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24 Aug 2009
Basra Tower
Last evening, as I headed to dinner, I caught a glimps of the rare cloud-filled sky in Basra. In fact, the clouds were beautifully formed, and I saw a photo opportunity. But I couldn’t just snap a photo of the sky, I needed something “Basra” in it. The air control tower! Perfect. Except I had to drive around the COB until I could line the shot up. It was almost too late, but I think it came out pretty cool.

 
Army Deployment , General
posted by  henry at  11:50 | permalink | trackbacks [5051]



20 Aug 2009
Fantasy Football Maneuvers

Fantasy football season crept up on me this year! It may have something to do with being deployed, having almost no Internet, and no TV to keep up with sports. For many, that’s no excuse! Like Major Jim Reis- he has been keeping up with his fantasy sports newsletters and was bugging me to get a good enough Internet connection so that he could do his fantasy draft! “OPI: Other People’s Internet.” Of course, not all fantasy leagues and software require the Internet to draft. [here comes the pitch!] PC Drafter is an application we developed with 4for4.com and Brandie Searle to give fantasy players a tremendous advantage on draft day. PCDrafter not only ranks players based your league’s particular scoring rules, but it also receives updated fantasy projections at the click of a button from the best forecasters in the league: 4for4.com . At this time of year, projections are being updated and released several times a week. What’s more, PC Drafter takes into account the makeup of each of your competitors’ teams, and overall league-wide need for certain positions. It makes each pick count because the software projects if you need to take the standout tight end now, or if he should be there your next go-around so that you can continue grabbing the star running backs and wide receivers.
There’s much more to it, explained at the pcDrafter website. Getting into the statistics and predictive behaviors of fantasy football is exactly what interests me: I couldn’t name 10 standout players right now, but I can draft a fantasy team that will grade out in the top 1 or 2 of even the most experienced league, just by using PCDrafter. Give it a shot if you’ve got the same warrior spirit as our military: it’s all about out-maneuvering your enemies!
 
ACI , Army Deployment , General
posted by  henry at  12:32 | permalink | trackbacks [382]



19 Aug 2009
Heat, Humidity, and Laundry
The wind changed on Tuesday. It brought with it the humidity of the Persian Gulf, so for the last few days, we’ve had 115 to 120 degrees, with 40% humidity. As one officer pointed out, we're surrounded by sand in 7 of the 8 compass directions, and wouldn't you know it, the wind is now coming from the one direction that carries the ocean humidity!
I know this first started Tuesday, because that’s when I went for a morning run and first noticed it...about 5 seconds after stepping outside my CHU! Normally, when I run I’ll sweat a little bit, so little that the heat often evaporates it before it dampens my shirt. Not Tuesday! As the photo tries to show, I was drenched after a 5K run around the COB at 5:30am.

In temperatures like this, there’s a critical laundry issue: it takes 2 days to get your laundry back, but if you’ve got a normal amount of t-shirts and underwear in your laundry bag, 2 uniforms in your bag puts you over the weight limit. Which means that if you’re going through 1 uniform a day, but only getting 1 back every two days, you’re destined to run out of uniforms! Some soldiers have two laundry bags, but not everyone. Not just any laundry bag will do, unlike other bases such as Adder. You have to have the official heavy-mesh bag, with a color-coded numbered tag. They started running out of bags as the base grew last April & May.
 
Army Deployment , General
posted by  henry at  11:37 | permalink | trackbacks [592]



14 Aug 2009
Internet Available in Basra living areas
After 9 months in Basra, I finally have my own Internet connection! The COB has awarded an Iraqi-based company, Al Dalham, with a contract for wireless and wired Internet service. They have several bandwidth options, but the common plan seems to be 128K for $70/month.
Several visits to their office, and lots of trying to connect, revealed there was just too much spectrum interference for me to use wifi. So the manager dispatched these two young men, who quickly set up a receiver, spliced the Cat V cable, and configured my IP addresses to have a wired connection.
I was impressed. But for my readers that are headed to Basra, be patient! It took about 2 weeks of me working with the Al Dalham team, showing them my problems, and patiently returning time after time.
They're on a learning curve, but I'll say this: they're learning fast. I expect it's already twice as good as when I bought in two weeks ago.
There was some give and take, too. I helped proof-read some of their marketing material, and I escorted one of their technicians out to the antenna that was giving me trouble.
So in the big picture, how does this mirror the growth and progress in Iraq? Very well, I think.
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ACI , Army Deployment , Family , General
posted by  henry at  04:30 | permalink | trackbacks [1284]



29 Jul 2009
Happy Anniversary, Lisa!
Today marks our 20th Anniversary. Lisa and I are enjoying a fantastic marriage, but certainly this deployment will be an interruption we won't forget.

On our 10th anniversary, Ethan was just 5 months old, so we mutually decided to postpone a celebration vacation until our 11th anniversary! So now on our 20th, the decision to postpone a vacation has been made for us.

There were two small things I could do to celebrate my wonderful bride. In Christiansburg, I rented the local flower shop's sign:

I sent her flowers, too, but I couldn't hang those on the sign!

In Basra, I made coordination back in June to fly my own US Flag over the Division Headquarters in honor of the occasion. They have a program for this, and Major General Nash provided a very nice certificate recognizing our anniversary. I coordinated to be the one to hoist it, so my day started at 7am, raising this flag over the 34th Division Headquarters, Coalition Operating Base Basra.

Notice I'm squinting: the sun's up at 4:30am, so by 7am, it's not only bright, but hot!

So, to Lisa,
It has been the best 20 years a guy good hope for- and more. It still feels like the beginning of our marriage, because there's so much more ahead of us. I love you deeply. and I owe you one heck of a great vacation! How about we go someplace with lots of water?
 
Army Deployment , Family , General
posted by  henry at  05:02 | permalink | trackbacks [388]





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