Shattered Faith

I bumped my date up a few days. I’ll now be clearing here on the 20th, and departing for Baghdad on the 21st. Brandon informs me that he was told people Demobing now have priority – which if that’s the case is good news indeed. Unfortunately I didn’t know that Brandon doesn’t have any flights leaving for Baghdad from his post on Sundays. I spoke to him today and he said he’s going to leave Saturday then just miss the roll call the next day. That way we can (most likely) end up in Dubai together. Every plan we’ve had so far has been crushed by God, but I’m crossing my fingers.

I packed up two boxes worth of stuff that I’ll be shipping home probably tomorrow morning. I’ve also started to pack my bags. It’s starting to get a little full and I still have some more clothes and another load of laundry that will need to go in there. I’ll have to go through and throw away some stuff I don’t want or need anymore. Looking at you old socks. It’s nice to see my room becoming bare. I took a large 3 drawer plastic thing outside and put it next to the trash. I came outside with another load of garbage 20 minutes later and the thing was already snatched up by someone else. People waste no time whatsoever. I wonder if someone stole the running shoes I threw out. I wouldn’t be surprised.

It looks like I’m leaving just in time too. We just recently got bombarded with a lot of work. Over 100 headsets that need to be fixed, and yesterday two douchebags dropped off 50 Night Vision Goggles. I’ll do what I can but I’m not going to break my back here. I hope my foreman understands that I have short timers complex now. I really just don’t give a crap. It’s hot and this place sucks and I just want to go home. Tomorrow morning they’re taking away my sleeping chair to replace it with a new one. The problem is they don’t have a new one to replace it with yet, so now I’m assed out of my sleeping chair. I’ve grown increasingly fond of sleeping until at least 9 or 9:30 in the morning.

I’m starting to get a little pissed off here. The other day the right speaker in my earbuds decided to shit out on me. I don’t think the PX has any ones that go in ear, so I’m assed out for the time being. I ordered some two days ago from a third party seller on Amazon but they have yet to ship them out. Even worse a few days ago the DVD drive on my laptop took a gigantic crap. It makes a loud clicking noise like it’s trying its damnedest to read a disc, but it never does. This is the second problem I’ve had with this machine so far. Needless to say I’m none too pleased. I should have just paid the extra for a macbook in hindsight. At least I know I’ll be getting a quality machine. I guess this will teach me not to jump on brand new technology. It either sucks, or they drop the price by $200 a week later HELLO IPHONE.

I’m starting to get things rolling for my departure. I’ve emailed the Hyundai dealership and they’ve ordered the car I requested, stating it *should* be waiting for me upon my return. I think I’ll look on Google for some tips on haggling for new cars. I also need to figure out what I’m going to do with my old one. I’d get brutally raped trading it in. If my Aunt’s son in law doesn’t want it nor my friend I guess I can try Craiglist. Today I also emailed my school to see about getting back in for the fall semester. I forgot the place is changing campuses. The new one is bigger and nicer, but the other one was so close to home that I could drive there and back between classes. Unless I have a relatively large break during my schedule I don’t think it’ll be a possibility. Plus I’ll miss it’s closeness to WaWa. DAMNIT. I have to fill out some form and submit it to the VA to get the new GI Bill, so it looks like it’s still on track for an August rollout. I’ve read that they’ll also be accepting more low income people to be covered via VA health care. It’s better than nothing, and I have no other alternatives until Herr Obama and CO come out with some kind of reform. I’m not holding my breath though. Even if they do have some kind of reform, I don’t see it changing anything drastically.

