Because, I got a great box from them and others at NHRC last week, but it included one of the cows that you see in the picture! I am sure all these cows were normal sized before they got ahold of them. Perhaps they used some sort of shrinking ray--after all, as Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic...But, the rest of the stuff in the box was cool enough to distract me from thinking too deeply on the ethics of shrinking cows and sending them half-way 'round the world to a place with absolutely no grass... In this picture you can see the cow, but you also see me wearing a spiffy new hat and shirt (one is hand-knit and the other is filled with excellent preventive medicine advice from the UCSD/SDSU residency program).
In the above picture I am in deep thought trying to figure out if a particular smell is gasoline or roses--part of a smell identification test that was in the box--this test kept the entire office busy for the afternoon--we don't smell much except for dust , port-o-potties, and deep-fried food around here--so any other smells are welcome! I will say that some of the folks in the office are nasalogists--they could identify every smell with uncanny accuracy without even looking at the choices--others of us were... let's just say... less good.When I deployed back in January the whole thing happened rather quickly, so fast in fact that I left without a goodbye card that the good folks at NHRC had prepped for me--so they sent two cards in this package--it is actually quite satisfying to get these cards when I am closer to the coming home than the leaving home--makes it seem like they might actually miss me and want me back at work! ;-) But wait! There's more! A balsa wood glider--we almost took out a colonel's eye flying that about the office! Disney's The Jungle Book (a great movie!) Animal Crackers (actually visible in the picture above sitting on the box)--but the animal crackers themselves are the exact same as all the other animal crackers you have ever eaten--there was a camel--I don't remember a camel in The Jungle Book! I had been looking forward to eating the buzzards--that would have been awesome! Gigantic (and quite hot) Red Hots--horse suppository sized... scary! Some excellent reading material--magazines and a book that I am excited to read, The Judas Strain--it seems to have an intrepid epidemiologist/scientist as its hero--it has to be good! Miso soup, popcorn, and chopsticks--you figure it out... And lots of lovely notes to read ;-)
Now, a while ago I briefly mentioned that my grandpa had sent a picture and experimental notes on a spiffy Sterling engine (go here to see a video, go here to read about Stirling Engines ).
What I didn't mention is that Grandpa had also recently gotten a new iMac and I challenged him to use its built-in camera and software to make a quick movie of the Stirling engine in action. Instead--and he assures me this wasn't a deliberate tweak--took a digital picture and typed up the experimental notes on the computer, printed the picture and the notes and then snail-mailed them to me in Iraq! Ha! But, the fact is that he did use the computer, just not in the way I imagined! Anyway, that mention of the Stirling engine was enough for the package from work to include a whoopee cushion, a gender-confused doll, and another fine example of using heat (or temperature differentials) to drive motion--the world-famous drinking bird... I have included all three in the video below for your viewing pleasure (note the whoopee cushion is heard and not seen...)
The last thing I will mention is that the Army folks in the office here were quite impressed with the whole package--and they were amazed that everyone at my work would know that things I might enjoy most were fit for a four-year old, but once I reminded them that I work with these folks regularly and they are intimately familiar with my level of maturity and humor, it all made perfect sense! After all, laughter is the best medicine... and it may be the best preventitative medicine too, right after clean water, sewage systems, vaccines and antibiotics...
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