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| Happy Independence Day! |
Happy America’s birthday from The 100 Acre Sandbox. We had a
congressional visitor, which is when someone who depends on being elected wants
to come and take patriotic pictures with military people in uniform. Even though the U.S. is in Iraq solely in an
advisory capacity, we have some teams over here doing other work, like medical
stuff and to support the Americans who live in the Sandbox. We gathered in our
lovely dining facility, where our cafeteria employees went all-out and laid out
a great menu, including mock Chick-Fil-A sandwiches. They were fantastic, as
was the fruit carvings they’d done, like this fantastic watermelon. But our
carvers’ talents are not limited to food.
We also had a giant Statue of Liberty, which had caused me
to do a double-take earlier in the week. We have stuff stored all over the
place in boxes like the back of a semi-truck and, while walking by the
cafeteria, I noticed an employee digging through one. Since I figured it had to
be food, it was quite surprising to see a big Styrofoam Lady Liberty among the
boxes.
In a discussion with some colleagues about the amazingly
carved fruit, someone mentioned they’d witnessed someone carving out an Easter bunny
out of Styrofoam; we speculated that our cafeteria employees, who are
contractors, must have one heck of a weird job description. There are some crazy
talented people here – carving up watermelons and giant holiday decorations.
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| It's hot! |
We have a new ambassador over here, which means we said goodbye
to our old one. We all loved him, and he was quite active in our monthly 5ks,
so, in coming up with the theme of the May one, they named it after him. We get
T-shirts for every one we run (or walk – that’s 3k) and in the end, I’m going
to wind up making a quilt or something out of them because I’ll have so many,
but in the meantime, I am using them for my daily walks or runs. And, as you
can see, it’s flippin’ hot here. We’re easily topping 105, but, unlike Florida,
it is not humid. The goofy hat I bought in Kazakhstan has served me well thus
far and it’s almost impossible to walk outside without shades on. I wake up
early to walk the compound 2-3 mornings a week (the others I go to the gym) and
it’s gotten to the point where, even though it’s only 40 minutes or so, I have
to not only take a water bottle but change shirts when I am done. It’s a
leisurely stroll but it’s still brutal.
So there’s a lot of hanging out indoors. This week, I bit
the bullet and subscribed to Disney+ for a year, and even with my crappy internet
I’ve managed to watch a few things, such as the retro Escape to Witch Mountain
and the trendy Hamilton. I’m all over the place.
The retro stuff is a lot of fun; I’ve also tossed The Cat
From Outer Space in my queue. I really don’t remember much about it, but once it
comes in, it all comes back. It sure did for Witch Mountain.
I’ve also rediscovered MasterMind. With all the discussion
of Wordle recently, I started thinking it sounded familiar and remembered that
we used to have the little hands-in MM and that I really liked it. Of course,
it’s online now, and I’ve taken to playing a game a night. For the most part, I
figure them out, but getting started is a lot of luck. Imagine my surprised
when I landed on this one evening:
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Wish I could claim skill.
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I’m sure someone can calculate the odds (there are eight
colors and four spaces; I don’t repeat any colors, so it’s a finite number, I
know) but for me it was like wow, I’ll never see that again.
But a couple weeks later, I won this one:
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I didn't calculate the odds,
but they're dang long. |
Again, I wonder these odds, because I first was 0-for-4. I
knew for the second try, I’d be 4-for-4 in colors, but somehow had them in the
right order but one spot over from where they should have been. Had I shifted
in the other direction, I would have solved it in three, but I’ll take it.
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