Multi-media thanks!

I am not sure how this crew did it, but I suspect some sort of black magic:

Because, I got a great box from them and others at NHRC last week, but it included one of the cows that you see in the picture! I am sure all these cows were normal sized before they got ahold of them. Perhaps they used some sort of shrinking ray--after all, as Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic...

But, the rest of the stuff in the box was cool enough to distract me from thinking too deeply on the ethics of shrinking cows and sending them half-way 'round the world to a place with absolutely no grass... In this picture you can see the cow, but you also see me wearing a spiffy new hat and shirt (one is hand-knit and the other is filled with excellent preventive medicine advice from the UCSD/SDSU residency program).

In the above picture I am in deep thought trying to figure out if a particular smell is gasoline or roses--part of a smell identification test that was in the box--this test kept the entire office busy for the afternoon--we don't smell much except for dust , port-o-potties, and deep-fried food around here--so any other smells are welcome! I will say that some of the folks in the office are nasalogists--they could identify every smell with uncanny accuracy without even looking at the choices--others of us were... let's just say... less good.

When I deployed back in January the whole thing happened rather quickly, so fast in fact that I left without a goodbye card that the good folks at NHRC had prepped for me--so they sent two cards in this package--it is actually quite satisfying to get these cards when I am closer to the coming home than the leaving home--makes it seem like they might actually miss me and want me back at work! ;-) But wait! There's more! A balsa wood glider--we almost took out a colonel's eye flying that about the office! Disney's The Jungle Book (a great movie!) Animal Crackers (actually visible in the picture above sitting on the box)--but the animal crackers themselves are the exact same as all the other animal crackers you have ever eaten--there was a camel--I don't remember a camel in The Jungle Book! I had been looking forward to eating the buzzards--that would have been awesome! Gigantic (and quite hot) Red Hots--horse suppository sized... scary! Some excellent reading material--magazines and a book that I am excited to read, The Judas Strain--it seems to have an intrepid epidemiologist/scientist as its hero--it has to be good! Miso soup, popcorn, and chopsticks--you figure it out... And lots of lovely notes to read ;-)

Now, a while ago I briefly mentioned that my grandpa had sent a picture and experimental notes on a spiffy Sterling engine (go here to see a video, go here to read about Stirling Engines ).
What I didn't mention is that Grandpa had also recently gotten a new iMac and I challenged him to use its built-in camera and software to make a quick movie of the Stirling engine in action. Instead--and he assures me this wasn't a deliberate tweak--took a digital picture and typed up the experimental notes on the computer, printed the picture and the notes and then snail-mailed them to me in Iraq! Ha! But, the fact is that he did use the computer, just not in the way I imagined! Anyway, that mention of the Stirling engine was enough for the package from work to include a whoopee cushion, a gender-confused doll, and another fine example of using heat (or temperature differentials) to drive motion--the world-famous drinking bird... I have included all three in the video below for your viewing pleasure (note the whoopee cushion is heard and not seen...)




The last thing I will mention is that the Army folks in the office here were quite impressed with the whole package--and they were amazed that everyone at my work would know that things I might enjoy most were fit for a four-year old, but once I reminded them that I work with these folks regularly and they are intimately familiar with my level of maturity and humor, it all made perfect sense! After all, laughter is the best medicine... and it may be the best preventitative medicine too, right after clean water, sewage systems, vaccines and antibiotics...

showers for the very tall (last in a series of entertaining ablution anecdotes)

ahh... the final installment of my bathroom bits quadrillogy... your patience has paid off!

I have mentioned the guys that clean the ablution units... they are known as TCNs, third country nationals... mostly from places like Pakistan, the Philippines... people from countries that are not Iraq or the United States... people from countries that haven't had the benefits of the outrageous Western diet that results in height, weight, vascular disease and colon cancer... in short, people whose epiphyseal growth plates closed without a huge growth spurt; they are relatively short...

the height is important here--especially the relative height; because these guys aren't really that short, but I firmly believe they think Americans are GIANTS... I come to this conclusion from careful observation of the shower heads in the containerized hygiene units. To wit, the original shower fixtures are of the adjustable type that slide up and down a rod mounted on the wall, allowing a nearly infinite amount of adjustment in height and angle of the shower head--when they are done cleaning all of these types of shower heads are at the very top of the pole (almost 8 feet high). Recall that the sinks were not of the highest quality, not meant for hundreds of military aged males to be using them several times a day; well, the same can be said of the showers. So, most of the adjustable shower apparatuses are broken too--with replacement, non-adjustable receptacles for the shoer head bolted onto the wall--also at the eight-foot level.

