Dropping like Flies, Jeff Goldblum too?

Farrah Fawcett was expected any day, Michael was a quite a shock but Jeff Goldblum? Unconfirmed reports are saying the he died falling from a cliff in New Zealand shooting a movie. Rumor? Yes it was a hoax (or so I hope, there are pictures of him in New York a couple of days ago with Rachel McAdams). Maybe but it is sobering hearing of the other two, June 25th is turning out to be a strange day. I was behind someone at McDonalds in the drive through and heard them tell the girl in the window that Michael Jackson was dead and the girl said “no way!” and a couple of minutes ago someone in the barracks screamed “Michael Jackson is dead!!!” at the top of his lungs. My grandmother in law was in tears over Farrah and when I told my wife that Michael Jackson was dead, she didn‘t believe me and looked it up on the internet. I’m sure there is an entire movement of fans who are planning candle lit vigils all across the world.

Both were younger then my father and the in-laws, Farrah has my mom by a couple of years but it's close enough not to count. I’m glad that Jeff’s was a hoax because it would have probably bothered me more then the other two, Jeff was a cool cat at the top of his game and the world will be a sadder place without him, Michael and Farrah have had their days in the sun, while it's sad when people go but Farrah wasn’t in a good way which she shared with the entire world and Michael was living like a billionaire off a millionaires salary and face it, was nuttier then a fruit cake dropped in a bucket of peanuts and that was bound to catch up with him.

These stories have dropped NK out of the front page at CNN.com and that is the country threatening us with a “nuclear fire shower” right now if anything happens to them, it doesn’t seem to matter what or who causes it. It will be our fault and we would pay. These jokers keep crying wolf and eventually we got tired of hearing it but we really shouldn’t. The world is a tinder ground, Iran is in chaos, bombs going off in Iraq, it’s difficult to keep your mind on the ball when you don’t know what the ball is. I just know, we could live a lot easier if we didn't have a wack job who yells out craziness off his porch with his old dying fingers on the big red button (that doesn’t say “Easy”)

Alas, what are we to do?

House

We’re moving into housing this weekend, after being without a home for 2 months, I’m missing my own bed. Growing up, I never imagined that I would have lived so many places nor move around as much as I have since joining the Navy. Three years here and four years there, it’s definitely kept me on my toes but at the end of the day, I’m wondering where I’m going to end up at. Five more years and I have to find something else to do with my life.

Lemoore is doing me good, it’s much nicer seeing the bride every weekend and being closer to the son and not worrying about being sent away to the other side of the world for a while. I feel at peace, well except for Saturday night coming out and seeing all of those broken windows. Then, I felt like Batman probably does. I don’t think I’ll be settling there, like New Orleans, it’s a nice place to visit but I don’t think I want to stay. Some interesting places to see in Northern California and my wife wants to share them all with me. I’m game, just a bit safety conscious.

Hope everyone is doing well out there in cyberville, I’m off to bed and on to another day.

Hoodlums

Last Saturday night my wife took me into San Francisco to go to a clubbing, she was the designated driver. We had a great time but when we got to our cars parked on 10th Street between Harrison and Bryant, there was a pile of glass in the sidewalk outside of the back door of our friends car. My wife immediately went to her Beetle and checked all of the windows but everything was intact.

We turned around to look up and down the street and at every parking spot except for ours, there were piles of glass or a car with a window busted out.. We went back over to our friends car, she had lost her GPS and her cell phone and the thieves had even took a hand full of mini muffins out of a container we had brought to munch on. The people down the street who just got to their car weren’t missing anything because someone had broken into their car a week before and stolen their stereo but still had their window busted out.

We theorize that the reason they didn’t break into my wife’s car was that she still had a tape deck, the only thing they could see through the windows were her tapes. Who in their right mind would want tapes? We were thankful but angry that someone would do this.

I’ve left the war zone but even here in the States, I can’t let my guard down. This event broken my compliancy, my warm self assurance in being back home. There are still beasts in the world, whether in a war zone or not.

One good thing that happened, I found a purse lying in the road, in the middle of a pile of glass and there was a check book inside. I called the number and the owner was still up the street, the bride and I walked it back to her.

It‘s funny how this didn‘t even make a blip on the news, the girl who owned the purse was parked on another street over, on my side of the street alone, there were probably ten cars broken into, I wonder if it was the same on the her street?

