We seem to be having power problems here. The power has been going off and on all day long. They say it's because there's too much power load on the generators but we're not sure. Something says it has as much to do with the Iraqi base support personnel not maintaining the generators as much as with the increased power load.

Of course, more fundamentally this goes back to poor planning by the American contractors who decided during the winter months that we could tie several pods into a single generator, saving power and allowing the generator to run more efficiently. Previously, we had a single generator for each pod but those single generators weren't having enough of a load placed on them so they were running inefficiently. So, the theory was that if you placed several pods on one generator it would use up the capacity of that one generator, thereby saving fuel and maintenance expenses.

"But will the generator still handle the load once summer comes and people start running AC?" we asked. "Oh, yes yes. It'll be fine" the contactors assured us. Evidently they weren't quite right.

Oh, wait . . . the lights are starting to flicker again. Gotta go!