These guys cannot possibly reach that high! They have to make a concerted effort--either through ladders and stools, rock climbing techniques (the showers are only about 30 inches square), or piggy-back rides--to get the shower heads that high up! I can barely reach the damn things... How else could they be doing it?

If you noticed the new cleaning hours in the photo from the last post, they have an hour and a half in the morning. If you go a few minutes prior to the end of cleaning time they are all sitting around inside the trailer resting. It is air conditioned in there, but I am convinced that they have spent about fifteen minutes with double-stacked teams (on one another's shoulders) putting all the shower heads up as high as they can and then having another fifteen minutes of chicken fights--that is why they are tired and resting in the trailer at the end of cleaning time--makes perfect sense to me...

Now, if you didn't use your mind's eye to picture the above (and even if you did), I want you to use it to picture me trying to take a shower. You see, all but two of the twelve showers are non-adjustable; and the wall mount for the shower heads is the wrong one--it makes it so that the shower head--at the height of 8 feet--points 90° straight out from the wall. The water pressure is good... thus, when you turn on the shower a steady, strong stream of water shoots straight out of the one wall, over your head, and impacts elegantly and uselessly against the far wall. I stand there in the shower, dirty, hot, dry, looking up longingly at the arc of water that I can barely touch. I can jump up and down and get the top of my head wet; I can put my hands up in the air and deflect some of the spray downward; I can stand near the far wall and get a slight misting; or, I can stand right up against the wall and have the water run down my back (standing that close to the wall facing the other way is just wrong--trust me).

Of course, the shower head is at the end of a hose, so I end up holding that in one hand and getting wet that way. Don't let that go to lather up while the shower (with good pressure) is still on though--you may not be the only one that gets surprised by what the damn thing does! So, all of this does seem to help in the compliance of taking combat showers--so maybe it does work out for the best--water conservation, going green and all that... but I will be looking forward to a normal shower when I get home!

Running Commentary

It was beautiful, blue-skied, sun-shiny day yesterday. But, the way you know you are alive in Iraq is that you are complaining. So, what to complain about on a beautiful looking day--keeping in mind that the last two weeks have been dusty, dusty, dusty, and when we were able to run we would say, "wouldn't it be nice to have a clear day without dust--sunshine, blue skies?" So, the problem with a non-dusty day is that it is FREAKING HOT!!! Get two minutes into a run in these conditions, even at 0530 in the morning, and you are dealing with some serious sun! A physical force--you can feel the photons pushing you back as you run into the morning sun! So, now I look for Goldilocks days: not too dusty, not too hot, just dusty enough!

Running water is an issue as we get into summer too... serious effort being put into water conservation on base: real combat showers and laundry. Check out the pictures (notice the improved cleaning hours!):

Note that my electric razor head broke last week, not a few days after my post on saving the damn thing from the sink. Perhaps it had to do with being stuck in the drain? But, think about this, if the lack of a drain stop is what broke my razor, the lack of drain stop is now forcing me to shave with a blade, but with the lack of drain stop the water basically has to run while you shave--I am using more water than ever now!

the laundry is odd now. Minimum has changed from 1 to 25; maximum from 20 to 28... so now there is very little margin for error when bringing clothes into for laundry... the fact is, I barely have 25 items of clothing--a pair of socks counts as one item--no cheating! Luckily Mom has sent me dust cloths--I can throw a couple of those in the bag when I need to make sure I get to my quota!

This week we had a wonderful video teleconference with the mucky-mucks back in the US; we used words and phrases like "theater maturation continuum", "scrutiny of perfection", and "inculturation"--none of which actually means anything in general or in the more specific area of combat medical care and force health protection (I know, one of them isn't even a real word--far be it from to to say anything!). I keep thinking that the next meeting I attend will be the one the wins the war, but i hasn't happened yet!

