Unstuck...

Well, I don’t know when this post will reach the net—we have been without network access for almost 48 hours now.  And, we were without phones for most of the day yesterday.  Funny, how without these modern communication devices I found it near impossible to get any work done…  I guess that is not true--I got work done, but if you cannot e-mail off a report or call someone to tell them a lab result—is the work really done??  The old tree falling in the forest question…

 

But, this posting is supposed to be about getting unstuck, in more ways than one.  First of all, you may have guessed that we made it safely back from Balad.  There was a small break in the sandstorm that happened to coincide with a flight to Al Asad—thank goodness.  This particular flight is on a C-23 Sherpa.  If you look this plane up on the internet (which someone here did) it says it flies high and slow.  Maybe that is how they normally fly, but nothing is totally normal here.  After a 4 hour show time wait (sitting on rocks—did they do that in Viet Nam!), we hopped on the bird and flew low (150-200 ft) and fast (about 200mph) along the nape of the earth—very exciting.  In fact, as you get on the plane they encourage you to get your emesis bag ready for action as they can be hard to open sometimes and passengers are subject to extremely sudden bursts of motion sickness with all that that entails…  I read on the flight because that was better than watching the ground speed by sideways (the passenger seating is sideways on the plane) followed by a nice view of the sky followed by the ground speeding by sideways…  In any case, I am unstuck from Balad!

 

Unstuck number two:  diarrhea.  This is a problem.  Luckily, it is not a personal problem for me.  However, we have started doing some diarrheal pathogen surveillance here at Al Asad.  When you ask a question, you have to be prepared for the answer.  Likewise, when you ask for poop, you have to be prepared for poop; and, when you are deployed you should be prepared for a lot of poop.  Dusty is literally up to his eyeballs in crap!  This makes him as happy as a pig in…  Anywho, we are now investigating several unique aspects of the diarrhea here on base—another excellent reason to be in Al Asad in the summer!

 

Unstuck C.  The wedding ring.  Having been married for almost 15 years now, to my first wife, I can tell you that my wedding ring rarely comes off of my finger.  It barely fits over the knuckle, it is damn hard to take off.  The only times I have taken it off in the last 15 years is to scrub for surgery (med school, internship, and those wonderful, formative years in Iwakuni as a GMO—thanks to Cary and Lil!!).  Anyway, I am walking to the chowhall yesterday and, imagine this, it is hot and windy.  But my ring finger feels weird out in the wind.  So, I look down and am astonished to see that there is no ring there, and I have NO memory of having taken the ring off.  Inconceivable!!  Yet, the fact remained…  I pondered the situation over lunch—better to think and search on a full stomache…  No idea where the damn thing had gone!

 

When I got back to the office/bedroom/bat cave I had a lowdown, sneaking suspicion that the ring was under my pillow—no idea where this came from, but it was true!  So, despite the ring becoming unstuck, it is now firmly re-stuck on my finger—too bad Peg doesn’t know because the network is still down….