In America

Okay, well for those of you who have not yet heard, I AM IN AMERICA!!!!! I am in TX for a few days, then I will be home. It is hot here, but I have been in worse. The only bad thing is that the AC in my barracks is a bit on the "Not Working" side. Oh well. We were able to get some of our out-processing done. Tomrrow we get to sit through all of our briefings. Death by Power Point. I am not authorized to post the day I am flying home, but you will all hear about it in good time.

Quick Update

Greeting to everyone! Well, today is the last day of official business. AND, I happen to be on the most important detail of the day. Cake Detail!!! Yes, I get to go pick up a huge cake, cut it, and serve it. Yep, I am a regular war hero. Today we are doing our Relief In Place and Transfer Of Authority, or RIP/TOA. After that, we are all done! The last of our Aircraft took off yesterday. All we have to do now is wait for our flight to Kuwait. I cannot say when I will be home, but it is going to be soon. I will see you all in a couple few weeks!!

Practical Jokes In The Tents

Well, some of this stuff may not be suitable for children. We are now in the tents. There are about ten of us in one tent and boy how the jokes have started! We have stolen clothes while people were in the shower. Some people have broken into people's computers and putting pictures of questionable content on their wall papers. One of the guys has a program that turns your mouse pointer on your screen into a penis. Very funny. We have a guy who has a computer with facial recognition, so when someone who is not him tries to log onto the computer, it records who is trying to get on the computer. So, some of the guys have been placing certian parts of their anatomy in front of the computer so that it records their anatomy instead of their faces. Right now they have a picture of the guy and they are trying to get on the computer that way. Today, I purchased a pair of ladies underware. Very skimpy and see through. We then went to the showers and took one of our guy's stuff, leaving him the panties! It di dnot work though. He was smart and hid his clean clothes in the shower room and all we got was his dirty clothes. We are bored, and things get strange when we are bored. So, anyway, our replacements are almost all here. The sheet metal guy is here, but I have not met him yet. They seemed more concerned with their rooms than getting to work. When we got here, I had to work the first day I was here. I guess they are just making it bad for themselves. We are not going to do everything for them. Maybe they think we will. Well, I am going to log off for now. I hope to see you all soon.

No More Mail

Hello everyone! Well, it is that time of the deployent. It is the time to stop sending mail. All mail needs to be sent by the 2nd of july and no later please. That includes all packages as well as letters. The reason is simple. If anything is sent after that date, there is a chance that I will not get it. I am not sure when we are coming home, but it is not too far off. Thank you all for the letters and packages that you all sent. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Dumpster Diving!!

Here it is!! My latest addition to my collection! I know what you are all thinking, this is a ratty, old chair. However, it is a stable, comfortable, CLEAN, ratty old chair. Someone that is leaveing next week put it out in the trash bin for metal and wood. As you can see from the pictures, it reclines. I have it set at the perfect distance from my bed so I can put my feet up and stretch out! It only has to last me for a month. Plus, it is a glider-rocker! An all in one chair. I wish I had found this thing earlier!

Oh, the bags that you are seeing in these pictures are all of my stuff that I am packing up to come home! It is almost that time! Until then, bye.

Yard Work

Well, this here is a picture of my lawn. Not the one back home, but the lawn that I have here in Iraq. It is about 1.5' by 2', and contained in the top of a shipping container. As you can see, it is very lush and green. It also feels great on bare feet. It requires 2-4 1L bottles of water a day.


However, with a great lawn comes great responsability. So, I decided to mow my lawn.

As you can see, it takes great care and skill to pull off a good yard trimming. With slow, deliberate movements, I expertly mowed my lawn.

Okay, so it is clear that I am no barber. This final picture is actually the finished product. But hey, the smell of fresh cut grass was amazing. You would be surprised how much you take something like that for granted. Oh, by the way, I bought a steak today at the PX. I am going to cut it up and use it for bait. I m hoping that blood in the water will bring the big fish in.

One Week Closer

Greetings all!
I know I have not post.ed in a while. What can I say? I suck at blogging. Today was another day off. One week closer to getting home. There is really nothing new going on here. Just counting down the days. The weather her has been unseasonably cool. We have not passed the 120 mark in the shade yet. Heck, a few mornings ago, we even dropped down to 75! Burrrrrr! There are no pictures this week, however I am planning on putting some up of my "Lawn" next week. Until then!

Mommy

This Post is dedicated to the Mother of my children, on Mother's Day. Barb, you are a wonderful mother who loves her children. You give endlesssly to make sure your children get what they need and want. I am lucky to have you as my wife, and our children are lucky to have you as their Mommy.

Happy Mother's Day!!

The Oasis

Well, as promised, here is a picture of the oasis that I fish at. That building in the background is the Ziggarat of Ur. This happens to be the birth place of Abraham. THE Abraham, from the Bible. They do tours of the building, but so far, I have not had the chance to do so. I am looking forward to going on one. Kind of a neat picture.

