Dag Nabbit I'm Hungry...!

Well due to the very real threat that we have in my current locale in this world and due to the overwhelming response to my last outing I have decided not to go out unless well equipped if you catch my drift. So I have listen to everyone and have not gone out since the last time, but that leaves me hungry for my entire shift. I usually eat lunch at 11:30 and then go to bed some time between 2-4pm. There a meeting at 5:30 that I am suppose to attend so that means waking up to go to this stupid meeting and which can last up to an hour talking about the same thing we just talked about the day before. So then I have the task of TRYING to go back to sleep, because anyone that has worked nights knows that if you don't get enough sleep it makes the day last longer. Not only that, but you find yourself working harder at staying awake than trying to work hard...

So to continue with the story we have an abundance of MRE's and if you have ever had a MRE after a while they begin to taste the same. So tonight I was really hungry, but I didn't want to eat another MRE. Well I didn't eat another, not the meal anyway. I took the crackers and some cheese from one of the packs and had my little snack. Sadly it has lasted me the entire night of my shift. So now all I have to do is wait another 4 hours till lunch time...

Love ya

K

Orion Has Returned...

The dumb managers continue, but I am not going to even start on that.

For those that do not know I have a fondness for the constellation Orions Belt. Well it has been on summer break and I haven't been to happy about that, but just the other day I saw him just before day break. I was happy to see my starlit friend there in the sky. I often think back to days past when I look up to the sky and the stars above. Back when I use to climb on the roof attached to my room and stare up at the stars. I know I'm not that old, but that seems forever ago. I am forever amazed at how simple life was back then. Nothing else mattered except the next game of basketball, or kickball or freeze tag. There weren't any wars or terrorist, or insurgents at least there wasn't on our block and growing up that's all that mattered was your block, your neighborhood, your small little speck on this world.

When did it start getting so complicated...? I can't really remember when the change happened. When the world started to affect me in ways I can't explain. Politics, religion, hate, love, greed, trust, poverty, equality, all apart of the complication of getting older or better yet more mature. Why is it we let these things affect us so much, for some they rule their lives like a drug. I still don't know at 30 (almost) what I want to do with my life which in a sense makes me feel younger, but I don't have the luxury of procrastinating as far as making a decision. When did it matter that you choice a career or a lifestyle that you wanted and why. Hunger must be setting in I better get something to eat... :)

K

My Evening STARe

As I look into the nights sky at the half moon in the darkness above
I wonder what doom is going to befall this land tomorrow
All the gloom in this world can only be conquered by prayers and love
Somewhere a fathers cries out, and a mother’s tears fall in sorrow
I look in the mirror and smile thinking of all the good in my life
My family, my friends, and loved ones and all the memories we’ve shared
I can’t imagine where I would be if it weren’t for the hard times and strife
No telling what kind of man I would have been if I wouldn’t have dared
To be more than they said I would to challenge those that were against me
To rise up again and again, against all odds, opposition on my back
My life has been a book and I share it openly for all the world to see
No matter who or what you are I have thwarted every single attack
I have overcome, I have endured I have survived everything thrown my way
GOD’s sword, my shied, his word has always been there for my protection
My strength has been tested time and again, but to this day I have yet to sway
So much can be seen when I look back upon my reflection
That is me… simply a grain of sand on a never ending beach
I will not falter, that you can believe with your hearts, I am perseverance
Lord knows my life has been a lesson, for other to learn and reach
For that place that seems so far away like in a dream, or trance
All you have to do is believe in what you see when you look in the mirror…

ken \KEN\ noun 1 a : the range of vision b : sight, view *2 : the range of perception, understanding, or knowledge. Means "strong, healthy" in Japanese

An interesting word that I found... Huh I like that...

K-dub

Love and Peace

The Bad Get Worse

Now here I am warning all those back home not to watch the news, because things are "Reportedly" going to get worse, well even though the security manager informed our management that it isn't wise to travel they decide to send a few guys to the field anyway. Now the area they were traveling to is the IZ, or Green Zone whatever they call it nowadays. So at the risk of lives it was more important to get the job done. Now because it is ill advised to travel that is by car, air travel is unaffected by what is going on right now. So with that being said why is it that we send twelve people into danger by highways, when we can send the 4 that have to get the job done by airway safely.

That's the question isn't it...