Last night I got bored so I decided it was a good a time as any to scrub down the shower. I scrubbed it all good then started rinsing it out. Now my shower has drained notoriously slow since I arrived here. My missing-since-November-roomate was always the supposed culprit, due to his mane of horse hair. The clogged drain was pissing me off more than usual so I stuck a Q-tip in there to see what kind of gold I could find. It was pretty gross. I glanced about the bathroom for any other bright ideas and then I spotted the plunger. Not expecting it to do much, I plopped it on top of the drain and started pumping. 3 seconds later I’m hit in the face by the god awful stench of death as the shower erupts like a volcano of viscous black goop. It was pretty gross. Unfortunately here was the bad part of my plan: I didn’t have a second part to it. I have a shower full of disgusting disgustingness and nothing to clean it up with. The drain was still clogged, and I had no paper towels or anything. I wet and sponge, kind of folded it like you do when you pick up dog poop and went for the drain. I felt a little resistance then a huge spool of horse hair came out. It was pretty gross. Luckily after I removed it the fetid*** water started to drain. I re-cleaned and rinsed the shower and all was well. Why I waited until less than two weeks before my departure to do this I haven’t the foggiest.

The United States Postal Service kicked some major ass this week. I commend you good sirs. Shipped out Monday by my mother I received my Kindle today after work. 6 days from Pennsylvania to Iraq? Most good. But yes, I splurged on a Kindle. I opted for the regular Kindle 2 instead of waiting for the recently announced, larger Kindle DX. The latter will be larger (I forget the exact dimensions of both) but it’s about the size of a magazine. Not exactly the most portable machine. The price difference I also found relatively insane. The Kindle 2 is already at a pretty retarded price of $359, with the DX reaching $480 or something around that. What the christ? A couple more inches or real estate and about double the internal memory for $120? No. Even the large books are under a megabyte – I don’t think it’s worth it.

Anyway, on to the machine. Initial impressions have been very favorable. The device is retardedly thin, very light and has a nice size screen that’s pleasent on the eyes. The Electronic ink seems to work really well, aside from blowing my god damn mind (it’s REAL INK people in a MACHINE!). I don’t know about E-ink and screen burn-in, I’ll have to look into that. I’m going to assume it’s a non issue, as when you flick the power switch once it goes into ’sleep’ mode where it displays a random authors picture. I’ve already had the pleasure of staring at Mr. Edgar Allen Poe and Oscar Wilde’s beautiful mugs. According to the manual E-ink does not require power to stay visible, which saves an immense amount of battery life. They say it gets about two weeks on a single charge with the wifi off. The kindle feels good in my hands with a solid build. The buttons are all conventiently placed. I think the best thing I’ve seen with it so far is the built in Oxford dictionary. You can scroll onto any word while reading and get a definition of it. Did you know that ‘Vair’ is a blueish-gray fur trim typically obtained from a type of squirrel? I sure as fuck didn’t – but apparently I was supposed to know this. This is going to be the most handy thing ever. Plus I can search wikipedia whenever I damn feel like it once I can use the wifi/whispernet service. This thing is pretty damn rad so far. I also got a leather cover to keep it safe. It’s the official one, which apparently isn’t the best one but it suits me fine and doesn’t cost a third of what the kindle did itself like the “premium” covers. The only thing I wish it had was some way to keep it closed, but it should suffice.

Work was long, boring and relatively shitastic today. I was dilligently working (sleeping) this morning when the power decides to go out around 8:30. Now this is about the fourth time the power has gone out in the past week. How convenient, as soon as it gets stupid hot (it was in the 120s today). I tried to ignore it, hoping it would come back on but it won and eventually sweated me out. The power was still out by lunch when I decided to go to the PX to pick up some much needed Monster Java drinks that I’m completely addicted to now. It’s a coffee energy drink that sounds disgusting but it’s freaking amazing. So I walk to the PX, in the 120 degree sun, to find that the PX doesn’t have power either. Excellent. Now I’m hot, sweaty AND monsterless. The power decided not to return to us until about 4:30. The only thing that salvaged this day was the arrival of my Kindle.

