What does Business Process Modeling Notation have to do with buying a car in Iraq?

Well, first of all, for those of you who are too embarrassed to ask, yes, they have cars in Iraq. Mostly they are small. But they aren’t necessarily old. I haven’t spent that much time on the streets, so I can’t really give you a good run-down on that. I’ll have to ask my PSD friends as they are out in Baghdad a lot. PSD stands for “Personal Security Detail”. These are the eight guys with 12 radios and 16 guns that drive the four SUVs to take little old me to my meeting in the red zone. They are big, usually. Well, some of them are small, as in short, but they are big as far as muscles are concerned. They take my safety very seriously, and for that I am grateful. And, for the record, I have no idea how many guns they carry, or radios for that matter. And sometimes its more cars and sometimes its less and sometimes its sedans and sometimes it isn’t the PSD at all, but military in hummers and MRAPs.

Oh, there goes another pair of helos overhead – those sounded like Black Hawks (as opposed to Hueys or Chinooks – odd that I’m actually starting to tell the difference now). I’m sitting out on the corniche outside of the recreation center. There is one main street that goes through the center of the compound. On one side are the apartment buildings, and on the other side is a long building with the bar, the gym, the pool, the post office, the PX (shop), and the Pizza Hut, Subway and Green Bean (coffee). Along the full length of this building is a patio with tables and chairs and grills. I’m sitting out on the patio (the corniche some of us call it, because it is a few steps above the street, so it feels like you are on the banks of  river). On either side of me are tables with a few groups of people or individuals. Beyond them, on either side, are duck and cover bunkers, and on the other sides of them, on both sides, are big parties of people doing their own grilling and partying. One is reasonably well behaved: about 30 people that I think is a farewell – I heard some speeches earlier. A little further beyond them, people are gathering, as they do most nights around this time, to wait for the rhino – chatting, snacking, playing ping pong outside or billiards just inside, sitting around, laughing, joking.

It’s a unique little experience here, the nightly rhino run. As you may recall from previous posts, the rhino is the armoured shuttle bus that takes you out to BIAP (buy-ahp). If you are taking the rhino, you’ve got to muster at a particular time. So everyone who is going out is gathered in this one place (anywhere from a dozen to 4-5 dozen), along with all the friends and work buddies that are there to see them off. Sometimes the rhino leaves within 20 minutes of the show time and sometimes it doesn’t leave til 4-5 hours later. So it becomes like a big neighborhood picnic or block party. Some people are leaving on R&R, some people are going out to a PRT, some people are going out to BIAP to go to the hospital (when I took the rhino out to BIAP to go to Basrah a few weeks ago, my buddy Josh was headed to the hospital to get a cast on his arm that he’d busted), and some people are leaving for good. They are the ones with the most friends seeing them off, of course. And if it is a Friday or Saturday, when Baghdaddy’s is open, it becomes an even bigger party as Baghdaddy’s spills out on the patio.

But back to tonight. On the other side of the other bunker in the other direction, is a much less benign group. They’ve got a stereo and speakers and they are playing their music REALLY loudly. Unfortunately they are on the part of the patio right outside the internet cafe where the wireless is. I tried going down there so that I could do some internet related stuff, but it was just too damn loud. So I am down here, writing to you.

It’s a lovely evening. It has started to get warm here – springtime in Baghdad. This week it has been 90/32+ most days, and the evenings are breezy and warm. Having been in Australia and then going to the US in October and then here in December, this week is the first time I’ve been in weather where I don’t need at least a sweater for about a year. I’m so happy to be able to be out here, at 2030 at night, with just a singlet/tank top. It is such a strange environment here. There are just people everywhere, all the time. I think something like 3000 people on this small compound (including all the guards and facilities and DFAC folks). So it’s kind of like a reasonably good-sized city in that wherever you go, there are people on the streets and sidewalks. Of course most cities don’t have giant concrete bunkers every 30-50 yards with huge numbers stenciled in red on them: 5C, 6D …

But wait, isn’t all this a digression? I think it all started with a question about Business Process Modeling Notation and buying a car in Iraq. And how perfect. Mike, one of my PSD friends, just walked by. He says that mostly the cars are Protons or Toyotas. Mostly like little Toyota Corolla type things. The Protons are the worst he says – very rickety and fall apart easily. Mike didn’t know where Protons were from, but they appear to be Malaysian: http://www.proton.com/about_proton/history/index.php

….

Okay, just got into an enormous 2-hour conversation with someone else about the relationship between psychological operations in the military and public diplomacy. Also meandered into organizational personality differences between state and military (she’s military) as well as the impact of office layout on internal office politics.

Now it’s late. I’ll have to tell you about BPMN and buying a car in Iraq another day.