Happy Birthday Army

Evidently today is the 233rd birthday of the US Army. I know this because there was a cake and a tuba in chow hall this evening when I got dinner. The cake said "happy birthday Army--233 years," and the tuba, along with a French Horn, two trumpets and a trombone, was playing marches and polkas like you read about....
There are some surreal things that happen here... and this was one of them, I mean listening to a horn section playing "happy birthday" in a building with an armor roof on it while picking up chicken curry and rice so that I can walk home through the middle of the Iraqi desert during a hailstorm of celebratory gunfire unleashed by the exuberant and neighboring Iraqi masses that just finished watching their soccer team keep alive its World Cup dreams by beating China... too weird... last week when the Iraqi soccer team won, several people were injured because of the celebratory gunfire that proves the old axiom "what goes up must come down (unless it has escape velocity)"...
another surreal day in Iraq...

on my knees (III of IV)

OK, take a look at this set of sinks--this is in the shower CHU (containerized hygiene unit); if the picture was better quality or closer you might be able to notice that the faucets aren't necessarily high quality industrial/commercial types--they are run of the mill, or even low end faucets... not really designed for several hundred military personnel to use several times a day. So perhaps it isn't surprising that all the drain stops are missing--not sure why they would remove all of those--perhaps vandals were blocking the drains and leaving the faucets on, perhaps all the long hair was getting stuck in them and causing hair balls in the pipes... I don't know, but the fact is they are missing, and that is how it happened.


When finished shaving there is tap-tap-tapping of the razor head necessary to clean off the razor head, but occasionally during the tapping (this is early in the morning) it gets dropped.... the first couple times it slid gracefully down the side of the sink and stopped short of going down the drain and I thought to myself, "man, would it suck if my razor head fell down that hole!" How prescient... The other morning, instead of tap-tap-tap, it went like this: tap-tap-oops--damn!!?!?? There is the razor head which is shaped like a wide cup--in one dimension it is too big to go down the drain and in two dimensions it is small enough to go down the drain just fine--deep in the drain, perched precariously, taunting me...

So, there it is, fallen down the abyss, the bottom lip of the cup resting on the little pivot rod that would move the drain stop up and down if the drain stop was there. Evidently when they remove all the plugs they leave the rod there--I guess that would keep down the leaking. There is a bit of space there near the top of the razor head--just enough for a finger to get in there--no worries--I get my finger around the upper lip, but in doing so the whole thing leans and the bottom lip falls over the end of the rod. Now I have a problem--my finger is still barely hooked around one end of the razor head, and the other end is securely around the bar that raises and lowers the missing drain plug. At this point my finger is positioned such that I cannot remove my hand without completely dropping the damn thing--like one of those traps your read about for raccoons or monkeys--the monkey puts his hand in a box with a small opening trying to get something shiny or tasty and the hand fits through when not holding the treat, but is too big with the treat and he won't let go--same for the raccoon, only in Where the Red Fern Grows it wasn't a box but an old tree stump with nails driven into it at an angle--why I am in the bathroom with my finger stuck in my nearly lost razor head thinking about a book I read when I was in fourth grade is beyond me. Regardless, I am a monkey caught in a jackass trap in the middle of Baghdad... I have a plumbing problem...

Now, plumbing runs in my veins... although, to be perfectly honest, I am not sure Dad was a plumber before I was born... in any case, I have loads of experience as a plumber's helper to include making a shower in Sidney's closet (she loved that), adjusting Peg's parents bathroom sink so that it uncontrollably shot water our of the wall for an hour before I could turn off the water--the rugs were a bit damp (KT loved THAT!), and replacing all the toilets in the house (multiple times--don't ask why...); so, I was confident in my ability to conquer this little problem--how hard could it be??

Note in the picture the access panels to get to the underbits, I was using the third sink form the right--the door is there, about a foot to the left--but it opens the wrong way... So, picture in your mind's eye, me, one hand deep down in the sink, arm draped over the counter so that I am low--on my knees--the access door is open and my other arm is going over the door and under the sink and behind the pipes. Luckily, this is new construction using flimsy materials--I was able to unscrew the plastic bits that hold the rod that moves the missing plug up and down, slide the rod out, remove my razor head, and put it all back together in less time than it took to shave to begin with.

Since then I have been VERY careful about the tap-tap-tapping...

Teenager Alert!!!

There are now TWO teenagers in the Faix San Diego household... scary...

Evidently part of the young lady's birthday present was going to a swanky salon and getting a make over... seeing as she has never really worn makeup, I don't see how it can be a "make over"--the first time it should just be called a "make"... When her friends ask what she got for her birthday at school (assuming she still goes to school--I am not sure what teenagers do these days), she can tell them that she got "maked"--I am sure they will be totally jealous for sure!

Eden...

This is my stoop... that sounds odd, but there it is... my stoop... although that may be a generous term for it.

