Road Trip Middle Eastern Podcast Update

For the last two months, I've been trying to track two big stories in the Middle East: the ongoing Qatar crisis, and the independence referendum (and its aftermath) in Iraqi Kurdistan. I get a most of my news from my morning news reviews, but I also get a lot of my news (particularly deeper context) from podcasts. A wedding, a cross-country move, and three months of unemployment disrupted my normal podcast diet, but I'm getting back into it. I had about five hours of driving today, so I was able to catch up on podcasts I'd missed about Iraqi Kurdistan. I've also listened to most of my downloads about Qatar as well. There are lots of different perspectives on these two matters to be heard in these two lists, so enjoy - and take all of them with at least a tiny grain of salt.

Qatar Dispute

In Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s fight, Iran’s the real winner (War College)

Inquiry: What's So Special About Qatar? (BBC World Service)

What is Happening between Qatar and the GCC [English] (Status Hour)

The Qatar Crisis with Lori Plotkin Boghardt (The Washington Institute's Near East PolicyCast)

Qatar Gets Cut Off (CSIS)

Energy & Geopolitics: Qatar (CSIS)

The Showdown in the Gulf Gets Nasty (Foreign Policy Editor's Roundtable)

Kurdish Referendum

Iraqi Kurdistan's Independence Referendum with Michael Knights (The Washington Institute's Near East PolicyCast)

Kurdistan Referendum with Bilal Wahab (The Washington Institute's Near East PolicyCast)

Iraq & Kurdistan: Energy and Geopolitics (CSIS)

Must the War Go On? Let's Talk About Iraq and the Kurds (War on the Rocks)

The Kurdish Problem | Episode 80 (Covert Contact - The Blogs of War Podcast)

New Job, New Photos

I moved back home in August. After two years of intermittent applications, and over a year of fairly diligent applications, I finally landed a job. I'll be continuing my work in information security. Without getting into detail, I'm optimistic that it will be a good fit in the short term, and set me up for continued career success in the long term.

As I've done before starting previous positions, I've begun getting things ready for my desk and workstation. That includes things like professional files that I've collected over the years, but it also includes something a bit more mundane: photos. On my last workstation, my desktop background rotated through photos that I took on Operation Highlander. So, I'll be replicating those. I've spun through my photos from my 2003, 2004, and 2012 to 2013 trips to Europe, most of which was spent in Scotland, and copied a bunch of those photos for loading into a wallpaper rotation. One of my favorites, still, is the attached photo of a December 2013 sunset, witnessed atop Wideford Hill on the Orkney Mainland with my friend Michelle (AKA "Rock Sniffer").

For the entirety of the time I spent in my last job, I thought that I needed to add a bunch of my photos from time spent in the Middle East, and particularly my photos from the Sultanate of Oman. So, I went through all of those photos, picked my favorites, and copied them as well. The attached photo made the cut, even though it's not one of mine. (Frequent readers of this infrequently updated blog might remember it from this post, where I discussed my efforts to find the village of Hamaam outside the Omani capital of Muscat. I wish I'd been the one to take this photo, and I'm grateful to the Internet for providing it!

I'm adding another group of desktop background photos as well: photos from my long-removed life in the Mojave Desert. More than a decade ago, I cut my teeth as a federal contractor by participating in U.S. Army training operations. I didn't take many photos back then, because we were regularly reminded about security requirements; but there were some occasions to do some desert photography, and my waning days in that neck of the woods provided me with a couple of opportunities to snap some photos (including from a helicopter on my last day). I took the attached photo of a Joshua tree between my apartment and the facility where I worked, using actual black and white film - those days are long gone! So, as I work on one project or another, I'll be able to reminisce about my younger days in the heat and the sand. I chose a few that show various aspects of the base itself. I recently spent some time downloading some of the photos from the National Training Center/Fort Irwin and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment Facebook pages. I'm not sure if they'll get added at some point or not.

These desktop background images will be supplemented by something I've maintained at both of my last two jobs: a picture frame with actual, bona fide photographs. I know that electronic picture frames have been available for a few years, but as an information security professional, I consider them to be nothing more than non-secure Internet-of-Shit garbage. So, I went to Fred Meyer and printed off a ton of photos to add to those that I'd been using since 2014. There are a bunch of pictures of me and Lady Jaye. Then, there are photos of me with other folks (and one of just me). Next up are photos of Scotland, some of which are redundant to the desktop photo gallery, and some of which I didn't even take. Then, there are some pictures of my home state and my alma mater. Next up are pictures from various desert locales, some that I took, some that were offered up by my Facebook feed. After that, there are overhead and/or satellite pictures of various places that are important to me. Then, there are some photos of public figures whom I respect: Presidents Washington and Lincoln, Sultan Qaboos, General Mattis (pictured), Wilfred Thesiger, T.E. Lawrence, and various Orcadian Gordon Highlanders. Next, it's motivational images. After that, there are some fine art selections - dogs playing poker, for example. Finally, there are a bunch of funny pictures.

So, at the very least, all of these real and digital images will help to make me more comfortable as I work on one project or another. In addition, I expect that some of them will turn into conversation pieces that will help me to establish relationships with my co-workers. I mean, who's not going to be game for chatting with the guy who's got a picture of St. Mattis of Quantico at their desk?