Petro's Great Adventure V, Happy new year.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccpetro/3153920303/

Yeah, I know, I just wrote.

And nothing new has happened.

But it's a holiday, and I'm sitting here watching a progress meter CRAWL across the bottom of the screen, so I've got nothing better to do.

Many of you have heard my hammer theory of complexity at one time or another. Partially this theory owes its insight to Greg McNutt, and partially to being in the trenches of IT/System Administration for WELL over a decade now.

Basically it goes like this:

How many parts does a traditional hammer have?

No, actually it has three parts (I know some of you answered three, but most people forget about the little wedgey bit that actually provides the pressure to keep everything together).

A Hammer, the most basic multi-part tool is a very simple system, and when it starts to go wrong, you can relatively easily determine what is going wrong and fix it. It's either the handle, the head, the wedge, or the user.

In most systems it's usually the user. But, as I am wont to do, I digress.

As you add complexity to a system--add parts to a tool--it gets harder and hard not only to figure out what is malfunctioning, it gets harder to tell IF something is malfunctioning.

I'm certain there is a line, made up of several curves that could describe this, but it's not linear, nor is it smoothly no-linear.

For instance Pliers also have three parts (two handles and the pivot pin), and it's much harder to tell what has gone wrong.

Sometimes with complex systems it's easy to tell. When you plug a 120volt/60hz piece of electronics into 220/50hz mains, and the lights go out and there is the smell of smoke you can be relatively certain that what you have is NOT a mild performance problem.

However, when you are looking at a stack of Dell 2xxx servers each with dual dual core CPUs, internal RAID systems, dual Fiber Channel Host Bus Adapters hook multi-pathed into a pair of 4gb SAN Switches talking to two or three SAN Storage Arrays each with redundant storage processors hooked up to disk array enclosures of different speeds with different drives (not in one DAE, That Would Be Wrong, but in different DAEs), and you're running VMware's enterprise server on that stack of Dells, and you've got a 1950 running Virtual Center to control them, and, and, and...

At some level you're just glad it's mostly working. There's a lot of parts in there, and there's really no one (Other than maybe the World Renown Jacob Cherkas, and even he's wrong about once a week or so) who can look at the totality of the tool and tell you it's right, it's wrong, or it's in the middle.

I mean, it's running slow? How would you know? Maybe if you were to get the whole system stable for a week and bench lined it then you'd know...nothing. You'd know what it did THAT week. The next week you changed a bunch of stuff and invalidated your benchmark.

So is the tool broken? In one sense it's pretty easy--if you're still driving nails, it's working. Assuming you're using a hammer. If your pliers are driving nails, things might not be right.

Speaking of tools, now that I'm getting off that subject, one of the odd things about this part of the middle east is their paper products.

One issue that comes up from time to time in the states is that the toilet paper might approach the texture and heft of a paper towel. This is often the case in the military and in government buildings where the people who do the purchasing don't really have to live with the results.

Here it's the opposite. Sort of.

The toilet paper we use is very similar to the kind the military gets back in the states. It's not *quite* John Wayne paper, but it's not Charmin.

Apparently, however, Middle Easterners don't really distinguish between toilet paper, facial tissue and paper towels. They use mostly the same stuff to handle all three or more jobs.

Which is annoying because they still allocate the paper towels as if two or three would get the job done, when in fact it takes a LOT more sheets of the soft stuff to absorb the water that one or two thicker sheets would.

Go wash your hands, then try to dry them with kleenex (use the kind without embedded lotion for greatest accuracy). Now go back and wash off the remaining little bits of tissue on your hands, and shake your hands over the trash can until MOST of the water is off, and wipe your hands on your trousers.

The annoying part is that some parts of the base have good paper towels (The Gym, and the Chow Hall, which has a big room full of sinks that one must walk through to get into the facility with plenty of hot water and both kinds of paper towels), and others don't (Work and trailer restroom facilities).

Yeah, it's that good here. The worst I can find to gripe about are the paper towels...No, that's not the worst, but the rest of the stuff was to be expected.

I've been reading Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver on my Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/Quicksilver-Baroque-Cycle-Vol-1/dp/0060593083/ and http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-kindle/dp/B000FI73MA ) (Yeah, I also have it in Paperback, but not here).

If you haven't read it...It's largely a historical novel of some degree or other accuracy about science and pseudo-science and economics (which is neither) and sex and violence and such.

