Friday, February 13, 2009
Umm Qasr 02082009
1255 - Since I took my shower last night, after buzzing my hair, I slept in a wee bit, hitting the snooze button a few times. I shaved and waxed my moustache. Yes, it’s looking veddy good these days with adequate waxing.
For 0830, I was out by the helipad. We left for the port and observation of the arriving ferry. We observed nothing because the ferry wasn’t there. The tugboat that nudges the ferry to the pier was tied up where the ferry should be and the ferry’s satellite dish was on the ground, still wired up. We presumed the ferry wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The major fielded some questions from one of the casual laborers on the dock- “Can you help my uncle get his green card?” We shook hands and came back to the camp.
This is the building in the port in the container yards. Men congregate to find labor. Behind this building is a place where a vendor sells drinks and food. The identical portraits are of five of Mohammed’s grandchildren, five subsequent leaders of Islam. I may not have the story quite right. Apparently you’re not supposed to have a depiction of Mohammed but you can have images of others whom you revere.
I checked my emails- nothing useful there. I went to visit Dave the Turner Maintenance supe and had a cuppa with him. Then I stopped by the tailor and asked about getting some embroidery done; he doesn’t do anything like that but I got an invitation to watch some TV and have some hookah. I did both. The hookah was like I remembered from Gannon- tasty and easy to inhale. The TV was OK- some sort of killers with bulging pectorals were in league with gummint baddies. I didn’t pay much attention to the movie. One of the guys got tired of the movie and lay down on a cot for a nap, about a foot behind me. I stayed about 20 minutes, then greeted Ricky, one of the new NCOs.
I walked to the NAAFI smoke pit and had a cigar with Carlie. Well, I had a cigar, she just chatted with me. Heskette got some doggie treats, meowed for more but stopped meowing quickly enough and climbed up on my lap for a nap. This time she laid her head off the side of my lap. I thought that might be OK for a bit but her vertebrae weren’t designed for long-term tippy-over stretching like that. Sure ‘nuff, after a couple of minutes, she slid off my lap and lay on the floor of the smoke pit for a further nap.
Went to lunch and told my “Gunny and the Goldfish” joke getting some appreciative chuckles. Al sat at the next table but didn’t have much going on.
Back in my hooch, I found a movie with Nicholas Cage in which he’s a magician that has a genuine talent for foreseeing the future but only for a few minutes. Right now, the pretty girl stopped him from drinking some drugged orange juice. We’ll see how the movie pans out.
I believe I’ll take my boots off and rest a bit, then maybe clean my rifle. I have a few other things I’d like to do- work on my sketches for a container home, read about the Second Crusade, more about post-WWI Iraq, and clean my hooch. Right now, my hooch is pretty clean, though it’s been a week since I last scrubbed the shower. Should you scrub showers more often? I dunno, I don’t do so at home.
1615 – Missed the 1600 meeting. Hope Al was there and will fill me in on what I missed. The day was pretty nice, so my food-induced coma kept me zonked until after the meeting. I wouldn’t have done this on purpose. I try to participate in as much as I can with the team.
“A Beautiful Mind” is on the tube right now. The commercials are very brief, just two short ones, one for KFC spicey hot chicken and another for a man’s hair product. Now I’m going to have to track what gets sold here. And who’s in the commercials. The KFC commercial had a guy with the Arafat shave and long scraggly hair in some bright red clothes. He takes a bite of the chicken and immediately takes a long belly-flop on snow into a snow bank. He gets up, goes back for more chicken. Then we see a bunch of people sliding on their bellies over snow, presumably for an imminent plunge into many snow banks. The second commercial had this male model with perfectly-falling hair doing a few things to emphasize how perfect his already too-perfect hair is- dancing with the energy only a male model can have, shaking his head in dealing with other people, thereby showing the world how his use of a hair shampoo left his hair cascading around his head and life. The guy seems a bit too metrosexual, if not gay but maybe that’s just my bias against advertising compounded with my lack of understanding of this culture.
2236 – Watching movies on TV. Ben Stiller is getting together with Jennifer Aniston in some romantic chick flick. Oh, the credits just started rolling. I thought I detected some too-thick French accent: it’s Hank Azaria doing the waa-aaay too French ag-zehnt, yew knew? Like Peter Sellers accent on steroids.
Got to 434 wins out of 840 games in Hearts. When will I hit that magic 52%? Oh, I reckon we all need goals in life, even if this one of mine is a bit on the “so-what” side.
At chow tonight, the XO told me the team is going to Bucca tomorrow at 0645. So I reckon my day will be uneventful tomorrow. If I hook up with anyone going to the port, that’ll be fine but I may spend my day lolling around here. Maybe I’ll write or blog or sift through my photos. The nap I had this afternoon seems to have kept me awake for awhile.
Earlier, I went to the smoke pit where Carlie had made a “Happy Birthday” banner for one of the lads who’s 24 today. She hung some chem. Lights from the net, too, making the dreary unpainted wood nailed over a pile of pallets seem festive. I sat around and gave Heskette a few bits of my steak from tea and the last of the baggie with kitty treats and one whole doggie treat. When Carlie brought out her cake to share with one of the other lads, Heskette was eyeballing the cake very, very seriously. “Hey, how come I didn’t get any cake? What, just because I’m one of the feline citizens of Iraq, I can’t have any cake?”
