Places
On places and other literal geography
That’s so Colorado
“…Not allowed in the cargo hold: lithium batteries, e-cigarettes, personal vapes.”
Basra Snow Storm
I was feeling a little left out, reading posts by people digging out of snow storms and here I am in Basra where it gets down to 10C at night sometimes and usually hits the mid 20’s during the day. Rough. But the weather here came through with our own sort of snow storm.
Starting to look like a brown-out!
Obligatory shot of the yard furniture getting covered.
Kitty’s head is starting to show some accumulation.
With all this blowing through you can barely see a few hundred meters!
It’s really starting to accumulate. Where’s the snow blower?
It takes some special cleaning after playing out in it.
Family Feud Basra Style
Gunfire is pretty common here, perhaps even more common than in Oakland though usually for the same reasons: celebrating holidays, sports victories, weddings, that sort of stuff. It is kind of fun to listen to and watch tracers and stuff, but usually the villa is also celebrating in an obvious way; when you hear gunfire you also hear cheers, at least at night.
This evening the house was quiet, but the gunfire sure wasn’t. The guys tell me it was a tribal feud in the neighborhood, quite close from the sound of it. This is a low-fi recording from my phone.
Burnt Outlet
Occasionally electrical systems here just catch on fire for no apparent
reason.
Wow. “4G”
This is on T-Mobile USA’s Global Internet. It is actually a pretty good deal, but note it is massively throttled.
Cactus Farmer
Just a few years back, when I was in 3rd or 4th Grade, my brother and I went to visit David and Jesse Lenat at their Cactus Farm. While we were exploring the green houses, their dad, Richard, gave my brother and I each a cactus to take home.
Mine lived in a small pot near a window through the rest of grade school and high school and then my mom cared for it through college. It grew into a little cluster of pencil thin, green, spiky pads over the years.
After I graduated, moved to California and got an apartment in SF; I was home for Christmas one year and took one of the pads wrapped in tissue to California. It grew well there and now produces big, bright yellow flowers every year.
This Christmas, I stuffed two tiny buds into glass bottles and brought them to Iraq and planted in the yard with one of the cat’s help (paw in the background).
Iraq
A Day Out And About In Basra
A day spent out reviewing alternate sites where unexpected underground obstructions impact construction means a chance to make new friends.
These days the attention we attract is welcome and fun.