10FEB09
Today was the windiest day I have experienced in Iraq so far. It was so windy that the only way I could ride my bike into work was standing and peddling in the highest (easiest) gear, and yet I just barely inched a long. It was so windy that it blew my MWR satellite dish out of sync! Not only did the wind totally suck today and degrade all my signal strength causing stuff not to perform at ideal capacity…the BDE Share Server crashed yesterday morning and still wasn’t on line today….how can I explain the significance of this situation….basically the total historical documentation and all current operational data was lost for a period of 24 hours.
All the digital media, reports, forms, SOPs, awards, spreadsheets, word docs, everything we created, GONE!! And, AND, BDE did not have one good backup of my file because a specific permission was missing from the folder structure, therefore not allowing the server to back up my file!! Bad, Bad, just very bad. Well we let BDE attempt to recover it on their own, before I sent my ace in the hole, AKA, CPT Grupe up there to square things away, and by the grace of God, he was able to get the server to boot and our BN’s data backed-up to an external drive!! I thought I just had sealed my fate as a Signal Officer; I was careless not to have my own back-up procedures in place and to trust all “my” files to be cared for by one entity. I did have a plan in the works to back-up my files; I was just waiting for the equipment to arrive! I believe I have just weathered this storm and things will be better tomorrow.
21FEB09
The share server is still not up, and I left to go to Kuwait on 14FEB for a week long training on MS Project, but not before I was able to run the Valentine’s Day 5k race. Our flight did not leave until 0100, so plenty of time to get stuff in order before flying out. The class will help me organize and plan all tasks that I need to accomplish before I can leave Iraq and hand the reigns over to my replacement.
My marathon training has been going pretty well, at this stage I am averaging at least 30 miles a week within a minimum of one long run of over 10 miles per week.
Kuwait is nice, you do not need to carry a weapon and after duty hours you can wear civilian clothes. I have been able to maintain my run routine, lift and take in a nightly movie. Arifjan Base is about as close to feeling like home as you can get over here.
As most of you may know, I got to spend my Birthday down here in Kuwait, it was just another day, other than all the Birthday Day wishes I received on Facebook and emails, thank you everyone who took the time and sent me a message, it really made my day!!
I brought “Teddy” with on the trip and have been able to get some good pictures, even took one with some Aussie soldiers we met down here. For of you not familiar with Teddy, he is a traveling Bear sent to me by my friend Gladys from back home whose child is doing a project related to the journeys of traveling Teddy.
We are suppose to be headed back to Iraq today, but appears as though the weather is not going to cooperate, no big deal, get to spend another fabulous night in Kuwait!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tallil, Baghdad, Iraq - Oh my!
Iraq, home sweet home, it has been quite some time since I last spoke of my new home away from home….so where do I begin, luckily I was still taking pictures to help refresh my mind, because after a while it gets to fell like the mud you will see in the pics.
When I returned from leave on the 23DEC, I was immediately assigned as an IO (Investigating Officer) for a situation concerning improper use of the network. The only thing good about the investigation is that it allowed me to do some traveling off of JBB. I was suppose to Skye my family on 27DEC as that is when they were celebrating Christmas, but due to the circumstances and timing of events, if I left on the 27th I could catch a non-stop flight to Tallil, the beginning of my investigation. There was a special mission leaving that night via helicopters and I was able to piggyback on their flight an if all went well, I could return with them the next day. This sounded more appealing than flying on a C130 standby, hoping to get on. Other than decorating the DFAC with all kinds of cool sculptures made of food, Christmas was just another day here in Iraq.
In Tallil, is the city of Ur (I included a link on a little history of this city under History), in short it is considered the birthplace of Christianity and civilization. There was a tour starting at 1000 that I would have loved to attend, but I did not know the course my investigation was going to take and as you can imagine, after all is said and done, I would have had time…oh well, perhaps another time.
I wrapped up my portion of the 15-6 (Informal Investigation) in Tallil, jumped back on a UH64 (Blackhawk) and headed back to JBB. The next stop on my 15-6 is BIAP (Baghdad International AirPort). I flew down there on FRI, 02JAN09. Oh, I should mention that my ringing in of the New Year was not that spectacular, Me, Grupe and Garret partied at our CHU with NA beer and watched a movie….ok, back to BIAP. The flight done there was neat as me flew during the day so I could catch a glimpse of what he country side really looks like outside my narrow scope of JBB. Surprisingly it is kind of green out there with lots of palm trees, I guess after all this is supposed to be the home of the Garden of Eden. It has gotten so cold that on the shallow puddles in the field, you could actually see the sun reflecting of the thin layers of ice, who would have thunk it!!
