Catching Up

Here are some old posts that I've been placing on MySpace.
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
A Walking Dirty Bomb

I was looking through my friends list and decided that I wanted to count how many friends I have that are not affiliated with the military in any way, that is: either in the military, used-to-be-in, or married to someone who is in. Of the 48 friends that I have on MySpace (I like to think I have more than that in real life), 17 of them, or should I say '17 of you' are not affilitated with the military in any of those ways.

This next story is for those 17 of you. Since it is a good bet that the 31 of you who are in or around the military have had a similar experience.Those of us in the military are accustomed to getting shots. Starting in basic training, when we are told to get in line and roll up our sleeves, file into a small room and get stuck with 2 or 3 needles in each shoulder, we know that getting vaccinated is just part of the deal. But to an extent, we are only vaccinated based on the risk of the locations where we go. Since I am scheduled to PCS to Korea in September, I am required to be vaccinated for some of the most scary diseases we know about. These are the ones that our military percieves as carrying the most likely chance of being used against us. Those being anthrax, typhoid, and small-pox. Scary shit.I received all three of these vaccinations a couple days ago. And I must admit, I've been a little freaked out since.

Starting things off at the clinic on base where I got the shots: I got the anthrax and typhoid shots first. Both of them in the right shoulder. I was told that the typhoid shot would make my arm feel like someone punched the hell out of me. The anthrax shot (which is the first in a series of six, by the way) causes a pretty intense burning sensation about 20-30 seconds after the needle is taken out. Don't really know why there is a delay like that, but it is supposedly normal.Then the guy takes me into another room for the small-pox. The small-pox room. That's what they call it. It's the only vaccination that is given in this room. How is that supposed to make you feel? Scared cause this stuff is pretty nasty? Or confident that great precautions have been taken to make the vaccination environment as safe as possible? I think I felt a little mix of both.

The small-pox vaccination isn't even a shot at all. It's more like a little fork with two little prongs that they dip into a white powder and then poke into your shoulder a few times. Before I get to the poking, let me tell you about this white powder. Well not so much the powder itself but how it is kept. This small-pox stuff is in a little plastic box, kind of like a small tupperware container... with no lid. No lid? This stuff gets it's own room but no lid? I even made a remark to the guy, "Wow, so that's it right there? You don't even keep it covered or anything?" He was kind of like, "Yeah it really isn't dangerous unless you touch it. And besides it has it's own room". Well if you say so. I guess I'll buy that.

So I get the little fork prodded into my left shoulder. I am given all this literature about what should and shouldn't happen to the vacination site. This nasty stuff inside me will cause a blister to form that will hurt and itch like crazy. I'm not supposed to scratch it. I have to keep it covered up pretty much all the time. If I let my shirt come into contact with it, then the pox are on the shirt. If you touch the shirt, then the pox are on you. If my bandage comes off in my bed while I sleep, then the pox are on my sheets. If my face rolls into that spot later, then the pox are on my face!

I've seen pictures of pox on people's faces and it does not look fun. Not cool at all.

And so now there are all kinds of other things to think about like how to shower without breaking the blister open, disposing of the used bandages in sealed plastic baggies, and stuff like that. These things are of special concern to me because I frequent the gym on pretty regular basis. Pretty much every day. I work up a good sweat and shower there before I go to work. But I am now so worried about accidently losing my bandage as I work out or while I'm in the shower that I am rethinking my whole daily routine.

I keep reading through the literature and it makes it sound like the risk of it spreading are actually pretty minimal. You just have to keep it covered and not scratch it. Nevertheless, every time I get a little itch anywhere on my body I think, "oh crap, I hope that's not a pox"! And I think these thoughts even though I know it is almost impossible that the itch is the pox because I haven't even developed the little blister on my shoulder yet! It still doesn't even itch!

Throughout all these concerns I am also forced to marvel at the human body. Our bodies can learn to fight infections if they are introduced in small enough doses. Some other diseases can't even affect us at all because the human race has evolved to be able to resist them. I have about 2-3 weeks of this to endure while my immune system frantically tries to figure out how to fight three new invaders at the same time. I might not even feel any symptoms as the germs attack me. Right about the time it figures out how to defeat the small-pox, it will be time for my second anthrax shot. And if everything goes as planned, I will smoothly transition from a potential victim of a biological weapon to being immune to germs that have killed hundreds of thousands people over the years.

At least my cat is apparently safe, since there is no evidence of small-pox vaccinations ever infecting cats. So who is more highly evolved? I'd love to hear your thoughts...
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Sunday, July 22, 2007
Susan's Last Hoorah in Amsterdam!