That and I’ll be flying out of Balad in 4 weeks and 4 days. WHHAATTT

I’m guessing my pores just ooze nerd. All my friends know that I am, but I didn’t think it was so obvious to the general public. Last week I was on watching-Iraqi-duty again and this guy started talking to me. A rather large, rather scary black dude to be precise. We started bullshitting about how much the job sucks, etc when he kind of squints his eyes at me (the nerd must have been blotting my forehead and cheeks at this point) and asks me if I know anything about video games. I paused for a second and told his yes. He then said “Let me guess. W. O. W”. Jesus Christ. How do these people know? I can’t tell if someone is a Warcraft player by just looking at them (usually). So we start talking about it and it turns out ths dude is a complete addict to the game. It just took me back a little bit as he was the complete opposite of a pasty white geeky dude which is who I usually associate with as Warcraft players. unfortunately now every time he sees me (like on the bus) he either has to start talking about it, or even worse pretending to unsheathe daggers from his back and stab me or some shit. Turn it down just a bit dude. Please. Although if he heard half the conversations I have with my friends he would be in nerd heaven. It’s true, sorry guys.

Some good came out of today however. I saw my name on the list as having a large envelope in the mail room. It turned out to just be another damn Eastbay magazine. However the guy in the front asked if I wanted to check for any letters. I said yeah, as I’ve only done it twice the whole time I’ve been here. I dont get nor expect a bunch of letters. He handed me an envelope from Dell with “Thank You” on the front. I thought it was just advertising for more crap that I don’t want to buy and was about to throw it in the trash right there. Luckily for me I decided to open it, and what’s inside? A God damn $200 gift card. And what did I read about on the Internets the other day? A new Dell mini netbook that costs $199. Kick ass. I have nothing else to buy from them so it looks like I’ll be the owner of a new Netbook soon. I really don’t have the need for one, but I’m sure it can find its uses. Or it could make a good gift. I’ll have to see. Regardless. Check your mail people. I wouldn’t have been suprised by a $20 card or something.. but $200. shit. I think this makes up for my laptops hard drive crashing on me after a month of use.

in 41 days, one day less than a full six weeks, I’ll be flying out of Balad. That’s not too bad. I pray to the Gods that I don’t get stuck in Baghdad for too long.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

R.I.P Bea Arthur. You’ll be missed. Only two Golden Girls left :(

I have another post too, I’ll post it tomorrow. But I just found out about this.

Whoops. Let my domain expire again. Sorry about that.

I had all these little mini updates that I had been jotting down on my laptop and phone on my way home during my last R&R. The beers in the airport.. the weird nerdy white guy who sat next to me telling me sex stories from Thailand.. all sorts of crap. Unfortunately I didn’t post right away when I got home. A few days later in Florida my hard drive decided to shit itself. It was impossible (for me) to recover any information that I had on it. It’ll teach me to back up my stuff more often at least.

Regardless, R&R was a lot of fun. I enjoyed my time in Florida with the Grandparents just lounging around. We ate out a lot which was expected. I saw two movies while there, The Reader and Gran Torino. The Reader was excellent but then again I’m biased towards Kate Winslet. I even enjoyed The Holiday because of her which was odd considering my hatred for Cameron Diaz and Jude Law. Gran Torino was great as well. Mr. Eastwood has been on quite the roll lately.

Seeing my family and friends was great too. I met my Mom’s new boyfriend who seems like an extremely nice guy. The night we met we drove out towards Philly to eat at the closest German restaraunt. I opted for the Jaeger Schnitzel with Spaetzle. Mmmm. I wish we had a place like that which was a little closer. Joey, Tim and Ashleigh came down for the weekend to see me which was really nice. I’ve yet to make it up to New York to visit Joey and I feel pretty bad about it, although I just couldn’t find the right time to go. The weekends were my only real option. I’ll have plenty of time when I get home.

Aaaand speaking of which, I’ve crossed the 3 month threshold. I’m praying it goes by quickly, but I know it’ll be gnawing at the back of my brain the whole time. Not to mention it’s going to start getting hot as balls again which will make me just miserable. 90ish days.. 12 weeks.. 6 pay periods. Maybe it’s better if I don’t count.

