34%

Hey! I hit 1GB on my gmail account! {that only took 3 years}

Saturday Night...

We went to their house for dinner {Civilians contracted to train the Iraqi police force - great bunch of guys}



where one of the guards always makes us chai in these little glass cups



that get ridiculously HOT. I leave mine sitting out for a minute before attempting to hold the cup, let alone drink the chai



{I'm stll learning my new camera. Would have been a better picture if the first cup was in focus.}

Zaytun Park

Everyone gets this picture taken - when other Soldiers come here to visit, we take them to Zaytun park and make them crawl up on the letters. This picture of me was taken in April when its green and lush and pleasant. The park is built up on a hill and has some amazing views of the city to the east.

The past few days have been holding steady over 115F - that's stupid hot. Stupid hot, we've concluded, is so hot that just standing outside causes you break into this sweat. Its stupid.

I am a dork.

Oh yes.

I have to admit, the 'donut of misery' isn't something I can claim to create - L, who also has her own little donut, sent it to me early in my deployment.

I did create my very own dorky spreadsheet to track my running. In conjunction with my Timex GPS system, I track to the 1000th of a mile how far I've run, my average pace and best speed for any given workout.

Anyway, if you noticed, July's mileage was an even 60 miles. The morning of the 31st I ran 4.539 miles which left my monthly mileage at 58.511. Guess what I did that afternoon at the gym? Ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill.

I am a dork.

Donut of Misery

We Are Friends.

and some of you thought I was kidding about the 'we are friends' bus.

Only in Irbil can the Koreans get away with using this bus. I can't imagine what the insurgents would do if they saw this thing be bopping around Baghdad....

Garden

He's been working hard, prepping the soil for his garden expansion...



growing sunflowers, pumpkin, okra, watermelon, corn...




then I wanted a picture with him....




and then they all wanted in :)