Today's updates

As usual, I’m slack about posting here.

Since I last posted, one of our sub-bases across the street was attacked (last Friday night) and a soldier was killed. Nobody else was hurt apparently. RIP

On a brighter note, the Indians at the D-Fac had a festival last night and we were invited. The festival was a morale booster for them and a chance to cut loose for a while. They played a bunch of games and cooked up traditional foods. We were encouraged to participate in the games and I got wrangled into participating in the egg drop contest; in order to prevent messes though they used ping-pong balls. The object was to place a spoon in your mouth and carry a ping-pong ball down and back the quickest. It came down to the Base Commander and me so I asked him if he was going to throw me off the base if I beat him. After assuring me that he wouldn’t I trounced him and won a CD case for my efforts.

The food was by far the best I’ve had since I’ve been here. I can’t remember the names of the dishes, nor could I pronounce them, but they were all very tasty. It was really cool to see a hundred and something guys laughing and joking with each other. There was a lot of positive energy in the air last night and they all seemed to have a great time.

Our medical clinic, the actual one not the space we have in the current HSE building, was finally accepted after a year. The Iraqis who had the contract did terrible work and it was obvious it wasn’t going to get any better so they accepted it so that our trades’ guys could try to finish it. It was moved to its new location and they’ve been working to try to correct the issues with it. What makes it so bad is that it’s a prefab building that comes in two sections and then the prefab parts are screwed in place and the Iraqis couldn’t even get that right. They made quite a mess of it in fact. Our guys have done what they can with it and are adding a front porch for us. God only knows when we will move into it though; I really don’t want to do it by myself though and Chris is getting ready to go on R&R soon. Moving clinics is a pain in the rear.

In other news, I’m thinking about getting my vision corrected when I go through Dubai. They have excellent health care and their hospitals have the latest whiz-bang technology (remember this is a VERY wealthy country). I’m still not positive and am waiting on some info from the clinic, but the price is much better than in the States and the couple of folks who’ve had it done by this doctor have been pleased.

Well that’s about it for now.