Inside Starbucks

Inside_Starbucks.JPG
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

As Art (my employee from back home at USPFO) commented "you're sipping on Starbucks mocha-whatevers and I'm still making my own coffee in the morning...unfair. When do I get to go to 'war?'"
So for you Art, this is what the inside of our Starbucks looks like... Just like every other Starbucks I've been to in the world. The floor tile, the lighting, the furniture, everything. Just the same as back in the states.
This was taken right after we first arrived in country. Just so you know, I have only been back once since then. I'm not a Starbucks or coffee addict, but i have regular Starbucks patrons working for me.
The only thing this Starbucks doesn't have is wireless internet. I suppose it's crowded enough already.
There you go... all you ever wanted to know about the Kuwaiti Starbucks.

All Some of the comforts of home

Yesterday I didn't get a chance to post anything to the blog because I was running around buying and selling stuff. We sold our old TV that I picked up a month ago for $40. They were having a garage sale for all the departing units and I unloaded the TV because it had no headphone jack. I was tired of having to play XboX with the sound turned all the way down cause many people in my barracks are on a different sleep schedule. So, Jim, John, Dave, and I all pitched in and bought a used mini-fridge and a new dual-voltage TV. Neither of these appliances are going to come home with us, but they'll serve us well while we are here. After buying these things, Dave and I promptly stocked the new fridge with lowenbreau near-beer and watched "the Bourne Identity" on the new TV. The new TV has a headphone jack and I bough a 4-way splitter so everyone in the Swamp can watch TV as loud as we want without disturbing our neighbors. The new TV also has an S-Video port so that I can display photos from my Ipod Photo on the 27" screen. We're pretty comfy in the Swamp now.

Dave's Playhouse

Dave's Playhouse.jpg
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Dave, one of my roommates (actually, we call our "room" or "area" a "hootch," but calling Dave a hootch-mate sounds rather weird) has built himself a little playhouse. He completely encased the lower bunk with a poncho liner, towels, and some spare clothes to give him a teeny bit of privacy and a little protection from the overhead lights that get turned on entirely too early.
It's like building a tree fort when you were a kid.
I have a similar setup, but it's not as all-encompassing as his. Besides, it's more fun to show Dave's fort.

Babysitters

babysitters
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

As I wrote earlier, for my last night in SLO before deploying Rick, Cali, Terry, and Jocey all pitched in to watch Hunter while Sarema and I enjoyed a night out together. Here's a picture Cali took on that night. Rick is frantically taking notes (something you and Cali want to share with everyone, Rick?) while Terry and Jocey tandem-change Hunter.
This picture is a hoot. Hunter would be embarassed if he knew it was on the web.

Bizarre

We have a TV in our trailer that is on about 50% of the time, usually with the news. Hurricane coverage part II was getting old, so LTC Vienneau switched to the movie channel in time to see Scooby Doo, The Movie dubbed in Arabic. It's very bizarre to see Velma and hear her shreiking in Arabic.

Not what I imagined

A couple of things first:
Just so you understand how far away we are from the fighting, soldiers in Iraq who need a short break come down here for 3 days of rest and recuperation (R&R) leave at this Camp. We are in a war zone technically, but this is a pretty well-off and secure post with a good set of ammenities for the realxing warfighter.
The more I find out what there is to do on this post, the less sympathy anyone is going to have for my deployment to this "war zone."

Now, back to our story....
When I was a young lieutenant in the 82d Airborne Division, my mind used to wander during the 2 hour plane flights before we jumped out. We were zipping over the North Carolina countryside at 200 knots and 500 feet above the ground and I was wondering what war was going to be like. Well... sitting in that plane with a 150 lbs of gear on me, I never could have imagined that 12 years later I would go to war and end up at the Army Component headquarters in Kuwait. A few times since I've been here, I have thought to myself that "this is not what I thought war would look like." Some of those times:
- While getting a massage at the health and beauty spa located 400 meters away from my billets (next to the ginormous PX).
- While zipping along the Kuwaiti freeways in a Japanese SUV at 80 mph armed and in civilian clothes.
- While eating 2 lobster tails in the middle of a desert
- While sipping a frozen mochaccino at Starbucks, also in the middle of the desert.
- While floating in an olympic-sized pool on a star&stripes floatie ring, still in the middle of the desert.

