Art La Flamme

First off, big shout out to my room dawg. He totally saved my bacon last night, when he ventured back to our room in the middle of the worst sand storm of this deployment, shut down my computer, and covered up most of my stuff. Horrible sand storm, just nasty. We literally hand sand drifts inside the building last night, it was so bad. People got lost walking home. One van of our guys, coming back just from dinner, had to put two people out into the storm with their flash lights, just to make sure the van stayed on the road — you couldn’t tell where it was.

So, thanks man. You rule.

Post-Sandstorm

Ok, enough of the drama. Yes, I’m back in Iraq. No, I’m really not blogging. There’s a reason.

I changed jobs. And my life was turned upside down.

Coming back to Iraq from Hawaii — I kid you not — took 7 days. 6 x 24 hours, and 1 x 20 hour days of nonstop movement, from when the wife and kids dropped me at the curb, to when I was in the terminal here. Un-freakin-believable.

Bizarrely, I made it to Kuwait in less than 24 hours. Poof, just like that — HI to Los Angeles, to Atlanta (and 12 hours at the USO), then to Shannon, Ireland to refuel and on to Kuwait.

And then, I settled into the oven. It was 120+, and windy. My skin could possibly have cooked like bacon and come off. I tried my best to keep to a reverse cycle of sleep — sleep all day, party all night. In actually, we were on 12 hour shifts, where every 12 hours we had an opportunity to move to a flight if there was one. A couple of time, we didn’t even try. Many, many times, they were canceled while we were getting ready — maintenance, weather, etc. But all too often, we’d finish a few hours of sleep, only to meet again and be told to be back in a few hours, to wait and here to stand down and come back in a few more hours. Exhausting.

But, I made it. I got it on a Sunday morning, about 6 am. I checked in at the office, to tell them I was “home” and OK. I grabbed some breakfast — the maybe third time I’d done that here — and then I went to sleep. At 8 pm, I was heading in to get ready for a 9 pm / 2100 shift change briefing. Poof, right back to work.

Most days for me now start around 6 pm. Around — I’ll explain in a minute why that is so. I either get up and run, if weather permits, or head to get cleaned up and read email. If I run, it’s all I have time to do, and it can’t take more than an hour, to include shower. If I don’t, I have time usually for one thing — which might be a laundry run, or some tech support thing, or some blog reading, etc. But’s it’s maybe 45 minutes or an hour. By 8 pm, I am heading into the HQ to see the boss and start the day.

I work special projects until maybe 1 am, and read a TON of stuff. By then, I try and hit midnight chow before it closes — which usually means driving to a distant chow hall that stays open until 0130. Dinner is often to go, and often enough for a midnight meal and a 3 am sandwhich or snack. And Diet Pepsi. By 2 or 0230, I am being handed things to read and edit, and that goes until 6. In between all of those, I have more reading and more questions to answer, and some orders to bark at other readers and writers — I am the senior guy at night. By six, the day guy is there and we talk shop / resolve problems until 8, when we tap in to listen to a brief (and about half the time, someone brings me back an omelet and fresh melon to eat during the brief). By 0845, we’re in a meeting with the boss (who I see around 0500 every day) and a few others, and then it’s back for shift change at 9am.

On a good day, I can close out things at walk away by 0930. I’d been as late as 1100 before. My goal is to be here — right here — at 1000 hitting start on my timer. An 8 hour timer. I get 30 minutes to be asleep, and 7.5 hours to actually sleep. That’s it. I fight to keep it at 7.5, because if not, it’s 6 sleep with the same buffer up front. So, 10 Am is my goal every day. And it wakes me up around 6 pm. Or so.

So recreational reading. No blogging. No podcasts, which sucks. Very little blog reading, though I do love seeing what my wife and awesome kids are up to. No Skype yet, I don’t think. Non stop, back to back.

I did run three times last week, 3.5 miles being the longest (and done at midnight, when it was still around 100). Too damn hot, too much sand and dirt right now. And yes, I can and do run in sandstorms, and I can and do get upper respiratory infections from it. Like I have right now. (cough cough).

That’s it. That’s my life. I work, I sleep, I eat a little bit. I live for cookies from my sister, email from family and friends, and sleep — glorious sleep. And I get by on Diet Pepsi, and disciplines sleep. Yes, I could keep this schedule for a year. I’ll keep it until I’m told otherwise — I’ve adapted quickly.

And I would not change back to my old job for a dump truck of money. This is a ball. Hard to believe they’re paying me to read and write and be in charge again.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 10:17 am and is filed under Army, Blogging, Iraq. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.