A lot of the characters in the book have the same names and occupations as "real" people in history--Newton and Huygens and Leibniz and others whose names aren't as familiar.

Anyway, the last set of "Security Focus" newsletters I've gotten have had the quote: "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants," by Issac Netwon (the real one, not the caricature character in the book) is quoted.

This made me think.

Or rather it made me think about something else.

Do we *really* see further because we're standing on the shoulders of giants, or do we see further because those "giants" spent a lot of time tearing down the trees and leveling the mountains of Ain't So.

I mean we used to know a LOT of things that just weren't so. If you know that The Earth is the center of the universe, and that drinking mercury is good for your health, and all the stuff that goes with that, then you have spent a lot of time looking at stuff that isn't real. Once you start ripping apart the incorrect theories you can see a lot more plainly.

Maybe we shouldn't call it occam's razor, but rather Occam's axe, or Occam's shovel.

Anyway, I kinda lied to Bob a couple weeks ago. Sorry about that.

He had asked me what there was to do in my free time, and I completely forgot there is a "Moral, Welfare and Recreation" facility on base. This goes by the name (of course) of "The MWR". They supposedly have stuff to do there, and even (allegedly) offer dancing lessons (mostly Latin/jazz/salsa). One of the features is (no kidding) "Indoor bathroom Facilities".

I'll try to remember to stop by there in my copious free time and get a more exhaustive list of what they offer.

For those that are wondering, Most of my time is either here (72+ hours a week) or sleeping (42+ hours a week). Some reading (as above) and some working out in the gym (at least every other day) and of course the random internet wanderings.


Anyway, have a happy new year.
Regards,
Petro.
:wq

Merry Christmas from Baghdad (Petro's Great Adventure IV)

This is going out to a lot broader audience that I-III, so if the Baghdad part surprises you, or you wonder what that's all about see http://petroiniraq.blogspot.com for more details.

Life where I am now isn't bad. It's not even particularly uncomfortable compared to what most of the world has to endure. My bed, though a bit lumpy and worn, is free from vermin. I have ready access to clean running water (Hot *AND* Cold, AND flush toilets). The food, though plain, is safe to eat (how healthy it is is debatable, but there is a lot of debate about what is healthy anyway).

I have very little to complain about compared to the average person on this planet. Even that which vexes me most--the separation from my wife and children--is only temporary and totally my choice.

This isn't true of all the military and contractors here in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've got troops out in places where "comfortable" means a 20 man tent and a cot--at least they aren't sleeping on the ground. Where using a porta-potty is great because they don't have to dig the hole. And where rain is the closest thing they see to a shower for weeks at a time. And the food is at best T-Rats. Eating MREs for long periods of time sucks. Not as much as they used to, and they can be down right tasty, but they do suck day in and day out. T-Rats however suck so bad that most soldiers who've been exposed to them won't even talk about it. The memories are just too painful.

And there are contractors of various of sorts in many of these places.

The moral of the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen that I work with and around continues to amaze me. Lt. Colonel DeLange(USAF) the Enterprise Ops Chief and Lt. Pool (USN) are here today at their desk. CW02 Anderson (US Army) is as well. All three dedicated professionals. Well over half the people still here (meaning not out of the country on leave) came in today to work in spite of our being authorized "Minimum Manning Levels" (meaning 2 people to handle the phones/emergencies).

An incredible percentage of military personnel--both American and other countries (the British and Australian are the largest two other contingents here on Victory, with Turkey, Japan, and Albania having a noticeable presence as well)--wish you a good day or some other cheerful greeting in passing on the street.

Anyway, if you're so inclined say a prayer or send good thoughts or wave your crystals or whatever at the soldiers in harms way. Whether you agree with them or not, *they* believe that what they are doing is good, right, and proper and whether you think they are correct about that you have to respect and honor their willingness to put themselves not only in harms way, but in really miserable conditions to do it.

And they're really doing a heck of a job. Not only at closing with and destroying the enemy--which their doing as well or better than any army in history--but they're doing it at a MUCH lower cost in "collateral damage"--meaning the killing and wounding of civilians and the unintended destruction of property than any real war before us. What the line grunts are doing, and the additional risks they are taking to safeguard non-combatants is really heroic.

And yes, accidents still happen. People still snap. But contrast the incidents in this war against, say, the Rape of Nanking, or the way our opposition here were treating the people of Fallujah before the Marines and Army went in and cleaned it out.