I’m typing this up on my new computer. Ooooooooooohh. It came in yesterday and I took off a few hours so I could copy all my stuff over and play with it. So far I’m rather impressed. The whole thing is piano black with leather accents which looks fantastic albeit a fucking fingerprint magnet. The blacklit keyboard and touch sensitive media controls are a nice touch. I had some issues with the controls last night until I realized it’s easier to kind of swipe your finger over them instead of pressing on it. The keys are tactile enough and it’s large enough to pleasently type on it, but I think I would have prefered individual keys ala Macbooks. It has a slot loading DVD burner which is always nifty but it’s a little loud. The embedded webcam can double as a ‘biometric security’ feature that will log me into the computer by analyzing my face. Apparently it takes a little bit to work consistently so as such it’s been a little finicky. A neat feature if a little gimmicky. However it can also log you into websites my scanning your face, so once I can actually get on the internet I’ll give that a try. Dell has come a tremendous way style wise with these new laptops. While it’s not a macbook quality wise, it’s close enough at a fraction of the cost. Color me pleased.

I’m down 12 pounds from when I initially started tracking my progress. I can’t see a difference in the way I look yet but I tried on the pants that I couldn’t quite button anymore and they fit almost perfectly now. Yay for results. I’m feeling really good about this and I have no doubt that I can keep it up and reach a long term goal.. when I decide to set one. I’m going to stick with the cardio here for now. I’ve been rocking the treadmill and I’m glad I made the switch. I’ve had to deal with heel blisters, rubbing thighs and nipple chaffing but It’s been worth it. It kicks my ass which tells me I’m actually doing something. I’m going slow and steady right now, but I’m consistently doing between 3 and 4 miles when I run. Eventually I plan to incorporate some kind of high intensity interval training into the mix, ala sprints. I know I really need to do weights, but I just don’t care for the facility here. I’m unfamiliar with most of the equipment and it gets absolutely packed. I’ll prefer it at home when I can go during off times and not worry about looking like an ass since there won’t be many people there. A retarded excuse, I know – but I’m full of them.

KBR as a company has come under increasing scrutiny from the military and legal persons a lot more as of late. Investigations into shoddy electrical work killing people, missing equipment due to negligence, etc. I don’t really care if they continue with their contracts or not. As long as I can finish out my year so I don’t get fucked on taxes then I’m set.

3 weeks until I’m home again. That came by really quickly. Let’s hope the 3 months afterward fly by too.

Although it will be balls hot. BALLS HOT. (continue reading…)

My itinerary options opened up for my R&R in March. They offered me two flights. The first one is basically the same one I took in November. Dubai straight to Washington/Dulles, then to Allentown. I arrive around 10 AM (or 10:30, can’t remember) for $1,167. The second option was from Dubai (leaving two hours later) to Frankfurt, then to Philadelphia. I arrive at 8 something at night (an hour away from Allentown mind you) and it cost $1,996. Hmmmmmm. Yeah, it was a tough decision. After much deliberation I opted for the former. I went onto United’s website and paid $298 to upgrade the seats since I was rather uncomfortable last time. Being tall can really suck. My knees were pressed against the food tray in front of me the entire flight, and that’s with the person keeping their seat in the upright position. If they put that bitch down.. God help me. The upgrade puts you in Economy plus which nets you 5 extra inches of leg room. I looked at a seating chart and saw for both flights they had aisle seats in the very first row available. I’m assuming these are those seats where there is nothing but the wall in front of you, giving me the option to stretch out or cross my legs. I’m hoping. So those were the ones I picked. Worth the $300 for such long flights I feel. Maybe this time I’ll get served dinner first too so they won’t run out of the god damn chicken by the time they get to me.

