Still in Al Asad

I'll be here in Al Asad for a few more days while I'm conducting more training before I move onto another base to take care of more training there. Fun times -- its nice to get face time with the folks that will be using my system on a day-to-day basis and get their suggestions and feedback.

The weather here cleared up since our little flood yesterday morning and has been pretty nice. Its a bit chilly, but a welcome change from the heat and the skies are clear here for the first time since I got here, which has given me a few decent photography opportunities.

The photo above was taken at sunset with a CH-53 Pave Low below the sun and the top of a satellite dish in the foreground.

Combat programmer!

My job in the US Air Force was a computer programmer, and I essentially did then what I'm doing now, except I was doing just outside Washington, DC supporting HQ Air Force and the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. When the war here in Iraq started I tried unsuccessfully for volunteer for deployments. There are no jobs for programmers in Iraq, I was told. Me and the guys used to joke about the concept of a computer programmer in the desert with a laptop jumping out of a plane and programming in the desert.

Aside from the jumping out of the airplane part, I realized last night that I'm now fitting the mold. Laptop in hand and body armor donned, I got onto a Marine helicopter early in the morning to come out to Al Asad Air Base in Anbar Province. I'll be out here for a few days to train some of the users of my application on how to use it, as well as some performance testing in low-bandwidth environments.

Pictured above, a combat programmer in the flesh.