BIAP is quite interesting; it is actually made up of numerous Bases know as Victory Complex (Camp Liberty, Camp Victory and Camp Slayer), see the links in History for more details. Well since I missed out on the last historical trip of a lifetime, this time I planned to see some sites. Apparently the first meeting I had here, the individual was not ready to see me, so to stall; my escort took me to the Radwaniyah Palace, also known as the Presidential Place, this is/was the nicest palace in Iraq, you will see me sitting in the chair that Yasser Arafat gave to Saddam. All the lakes in Baghdad are man made, there is history behind having control of such an abundance of water you can send an email and ask or search on your own, but Saddam had them stocked with a special breed of fish, they look like a cross between a catfish and a carp. Apparently now, the water is no longer safe to swim in.
After I met with who I needed to meet with and get the information I needed, I signed up to go on the “Victory Over America Palace” tour. Saddam was actually building a palace named that. He had a palace built called “Victory Over Iran” and the VOA was being built to inter mesh with the VOI palace. The VOA was the place that the first bombs (see JDAM link) of the Iraq “war” hit. In the pics you will see the damage. In all the sculptures or carved art work in the palace, Saddam had his initials inset.
The next place the bombs hit was the Bathe Party House. It is report that 250 members of Saddam’s party members died with that strike and if it would have happened 15 minutes later, Saddam would have been there.
There is a picture of a swimming pool with a black stain in it. This pool was never filled with water, it was where Saddam executed his people if they messed up, or if he was just having a bad day, I will let you guess on what the stain is from….The big open bays of this building is where the boats docked, and because Saddam did not like the heat, he actually had this outdoor area cooled by AC. He was also fond of chandeliers, in the Bathe House use to be one of the largest chandeliers in the world...not anymore!!
Most of the buildings you will see in the water are actual brothels, Saddam believed and certain Muslims believe that no sins can be committed on water. So Saddam and all his cabinet staff had their own brothels, Saddam’s personal one is with building with the Hearts carved in it, and just to the left of that building is the house where Saddam’s mother-in-law lived.
In some of the other pics you will see “Flintstone Village” that Saddam had built for his grand children after he murdered their fathers (Aka Saddam’s son-in-laws), as you can see he was a real nice guy.
One last Saddam story…he had over 70 palaces throughout Iraq and since he never stayed in one place for more than a night, the palace staff had to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner at every palace, everyday, just in case he showed up!
Still to come: 101st Airborne 12 mile road march, MN Hockey Day, and other stories….as always, enjoy the pics.
When I returned from leave on the 23DEC, I was immediately assigned as an IO (Investigating Officer) for a situation concerning improper use of the network. The only thing good about the investigation is that it allowed me to do some traveling off of JBB. I was suppose to Skye my family on 27DEC as that is when they were celebrating Christmas, but due to the circumstances and timing of events, if I left on the 27th I could catch a non-stop flight to Tallil, the beginning of my investigation. There was a special mission leaving that night via helicopters and I was able to piggyback on their flight an if all went well, I could return with them the next day. This sounded more appealing than flying on a C130 standby, hoping to get on. Other than decorating the DFAC with all kinds of cool sculptures made of food, Christmas was just another day here in Iraq.
In Tallil, is the city of Ur (I included a link on a little history of this city under History), in short it is considered the birthplace of Christianity and civilization. There was a tour starting at 1000 that I would have loved to attend, but I did not know the course my investigation was going to take and as you can imagine, after all is said and done, I would have had time…oh well, perhaps another time.
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| 200901_Iraq |
I wrapped up my portion of the 15-6 (Informal Investigation) in Tallil, jumped back on a UH64 (Blackhawk) and headed back to JBB. The next stop on my 15-6 is BIAP (Baghdad International AirPort). I flew down there on FRI, 02JAN09. Oh, I should mention that my ringing in of the New Year was not that spectacular, Me, Grupe and Garret partied at our CHU with NA beer and watched a movie….ok, back to BIAP. The flight done there was neat as me flew during the day so I could catch a glimpse of what he country side really looks like outside my narrow scope of JBB. Surprisingly it is kind of green out there with lots of palm trees, I guess after all this is supposed to be the home of the Garden of Eden. It has gotten so cold that on the shallow puddles in the field, you could actually see the sun reflecting of the thin layers of ice, who would have thunk it!!
