Well, as anyone following my blog has hopefully figured out at this point, I'm not going to be posting every day, but rather every 2-4 days. It all really depends on whether anything interesting has happened or not.
My cold symptoms showed the worst on Thursday, but improved slightly on Friday and today was better. The only thing remaining was the occasional cough and clearing my throat.
Also on Thursday, as I was trying to learn the ropes in the office by watching Peter and how much he knows at this point, I couldn't help but wish that I could gain knowledge the way they did in the Matrix - i.e. transfer the data/information into your brain directly through a needle. (You have to watch that scene in order to understand it) Except, I'll skip the part about having a needle stuck in my neck/skull.
Work is interesting. It's nothing I've really worked with before and is "somewhat" difficult to understand at this point, as I've said. Can't wait until I can be effective and helpful though.
After work, I bought an Xbox 360 and a few controllers. Then went online and ordered Guitar Hero with 2 guitars with the following games for GH: Metallica, World Tour, Aerosmith, and had my mom pick up Guitar Hero III:Legends of Rock at Best Buy. Also ordered Halo 3. I'll probably be getting those in 10 days, my guess.
________
Friday. Dust storm. Nice. The air is dust. Yep, a friendly reminder that I'm in Iraq and the weather is not the same as in Pennsylvania. And I haven't even seen the 130-140 deg summer yet.
You would think it was cloudy out, but no, it's just a lot of dust. I would have taken a picture, but my camera is in Michelle's office and I keep forgetting to grab it. Plus, I don't really want it outside for an extended period of time - like, all day during work - during a dust storm.
Speaking of the camera. Tomorrow is Sunday and I will probably try to get some pictures around the base to give you guys an idea of what it looks like, plus upload any other pics from Lebanon. At least, that's the plan.
________
Saturday was fun. Still dusty in the air, but you can see clouds now.
It was fun because I went out in the field with Habib, the lead field tech (and he does basically any electrical work, hardware support or physical labor, and is quite good at it). He's Egyptian and speaks fairly decent English, but he's a good guy and 2 months older than me, so he's my age at 27.
We went to military housing areas (trailers) to check on complaints that we received in the last couple days. The process of troubleshooting PCs and the network wasn't terribly difficult, though Habib did do the majority of the work, especially outdoors around the access points and antennas. It was fairly tiring being on my feet all day, but it was a change. Maybe I'll learn some Arabic from Habib. (in Egyptian dialect)
Habib also setup my TV and showed me which channels were in English, as well as organized them so they were channels 1,2,3,4 instead of 79, 174,175, 204. (There are almost 400 channels and only about 6 in English) Lately, I've been listening to the Arabian music video channels. Not bad at all really.
At least now I can watch some American TV!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Tuesday morning - 4/21
Today will be my 2nd day on the job. Yes, I realized I skipped a few days.
This will have to be quick, because I skipped breakfast this morning so they'll be back soon to pick me up to go to work.
Work looks like it will be a heavy load and a lot of learning. It is totally different than wireless networks back home. You have to know everything basically. RF signals, the dB levels, angles/height/positioning of antennas, interference (from the military classified radios and obstacles), line of sight, power levels, etc. I'll have to understand how the whole network works in order to be effective.
Anyways, Sunday was catch up. Slept till mid/late-afternoon. Hung out with Peter and Michelle a bit.
Monday I started work/training and Peter went thru a lot of material. We'll see how things go today.
The weather is pretty nice out, but will always be dusty. The food is good, lots of variety, different theme most days.
I'll try to get some pictures at some point, as well as upload the ones I (or Tad or Tariq) took in Lebanon.
Time to get going.
This will have to be quick, because I skipped breakfast this morning so they'll be back soon to pick me up to go to work.
Work looks like it will be a heavy load and a lot of learning. It is totally different than wireless networks back home. You have to know everything basically. RF signals, the dB levels, angles/height/positioning of antennas, interference (from the military classified radios and obstacles), line of sight, power levels, etc. I'll have to understand how the whole network works in order to be effective.
