Drink Water and Breathe

If you would have told me a couple of years ago that my luddite little sister Sarah would have stepped in the world of blogging. I wouldn’t have believed you. But she has, in some part of her mind, like me, she wants to leave a mark on the world in case something happens. I know the feeling, it’s the same feeling I had before heading out into a far distant and scary war zone. In case I died, I wanted to leave a record of me behind so I wouldn’t be forgotten.

Now she is going into her personal war zone, she went in last month to get an excisional biopsy (which means they take out all of whatever it is they found) on a mass in her right breast and when she woke, the doctor told her in that gentile voice they use to say such things, that she had cancer. On April Fools day she drove down to Phoenix for a follow up and learned at she had stage II or III ductal carcinoma which is the most common kind of breast cancer. Weeks pass and more tests show that it has moved into some lymph nodes and there’s something on one of her ovaries.

Suddenly, she is scheduled for surgery and tonight, she’s alone in a hospital room taking blood thinning medicines and she’ll be under the knife tomorrow where that kind sounding M.D. is going to put her on the chopping block and core her like an apple in hopes of getting that alien presence out of her body.

Just yesterday she turned 36 and it seems like it was just yesterday when I was letting her drive my car for the first time and the day before that when we used to sneak out of the house together. I love you sis and we are all pulling for you to pull through this, I’m here for you as I have always been but this time, don’t crash the car.

If you want to read her blog, it's at Drink Water and Breathe

Mangosteen, Flavor of Vietnam restaurant review

Tonight, I might have had one of the best pieces of fish in my life. My wife and I are spending Valentine’s in San Francisco and we’re staying an older place called the Embassy Hotel. Usually our plan is the Marine Memorial but they were sold out this weekend and I didn’t plan ahead well enough. The hotel is a bit aged, you can see by the furniture that they did have a hay day but have since dropped down a bit in the star power. One thing I like about the hotel, it’s located in the middle of little Saigon, an area that I’ve wanted to check out for a while with a ton of restaurants that are enough off the regular tourist beat that their prices are a bit lower.

Walking around tonight, we picked a place called Mangosteen, they had a bunch of very positive reviews on City Beat on the wall so we went in to see what it was all about and I ordered a spicy bass dish and Heather ordered a seafood curry pot. This place breaks away from the rest of the pack in tastiness and the prices were very reasonable. We’re going to have to come back and try out more menu. With 2 beers the bill came out to 33 bucks and we were barely able to finish it.

Tomorrow, we’re going to hang out with one of my old military buddies, “Chains”, the guy who got me into computers, roller hockey and punk music.

Work has been amazingly brain draining, 600 or so people, it takes a lot of effort to keep up and make it look good. The work is paying off but it’s a never ending job, and no matter how well you do, there are days were everything seems to fall apart. Well little things that don’t matter fall apart and when you’re running that fast, you don’t have the time to slow down.

Remember when..

I got my first cell phone in 1999 through Quest and they immediately lost all of my information and every couple of weeks or so, I would call asking for a bill and to be moved to a higher minute plan and they would say my number wasn’t on their system and they couldn’t help me. This went on for almost a year till eventually I got a monstrous bill for a couple thousand dollars. I had been keeping track of my calls, people who I had talked to and dates and told them that this was their screw up and worked my way up the chain of Quest till eventually I got satisfaction and a bill that was much reduced.

Since then, there has always been a cell phone in my pocket. Going to school, many long commutes, moving from place to place, having a constant contact with the world for a single guy was the way to go. My first clamshell phone in 2002, I was excited when I got a cell phone that would hold play MP3’s in 2003 (it did a lousy job), 2005 my first camera phone, first QUARTY keyboard in 2007 (I actually have a blog post from that phone someplace here, it’s the Rumor post). Now I’m on my second Blackberry much to the dismay to many of my IPhone using coworkers and my son who thinks how cool it would be if I could get him an IPhone. Face it, I’m a mobile electronics geek, connected, will travel.

Right now, I’m driving up with the bride to San Jose for the weekend and reached into my pocket to call my dad and it was empty. Oh man, I left the phone in my uniform pocket. I keep looking around and patting my pockets (for the fifth time). So, this weekend, I’m unconnected well other then this blog post and maybe a status update on Facebook.

