Man in the Moon

Some folks have asked me why I added the “moon cycle” thing to my blog page. Maybe a better question would be why wouldn’t I put the cycle of the moon on my website? The moon is cool! In fact, it's the coolest! Vampires change under it, witches chant spells in its light, werewolves howl at it, and that’s just a small sample of only the Halloween appropriate coolness! Seriously, I’ve always liked the moon, the stars and space in general. The fascination with the night sky started with my childhood dream of growing up to be an astronaut and progressed after my 5th grade teacher taught me where to find the big dipper (along with the lattice method of multiplication and how to keep score in bowling). Little did I know that my dreams of walking on the moon would end at the tender age of 21 when a doctor informed me that my eyes weren’t good enough to be a pilot thereby squashing my future as a shuttle operator. With my hopes of spending time in Houston, eating freeze dried ice cream, and wearing those fancy space diapers that all the cool astronauts seem to be wearing in the news now a days dashed upon the rocks of disparity over my lack of perfect vision, I never let it ruin my fascination with the stars and the moon. Here are some cool facts about our nearest celestial body:

1. The moon was worshiped in many cultures and was known as the symbol of various deities to include Artemis (Greek moon goddess), Soma (Hindu moon god), Mawu (African moon goddess) and Khons (Egyptian moon god). And no, the “Man in the Moon” is not a god.

2. The moon is one quarter the diameter of earth which is a lot of green cheese!

3. The moon takes 27.3 days to cycle through all of its phases, which is about once a month. That means I only have 7.5 moon cycles to go until I'm done with this deployment.

4. The gravitational pull of the moon causes the changes in our ocean tides, but seeing as the nearest ocean is many miles from here in the Persian Gulf, I won't be seeing tides or waves any time soon. Besides, Iraqi's don't surf.

5. The moon is 280,000 miles away from the earth, which is just slightly farther than Iraq is from Texas (but only slightly).

6. Gravity on the surface of the moon is one sixth of what it is here on earth, which means that I could carry all of my gear and NOT get plantar faciitis there.

7. The temperature on the sunny side of the moon’s surface is 243 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about equivalent to a typical summer morning in Baghdad.

8. The moon is about 4.6 billion years old (only a little bit older than my gray hair makes me feel some days).

9. At a rate of 3.8 centimeters a year, the moon is slowly pulling away from the earth’s orbit. I wonder if I slept for an extra 3.8 minutes a day if I could just sleep through the last part of my deployment once I return from leave?

10. And finally, the moon travels at 2,300 miles per hour around the earth. That means if I could fly a plane as fast as the moon, I’d be home in about 2 and a half hours.

These are all great and interesting facts but none of them are the reason I posted the phases of the moon on my blog. With the days getting shorter here, I wake up in the morning and return to my trailer in the dark allowing me to see the moon quite regularly, except under the inky black night of a “new moon”. I use the moon phases to help me gauge how much longer I have to go here in lovely Iraq, kind of like how the American Indians and many other past cultures told time. As the moon cycles through it’s phases, I count the number of full moons and crescent moons I have gone through as a way of measuring my progress here. Oh sure, I could look at a calendar like normal folks, but I like answering the question of “how long until you take your leave?” with “I have many moons to go.”

Lastly, the moon is the only real physical connection I have with the people back home. Wherever I am in the world, I can look up at the night sky and see the same moon that they see which gives me a strange sort of comfort that helps when I get a little lonely over here. Just as the Man in the Moon shines his bright big smile at me, he grins the same grin to the people back home on the other side of the world. Yeah, it could be considered by some a silly interpretation of what can scientifically be explained as the normal reflection of sunlight off earth’s largest satellite, but I never claimed to be the most serious of souls in uniform here.


Interesting quote of the day:

“Gonorrhea is not in your chest!”

- a frantic response after a discussion of what could be causing the sickness of a captain who will soon be home with her husband while the rest of us here are hating life.