Fishing

For most people, around here, smoking and drinking are used as a way to relax. Well, General Order 1A states that there is to be no alcohol while deployed. Makes sense. So most everyone here is going nuts for a beer right now. How do I keep my cool? Well as you all know, I do not drink. However, I do consider Fishing to be my one true vice. So, Fishing is my Alcohol, and Chocolate is my Ciggaretts. Luckily, I can have both while I am here. Below are some pictures of the fish I caught last night at an oasis here on post. I am still not sure what kind of fish it is, but at least I caught one!!!

As you can see, it is rather dark. One of these days, I am going to get a picture of what the oasis looks like in the daylight.

Not too bad for the first fish of the season, especially since it was caught in Iraq!

IBF Bracket

This is an IBF bracket. It is a bracket for a modification for a big filter on the intake of the engines on the helicopters to catch the sand. Now, this modification was not installed by the Army. It was installed by civilians paid much more than soldiers to do the same job. However, they did not do the job right. This particular bracket was put in 1/8 of an inch too low. Now, that may not seem like a lot to you all, but in terms of an aircraft, that may as well be a mile. So, we started out by drilling out the Hilocks that held it in place. A Hilock is a fancy bolt that has a collar instead of a nut. Once the collar is installed, you cannot get it off unless you destroy it.


With many hours of measuring, drilling, sweating and swearing, we got the new bracket drilled to the proper location and started to install 11 new Hilocks. As you can see from this picture, the space is rather limited. Behind that panel that you see, is a bunch of wires, bolts, nuts, and other various parts that rub against the skin and take up a lot of room.

In this picture, you can see that there is really no way to go at this in a comfortable position. Phillips, (The other guy in my shop) and I had to switch out after every couple Hilocks. The reason for this is because the collars on the Hilock has a hex head on one end and is flat on the other end. The flat end threads on the Hilock, and you use a wrench on the hex end to finish installing the collar. Once the collar gets to a certian tourque, the hex head snaps off, leaving the collar on the Hilock. Well, the issue with this is, the Hilocks have a tendency to spin. So, in the end of the Hilock, opposite of the head, is a hex key hole. You have to put an allen wrench inside the hole, hold the hex key, and turn the wrench all at the same time, and all on the same end. As you can see, I am only using one hand. That is because there is barely room for one hand on the inside of this project. So, one hand got to do the job of two hands. Let's just say, it took a while.

This was started on Tuesday, at 16:00, (4:00pm). We stopped for the night at 20:00 (8:00pm). Wednesday, my day off, I was at work by 05:45am. Phillips and I did not leave untill 01:45 Thursday morning. In other words, Phillips pulled an 18 hour shift, and I pulled a 20 hour shift. Today is my day off for the week, and I am VERY tired.

Another Day Down

Not a whole lot going on this week. One of my room mates moved into another room, so I now have half of a three man room to myself. I will take some pictures of my new layout for next week. One thing that has been a bit frustrating is the fact that I pay almost 90 dollars a month for internet, and we have not had two consecutive days of internet in over a month. The system is designed for computers only. If anyone plugs in a router, or game system, the internet for our whole row of buildings goes out. There is someone in our row who, every night around 10:00 or so, plugs in something they are not suppose to, and knocks out all of our internet. What really sucks is that I have paid for the internet, but don't get to use it. Kind of crappy but oh well. A few more weeks, and I get to come home on leave. I cannot wait. Other than that, there is nothing going on here. I am glad that is is a slow news week. It means that we are safe, even if we are bored.

This week.

As you all can see, I was allowed to put my TV and sound system back up this week. It is great to have it back. Mostly because of the sound system. I like to have music playing while I am working.

This picture is of a cabin door on a Black Hawk. You may abe asking what the Duct Tape is for. Well, these doors are made of Kevlar and Fiber Glass. The pilots had, throught very rough use, put a hole throught the door. Due to time restrictions, I was not allowed to bring the door into my shop, so I had to repair it on the aircraft. Well, as you all know, a composite repair needs to have constant, even pressure on it while it cures for the repair to work. Since I had no way of clamping the pressure plates to the door, I had to use a bag of rivets as a raised point, and wrap tape aound the door to apply pressure to the bag. The pressure was then distribuited by the pressure plates. In the end, the door turned out great.

The above three pictures are of a particularly cool repair. For OPSEC reasons, all I can say it there was a hole put in the aircraft. The bottom picture is what the hole looked like after I chain drilled it. As you can see, I drew a box around the damage. This box will be the size of the hole when I am done. You want to remove all the damage, and get yourself a symetrical shape to work with. This way, making the filler and patch (Top Picture), will be a lot easier. The middle picture is the hole after I cleaned all the damage out. The top picture is the filler, or the piece that is doing to go inside the hole, and the patch that will cover the whole repair. As you can see in the bottom picture, the damage occured close to an already existing rivet pattern. The tricky part is working that rivet pattern into my repair. This one was simple for the type of repair it was, but still a good challange. Both repairs were done by me in less than 24 hours. I am given a VERY short amount of time becuause the aircraft cannot be down for long. I have spent many late nights (Sometimes as late as midnight) and early mornings (2 hours earlier than normal) at the shop to get it all done.

