Security is a funny subject. The more secure you make things the more inconvenient they can become (e.g. having a password on your computer that you have to change every month might make your data, and your company's network, more secure, but it's not convenient to you). I never really mind stuff like that, I tend to treat security more seriously than most. Case in point, I got a security briefing when I first got here, it went like this:
Him: "...and we've got a 7pm curfew"
Me: "great, so is there a bed check?"
Him: "No, no, it's nothing like that it's an honor system. We try not inconvenience people."
Me: (disappointed) "Oh, so if I'm in the trunk of a car no one is going to start looking for me until late the next morning?"
Him: "...uh, I guess, I uh..."
Me: "so I've got all the downsides of a curfew but none of the upsides?"
Him: "...you know, no one has put it this way before..."
Likewise we've got the same security contractor as before for all of our transport outside the GZ. They, as before, have two types of cars: armored SUV's and thin-skinned (not armored) sedans. They say the SUV's draw too much attention and that you are better off in the sedans. This is BS. First of all, the American SUV's draw too much attention but Japanese SUV's are not all that uncommon here. Second of all, the best of both worlds would be an armored sedan (duh), but those have all been snapped up.
We've got two cars down right now. Both SUV's. One was hit by gunfire (AK-47 drive-by on BIAP road). The other by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). In both cases the passengers were fine. In both cases one or more people in the car would have been killed if the vehicle was thin-skinned. It's not that hard to look in a vehicle, SUV or sedan, and see that it's a bunch of non-Arabs (the UK security guys don't look local). I'll take an armored SUV over a thin-skinned sedan anyday. These thing take a licking and keep on ticking. Check it out.
I met with my counterpart in the Iraqi government for the first time today; this was at their Ministry outside the Green Zone. When I was here in the summer we regularly traveled outside the GZ to go home. In the current security situation, however, going outside is more of a big deal. The transport was the usual: armored (at least sometimes) car, plus a chase car, each with a "driver" and a "shooter". When we got to the Ministry, however, the "shooters" came in with us ... to make sure we come back out. Our guys are about as subtle as you can be; they wear their body armor under street clothes, just have a Secret Service like ear piece for communications, and only carry a side arm (no rifles). Still, each is clearly the type of guy who if you met in a bar and got off on the wrong foot would gladly put his cigarette out in your face. They wait outside the conference room and do their best to blend in, they're not really good at it. Two guys with bulging shirts, guns, earpieces, with their eye on everyone in the room don't exactly blend.
That's when I had a thought: I want these guys to come with me to my meetings when I get back to Silicon Valley. Somehow I think their presence could only make my presentations more convincing.
I've never had my own goon-squad before, it's kinda fun. It's like I'm an evil villain or something and have armed henchmen; one step closer to the ultimate goal I guess.
Was actually pretty nice.
I didn't find a gym. In the US I can pretty much social-engineer my way into anything. Here you don't screw around. A sign as simple as "no parking" in front of a building will be followed with "deadly force authorized", there is no sneaking your way into anything here. It's approach slowly, ID (on lanyard around your neck) out, hands in plain sight, no fast moves, be polite. After the Basra suicide bombing all the guards are a little on edge.
Speaking of that bombing, it cost me my food. Last time I was here we ate at the Baghdad palace cafeteria, now the US Embassy is hogging the whole thing. So we we're eating at the camp of a large military contractor a short car ride away. I went by yesterday for breakfast and my badge no longer worked -- "active duty personnel" only now. So I went to the Pizza Inn for breakfast (yeah, there's a Pizza Inn here, it's doing great business over by the PX). It's not clear yet what we'll do for food going forward.
I drove around yesterday in what would be a nice big 7 series BMW back home, but is a beat-to-death car here that hasn't seen a service interval in years. We've got a bunch of German cars, and all of their dashes are lit up like X-mas trees with "service interval" or "check engine" and "headlight out" "taillight out" "ECU" "wiper fluid low" "..." every service indicator is lit. What's weird is that every time you get in the car you have to check the wheel wells and under the vehicle (for bombs), a procedure I'm happy to follow. I hopped into a Mercedes here the other day and noticed the door was kinda heavy. A brief inspection showed that it was lightly armored, the guy driving it for the last two months didn't even notice. I swear that opening a car armoring shop here would be like having a license to print money, armored cars go for $100k and up, many costing over a quarter of a mil -- and there is no end to demand in site.