Anyway, in the last couple weeks, from the desert floor covered with gravel hauled in from vast distances at great expense to keep the dust and mud down, spring has sprung. If you look at the foreground there are three quite obvious plants, then under the stoop itself there are a few more, and just past the stoop a few more--my front yard has 8 new plants growing up out of the rock-covered soil... somewhere in there is an allegory, a parable, or a nice metaphor... you figure it out...


This is my stoop... that sounds odd, but there it is... my stoop... although that may be a generous term for it.

Anyway, in the last couple weeks, from the desert floor covered with gravel hauled in from vast distances at great expense to keep the dust and mud down, spring has sprung. If you look at the foreground there are three quite obvious plants, then under the stoop itself there are a few more, and just past the stoop a few more--my front yard has 8 new plants growing up out of the rock-covered soil... somewhere in there is an allegory, a parable, or a nice metaphor... you figure it out...

More Essential Services

Laundry is a funny thing... I like to do my own laundry--be master of my domain; know when I am going to do it, know when I am going to get my clothes back... it doesn't work that way here. You have to plan three days out when you want clean clothes, or might run out of clean clothes--not an easy task I tell you... It works like this: drop clothes off between 0700 and 1900 two days prior to when you want your clean clothes back. Fill out a slip of paper, choose the "bulk" option or you will spend hours counting out each individual item... and it won't make a difference because laundry isn't THAT different... the great disappearing sock mystery apparently applies here as well as at home... but with a twist!

I dropped of some laundry my first week here--still living in the tent mind you--two days later when I pick up the laundry and return to the tent I notice that two of my running socks are missing--not a pair mind you, but two different pairs of running socks were missing half the set!! I make my way back to the laundry facility the next day--it took me a day to notice this--I didn't unpack my laundry because I was (wrongly and hopelessly) optimistic about moving into a trailer soon. A few days later I get to the laundry place to drop off another load and go ask about my lost socks at the pick-up side of the facility. They are astounded that anything could possibly be lost. The manager takes the two half-pairs and says he will go down and look for the other socks later that day. The next day he hasn't found them, but he hasn't looked yet either. The next day the same thing, but my new bag of laundry is ready to pick up--again, hopelessly optimistic, I don't unpack for a couple of days. but when I do--presto!! My two half-pairs of socks are in the laundry bag! I make my way back to the laundry facility and ask for my other two socks back--the ones the manger was going to use as matches in the search... the lady at the counter looks at me with the biggest deer-in-the-headlights look you have ever seen--no idea what I am talking about. Eventually the manager is called and finds the socks and returns them to me. So, laundry in Iraq is not immune from lost socks, but they can mysteriously re-appear too!!

another note about the laundry--almost everything they wash is brown; so that even if what you turned in to wash wasn't brown, it will be when you get it back. I have, or rather had, a white towel. At first I thought the dust was really sticking to my skin and I wasn't scrubbing it all the way off, so that my towel was getting dirty after my shower. But, each time I sent it to the laundry it came back browner (more brown, if you will) than when I had dropped it off... Still, even though you KNOW the towel is clean, rubbing a now brown but once white towel across a clean body FEELS wrong... I think I may be purchasing a nice brown towel in the very near future.... (I am not posting a picture of the towel--to protect the innocent)

Safety Warning!

Who doesn't like kettle corn? That is a rhetorical question, don't bother answering (note the lack of survey to the right). I, who like kettle corn very much, was recently the recipient of some personal sized microwave Jolly Time Oh Yum! Kettle Corn--"It pops faster!" is what the bag says... or rather, what the bag would say if it wasn't slightly charred right where the words are...

While it does seem to pop faster, it also seems to burn and catch fire faster! There is about a five second interval in between the aromatic sound of pop-pop-pop that lets you know it is still cooking and the silent smell of smoke... Pulling the bag out of the microwave--by the "stay cool" handles on opposing corners of the squarish bag--and giving a slight tug opens the bag to reveal a blackened and smoldering hunk of congealed popcorn in the center of the bag and all the other still good popcorn. The natural--and completely wrong, it turns out--response is to blow into the bag to clear some of the smoke for a better view and to put the fire out. The breath of fresh air seems to be just what the fire needs (fuel, oxygen, and heat if I recall) to really heat up... It is smoking enough to rush outside with it--because who wants a smoky CHU room? (Another rhetorical question.) There may have even been a few flames, but I will deny it. Outside, cooler heads prevailed, and the popcorn cooled off without too much more damage--most of it was still tasty!! After all, it was my last bag and I couldn't watch a movie without kettle corn!

BTW, there were four bags in the original box and I only caught two of them on fire! With no collateral damage I might add...