Moments from the trip to Dukan which struck me as odd or amusing ( Read more... )

So I was at lunch with our clients today and one of the engineers for their project decided to educate me about Iraqi culture ( Read more... )

So we've been wrestling with issues with the units we're using for this install - they're not giving nearly the range they're supposed to.  While I was in London being trained on these units, the guy who did the training gave me his card and the "If you have any problems, give me a call or an e-mail and we'll work it out immediately." line ( Read more... )

So I'm back up in Mosul, finishing this accursed install ( Read more... )

First, my useless useless spine decides that it's going to try to rebel, beginning a brutal war of attrition in my lumbar region.  Next, the horrible sore throat/head cold, and this morning I wake up with one eye glued shut by alien slime.  Pinkeye ( Read more... )

The big giant dish got here.  It's big, it's giant, it's a dish.  Well, not exactly.  It's so big they had to ship it in pieces.  So it's two halves of a dish.  And a HUGE stand.  The mounting bolts for the stand are about a half-inch thick and a foot long.  The dish is 2.4 meters in diameter.  For reference, you would be able to fit several NBA ( Read more... )

I've been back in Baghdad for a couple days now.  Feeling a bit blah about writing, so I haven't been ( Read more... )

I spent my first day back on the Mosul ISP site.  My team is capable and eager to do work - unfortunately at this point we've about done all the work that they're going to be able to do for a few days, which means they'll be sitting around twiddling their thumbs while I wrestle with configuring these fantastically documented pieces of cra^H^H^ ( Read more... )

Pissing into a hole in the floor in a filthy, reeks-so-bad-I-have-to-breathe-through-my-mouth-to-avoid-vomiting bathroom in Mosul.  In the stall next to me, someone is slap-boxing the one-eyed champ.  The sound echoes through the tiled bathroom.  I finish pissing and flee the bathroom so quickly I forget to zip up.  

( A letter to some of our clients from the U.S.A. )