What Is An Expat?

http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/UZXX0019_f.html

Last night I stopped and looked at the sky as I do on occasion. Just sat and watched little twinkling lights fly around in the sky. Don’t know if you can see it there, but there’s a couple of planets showing up fairly brightly. I’m not sure which ones they are, other than assuming one must be the planet Venus. It’s very bright this time of year. There are quite a few lights out in the camp, but there is still quite the view to be had. It’s not as good as being totally away from civilization and seeing gajillions of stars, but it’s pretty good.

I discovered mountains today! Down south there’s a whole range of ’em! (more…)

Bah, at least you can go down to the store and buy a new one. It’s just one of those days — actually a rarity for what that’s worth. Bunch of little stuff ruthlessly self-destructing today. A couple of other things that shouldn’t bother me are, and another situation is complicating itself. Wah.

Anyways, speaking of work…so I’m standing up on top of the conex today that Mr. Satellite Dish is perched on. This is shortly after the ladder decides to slip in the loose rock. I made it onto the conex instead of the ground, but Mr. Shin is all swole up and generally unpleasant to associate with. I’m watching our locals dig a trench. They have these really trendy blue uniforms except for the foreman, who has the Green Uniform of Command and A Nifty Hat of Managing. An Uzbek shovel consists of your standard shovel head with a tree stuck into it. By that I mean not the standard size stick you might expect to see in the states but a big knotty, irregular length “hey let’s cut this one down it’s sorta straight” type of handle. They had a backhoe dig the trench and now are getting the leftover dirt out. Two guys carrying a stretcher type object made of wood are functioning as wheelless wheelbarrow totin’ guys. In this trench, one of the Shovel Engineers (no, really they don’t know about that kind of silliness, he’s just a laborer) is wearing a jacket. Not a regular jeezI’mcold jacket, but a dressy kind of jacket. Now I don’t know the difference between a sport coat and suit jacket, nor do I really care. But is either one of those appropriate for trench digging? (more…)

I saw something today that just struck as almost mind-numbingly bizarre.

It was a guy wearing the woodland camouflage BDUs — AKA Green suit. Now this might not strike you crazy kids back home as weird, but absolutely EVERYONE else is wearing the Brown Suits. Sure, you see the woodland pattern Goretex jackets, but that’s not too much of a problem. There was just some totally jarring about this all green uniform. It looked new, too. He must have felt rather silly wandering around being unique in the sea of conformity. (more…)

(not that I’m actually going to get into the anatomy parts mind you, it’s just a phrase)

I may or may not have previously mentioned the shower situation here. You’ve got a tent with curtained off showers in the center, and metal mirrors and sinks bracketing them.

So the other night I wander in for some gettin’ o’ the clean. They had the heaters just blasting, it must have been at the very least 80 degrees in there, contrasting with the upper 30s and rainy we’d had all day. I noticed it because well, it was really hot in there, and the past few days previous the heaters had been off.

Off to the shower: I put the shampoo and soap up in the metal shelf that serves as a holder. I do the cold water test — turn on a bit of water to check the temperature. Certainly don’t want the massive cold water shock. Well, as it turns out, at least I was smart enough to develop a procedure on that…IT FAILS MISERABLY! Obviously it didn’t come out ice, but it was close enough. (more…)

So I commented earlier on the general lack of grass, due to the way the boys in brown are destructive to vegetation. In a manner sure to offend all you golfers out there, the only grass I’ve seen on this installation is on the bunkers.

I missed out getting pics of all the Christmas decorations at the end of last year, but trust me there were a lot. I suppose when you work 8 hours a day and even get days off, you have time for that kind of thing. Anyways, here are a few other “we have community spirit” type things. (more…)