My CHU

So, I told you the story of moving into my CHU, here are the pics to prove it!

here is a picture of my row of trailers--see why I had trouble finding mine? It is the fifth one down--smack in the middle!


This is the view from my "stoop"...


When I stand in my front door and look up--note the birdie


When I stand in my door and look down... I don't look down much...

Brave or Stupid... you make the call!

I am bonding with the Army guys I work with, slowly but surely... Today was the day they wanted to go for a run. There are two guys that have been PTing together for the last six months or so of the deployment (their time, not mine), but they had fallen out of the routine for the previous month or so. Since I have been running a lot, I guess it may have spurred them on a bit. And we agreed to meet at 0540 this morning to go for an easy run. That is pretty early--especially at this time of year. It isn't hot enough yet, in my mind to justify getting up tat early to miss the heat of the day for PT. But, it wasn't my call...
This morning I wake up at 0515 to the sound of the wind howling something awful, and then the unmistakeable tap-tap-tap of raindrops on the tin roof (metal anyway)... I dress and head out the door--nasty, nasty, nasty! The rain and wind have whipped up the dust so that the air is thicker with dust than it is with water, but there is enough water on the ground that there is a slick coating of mud on all the surfaces, AND there is lightning, AND it is COLD in the wind and rain. No person in their right mind would run in this weather...
But, if I don't show up the Army guys might show up (promises were made!), and then give me a bad time about wimping out--I cannot let that happen! Of course, if they are smart, they won't show up and they can give me a bad time about being dumb/crazy enough to actually go run in this weather.... A serious Catch-22!! So, I run down there and run about for a few minutes waiting for them--slippery and cold and covered with mud: me and the sidewalk and the street. I figure that if they aren't there, then I can lie and say I was just as smart as they were and didn't show up; and, if they are there I can convince them to go to the gym instead. Whereas if I just didn't show up, I wouldn't know if they had actually showed or not... indefinite knowledge is difficult to stomach.
They weren't there! So, I ran around the housing area (maybe a mile) and ran back to my CHU and changed and lay back down and read and took a nap--perfect!
When I got into work later, one of them actually tried the, "I was there, where were you?" line for a minute, but he knew I wasn't' lying when I said, "bullshit! I was there!" So, I called them wimps and they called me stupid... great bonding!

No Country for Old Den

I got a trailer yesterday!! I was tired at the end of the day, and planned on going home early (about 8pm) and laying in the rack and watching a movie (No Country for Old Men) and going to bed. On a whim I stopped at the KBR office to check the list--lo and behold, I had a trailer.

So, I fill out the little bits of paper that they require--multiple signatures in triplicate and all that jazz... then the guy hands me a map and gives me directions to my trailer... the map is relatively simple, but deceptive in its simplicity--because it is wrong, and what seems at first glance to be a compass pointing north is actually just a smudge on the photocopy that is several generations from the original. I figured this out after searching around the area for about 25 minutes before I found it.

The problem is, these trailer parks are similar, in this respect, to the houses in my neighborhood; they all look alike. The "yards" all look alike--gravel on the ground and a t-wall for a fence (a t-wall is a largish, 15 ft high, cement barrier that is used to wall off everything on base--literally). The CHUs (containerized housing units--we are NOT trailer trash despite what my wife might call me... maybe CHU folk--similar to hobbits only bigger and less hirsute...) all look exactly the same too, a small metal stoop, a door a window and an AC unit... they are lined up in unending rows, row upon row, then all grouped together in clusters, and then in super-clusters--a universe of CHU super-galaxies, that is what Iraq has become...

I finally found the damn CHU that was mine, despite the lack of signs, numbers, etc that might have helped... The room is pleasant enough, but all my stuff is back at work and in the transient tent... so, I need to go traipsing around the base in the dark (walking in the dark of Iraq is another post entirely) dragging and carrying and rolling my "stuff"--I am so glad the Narmy issued me so much equipment for my deployment so that I can carry it from place to place and never use it...

I throw all the stuff down--now I am REALLY tired, and it is late (10pm), but I still want to watch the movie... At this point, when I want to eat an ice cream, I don't think twice about it--I am in a freaking war zone! So, I stayed up past my bed time and watched the movie... The movie was pretty good--oscar-winner, right? But, I am not convinced that I saw that same movie that everyone else has, simply because this was a third-hand pirated movie from the local "movie shop" on base... the copy was of reasonable quality, I could see and hear everything except for a bit dead-center left to right and 1/3 the way up from the bottom where there clearly had been a couple text lines that were blurred out--they lasted for the duration of the movie. And some of the edits between scenes were quite rough--not something I would have expected in a finished product. These things make me wonder--so, now I will have to get the movie when I get home, just to see if it is different or not...

In one day, I get a trailer and get to watch an oscar-winning movie... I am having a lucky future!!

Lucky Future!

After the 5K run the other day, when I went back to the tent, the guys who woke me and then started snoring were still sound asleep. I left the lights on, went about showering up and then-since it was dark as night in the tent-I went back to the office to read and do some work. Later in the afternoon I went back and the visitors were gone, but their bags were there-good news, the bags were only backpacks which meant that they were just passing through and not moving permanently into my transient tent... Another several hour absence from the tent-shopping for new clippers (that's another story), dinner, more office time-and I return to see the guys lounging about. As I enter the tent I say "hi" just in time to catch the goat-smell-I don't know what these guys did all day, but they needed a shower bad... the airflow in the tent isn't so great...

Turns out they speak little to no English and I don't even recognize the language that they do speak... so, I lay down to read... after awhile they get up to head off to catch their plane/helo/convoy out of the area... the leader gives me a box of girl scout cookies (the peanut butter ones)-who knew there were GS cookies in Iraq?!? And then he smiles and tells me, "Lucky Future!!" and heads out the door...

Motivation

This morning was the first race on my road to running fitness. It was perfect, a Navy Day 5K put on by the local First Class Petty Officer's Association-I really had no choice but to participate. My goal was to run under 20 minutes, and I did-barely with a 19:48... The start was exciting because all the young active duty people want to run fast at the start and crowd the line (and there are well over a thousand people racing) on the narrow street that has a sharp left turn in the first 50 meters of the race... so, that meant starting out a bit faster than I wanted, but I was able to ease back into a "sensible" pace after the first couple hundred meters-but I paid for it later!

So that was nice; last night wasn't so nice... for the last ten days I have been in the transient tents waiting for a permanent place to live, a trailer. I have moved up the list from 16th or so to 7th or so... progress. After the first two nights in the tent I have been completely alone in there-nice ten-man tent and little old me... Last night (this morning) at 0400 four dudes come trudging into the tent, shuffling and snuffling about, making their beds, and talking and reeking of cigarette smoke, they promptly lay down and commence snoring! Arrgh! I was planning on getting up a bit early for this race, but that was ridiculous!! My only hope is that they are truly transient and are leaving for somewhere else today, or that I get my trailer sooner rather than later...