latest on my deployment to Iraq

Friday, March 5, 2010

Update from Baghdad...

I know, I know, I'm terrible about posting updates here... I'll give you a couple of excuses (they may not be good excuses, but it's all I've got!) First, it's kinda like the movie 'Groundhog Day' around here, so it feels like there may not be anything worth writing about. And second, I have been pretty busy - but busy with things that either I can't really talk about, or more likely busy with things that would just be boring to talk about!

I do try to take pictures whenever I see something new, or something interesting, or just something strange (lots of that here!) And instead of trying to paste pics in here (not so simple in Blogger), I'm just posting them all on my Picasa site (that's really easy): http://picasaweb.google.com/bultar/PicsFromVictoryBaseComplex#

Last night I tried to take some pics of the army of spiders crossing the sidewalk from the lake to the palace, but it was too dark (no flash on my iPhone), but that was pretty weird! No, they weren't those big camel spiders (I would have pulled my weapon on even one of those things!), they were just little things, but lots of them, partially illuminated by distant headlights.

I think that last pics I posted were from the X-Dog Race I ran a few weeks ago, the "Slayer Scramble", and there are more pics of that on their website: http://www.xdogevents.com/slayerscramble.php. There are a few other 5k or 10k events coming up that I will try to run. And this weekend, I'm going to my first hash out here!

The Lost Lake Hash House Harriers (L2H3) has been hashing here for years, but hasn't been active since last fall... so we're bringing it back to life! (We would be me, an old SD hashing friend, and a couple of hashers I met here through the Las Vegas email list.) Hopefully we'll get some interest and get a regular hash going.
Oh, and can I talk about the weather some more?! It's sure not what I expected! Since I've been here, we've had clear sunny days in the 80's, comfortable nights in the 50's, then days with highs in the 40's and lows below freezing, beautiful clear deep blue skies, then dust in the air so it looks like orange moonlight, rain both when it's hot and cold, and rain when it's dusty which means the rain is really drops of mud! But it hasn't been uncomfortably hot - yet, I know that's coming, and we haven't had a 'real' dust storm yet where we need to where goggles and dust masks... can't wait for that... :-/

There are interesting things going on around here these days... but you'd be better off watching the news, or digging around with Google to find out about things like the elections going on this weekend.

Several folks have asked what kind of things I might like sent to me in a care package, and I really appreciate the offers, but honestly, just an email, letter, text msg, etc., is about all I need. I can get just about anything out here that one can get back home (well except beer, but that will have to wait til I get home - don't try to send beer, I'll get in trouble!) Keep in touch!

Cheers, B

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Is it still snowing back there??

And by "back there", I pretty much mean everywhere except in Iraq and Vancouver... No snow here, but we get some nasty yucky messy mud when it rains! Or, when the fire department hoses down parts of a race course. I ran the "Slayer Scramble" this morning, an X-Dog event, http://www.xdogevents.com/slayerscramble.php which was great! I'm pretty beat now though. I'll post some pics of that too.

I know I've been really bad about posting here, and I've been pretty bad about keeping up with writing anyone (except for Victoria), but I'll get better! As I mentioned in last post, it's much easier for me to post pictures by just loading them on my Picasa site, and just include the link here, so check there for pics! No good excuse for not writing much, but I have been pretty busy (and the internet is not nearly as fast or reliable as it is back home).
So pics will always be here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bultar/PicsFromVictoryBaseComplex#
(I just need to start putting some labels/explanations on them)

And I've been working on pimping out my chu (that's compartmentalized housing unit) - it's a mess now, but I'll post some pics soon. Vic sent me some things from home, and I've been ordering things online. Pretty much all online stores will ship out here (with some exceptions, like I don't think anyone will ship electronics out here).
My room is in a mobile home-like building split into thirds, I'm in the middle room. There are no bathrooms or showers attached. The showers are in a trailer, and the bathrooms are in a different trailer. But I'm lucky because I only have about a 50' walk to either trailer - that's about the closest of anybody out here, I'm in a good spot.

My "trailer" where I work is tucked around behind the Al Faw Palace. I posted a few pics of the trailer already.
I don't have any pics (yet?) of the dinning facility (DFAC), because we're not supposed to take pics in there. But I'll get some sooner or later. The one shot I posted of guy cooking on a makeshift grill was at a local Iraqi restaurant in the Iraqi forces section of the base. That was an interesting dinner, pretty good food actually.

Do I ever leave the base? No. I don't have any reason to leave the base. Whenever I run, it's always inside the wire. If I were to leave the base for a meeting or something, I'd probably fly out to another similar secure base. I don't think I'll be driving out of the gate, but if so, I'd be all dressed out in body armor, in an armored vehicle, in a convoy, with lots of pros at that work... but I really don't see that happening.

The weather has been mostly nice since I got here. Highs have been 60's-70's, lows mostly in 50's, but lately some nights down to freezing (hit 28 a while back). It's drizzled a lot, but really rained a lot just once - what a mess! I really didn't expect this much cold... But I'll miss it when it gets up to 120-130!

And to answer a couple of questions...

1. Do you have much contact with the locals or should I assume you guys are fairly insulated there?
-- Since I never leave the base, no contact with "locals", but there are a bunch of TCNs (Third Country Nationals) or all kinds of nationalities that work here, and I try to interact with them. (I'm working on my Ugandan... "Sula Bulungi"!)

2. And no, I haven't found the hot tub in the palace... yet.

Monday, January 25, 2010

let's try this again...

and again... I've tried to post an update a few times lately, but I've had internet issues that kept it from going through. Let's face it, the internet is just not as fast or reliable as it is back home. (and it's expensive!)
So, this is gonna be short, just to let you know everything's going fine out here. Tomorrow is my change of command when I take over as OIC of the detachment. And I'm looking at easier ways to post photos here (I've been taking a ton, but only posted a few), so let's see if this link to a Picasa Web Album works:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bultar/PicsFromVictoryBaseComplex# I'm thinking of uploading lots of pics to Picasa, then just post a link here in updates, we'll see how this works.

Oh, and for those of you that asked for my mailing address, please email me again and I'll send it to you, I don't think I'll post it here.

Keep in touch!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

To the Bat Cave!

You'd probably never guess, but that 'adope teepee looking thing' is a bat cave... I don't have the full story yet, but aparantly there were bats around here, living somewhere that was somehow disturbed by the shooting/bombing, so we built this thing so they'd have a place to live. But I guess they didn't like it, and never moved in. Pretty strange.

The next shot is another look down one of the "lanes" between rows of Chus. The concrete blast protection is called "T-wall" (if you could turn one of the 12 foot high things upside down, it would look like a "T").

All of the Chus are surrounded by T-wall, each building, then the entire complex, it's quite a maze of concrete and gravel. The ground everywhere is covered in gravel - it's kinda difficult to walk around, but when it rains it's more than worth it, without the gravel it turns into a really nasty mud pit (I haven't seen that yet, but have heard stories).

The 3rd pic is taken from me sitting in my bed, looking across my room, at my new (used) tv! Big ol' blank wall with a little 13" tv sitting on a box on the floor - it's a far cry from my usual tv set up at home! I'm going to get more furniture, and spend the next few months pimping out my Chu. (the Taj-Ma-Tent comes to mind, for any of you that get that reference ;)

I just got back from my first run around the base, it was only 2-3 miles, but was nice to get out and start to see the place on foot.

Timed to get cleaned up, and hit the DFAC (Dining FACility) for dinner.

More later!

(if you have Skype, call me sometime! "Bultar2020")

(if you don't have it, it's great, give it a try!)