Post 100 . . . on why I will miss California

     A little over three years ago, Mrs. P, Mini and the two kiddos packed ourselves into my new Pick-up truck, hitched the car onto the trailer and "headed out west" to California. I have to admit, we had a lot of trepidation. None of us had ever been to California before, and the few people we knew there were going to either not be allowed to talk to us, or just as busy as we were. We had no idea if we would find a good church home, or if we would be confronted by the liberal wackos that everyone seems to think are so prevalent in California. Would I be able to finish out my anesthesia program (OK, Mrs. P says she was fully confident, and so do the big kids, so I guess I was the only one with doubts about that) or end up another washout? Would we grow spiritually or stagnate? Would I get to teach or preach or lead singing or do any of the other things I've done in the past at different congregations? Would the kids have anyone else in their Sunday school classes? Would they have anyone to play with? So many questions.
    Tonight, after having said goodbye to so many of my friends and church family at the Vacaville church of Christ, I know the answers to all those questions. I am truly sad to leave. California has been so good to us. We have been so blessed in our time here. Sure, we had times of struggle and frustrations, but we set out Tuesday for our new adventure knowing that we leave here with so many strong friendships and relationships, that we will always have a place to stay (or 10) if we ever get back this way, and that there are so many people praying for us, that I can say our time here has been an unqualified success. As I told Mrs. P, our kids have so many "grandparents," "aunts," "uncles" and "cousins" in California who are going to miss them when we are gone. Our own nuclear family has grown, we have grown as individuals, and we have so many reasons to look forward to that final reunion.
    Thank you all, and God Bless.

P.S. Regina, don't cry :)

"Carmageddon" it wasn't

    Every time we told someone we were driving down to Disney this weekend, we were asked about the traffic around Los Angeles. I have to tell you, it was the fastest I've ever gotten through L.A., day, night, or any other time. This was our fastest road trip to Southern California ever. Maybe if you have to travel this way, you should plan your travels for when they close the roads.
    I heard on the radio as we were driving through L.A. that traffic accidents had gone down 50% by the closure of the one road. The radio DJ said next weekend they should shut them all down and have an accident free weekend.
    

Discount Workout!

    It always amazes me that no matter how convenient it is to work out (example: complete 24 hour gym less than 5 minutes from my house), I want it more convenient. Hence, my slow accumulation of various workout equipment over the years. We have exercise balls, weights (ankle and dumbell) in various sizes, a small collection of workout dvds and at one time, a large treadmill that took up a huge amount of room.
    The treadmill has been consigned to dumpster land after I tried to put it in the storage position, forgetting that I had left the incline up. OOPS! No matter how hard I tried, or how many people I got involved, it just never worked right after that.
    My workout video collection was expanded during my deployment by the addition of the P90X videos on my laptop. It was great when I was right there and could set my laptop on the counter in the little tent gym right outside the hospital in Bagram, but I just couldn't picture it working at the big gym here on base, or any other gym I might have access to.
    My solution was to get all the weights I would ever need, and a weight bench, and I could do the workout at home. Sounds great, right? Have you ever priced dumbells? Not the type you might find sitting on a couch in front of the T.V., but those weights designed to be lifted one handed? If you can find them for a dollar a pound, you are doing pretty good. Considering that in just one P90X workout I might use the 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, and 50s, I was going to need a lot of weights. I only had the 15s, so how was I going to afford all those weights? I wasn't. 
    Someone very smart had a solution, a weight set that was completely adjustable from 5 to 90 pounds, and much more affordable than 1 dollar per pound. They are called PowerBlocks. But, they still ain't cheap. According to the website www.powerblock.com, "The Elite 5-90 set comes with plates 1-8, and has a weight range of 5-90 lbs per hand. The Elite 5-90 lb equals/replaces 28 pairs of dumbbells, or 2565 lbs of free weights while taking up the space of just 1 pair (90 lb dumbbell is just 16" in length) This set is expandable to 130 lbs per hand using the 8-11 Elite Big Block Kit. The dimensions of the Elite 90 are; 16"L x 6" W x 6" H. Ships in 4 boxes. Made in USA." Price: a measly $588.00 per pair, plus $89.00 shipping and handling.
     Hard on the bank account, but I was willing to do it, especially since we are moving to the land of snow and ice and other cold weather phenomenon. I was still going to have to find a weight bench as well.
    And then Mrs. Penguin happened to check the Travis yardsales e-mail one evening a week or so ago. Lo and behold, a weight bench and the PowerBlock Elite set for the low, low, low price of $350.00! Immediately Mrs. P sent an e-mail saying we were interested, and I went and picked them up the next day, plus the safety mat the seller had the weight bench on. Half price! 
    I rushed them home, set them up in the garage, and . . . there they sat until the movers packed them up on Tuesday. We will be reunited in Anchorage, where I intend to get my money's worth out of my discount workout equipment!