Anyways, Sunday was catch up. Slept till mid/late-afternoon. Hung out with Peter and Michelle a bit.
Monday I started work/training and Peter went thru a lot of material. We'll see how things go today.
The weather is pretty nice out, but will always be dusty. The food is good, lots of variety, different theme most days.
I'll try to get some pictures at some point, as well as upload the ones I (or Tad or Tariq) took in Lebanon.
Time to get going.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Day 5 - The final journey
Beth drove me down to the airport at about 10 minutes till 6AM, and arrived around 6:20ish. She had wanted to get me there by 6AM though, so we were "late".
The airport looked really busy, but there was only one line to get in and get bags checked. 2 sets of doors and one big turnstile, but only 1 door was actually being used. Well, for the most part. About 15-20 Lebanese and other Arabs decided all at one time to leave the line we were in and just cut infront of everyone by going thru the other door and turnstile. Just like their driving. If they want to get infront of you (driving or in line), they just do it. No respect for the fact that the people already infront of you have been waiting longer.
At the bag check-in area, I asked where Iraqi Airways was and the guy told me, "The other side, over there" pointing about 100 yards away. I wandered down past each desk, not seeing Iraqi Airways anywhere. I asked someone else at the other end and she said she thought it was on the other side (the side I just came from). I walked back halfway and asked someone else, he didn't understand what I was asking and looked at my boarding pass and pointed towards where I started. One last person asked where I was headed and pointed me to the right area. It took about 1.5+ hrs to finally get thru all the checkpoints till I finally got on the plane for Baghdad. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it in time, but I did.
During the flight, the guy next to me (who spoke decent-broken English, whose main language was Arabic) started talking to me. We conversed on and off for the majority of the flight, and I tried to help him with his laptop as he had a wireless issue.
Since a lot happened today and since I never went to sleep, it feels like today will never end. I can't believe it's only 9:45PM right now. I'll try to shorten the rest of this post.
Arrived in Baghdad, took a while to get thru customs, got picked up by Chris Catranis, and headed off with his driver under almost VIP treatment. Sometimes the security guards didn't bother looking at my passport because of the Iraqi guy with us.
We drove to a few places and then stopped at the helicopter pad where we were to take the chopper to the base. There were 14 people there to get flown to various areas, and with only 2 military choppers, they only took 12. Guess who got left behind? Chris and myself. We had to wait for the next chopper, which they said wouldn't be till the next day. While we were trying to make sure we had a spot on tomorrow's flight, one of the pilots said he'd try to make one more trip around 7-8PM. This meant Chris and I only had to wait 5 hours with basically nothing to do.
We did fall asleep for an hour or two in the chairs there though.
Finally, the choppers came back, picked us up and flew us to the base. Woooo, final destination complete. Met up with Peter and Michelle, got some food, drove to a couple places real quick and headed back to the trailers. End of story for today, I think. Going to fall asleep for a long long time real soon.
The airport looked really busy, but there was only one line to get in and get bags checked. 2 sets of doors and one big turnstile, but only 1 door was actually being used. Well, for the most part. About 15-20 Lebanese and other Arabs decided all at one time to leave the line we were in and just cut infront of everyone by going thru the other door and turnstile. Just like their driving. If they want to get infront of you (driving or in line), they just do it. No respect for the fact that the people already infront of you have been waiting longer.
At the bag check-in area, I asked where Iraqi Airways was and the guy told me, "The other side, over there" pointing about 100 yards away. I wandered down past each desk, not seeing Iraqi Airways anywhere. I asked someone else at the other end and she said she thought it was on the other side (the side I just came from). I walked back halfway and asked someone else, he didn't understand what I was asking and looked at my boarding pass and pointed towards where I started. One last person asked where I was headed and pointed me to the right area. It took about 1.5+ hrs to finally get thru all the checkpoints till I finally got on the plane for Baghdad. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it in time, but I did.
