The Reptile Room

70 lbs. of Burmese Python wrapping it's self around your neck are great distractions from horse inflicted injuries. The flicking tongue at the face may well have been distraction from bladder control as well had I not been fighting to stay upright with all that weight. Stoically my bladder withstood the stresses and the scaly creature was returned to it's owners while I returned my horse trampled leg to it's bag of frozen broccoli.



(No Pythons or broccoli were harmed in the making of this blog.)

A Tense Moment

A conversation I had recently with my wife:

Valli: I sold your motorcycle.

Me: That's great, sweetheart.

Valli: And your truck is gone, too.

Me: Wonderful. (pause) You're not going anywhere, are
you?

Valli: (laughs) No, honey.

Me: Oh. That's good.

Yes, the bike is gone, and the truck is gone. Valli sold them both within a few hours of posting them on craigslist. I am really going to miss my bike. I loved riding that thing. But it all for the greater good. And by that I mean getting out of debt as fast as possible. Financial freedom has been the theme of the deployment. That said- I'm hoping to get another ride when I get home.

AND....

Speaking of automobiles- We are proud owners of a new (to us) Mercedez-Benz 300 turbo diesel! Oh yeah! Our pimp ride is the envy of everyone who died before 1982.

My wife is awesome.

Wild life.

Unique experience this morning. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes this morning was movement. On the wall, about 2 feet above my toes, was a largish fluttering thing. My first thought was- "That looks like a huge spider about to land on my foot." And by huge I mean, the size of my entire hand. After blinking a couple times and letting my eyes come into focus, I found that it was that, indeed. The largest camel spider I have ever seen was dangling from my internet cable, right over the foot of my bed. I thought about turning on the light, but they hate light, and I was afraid of where it might decide to run. My next thought was to find a gun, but the thing closest to hand was bottled water. I chucked this at the wall and leapt from my bed (5 feet from the floor) without looking at the outcome, because even half asleep i could remember that these things run faster than I do. I'm assuming I missed it because I was never able to find the body. There was a gap in the plywood walls very close to where it was hanging. Presumaby it escaped through that. The rest of the morning I dreamed of killing a steady stream of nasty spiders that dropped one after another through the ceiling.



The image below is a picture of the standard Iraqi solpugid, or camel-spider. They have 10 legs and huge crushing jaws, known to eat lizards and rats, and probably infants. Mine was dark brown are fury, like a tarantula from hell- but bigger and faster. Pretty frikkin sweet, eh?

The ride over.

I made this short clip just before takeoff in Kyrjzkistan (or Uzbekistan or wherever-stan) back in January. On my left is Major B the flight surgeon, my old pal and boss. On the right is Crenshaw- the guy I've been filling in for in Flight Ops. We're on a C-17, it's 20 below outside, and we've been up for over 30 hours. If at any point my eyes cross- thats why.

I wasn't going to blog this one because I didn't think it turned out that good. But I loaded it yesterday by accident and before I deleted it, my sister already saw it. She said she liked it so- here you go.

Come in! And know me better man!

I've been asked several times to put up some picture of my living area. I tried taking pictures, but the walls are so close together that the pics don't show much. Hence the video. I made it while I was waiting for sleep to come. That's why I sound that way. Don't mistake it for gloom. Because it isn't gloom. It's just sleepiness. Enjoy the tour.

Flight Operations

It's a long one.

For the last 3 weeks I have been working in Flight Operations. It all started while I was on the way to the dumpster and I passed my First Sergeant, who said-

"Hey Harrell, you’re going to start working in flight ops tomorrow. I know you don’t know anything about it, but we’re short a man and you don’t have anything better to do. So get some sleep because we need you on the night shift. Do you have any Ambien left?"

I replied in the affirmative and he assured me that it wouldn’t be long before I was flying. I just got used to the 11 hour time difference and now I was pulling another 180.

Oh well. That’s the Army for you.

Now let me tell you about my date with Ambien.

I tried to sleep through the day without chemical help, but around 2pm I broke down and popped 10mg of good ole zolpedim tartrate. But it didn’t help. Not a bit. So two hours later- desperate now- I swallowed another. It was about that time that the rest of the inhabitants of my hall decided to begin some kind of construction project involving what sounded like 6 hammers, a drill, and a rocked powered bulldozer. No rest for the wicked.