Who Knew? Penguins Laugh when Tickled!

Ran across this tonight and had to share. Too Cute!

Penguin Getting Tickled

A Day in the Life at Craig Joint Theater Hospital (Warning: May be considered graphic)

This is the final article I wrote about Afganistan, also intended for publication in the newspaper. This is not for the kiddos.

    The alarm clock begins beeping, signaling the start of another day. It’s only been a few hours since he closed his eyes, but for Capt. Robert Austin of the U.S. Air Force, there is no sleeping in, no matter how tired he is. “Service Before Self” is one of the three key tenets of the Air Force, and this deployment has provided an exceptional opportunity to live that tenet. 

Austin, a Nurse Anesthetist deployed from Travis Air Force Base in Northern California is a Nurse Anesthetist with the 455^th Expeditionary Medical Group at Craig Joint Theater Hospital, Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. 

He says, “On paper, we only work 8 hour shifts. I’m usually at the hospital 12-14 hours a day, minimum. So many of our patients require so much that we often have 2 providers in the room, or we are busy enough that we end up staying over to help cover the cases.” He is referring to the nearly 300 anesthetics he has provided or helped with in the past 6 months.

“My last day off was the day I got here, December 21^st,” He smiles and jokes, “My next will be the day I go home.”

The hospital cares for a large majority of the American troops wounded in theater, as well as Afghan National Police, Afghan military, and local nationals. He explains, “Bagram is the primary hub for evacuation to Germany. No matter where in country you are injured, you will most likely come through this facility on your way out.”

Accurate numbers were not available, but Austin estimates that the facility averages 10 surgeries a day, ranging from laparoscopic appendectomies and gall bladder extractions to multi-specialty, multi-hour cases. "We have specialties here that you’ll only find at large hospitals stateside. Neurosurgical services, pediatric orthopedics, vascular surgeons, ophthalmological surgeons. We have it all. Often we’ll have one surgery with 4 or 5 services scrubbed in. It can be very hectic." 

One of the surgeries that stands out in his mind is a Polish patient early in the deployment. “I started his case one evening and took it back over and finished it the next day. He was in surgery for over 18 hours. He had Ortho, General Surgery, Neuro, and I believe, Urology, all working on him.”

Such extensive surgeries are the exception, not the rule, fortunately. Unfortunately, the signature injury of the war, amputation of both lower extremities and one hand with or without groin injury are seen almost daily, and are increasing in frequency. “These patients are the hardest,” says Austin. “Usually we are not the first to see them. By the time they get to us, they have already sustained not only their original injury, but the first of what will be multiple surgeries. They are the recipients of massive transfusions.”

‘Massive transfusion’ refers to when a patient receives more than 10 units of blood products. The average circulating volume of the human body is 5 liters. 10 units of blood products comes close to completely replacing that volume. 