Whew

Sarema's fine after her surgery yesterday. Kymi, who has been a godsend for Hunter every since he was still inside Sarema's tummy, posted two comments on the post from yesterday with updates to Sarema's status.
Thanks for taking off from work to drive three hours down and take care of Sarema and Hunter this week Kymi. You're the best. I feel a lot better knowing you are there.

Vibes

As we say in the skydiving community, please put out some "good vibes" (think some good thoughts) for Sarema and her surgery today. Hope you have a speedy recovery, babe!

Madonna Mountain

MadonnaMountain.JPG
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

This picture of Rick, Terry, and me was taken on top of Madonna Mountain (really it's named "Cerro San Luis," but nobody calls it that) in SLO during my block leave prior to leaving for Kuwait. Terry drove all the way up from Orange County to see me before I left. We hiked up the mountain and shared some beers to toast my departure.
Later that night Rick, Cali, Terry, and Jocey all pitched in to watch Hunter while Sarema and I enjoyed a night out together. I'll post a picture of how that went... soon.
Rick is travelling all over the place this coming month (to include Australia), so he probably won't see this pic. Cali will have to dig it out of the blog for him when he returns. (btw, Cali... let me know how your trip to Spain went)
It's nice to have such good friends helping out Sarema back home while I'm gone. I just wanted to say, "thanks, guys."

Good Wishes for Sarema

Family
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

As some of you know, Sarema is going in tomorrow (Tuesday) for some minor outpatient surgery. Her parents and Kym are going to come down this week and help take care of Hunter during her recuperation. Please send her some good wishes for a speedy recovery.

Wireless Soon?

Sorry for the light posting these last few days. We'd been told that the barracks next door was getting monthly-fee wireless internet access day before yesterday, then it was yesterday, now it's today or Monday. I have some posts saved on my apple laptop in the barracks and was hoping to post from the comfort of my own rack. You see, I got a wireless repeater to bounce the signal from their barracks to our barracks until our internet access can be installed ina couple weeks.
So, until I get to post from my rack, here's the latest...
Things are starting to slow down. It's only been a month, but our workload of setting up and repairing computers is slowing. It's also getting a little cooler. It's probably only around 105 degrees at the height of the day now. Add in that most of us are getting used to the heat and this place has finally become tolerable temperature-wise.
I'm going to try for another iChat session tonite with Sarema and Hunter. I'm really looking forward to seeing them.
More blogging to follow soon. Stay tuned for pictures of Dave's clubhouse!

More Pictures

Sarema's doing a great job keeping up with Hunter's picture page. There's a new set of photos up and she even posted a video of him watching Baby Einstein, or "baby crack" as I like call it.

Hardly a Harley

Harley
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Last week, Harley Davidson hosted a 5K "fun" run here on the Camp. They gave out T-shirts to the first couple hundred finishers (me and Jim among them). Harley even has a dealership here. I haven't tried ordering a bike, but from what I understand, soldiers can get great deals and have the bike waiting for them when they get home. The picture is of Dave standing in front the dealership on our second day here.

Pictures

Sarema has some great new pictures of Peanut sitting up, almost rolling over, and getting his second tooth in. You can check them out by click on the "weekly pictures of Hunter" link on the right side of the blog. Thanks for posting those, babe! They look great and they made my day.

Addict in Training

Addict in Training
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Jim, my lawyer roommate, was asked by lawyers in Baghdad to go north to join them and work as a big cheese in the section that deals with detainees (bad guys). He wasn't able to convince the powers-that-be to let him go, but that's ok by me. I like having him around. He's funny, for a lawyer. In fact, he might not be a lawyer much longer when he gets back to the states. Before getting sent on this deployment, he was up for a judical appointment in Sacramento. He still insists that we all call him "your honor," though. :-)
Jim approached me right when we first got into country and asked, "Can you show me how to play XboX?"
"Well, Jim, you don't 'play XboX,' you play games on the Xbox."
That was the beginning of the end for him and now he is an XboX addict-in-training as you can see by the photo.

