Chow hall

When I arrived here, the outgoing ER doc told me the saga of the chow hall here on base. It had originally been promised for April, 2004, but got delayed. And delayed. Delayed again, and again. Finally, there was going to steak and lobster on August 29th. Needless to say, that day came and went with no steak and lobster. The beams just laid in a pile, rusting. The outgoing ER doc left. Still no chow hall. The main problem was that no contractors were willing to take the risk to come and work here. Eventually, a group was hired to build it, and they showed up. They actually started work. They levelled the ground and started building. Yesterday, we found out that the target day for opening has been delayed indefinitely. It seems that the engineers installed the superstructure upside down. Now they need to try to figure out what to do next. Go figure. I blame it on the low bidder system.

Package day

So I played some hearts with the guys earlier in the day, and then went to dinner. And when I got back, there were 6 packages piled up by my bed! Holy cow, it felt like Christmas. I spent an hour opening and sorting stuff. Joan Sriver sent a huge box of stuff for the troops, although I am very tempted to syphon off the Rice Krispie treats. The folks at CHO ER also sent a huge box, loaded with goodies and a questionable card. Faith, you are bad, bad, bad. Sister, Kathy, came through with Clif Bars, nuts and other goodies. Thank you, Dad, for 4 more books. I am starting to wonder if I will get through them all! Maggie, not to be outdone, was finally able to arrange delivery of the first box she prepared, dated August 23rd. So I never really give up hope on the arrival of boxes. It was a very fun evening, and needless to say, the pantry is totally restocked here. So anyway, things here are just fine. We are eating our Halloween candy early. Well, I am eating most of it. Thanks to everyone for your packages. They really made my day.

Magic biscotti

The other day, Monday, I think, I woke up feeling rather lousy. I was pretty run down, probably from doing too much, and felt like I had a fever. So I spent most of the day trying to rest. I took Tylenol and Motrin, which alleviated the body aches and helped me sleep. Then mail arrived, and in it was a box from Mom which was crammed with peanuts and four Ziplocs stuffed with chocolate biscotti, among other stuff. Some had walnuts (yes, Dennis, walnuts) and some had cayenne. I saved the cayenne ones for myself and offered up the walnut ones for general consumption. Well the secret got out pretty soon, and all the guys started in eating them. As I had been sleeping all day, and not eating, I figured I had better keep up, so I ate about 12 of them. Those, combined with the nap made me pretty wired, and it was tough falling back to sleep that night. But I slept great and woke up the next day feeling fine. I figure the credit goes to all the biscotti I ate. Magic.

Climbing wall.

I have decided that this is the best deployment I have ever done. Today, I ventured down to the climbing wall that was erected by a couple of enterprising Marines. It is probably 20 feet tall, and four-sided. It has two sides with overhanging lips that are pretty challenging. We are going to try to go down about two or three times a week. The trauma surgeon, battalion surgeon and myself went down. It represents a large portion of the medical brain trust on the camp, so I suppose any accident would not be good, but it is really pretty safe. The trauma surgeon, Tom Nelson, is an experienced alpine mountaineer and rock climber. Travis Clark, the battalion surgeon spends him time at home up at Joshua Tree, trying to find new lines up the rock. His climbing partner at home is our Assistant Operations Officer, or S-3 alpha, with the Marine Task Force here (funny coincidence, Erik). He is rehabilitating his ankle after a lead fall up at J Tree earlier this spring, but he plans on joining our little climbing group soon. Many thanks to Margarita for sending out multiple care packages, some of which contained my climbing gear and a rope€WÓ«€WÓ«` Ó« ŽÓ«èWÓ« WÓ«O WÓ«Zoe for sending me little boxes in the mail. That is truly the best part of the time out here when the mail comes.

Later today, I think I will hit some golf balls for practice. I have a bet to collect on when I get back home. Time for our daily briefing. I will try to be more diligent with postings in the future. Bye for now.