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080308 Food is Porn! - Fire Update

080308 Food is Porn! - Fire Update (originally posted on 8/3 but upload failed)

I woke up the other morning and flipped on the TV (for background
noise) and there was porn on the tv! Freshly roasted red bell peppers
being drizzled with olive oil and then combined with a roasted garlic
and caramelized onion mix. This was then loosely mixed in with
grilled asparagus and then served with medallions of pan seared
chicken breast (or scallops was a suggested option). DANG it looked
good! Now the food here is ... good. That is, it's good considering
we are in a war zone, almost 10,000 miles from much of the US and
we've never HAD to eat MREs. (MRE - Meal Ready to Eat - the new C
rations.) Some things here they (the DFAC kitchen staff) do VERY well
here (fried chicken), something are not so good (steaks). Maybe it's
just a cultural thing (as most of them are Indian). But below are some
pics of a new DFAC here in Iraq. It's not here at Balad but it
certainly looks like it could be. Some people have seen the pics on
my blog and have said we have it TOO good here!. Heck, they never had
an outdoor Olympic pool. Well, some bases are good,
some not so good. Balad is a big base but at the smaller bases
(called FOBs - Forward Operating Bases) living in a tent and water
bottle showers are still not uncommon.

Fire Update - I found out last night that the fire that happened about
a week back was from an overloaded electrical connection. Basically
too many things plugged into one circuit. You might think that losing
everything you have would be the worse thing that could happen to you.
BUT, all of these workers (Pakistani, Indian, Phillipino) get paid in
cash and every week, they line up to send SOME of their many back
home. The REST of their cash, they store it in their hooch! Some of
the workers have been over here for a few years and it was hot and
windy that day so several hooched (housing containers) were burned up.
I've heard reports that many people lost tens of thousands of
dollars. URGH.
R/Chris

080208 Dog Days of August

080208 Dog Days of August
I've not posted much recently since there really hasn't been much
happening. I get up and get to work by 7 AM, Leave at 7 PM and
usually go to the gym and then eat and go to bed. On Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays I go to knife/stick fighting class if I'm not
working late. The next day I do the same dang thing, every single day
here. I get a break in Oct and will go to the states and visit
friends/family.
As far as I know they never did find out what caused the fire. We may
see a flyer out warning people of dangers of cooking a chicken in you
hooch or something and I'll put 2 + 2 together. The Army isn't
fourthcoming with information at times. Recently (per CNN.com)
KBR employees here can no longer have a cell phone here 'for security
reasons.' I guess it would also make it more difficult to call one's
congressman! I'm glad I don't work for KBR anymore.I had a few people
take me up on the flag offer. I need to ge those out. My apologies
for the delay.
Also Knife-fight class is going along fine. The class is in a pic on a
web site? See the site below and scroll down.
http://www.dogbrothers.com/
R/Chris