Alright, here goes with the update. There are a couple points of interest:

#1 Steve Urkel. Allow me to explain. In the military, there are not sizes for everyone. Last time, per the recommendation of a team leader, I got a pant size that was slightly tighter than I would have liked... but they worked very well throughout my deployment. This time, per the recommendation of everyone, I went the size bigger so that clothes weren't tight in the heat. Mistake. Yep, in order to keep my pants ON, I practically have to hike them up to my neck, hence, Steve Urkel. Ah, the lessons learned.

#2 Critters. Thus far I have seen some weird cat looking thing, multiple lizards, what I believe is a sand fly, and a spider that was entirely too large for my liking. No, it wasn't a camel spider; it was relatively normal sized. It was, however, in my office, which is totally unacceptable. It also is not dead, which is even more unacceptable. The lizards, which I can deal nicely with during the day, have the tendency to freak me out a little at night (which is, of course, when I'm awake). I have no particular issue with lizards, but all I generally see is something scurrying out of the corner of my eye, which naturally makes me think of spiders. Not a fan.

#3 Howling bean poachers. I work nights with Stevie Ray. When you do this job (especially on night shift, I think), you have to develop a certain brand of humor- i.e. strange things will amuse you. Last night I showed Stevie Ray what the Silent Coyote was (similar to the "rock on" hand gesture, the Silent Coyote requires the pads of the thumb, middle, and ring fingers to be pressed together while straightening the pointer and pinky fingers) and he promptly started howling. That's right. In the middle of the office, about midnight (unfortunately, there was not a full moon) the Red Cross workers start howling. Ok, not all of us; I was laughing hysterically.

Non-deployed caseworkers might not understand this part, but some of you will. I was explaining to Stevie Ray (later on the night of the howling incident) how subcases were explained to us in training - beans. You want to get your beans so the bean counter (Jesse Cowart or whoever else keeps record of how many cases we do) knows how hard you've been working. Sometimes beans are just itty bitty beans, and sometimes you get a lima bean or larger (depending on how hard you work locating a servicemember etc). Today Steve referred to stations that give themselves an Emergency Communications subcase without actually delivering the emergency communication (a no-no) as poachers. Yep, we have bean poachers here in Tikrit.

#4 The CHU. I finally finished (mostly) cleaning and unpacking my room. Whenever I go to sleep at night (my night, actually morning), I can actually feel the dust I'm inhaling as the air conditioner blows right on my bed. Therefore, I decided to attempt to clean out said air conditioner. I successfully knocked the dust off of it so that there was dust about an inch thick on my desk (pictures to come). I think my air conditioner is colder now... or maybe I just got colder last night for some reason. I'm going to blame the air conditioner, though.

#5 Sickness. One of our teammates was diagnosed with walking pneumonia today. Hopefully he'll be feeling better soon!