Mail = Milk ... I hope

The past couple of afternoons I’ve come back from lunch and SSG D and SPC L have asked me if we’ll get mail that day.  Since there’s been no milk at the DFAC at lunch I told them that there wouldn’t be any mail, but today there was still no milk at lunch and we got mail later in the afternoon. Thanks for the package Mom J  Everyone loves the rice crispy treats you made.  I’m saving the brownies for tomorrow. 

 

It sounds a bit weird, but I think there is a correlation between the availability of milk and the mail delivery.  We hadn’t had mail delivered to Camp Taji for almost a week until today and I also noticed that the DFAC’s been out of milk, juice, fresh fruit, and some other food items for a few days.  Surprisingly, there was still lettuce at the salad buffet at lunch.  The disappearance of lettuce is usually the first indicator that the supply convoy wasn’t able to make it here for whatever reason.  My hypothesis is that if the supply convoy wasn’t able to reach Camp Taji, the mail delivery convoy (or whatever method is used to bring mail here) wasn’t able to make it either.  Therefore, no milk =  no mail, and vice versa.  Perhaps I’ll pop my head in at dinner to see if my hypothesis is correct. 

 

I’ve stopped going to dinner at the DFAC and instead taken up eating crackers and peanut butter after the afternoon briefing.  I snack a lot during the day, but when I go to the DFAC for dinner I still eat my normal amount of food even though I don’t need to eat that much.  Plus, I’ve started working out in the evenings because I’ve found I’m in a better mood and more awake during the day when I sleep in later instead of getting up between 4:30-5am to work out.  If I eat dinner in the DFAC it cuts into my evening work out time since I usually eat dinner after 7pm.  The downside of working out in the evening instead of the morning is that it’s hotter outside, but I’m slowly adjusting to the heat.  At least it’s not humid.

 

Happy Birthday tomorrow Heidi J

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Night

A few weeks ago my BN Chaplain asked me to play violin at gospel concert originally scheduled for 01 July.  I had no clue what to play and when I told my friend Rob about it he suggested a doing a medley of a few songs and offered some suggestions for the pieces.  I practiced the medley a little, but wasn’t sure about the order and flow, so I was glad when the concert got pushed back to 08 July because it gave me more time to practice. The concert has been pushed back again to the 21^st  since there’s now a memorial service on the 8^th for a soldier from 1-66 AR who was killed on Sunday.

 

On Monday I mentioned to Rob that I was wasn’t sure about the songs in the medley. He offered to help me with it so the next day I left him a note telling him that I’d be at the Chapel practicing on Wednesday and if he could stop by it’d be a big help, but I understood if he couldn’t make it. Everyone’s schedule can change at a moments notice.  When I arrived at the Chapel on Wednesday I found my friend Derrick there leading a gospel choir practice.  After the gospel choir rehearsal finished Derrick stayed around.  He wanted to accompany me by singing while I played violin, which is usually what we do, but I told him that I wanted to play alone that night.  It had been a long day and I wasn’t in a very talkative mood, which I think he took as me not wanting him to be there at all (which wasn’t the case) and so he left a short time later. I wasn’t sure if Rob was going to show and had realized that what I really wanted to do that evening was play hymns on my violin as a way to worship a bit that way without having to worry about the key or if I was in time with the other person. 

 

A little after 10 pm I decided play one more song before I packing up for the evening.  As with each song I had played the words of the hymns repeated in my mind and I became solely focused on worshiping God during the song.  When the hymn ended I turned around and was startled to see Rob sitting there looking like he had been enjoying the music.  I had no idea how long he’d been there and when I asked him all he would say was “long enough,” although I did manage to get it out of him that he’d been there before I started the last song, which is weird because I didn’t hear him come in or sit down.  We worked on my medley for a bit and then called it a night.   

 

When Rob and I were leaving the CH on duty noticed that I didn’t have my bike and told Rob, who did have a bike, to ensure that I made it back to my room safely since women aren’t supposed to walk alone at night.  Usually I ride my bike, but a strange thing happened that evening.  I’ve been more careful about locking up my bike ever since I had one stolen and on Sunday I bought a new bike lock.  The bike lock comes with a pair of identical keys and I hadn’t had any trouble with key until Wednesday evening when I went to unlock my bike to ride it to the chapel. Neither key would budge in the lock.  Eventually I gave up trying and walked to the chapel.  By the time Rob and I left it was late and it was a bit of an imposition for him to escort me back to my room since he lives in the opposite direction, but he was nice enough not to complain. I told him the story about the lock and when we reached my room I got the keys to the lock to show him how it didn’t work.  The first key didn’t budge in the lock, but the second key worked without any trouble.  Since then I haven’t had any trouble with the lock. 

Happy Independance Day Weekend

I can't believe it's July already. The month of June flew by, which is something you won't find me complaining about.

It's 4th of July weekend, which means it's a four day weekend. My plans for the weekend are to sleep in late and then head out to the lake with friends and family to get some water-skiing and tubing in followed by a good bbq. Then, once it's dark out we'll all go and watch the fireworks.

Shoot...I just remembered something: I'm in Iraq...There go my plans.

I am very grateful that I get my usual day of rest tomorrow, which is more than a lot of people get out here. That's about as close as I'll get to any four day weekend. On the actual 4th of July the DFAC (Dining Facility) will probably serve up BBQ/picnic type foods for lunch and dinner.

The weather has cooled off a bit the past few days. At night it gets down to about 81 or 82 degrees and mid-day it's only 105-110 degrees out. When I was going to lunch I saw a cloud in the sky. I think it was the first cloud that I've seen in over a month. The cloud was very tiny, but I wanted to take a picture of it. After lunch I noticed that there were a few more clouds scattered around. Each was fairly small, but it was a bit of variety.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to give my first violin lessons. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Congrat's to all you '03 grads who were promoted to Captain today :)