Did I ever tell you that it was told to me by a fellow co-worker that one of the managers stated that some casualities are considered and expected, and in some cases acceptable...

I am getting very tiresome with these decisions and recklessness or better yet reckless decisions...

Peace be unto me....



K

From Toilets 2 Towers...

Now I don't think I could beat it into anyone any more than I all ready have about the idiots running this place. Well the next story I have to tell will blow you away. I would say the one thing that is most important about having LN's work for an American based company getting paid by OUR tax dollars is that they at least speak and read English. Now under normal circumstances the need for this may not apply, but given that our job is to support the US Armed Forces then I would say it does. Now I do not have any problems with those that work with us, they are just trying to survive the best way they know how, my problem is still with our management. Now I may not fully feel comfortable having so many LN’s and especially on such short notice, but there isn’t much I can do about that.

Not so long ago we had 2 tower guys (that are no longer with us) that were local nationals and they did an ok job from what their American counterparts said. The problem was that neither one was fluent in English which means that a lot of what was instructed to them has to be done by an interpreter. I use to work with interpreters when I worked at AT&T (which seems so long ago). The one thing you have to watch out for is the small subtle differences in the 2 languages. My point of saying that is simply out an instruction can be completely misinterpreted if the one relaying the message isn’t clear himself. The problem here was that both of the tower guys hired not only couldn’t read or write English or even speak it well, but they couldn’t read or write in Arabic either. In case you are wondering Arabic is the language spoken in the Middle East. Still do not have a problem with that, because they were hard workers, but their level of standards would never make it in a commercial environment.

My point of bringing this up wasn’t in any way to do harm to Local Iraqi’s they are only playing the hand they were dealt and doing it admirably on top of that. I brought it up to show the continued idiotic decisions made by those that take our tax dollars and waste it on the good of the company not the good of the country. The sad part of all of this is I haven’t even gotten to my point. Mohammed (Our custodial engineer) is a bright young man about the age of 19. As far as I know he has no father that he speaks of, he is Muslim with a Catholic girlfriend, and has a fixation with physical gratification (layman’s terms that’s sex). Now Mohammed as I have mentioned in the past makes $15 a day which adds up to a wonderful $360 a month bringing his annual salary to just under 5 grand a year. Now this is actually a very good salary for an Iraqi national. Now as far as I have been told the “LN technicians” are getting $40 a day, or just under $13,000 a year. I could be mistaken in the numbers, but I fairly certain that I am not. Well our kind hearted hard working janitor has received a promotion while I was away on break. He is now our local national tower hand, from custodial engineer to telecommunication engineer. Not exactly the kinda of transition you would see in the commercial world, at least not any I have ever worked before now.

I have found it increasingly difficult to continue to deal with this place when there is nothing but donkeys running the show. I swear to ALMIGHTY GOD if there was someone I could talk to I would, because this mess is getting out of control. I worry less about bombs and more about the complete ignorance of our managers and that can have a dangerous affect especially given my location. I am not much of a manager nor have I ever really wanted to be, but as I have said before monkeys could run this place better…

Keep hope alive…

Maybe we will get a chimp for a new manager…

Doubtful they are too smart to come here…

KO

Another Day Another Dollar

I have never trusted the decision making abilities of my employers, but that goes without saying. Any time you think it is more important to get a job done on a daily basis rather than care about the welfare of your employees then your incompetence speaks for itself. So like I have mentioned in the past we have a new multimillion dollar camp site (not worth a dime) that is the topic of discussion for most of the meeting I was at yesterday.

So now sergeant major calls me up out of dead sleep to attend the meeting the day before so apparently it more important for me to be at the meeting than it is to get sufficient rest for the next days work. The meeting is at 5:30pm and my shift starts at midnight. I treat it like I would if my shift were at 8 in the morning, so I stay up after I get off and go to bed between 3-4pm which just so happens to be 8 hours before my shift begins. Now if you have ever worked third shift no matter how easy the job may be you are aware of how difficult it is to stay awake if you do not have a good days rest. So yesterday I set my alarm 5 minutes before the time of the meeting. I wake up and go to the common area and they are still having a meeting with the LN's (local nationals). Their meeting is running into our time and I have only had about an hour and half of sleep. By the time they get done it is past 6pm and we still have to wait for everyone to get in and sit down. Kurt (who happens to be the manager of all things Iraq) works in Dallas but has been in Baghdad for a few weeks trying to get thing straightened out. He goes into his topics in regards to the new camp site and what the old site is going to be used for and so on and so on. Now it is almost 7pm and I am getting restless, because I am only going to get 4 more hours of sleep before my shift starts. Finally we end and he mentions doing the same thing again tomorrow which was last night. Well suffice to say I didn't bother waking up for the meting last night, the sacrifice of sleep for the stupid meeting wasn't worth it.