During the flight, the guy next to me (who spoke decent-broken English, whose main language was Arabic) started talking to me. We conversed on and off for the majority of the flight, and I tried to help him with his laptop as he had a wireless issue.
Since a lot happened today and since I never went to sleep, it feels like today will never end. I can't believe it's only 9:45PM right now. I'll try to shorten the rest of this post.
Arrived in Baghdad, took a while to get thru customs, got picked up by Chris Catranis, and headed off with his driver under almost VIP treatment. Sometimes the security guards didn't bother looking at my passport because of the Iraqi guy with us.
We drove to a few places and then stopped at the helicopter pad where we were to take the chopper to the base. There were 14 people there to get flown to various areas, and with only 2 military choppers, they only took 12. Guess who got left behind? Chris and myself. We had to wait for the next chopper, which they said wouldn't be till the next day. While we were trying to make sure we had a spot on tomorrow's flight, one of the pilots said he'd try to make one more trip around 7-8PM. This meant Chris and I only had to wait 5 hours with basically nothing to do.
We did fall asleep for an hour or two in the chairs there though.
Finally, the choppers came back, picked us up and flew us to the base. Woooo, final destination complete. Met up with Peter and Michelle, got some food, drove to a couple places real quick and headed back to the trailers. End of story for today, I think. Going to fall asleep for a long long time real soon.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Day 4 - Another day in Lebanon
Woke up "early" (9AM) in comparison to other employees the Catranis family had in the past. The kids said others usually awoke, or at least came upstairs to the main part of the house, at 1-2PM.
We went out around 1:00ish to the coffee shop we visited yesterday, where Tad was already hanging out with Jonathan. Kit, Mrs. Catranis (Beth) and I joined them and eventually Tariq showed up as well.
After a while there, we headed to more of a bar type of setting where Jonathan met up with an American (also a teacher of literature), Ken. It was an interesting time talking about literature, movies, script writing, etc., as well as learning what each other does or wants to do.
We stayed at that place for probably a couple hours. (I don't have a very good sense of time, since I never got a new battery for my watch and haven't turned on my cell phone yet to see if I get the right time) We departed from this bar and walked up the street a short distance to another one where there were more of the college age crowd, but it was of course all ages. Lebanese bar hopping!
This post is being typed up quickly because we didn't get home until about 12:30AM and we decided to stay up all night since I had to be ready to leave by 5:30AM for the last leg of my trip to Iraq. I wasn't feeling tired and wanted a shower (I didn't do this anyway), and Tariq spent the night as well, so I figured it might be safer if I didn't go to sleep knowing my track record. After watching a couple movies on dual screen (their monitor and my laptop), Tad and Kit fell asleep while Tariq and I watched about 6 or more random episodes of The Office. :)
Time to go for now, we gotta get to the airport! (This post was rushed, my apologies)
We went out around 1:00ish to the coffee shop we visited yesterday, where Tad was already hanging out with Jonathan. Kit, Mrs. Catranis (Beth) and I joined them and eventually Tariq showed up as well.
After a while there, we headed to more of a bar type of setting where Jonathan met up with an American (also a teacher of literature), Ken. It was an interesting time talking about literature, movies, script writing, etc., as well as learning what each other does or wants to do.
We stayed at that place for probably a couple hours. (I don't have a very good sense of time, since I never got a new battery for my watch and haven't turned on my cell phone yet to see if I get the right time) We departed from this bar and walked up the street a short distance to another one where there were more of the college age crowd, but it was of course all ages. Lebanese bar hopping!
