A Mop In One Hand And A Gun In The Other

I've come to accept that I'm not a good blogger. I had great expectations of writing a few times a week updating everyone on all the great and exciting things being done around Baghdad. Don't get me wrong - great and exciting things do happen here each and every day, I'm just not directly involved in much of that kind of stuff. That leaves the mundane and boring things for me to write about. I'm not sure how much of that you may be interested in. I realize my perspective has changed on what's exciting and what's not - many of you may think flying around Iraq visiting different camps, ducking small arms fire, and avoiding the now very infrequent rockets sounds exciting - and in some respects it is - but the reality is this.... travelling makes up about 10% or less of what I do here (and the other stuff is a minuscule amount, thank God) - and I'm one of the few in my organization that really goes off camp at all. My life here, condensed into a few posts on a blog, does not capture what it's really like. Most of the time it's sitting around doing routine work over and over and over. There's nothing wrong with that - it's much better than the constant threat of enemy action - it's just that at the end of the day there's no where to go and nothing to do but more of the same routine work. There just isn't much new to write about (considering most everything is either classified or restricted from being written about). That leaves me without much to write about except my opinion on what's happening generically around Iraq - unless you want to read about the highly armed Sunday cleaning detail and how I've perfected mopping the conference room while wearing a gun. So, baring any great and adventurous stories of my skill with the mop, I'll probably start writing more about my opinions and ideas on what's happening here.
I realize part of my problem is boredom has set in. I think even the guys going out on patrols every day get bored. A persons level of what's normal is based on what they do and see every day, so normal has been reset to a different level for people here - and certainly it's different even within different groups here. As an example, the large explosions occuring several times a week outside the perimeter wall are only momentarily startling and are mostly just routine now - although the people out there close to them would have a different opinion. It's all a matter of experience and perspective.
I'm sure I'll have many new experiences and adventures to share over the next 8+ months I have left (hopefully none involving being shot at, rocketed, mortared, bombed, etc.) and I promise to share those - but between any of that, I'll still try and write more, just don't expect it to be very exciting. That's about it for today.... Now where did I leave that mop?

Andy