BIAP is quite interesting; it is actually made up of numerous Bases know as Victory Complex (Camp Liberty, Camp Victory and Camp Slayer), see the links in History for more details. Well since I missed out on the last historical trip of a lifetime, this time I planned to see some sites. Apparently the first meeting I had here, the individual was not ready to see me, so to stall; my escort took me to the Radwaniyah Palace, also known as the Presidential Place, this is/was the nicest palace in Iraq, you will see me sitting in the chair that Yasser Arafat gave to Saddam. All the lakes in Baghdad are man made, there is history behind having control of such an abundance of water you can send an email and ask or search on your own, but Saddam had them stocked with a special breed of fish, they look like a cross between a catfish and a carp. Apparently now, the water is no longer safe to swim in.
After I met with who I needed to meet with and get the information I needed, I signed up to go on the “Victory Over America Palace” tour. Saddam was actually building a palace named that. He had a palace built called “Victory Over Iran” and the VOA was being built to inter mesh with the VOI palace. The VOA was the place that the first bombs (see JDAM link) of the Iraq “war” hit. In the pics you will see the damage. In all the sculptures or carved art work in the palace, Saddam had his initials inset.
The next place the bombs hit was the Bathe Party House. It is report that 250 members of Saddam’s party members died with that strike and if it would have happened 15 minutes later, Saddam would have been there.
There is a picture of a swimming pool with a black stain in it. This pool was never filled with water, it was where Saddam executed his people if they messed up, or if he was just having a bad day, I will let you guess on what the stain is from….The big open bays of this building is where the boats docked, and because Saddam did not like the heat, he actually had this outdoor area cooled by AC. He was also fond of chandeliers, in the Bathe House use to be one of the largest chandeliers in the world...not anymore!!
Most of the buildings you will see in the water are actual brothels, Saddam believed and certain Muslims believe that no sins can be committed on water. So Saddam and all his cabinet staff had their own brothels, Saddam’s personal one is with building with the Hearts carved in it, and just to the left of that building is the house where Saddam’s mother-in-law lived.
In some of the other pics you will see “Flintstone Village” that Saddam had built for his grand children after he murdered their fathers (Aka Saddam’s son-in-laws), as you can see he was a real nice guy.
One last Saddam story…he had over 70 palaces throughout Iraq and since he never stayed in one place for more than a night, the palace staff had to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner at every palace, everyday, just in case he showed up!
Still to come: 101st Airborne 12 mile road march, MN Hockey Day, and other stories….as always, enjoy the pics.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
29JAN09 – EuroTrip Part Duo
Austria here we come. The highlights from Austria was the Sound of Music Tour, we lucked out and basically got our own private tour guide. She was originally from England, so the accent made all the more fun. We literally just caught this trip…came off the train went to the Info desk and they had a trip leaving in 5 minutes, so we hopped aboard. That evening we went to musical dinner event featuring works by Mozart, after all the Mozart School of Music is located in Salzburg, as well as Mozart’s birth place.
We also took a tour of the castle; it is the one you see in the Sound of Music movie. We met a guy named Christian from Germany who was there for a business meeting and he let us crash their party and have all the free Hot wine we could drink. The castle will always hold a special place in my heart for a number of reasons.
Salzburg had a beautiful Christmas Market too, which Vern took advantage of and bought herself some nice pink boots! From Salzburg, we left for Wien (Vienna).
Wien is a gorgeous city too, they have an awesome Cathedral and the biggest Christmas Market in Europe, well at least of all that I visited. Again by chance we were in the right place at the right time and Verna snagged us a great deal on a pair of tickets to the Wien Symphony Orchestra featuring music by none other than the one and only Mozart. From Wien to Venice; we thought we had it all figured out so that we could catch the fast train to Venice leaving at 0630 and arriving at 1330. We were all set to go, made it to the train station bright and early only come to find out we were at the wrong station, there is a West Hauptbahnhof and a South Hauptbahnhof. We arrived to Wien via the West, but I failed to see that we needed to leave from the South. We did a little train hopping back and forth, but we were not lucky enough to catch the early train; instead of arriving in Venice by 1330, we arrived at 1800.
