092508 Nice sunny day, no explosions for a while, I've yet to replace my camera

092508 Nice sunny day, no explosions for a while, I've yet to replace my camera

Today is a nice sunny day and the dust storm from a week back is all
but a photo memory. I still get question about if it was 'really that
orange' and the answer is still yes. And NO, one REALLY tries to stay
inside on days like that. It's not healthy at all. We've had a few
attacks during Ramadan (a-ding-dong) but overall it's been VERY quite
this year over last. Every year the security/peace out there has
gotten better (that or the bad guys have run out of things to fire at
us!) Either way, I'll take it. I'm tired of running to the bunker.
The improvement in
security here has financial implications for some of the contractors
here. You can read the story below but the message seems to be 'do a
good job, get paid half'. And I've yet to replace my camera that I
dropped into a cup of coffee. I'll do that soon and will take some
more pics.
Also recently there was a CH-46 helo that was on its way from Kuwait
to Balad (here). The helo crashed (no survivors) just north of the
Iraq border and the crash has been attributed to causes other than
enemy air fire. To get from Kuwait to Balad everyone here utilizes
military aircraft. And you don't get to pick what you might be flying
on. A few of the people that I work with were supposed to be on that
particular flight but got bumped in priority by other military
personnel. Even with that I'll never hesitate to get on a military
aircraft. Oddly enough, I just consider it part of the job.
Here is a link on the helo crash.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57583
R/Chris