“We recently had a patient who had received 70 units of packed red blood cells (pRBCs), 64 units of Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP), 21 units of whole blood, 4 10-packs of cryoprecipitate and 5 6-packs of platelets before he got to us. He had the equivalent of 14 people’s entire blood volumes for one surgery. We took him back to surgery, gave him another 8 units of whole blood, 8 pRBCs, 13 FFP, 3 10-packs of cryoprecipitate and 5 more 6 packs of platelets, or about another 4 blood volumes, just for the revision and washout of his injuries. He’s facing probably another 20 or more surgeries over the next few months, and then years worth of recovery and physical therapy.”

Austin says he wonders about how well these patients will do. “We’ll never see these guys again. I have no idea if they will recover and adjust to life without three limbs, or if they will die of infection, or what. It’s hard.”

Some patients exhibit a spirit that reassures him. “We had one guy who had lost a leg. He had to go back to surgery for a washout of his injury. After surgery he was in a lot of pain, both physically and emotionally. He was really struggling with accepting his injury. One of the ICU nurses told me the next day he was gonna be ok. I asked her how she knew and she shared a joke with me that he had told her that night. 

‘Where does a man with only one leg go for breakfast? IHOP!’ If you can joke about it, you’re probably going to be all right.”

There are other patients that Austin will never forget either, the ones who didn’t survive. Speaking of the first patient who died while in the operating room under his care, Austin says, “I carry a lot of guilt,” he says. “They died under my care. While I can know that I did everything right, that we all did, it doesn’t change the fact that we lost him. We tried until it was apparent that he wasn’t going to make it, and then we kept trying. There were four anesthesia providers working on him and six surgeons. At one point there were over 20 people in the room, all contributing to try and keep this soldier alive. He had the best of the best giving it their best, and it wasn’t enough.”

Austin says he is glad he’s going home soon. “I have been privileged to care for our troops, but it’s someone else’s turn. The cost is of caring for these boys is high, mentally and emotionally, not just for me, but for my family as well. I’m looking forward to being reunited with them, and to my upcoming PCS.” Austin will be moving to Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage later this summer.

What are the odds?

This is actually the first article I wrote, before I found out about Davin and Dan being there. This was also intended to be published as a Newspaper article

     It is approximately 6500 miles as the crow flies from Homer to Bagram, Afghanistan. That distance was bridged in an incredible way this spring. Sometime in Mid-April of this year, a chance conversation at the local CarQuest between Mariah Thomas-Wolfe and R.J. Austin led to the discovery that both of them had sons deployed to Bagram with the 455 EMDOS, serving in the same unit.
    Mariah’s son, Senior Airmen Zach Schindler is a 2004 graduate of Homer High and works in the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility or CASF as a medical technician. R.J.’s son, Captain Robert Austin, graduated Homer High in 1994 and is a Nurse Anesthetist working in the Operating Room inside the hospital. The two met a about two weeks after their parent’s encounter, during a IDF or Indirect Fire attack, when the CASF was evacuated into the hospital.
    “It is incredible. No matter how far away we get, I always run into somebody from home. My last deployment (To Balad, Iraq in 2005-2006) I worked with a guy from Kenai. There are a couple of docs here from Alaska as well. I am impressed with how well represented Alaska is in the Armed Forces.” says Captain Austin.

    Coincidentally, only a couple of nights before Austin and Schindler met, Capt. Austin snapped a picture. He explains, “People back home make and send blankets and pillows for the wounded troops to use on their flight out to Germany. The litters that the patients travel on are lined up in the hall a few hours before the flight. That night, I happened to notice the embroidery on the blanket said “Homer, Alaska.” I don’t know who sent that blanket, but I hope they read this article and know that it did indeed keep a wounded service member warm on a long flight, and that it cheered up another service member, seeing that reminder of home. Whoever you are, thank you.”

Anchor Point Serves

    This is an article I wrote about some of the guys and myself from my hometown. This will be the first of three articles I wrote about my deployment. Enjoy!