So the time is finally here. The reality of the approaching end to Susan and I's time here in Europe. She'll be starting her new job/adventure in Africa next week. So for her last weekend in Europe we decided to go check out a place that's been on our list for quite awhile... Amsterdam.Let me tell ya... Amsterdam is cool.

This place has gotta be one of the coolest places on the planet. Seriously, this place is different. Yeah people smoke weed at the coffee shops. Yeah prostitution is legal. To me, Amsterdam seems like the type of place where you can get anything you want any time of day, 24/7. And I do mean ANYTHING!!! After a weekend in Amsterdam, I still have no idea what Dutch food is like. Amsterdam has food from all over the world. From every country except The Netherlands. Just the ones I remember seeing a lot of were Indonesia, Argentina, Uraguay, Japan, China, Italy, Thailand, Mexico, and India. We managed to eat sushi for dinner, something that we try to do anytime we get the chance. (Our area of Italy doesn't seem to have any respectable sushi places.) And dinner on Saturday was at a Nepalese/Tibetan restaurant!

We got to spend about 2 and a half days there. We walked around, saw the sites, hit a couple musems. Walking around the streets you can smell the weed coming out of the coffee shops. Susan put it best when she described it as "surreal". I can't help but think about the scene in Pulp Fiction when John Travolta is describing the weed smoking in Amsterdam. Yeah people do it but it's really not that big of a deal. There are all these rules about doing it. You can only do it in certain places and areas of the bars. Most places that serve weed don't serve alcohol. Well in any case, it didn't matter much to me or Susan since we're really not into the whole weed smokin thing. And even if I was I've got this whole military career thing to worry about. So in case you're wondering, no I did not partake. My mom will be so glad to hear that!

The Red Light District. Very nice! Chicks in windows wearing lingerie. Some of them were super hot. Others not so much. Some trying to drum up business by dancing, teasing, trying to be sexy, tapping on the glass at guys they think might be interested. Other girls sat there and read magazines or talked on their cell phones as if they were oblivious to the crowds of horny guys gawking at them.

And then there was the live sex show. Yep we went to the one at the Casa Rosso, supposedly the classiest one in the RLD. I have to say I can't complain too much. How classy can it be watching two total strangers have sex on a rotating stage? You'll have to figure that one out for yourself! But there was one part of the show that made the price of admission worth it... we saw a girl smoke a cigar... Not with her mouth. Yeah, that was cool.

We finished up our stay with a boat ride around the canals and spent Saturday night at a couple pubs and then checked out an American improv comedy act. Not bad.

So back to work for me tomorrow. Susan will be off Tuesday or Wednesday. And I have until September to enjoy however much I can before my time in Europe is over as well. But I think its gonna be tough to top this one...Check out the photos in my album.

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Thursday, July 05, 2007
The crazy month of June

June turned out to be one of the busiest months for me in a long time. Susan and I are trying our best to make it to all the places in Europe we still really want to see. Both of us are approaching the end of our time over here in Italy. Susan is in her last few weeks. For those of you who don't know, she'll be starting a new job in Djibouti (that's at the horn of Africa) at the end of July. I'll be leaving (probably to Korea) this fall.

Who knows where the future will take us? We'll end up together again somewhere, sometime...In the meantime, we continue our frantic pace of traveling. Someplace diferent every weekend. June started out with us just getting back from our trip down to the Amalfi Coast with Lee, Michelle, and Jenn. (Pics from that trip are still forthcoming!) The next weekend we headed over to the country next door, Slovenia with our friends Jess, Kim, and Brian. It was the usual Slovenian weekend of drinking, shopping, and Mexican food.

After that, we drove about 5 hours across the Alps and into Vienna, Austria. Stayed there for a few nights and managed a day trip into Bratislava, Slovenia. Both cities were really cool. Vienna is a happening place. Live music everywere. People out on the streets drinking, eating, enjoying life. Very neat town. Bratislava was cool too. Not at all like on Eurotrip!

We had a prett forgettable day trip to the Italian city of Padova. It's only like 2 hours away from our place but we'd never been there. We'd both heard good things so we decided to go check it out. Well, if you never have a chance to see Padova, you're really not missing too much. Yawn...Then, I can always count on good ol Uncle Sam to help me out with my traveling. I got sent to NAS Sigonella on Sicily to help out with some communications work down there. Sicily was another place that I thought I wouldn't have a chance to get to, but the Air Force ended up paying my way there! Susan took advantage of the opportunity and bought herself a ticket too and met me down there after I finished up my work.We spent a great couple days in the beautiful resort town of Taormina. We drove up Mount Etna, the active volcano on the island. Quite amazing to see the smoke constantly puffing out of that volcano.

Pictures from our June trips are in a new album I just posted.All the while, both of us have been in online college classes. Susan working on her final paper, and me working on my first website.

Crazy busy. But I wouldn't have it any other way...