We'll have our own gym finished in early Jan, meanwhile I found a nice run that takes me up two levels of security. So, aside from finding a gym, that's about the best x-mas present I could have gotten.
I'll actually need to get to work today (it's 4-something a.m., jetlag denies me sleep right now), we had Friday off and Saturday was X-mas so I haven't done much yet. I'm not particularly optimistic about this place anymore. I understand that our counterparts are difficult/impossible to get ahold of, meetings are hard to schedule, and enthusiasm is low. We'll see what I can make of it.
Oh yeah, we had a nice X-mas dinner here at camp. I brought in a bunch of food from Amman on my way over (like 10 kilos worth) that was pre-bought for me, and everyone had scrounged around here too. We had roasted chicken, beef kebabs, stuffing, mash potatoes, cauliflower, wine, egg nog (kinda), Christmas music from someone's i-pod. It was a nice evening.
When we were onto dessert we heard the booom ... booom .... booom of far off mortars. A newly arrived contractor had just gone outside for a smoke and ran back in terrified, "that was really close!", she said. The rest of us shook our heads. "Nah, those were far off, when they're close you'll feel the air pressure in the trailer change", I replied, thinking I was being helpful. She didn't seem helped. The mortars continued, someone turned up the music until we couldn't hear them anymore.
Party resumed.
'Twas the night before x-mas and all through the camp
The rain had turned the normally dusty dirt damp
The sandbags were stacked by the trailers with care
But the roofs were unprotected, with hope that no mortar falls there
The contractors were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of completed exit reports danced in their heads
And my imaginary girlfriend, and I in my briefs,
Had just settled down for a long fitful sleep.
When out in the camp I heard such a clatter
I ran from my trailer to see what was the matter
When what to my wandering eyes should appear
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer
The sleigh was on fire, and four "engines" were out
And above the din I heard St. Nicholas shout:
"Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer, Now Vixen,
you guys got to pull for Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen
We're taking too much small arms fire with you guys screwing around
We need some altitude so we can get the fuck out of town.
If we land we'll be on TV with our heads cut off, I'm not taking that fall
Now dash away dash away dash away all"
Then I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight
"You guys are nuts to be here, I'm going back to the North Pole for the night".
We have a 6-day work week here, and Muslims treat Friday like Christians treat Sunday, so today is our offday. It's 10am local (11pm CA) and I just woke up. My goal on my off day is to find a place to workout.
When I was here over the summer the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) ran the Baghdad Palace. We had access and could use the pool out back too. Behind the palace, at a military complex, is a huuuuuge weight room as well -- it was great.
Now the US Embassy has taken over the palace, and the pool, and the gym and we *don't* have access. Like they need all that to themselves.
There was another gym by the PX, but they moved it to put in a Burger King. The new location reportedly isn't up yet. My employer is building a gym for our camp, but it's not up yet... I might go nuts. This is not a good time to be denied my usual stress relief.
Anyway, I've got a day to find a way to work out (finding another gym, talking my way into the embassy, finding a loop around the embassy to run...) -- will report back tonight.
Back in camp (my employer has a compound inside the green zone).
This place has changed.
The good news is that things have been really quiet for the last week or so (with, uh, one exception today; more on that below), the bad news is that this is understood to be that they're saving it up for X-mas and that the security situation has gotten worse in general.
Mortars have been a problem lately and it's been getting worse, two camps near us were hit since I've been away and some people were killed. The Green Zone isn't so green anymore, there have been car bombings, suicide bombings, shootings, and other violence inside here since I left as well. Not a good sign.
The BIAP trip was uneventful ... for me. However apparently today one of *our* security details was hit with machine gun fire on its way out to the airport -- I think that's a first.