I’ve also decided to go ahead and splurge on a new laptop. I didn’t really want to get a new one, but the current one decided that whenever I try to run more than one program at once it tells me No. Awesome. Fuck multi-tasking anyway. So I went completely over the top as usual and configured a Dell XPS m1330 (the 13.3″) that came out to almost $2900. The thing was pretty beastly for such a little package, but so was the price. I googled Dell Coupons and stumbled across one that said 25% off any xps m1330 order over $1700. Bitchin! So it brought it down to just under $2200. Still expensive, but that’s quite the discount. I go ahead and order it and not 3 days later I get an email from Dell offering for me to be an early adopter of the NEW Dell studio XPS 13. Leather accents, piano black (finger print magnet I’m sure). Everything about it (except less ram) was better, and after I configured it for shits and giggles it came out to $1619. What. The. Fuck. What abysmal timing. By then I still had a few days until the original order’s ship date so I figured I’ll take a risk. I went and ordered the new studio XPS and sent them an email asking them to cancel the original order. Their website says they respond to all emails within 24 hour or less – which is bullshit because it took them three god damn days. Finally on the day of the supposed shipping I got an email saying they cancelled my original order. It worked out but I was worried for a minute. If they didn’t cancel it I would have ended up with two laptops, and their restocking fee can be up to 15% if the item doesn’t have any faults. That would have sucked a bit.

Merry Christmas!

Here is my post that has been sitting on my computer as a draft for fucking ever:

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It’s one in the morning and I can’t sleep. My schedule has been royally screwed up ever since I came back. I took off today for Thanksgiving and I thought it would help, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. I slept in to around 7, went to the bathroom then passed out again until noon. I got some lunch, watched “Wanted” (mildly amusing) then fell asleep again until about 5:30. I watched “Get Smart” (not terrific but I enjoyed it overall) and I haven’t been able to sleep since. I have work in a few hours.. it’s going to be a shit day. I’m making some tea but I forgot my cup at work so I’m using an empty Frappuccino glass. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to be able to grab it without scalding myself. God damn you tea.

I changed the layout to the site pretty much right before I left home to return. I was writing a blog post but never got around to finishing it, so I’ll just start again. I had an excellent time at home. Unfortunately I was sick for quite a large chunk of it, but not enough to completely incapacitate me. Early on I was at a friends house who had a cat and I figured it was just my allergies.. but it never went away. I’m still coughing up some nasty shit now. Could have been the temperature change – who knows. I got to spend time with my family and friends which was fantastic. I went to the movies twice, the first time seeing “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”. The pacing was a little slow but the ending was quite the mind fuck. Excellent movie overall though, I recommend it. The other movie was “Role Models”. A comedy about Larpers (people who pretend to have epic fantasy battles all decked out in outfits and hitting each other with foam swords and such) with rather foul language. It was pretty good and shared some cast from Apatow comedies but nothing fantastic by any means. Now speaking of fantastic…

I went to the Hyundai dealership with my grandpa and test drove a Genesis. Holy shit. What an awesome car. I only saw a few on the lot and ended up driving a white V6 with a beige interior. Not my color choice at all but it didn’t look bad at all. The first thing I noticed getting in was that the seats were large and extremely comfortable. The leather felt great to me, so I don’t know what the V8’s “Premium” leather would be like. This damn thing had buttons and lights and gadgets all over the damn place. I hit the “start” button (awesome) and the steering wheel lowered itself then pushed itself out towards me (awesome). The screen inside the vehicle functions for the GPS, Music, Car Information and Backup Camera. It’s large and looks good and the whole system seemed to work out rather well. Dual climate control. Heated (AND COOLED!) driver seat. The passenger seat doesn’t have the cooling option. I’m not sure the justification for that, but whatever. I loooved it. Let’s just hope they can offer me some kind of deal when I go to buy it. I *AM* offering to purchase their most expensive vehicle while the economoy is shite, afterall.

My PS3’s disc drive stopped working shortly before leave so I had to send it into Sony to get it fixed ($140 :( ). It’s still at home now so I got an Xbox 360 to keep me company for the rest of my time here. I don’t know how I’m going to make room for all this crap when I get home. I’m thinking about getting an apartment when I get home depending on the amount of the housing allowance that the GI Bill gives me. It should cover rent, but then I wont have an income coming in to cover any other expenses. Unless I, like.. got a job. But I don’t think that’s an option right now.

Christmas is coming and December is winding down. All I need to do is make it through January and February until I get to come home again. So that’s my short term goal. I might have to stand outside for hours watching Iraqi dudes play with ply wood again on Christmas Day. What fun.. I can’t wait.

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