Back to my home away from home away from home

Due to circumstances beyond my control (and the fact that I really, really like to sweat and eat sand), it's my turn to go on a three-month "bender" to the "Garden Spot of the Middle East", AKA "the Sandbox", "the S**thole", "I-Whack" or otherwise known as Iraq. As most readers of "The Warren" know, I spent the summer of 2003 sweating myself to death in Baghdad, or as I called it then, "Fragdad". I was located at coalition base were the Al-Faw Palace found (I contributed to the construction of a very prominent landmark while there) and where a certain LTC keeps sending Bigwig photos of Iraqi birds. Unfortunately, I won't be going back to Fraggie this time. I'll be located at another base. From what I have been told, things have gotten much better vis-a-vis living conditions from the last time I was there.

I do not know how much "blogging" I will be able to do since I don't know what Internet access will be. Depending on the base, the access could be rather "wild 'n' wooly" (everything open except porn sites) or "locked down" (everything blocked including and not limited to Yahoo!, CNN, FOX, etc.). Sometimes the military goes overboard on network security to the point that it affects the users ability to do their jobs which is what happens when "amateurs" are put in charge of network security. Example: Many years ago when I was working on an airbase in Saudi Arabia (another sandbox), Hotmail webmail was blocked, but not Yahoo! or Excite. The reason was the words "hotmail" had a pornographic connotation for the military who were controlling the Internet, ergo, it had to be blocked. BTW, anything with naked or scantily-clad women was off-limits in Saudi. The Saudis would even open and censor our mail ("opened for your protection") that arrived in country just to make sure nobody from the states was sending us subversive things like Vic's Secret catalogs or Sports Illustrated.

Anyway, I'll see what exactly I can do when I get there. If worse comes to worse, I'll send stuff to the Cap'n and he can post it for me. Some may think that three months is a hardship, but since I don't drink "adult beverages", this will be kind of like a vacation from the real world. For three months, I only have to worry about working, eating, sleeping and running in my spare time. What happens anywhere else will not be important since I won't be able to leave until my three months is up. So, like they say in Jamaica, "Don't worry, mon. Be happy."