This post is being typed up quickly because we didn't get home until about 12:30AM and we decided to stay up all night since I had to be ready to leave by 5:30AM for the last leg of my trip to Iraq. I wasn't feeling tired and wanted a shower (I didn't do this anyway), and Tariq spent the night as well, so I figured it might be safer if I didn't go to sleep knowing my track record. After watching a couple movies on dual screen (their monitor and my laptop), Tad and Kit fell asleep while Tariq and I watched about 6 or more random episodes of The Office. :)
Time to go for now, we gotta get to the airport! (This post was rushed, my apologies)
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Day 3 - A day in Lebanon
With the lack of sleep from the previous couple days (not to mention the fact that I went to sleep around 3AM the night before I had to leave PA and woke up at 8AM), I slept quite soundly for 11 hours. I had no idea what time it was when I woke up, because I had no cell phone on (which don't work anyway) and no clock, but turned my laptop on and saw it was almost 12:30PM.
I got up, got a quick shower and eventually we went out to Hamra (a city) to hang out at a coffee shop. Tad and I walked to one of his friend's apartment to drop off some movie props that they needed for a film he was in that they are working on. It consisted of a some UPS surge protectors, a pick axe, and a BB gun. Yes, we walked down the streets openly with these in plain view. Tad said we had a 95% chance of getting caught by police and it was probably one of the biggest risks he's taken. :)
We chilled at the coffee shop with another friend of Tad's, Jonathan, an Aussie who is teaching school here (some form of literature).
Back at the house, we had lasagna for a late dinner and afterwards met another friend, Tariq, (Lebanese) of Tad and Kit's, and he happened to play World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero. ;)
I got up, got a quick shower and eventually we went out to Hamra (a city) to hang out at a coffee shop. Tad and I walked to one of his friend's apartment to drop off some movie props that they needed for a film he was in that they are working on. It consisted of a some UPS surge protectors, a pick axe, and a BB gun. Yes, we walked down the streets openly with these in plain view. Tad said we had a 95% chance of getting caught by police and it was probably one of the biggest risks he's taken. :)
We chilled at the coffee shop with another friend of Tad's, Jonathan, an Aussie who is teaching school here (some form of literature).
Back at the house, we had lasagna for a late dinner and afterwards met another friend, Tariq, (Lebanese) of Tad and Kit's, and he happened to play World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero. ;)
Day 2 - Flight to Beirut and stay
The airport wasn't terribly busy or complicated. It had the architecture I would expect in France. It was cool. :)
I had someone there help me get my boarding pass for the next flight, and then headed to the luggage checkpoint. The checkpoints were kinda annoying for me. I had to take out both laptops I had on me (one mine, one for Peter when I get to Iraq), put them in separate bins, put the 2 bags I had on the conveyor belt, and another bin for my jacket, shoes, wallet, passport, and cell phone. Not only that, but I have to remove my glasses for it and can't see anything until my stuff comes thru the other side.
I had had no problems at the Philly airport, but while waiting blind on the other side, the bags came out, as well as the laptops, then my shoes - but not in a bin. At first I thought maybe the bin got caught and the shoes fell out. I blame that silly thought on not having glasses on and it makes me stupid as well as blind. Needless to say, I had a feeling they saw something suspicious with my luggage. I wasn't sure at first, but when they pulled me aside and asked if they could search my wallet (I furrowed my eyebrows and said, "sure"), I realized it was the knife I had in there. I could never remember that it was there because I've only had to use it twice. Plus, I didn't get stopped at Philly nor at any point in my trip to Mexico for my brother's wedding.
They did confiscate the knife, called the police, holed me up in a prison cell at the airport (like a dungeon), interrogated me for 3 hrs, and...just kidding. They only confiscated the knife and recorded it, then let me go. They said the knife was of legal length, but because you could flip it open like a switchblade, it made it an illegal length after that - Bummer.
The flight:
We had to walk outside to board the plane and the weather was outstanding. Clear skies, light breeze, I'd say about 65 degrees.
The take-off was the bumpiest I've ever been on, not that I've been on many flights, but it was still the bumpiest. The landing gear seemed to affect the stability of the flight too and made a LOUD noise at one point that sounded like something hit it full speed. It made this sound while retracting the landing gear, as well as later when extending the landing gear. It startled me a little bit, as well as other passengers around me.
