router was in my trailer). So far, it's working like a charm - then again not everyone knows that we are on a new network yet ...

Okay, I'm going to hit some other sites to catch up on some reading I missed in the last three days. I'll try to come up with a more interesting topic for later this week. Until tomorrow.

-Grease out.

Cubicles ...

I promised you a post on building a cubicle jungle in Iraq. Unfortunately, our contractor brought the wrong cubicles for the job (didn't fulfill what the contract asked for). So, we refused to accept the product and now have to go back into the bidding process (what makes this even more thrilling is that we effectively lose the funds since they were allocated in Fiscal Year '07). When we asked why they didn't look in the boxes BEFORE they made delivery (you know ... to see if they were delivering the right stuff), the response was ... Inshallah. Wow ... I am beside myself.

Until tomorrow.

-Grease out.

My uncensored Id ...

During every deployment, there comes a time when you find yourself less bound by the conventional rules of behavior. I guess I have to clarify that, it's not that you go out and start shooting up the town, it's more along the lines of not being afraid to speak your mind - even if the subject/conclusion isn't popular. I find myself careening headlong into this period of the deployment. I realized it today, during the weekly staff meeting. After listening to briefer after briefer talk endlessly about programs that seem to have no point, I threw out a side comment about how pointless some of our tasks are (We had a heated discussion about the necessity of pull-up bars for the Iraqi military). Most of the others looked at me with shock (being one of the senior guys in the department, I'm expected to be a "kool-aid drinker"). My boss just laughed and quietly remarked, "the uncensored Id." We talked about it later and he understood that I didn't mean to belittle our work, but that it does get frustrating dealing with folks who don't always seem to want to move forward. I've overheard him say, "Rebuilding Iraq would be so much easier, if it weren't for the Iraqis." You know what ... some days he's right. It's a difference in culture over here. When faced with a difficult task, the Iraqi response is often "Inshallah" - if Allah wills it. Where we would ask what is needed, what can we do, they say "Inshallah." I'm not kidding on this one ... you sign a contract to have 200 widgets delivered and the guy shows up with 100 - Inshallah; you plan the meeting for 10:00 AM and no one shows until 11:30 - Inshallah. I'm going to take it home with me ... Honey, did you take out the garbage ... Inshallah! My boss looks at it as another one of those signs that it's time for me to go home. He doesn't want to see me go (I'm one of the one who has really "bought in" to his vision for our staff), but he realizes that a person cannot do this job non-stop without needing some down time. I may wind up back here someday, and when I return I will be full of the vigor and drive needed to get the job done; but as I approach the end of a VERY long year ... Inshallah, it's time for Grease to head for the homestead and spend some time with a wife and four kids who need him as much as the Coalition does. Until tomorrow.

-Grease out.

P.S. Tomorrow, we will examine how many folks are required to assemble office furniture and how long it should take (I'll give you a hint: the number is greater than what we had and the time is more than we expected)

Honors and benefits at such a young age! ...

Okay, a dollar for the first person who can identify the movie quote that has given me today's title. I'll give you a hint: This movie is a TBS/TNT staple, but only during a certain part of the year.

In all seriousness, I feel honored as a baby blogger today. If you look at the first comment on yesterday's blog (the one about the bizarre Iraqi time change), you'll see that I was picked up to be on the daily blogroll of The Thunder Run today. It's nice to see others finding enjoyment in the silliness of my daily life. If you haven't ever checked out Thunder Run, you may like it (it's more along the lines of a political blog, but they dedicate a large portion of their space to supporting military bloggers - pretty darn cool if you ask me). I'll have to remember this in job interviews - I'm a published author - ha, ha. Until tomorrow.

-Grease out

P.S. I found another video from the E-2C guys who were such a YouTube hit last year with their "Hey Ya" and "Pump It" videos. These guys are a riot, and they have some creative minds in that squadron. Enjoy!

VAW-113 presents "Move Along"