Nine Eleven

It's been four years since 9/11/2001. The events that day let me to where I am now. The war in Iraq is inextricably linked with the Global War on Terror. We must win here if we are to win globally. Please keep those who died on 9/11 and those who fight back against terrorism in your prayers.

Cultural Awareness

The only way to get off this post is to either go on official business or to go on an MWR trip. Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) puts on a cultural awareness trip every so often that includes a trip to Kuwait landmarks, a mosque, and local shops. To get on the trip, you must first take a 2-hour class offered every Saturday. I went this morning and enjoyed it.
A Lebanese man who served in the the Lebanese Army before coming to American 10 years ago was our instructor. He schooled us on everything from how to interact with Kuwaiti women (basically don't interact with them) to how to politely refuse a glass of hot tea to how not to get arrested during the month of Ramadan. During this month, muslims fast (no eating, no drinking - even water) during daylight hours. If you are walking downtown and sipping a soda, the local police are going to grab you and put you in the tank until you cough up $700.
A Kuwaiti woman, dress from head to toe in a black "habaya," including a face-covering "hijab" headdress also spoke to give us a woman's perspective. Some of the soldiers call women dressed all in black "ninja ladies," but the reason they wear all black is that it effectively hides what's underneath from the prying eyes of strange men.
The "ninja lady," she gave her real name but I'm not going to publish it, also was very appreciative of what the United States had done to liberate her country in 1991. It was nice to see someone appreciating our country and her soldiers instead of shooting at them or trying to just make a buck off them.

Kuwait Camoflague

Kuwait Camoflague
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Some missions here involve us wearing civilian attire (that's about as much as i can say).
It's not like I've all of a sudden joined the CIA or anything, though. When we went outside the base, everyone knew we were Americans but nobody gave us any dirty looks or made a fuss. Folks were doing what they do everywhere... scurrying about, buying this or selling that and just trying to put food on the table.
We stay alert though, cause we're looking out for the 1 guy out of 100,000 Kuwaitis who hates Americans. We'll give him a run for his money, too.

It's not all bad here

Just for the sake of balance, there have been some cool things happening here that offset my bad luck and the dust storms of late.
On sunday night, they dragged out a screen and a projector and played the movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on the wall of the gymnasium before a crowd of about 250 people, including me. The cool part was that most of those people were lounging in the pool next to the gym. I was using the stars and stripes floatie ring that my friends gave me before I deployed. That's right, I was floating in a pool in the middle of the desert watching an almost-first-run movie. Not too shabby.
There was a surprise waiting for me in the mess hall on Wednesday. No, it wasn't my Wiley-X shades. Those are apparently long gone. The surprise was lobster tail. as much as you could eat. I took two and still felt guilty about it. The lobster was pretty good, but not really good. It was roughly Red-Lobster-quality, but hey, we're in a flippin' desert 10,000 miles from home. Red Loster ain't too shabby.
So, life in the desert continues. We're settling into our routine at work and finding things to keep us busy during our off time.

Sergeant McCauley

McCauley_promo
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

Specialist McCauley was promoted to Sergeant here last friday, 2 SEP. The group commander promoted him with the Command Sergeant Major standing by. His boss, SFC McElroy and MSG Nash pinned on his rank. He was only a Private First Class six months ago when I first got to the unit. Since then, he's been on the fast track to Sergeant and is a great asset to my CSSAMO team. Congrats, SGT McCauley.

Dust Storm part deux

The morning started off nice and for a while we thought that there might be no second day of the great two-day-sandstorm, but the weather quickly deteriorated. The wind picked up, the sky turned brown, and my trailer sharted shaking. A summer dust storm in this region is called a "Shamal," which comes from the Arabic word for "north." Typically, dust storms here are carried by northerly winds. You can see a satellite view of what one shamal from last month looked like.
The shamal even got into the trailer and left a fine dusting on everything, including office equipment. Thank goodness I am switching to a toughbook laptop computer that is dust and sand resistant.
Other than that, nothing has come up missing so far today. I guess that makes it a good day...
...way better than yesterday.