So I got up, showered, ate, and listened to the drug-induced voices in my head. By 7pm I was no longer stoned and couldn’t remember how I hadn’t fallen down a staircase or collapsed in the shower. But I still remember the conversation that the brightly colored, floating balls of fuzzy electricity had as they zipped around my ankles in the shower where I tried not to fall, but was perpetually ricocheting off the walls as I staggered this way and that. I’m being serious.

That night I got introduced to my co-worker Chanique. I got a crash course in radio etiquette and some standard operating procedures. Other than some janitorial work, I didn’t do much. Not job-related anyway. I did find the time to read Brave New World from cover to cover, and draw a pretty picture for my wife for Valentine’s Day- something I don't do very often.

The next night I learned a few more things- I can’t remember specifically what- about flight operations. It was probably something like- what paperwork get prepared for this and that thing, what data gets entered into this and that spreadsheet, or one of a hundred other tedious, repetitive chores. But mostly I swept, dusted, mopped, tidied, and read. Both Chanique and I were really hoping this arrangement would only last a week.

This is what flight ops looks like. It’s a three-sided plywood cave, an incorrigible dust-magnet, limbo. Among other things, there are a half-dozen radio systems, four computer and seven monitors.

Now that nearly 3 weeks have gone by, I feel like I understand everything pretty well, and have become friends with my co-worker. I still pass time reading, watching movies, practicing guitar, talking about religion, and now- even going to the gym. And every once in a while- we will actually get a call for a medevac. During this time, I’ve been introduced to my feminine African-American side. I’ve watched several of my partners Madea movies and listened to her Mary J Blige and Alicia Keys. And I’ve read some good books. Brave New World was great. So was Catch-22 and Shutzhund (protection dog) Theory and Training Techniques, and yesterday I finished Middlesex.

So. That’s work- for the moment. Any day now I’ll be fired and I will get to return to medic-world. I hope it is sooner than later. I miss my real job, and I can’t take much more Madea.

I need to repent

The hymns are like scripture put to music, right? So we should love all the hymns in the hymn book because they invite the spirit and teach gospel principles. Right? Well, there are a few that I just don’t like, and a couple that I can’t stand. Instinctively I know that I am wrong, and I need to repent. However, I really want to rip Scatter Sunshine right out of the book.

Last Sunday was my first experience with conducting music for sacrament meeting. Like most things, it’s harder that it looks. Things get interesting because our accompaniment is a prerecorded track. The songs switch tempo and sometimes wait a really long time to begin succeeding verses. Picture everyone holding their breath, mouths open, staring sidelong at the CD player. A few people, including me, start the first word and just draw it out until the music catches up.

Like this-

Thhhhhhheeeeeeeeee (one hand holding the hymn book, and the other handing descending very slowly, vertically, through the air) eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (quick breath!) eeeeeeeeeeee Spir-it of God, like a fie-ur, is bu-urn-ing…

And to top it all off, we have songs in 6/8 time -nobody told me about 6/8 time- like Scatter Sunshine. A song that I have never heard sung well.

Ever.

It’s a song about being positive and setting a shiny example for the gloomy and depressed. The melody is impossibly high and low at the same time, and it has different little ‘parts’ for the men and women. It always ends in an ugly disaster. It is a disadvantaged song.

So there I am, trying to sing this so-sweet-my-teeth-are-rotting song to strange music, in a strange beat, to unsynchronized music. It’s emotionally hard for me to be so bad at something! I really sucked at leading this song. On the other hand, the congregation wasn’t looking at me anyway- they were all squinting down at the page- as is it was written in Greek. By the second verse, I had put my hand in my pocket except for the first and last few beats. It couldn’t have looked as bad as what I was doing with it before. But I don’t think anyone noticed anyway.
I disliked that song before, now I really, really, really dislike it.

If you read this, maybe you could leave a comment with some kind of positive support for that song. If I could convince myself that it has some redeeming quality, my repentance process might be quicker.