When I discovered the phone missing, my brain seized, for a second, have you noticed how attached we have become to our electronic appliances? I remember the day when I used to keep all of my phone numbers on a single piece of folded paper that fit in my wallet that went through 4 separate generations over a decade and a half. I still have all of those pieces of paper but they’re now living in a photo album. I also used my brain, I had dozens of phone numbers floating up there waiting to be called up, patterns I could use to pull them up, now? I don’t even remember my dad’s number, over the years I’ve picked up so many numbers, just dropping them willy nilly into my cell phone with address when I was able and now, I can’t remember anything. My phone, like many of yours, has become part of how we recall information.

A decade ago, I couldn’t imagine how much stuff I use my phone for, I track all of my appointments, I keep numbers and notes about what I did that day, email responded to instantly, want to share a scene? Click. Need to find someplace? Press. A different ring for every event in my life, it’s not big brother who controls what I do, it’s a little slab of plastic and transistors which I keep in my pocket.

P.S.

I'm hitting 6 years of cyber babbling here next weekend

Chillin’ in Fallon

I drove out here last Friday and the skies were clear and blue, I arrived stopping by the commissary picking up my normal Det fare of sandwich makings and top ramen. My squadron trains F/A-18 pilots on how to fly and Fallon is one of the check-off blocks in the student pilot syllabus, my job was to provide medical support to the people we have deployed out here and side job, work on what readiness issues I could.

When I got to my room, the first thing I did was call the bride to let her know I had made it alright then turned on the weather channel. I had heard that there was a cold front moving in and sometimes Fallon got an inch or two of snow, if you look at the pictures on Google Maps Street View, they took the pictures of the local area with an inch or 2 of snow on the ground. I wanted to be prepared, clothing wise, I was fine but had forgotten my gloves, can’t get everything right. The weather channel was saying a chance of snow, lows in the single digits and accumulation of 3-4 inches. Sunday rolled around and between noon and when I went to bed there was already 4 inches on the ground and the snow wasn’t letting up.

The next morning there was 6 inches on the ground and the roads were covered with packed snow. My car was also covered with a full thickness. The night before, the Weather Channel said the low was supposed to be 7 but the current reading said -5 and the snow was falling, hard. I needed to go to the clinic to meet up with one of my guys, and my car was buried in 6 inches of snow, cleaning it all off without gloves was not great fun at all and was probably one of the closer times I’ve ever come to frostbite. No kidding, it was cold, in my civilian gear, I would have been jolly warm but in my navy utilities, long johns and jacket, just wasn’t cutting it for any sort of outdoor fun. I made it to the clinic, frozen clothes stuck to my skin to meet up with a patient. Thawing out, I never thought heat felt so good, sorry about puddles I left everywhere.

The snow kept up throughout the day, we still had some folk stuck in Reno, by nightfall, the snow was 8 inches deep but was slowing down. The next morning, the car was covered with a new 3 inches of snow and ice due to driving my car around and heating it up. I praise the folk the invented deicing fluid. This time I went out in my civilian gear cleaned the car off then went back to my room to change over and off to work.

It’s Thursday now, over the past few days, temperatures have ranged from -15 to 11, that 11 degrees was almost a warm moment. According to the weather channel, every day the low was forecasted to be 7 or 8 but each morning, so far, all we’ve seen is the negative teens. The base fix it guys have had their hands full with broken pipes across the base and probably the people out in town too. Even though it hasn’t snowed in 2 days, the snow hasn’t melted a bit and most of the roads are still covered with packed snow.

I don’t have room to complain though, most of my work is done inside of an office. The guys that work on the flight line have been moving piles of snow from one place to another and making sure the jets are ready to go just in case the airfield opens. All of this great flight time we’re supposed to have is on hold for now with another storm coming in tomorrow with more snow in the forecast. It’s supposed to warm up a little bit because the system is coming from the south but after the last couple of days, I’m not sure I trust the forecasting guys over at the Weather Channel. At least I’ll be home for Christmas, well that is if I don’t get snowed in here.