Google News searches have turned up nothing. On our street alone, 10 people had a possible life changing event. Yet I can’t find a single story about a rash of break ins. So I’m putting my high Google ranking up with the story so it doesn't get forgotten. From the people who I talked to Saturday night/Sunday morning, this is a regular occurence. There’s a new Police Chief in town, I’m hoping if enough people talk about this, maybe he’ll take notice and I won't be afraid for my car when I come into town.

Talk about a Bad Day 12/21/12

I just saw the Trailer for 2012 here, if you don't know the back story about 2012. Back in the day a couple thousand or so years ago, the greatest civilization in the New World, the Mayans developed an amazingly accurate calendar which we call the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar and on December 21, 2012 or the last day of the of a 13th b'ak'tun, the fourth world ends and the fifth begins. Well some people think it's going to be a day of great celebration and others.. Well they think it's going to be the end of the world. Hopefully not like the movie because from what the preview shows, the body count is rather high. And as a guy who's always shown an interest in this, I can't wait to see it.

Where every body knows your name

I was at Naval Hospital Lemoore today, doing a meet and greet to talk over some of the policies of the OpSide clinic that I’m working out of and was walking down a hall way and was recognized as the corpsman with a blog by one of the chiefs. I then gave the Master Chief a heads up that I‘m “that“ guy, which really isn‘t that bad of a thing. Guess I haven’t fallen too far off of the radar.

Most of the past couple of weeks have been spent checking in and observing as much as I can, as a first class, I’m expected to play a leadership role. And this is where I’m taking my cues off the great leaders of my past. The leaders that worked the best were the ones that took in their surroundings before making changes. The leaders that ran into problems were the ones who came in like a bull in a China shop and laid down the law without paying attention to the situation on the ground.

My job is to take what’s working and fix what’s not. Right now, we’re having a problem with organization and accountability. Two things that I have been both horrible and excellent at. We’re working out of temporary trailers while our main clinic gets remodeled, not the best situation. It’s tight and there is a certain looseness in the knowledge of where all of my people are at given a specific time because there isn‘t even enough seating space for all of us in the same room.

I’m watching the patient care, it is getting done and the paperwork is turning out right but it sort of seems like magic. No one has sat down and told me step by step on how they’re doing it. Believe me, I know how to fill out the paperwork but there doesn’t seem to be a standardized way we do it here or at least not one that someone has set me down and told me. Another tack in my book.

Talking with the leadership, as usual, there’s a power struggle between who owns the squadron corpsman. There are good and bad with working for the squadron and the clinic. I think the only way for us as squadron corpsman to prosper is to tighten up our acts and put forth a more professional front. Every place I’ve been stationed at, we have had to walk a tight rope and it makes it a harder job if we’re not running a tight ship.

Problem with being a blogger, I’m going to publish this and everyone I work with can take a look at my thoughts, both junior guys and the leadership. Oh well, at least they’re know where I’m coming from. Aren’t we trying to be transparent?

Woman who missed Air France flight killed in car accident

I was trolling net between courses and saw this. Her and her husband has missed the flight and caught another flight the next day, less then 2 weeks later, her and her husband's car veered into an oncoming truck, she's dead and her husband is in serious condition. Now if this isn't reminiscent of the movie Final Destination then I don't know what is, spooky!

Rat in his Wheel

A piece of interactive art I took part in last weekend at a NIMBY event that we went to, the bride did an excelling job at the filming. NIMBY is a place to create anything that your mind can come up with and they rent out space to artists with a wild hair. They have shows every month that are like mini Burning Man festivals, only these people are doing it all year long. Even though I haven't been online as much, it doesn't mean life has stopped. Check out the web site above, if you're ever in the Bay area during one of their events, I promise you a show that you will not soon forget plus it's a really cheap good time, good music, robots shooting fire and things that you could not imagine.



But work is nothing like being in a cage, I'm in the process of checking in still. Corpsman out there, listen up, keep up with your NKO courses or your next command won't give you your keys! Half of my time since checking in has been doing online courses. So far, friendly people and a job that is in need of my skills, I can do this.

Tomorrow I'll be attending the local Corpsman Ball with the bride where we get to make a first impression with the local medical community.

Impressions? I enjoy being so close to the bride, after spending time at Edwards AFB and China Lake, this place is nice. Besides, it's not where you're stationed at, it's who your stationed with. I think I have some good material here. Fresh faces and fresh impressions, wish me luck.