I went down to the IZ on the 22nd of April. Had an uneventful Rhino ride down there and Dr. M and I arrived at the Ibn Sina hospital at about 0900. Then we linked up with Dr. W and headed down to the Al Rasheed hotel. Dr. M knows one of the merchants in the hotel so we examined some of the rugs there. I bought one for my parents, now I have to send it.

I was down there because one of our guys knows a high level Iraqi official that the Department of State wanted to meet. We met up with our Iraqi contact and enjoyed some conversation before the DoS guys showed up. The DoS SES is a real ass, and showed his lack of couth during the meeting. Oh well, I cannot fix Iraq and my days here are numbered.

After the meeting we went back to the shop to pick up our rugs and the owner invited us to stay for lunch in his shop. He ordered kabobs and his son went into the red zone to pick up the food. When it arrived he closed the store and we ate Iraqi food with our hands right on the floor. It was delicious! We almost tarried too long and so we raced back to the Rhino link up point and barely made it for the ride back "home."

Earlier in the month, we had an Easter Egg contest and I have attached some of the better ones below (the comments are from the guy who assembled the slide show). My egg was disqualified because it was too risqué. Is anyone surprised?

I went to the al Faw palace recently. It is about ¼ mile from my office. I see the Americans have put the bidet to good use! It is really stunning inside, in spite of the modifications by the Army. I’m afraid this is the only photo I took.

My mattress was shipped up from Kuwait. Nothing like a posturepedic! All the other crap I shipped to myself arrived at about the same time. As you can see my living arrangement is much smaller than KU. The first photo is my mattress in its shipping box.



We have mortars and rockets sent to us every few days, it really spices up one’s day and without them we would face endless tedium. I really would like to send something back, if I only knew their address! They usually don’t hit anything, but they do get lucky once in awhile. Here is what one of our trailers looks like after it gets hit.

Luckily no one was home. It hit on a Saturday afternoon and it was the home of an Air Force guy, so his place of duty on a Saturday afternoon would have been in his room watching TV. I can only presume he was in the latrine or on a coffee run…

Finally here is a pic of my office ceiling. It has a 50 caliber hole in it! It happened before I got here, but it is a bit sobering nonetheless.