A New Age Begins...

Without warning and apparently unnoticed by anyone, the sanctity of our conference room was invaded by the appearance of a mysterious and unworldly looking monolith. I was taken aback by this discovery and did not quite know what to make of it.

I was informed that this strange sentinel is a router for a new Local Area Network that is being established for our office. Apparently, the “old LAN” was not up to snuff and deemed to be primitive. This black box was brought in to evolve our system to the next level of artificial awareness.

Hmmm….I wonders if the new LAN will help me play Free Cell better.

What gets me is that this box has now taken up a place of prominence within our well establish meeting room. Even more to the point, it was left precisely right where I sit each Sunday and Wednesday morning; as if that part of the room is in the greatest need of injected high speed thinking capability. Perhaps I should feel lucky. For all I know, being situated so close to this monument may nurture me into being a more productive member of our inner office micro system.

There’s no avoiding the thing. Heck, even the 800 pound gorilla that occasionally sits in the corner of our conference room can’t help but notice this thing no matter how hard he tries to pretend its not there.

No longer will we be able to go about our status quo without having this seemingly superior sentinel over watching us in silence and requiring us to behave more systematically.

What really gets me is that the fact that “somebody” decided that we needed the upgrade in the first place. Who are these omnipotent people who brought in this monolith to “help” us? And why did they come in the middle of the night without showing themselves? Would their mere presence “confuse” and “scare” such primitive office drones such as ourselves? What was wrong with the computer network we have right now? Couldn’t we just stay at the collective cubical evolutionary state that we were comfortable with?

Apparently not.

Now with this obelisk in orbit around our conference table, we all feel compelled to strike against the norm and find new and better ways to interact.

Just yesterday, I saw a co-worker pick up a bone and use it as a tool for the first time. The guy was so overcome with euphoria that he tossed it up in the air in triumph.

But I fear that we may become too dependent on this new LAN. I would hate to see us fall victim to its every whim. (“Open the conference room doors, please”; “I am afraid that I can’t do that, Bill”)

As much as I don’t like this thing, I can’t help but look at it. Its smooth and glossy sides are solid but yet they are transparent enough to offer a hint to its true meaning. Behind the glass, I can see lights blinking on and off in a pattern that I can’t decipher, but I know they are serving a purpose.

As I found myself staring blankly at the cascade of infinitesimal light display, it suddenly dawned on me:

“My God, it’s full of stars!”


(Dedicated to the memory of Astronaut David Bowman)

Teleconferences: A Mind Numbing Experience

I have come to think that the best way to kill any creativity and production is to link a group of creative people together via a teleconference and ask them to produce something. Not quite unlike the mysterious chemical in turkey that makes me near comatose every Thanksgiving, the droning sound of a cacophony of voices being emitted over a speakerphone shuts down half my brain and puts me to sleep.

Such was the state of affairs last night as I sat through an hour long teleconference between my head office over here and several different offices in the states. It didn’t help matters much that the teleconference started at 8 o’clock at night our time (all the more convenient for those in the States that were just shaking off the dust from their weekend.)

The goal of this teleconference was for my front office to present a slide show consisting of 24 slides. No sooner had we turned to slide 3 than the entire transatlantic conversation was taken out of our control and we became blind spectators to an endless verbal quagmire between faceless voices. The only thing worse than sitting in a room and watching several people argue amongst themselves is sitting in a room and listening to several people argue amongst themselves and not being able to see them.

The biggest issue at hand (and out of our hands) was the specific wording of a specific document that no one had yet laid their specific eyes on. The debate over whether to use the word “delegate” or “designate” in this memorandum took on all the resemblances of a well crafted haiku. I’m sure that there was an answer out there someplace but it was just beyond our ability to reach, making us all ponder on our place in the universe.

The conversations came became derailed at the slightest absence of clarification and quite frankly, no one on my end of the world cared enough to interject their opinion. The best we could hope to do was pay attention enough to react if any of our names were called out.

If Alexander Graham Bell had uttered his famous line, “Watson, come here, I need you”, via a teleconference, I am quite sure that Watson would have been so bored at that point that the urgency of Bell’s request would have escaped him. (A half hour later, Watson would walk over the Bell and asked, “Hey Alexander, is that an acid stain on your pants, or were you just happy to see me?”)

After 45 minutes of the hour long event, we had managed to reach slide #8 and my front office people were desperately trying to make a point or two before we reached our time limit. This only initiated another exchange of views erupting from the speaker and again everyone in the room with me was adrift in an apathetic sea of monotony.

The only voice that was heard clearly was the automated voice that declared, “This teleconference will be disconnected in 5 minutes.”

That we all heard perfectly clear.

Spot Report

0915 Saturday August 12th, 2006

There was an explosion outside of the green zone this morning, but I think some shrapnel from it hit the skylight window directly above me. Heard a large pop and then had some shreds of glass fall right behind me. It turns out that there was an explosion outside in the Red Zone and the best we can figure out, a piece of shrapnel flew into the window above me and cracked it enough to send some glass down right behind me.

Scary!

None of the glass hit me or anyone else but it sure got the heart pumping!

Worse part of it all, no Purple Heart! All it would have taken was a nick or cut and I’d be getting a medal pinned on my chest!

120 Days!

Well, if I were an Air Force Officer, I'd be packing my bags and heading home tonight! But as it stands, I have one third of my deployment done and only 8 months to go! I am now busier than ever because I am doing two jobs. I'm standing in as my boss's deputy while the regular guy is out on a mission.

All is well here.

Take care

Riding the Puma

About a week ago I was able to take a ride on a British helicopter known as a “Puma” over the streets of Baghdad (that's me walking towards the helo with my trusty L.L. Bean bag hanging over my back). It was a thrilling experience. We flew rather low over the roof tops and extremely fast. The pilot kept the helicopter banking and swerving in order to make it a hard target. At one point, he even launched flares to discourage anyone on the ground from taking an interest in us. As you can see in these photos, it was very exciting.