Happy Father's Day

Hello everybody and welcome back. Once again I am the worst son in the world for not sending anything to my dad or my brother who is a dad or any of my friends who are dads or to my brother who doesn't have any kids but has a dog so that kind of makes him a dad or to any of my single male friends because they could have a kid that they don't know about and thus could be dads and not be aware of it. I kind of got on a rant there, but while I should have done something from my father since I was blessed enough to have one that I think did a pretty good job raising me, I never quite understood why these holidays always seemed to incorporate people that weren't our dad. Maybe it's just me (in fact that is probably a very good bet).

It doesn't really seem like three weeks since I last posted, but the calendar doesn't lie. Looking back it's kind of hard to figure out exactly what I've been doing during the intermediate period. In some ways that's good because three weeks have gone by and I am thus three weeks close to coming home. It's kind of scary as well in that I kind of like being able to remember what is going on. Basically though I am in the area of a deployment we call "Groundhog Day" after the Bill Murry movie where he relives the same day over and over. So it is with deployment life. Some of the guys here are doing the math and figuring out how long they have been here and how long they have left. One guy who leaves in September is doing a countdown to departure. I'm not saying I'm not going to do that, I just don't want to do it right now. I have too long to go left and I just prefer to keep my head down and keep putting one foot in front of the other. My goal in this job is a lot like when I go for a run. Unlike some I do not like to run and I just try to distract myself until the finish line sneaks up on me.

The biggest thing that I did since the last post was to visit Karachi again. As you may recall from my last post, on occasion I have to go verify that Harpoon missiles we sold them haven't grown feet and wondered off somewhere. Another aspect of the job is that when new items arrive we have to go do a joint inventory of the items to make sure they arrived in good shape and none "fell of the ship" as it where. It was under this capacity that I undertook my last trip to the coastal city.

This trip was planned to be only a couple nights. Since I managed to count a lot of missiles in only a couple days on my first trip I figure it would only take one to check the few that were coming in this time. It was for this reason I decided to forgo staying at the Pakistan Navy Missile Complex and just stayed at the Marriott; besides the bed is more comfortable at the Marriott. I had not, however, forgotten the lesson I learned last time down and I brought along a can of "Off". It is some great stuff and thanks to it I was able to get through my stay without getting bitten. That's not to say it was a wonderful journey.

The problem is that while it may be a major hotel we are still kind of prisoners there. They keep us in rooms that are up and back from the street to minimize our exposure should someone do something stupid and we can't go out to eat in the city. There is a branch of the American Club about a block away on the other side of a park which in any other country would probably be a nice stroll, but here you have to contact the Consulate to drive you over in an armored car. There is a couple restaurants in the hotel, but two of them are basically right in the lobby which we aren't supposed to hang out in. The last is a Chinese restaurant which is not bad but not great either. Being in a Muslim country they still do not have pork dumplings or anything like that. In fact most of the stuff they have is fish. You'd think since the chicken is acceptable you could get some good sweet and sour chicken but not so much. I ate there the first night but just wasn't feeling like eating there two nights in a row. Also, I had set up my flight the next morning to depart at 7 am which meant I had to leave the hotel by 5 am which meant I had to wake up at 4 am if I wanted to get myself together (yes I know I take a long time to get showered and dressed in the morning, so sue me). Given this timeline I decided I would just get room service and get to bed early.

I was looking through the menu and nothing jumped out at me. I had gotten the fish and chip the trip before and was not very impressed. I figured I would just get something basic and settled on a good old fashioned hamburger. However, when I starting eating it there was just something wrong. It had a strange texture and didn't taste quite right. I retrospect bells should have been going off in my head and I should have sent it back, but considering the quality of the fish and chips I had the last time and that this is the "land of not quite right" I powered through. This would prove to be a great tactical blunder. By 1am I was sure something was not right and I should have just purged it from my system then, but I again battled on. By 4:30 am I'm getting done with my shower and there is just no denying it any longer and it comes up on its own accord. I now feel like I have just been run over by one of the jingle trucks I have mentioned before. In fact I feel like the driver of the truck backed up and made sure he finished the job. Now don't forget I have to check out of the hotel in 30 minutes and get on a plane for a 2 hour flight back to Islamabad.

When I go to check out I tell them that my meal was bad and they ask me why I didn't tell someone. I looked at the guy and said that's kind of what I was doing now. At this point all I want to to is sit in the back of the car close my eyes and think happy thoughts. My arms feel like they are made of lead and I'm starting to get the sweats. But of course there is an issue with my credit card because I am trying to use the one the government issued me like I'm supposed to. Normally I just put it on my personal card and be done with it, but for some reason I tried to do it the right way rather than the way I knew would work. So after giving the dude my personal card to fix the issue I was finally able to get out of there. I slept the whole flight back and instead of going to work which was my intention I just went home and went to bed; that is in between trips to the bathroom. Fortunately I was over it by the next morning, but it sucked pretty good during the day I had it.

So to make a long story short (all together now, "Too late!") I have been to Karachi twice and got eaten alive by mosquitoes one time and gotten food poisoning the other. Let's just say right now I am not a big fan of Karachi. Another lesson I have learned is do not take the 7 am flight. Do the 9 am one and sleep to a reasonable time. It's not like I've made it back to the office before noon either times anyway.

The other kind of neat thing I accomplished was finally making it to one of the parties at the Marine House. Like all embassies, we have a Marine Security Guard Detachment here. They live on the embassy grounds and have a lounge/bar area in their barracks. The bar is called "Crowley Tavern" named in honor of Sgt Crowley who was killed when the embassy was over run back in 1979 (during the same time frame as the Iranian embassy crisis {if you don't want to read about how the embassy was over run back then do not click this link}). They have had a couple parties since I have been here, but something always came up. Either I was out of town, going out of town or had some other work issue that kept me from attending. This time however, I finally got to go. It's a neat little bar; actually it's not so little having three rooms, a dance floor, a Foosball table and a pool table. Honestly it wouldn't be much to write home about, but the Marine House is always an icon and it's just nice to get together with folks you know and some you don't and pretend you are back in the real world relaxing.

So it is with that pleasant thought of relaxing with friends that I will leave you. I realize this may not be my best post but an artist is only as good as his muse, or something like that. As always please feel free to post a comment or send an e-mail. Your feed back is always enjoyed. Have fun where ever you are and be good. If you can't be good then be good at it.