We went out for dinner, then ff exploring the nightlife of Venice…needless to say; it was an early night as Venice has no nightlife. We were up early the next morning to explore Venice in the daylight, we did the famous Gondola ride down the Canal Grande, then made our way to San Marco Square and Cathedral – beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and you’ll have to take my word on it, because of our whole trip, those are the only pictures we lost. There is soooo much more to these stories; you will just have to ask. Florence, look out here we come.
I think of all the cities I visited in Italy, Florence is my favorite. It has the right amount of action, shopping, and scenery. On our way to Rome, we took a pit-stop in Pisa to go see the famous Leaning Tower.
Rome is amazing; definitely need more than 2 days here. We arrived Saturday evening, settled into our hotel then went out for a nice dinner. The only disappointment in Rome was that we planned our main sight-seeing day there was a Sunday and Vatican City is closed, that means we did not get to see the Sistine Chapel. We took one of those hop-on hop-off bus tours with the audio tour. I really enjoyed it, there were 12 historic stops on the route and you can stop at whatever one you want and stay as long as you want, the ticket is good for 24 hours, but we only had 12 hours to see all of Rome. We were going to try and make it back to Milan by 1800 for a Christmas part of all Vern’s relatives…we rolled into Milan about 2100, met up with Ryan, Verna’s cousin and went out for dinner…next day back to reality.
Hope you enjoyed, I know I cut things short because I am so behind in my blog, but if there is anything of interest you want to hear about, leave me a comment or send me an email.
Next entry will be more escapades from Iraq!
We also took a tour of the castle; it is the one you see in the Sound of Music movie. We met a guy named Christian from Germany who was there for a business meeting and he let us crash their party and have all the free Hot wine we could drink. The castle will always hold a special place in my heart for a number of reasons.
Salzburg had a beautiful Christmas Market too, which Vern took advantage of and bought herself some nice pink boots! From Salzburg, we left for Wien (Vienna).
Wien is a gorgeous city too, they have an awesome Cathedral and the biggest Christmas Market in Europe, well at least of all that I visited. Again by chance we were in the right place at the right time and Verna snagged us a great deal on a pair of tickets to the Wien Symphony Orchestra featuring music by none other than the one and only Mozart. From Wien to Venice; we thought we had it all figured out so that we could catch the fast train to Venice leaving at 0630 and arriving at 1330. We were all set to go, made it to the train station bright and early only come to find out we were at the wrong station, there is a West Hauptbahnhof and a South Hauptbahnhof. We arrived to Wien via the West, but I failed to see that we needed to leave from the South. We did a little train hopping back and forth, but we were not lucky enough to catch the early train; instead of arriving in Venice by 1330, we arrived at 1800.
We went out for dinner, then ff exploring the nightlife of Venice…needless to say; it was an early night as Venice has no nightlife. We were up early the next morning to explore Venice in the daylight, we did the famous Gondola ride down the Canal Grande, then made our way to San Marco Square and Cathedral – beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and you’ll have to take my word on it, because of our whole trip, those are the only pictures we lost. There is soooo much more to these stories; you will just have to ask. Florence, look out here we come.
I think of all the cities I visited in Italy, Florence is my favorite. It has the right amount of action, shopping, and scenery. On our way to Rome, we took a pit-stop in Pisa to go see the famous Leaning Tower.
Rome is amazing; definitely need more than 2 days here. We arrived Saturday evening, settled into our hotel then went out for a nice dinner. The only disappointment in Rome was that we planned our main sight-seeing day there was a Sunday and Vatican City is closed, that means we did not get to see the Sistine Chapel. We took one of those hop-on hop-off bus tours with the audio tour. I really enjoyed it, there were 12 historic stops on the route and you can stop at whatever one you want and stay as long as you want, the ticket is good for 24 hours, but we only had 12 hours to see all of Rome. We were going to try and make it back to Milan by 1800 for a Christmas part of all Vern’s relatives…we rolled into Milan about 2100, met up with Ryan, Verna’s cousin and went out for dinner…next day back to reality.
Hope you enjoyed, I know I cut things short because I am so behind in my blog, but if there is anything of interest you want to hear about, leave me a comment or send me an email.
Next entry will be more escapades from Iraq!
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