Dust

Hello everyone! It is VERY dusty here right now and has been for the past few days. By dusty, I am talking barely able to see 200 yards in front of you. The sad part is, it is only going to get worse as the weather heats up. The part that really sucks about the dust is that the Air conditioner in my room broke, and so I have to have my door open to keep my room from getting super hot. Oh well, I will just have the Army do an X-Ray of my chest when I get home to make sure they pay for anything that I might be catching from all this dust. Other than that, the weather around here has been a bit on the strange side. The last time I was in Iraq, it was rather cold and rainy this time of year. In fact, it did not break 65 untill about the begining of april. However, I was a lot further North than I am now and that might have something to do with it. All I know for sure is everything looks like an old 1930's movie. Very grainy, brownish color. OH! From what I have been told, they are not going to take my shop YET. They are going to order all the tools that I am missing from the shop, get it complete, THEN they will take it. Hopefully, the stuff doesn't all come in untill long after we are home. Well, I think that is all for now.

Plexiglass

This week I thought I would show you all just how bored I can get sometimes. Normally, when there is work to be done, it comes in large amounts. But when there is nothing to do, there is NOTHING to do. So, I thought I would mess around with some Plexiglass. This is what I have made, SO FAR.


I love to play cribbage. However, I can never find a board that is not being used, so I can have on in my shop. So, I decided to make my own. It is a four person board with over 500 holes in it. I drilled each hole myself with my cordless drill. I am using long rivets for the pegs, and it works great. The michigan cards that mom and dad Blain sent me (Thank you), came the day after I finished this board, so it is only natural that they be the cards that I use.

The next two pictures are of a box that I made to hold hear plugs. Since I run a sheet metal shop, things can get rather loud in there. So, instead of having the hearing protection in a cabinet, I decided that we needed them to be displayed near the front door. As you can see, I notched all the peices. This was done with a band saw, taking one blade width at a time untill all the notches were cut. Above is a picture of it before it was completed. Below is a picture of the box finished. I know in the picture, the box looks like it is completely enclosed, but the tops of the front and back are open. You pour the ear plugs in the back, and then you can grab them easily in the front. It is a very basic design, but I am proud of myself. Especially for my first attempt at anything like this.

Well, that is all for now. More to come next week. So far, they have not taken my shop. Keep your fingers crossed!

That is the Army for you

Well all, I know it has been a while. I am no good at all this Blog stuff. So, let me bring you up to speed with what is going on in my world. As you know, I recently got a new shop. It took us a long time to get a real shop with all the tools that we need. Well, now that we got the shop, we are able to get a ton of work done. It is great. So, last week, I was told that I had to pack up the TV, DVD player and sound system. Our shop had to look like all we do is work, not hang out. When I asked why we had to do this (Especially when the people telling us to pack it up have spent some time watching movies in my shop), they said that we just had to hide it for a few weeks. Appparently there are some "Powers that Be" that are going to be coming over to check out my shop. I have to convince them that we need the shop so that they do not take it away. What do they want to do with this shop you may ask? Well, they want to send it to Reset, where it gets repaired, new tools, etc. Then it will sit for a while untill it is needed again. What do I get to replace my shop? NOTHING. That is the Army for you. Hopefully, they do not take my shop. I am going to do whatever I can to prevent this. Also, my command is livid about this! They are about as mad as I am about this. On a different note, my firend who got hurt in Texas has finally joined us. I am glad that he is here. He has a great sense of humor that cheers us all up. The weather here is GREAT! It is like a perfect Michigan summer day every day. I am enjoying it while I can, because we all know what will happen in a few months. Well, that is all for now.

The New Shop!!!

Hello everyone! I am sorry that it took so long for me to get these pictures up. You are about to enter into the world of the Sheet Metal Shop. If you are of weak constitutions, please leave now! All comments will be directed towards the picture above it.
This is my entertainment area. There is a 27" T.V., Surround sound system and a DVD player. There is also a Drill Press, but that is not important.

This is the back door. On the right, directly in front of the door, is our Squaring Shear. In front of that is our roll around tool box that I use for my work space. I give the nice table top to the other guy in my shop. It is the proper "Head of the Shop" thing to do.

This is our Box and Pan break. It is not a true Box and Pan break, but it falls under the category, so that is what we call it. I know, you are all thinking "I know that it is not really a true Box and Pan break, he didn't have to tell me." I am sorry if I insulted anyone by telling you what you already knew.

This is the work bench that I let Phillips use. If you notice, it is much messier than mine. We are working on that. Now, behind the black chair, if you look close, is the fridge. That came with the shop as well.

This is the front door, and to its right, is the T.V. So, we have done a full circle of the shop, and that is all there is to it. It may not seem like much, but it is one of the nicest here. All of our bennch stock is in another, smaller structure. Well, that is the new shop. I hope you all recover quickly from all the excitement of this little journey.