Bad Day

The good news is that a bad day in Kuwait usually doesn't involve explosions like bad days in Iraq do. The bad news is that we're human and we all have bad days. Welcome to my bad day.
It started with breakfast. The chow was fine, but somehow I lost my favorite Wiley-X sunglasses (the kind that keep the dust and wind out of my eyes) in or near the chow hall. I searched everywhere to find them, including the mess hall garbage, but to no avail.
Then, on the way to work, I realized that I didn't have my security badge. I needed to get inside the secure facility this morning and couldn't find my security badge. I was sure that I had left the badge in my other pants, but before I went back to the barracks to grab it, I went to my trailer. I sat down at my desk (i work outside the secure facility) and checked my email. The gymansium manager emailed me that I had dropped my security ID badge in the gym on saturday. He was holding it and I could come pick it up. Losing your badge is an express ticket to an ass chewing from your boss's boss. Sheesh.
On the way over to pick up my badge, the wind picked up and the sky turned brown; the predicted 2-day-long dust storm had arrived. You physically cannot walk around in this storm without something to protect your eyes and I had just lost my sunglasses. I got my badge and headed back to the office.
As the old wives tale goes, bad things come in threes. I didn't have to wait long for the third thing... Having fought my way through the blowing dust to the PX, I was buying new sunglasses when I realized that my debit card was missing. "You have got to be kidding me," I thought. This just gets worse and worse. I couldn't remember the last place I had seen it, but I thought it was the smaller PX by my barracks. I trudged back over there and was not surprised to find that no one had turned in the card. Then I went back to the office and tried to figure out how to call a 1-800 number from a military phone in order to report my debit card missing.
I tried taking a picture of the dust storm, but it just looks like the lens is a little dirty. Maybe I can get a better picture soon. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Blog Spam! Yech!

As Terry so eloquently noticed yesterday, my last post got two comments from losers trying to hock their unsolicited wares, aka "comment spam." I deleted their posts and changed a setting in Blogger to add a security step. This "word verification step," Looks like this:

...when you go to post a comment on my blog now. What this does is to prevent automated systems from adding comments to my blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. A lot of comment spamming is done automatically by software which can't pass the word verification, so enabling this option is a good way to prevent many such unwanted comments.
I don't want this extra step to dissuade anyone from leaving comments as I really enjoy reading them.
Sorry for the nuisance. Spammers suck.

Kuwait Towers

Kuwait Towers
Originally uploaded by Rob Wooldridge.

We drove by these towers on our trip into Kuwait City. The Kuwait Towers, built in 1979, are a cultural icon of this small country. From GlassAndSteel.com: While there are three spheres and three towers, not all of them are for storage. The first tower is 140 meters tall and supports a water-holding sphere. The second tower is 180 meters tall. It also carries a restaurant and a cafeteria. The third tower has no spheres at all. It is used for lighting. The towers hold 4,500 cubic meters of water which then flows into the homes and businesses of Kuwait city.

Hot

One of my soldiers just checked our camp's weather line. It's 128°F outside right now. That might not be surprising, but the problem is that this is the NORMAL summertime temp around here (sometimes higher). I had trouble comprehending a temperature like 128° until I came to Kuwait and got to experience it first-hand.
Let's see if we can put that in perspective: The hottest temperature ever recorded in the US was in California's Death Valley on July 10, 1913. It was 134°, only six degrees hotter than it is right now. The next highest state record is Arizona, with a Kuwait-tying 128° set on June 29, 1994 at Lake Havasu.
It's hotter here now than it has ever been in Nevada.
It's flipping hot.
All water that comes out of a tap is hot 24/7. I brush my teeth with water that you could use for tea. The hot wind makes your eyes tear up. The sweat coming from my eyes is enough to make my Wiley-X sunglasses fog up. If you want to experience some Kuwait weather for yourself, just hold a hairdryer 10 inches away from your face until it gets really uncomfortable. Then keep it there for the 15 minutes it takes to walk to chow.
It's flipping hot.
And to top it all off, some strange marine layer moved in last night and it got hot AND humid. It was out of control, so I ran and hid in the billets. Luckily, it was dry again this morning.
It's still flipping hot here.
(note: I'm not bitching... there are many soldiers in this theater who have to walk around in body armor in this heat with bad guys shooting at them. They can't run and hide in the air conditioning. I'm just trying to relate a little bit of what it's like here.
... it's hot. Really hot.)