About 20 or more minutes into the flight, they announced that a passenger had missed the flight, but his luggage did not. For security reasons, they said, they had to turn around and land back at the airport and drop the luggage off. They decided to refuel while there, as well. This turned out to be a 2.5 hr delay before we took off, once again bumpy.
Many people were bickering and complaining about the delay and the reason that was given. It seemed like most people said it was an excuse for something the crew did not want to tell us. I was thinking, "Hmmm, rough take-off, loud noise on the landing gear, plane turning around. I hope it's not faulty landing gear." I half-expected the plane to crumble on the left side during the landing at one point. ;) Yes, I was on the left side.
The flight was very smooth and the rare turbulence was barely noticeable. I slept on and off during this flight, so I'm not quite sure how much sleep I actually got. I did watch an episode of Heroes that was available, as well as Eagle Eye and part of Quantum of Solace. The landing in Beirut, however, was slightly rough (again), but uneventful. The weather was steady, but light, rain and cool. I was ok with this!
Met up with the Catranis family (Beth and 2 sons, Tad and Kit) and headed back to their place.
I will be staying with them until Saturday, when I fly into Baghdad and then the final leg of the journey.
We dropped my stuff off and then went out to get some dinner.
-- Needless to say, I was quite tired that night. We got back to the house around 10:45PM and I wanted to shower since I hadn't had one since Tuesday morning around 8:30AM. Ewww. I was stinky.
I got to sleep around 12:30-1:00AM.
I had someone there help me get my boarding pass for the next flight, and then headed to the luggage checkpoint. The checkpoints were kinda annoying for me. I had to take out both laptops I had on me (one mine, one for Peter when I get to Iraq), put them in separate bins, put the 2 bags I had on the conveyor belt, and another bin for my jacket, shoes, wallet, passport, and cell phone. Not only that, but I have to remove my glasses for it and can't see anything until my stuff comes thru the other side.
I had had no problems at the Philly airport, but while waiting blind on the other side, the bags came out, as well as the laptops, then my shoes - but not in a bin. At first I thought maybe the bin got caught and the shoes fell out. I blame that silly thought on not having glasses on and it makes me stupid as well as blind. Needless to say, I had a feeling they saw something suspicious with my luggage. I wasn't sure at first, but when they pulled me aside and asked if they could search my wallet (I furrowed my eyebrows and said, "sure"), I realized it was the knife I had in there. I could never remember that it was there because I've only had to use it twice. Plus, I didn't get stopped at Philly nor at any point in my trip to Mexico for my brother's wedding.
They did confiscate the knife, called the police, holed me up in a prison cell at the airport (like a dungeon), interrogated me for 3 hrs, and...just kidding. They only confiscated the knife and recorded it, then let me go. They said the knife was of legal length, but because you could flip it open like a switchblade, it made it an illegal length after that - Bummer.
The flight:
We had to walk outside to board the plane and the weather was outstanding. Clear skies, light breeze, I'd say about 65 degrees.
The take-off was the bumpiest I've ever been on, not that I've been on many flights, but it was still the bumpiest. The landing gear seemed to affect the stability of the flight too and made a LOUD noise at one point that sounded like something hit it full speed. It made this sound while retracting the landing gear, as well as later when extending the landing gear. It startled me a little bit, as well as other passengers around me.
About 20 or more minutes into the flight, they announced that a passenger had missed the flight, but his luggage did not. For security reasons, they said, they had to turn around and land back at the airport and drop the luggage off. They decided to refuel while there, as well. This turned out to be a 2.5 hr delay before we took off, once again bumpy.
Many people were bickering and complaining about the delay and the reason that was given. It seemed like most people said it was an excuse for something the crew did not want to tell us. I was thinking, "Hmmm, rough take-off, loud noise on the landing gear, plane turning around. I hope it's not faulty landing gear." I half-expected the plane to crumble on the left side during the landing at one point. ;) Yes, I was on the left side.