For 0830, I was out by the helipad. We left for the port and observation of the arriving ferry. We observed nothing because the ferry wasn’t there. The tugboat that nudges the ferry to the pier was tied up where the ferry should be and the ferry’s satellite dish was on the ground, still wired up. We presumed the ferry wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The major fielded some questions from one of the casual laborers on the dock- “Can you help my uncle get his green card?” We shook hands and came back to the camp.
This is the building in the port in the container yards. Men congregate to find labor. Behind this building is a place where a vendor sells drinks and food. The identical portraits are of five of Mohammed’s grandchildren, five subsequent leaders of Islam. I may not have the story quite right. Apparently you’re not supposed to have a depiction of Mohammed but you can have images of others whom you revere.
I checked my emails- nothing useful there. I went to visit Dave the Turner Maintenance supe and had a cuppa with him. Then I stopped by the tailor and asked about getting some embroidery done; he doesn’t do anything like that but I got an invitation to watch some TV and have some hookah. I did both. The hookah was like I remembered from Gannon- tasty and easy to inhale. The TV was OK- some sort of killers with bulging pectorals were in league with gummint baddies. I didn’t pay much attention to the movie. One of the guys got tired of the movie and lay down on a cot for a nap, about a foot behind me. I stayed about 20 minutes, then greeted Ricky, one of the new NCOs.
I walked to the NAAFI smoke pit and had a cigar with Carlie. Well, I had a cigar, she just chatted with me. Heskette got some doggie treats, meowed for more but stopped meowing quickly enough and climbed up on my lap for a nap. This time she laid her head off the side of my lap. I thought that might be OK for a bit but her vertebrae weren’t designed for long-term tippy-over stretching like that. Sure ‘nuff, after a couple of minutes, she slid off my lap and lay on the floor of the smoke pit for a further nap.
Went to lunch and told my “Gunny and the Goldfish” joke getting some appreciative chuckles. Al sat at the next table but didn’t have much going on.
Back in my hooch, I found a movie with Nicholas Cage in which he’s a magician that has a genuine talent for foreseeing the future but only for a few minutes. Right now, the pretty girl stopped him from drinking some drugged orange juice. We’ll see how the movie pans out.
I believe I’ll take my boots off and rest a bit, then maybe clean my rifle. I have a few other things I’d like to do- work on my sketches for a container home, read about the Second Crusade, more about post-WWI Iraq, and clean my hooch. Right now, my hooch is pretty clean, though it’s been a week since I last scrubbed the shower. Should you scrub showers more often? I dunno, I don’t do so at home.
1615 – Missed the 1600 meeting. Hope Al was there and will fill me in on what I missed. The day was pretty nice, so my food-induced coma kept me zonked until after the meeting. I wouldn’t have done this on purpose. I try to participate in as much as I can with the team.
“A Beautiful Mind” is on the tube right now. The commercials are very brief, just two short ones, one for KFC spicey hot chicken and another for a man’s hair product. Now I’m going to have to track what gets sold here. And who’s in the commercials. The KFC commercial had a guy with the Arafat shave and long scraggly hair in some bright red clothes. He takes a bite of the chicken and immediately takes a long belly-flop on snow into a snow bank. He gets up, goes back for more chicken. Then we see a bunch of people sliding on their bellies over snow, presumably for an imminent plunge into many snow banks. The second commercial had this male model with perfectly-falling hair doing a few things to emphasize how perfect his already too-perfect hair is- dancing with the energy only a male model can have, shaking his head in dealing with other people, thereby showing the world how his use of a hair shampoo left his hair cascading around his head and life. The guy seems a bit too metrosexual, if not gay but maybe that’s just my bias against advertising compounded with my lack of understanding of this culture.
2236 – Watching movies on TV. Ben Stiller is getting together with Jennifer Aniston in some romantic chick flick. Oh, the credits just started rolling. I thought I detected some too-thick French accent: it’s Hank Azaria doing the waa-aaay too French ag-zehnt, yew knew? Like Peter Sellers accent on steroids.
Got to 434 wins out of 840 games in Hearts. When will I hit that magic 52%? Oh, I reckon we all need goals in life, even if this one of mine is a bit on the “so-what” side.
At chow tonight, the XO told me the team is going to Bucca tomorrow at 0645. So I reckon my day will be uneventful tomorrow. If I hook up with anyone going to the port, that’ll be fine but I may spend my day lolling around here. Maybe I’ll write or blog or sift through my photos. The nap I had this afternoon seems to have kept me awake for awhile.
Earlier, I went to the smoke pit where Carlie had made a “Happy Birthday” banner for one of the lads who’s 24 today. She hung some chem. Lights from the net, too, making the dreary unpainted wood nailed over a pile of pallets seem festive. I sat around and gave Heskette a few bits of my steak from tea and the last of the baggie with kitty treats and one whole doggie treat. When Carlie brought out her cake to share with one of the other lads, Heskette was eyeballing the cake very, very seriously. “Hey, how come I didn’t get any cake? What, just because I’m one of the feline citizens of Iraq, I can’t have any cake?”
# posted by rich @ 8:58 AM 
