Validation - and some wings

I kind of felt like I was whining about the mud. I'm sure many of you (gwyn) felt like I was. I feel somehow validated with today's issue of Stars and Stripes (maybe it was a slow news day) and the top headline was the Mud at Camp Victory. Apparently I wasn't the only one to find it annoying. It was "news-worthy" at least.

Today was not very exciting. The sun was out and things started to dry. That was great. For work I spent the entire day plugging a 6 digit code (representing a detainee) into a database. The database then told me if the file was active (still being held) or inactive (released) based on that response I put the paperwork into one of two piles. It was mind-numbing. Hours and hours of paper upon paper. Someone had not properly filed these items over the past few years...and we are free labor so they are using us to help catch up on work they have not been able to get to - until we can move south. Some of our team went to an actual review board and observed. The rest of us (including me) get a chance to observe tomorrow.

Since that story isn't very exciting I'll pass along another story I think might be mildly entertaining (standards are clearly high on Ted's E-Adventure blog). The dining halls have a main line and "short-order" line, a salad bar, and then this other place. Sometimes it's a pasta bar, or taco bar, or something like that to offer yet another choice. Well this other bar has a person who likes to work there when it's a "wings" bar. He stands and barks "99 Types of wings today....99 types of wings" Clearly he does not have 99 types of wings. He has maybe 3. But that is his thing. He barks out like some vaudville show caller...99 types of wings...and much to our amazement he draws a crowd. Usually when he is doing this - there is a line. Mind you these same 3 types of wings are usually somewhere in the facility on any given 2-3 day span. But when he calls them out people come. we wonder if he really knows how big 99 is. He speaks some english , but you never know how fluent the workers are. Maybe he heard that somewhere and it was catchy so now that is his thing. I'm not much of a wing fan, but I love a good showman. We often wonder if they intentionally put him there to help draw people away from the main and short order lines since they always back up?
Two other stories to make up for the slow news day:
1. They have non alcoholic beer in the coolers for people to select (instead of juice or soda or water). Well one day we noticed the root beer was on the same shelf as the NA beer. We decided the guy who was stocking came across the A&W and said oh this must go in the beer section since it says root beer. Keep in mind the sodas are in a different section. Funny funny
2. There is a sign outside the d-fac (remember that stands for dining facility - you have to keep up or you'll get lost) that says no ID card, No Weapon, No service - (ok we'll maybe I'm embellishing a little) but it does say you must have your weapon. Everyplace in America is trying to keep weapons out and here you must come in armed or you can't eat. Military Logic.

I saw my first wild Jackal tonight. Looked like a little stay dog running across the road. They were howling for a minute or two as well. More angry critters in the desert.