    Anchor Point is a town of only about 1900 people, but it is extremely well represented in the Armed Forces. This point was amply illustrated earlier this month at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.
    Three sons of Anchor Point, all Air Force, were briefly reunited thousands of miles from home. Davin Chesser, a Reserves C-130 maintainer deployed from Elmendorf AFB has nearly 10 years in. Dan Byrne, a first term Imagery Analyst, is deployed from Beale AFB, CA and will re-enlist while deployed. Robert (B.J.) Austin, Nurse Anesthetist, recently returned from his deployment to his home station at Travis AFB, CA. He has seven years in the service. The three attempted to meet for dinner, but due to schedule conflicts were unable to get all together. Instead, Chesser and Austin chatted for a few minutes, and later that evening, Austin and Byrne shared a meal.
    Austin and Chesser were neighbors on David Lee Street growing up, while Byrne and Austin both attended church together at the Anchor Point church of Christ, where Byrne’s dad preached. All three are graduates of Chapman Elementary and Homer High.
    While it is not uncommon for those from larger cities to run into someone from their hometown, reunions such as this must be extremely rare. “I’ve never heard of three people from the same small town all being deployed together since I joined the Air Force. I’m sure it’s happened before, but it was a real surprise to see these guys” said Austin.
    Mike Koch, U.S. Army and another former Anchor Pointer, just returned from Iraq. That is more than 2% of the entire population of Anchor Point serving overseas at the same time. The number in the service is even higher. Says Austin, “I know of at least 2 others from Anchor Point who are in the Navy, Gloria Velsko and Morgan Tracy. There are probably others on Active Duty I don’t know of, and many more who have served at least one term in a branch of the Armed Forces. VFW Post 10221 should take pride, knowing that their tradition of service to country is being continued, and strongly.”

Filet o' Flesh

    I spent six months in Afghanistan without any injury. I was home ten days and I rip up my hand. Maybe it was because I didn't have the opportunity for injury with power tools while I was there.
    Here is a picture of my hand after I power washed it. Fortunately, its not deep, so no ER visit was required.

Primus' Petition

     I have to start off by saying how impressed I am. I wish he were this passionate about something else, but I still applaud the thinking and effort that have gone into this. Primus loves Legos and Star Wars. He would rather get a new Lego Star Wars set than just about anything else in the world. He really, really, really wants a Lego Millenium Falcon. Lego currently does not offer them for sale in the United States, and those available for sale overseas are going for $300.00-500.00 on e-bay. He doesn't have that much money, even by combining his upcoming birthday (still 6 months away), his spending money that he's saved, the money that Mrs. P had intended to spend on his day out with her a couple weeks ago, and any other source he could come up with . . . the funds just aren't there.
     So, he came up with the idea of utilizing Lego's "Design by Me" program on the internet to design his own version of the Millenium Falcon, which would come with instructions and a box all specially related to his design. Just one problem, though. And I quote, "One good tip to make it past moderation is to use your own imagination instead of trying to copy existing names, designs or product-shapes." The Website goes on to elaborate, "

• A box is a box and a car is a car, you can upload as many cars as you want, but if moderation can clearly see what type of car you had in mind, then your model will be rejected.
• You may make all sorts of products, chairs, lamps, speakers, whatever you may think of. To give an example, please go ahead and make a car, just make sure it’s not too similar to any existing car (i.e. dad´s, your teacher´s, or your own favorite car). So use your imagination, and by all means be inspired by your surroundings, but please DO NOT COPY names or details of products made, and owned by others."

All of which led us to believe that any attempt that was recognizable as the Millenium Falcon would be rejected. So, what to do? I suggested him designing another ship that would seem as if it belonged in the Star Wars Universe, or designing something else completely. As usual, my suggestion was rejected. I'm ok with that, and here's why. He came up with another solution entirely on his own! And it's not a bad one either. Here is the letter he wrote yesterday:

      "Greetings Lego,
           You may know me because I have entered a few contests. I am a lego fan and I am 13.
           The reason I am writing is I want you to put the Lego Millenium Falcon in stores. On the back of this page is a list of people who want the Millenium Falcon in my state. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

      Sincerely, Primus"

    Maybe I am over-reacting, but I was blown away. People have started petitions for far sillier things. Why not a petition for Lego to sell the Millenium Falcon set in the U.S.? So far, he has collected 4 signatures. I would sign it as well. In fact, I'm thinking about creating an online petition to help him spread his efforts. What do you think? Should we do it?