I might be in love

With something other than my bride, the new Canon EOS-1D Mark IV just came out. Over the past year or so, DSLR cameras have included the ability to shot video and I saw this video shot by the Mark IV back story can be found here. Wow, for someone who's taken some low light videos, color me impressed, the video was taken just using street lights, it sees better in the dark then the human eye. The entire video was taken at 6400 ISO.

Unfortunately I can’t afford to drop 5 G’s on a camera, no matter how cool and sleek it is but with this camera, oh man. ISO settings up to 102,400? I can’t even get a grip around that number. One of these days, I’m going to take up my photography reins again but for right now, I guess I’ll just have to make due with my old S3. But if Bill Gates is a fan of the blog, it’s in my wish list!

Sear's Heroes at Home

This is a pretty good deal for active duty military, I did it last year and got a Sear's gift card in the mail.

Sears invites all active military members to register for the Sears Heroes at Home Wish Registry program. The Heroes at Home Wish Registry allows America to thank our military heroes and their families by donating to the program. All donations will be evenly distributed in the form of Sears gift cards amongst all military families and members accepted into the program. Registration will be closing soon so register and review program details at www.sears.com/wish today.

El Centro

One thing about medical, when business is slow, it means everyone is doing alright. I’m currently in El Centro this week and having a hard time finding gainful employment which is good but hate feeling like a slacker. El Centro is much like the base I was in Iraq would feel like if it had potable water and cable TV or how it would look like in a decade from now. Otherwise the countryside looks the same, there’s the same feeling of dryness in the air and deserts that stretch out into the horizon. My new unit, VFA-125, trains Marine and Navy pilots on how to fly the F/A-18 C’s and D’s, there’s also another squadron on my base that trains pilots to fly the E’s and F’s. El Centro is one of the check marks in the students syllabus and medical tags along these little detachment to make sure everyone is doing alright, taking care of sick call, first aid or part of the human factors investigation team if there is any sort of mishap.

This is actually my first time out here El Centro, I‘ve seen the sign numerous times driving Yuma, a place I‘m familiar with being with the Marines. I would have to say the housing here is worlds better then Yuma. WiFi in the rooms, cable TV, DVD player, all of the comforts of home. My ride out here wasn’t so nice though, I put in NAS El Centro into my GPS and ended out in a place in called Campesinos Unidos Region Ix Carmen Pe Nas in Brawley, 20 miles out of my way, lost in the middle of the desert on the far side of midnight. So I went to a connivance store and asked how to get to the Navy base and drove for another half hour and pulled into Naval Air Field, not Naval Air Station El Centro. At least I didn’t end up in Mexico.

I’m heading out to a Bar-b-q this afternoon and tomorrow, back to Lemoore.

Navy Ball Lemoore Style 2009

Just sharing some pictures from the latest ball that the bride and I went to last week. The last few weeks have been a blur of flu shots and filing forms, not much of interest happening on this side of the world. Busy mostly with living life instead of writing about it and life hasn't been too bad. I need to find my writing bug again and I'm sure it will come again, it's just not hitting me right now.

R.I.P. Josh Wright

If anyone is wondering why I've been in a mad frenzy of picture posting, well anyone who knows me on Facebook. Part of it is because of my friend Josh Wright, who passed a couple of days ago at the age of 31 due to complications of his condition. If you didn't know Josh, he had a blog called Devil Dogs War and was a great supporter of Marines. He wasn't a Marine but it was his greatest dream to be one, he lived for the Marines but it wasn't meant to be, he had contracted Hepatitis C when he was a child and his health was always a bit shaky but he lived for supporting us and thousands of Marines out there received his care packages. I had promised to share my pictures with him months and months ago and hadn't got around to it yet and.... now it's just a bit too late, so I'm putting many of those pictures I was going to give him over there. Rest in Peace Josh, you will be missed.

8 Years

I’ve written about this before and don’t think I can improve on what I wrote here and here, the details were fresher on my mind. 8 years later and 9/11 was one of those events in my life that totally shaped how my entire future would turn out. Two buildings tumbling down in a city 3000 miles awake shook everything, the repercussions rang the world like a bell and I think that ringing will echo for a long long time. In a sense, my life split in two that day. There was the person I was before which included my early Naval Service then getting out and going to school and taking up work as a mechanic, I was carefree and living for the moment. Then 9/11 where the shock of the events pushed me outside of my life and I looked down at doing and knew, it wasn’t where I was supposed to be at. The next day, I signed back up with the Navy and a couple weeks later, I was back in, minus a rank.

