Out in Town and Other Ramblings

I forgot to mention that I've had a few opportunities to go out into town over the last few weeks. It really is nice down in Kuwait City. It's a very metropolitan city. There are a couple of Malls down there that we really like to go walk around in and a few restaurants as well. A few weeks ago I ate lunch at The Hard Rock Cafe. It was just about like any other Hard Rock I've ever been to, with one major exception. Kuwait is a dry country so therefore the Hard Rock here serves no alchohol. None. We all ordered Red Bull cocktails which is about as close as they come. I was able to buy a couple of shirts for Michenna and Tricia while I was there.

The real draw to going out in town, however, seems to be Ali the watch guy. Actually now Ali has left and Hussein has taken over but the idea is the same. Ali sells watches which, purely by coincedence, happen to look a lot like brand name watches. We call them "Faux" watches. I'll admit that I purchased a couple of watches from him. I got a faux-mega for myself. The James Bond edition, no less (see below). I also got matchin F-ag Heuer watches for Tricia and me. I don't have photos of those. Unfortunately, I quickly noticed that both of my watches were running slow (thankfully not Tricia's) so I took them back to Ali and he immediately swapped them out for new ones. You've gotta admire a guy who is willing to stand behind his fake watches.

As was alluded to by my brother's comment on the last posting, in about a week my single silver bar will multiply into the two silver bars of a Lieutenant in the Navy. I'm pretty excited. It doesn't mean a whole lot as far as duties here are concerned, but it does make me no longer stand out as a new guy quite so much. It also means a pretty substantial pay raise, which is never a bad thing.

Life here in the desert is about the same as always. I haven't really flown that much since my last posting. I did a couple of medevacs but that's about it. I've included a couple of photos from my flights. Enjoy.

Here is the James Bond edition Omega Speedmaster that I bought from Ali. There are several drawbacks to owning a fake watch. However, in this case there are also about 5000 advantages.

Here I am sitting on deck in Tallil, Iraq. My eyes look a little blood-shot and I'd love to say that it was because I had been crying, sensitive guy that I am. Unfortunately, the truth is just that it is hotter than he...an oven...in the cockpit and I haven't yet figured out a decent way to stop the sweat from dripping into my eyes.

Here's a shot I took of the back of the helicopter while we were flying over Iraq. You can see our corpsman showing some love. In Hong Kong, I noticed that a lot of people liked to make the peace sign in pictures. Everyone here (the Americans) seems to really like the UT Horns or the I love you sign. Must be a cultural thing.

Hard at work while on alert the other night. As you can see I am taking great care to hone my cat-like reflexes for when I fly. In this case we set up Guitar Hero in our squadron spaces and I proceded to get absolutely destroyed by some of our crewmen.

Another picture of me getting my can whooped by one of our crewmen. I just like this picture because it shows "Screamin' Joe" living up to his call sign.