1st Amendment

Somewhere I read something about free speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble... what was that document again??  Obviously I did not read this in Detroit!  Read the news clip

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This one will make you think!

"With breathless anticipation the crowd awaits the unveiling of the Obama Statue"

Book Review "The Bourne Betrayal"

A little light reading in place of the TV set that I still don't have.  Who needs a TV set when you can see with your minds eye?!  

The Bourne Betrayal is a page turner! At 700 plus pages I was a little frightened that I would not get though the whole book in a timely manner.  However, at 50-70 pages a night, I devoured this book.  It really helps when the Author mentions places you have been, at it just so happens that Bourne is here in Sunny Djibouti Africa and other Horn countries for a couple of chapters.  Kind of interesting.  


So, if you have the time this summer while sitting on the beach drinking fruity drinks and listing to the breakers, pick up a copy and explore.  If you need some photographs of sunny Djibouti give Crackerz a shout.  

Book Review "The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror "

Ok, now this one I might not have picked off the shelf, however, I was desperate.  I was finished with all my packed reading material and had gone through a couple of other books.  So a buddy of mine gave me this one. 

Although not as interesting as the "Imperial Cruise", this book was timely and helped get me in the correct mind set for the task at hand.  BLUF, the islamonutz are just plain crazy and they are bastardizing their political religion.  That is in short what it is, a branch of politics packaged as a religion.  Or was it a religion viewed as politics.  Anyhow they think women need to wear burkas and stoning your daughter for defacing the family is a good thing! However, we already knew these people were crazy.  Pick up a copy for yourself and feel good about America again!  Only 200 or so pages. I think I did maybe 10 a night before my eyes started bleeding!

Djibouti, Djibouit...

Not only is it Africa hot, it smells like your Djibouti!

Well it is 10:30PM and it is 89degrees outside a little cool, I might have to throw on the down comforter!  I finally moved out of the tent yesterday (10 June) and it was a joyous occasion.  Tent life although not too sucky, is sucky.  It was not a quite place.  I would much rather sleep in my comfy bed on Ocean View and hear the occasional gunshots and fire trucks as opposed to the footstep of passersby at all hours.  The roar of landing and departing aircraft, (we were only about 100 meters from the ramp) the constant drone of the “CRACKEN” snoring long into the night and the pitter patter of Mr. Jingles, the tent mouse who kept us company in the evenings.  Aside from being warm in the middle of the day and chilly in the evening, the tent was not too bad.  I guess it is all in your outlook on things and the company that you keep!  At least we are not being mortared.

Heat: I have been here now three weeks and it is only getting warmer.  The other location was warm and humid, this is just plain old Africa Hot and humid!  To add to the enjoyment of Djibouti, the base we are on is located only about two miles from the “garbage dump”.  I use that term loosely as how the whole country is a garbage dump.  Want to make an impact on the planet Green Peace, come here and clean up the joint!  Oh that is right, the US Navy was going to “Volun-told” its sailors as part of a humanitarian outreach program to go clean up the roadway outside the wire in front of the base; this place in question is where plastic bags come to die.  Anyhow, the Navy went to work to nice-up the roadway and the local government told them, the sailors to stop.  The Djiboutian populace needed a place to “acquire” building materials. 

Hence, I have digressed, the dump two miles away burns in the evenings and the smoke it produces usually wafts thought the base around 8pm.  Sometimes it really smells like a camel’s rectum, which could be because they burn camels at this dump, or so the story goes.  If it cools in the evenings to the upper 80’s life is good.  This happens from time to time around 4am!  However, as soon as the sun eclipses the horizon, it is Africa Hot, 106 degrees plus and getting warmer.  Come on August!

Food: The food on base is decent.  I would not call it “mommas” cooking by any stretch, however for institutional cooking, it is good.  We can eat all we want, drink all the sodas, milk, Gatorade, juice we can fit in our guts.  There is even an ice-cream bar with hard packed ice-cream.  I have become a fan of coffee ice-cream with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and some cherries!  There are even some fresh cherries from time to time either from Travers City or the Frankfurt area of Germany?! 

Meal times for the main dining room are generous.  However if you can’t make it there on time, there is the sandwich shop which is open 22hours every day.  From 2-4am it is closed.  I have been disappointed a couple of times.  You can make all the hoagies, hotdogs, soups and cereals you want.  There is even an island that has chips, crackers, energy bars, Pringles, Oreo’s and the like.  Least I forget, ice-cream sandwiches, and assorted frozen treats.  They also serve lots of M&Ms and candy bars.  So it is important to stay fit and watch what you eat!  To wash down a tastey dinner of surf and turf, you can wonder down to 11 Degrees, the all hands club and drink your ration of beer for the day at $3.5 a can!

Recreation: So you are down at “11 Degrees” throwing down a cold barley pop. You can watch some sports center, play foosball, table shuffle board or just surf on the wireless network.  There is also gym on base where you can pump off the calories from the double scoop of coffee ice-cream with caramel and chocolate sauce.  You can do a lap (5miles) around the perimeter and sweat off the beer.  There are big coolers placed all over the base that contain bottled water so you will not keel over and die on the run like I felt like doing one night.  Maybe it was too much inhalation of the burning camel ass smoke!  There is a pool, however, it is in a state of renovation.  Maybe it will be ready this fall. 

 

You can also leave base and get out and see things.  I have done this a couple of times so far and have been less and less impressed with this county.  We went snorkeling at a place we call “French Beach”.  Today we took a drive out to Arta and saw some Baboons.  The landscape here is difficult to explain, however imagine a gravel driveway that has a few weeds and all of it has been “once overed” with a flame thrower!  Serious, rocks everywhere and they are black!  You could not drive a jeep across the “desert” you would need a bulldozer.  There is some scrub but that looks as though it has not seen rain since 1926.  

Ooh look, the temperature on my thermometer has dropped to 110, must be in the shade now!  

Mail:  Mail is pretty quick from the states.  I think the big “What if” concerning delivery speed is when the mail gets to the stateside FPO.  Does it arrive right before the flight here or right after?  A week to 10-days is not unusual.  I got some brownies, thanks mom, the other day, 12 days from West Palm. They were still fresh and moist.  I told Crackerz that I would like for my birthday, a postcard from every state in the union.  So at a minimum, I would like to have 57 postcards hanging in my box by the end of July!

Job: My ground job keeps me busy and I have to pull myself away from it in the evenings. There is always something to be done!  As the assistant operations officer, I am always collecting data, building PowerPoint slides or playing with schedules.  As a self inflicted pain, I am using my SharePoint and MS skills to streamline the collection and distribution of data.  It drives me crazy when we enter in the same numbers on 6 different trackers and none of the products talk to each other! "Data Fusion Specialist"  That is what I am calling myself.   The nice thing is that my group is new and all the processes and procedures are “new” and we are looking at ways in which we can work smarter and not harder.  My biggest challenge is to sell the whole SharePoint aspect and try to migrate way from shared drives.  A big sell.  However, Office 2007 and SharePoint blend well together and there are some really neat features which helps sales aspect.  As for the primary reason I am here, well let’s just say that doing that job in particular keeps me busy as well.