Here is my issue at the moment. The living conditions suck big time here I wouldn't ask someone I hate to live like this, which is irrelevant because I hate no one but you get my point. Well the old camp is where everyone has to go to work everyday it is where the equipment resides at the moment. The cost associated with moving the equipment within a timely manor is probably between 2-5 million and weeks of work. Now the other day I mentioned how dark it is at night and unsafe one can feel traveling to and from such a short distance. Well they want all of us to move to the new camp and travel back and forth to work which means someone traveling at night alone to work at midnight and the person on duty till midnight going back to camp by themselves. Why would you have us move when the place we are moving from is where we have to go when we go to work? Not only that if something happens with the equipment, those key individuals that might be needed have to travel which means that the equipment failure will last longer than if they were just 100 feet away like they are now.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid...

So the old camp is going to be used as a training facility for LN's that will eventually take over our jobs. Now I don’t know about you, but I don't feel comfortable about the decision to have someone with absolutely no background, well at least one that can be checked such as in the US, watching over millions and millions of dollars of equipment that is in service for OUR armed forces that was bought and paid for by our tax dollars. This is the same company that said no firearms in your personal living space and one guy did, shot himself in the foot and is still employed by the company after breaking the rule and from what I have been told has a firearm in is room now. The same company that allows and condones the use of alcohol even though the military states that anyone working for the Armed Forces is not allowed to have in times of war. Not only that, but our managers also partake of such banned substances, but we are suppose to follow there every command as if it was a good one to begin with. Our tax dollars are going to these fools and they do not even have our country or the people supporting our country (such as myself) interest in mind. For them its all about the payday which is why they are hiring LN's to do the same job for a fraction of what they pay us, but their cost stays the same...

I hate business at the cost of good people...

Don't get me wrong I am all for building up the Iraqi economy, but not at the expense of the American people...

These are evil times we live in...

One Life to Live One Love to Give...

K3

Do Not Watch The News...!!

As I have said from the beginning do not watch the news it will only bother you more, but more importantly I ask that you at least do not watch it for the nest few days. There isn't anything to worry about on my end I and relatively safe (ponder on that one for a minute), but the Iraqi constitution is going to be ratified tomorrow and it will bring the bugs out of the woodwork. The reports from what I have been told, which is very little, is enough to make your skin crawl, but unfortunately we can take any chances. I hear a lot about what the insurgents claim they are going to do and most times it doesn't, but we have to take every potential threat seriously.

This actually comes at a time where I am feeling more mortal than ever which has increased my awareness, either that or I am becoming more paranoid. I went to midnight chow tonight, because I didn't want to be hungry the entire night like I am most of the time. Now although I am in a protected area it is ill advised to travel alone. Well it isn't like there are a ton of people up at midnight so I had to go on my own. Now I did say we are in a protected area, but I think I have played enough videogames in my life to be able to sneak around in an area where there is no light at all. With that being said what do you think a military trained insurgent could do. Although management allows us to carry weapons on the jobs we go out into the field for, that is not something they take lightly when it comes to the protected area of BIAP. So I grab the only thing remotely close to a weapon, my stainless steel made in the good ole USA Gerber pocket knife. What is this good for against armed insurgents, nothing... But it beats not having anything in my book.

So I hop in the car and get under way trying to get there and back as fast as humanly possible within safe limits. Worse thing I can think about would be to die in a car accident IN IRAQ going to get chow. So I am cautious with my speed especially since there aren't any road reflectors or street lights guiding my path. I get to my destination wash my hands grab a plate and wait in line. The choices aren't exactly what I was looking for, but I should ask myself what in GODS name am I looking for to eat at a military chow hall in the middle of the desert. Nevermind... Anyway I grab some steamed rice, chicken cordon blue, some chicken wings, yams and a slice of pizza (boy how I love my pizza). So I grab a couple Pepsis and head back to the car. I drive a little slower than before a little less tense, my thought process is that I am more than half way there and getting back is the easy part of the trip. No matter where you go in Iraq the return seems so much easier than the initial departure, but in all honesty the danger is pretty much the same. Anyway I got back went to work sat and begin to ponder once more how much longer will I stay here....

