2008 Navy Ball

I had a date last Friday with my wife to celebrate the Navy's 223rd Birthday up at the Camp Pendleton SNCO Club. I had some mixed feelings about holding the Ball at a base club but it ended up being a great show with good food and affordable drinks. Good job guys! The only think that was missing was being able to party till you stumbled back to your room. No loss for me, I’m not the party animal that I used to be. Here are a few pictures taken that night.

Silver Lining

The bubble has burst and watching the news, they make it almost seem like we’ve reached a point of no return. After a decades of the stock market going up and millions of American's joining the ranks of home owners, the tide has turned. Words like deflation, recession, depression are catch phrases that are flowing off people’s tongues. In the midst of this, some people are breathing a sigh of relief. The people who have rented instead of buying, who have lived paycheck to paycheck, who didn’t listen to the advice of their elders, didn’t gamble their money on stocks, the slackers, this time is a blessing, in the short term anyways. If you do have a job that hasn’t been affected the downturn, you’ve lucked out and your hard earned dollars are reaching further then they were just a few months ago. The horrid term called deflation has kicked in, gas prices are falling and the price of goods are going down. Businesses are worried, deflation is horrible for them but for us the consumer, tired of inflation, this is a windfall that we should take advantage off.

I admit it, I’m a renter, I don’t own a single stock but I do own some property in Arizona. When I first moved to San Diego, my wife and I had a roommate and we rented a 4 bedroom house in Mira Mesa for 2200 dollars a month. The house was for sale for 700,000 which would have given us house payments close to 5000 dollars. I couldn’t imagine spending that kind of money on a place to live plus not buying saved us 3800 a month and for the year we lived there saved us $45,600. Not that I see that sitting about but I’m sure I would be a poorer person right now, both emotionally and financially then I would have been if I had bought. While many people I know did opt to join that dream and buy a house, I knew it wasn’t my time. I had people all around me saying that I should buy a house but I held tough. I don’t know where I’m going to end up after I retire but I doubt it’s going to be in San Diego unless I become independently wealthy but I’m not holding my breath. I love the city but living here comes with a premium price tag and a body needs to work too hard to just make ends meet plus, I’ve seen too many people who couldn’t make that cut. I’d rather survive then have to live through some of their stories.

So enjoy this reprieve we’ve been granted and hope the genius’ in DC can fix what ails our financial market without causing further inflation or the total collapse of civilization. Remember, it’s political season and I’m not telling you who to vote for, just vote.

Doc in the Box on the removing of toenails

I am a corpsman but don't really blog about medicine that much, so here’s a medical post. The most common medical problem that requires minor surgery while deployed with my Marines seems to be ingrown toenails (I don't know if that's true for others but it is for me) and here’s a video I made of me in action taking out part of a toenail (yes, I screwed up and ripped it in half, but it still came out, just wasn't as pretty on film) and there are subtitles. If you easily get grossed out, don’t click play, for me, it's just something I do at work.

For someone who has a blog called Doc in the Box, you would think that I would have more medical posts.

Update because the readers asked, I did use a nerve block and a rubber tourniquet to stop the blood flow, there are gloves on my hands, they’re just sort of skin toned, my doc was filming and did a great job at it. The wound was lightly packed with cotton for the day a 2x2 and regular 1 inch medical tape wrapped around the toe. The patient actually said it was pain free the next day. There’s no sucking it up unless bullets are flying over my head or if the patient is drunk and has just punched me in the jaw while I'm trying to sew them up (happens).

Yay, fixed my links on the side:)

but I killed my cool clock, I suppose some readers will rejoice:(

MCAS Miramar 2008 Airshow F-22 Raptor

I've seen many shows, I can't even count how many times I've seen the Blue Angels but the F-22 was something totally different. This plane did things I wouldn't have expected to see out of a Robotech cartoon. The thrust vectoring really does make a difference, while other shows showed off speed and power, this aircraft danced across the sky, making incredibly tight turns. Remember the movie Top Gun and the spin that killed Goose? This plane did that on purpose and it was a strange sight to see a big fast military jet doing the tricks that are normally reserved to aerobatic biplanes.

Zune finally adds support for Audible.com

I admit it, I like listening to audiobooks when I drive cross country and usually with my 1000 mile hauls and the cost of CD's, it can been an expense proposition. I did the Twilight series while driving 3000 miles over to Arizona and northern California which was a hundred bucks give or take. Which would have cost me a fraction of that if I could have downloaded it on my Zune which wasn’t compatible with the format at the time.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I downloaded the Zune 3.0 firmware. Wow, neat, games, down load songs directly from any public Wi-Fi through the Zune Marketplace and it labels songs that it plays through the FM receiver that you can download if you like. While all of that is cool, the best thing I found last week was support for Audible.com. Yay, instant gratification at the click of a button, 7.49 the first 3 months and 14.95 for each month after which gives me one downloaded book per month and 30% off all of my other downloads. Yes, it might be a lot spend for a non-reader but for me, it’s days off of my life searching through stores or waiting for something to arrive in the mail through Amazon.

Suddenly, that long drive doesn’t seem so long and lonely anymore.

Miramar Air Show 2008 MAGTF Display (Marine Air Ground Task Force)

Marines showing their stuff, it gives Joe Public a small but exciting glimpse of what the real deal is like. The show is put on by regular Marines with no other special training then doing what they normally do day to day yet they pull it off perfectly each year.