Day Nine

Day Nine
04 August 2007

Today marks the one year point. Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, I looked back at Lauren as I walked across the little field of dying grass to get on the bus. Five hundred twenty five thousand and six hundred minutes since that plane ride that took me eleven thousand miles away from everything I know and love. Give me a minute to reflect…okay, back to work.

Our first project of the day is to drill a hole between the first and second floors. It’s decided that drilling down would be a much better idea that to drill up, so upstairs we go. It doesn’t smell as bed up here but the lighting is worse and there some kind morbid energy coming from the corners. I think I’ll stay in the light, thanks. The area between the floors consists of a layer of dirt sandwiched between two slabs of concrete. Should be a piece of cake for our two foot super bit coupled with the jackhammer drill. I would not want to be in the room below this thing!

The hole was made and the cables run. Now we have to setup the switches where all of these cables will plug in and connect to the routers… hmm… I think I may have lost some of you. Okay, a quick lesson in networking (those who already know can jump to the next paragraph.). In order for information to travel from your computer, over a network, and reach another computer, it has to have a place to go and a way to identify where it came from and where it’s going. These tasks are accomplished through a universal addressing system much like the system used by the postal service to deliver mail. On the envelope you specify certain information about the source and destination for your letter, right? Your computer does the same thing to every little piece of information it sends. The envelope is called a “packet” and it’s addressing information is read in layers. The return address contains all of the information unique to your computer, like your IP address (city and state) and MAC address (street address). The destination address contains the IP and MAC address of the computer your sending information to. The “switch” can read and understand MAC addresses so it’s like your local post office, where a “router” reads IP addresses making it more like an international postal station. That should do. If you want to know more…Google it! Or better yet, head over to http://www.howstuffworks.com and search for networking.

They served eggplant parmesan for lunch. That’s just weird to me. Eggplant parmesan in Iraq. Well, it was pretty good so I won’t complain, but damn. Weird, man. I also had a not so weird hot dog that had actually been grilled! I could only eat half the bun because the other half had solidified. That actually came in handy though when I needed something to cut my eggplant parmesan!

The rest of the afternoon is spent setting up the computers. It’s a pretty basic process of getting them logged in and setting them up for an MS Outlooks email account. Oh, and there’s that little thing about getting them out of the boxes! Of course there were issues like one of the keyboards being completely in English, another keyboard had the wrong kind of connector, and all but one of the printers can only take a 110 volt power source (Iraq uses 220 volts!). But we did the best we could.

After a halfway decent Salisbury steak and some mashed potatoes, I went to take some pictures of our progress for the day. It’s actually impressive for just a few hours of work. There’s still work to be done tonight though. We have to change out a part on their satellite dish to give them faster internet.

The dish is on the roof, of course, and once again I find myself and the people around me exploring new levels of stupid. I’m temporarily distracted from the fact that I am on a roof top in clear view of many, many other rooftops around the city by some unexpected beauty. The sun is setting behind Ba Qubah; painting the city with intense color from fire orange to crimson to deep blood red. The statue fixed to the domed roof a few blocks away seems to have a glowing halo radiating, hypnotic. I feel like some kind of awkward gargoyle perched on this rooftop. Unable to move in the light of a living, sun blessed city. When the glow fades and I am released from my temporary paralysis, I quickly remember that I am shoulder deep in stupid and need this to get over with as quickly as possible.

After an hour of tinkering with the equipment and chatting with a couple of very energetic young jundee, the job is finished. Or at least half finished. There is still the process of calling the satellite controllers and running some tests to make sure everything will work properly when we plug a bunch of computers into it. But hey, it’s just a phone call. How long could it take?
At 2300 we make our way back to our building. Bitching the whole time about how much the satellite phone we were using sucks and how we could have been done two hours ago if it hadn’t dropped signal so often. “It’s only a thousand bucks. I could just get another one if I end up throwing this one at the wall.”, says the contractor poet. I wish I could say the same thing. I need a pick-me-up, and I know just the thing.

A call to my wonderful wife sends me into orbit. The earth looks so peaceful from way up here. There are no troubles or worries. No drama or petty squabbles. No hate or war. Nothing wrong at all. Just me and my squirrel. Until the imminent *click* brings me back to the war torn, bloody streets of Iraq.

It’s 0030 now and I need to get some rest before…