The flight was very smooth and the rare turbulence was barely noticeable. I slept on and off during this flight, so I'm not quite sure how much sleep I actually got. I did watch an episode of Heroes that was available, as well as Eagle Eye and part of Quantum of Solace. The landing in Beirut, however, was slightly rough (again), but uneventful. The weather was steady, but light, rain and cool. I was ok with this!
Met up with the Catranis family (Beth and 2 sons, Tad and Kit) and headed back to their place.
I will be staying with them until Saturday, when I fly into Baghdad and then the final leg of the journey.
We dropped my stuff off and then went out to get some dinner.
-- Needless to say, I was quite tired that night. We got back to the house around 10:45PM and I wanted to shower since I hadn't had one since Tuesday morning around 8:30AM. Ewww. I was stinky.
I got to sleep around 12:30-1:00AM.
Day 1 - Flight to Paris
I arrived at the Philly airport approximately 2.5 hours before my departure time. I had enough time to watch about 1/5 to 1/4 of a movie before we started getting ready to board the plane.
Take-off was smooth, and eventually, I played around with the TV options to see what was available. Movies, music, games. I thought, "Cool, maybe I won't need to use my laptop. Uhhh," as I looked around and noticed that there was no where to plug in the airplane power adapter I had for my laptop, "Guess I won't be using my laptop anyway."
-- My laptop only lasts about 1 hr while watching a movie or playing a full screen video game.
Unfortunately, while everyone else was watching movies, I, a techie person, could not figure out why mine wouldn't start. I selected the film and hit enter, but the screen went black and gave me options for "Volume", "Brightness", and "Language", of which only the volume did anything. After about 30 seconds (a time-out length), the system restarted and returned to the main menu - in French. It also mentioned, "Sorry, but some of the features of this system are temporarily not functional." From what I could tell, I was the only one who couldn't view movies. Everything else worked though.
I figured, "Oh well, this gives me an excuse to go to sleep for the whole flight." But, even though I can sleep pretty much anywhere, I cannot fall asleep in an upright chair with no leg room to slouch or turn to the side - and I did not want to fall asleep on the shoulder of the kid next to me or fall into the aisle. I slept for a max of 1 hr for the 7.5 hr flight.
Now, don't think that this is whiny complaining. It's not. I could have pulled out my laptop and fiddled with that for a short time till the battery died, or even gotten a book out to read. I was not terribly bored or frustrated.
The food was airplane food, so not much to say there.
I arrived in Paris around 8:30AM locale time.
Take-off was smooth, and eventually, I played around with the TV options to see what was available. Movies, music, games. I thought, "Cool, maybe I won't need to use my laptop. Uhhh," as I looked around and noticed that there was no where to plug in the airplane power adapter I had for my laptop, "Guess I won't be using my laptop anyway."
-- My laptop only lasts about 1 hr while watching a movie or playing a full screen video game.
Unfortunately, while everyone else was watching movies, I, a techie person, could not figure out why mine wouldn't start. I selected the film and hit enter, but the screen went black and gave me options for "Volume", "Brightness", and "Language", of which only the volume did anything. After about 30 seconds (a time-out length), the system restarted and returned to the main menu - in French. It also mentioned, "Sorry, but some of the features of this system are temporarily not functional." From what I could tell, I was the only one who couldn't view movies. Everything else worked though.
I figured, "Oh well, this gives me an excuse to go to sleep for the whole flight." But, even though I can sleep pretty much anywhere, I cannot fall asleep in an upright chair with no leg room to slouch or turn to the side - and I did not want to fall asleep on the shoulder of the kid next to me or fall into the aisle. I slept for a max of 1 hr for the 7.5 hr flight.
Now, don't think that this is whiny complaining. It's not. I could have pulled out my laptop and fiddled with that for a short time till the battery died, or even gotten a book out to read. I was not terribly bored or frustrated.
The food was airplane food, so not much to say there.
I arrived in Paris around 8:30AM locale time.
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