Other good news is that we're going to build the ablative armor I talked about in a previous post (I was talking about our bomb shelter and how it was reinforced everywhere ... except the roof -- a problem during mortar season), the bad news is that it won't be here until after the X-mas mortar shower. The good news is that my trailer is a pretty small target to hit (like, no chance, this place is seven square miles) the bad news is that I'm living in a tiny little trailer. I need to write that down and look at it again. I'm living in a trailer. I think I'll grow a mullet.
That would be so cool. I'm growing the mustache and goatee anyway, the mullet would be the icing on the cake.
Wow, I'm sleep deprived. I'm off to diner then bed. My e-mail isn't really working yet (web interface only) so I'm putting off getting to everyone until it is working and I've had some sleep.
We have a 6-day work week here, and Muslims treat Friday like Christians treat Sunday, so today is our offday. It's 10am local (11pm CA) and I just woke up. My goal on my off day is to find a place to workout.
When I was here over the summer the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) ran the Baghdad Palace. We had access and could use the pool out back too. Behind the palace, at a military complex, is a huuuuuge weight room as well -- it was great.
Now the US Embassy has taken over the palace, and the pool, and the gym and we *don't* have access. Like they need all that to themselves.
There was another gym by the PX, but they moved it to put in a Burger King. The new location reportedly isn't up yet. My employer is building a gym for our camp, but it's not up yet... I might go nuts. This is not a good time to be denied my usual stress relief.
Anyway, I've got a day to find a way to work out (finding another gym, talking my way into the embassy, finding a loop around the embassy to run...) -- will report back tonight.
and not just for that last post. I'm in Amman, Jordan, right now. It's a beautiful and safe city and we get to stay at a nice hotel ... for about 5 hours. It's 3:46am and I need to check out by 9am and head back to the airport for the flight to Baghdad.
Which means after I land I'm back on BIAP road (see prior post from last trip about the "shooting gallery") for the trip to the Green Zone. If there ever were a highway to hell this might be it. Although the US Military allegedly has it all under control now (on my way out this past summer we went past tanks and checkpoints several times on our way to the airport) it's probably the most dangerous part of my trip.
Which is to say it's not that dangerous. Think of it this way: when I was a kid I wanted to join the Marines and fly F-14's off an aircraft carrier. I'd still do that given a chance. But being in the military is dangerous, on the other hand being a civilian contractor here means that you've got the military between you and the bad guys. My job is a walk through the park compared to the guy sitting on top of the Humvee with the .50cal on this same road all day every day working to keep me safe. Thanks guys.
Bed time.
(Merry X-mas)
I'm in Frankfurt, my flight got in at 11am and leaves at 8:45pm, so I hopped the train to downtown Frankfurt and have been cruising around. It's cold out but the Christmas season is in the air -- and the Germans do it right. The whole downtown walking area is covered with food stands with some of the tastiest looking treats I've seen, mistletoe vendors walk the streets, the trees and wreaths are perfect, it's just like you'd expect. What a great tradition-filled way to celebrate the winter solstice, it's been going on (bringing evergreens into your house, the yule log, feasting etc.) in this area for about 4000 years (long before the Christian church co-opted it with a wildly inaccurate statement of their figure head's b-day; the bible says little about the actual date and the information you can find points to a September/October time frame -- about 5 years BC, go figure).
I especially like the whole Santa Claus tradition, though only a couple of hundred years old it's the fusion of a Dutch tale and a German one and makes for a nice tradition ... and no one had to get nailed to anything for it either.
Man am I tired, I'm going to sleep like a (yule) log on the plane. More from Jordan.
Okay, the departure date is 12/19 -- tomorrow, Sunday.
I fly SFO to DC, spend Monday a.m. at my temporary employer and Monday p.m. at DoD processing. Then Monday night to Frankfurt, arrive Tuesday a.m. Cruise around Frankfurt for the day then depart in the p.m. for Amman, Jordan, arriving in the middle of the night. This is where the regular part of the itinerary that you can book off of expedia end. The next morning it's a special charter flight into Baghdad.
