What Is An Expat?

So day before yesterday I’m hiding out in my office. It’s the 4th day in a row that I have actually been busy. I go about 3 months filling up my day working and working (on the internet) and working (visiting) and working (wandering) and it’s like all of a sudden people realize they have computers and problems and an IT guy. Hey! A match made in heaven! Of course, as always it was all silly stuff, but that didn’t stop me having to move back and forth across camp all day long. It is a definite change to go from “I make myself busy doing things” to “I am very busy, how am I going to work in those other things?”

Quick side trip here: I do more before 9 AM than you do ALL DAY! That’s because, you know, your 9 AM is my 9 PM. Ha. Sigh…this is a tough audience.

Anyways, earlier in the day I had been conversing with some folk, and we talked about getting off base, even if there isn’t much to see. Even if there isn’t much to see, there aren’t endless seas of tents and this crappy rock surface to see. That works. So later a party unrelated to that conversation pops his head in the door and mentions going to the airport, do I wanna go? Can I get a Hell Yeah? Oh well, I don’t even know if Steve Austin still wrestles anymore. (more…)

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…)

I half expected to see someone I knew here in some way or another. I figured it’d be somebody I’d recognized but didn’t know all that well. I’ve been off active duty about 10 years. Imagine my surprise when I run into one of my old roommates! The funny thing is that we don’t work in similar fields, have like schedules, or anything of the sort but I run into Larry probably every other day now. He is a reservist and will be rotating out sometime soon. Given the situation, I wonder how long it might be before he gets called back up. Guard and Reserve – that weekend a month and two weeks a year don’t seem like much, but if you get called up it can really impact your life. Actually, the other can still be a pain in the ass too, but it’s a comparison thing. (more…)

I remembered some other things about housing that I found interesting. In Tashkent I think the majority of people live in the massive apartment buildings. I didn’t see anything that approximated your typical (or even non-typical) stand-alone American type houses. Even so, there hasn’t been money to build things in general, so what they had 10 years ago when the Russians left is what they have today. Now that isn’t totally true, but it gets the idea in your head.

Aside from these buildings, you have many (usually single story) structures lined up against the streets. Long lengths of unbroken wall, with a singe gate that leads into a compound, and hovels or shacks clustered around open courtyards. Looking at them, I can only think of this as a defensible block. The wall has no windows or openings other than that gate. Imagine an old Western fort on the plains, but it’s only a single story, and it’s dingy white bricks instead of wood. It’s hard to get much detail on the interiors, since of course you can’t in general see them, but that’s very much the sense I got from the glimpses I did have. Some of that I was able to tell from flying into and out of Tashkent, getting the aerial view made a big difference.

Out in Karshi, didn’t see any apartment buildings at all, though we skirted the city. There were scattered groups of structures. Imagine your typical American red barn, but smaller. Paint it dingy white (let’s call it concrete!) and beat it up a bit. Now a bit more. Knock some holes in the walls, and figure people are living in the bottom area. These are grouped as well, but not so much in the fortress style, though you can still see the influence.