We have EVERYTHING to be proud of with our people. Truely some of the best trained and best lead in the world.

I've been one of them off and on since the mid 80s, so I am well aware of the inadequacies of the Officer Ranks, the NCO ranks and the Enlisted Ranks. It's also clear that despite those problems they are *still* the best non-elite soldiers in the world. And if you want to compare our Elite Units, there are, and have been none better. Yeah, Spetznaz blah blah blah. Yeah Israeli special forces etc. etc. I'm sure they're great troops too. I'm sure that even every once and a while they're as good as we've got. Ours are better.

So whether you're celebrating Christmas today, or it's just another day for you, I wish you the contentment in your life that I feel right now.

Regards,
Petro.
:wq

p.s. Nothing interesting is happening here. Which is probably best.

For those who are just joining us, and for anyone else, these are archived at http://petroiniraq.blogspot.com.

I've put a couple pictures up there, nothing dramatic, just pictures of "home" and work, plus a picture of me taken early last week.

I've been here almost a month, and the routine is settling in. I did have a bit of excitement last week--one of our SAN guys was going to do an upgrade && hardware replacement at our installation in Balad, and I was sent up to backstop him--in case something blew up...umm...if something went wrong I'd be close at hand to fix it, rather than having to go over a high latency network.

Speaking of which, I finally got internet access working in my room. I did a ping back to mutiny.bounty.org, which is sitting in a colo facility in Santa Clara California, and was getting TTLs of 46, and round trip times of over 6000ms.

Not going to be playin Counter Strike over *that* link, lemme tell you...

Anyway, so we were scheduled to go to Balad, which is about 45 or 50 miles up the road.

The preference in theater is to travel by air. The Army doesn't really consider the roads around here to be safe enough for us to just drive. Apparently the people in charge have never done rush hour in Chicago. Actually, I think the streets here, at least on Victory Base and in Balad are in better shape than most of them in Chicago.

When a Contractor/Civilian is traveling around Iraq on military assets you're basically going "Space Available", which means that you make a reservation, then show up, then *if* they have room you get on. Military people have priority, and Generals *always* have priority.

We flew up to Balad with Dell's "Service Delivery Manager". He was intending to fly up on Tuesday evening, fix a couple servers[1] and fly back on Wednesday Night. He was most annoyed that his helo got *50 FEET* off the ground and was called back so a Navy "4-star" could get where ever he wanted to go. RHIP and all, right?

The SAN upgrade went about as smooth as any of these things ever go. He had to upgrade the flare code on both sets of storage processors, and the firmware on all four switches. He actually had to bump it three times to get to the latest. Fortunately he did everything right, and things actually worked.

Yeah, I was shocked too.

But that meant that I didn't really get a chance to do anything. Which was cool.

Balad is a *LOT* nicer base than Victory in most respects. They have more sidewalks, and better facilities. Or at least I think they do because they have an indoor pool, which I took advantage of twice. There is a pool here on base, but (1) it's a smaller outdoor pool, and (2) it's in the brit's compound. Rumor has it that as soon as the brits pull out the Army is going to drain it.

There are lots of rumors, but that's the Military for you.

Balad also gets hit more than Victory does, so I guess it's a bit of a tradeoff.

I still haven't noticed any attacks since I've been here.

We flew back on Thursday evening with no problems. I guess god was just punishing the Dell Rep for being a Dell Rep.

Anyway, not much is happening, so there's not much to talk about. Which is probably good.

Regards,
Petro.
:wq


[1]Rumor has it that last year there was a big push to source a lot of our computer equipment through "local" (meaning Iraqi) companies. Some of these companies would get a bid from Dell's Federal group, then turn around and purchase the machines from the commercial side *without* the warranty, giving a MUCH larger margin. Apparently the push to source our hardware through local companies has greatly diminished.

Here we go with some pictures.

Blogger isn't great about how I can organize these images, but the one above is the outside of my trailer showing the trailer and the "T-wall", a blast barrier.

This is my room. Or at least my half of it. It's not this clean right now.



This is the office where I work.
Dust gets *everywhere*.

I've got the whiteboard and some of the papers blurred out for obvious reasons.

It's pretty tight in here--you can see one of my cow-orkers machines on the right.



I flew up to Balad on a Blackhawk this week, here's me in the middle seat with my body armor and helmet on.

Maybe I should shave.

Anyway, I've got some other pictures, but it's getting late and this a very slow connection.