Army planes are the worst

Okay, I know it has been a long time since I last posted a blog. Let me catch everyone up to speed. In the last four months work was busy, some stuff got blown up, I ripped up the carpet in my room (it smells better now), we got some new soldiers, had a few sandstorms, they started serving a new kind of ice cream (Jomocha Almond, it is good), they built a coffee shop for us (but it got blown up during it's 2nd week open, so sad) and now I am at the airport in Baghdad for the 4th day trying to get a flight out of here for R&R. Anyone who has had a bad experience with airline cancellations and layovers (this should be everyone) be glad it wasn't an Army flight out of an Army airport. I think because we don't actually pay for the ticket (in fact, we don't even get tickets) the flight operators figure a 96-hour layover (so far) is just part of the normal flight process. Uggghh. As of now it is looking like I will be getting into Austin 4May, probably in the evening. I should be around the city most of the 18days I have home minus a few in the middle (see my mom for details.) I hope I get to see everyone who is in town while I am on leave but if not I'll see you when I get back (only 9 months to go WooHoo.) Till then...

Some unexpected weather

Last week I got to see a rare occurrence in this part of the world. Snow in Baghdad. It lasted for about four hours during the early morning. Most of the locals who have lived here all their lives said that it was the first time they had ever seen snow. It was commonplace to hear people saying that "hell must be freezing over" for something like this to happen. Unfortunately it all melted once it hit the ground so I didn't have a chance to make an Iraqi snowman. It is even colder now and there was ice on the ground this morning when I was going to chow. In spite of my Texan roots I managed to walk on it without falling over.
We were recently given ECWCs (extreme cold weather clothing) which came in two boxes consisting of about nine layers. I wore three of them the other night while on guard and although it is quite drafty up in the towers I was nice and toasty in my 3-layered coat.
Everything else here is going well with the exception of some bad news we got yesterday. The contractor who fills the tanks that feed our showers is either out of water or out of town or something. We will be without showers for an indefinite amount of time but it could be worse. It could be summer which would be a much worse time to be going without a wash. Just consider yourselves lucky that you don't have to be around me and my stinky friends.