It's a Little Dusty Out Today

We had another dust storm today, about our third in the last ten days or so. The dust storms are pretty common lately and I'm starting to hate the scratchy eyes, nose barnacles, and morning ritual of hacking up clods of dirt. These pictures will show you the evolution of today's storm. This is probably the worst we've had yet.

It starts out with a little breeze and a yellow haze.

It turned a little green and weird out...

then it turned orange outside. It gets worse though...

This was at 2pm today. It looks like we are on Mars.

Qatar R&R part 2

We are in our third Dust Storm this week, so there's not a lot to do on base right now, so I figured I'd finish up the Qatar trip blogging.

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'Twas nice to spend the time in Qatar, but the layout of the base made it necessary to ride the bus a lot.I spent a lot of time sitting at bus stops...wondering if the next bus was the right one to get on. Of course I always picked the wrong bus, going the long way to where we wanted.

Day 2 - Brad and I took an off-base water sports trip. It was a day trip in a Dhow in the Persian Gulf where we went to a remote spot to swim, jet ski, and tube. It included a great lunch and was a fun time. This is a picture of the marina area and the Dhow boats.

The water was a little cold, but was worth the effort to say I'd swam in the Persian Gulf. There were others that got in the water too, but not many.

We had a couple jet skis...a lot of fun. I need one of these!!! I also enjoyed being dragged behind a jet boat at high speed in an inner tube until I took a nasty spill and ripped my shorts to shreds.

Lunch was the typical Arabic/ Indian grill assortment. Grilled kabobs, fresh fruits, LOTS of rice, pita bread, hummus and all that. I could eat like this all the time...it was delicious.
The Islamic Cultural Center in Doha, Qatar on our way back into the marina.

Doha skyline...and me, trying to have at least one picture of me smiling.

More Doha.This is one of the buildings in downtown Doha...interesting architecture. We all speculated that Michael Jackson lives inside the round thing, especially with as venerated he is in this part of the world. We joked that he's the commanding General of the Qatari Army...you ever notice how he wears some sort of military rank?? And Qatar (or Bahrain) is his second home. Just something to make you go "hmmm". Notice all the unfinished construction. That's a problem for this area. Qatar, Bahrain, and Dubai (UAE) have all spent billions on construction, trying to make their countries a destination for international trade and travel. This area has been hit just as hard by the economic slump and have put the brakes on construction. They have a glut of excess office and retail space with no demand. And with the cost of oil falling hard, they are having a hard time making ends meet around here. They have a very lavish and opulent lifestyle (the Qataris)...this is unsustainable under the current (realistic) conditions.

Nice panoramic from out on the gulf where we swam and such. You can click on it and see more detail if you like.

Me getting into an "Amnesty Box." It's a place to put any contraband you may have acquired while out in town.

R&R in Qatar ~ part 1

I had the opportunity to take a 4-day pass to Qatar for R&R. The trip was fun, but not without it's drama. The time in Qatar was way better than being in Iraq, but the travel arrangements almost made it not worth the efforts! Brad was my "Battle Buddy" for R&R, the two of us going together. We work together and decided to go on the trip together - and not talk about work at all! It was very nice.




We were supposed to leave on a Sunday evening. We showed up at the passenger terminal and waited 2 hours and then were told the flight was cancelled and to check back in 24 hours. We awkwardly went to work the next day, explaining to everyone that our flight was cancelled...we were supposed to be gone - nobody wanted us at work, not even us. We went back to the terminal on Monday evening - no flights. Tuesday evening at 8pm, we were booked for the 10pm flight...got pushed to midnight...then 2am. We were in a dust storm and figured the air field would be closed all night, so we decided to take our chances and go back to our rooms, get some sleep, and try again in the morning. Luckily, we had a duty person keep an eye on the flight for us and we were notified at 1:15am that the plane was on the runway loading and we better hurry if we were going to make it. So we jumped out of bed and drove as fast as we could to the terminal again and made it to the ramp just in time.
Here's us in the night vision lighting on the C130. Not a lot of luxury on these but we were happy to be getting out of Al Asad!!! We arrived at Qatar and were informed that we couldn't take any pictures of anything on or near the base while there...so no pix of the Qatar Air Base. But I can tell you it looked like every other base around here...light brown/tan buildings and sand everywhere, with fences and concrete barricade walls around everything.

We got into the R&R Base, Camp As Saleyiah, around 9am and were herded around like cattle for the in-processing. We then got to our room and caught a quick nap until noon. We spent the first day trying to relax and get our bearings of the area, got a quick massage at the spa and ate some fine chow. We hung out in the USO area and Brad was having some beers (3 per day limit), and we wanted some nachos and salsa...it turned out to be Doritos and salsa. We couldn't get over how some cultures interpret our food!!! And these Doritos had a weird cheesy-paprika flavor or something.
The second day (actually our first day of R&R , day 1), we took a shopping tour of Doha City, visiting all the important markets. First stop was the camel market. Very sad, and funny at the same time. These camels are raised and sold for meat and leather. Not racing, milk, or spit or anything - just meat and leather.

We then went to the City Center Mall. It's a huge western style mall with 350 stores, movie theater, ice skating rink, and all that.

Here you can see Brad in front of a Starbucks...they're EVERYWHERE!!! But more ridiculous are the little Sheiks that walked all over the place. We'll see plenty more of them, but the Qatari people are all sheiks and they don't have any occupations. The country is 25% Qatari - and 75% others (Filipino, Indian, Sri Lankan, etc) to do all the work running shops and services. The Qatari citizens are entirely supported by the state selling oil and they do nothing to contribute to society other than shopping and consuming things. You'll see more of them in "R&R part 2".

We stopped by the "big clam" in the middle of town. Doha is known for it's pearl trade.

We went to the "Old Souqs", meaning "Old Shops." It was an ancient market area with all kinds of trade...nuts, spices, tools, jewelry, bootleg DVDs, etc. We stopped into this Falconry shop where they sell all the latest in falcon gear and fashions. There was a nice lunch counter we stopped by to see what was on the menu...We read the first line and kept walking! Fortunately, the tour came with an excellent lunch at the best Indian Buffet we've ever had. I'll post more soon.

That's What She Said

There are a few among us who are always waiting to pounce with a "That's what she said" joke. We were walking through a camp and saw this sign over a row of dumpsters (indicating don't put wood in the dumpsters), and everyone rang out with a "that's what she said" in unison. It was hilarious. Almost as funny as when we walked over to the sign and someone had already written that at the bottom.
So this is Billy "Woody" Woodward. I gave him the nickname "Big Wood"...he really likes the name... but nobody else gets it! I'm going to miss these guys one day!

Here's a cake they had on display on Inauguration Day at the DFAC. We didn't get to eat it, but it looked nice.

Another Cake.

Me getting into an altercation with one of my contractors. I wear the white Cowboy Hard Hat on job sites now...the Iraqi's love it!
The altercation is over his wiring on the back side of the building...he says "I do a good job for you LT." I get a lot of head nodding and smiles when I try to hold people to the contracts, but things are often different where the rubber hits the road. I've had Iraqi's try to use junk they found on the side of the road in their buildings, and then invoice it for thousands of dollars.

Japan construction will be at the other end of the spectrum...I'm going to be so spoiled there with the highly professional Japanese construction firms. I can't wait!!

Well, I'm going to try to take some R&R in Qatar this week. I get a 4 day pass but haven't been able to get off the base yet...I'll post as soon as I get there.