Yet another picture from my flight. You can see two children on the bank of the river near the bottom. They were waving at us. 

And Time Passes

The previous several posts have been pictures kind of chronicling a recent trip I took. It was an early morning flight, and besides some sort of oil misting my face, it was a great ride. (I really don't care if I get a little bit of hydraulic fluid in my face, but it got on my camera lens too.)

The scenes were spectacular though. From flying over the desert, to the approach to Baghdad where things start to get green again. The temperatures also vary widely. One minute it's nice and cool, and then the next minute you are sweating profusely because it's 20 degrees warmer.
This picture in my post here is a great picture of one of the many palaces in Baghdad. It's interesting to see that most of the people in Iraq live in such abject poverty, and then the Hussein family lived like this. And like I said, this is one of hundreds, yes I said hundreds of such residences.

Enjoy my friends.

~Josh

What looks to be a fairly decent neighborhood in Baghdad. 

The mighty Tigris River outside Baghdad. Beautiful from this altitude. 

Watching the sun come up from a high vantage point, with the reminder that there is still constant danger in the air. 

A picture of the farm lands of Iraq as the sun peeks through the dust clouds in the morning. 

Happy Birthday Wishes

In this post I want to recognize my younger brother, Free Michael, for it is his birthday today. He is turning a well seasoned 29 years old today. This last year we haven't talked nearly as much as I would have liked to, especially living relatively close to each as we do. (I'm in the good old PH, and he's in Phoenix.)

So Happy birthday Bro! I hope you have a good one. I'd drink a toast to you if I could, but I can't, so I'll have a NA beer in your honor today at dinner. ;-)

~Josh

Getting set up for our 4th of July Picnic. 

Lovely form work for afore mentioned Pumping Station. 

A Post, at long last!!!!

Damn, but it's been awhile since I have posted anything. It hard to think about what to write about when I post, because there is that delicate line you don't want to cross between when you can say and what you can't say about work. In the sporatic instances when I talk to Kristin she is constantly reminding me about things I mabe shouldn't be telling her, which in my case is very hard because of the fact that I typically tell her everything that goes on at home. It's yet another work dynamic that I just have to get used to.

I can talk about the basic work that I am doing, so I will vent just a little bit. We are over here helping the Iraqi people. I work with, and supervise several of them, and I feel that I have gotten to know the ones I work with pretty well. That being said, there is a strong trend of apathy from 75% of the people I work with over here. (The locals)

I know that is truly dismal outlook, but at times it gets pretty frustrating. All I can say is that the work around here is never dull. Too exciting at times, but never dull.

I have a contractor who is working on building a gray water pumping station for us. He catagorically refused to use my suggestion of using a precast concrete vault. He said he couldn't control the quality of concrete, and then the plant might mess up the pour and they would have to redo the structure. So he builds this brick outer jacket down in the hole, which is 4 meters deep. Then he ties his rebar, and builds his forms, and then orders concrete from the same batch plant that could have precast the thing in the forst place. LOL... The first trip the truck made out to the site, the contractor didn't have a vibrator. A whole load of concrete wasted. The next day everything was set. The truck came out and they poured, and whoops, there was a little failure of the forms. The boards started to bulge and break near the bottom of the structure.

That is a typical contractor here. They think they can do everything better and cheaper.
That's it for now.

~Josh