Two years and five months later, I was making my first trip into Iraq and eventually I would spend over 2 years of my life in that desert. This dry and inhospitable place soon became my home away from home, humans can get used to anything. In many ways, in my journeys into the war zone, I was lucky. No one I cared about died nor was I hurt but I could see the toil that repeated trips was were having. To me, to my fellow military members, war changes you and the person who went in isn’t the same person who comes out the other side.

It’s strange to say but for the troops on the ground, this might be the safest war ever conducted. We had the best gear protective gear ever issued to a military force, yes there are deaths but compare the numbers to any other war or any major battle and it’s a drop in the bucket. We were surviving, running through 120 degree heat carrying around 80 pounds of battle gear and more often than not, making it home whole. In body at least. ORM, Operational Risk Management was the key phrase, we get more safety briefs then most people in the civilian world could imagine and as boring as they are, they seem to be working.

So many changes have happened since I came back in, medically, we’re now tracking all of our immunizations online, our notes are now written on a networked system. There are still bugs being worked out but I wonder what the result will be in 10 years? Military medicine in the 90’s was basically unchanging and now, the changes are so fluid and fast moving that if you turn your back, you won't recognise what's waiting for you at your desk.

This month, I’m re-enlisting for probably the last time, I’m 4 and a half years out from my 20 and I’m going to have to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. Hopefully it involves hanging out with the wife and dog alot. I’m proud to have taken part in these great events, when I’m talking to my grand kids, I can say, "I was there", and if they are so inclined, they can come back here and catch a snapshot of what I went though. They’ll see the gaps and wonder, what happened there and I’ll still have a few tales left to tell.

Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?

Alright, I have a weakness for Joss Whedon but this video is actually by his brother Jed and stars the lovely Felicia Day. What does this have to do with Milblogging, why, nothing at all. From the people who brought you Dr. Horrible, enjoy.

4 year Anniversary in San Francisco

We decided to make a trip to the city for our anniversary this year and stay at the Marine Memorial Lodge, if you are in the military membership is free, you have to either go there and show them your ID card or call and they can give you the information you need to fax them. With the membership, it's 69 dollars a night for weeknights and 89 dollars a night for weekends, don't miss the free breakfast on the 12th floor, parking is an additional 22 dollars per day which is added on to your bill. The first night in town, we walked down to Sutter Square and explored the area till after dark then had sushi at a literal hole in the wall diner with 4 tables and our single beer for the trip (yes, it is possible to have fun without getting drunk).

Our window was on the 7th floor

8 pillows!!

These hearts were all over the place

This was one strange looking dude

The next day we hiked to the top of Nob hill and purchased all day Muni-passes for 11 bucks which let you ride the cable cars and the city buses but not the BART. Well have to save exploring where that BART thing goes for another trip. The cable cars basically go in a big X well more of a t across downtown going up and down these steep hills and we went to all of the ends. Exploring China Town in the morning and dropping a wad of cash on some swanky clothes for the wife, Sutter St that afternoon and finished off the day at Fisherman’s Wharf that night with clam chowder, took advantage of the Ripley's Believe it or Not military discount 6 dollars and change) and crawled back to our hotel.

cable cars

On the cable car

China Town with someone driving a Ford Fusion like mine

The following morning, we had a huge free breakfast (we missed the day before to our loss) and checked out and drove over to the Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, looking at the gun encampments and getting a few more pictures then across the bridge. I haven't been across the Golden Gate since I was a baby, that afternoon we lazed around Muir Beach. A great time.

On other things, I’ve been concentrating on work so much that I haven’t had much time to do much else and by our readiness numbers, it’s showing. I don’t mean to slack of on the blog but I want to get my real life in order before I put too much attention to my cyber life. If you’re interested in some Navy Blogs of people who actually have a life, check out Deploying in a “Sea” of Sand. He has some great links to other Sailors who are IA “Individual Augmentation” to somewhere else, currently, I’m in the middle of his snag which he posts about so I feel free to mention, hopefully it all works out soon.

Well I got to get back to cleaning up a bit before the bride gets home, have a good weekend.

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.