One week away...Maryland or bust!

The last two weeks have been the busiest and most hectic by far. Last month I got every thing done fairly quickly, so I was pretty bored towards the end of the month. This month is the total opposite. I haven’t been able to do hardly any of my normal monthly maintenance. One of my sites had a small issue that has turned into a conundrum of a problem.

It started out with one piece of gear going bad. I made the journey to the site got the broken piece of gear and traveled to TQ to pick up a replacement. I went back to the site put the replacement in place and nothing worked. I didn’t bring a lot of my tools because I thought it would be a simple procedure that would not require them. I started trouble shooting the problem and more and more things started to break. Without the proper tools it was hard to narrow down exactly where the problem was. I spent two days straight trying to fix the problem with no success.

I eventually went back to Ramadi so that I could get the tools I needed. I then jumped on a chopper to Baghdad to grab some more replacement parts. I was able to get some advice from some of the more experienced technicians while I was there as well. I tried to do a one day turn around but ended up getting stuck there for four days. I didn’t even get to go to Salsa night either. I flew back to Ramadi and then jumped on a convoy out to the site the next day. I now had a ton of tools and parts to help me get this thing working.

My mind and creativity were stretched pretty far. Even with all my tools and replacement part I still could not figure out what exactly the problem was. I read manual after manual and continuously called back to Baghdad for advice. I nearly rebuilt the whole system and still could not get it to work. I never got frustrated while I was trying to fix this monster, but I did get exhausted and a little depressed. I tried every thing I could think of to get this thing working. Eventually I ran out of ideas and parts to replace. My boss from Fallujah is going to take over where I left of and try to get this thing working.

I on the other hand am going on vacation. I am going back to Maryland to visit friends and family. I get a one day layover in London which should be exciting. Best of all, I can forget about things breaking and just relax. It is only a two week trip, but it will be a wonderful two weeks I am sure.

Brian the Beard

The last few weeks have been pretty boring. Not too many new or interesting things to report. There was one interesting event that took place the whole time. Over the years I have acquired quite a few nick names such as BJB, big brian, bucky, b, bbux, krie, and a few others I can’t remember. I get to add to those ‘Brian the Beard’ and ‘Haji Terrorist’. The last one isn’t so much a nickname as more of a description that was given of me. Those who have seen pictures of me with a big beard can understand why someone might say I look like a terrorist.
It all started when I found out that my company was going to start maintaining an additional electronic system in Ramadi. Part of this system is on the top of this really big water tower. In order to get familiar with the system I asked one of the Marines to take me up and show how every thing worked. Another marine, Cable, joined in on the excursion and we headed up the water tower. The view from the top was not that impressive. It was late and everything was dark and dusty. Cable brought a camera and took some pictures of the view. This turned out to be a bad idea.

Shortly after we got to the top a vehicle pulled in at the bottom and a guy with a walkie talkie got out. We assumed that it was some kind of security for the water tower or something and would go explain what we were doing when we were done. Shortly after that a Humvee pulled in and a whole bunch of fully armed and armored soldies got out. It looked like our situation was more precarious then we thought. Cable decided to climb down and see what the story was. Once we were done we climbed down only to find that everyone was gone including Cable. We joked that Cable had gotten arrested and taken in. This was in fact not far from the truth.

Later in the evening Cable stopped by my room. Come to find out, they thought that I was a ‘Haji Terrorist’ and that the two marines were going to throw me off of the tower. That and we weren’t allowed to be taking pictures of the base from up there. They took Cable to the base police station and made him delete all the pictures he took off his camera. When the story of what happened got around they came up with the name ‘Brian the Beard’ to commemorate the incident.