Originally uploaded by Basinbob.

Life goes on for most Iraqis despite the politics, the power outages and the violence. We will replace this bridge in Zuba eventually. Right now all our available funding is being directed towards security improvements for the army and police.

The weather has been over 100 everyday and too hot to ride my bike after about 8 o'clock. I got out early this morning for a ride around the airfield and the crank arm that attaches the pedal fell off, unscrewed itself. I found the nut and hand tightened it to get back to my hooch. Tough to keep this bike going, but our vehicle mechanic Dan has been very good to me. I'll chase him down later today.

I've been in Iraq 16 weeks now, and my time donut says I have a little over one million seconds left to go before I leave. About 12 days. The new job as Area Engineer has been a lot like my old job in the states: supervising, going to meetings, updating briefs about our program. Not as many opportunities for pictures or trips out. As a four-month-wonder I have gotten off this base a lot, and I'm working on my hand-off to the new Area Engineer, Russ, who arrived this week. One of the things the Army does very well is training and hand-offs to the next wave, and I'm looking forward to the coming two weeks.