The funny thing is I use to always believe that GOD had a plan for me so I couldn't die as long as his plan isn't fulfilled, but now I am beginning to realize my own mortality. See I am a firm believer that the longer you put yourself in danger the greater the chances are you become a statistic. For an example the more you fly the greater your chance you will end up on a plane that will not make it to its intended destination. I think the same applies for being in Baghdad and working under extreme conditions. I take comfort in the fact the the Almighty has covered my tail for these last 7 months, I even glorify it in my conversation. In 7 months time I have never witnessed, or have been apart of any atrocities what-so-ever. I haven't even been shot at (as of yet) and the going saying around here is if you stay here long enough you will be shot at at least once in your time here. I am not sure why this sudden sense of weakness, I am not sure if it is because I just got back from a good break, or if reality of my decisions and the possible effects it will have on others. My Bro said yesterday that he knew I was coming back, because I had things to do and life to live. Until yesterday I was a firm believer in that thought process.

Why now at this point in my life I finally realize the potential I have, but in the same breath I feel weak...

Getting older sucks...

Wisdom sucks...

The more I know the more I realize the less I know...

KP

Should I be offended...?

Well I am back to work and back on third shift which is 3pm to 11pm central (in case you were wondering) I had a real good time back home, but now I am back at my temporary home away from home. When I got here I didn't have the same feeling like I did the last time I was on break. When I got back I almost felt like I didn't leave at all. Now there is two things in regards to this that bother me. One is if I am getting use to this place now then what will it be like when I leave for good. The second is if I felt like I never left then it is going to make the next break seem forever away. I bought my ticket so that my return would be on the 15th of December. It has been brought to my attention that I will not be able to take my break for Christmas. No I really don't care to be told what I can and can not do, but considering the fact that it is still so far away I bit my tongue and just shook my head. I will tell you this though there is nothing in this world keeping from coming home for Christmas...!!! As GOD is my witness... I spent one Christmas here and wasn't a very happy camper, not only that but I didn't have to be here although they said I did. I ended up sitting here for no reason and we were under lockdown almost the entire time. When the time comes I will make my case, but trust you me unless they want to keep me as an employee they won't make an issue about me going home for the holiday, if they do, guess what oh well... C-Ya

On to another subject.

So the puppies were 2 weeks old when I left and now they will be 7 weeks tomorrow. So I found out yesterday that 5 of them have been given away already and there are only 3 left. James told me the names of the pups when we going over to see them, but I was a little Leary at first and you will soon know why. So once I got there we found the pups hiding under John's (the guy taking care of the momma dog) living connex. So John went over the names and yet again they were exactly as James had told me. Now here is where the disbelief came from, the one with a little gotee growing in was named after me. Now should I be offended that they named a dog after me of should I take it as a compliment and leave well enough alone. He is a cute little scruffy guy I must admit, but still... I have no plans on saying anything to anyone about it, but I am curious what people think. Anyway I am hoping that I get to take care of the little tyke it would definitely bring some joy to this sorrow land.

Dog named after me now that's a new one...

K out

Ha my first offspring, guess that makes him the 4th

Back in B-Town

Well I will admit my time home was good, but as always short. I was glad I stayed longer than I had expected to at first, but I came back to a hail storm yet again. See one of the things about being gone from a job for so long is not knowing if you will still be employed when you get back, but you don't worry about such things cause who wants to work in hell anyway. I can't stand coming back every time to something new and improved. I guess it's all for the better, but why wasn't it just done right the first time you know...

Well a short while ago I wrote about one of the switch techs getting fired, well since then we hired a new one and he too has been fired not even making it for a whole month. So to my surprise the one that was fired 2 or so months ago has been rehired and Scotty who just recently went on break is has resigned or got fired there is always many different stories. Now this is probably his third time or so getting fired from what I have been told. Now I can care less whether or not I get fired cause I have done well for myself and my family has seen the benefit of me working here. Not only that, but I will become a hot commodity (as far as work goes) once I do return to the States. I have had multiple inquiries since I have been over here and it is just a matter of knowing what I want to do in this world.

Well I really don't have much else to say, but once the ball gets rolling again I will post regularly.

I love you all...

K-dub