Last time I primarily worked on Performance Indicators for the ITPC (Iraq Telecommunications and Post Company), basically the phone company and post office in one. The indicators I emphasized were things like "number of employees per thousand customers" and "revenue per employee" -- all of which were several times worse than any other national phone company. The Baath party turned the ITPC into a nepotistic make-work project.
This time I'm working on their billing system. It used to be that if you were a Baath party member a certain level or higher you got a phone, and it cost a nominal fee per year. Billing was done by the postman: he hands you a bill, you hand him payment, he hands you a receipt, he turns it all in at the end of the day. With the current security situation people were knocking over the postmen so they stopped billing.
Now there is a new billing system coming in. I wasn't involved in the bidding process, and neither was my employer, so I don't know what it is or why it's the one we're getting, but it has to be implemented. I don't even know if they can do usage tracking with their current switching equipment (I tend to doubt it), so there's plenty of challenge here. What I do know is that it's good for all of us if their phone company gets back on their feet so that you-and-I can stop effectively paying all the bills for it.
What about Connexed? It'll roll along just great w/o me physically here. I've got a 7pm curfew in Baghdad, so I'll be online all the time with the gang anyway. We've got 20 people on board in various capacities, albeit mostly part time, and every base is covered. I've gone 18 months w/o pay, it's my turn to get a check for a little bit so I don't starve to death. We just finished our product and got our first sale, it'll take the dev team some time to shake out the bugs. Once things are running smoothly we'll add more accounts, the vacation time for partners and investors will be over, and we'll go back out on the fundraising and business building trails.
My schedule:
Tomorrow: SFO-DC
Monday: employer in a.m., DoD processing in p.m.
Monday night: DC-Frankfurt
Tuesday: hang out in Frankfurt for the day
Tuesday night: Frankfurt-Amman, Jordan
Wednesday: charter flight to Baghdad
You can reach me via e-mail with username "blog" at this domain, or Y! IM username "rickbentley68".
Back to Baghdad
Well, a couple of weeks ago I got offered to go back to Baghdad with a 12/15 departure date. The last time I was there we had recommended that the ITPC (Iraq Telecommunications and Post Company) be privatized -- MCI or whomever could roll in and have everything working in a relatively straightforward manner. Not too surprisingly, however, those in the Iraq government would like to keep it government owned (Rick's first law of governments: they always get bigger) so they would like to do this themselves.
Well, we're here to serve, so my project this time would be to straighten out their billing systems -- which really means put in a new one. They used to bill through the Post Office, the mailman walked around and collected cash from people and gave them a receipt. Given the security situation that hasn't worked for over a year, so the whole thing needs to move to a prepay model (go somewhere, pay your money, and the phone gets turned on).
This time we live *in* the Green Zone have even have a PSD (personal security detail) while traveling around inside the GZ, it's a lot safer than the situation last time when we were living outside.
I'm looking forward to going and, since the trip is over the holidays, where not much gets done anyway, it wouldn't be too disruptive to Connexed (startup #2 that I'm working on). However I heard today that the trip might be postponed, I hope to know more soon. I'll keep you posted.
I don't know if anyone has seen the story on "Pale Male", the hawk who built his nest on an apartment building in New York a decade ago. He lived there with his mate, raised chicks, was adored by fans, even was subject of a documentary ... the building management tore down the nest today, said the bird droppings were dirty. News Story
Mean people suck.
Now make them pay:
The best way to get the nest rebuilt is to make it the building's owner's cheapest path out of this mess.
In that regard, this is the number of the building management: 212.508.7200 you will be sent to a recording. That recording has another number on it, 212-521-5400, that goes to a law firm. Law firms cost money. Call them. They are certainly charging their client $300+/hr to listen to you talk. Call them a lot, make sure they know it's about Pale Male so they can bill appropriately for their time.
For a lot less money than this they could put the spikes back up ... or put a paltform for another nest on the roof, on a pole, across the street, or anywhere else -- any option costs less than having people talk to their attorneys all day.