This Ship is Listing

     I used to make fun of Mrs. Penguin for her use of lists. The first time I went to Mrs. Penguin's parent's house, I made fun of my then future Mother-in-law because she had lists around everywhere.

     I shouldn't have been so hasty in condemning them. Why? You see, I am now the king of lists in my house. Yes, Mrs. P has the honey-do list, and the grocery lists (one for each store), but I am the one with my laundry-list of lists: my to-do list for inside, for outside, for at work, for church; lists for future posts, future articles, for books to read or re-read, story ideas, things to do when we get to Alaska, and recently, things to do when I got home. And, this winter, when I get my Nook, I'll get to start a whole new list; books to download. I can hardly wait.

    Seeing this list of lists reminds me, time to go make another list: everything to take to the barbeque this afternoon. I better get busy.

The Sea of (Domestic) Tranquility

     I've been home a week now. Wow! I can't believe that is true. It is amazing how fast these seven days went in comparison to the seven before that. Looking back now, I am shocked that my six month sentence is really over. I thought it was taking forever. As Pretty Girl said in regards to Christmas being so far away, "But that's forever!" To which Mrs. Penguin replied, "We just did forever. It's really not that long." Upon reflection, PG agreed, "No, I guess not." I would have to agree as well.

    Since I have been here this long, the luster of "Daddy's Home" has started to fade. Discipline is being handed out quite frequently, routines are resurrecting, and I started on the dreaded "to-do" list. Unfortunately, it is rather long at this moment, since our house is being packed up in 10 days! That's right. . . all the Penguins will be wandering northward, to our new home at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson right there in Anchorage, a mere 200 mile road-trip from where I grew up.  Be warned fellow Alaskans, you are about to be invaded.

    So far today I have: picked up my computer from the repairs that were necessary after six months of repeated ups and downs on the hard floors of the hospital there in Bagram, taken the older two kids to lunch, bounced on the trampoline with Petunia Picklepuss, spread grass seed on some of the bare spots on the lawn, watered the lawn, made deviled eggs, aired up the tires on my truck, checked the radiator fluid and topped it off, used up the last of the windshield wiper fluid I had on the shelf to refill the truck, aired up Primus' tires on his bike, tried up air up the tires on PG's bike, discovered one of the inner tubes was leaking, pulled the tire off the bike, taken the inner tube out, and raised the handle bars and seat both about six inches on the same bike, tried to start a "Design by Me" Lego project with Primus only to discover after downloading the software that any design that seems recognizable as anything trademarked will be rejected, synced my Ipod touch and updated software for the first time since January, and updated the OS on my laptop. The internet at Bagram was too slow and spotty to accomplish those last two things. Oh, and I let Pet. Puss oversleep by 10 minutes for her afternoon nap.

     Mrs. Penguin has been busy today as well. She has made pound cake, potato salad, caramel brownies, tried to do laundry and run to the commissary. I say "tried to do laundry," because our washing machine, which has been leaking for a couple of months decided to burn up today. So, our bulk pickup just grew by one washing machine.

    Still to do today: Dinner with friends.

    To do tomorrow: Well, that's also dinner with friends (a different set), but the to-do list hasn't seemed to grow any shorter, so I may try and knock off another item or two.

    One final note for the day. . . Just in case you were wondering, planning to move 2 1/2 weeks after getting home from a six month deployment wasn't one of my best decisions. But, we'll make it work. In the meantime, I know I won't be bored. I'll be too busy. Keep Wondering and Wandering.