Not an LoA update, but I just got an email from tWoLoA *(NoA? NoT**? NoTbrniGB***?) :
"Dear lew, mike & glenda,
i'm writing from oxford on Wed 6/18 at 2100.
Have had a marvelous time, the weather has been wonderful, mostly warm
and sunny. I talked to Dad yesterday via Lynda's phone and he had been sick again. Lewis, hope you are truly well now and feeling much, much better.
Tomorrow we take a walking tour of Oxford. The new Harry Potter
book comes out Saturday and the line will be long, but I hope to purchase
one from London, won't that be cool. Took a tour of a wonderful
Elizabethian estate today, incredible. Scotland was just so
beautiful, much more than I had even hoped.
Lew, I went into a hardware store today, you would love it and after I talked to you yesterday, I took a roof tour of the Cathedral in Lincoln, 3rd largest in England. You all would be very proud of me. The Wesley service was very nice, but long.
The trip has been truly wonderful.
Mike & Glenda, have great gifts for both of you[woo-hooo!]. Truly hope you are all fine. Glenda, break a leg this weekend. I hate to miss your play. I love and miss you all very much.
Lew, can't wait [till] you are home again. All of you stay safe, and be good to each other. Give Mandy a scratch and a hug from me, Trevor too. I'll see you Saturday.[edited to add: ummm...I thought you were getting back Sunday? the itinerary says Sunday...]
All my love and prayers, Mom.
Please give Aunt Sissy and Whitney a call. Can't seem to get to a phone at a decent state side time of day.
Lewis, I love you and so wish you were sharing this with me.
Yours,
Nannie Kay"
* the Wife of Lewis of Arabia
** Nancy of Arabia or Nancy of Texas
*** Nancy of Texas-but-right-now-in-Great-Britian
"Thanks, I ordered two BBQ pits to be made to my design from the North Oil Company three days ago. I could have used their equipment and built them, but I don't really get paid to do that. I'll go by tomorrow and see how they are coming. They will not be smokers, but just 32" diameter pipe spilt in half, using one half for the pit. No lid. Each one will be 5' long. There is no telling what they are constructing. I gave them the design but they had never seen a BBQ pit. Also there is no expanded metal at the NOC. I may have to have them cut some plate with holes for the grill.
Our zip code is back to 09347. Tell Mom when she gets home. The 09359 doesn't go into effect until Dec. They said the mail would get to us but it will take a little longer. Should be enough time for the chips to arrive in time. Hope you and GD and the woofers are doing well. Be sure and clean the house before Mom comes home. I finally have a power cord for my laptop and tomorrow maybe even my own internet drop in my room. That will be nice.
Love,
Dad "
A few days ago he asked for some Mesquite chips to be sent over to him for their Fourth of July BBQ. I sent over a box with two sacks of wood chips and some BBQ sauces, liquid smoke, some spices, and other stuff like that which may not be available over in Kirkuk but is neccessary for a good BBQ.
"I finally got into the web site for lewis of arabia. It is good. Up to now I couldn't stay on the computer very long. Always someone waiting to get on. Today I'm on the boss's computer since my internet cable hasn't been run to my room and Doug is in Kuwait for two or three days. He had to go down for a partnering meeting with the contractor. It is nice to sit at his desk and take all the time I want to read and respond to email. Wish Mom was around. I miss getting her emails.[edited to add: Nancy's in Scotland right now, not dead]
We had a very unusuall fire on the pipelines day before yesterday. There are 4 crude oil pipelines-two that go to Turkey for export and two that go to a refinery close by-exposed in a small creek. It appears that three of them caught on fire. One-happens all the time-two maybe-but not three out of the four. Someone did something to the pipeline. The North Oil Company says it is delibert. We won't know for sure until the fire is put out. We hear it was put out today, but from the size of it two days ago, I doubt it. We should know more tomorrow. We were in the area today but couldn't go over the ridge to see if the fire was still burning.
The military has been conducting sweeps in the Kirkuk area and have arrested several people. We hope that this will stop some of the looting and damage to the pipeline. They are setting fire to the open pits of oil that are all over the place. Two people set a fire yesterday morning and our guards (the Corps hired them) saw them but couldn't catch them before they set the fire. Out of range of their Ak-47's. They asked us for sniper rifles today. We supplied them with 500 AK's but I don't think they will be getting sniper rifles-we can only give them what the military has confiscated from the bad guys. We are giving the NOC police 100 AK's later this week.
They say it is taking 3-4 hours for the customs people to clear everyone that is on the plane. They are recommending taking a clean set of clothes to change into after standing in the hot sun for that long. It is hot now and when I come home in Aug it will really be hot.
The vehicle that I am assigned-2003 brand new GMC Yukon-has a CD player. If you get a chance, copy some of the songs from my best of lewis that are in my truck and send them over. There are no English language radio stations. We did get the BBC late at night coming up on the convoy, but have not gotten them again.
Iraq is not a place that Van needs to come for work. It is one thing to be working for the US Government or Brown & Root but a small company will not have the resources to make it in this war torn environment. Also they don't do very much if at all acid injection-they have so much oil they just drill a new well. They also cannot process more than half of the barrel of oil. In the US our refineries process all the barrel of oil. The old technology that the Iraqi's use can only produce products from half the oil. They are reinjecting this residual back into the wells. Over a 7 year period they injected 1.5 billion barrels of residual back into the wells. Saadam didn't care if he screwed up the oil fields, he just wanted oil produced.
I can tell the difference in the number of people that are driving and coming out on the streets since I have arrived. It is getting harder to bust through stop lights. It is nice to drive whatever speed you feel comfortable with. There are no traffic police. Kirkuk does have a police department, but it is small and not enforcing traffic laws(I'm not even sure Iraq had any traffic laws before the war). I am driving defensively ( and aggressively or you will never survive) and have had no really close calls. The drivers still get out of the way of military vehicles and big, new American vehicles. None of the Iraq's have new vehicles and the very few newer vehicles are not American. People are still waving at us when we pass.
How is GD doing on the mowing? Is she wearing her gloves now?
I had better close for now. It is nearly 2130 our time. I'm going to shut down an hour early today.
